Secret Songs of Silence

that bloated feeling

"For some reason, I've been noticing my undies aren't fitting right."

So said, Steven, on his blog yesterday.

I know how he feels...

...though, I am somewhat ashamed to say it.

Steven offered a couple of possible explanations.  To judge by his picture, I'd argue that he's wrong on the second one.  I'd also say that being overweight isn't an explanation either.

I'm not going to show my pic here.  In my case there is only one explanation.

I verified that by buying new batteries yesterday.  For my bathroom scale.

I haven't weighed myself since last Fall.  I did this morning.

I need to lose 5 lbs.  Ten would be better.

And, I'll bet that my doc will tell me that my cholesterol is up.

Diamond Geezer's doc did that a couple of months ago.  So DG went on a diet.  And he's lost 14 lbs - a stone.  That's pretty impressive.  But, then, he walks a lot.  So he gets exercise.  Unlike me.

But there was a cost.  He ate almost nothing but Chicken, Salmon, and Porridge for two months.  No chocolate and no chips/crisps passed his palate.

Until this morning, I had convinced myself that I am just bloated not overweight.  It would appear that's just denial.  My bathroom scales aren't lying.

But that's also why I bought an exercise routine a month or so ago.

A twenty minute Ab workout.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Davey is handsome, and he has a great body.  If I'm going to listen to anyone count my crunches, I'd like it to be him.

Twenty minutes, eh?  I didn't last one.

And then, when I ran the movie to the end, and he said, "let's do 30 crunches to cool down", and proceeded to do at least twice that, I knew that this workout was not for beginners like me.

But I'm going to try again.

I bought his chest workout, too.  I haven't tried that yet.  He calls it a "killer chest and back workout".  He does a lot of pushups.  I expect that my results will be much the same as with the Ab workout.  I'm just not ready to be killed by working out.

On the bright side, Davey is selling his videos so that he can pay for a trip to Australia.  That's a good cause.  And his videos are very reasonably priced.

Still, I have never yet been able to start and keep up any kind of exercise routine.

But, maybe all is not lost.

As I was contemplating the horror of those 5-10 lbs, I came across this article.

As an aside - because this will be relevant - I found this when taking a break at work.  I should have been concentrating on work.  I should not have been reading blogs.  Blame Andrew Sullivan.  He had the link to this article.

Now, I have never heard of Progivil before.

Apparently, students in American universities are using it.  Medical students even.

An American journalist calls it  “the boss’s little helper.” It makes you work better and harder than before.

It helps memory and concentration.  The guy who wrote the article couldn't believe how much work he got done.

This sounds to me like the procrastinator's helper, and I am nothing if not a procrastinator.

There is one side-effect of this stuff.

You lose weight.  You become thinner.

The author of the article did not think that was a downside at all.

Hard to complain about being more efficient at work and losing weight at the same time.

art of the towel wrap

One of the great mysteries of life - at least to me - is how to "wear" a towel.

Like these guys:

Look closely at those towels...

...wrapped around their waists and tucked *in*.

I've never been able to do that.

(I always fold the top edge out and over)

Whenever I have tried, the towel loosens and falls off.

This is no big deal at home.

But it's one of those factors that contributes to my aversion to going to gyms.

Which, of course, means that I miss some great eye candy!

tut-tuttery

"Tut tut", he said.

I was taken aback. 

"That's not how you reacted last year when I answered the same question", I reminded him.

"You said then that, if you were in my position, you'd be having casual sex often."

He smiled.

"That's why I was tut-tutting", he went on, "I'd be having it more often than a couple of times in a year".

This is why I like my GP.  He's smart, gorgeous to look at, and puts me totally at ease.

His only concern:

"No students, I hope", he said.

"Nope, students are against the rules."

Now I need to go get my bloodwork done...

coals to newcastle

"As if we're going to make pornography in Ireland, and then label it Love and Savagery — very subtle — and then send it to the porn capital of Canada. It's like bringing communion to the Pope. Are they out of their minds?"

Now that was a quote to grab the attention!

I heard it on the news last week.  It was one of those human interest items towards the end of the news.

Apparently, a Canadian filmmaker has been making a film that is set both in Ireland and in the Atlantic province of Newfoundland.

The title of his film?

Love and Savagery.

After filming in Ireland, he packed up his reels and shipped them to Canada for processing, where the Montreal Border Services guys impounded them.  Pornography.  With a title like "Love and Savagery" what else could it be?

Sheesh, they make porn in Quebec, they don't need to import it.

More seriously, this happened at a time that our Conservative government is trying to pass a law through Parliament that would amend our Income Tax Act so that tax credits will be clawed back from those homegrown TV and film productions the government judges to be offensive.

So, you get tax credits up front, you make your movie, the government - or some Mary Whitehouse person - screams it's offensive, your tax credits are clawed back, you lose your shirt, everything.

So, to be safe, you make family values movies.

All very Republican.

Right down to the way this little item is buried in a money bill.  Money bills are matters of confidence; they can't be changed.  The government is daring the opposition to have an election on the issue of public morality.

I can't wait to turf the tories out.

saturday in the city

A few times a year, my municipality has "hazardous waste days" when you can bring for disposal all that stuff that you're not supposed to throw in the regular garbage.  I've been meaning for years to throw out some of the stuff I have in my basement but I usually forget about these hazardous waste days until they are well past.  Not this year.  I was determined to get rid of the old paint and other partially used cleaning products that I have lying around.

But, as is my wont on a saturday morning, I lazed about, I surfed the web, I lazed some more.  In short, it was well into the afternoon before I got my ass in gear, sorted out the stuff, loaded it into the car - in cardboard boxes as prescribed - and headed to one of the collection points.  I figured I'd be waiting in line for an hour.  These things are always busy - or so news reports from past years have led me to believe.

I turn into the lot.  There are three large container trucks.  I see one car pulling up to one of them.  And, other than guys in protective suits, that's it.  I was out of there in 5 minutes flat.

"Where were the lines?", I asked one of the guys as I finished.  "It was crazy at eight o'clock this morning", he told me.

For once, it paid to have a lazy Saturday morning.

* * *

I wanted to see if the local Chapters had a particular book so I thought I'd treat myself to a mocha latté at the on-site Starbucks as long as I was there.

Actually, make this two saturdays in a row that I've done this.

Now, I've never really learned to speak "coffee" whether that be the Tim Horton's dialect or the Starbuck's one. Is a single double one sugar and two milks or vice-versa?  What if you don't take sugar?  And, I always have to check the signs to remind myself that "tall" really is "small".

So, last week, as I looked at the sign in Starbucks, I noticed that they specifically listed a skinny mocha.  After I ordered a non-fat mocha but asked the cashier to keep the whipped cream, I asked if that was the same as a skinny mocha.  "Yes", she said, "it's a skinny mocha keep the whip".

Feeling confident in my new-found linguistic skills, then, last night I ordered one: a tall skinny mocha keep the whip.  The cashier stopped.  She looked at me and asked if I wanted a skinny mocha or one made with non-fat milk.

My mind stumbled at the conflicting information.  "Aren't they supposed to be the same thing?", I thought to myself.

My confusion must have registered.  She then explained that some form of non-sugar syrup was used in the "skinny" drinks, that it didn't taste at all the same, and that some customers had been rather put off by it.

I think I'll stick to plain English from now on.

(BTW, does anyone know what we call a latté or a mocha in North America is called when you order coffee in Italy?)

wordsmiths

#1

I do not agree with George Will's politics at all, but I must give the man credit sometimes for his skills as a writer.  In yesterday's column he rather mercilessly tore apart Hillary Clinton's campaign arguments for counting delegates.

First, using the example of the 1960 World Series, he pointed out that she might like to think that the Yankees really won that Series because they trounced the Pittsburgh Pirates in runs scored, 55-27, over seven games.  But then he points out:

Unfortunately, baseball's rules -- pesky nuisances, rules -- say it matters how runs are distributed during a World Series. The Pirates won four games, which is the point of the exercise, by a total margin of seven runs, while the Yankees were winning three by a total of 35 runs.

Ah but, then, he really rubs it in:

After Tuesday's split decisions in Indiana and North Carolina, Clinton, the Yankee Clipperette, can, and hence eventually will, creatively argue that she is really ahead of Barack Obama, or at any rate she is sort of tied, mathematically or morally or something, in popular votes, or delegates, or some combination of the two, as determined by Fermat's Last Theorem, or something, in states whose names begin with vowels, or maybe consonants, or perhaps some mixture of the two as determined by listening to a recording of the Beach Boys' "Help Me, Rhonda" played backward, or whatever other formula is most helpful to her, and counting the votes she received in Michigan, where hers was the only contending name on the ballot (her chief rivals, quaintly obeying their party's rules, boycotted the state, which had violated the party's rules for scheduling primaries), and counting the votes she received in Florida, which, like Michigan, was a scofflaw and where no one campaigned, and dividing Obama's delegate advantage in caucus states by pi multiplied by the square root of Yankee Stadium's Zip code.

And as if that wasn't enough:

Or perhaps she wins if Obama's popular vote total is, well, adjusted by counting each African American vote as only three-fifths of a vote. There is precedent, of sorts, for that arithmetic (see the Constitution, Article I, Section 2, before the 14th Amendment).

Ouch.

* * *

#2

In the totally different realm of science, here's a rather lovely put down of one (or two) classes of scientists by an innocent PhD student (though I question whether that description is, in fact, an oxymoron):

Yesterday I presented at the UCL/NIMR student seminar day, which was fun, even despite the fundamental dreariness of the medics and developmental biologists who made up a significant fraction of the delegates. The ability of these people to reduce fascinating questions to sheer soporific tedium is remarkable -- if only there were some socially valuable function to which their talent could be put, beyond boring the fuck out of innocent PhD students.

My experience of medics, which is quite limited, would not lea me to disagree with the above.

dumbass

With apologies to anyone who might read this before watching tonight's episode of Survivor...

Erik is an idiot. 

How could someone who is a fan of the show do something as dumb as trust any of those four women. 

You don't give the immunity necklace away.  You just don't.

Even James recognised the fact: "I'm no longer the dumbest guy who played Survivor".

And I was so pleased when he won immunity thinking it would force the women to send one of themselves home.

Dumbass.

beautiful (3)

Third great pic of a hot guy from Beautiful a week or so ago:

two phone messages

I am, as I have mentioned before, of short stature. 

This means that I do not fall within the standard size fitting ranges espoused by most clothes manufacturers - and, certainly not those on this side of the Atlantic. 

And, don't get me started on the travesty that is/was pleated pants on someone of my frame.

So, a few years ago, on a trip to a major Canadian city, I visited a store for men of my stature.

Pants that fit.  And fitted well.

Shirts with shorter arm lengths.  That didn't strangle my neck at the same time.

Nirvana.

I have made two trips to that store.  I spent a lot of money each time.  I never spend money on clothes.  Yes, I'm a bad gay that way.

(BTW, Nicky, I discovered in this store that Hugo Boss fits me well.  Where was Cleigh when I needed him?  Though, actually, I've only bought jeans.)

* * *

When I got home from work yesterday, there were two phone messages waiting for me.

I pressed "play".

The first caller identified himself as the sales guy who was my contact in the store. 

He's called me about once a year so this was no real surprise.

He's no longer with the store.

But he wanted to discuss how he could still help me with my clothing needs.

Cool.

Then I moved on to the second message.

Another sales representative.  From the store.

He wanted to tell me that my previous representative has left for a well deserved retirement where he can enjoy his hockey, casual pursuits, and no longer has to wear three piece suits.

He wanted to let me know that the store is still there for me.

Interesting.

There's a back story there somewhere.

the home reno show

I went to a home renovation show at the weekend.

I saw a gorgeous direct vent gas fireplace that I soooo want for my living room.  Only $2900 and $449 installation.  Lord knows if that includes tax or not.  I also want a $4000 recliner sofa, too.  It's no wonder I can't afford to renovate.

* * *

Turning to wander down one aisle, I spotted a cluster of guys and the old gaydar bells went ting.  Actually, one I recognised from an online profile.  A second looked familiar and later I chanced upon his profile.  (I think he was on TV recently as a gay spokesman, too).  The other two guys were not familiar and I didn't really get a good look at them.

A short while later, I found myself walking directly ahead of guys 1 and 2.  They were chatting about the other two.  "I don't really like those guys", said one.  "He was much nicer than I expected", said the other.

* * *

At another point I almost bumped into a guy who I would have jumped in an instant were it not for the fact that (i) it was a very public place and I just don't do that, (ii) he was with a female, and (iii) he would probably have beaten me to a pulp.  He was shorter than I am.  Wow.  He was slim.  Hot.  He looked wiry and fit.  Just the stuff my dreams are made of, in other words.

But there was also a bit of rough about him.  And when I saw the female attendant, it was pretty clear that this was a fantasy.