A Parable

A certain man went to see his physician. "What is wrong with me?" the sick man asked.

"You are dying, my friend," answered the doctor.

Trying not to cry, the man said, "I've been lying on my bed, waiting to get better."

"That's not going to happen. You are going to die."

"What can I do?"

"You can lie on your bed, waiting to die. Or you can get up and live."

#476: Burning Calories / Earning Calories

"Supermans" image from BarStarzz

After a good breakfast, I hit the gym.

Treadmill Warm-up, 10:00 @ 4.6 mph
Squats
Step-ups
Barbell Bent-over Row
Dumbbell Chest Press
V-Ups on Bench with Plate
Core Series... Plank, Side Plank, Supermans
Recumbent Stationary Bike, 30:00 @ 15 mph

That's a pretty long workout... almost 90 minutes, but I don't teach any group exercise classes today, so I wanted to hit the strength training hard. After three classes, personal training, and my own cardio work tomorrow, I won't be in any mood for weight lifting anyway.

Helped Coach Rita with LIVESTRONG at the YMCA after my shower, then stopped by the drive-through for some protein. Not my first choice, but I have no dead animals at home, and was too bushed to think about shopping and cooking. Of course when I got home and logged everything into myfitnesspal.com, I learned a couple of things.

• While a McDonald's Double Cheeseburger may not be the most wholesome delivery system, it does pack 25 grams of protein along with a manageable 23 grams of fat. The bad surprise for me was that the sucker also hides 1050 grams of sodium... no wonder those "small" drinks have to be so big.
• No matter how righteous that extra set of side planks make you feel at the end of a monster day in the weight room... there's just no good reason to refuel with an 820 calorie Shamrock Shake carrying 23 grams of fat.
• About that sodium... I've been tracking every calorie now for five days, and I'm shocked by how much Na(sty) is hidden in the food I eat. Fat is MUCH easier to control. 

After my post workout indulgence, my food log told me I was running low on calories allowed for supper, so I decided to go buy some with an hour stroll downtown. The walk was nice... cold and dark, but relaxing. I had Emmylou Harris on my headphones, and she always makes my soul feel better. And when I got home, I was able to have a nice salad for supper.

The log I'm using let not only told me that I'd made some poor choices for lunch, it also let me be proactive about  deciding if I should go out for an easy walk, and what I might eat for supper that wouldn't undo all the hard work I did in the gym. I like that. I've tried a lot of online fitness log tools over the years, and none is perfect, but for my present purpose - watching calories in/calories out like a hawk - myfitnesspal.com seems to be pretty effective. Of course, the proof will be in the belt loops, so I'm reserving my endorsement until all those running shorts fit again.

#475 Reboot

#reboot

The last couple of days have been a kind of a two-part reboot experiment for me.

For nearly all of February, I have been sick. Really sick.Cold. Flu. Fever. Dizzy. Sick as I've been since the bad old days, to tell the truth. And when you're a throat cancer survivor, those barking coughs and hackings can really mess with your head when they wake you up at 2:30 AM.

Of course, Murphy's Law being what it is, confusion and loss on the personal, financial, and professional fronts all hit at the same time leaving me feeling like the magical start of 2014 had been a God playing a cruel joke. No sooner did my lungs begin to clear, than I felt like the emotional rug was being pulled out from under me in about 6 different directions.

Well, all that stuff is sort of resolving itself now, some for better, mostly for worse, but at least I'm not sick in bed, letting it all just roll over me anymore.

Reboot Part One

I've decided to try to keep more of my personal drama offline in the future. Several things have happened over the past few weeks that make me think that I am hurting myself and  people I care about by being so candid about my day to day mental health struggles on the internet. I deactivated my Facebook account for a few days, then went in and took a look at the kinds of things I say and do there. It was an illuminating, and not always flattering picture. I've done some housekeeping. Made some promises to myself that I want very much to keep, and last night, I reactivated the account.

Reboot Part Two

Being sick in bed for most of two weeks really drove it home for me: I can not afford to take my health for granted ever again. Sounds like a pretty stupid thing for a cancer survivor to say, doesn't it? Nevertheless, that's what I've been doing. Sure, there were lots of reasons, and some of them were pretty good, but good reasons don't change bad consequences... I stopped taking care of my body, and I am weaker as a result.

And self-inflicted weakness is a luxury I can not afford.

So I dug out the passwords for my account on myfitnesspal.com. I've been walking every day. I've started logging calories. Every blessed one of them. I'm chucking the canned weight training plan I've been using, and have written my own program for the next six weeks I've started actually ticking items off my Outlook
Task list, instead of shaking my head at it and then rushing off to voice my half-cocked opinions about the Outrage-of-the-Day™ on Facebook.

Talk is cheap. And I can talk one hell of a game. But I have always needed to put a thing in words before I can put it into action. And action is what I'm doing now. It's the lesson that the Marathon taught me. You may not finish pretty, but you will finish if you just keep moving. And I've been sitting still much too long.

Fat Man Walking

Last night's walk was a beauty. It was great to get out into the evening air and to feel like my lungs were finally working again. I walked about 3.5 miles to the center of town and back. Went out today for about 4.5. It was early afternoon, but about 10°colder than last night. Uglier, too. I went through some of North Lexington's industrial district, which naturally includes the bars, bookstores, and "Gentlemen's Clubs" that seem to spawn around working men like mold on leftovers. I don't notice this stuff as much when I run, but walking through it made me feel sort of dirty. I think I'll not include that particular block again if I can help it.

Another difference between walking and running for me is that my mind keeps working when I walk. Not so much fatigue, I guess. Not so many endorphins. I'm not sure what the reason is. I just think more when I walk. About love. About the dogs I meet. About the groups of people standing on the street talking. About whatever I'm obsessing about at the moment. About how I can stop obsessing and just let myself be where I am. It's funny, but I find that walking... I mean the actual act of walking... requires a little more mental discipline than running. I suppose I'll learn more about that as I go along. In any case, I've walked more in the last two days than I've run in the last two months, and it feels good to be back on the road.

Links in a Broken Chain

I'm trying so hard to gather all these thoughts into paragraphs. But  real life tragedy is much more difficult to organize than the literary kind.

An addict isn't any more weak or wicked or villainous or sinful than a sober person. An addict is just someone who hurts, and is willing to try anything to create some space between their heart and the pain.

I don't believe that great artists necessarily become addicts because of their genius or their capacity for deep feeling. But I do think people who feel deeply often turn to art as a way to try and make sense of the feelings that the world has no other place for. And addicts feel both joy and pain to an unbearable degree.

Stations of the Cross, #9 Jesus Falls a Third Time
John Ilg

It is both inexcusably naive and terribly cruel to sit in judgement of another's inability to stand up under the weight of their own cross. Or to judge their cross based on the weight of your own.

Suffering is not currency. There are no mitigating circumstances that make a celebrity's pain worth less than a homeless junkie's. And no, you would not trade a day of  your life for Philip Seymour Hoffman's.

The difference between hiding inside a gallon of ice cream or a fifth of bourbon or a 60 hour work week or a carton of Marlboros or a needle full of smack is only one of degree. It's just that you don't find dead food junkies with a needle full of Krispy Kremes hanging out of their arm.

Accepting that you are powerless is not the same thing as admitting you are a victim. There's a reason there are TWELVE steps to sobriety, not just one.

Addicts have children. They have parents. Friends. Lovers. Mentors. Neighbors. Fans. And while death is the end of an addict's suffering, it is the beginning of a whole new chapter of pain for the ones left behind.

It is very hard not to hate the people we love, for not loving themselves more.

Death ends a life, but it does not end a relationship, which struggles on in the survivor's mind toward some resolution which it may never find. ~ Robert Anderson

The only way for tragedy to have any meaning is if we make it a source of courage, of compassion, of inspiration. Watching "Capote" made me want to be a better actor. I need learning and writing about the death of this blessed but unhappy man to make me a better friend, son, lover, and brother.

Linda, Willy, Biff
New York Daily News

I am sad that I won't get a chance to see your Willy Loman, or your Torvold, or your Lear. I am sad that I won't ever get to shake your hand and thank you for the hours I spent in dark cinemas, my jaw slack with amazement at your work.  I am sad that your life was so very full of suffering. But deep down, I'm glad that you are finally free from the pain. 

If I seem a bit confused and scattered about my feelings, it may be because deep, deep down, there is a secret part of me that envies your freedom just a little bit... And that scares the living shit out of me.

I am alive. And you are dead. And that doesn't say a damn thing about you or about me. All I know is that the only reason I'm not in that hole with you is that God sent me people who loved me and showed me that my life was worth loving. And before I throw my little handful of dirt onto the box and turn back toward the world that tore your heart apart... I just want you to know that your struggle makes me want to live even more... to love even more... and to be a source of the kind of hope and courage that you, my brother, were never able to find. Just in case the next PSH crosses my path one of these days...

Peace,

Pennsy

Anger and Sadness at the passing of Philip Seymour Hoffmann

 Philip Seymour Hoffmann
1967 - 2014
"Every junkie's like a setting sun..."

So many messages of sadness about PSH. I can't seem to get past being angry. I read the news just before leaving for the gym for my workout and by the time I got there, I was furious. I added weight to every rep, and reps to every set, but no matter how much my muscles strained and burned, I couldn't stop stewing and thinking.

About the talented young actors I went to school with who never made it.

About the parents who are so ashamed, but still force themselves to ask for help as they fill out the financial aid request form so their kids can get into swimming lessons or play basketball at the Y.

About the 'Can Man" who pushes a grocery cart up and down North Broadway laden with bags of the dirty aluminum he collects so he can afford a cheap room and enough beer to put him to sleep at night.

About my fellow patients in the mental hospital who refused to let depression and addiction rob them of their will to live.

About the two guys who sleep side by side, on sheets of cardboard, under filthy blankets, in the open pavilion at the head of the Legacy Trail, where I lace up my $100 shoes and run for fun.

Every one of them with a thousand reasons to wish they were dead. And every one of them refusing to give up.

By the time I hit the treadmill for my cool down, I was seething with so much rage that I felt a little bit dangerous. Then I looked up and saw "B." B is around 11 or 12 years old. He is much smaller than the other kids his age, and he gets bullied a lot at school. He is  also smarter, funnier, more determined, and much, much faster. He could easily win his age group when we run in the big races with Run This Town. Instead, last fall, B chose to train with the smallest, youngest member of our team. He coached the little guy along for two months, and when race day came, instead of competing for hardware in his age group, or even the overall standings, B ran side by side with his charge: they crossed the finish line together.

Yeah, it's sad when a talented, famous, successful millionaire kills himself. I hope he is free now from whatever demons were haunting him. But PSH was blessed with an awful lot of things in life, and an awful lot of young people looked up to him. A lot of kids wanted to be like him. And I'm angry.

Angry at him for giving up on life, and dying on the floor with an Oscar on the mantle and a needle in his arm.

Angry at myself for every time I've turned to food or tobacco or work or bourbon... looking for a place to hide from life.

Angry at my friends who think they are too smart or strong or lucky to get tripped up by their addictions the way PSH was this morning.

And just when my anger threatens to become as toxic as a bloody hypodermic in the gutter at the corner of Bedford and Grand, I lift my mind's eye down the hall, and see B on the pool deck... clowning and encouraging a young swimmer who's even smaller than he is.... then diving into the long blue lane, and slicing the length of it like a joyful dolphin.

Now that I think of it, I guess I am more sad than angry about Philip Seymour Hoffmann's death. He wasn't cut out to be anybody's hero. That may be the only part he ever came across that he couldn't play the hell out of. I sure wish he'd had a chance to meet one of my heroes, though. Maybe B could have shown him that life really is worth living.

Funny how a man's role models can change over time, isn't it?

Rest in Peace, PSH. I hope you've finally found the peace that seemed to always elude you here.

Pennsy