One Pound

One pound.  Maybe.  At some point yesterday, I was down one pound.  Disappointing as I was really feeling thinner.  But as my mother sagely pointed out, "It's better than gaining."  She had to throw in a barb about my "splurging."  

I guess.  

In order not to be left out of yesterday's weather emergency crisis, the local weathermen and women kept us all in terror as they went on a constant Weather Watch.  They had graphics, lots of Doppler Radar images of red, yellow, and green rectangles that made no sense to anyone other than the weather people describing what they saw.  

"You see this here--Bob--let's pull in a bit tighter--thanks.  This right here (drawing a circle around three green rectangles) has the potential for becoming a tornado.  This is something we need to continue to watch.  Can we pull up the camera mounted on the interstate heading east?  No. . . that's state highway x.  Yes, there, that's it."

We are shown pixelated images of clouds through a rain covered lens.  

"We need for everyone who does not have to get out on the highways to put off traveling for a few hours if possible.  For those of you who are on the roadways,"--and apparently watching television--"please be careful out there.  I would say for everyone in that area, please shelter in place."

Holy shit!  The apocalypse was surely heading our way.  I was at my mother's because once again, the cleaning crew was at my house too late in the day.  We looked out the window,  It was barely raining.  

"Do you want some soup?  Dan made it.  He said one bowl was for you."

"O.K.  Do you think it is safe?  I'm always suspicious of other people's food."

And so we ate while the maids cleaned my house and the apocalypse bore down upon us.

I wish I had never said anything about dieting during Dry January.  Too many people have advice.  

"You need to eat to lose weight.  If you cut your calories too much, your body just adapts and turns down your metabolism.  You have to keep feeding it calories."

"Sure.  That's why those people in Bangladesh are so fucking fat.  They just don't eat enough."  I only thought it.  

"I've been a vegan for nine years now," one fellow said to another.

"Really. . . how do you get your protein?"

"Beans, tofu. . . I don't really worry about it.  Nobody has ever been diagnosed with a protein deficiency."

"Kwashiorkor, motherfucker.  Common in many poorer countries."  I only thought that, too.

"My daughter is a health coach.  She said I need a gram of protein for every pound of body weight every day.  I make these shakes with milk and protein powder that give me sixty grams of protein.  I need about 200 grams a day."

"You can't absorb that much protein at a time.  Anything over 40 grams is a waste.  The recommendation is usually 30 grams at a time."  I said that.  "Are you sure she's not a life coach?"  I didn't say that.

"Are you drinking apple cider vinegar with the mother in it?  That will take the calories right through you."

"You have to put lemons in your water."

Blah blah blah blah blah.  Everyone watches TikTok, I guess.  Everybody's got an idea.  

"And that's good, too."

The apocalypse never came, thank goodness, but they had us on Ready Alert Standby for a couple of hours.  And when I came home, the house was clean.  That is always a joy.  

I do feel thinner even if I don't look it.  I am going to imagine the pounds away.  Surely that's a thing, too.  As Roger Thornhill tells his secretary in "North by Northwest," "I'm feeling heavyish.  Am I looking heavyish?  Put a note on my desk in the morning. 'Think thin.'"

PMA.  

I wonder if the photo is better in black and white or in color.

I like both.  Each?  I had a girlfriend once who told me I used the words wrong.  I looked it up.  Both for two objects, each for more than two.  Bravo!  

It's a hell of a language that nobody masters.  Did you know that the Lakota language has no word for art?  Think about that one for awhile.  Language is everything.  How do I know?  The Bible tells me so.  

"In the beginning was the word."

Nothing existed without language.  Isn't that something?  

The "word," however, was not "art."  

And what is a child's first spoken word?  

My first memory was without language, though.  I remember women talking, and I remember their tones.  Then I did something that made them laugh.  I was going up a woman's legs then under her skirt.  My mother picked me up, and that was the end of that.  I guess I've been intrigued ever since.  

Well. . . until postmodernism taught me differently, anyway.  I know that is bad now.  I guess The Church might have been against it, too.  Don't tell anybody, but I think I still like it.  It is still a difficult thing to put into language.  

"So," says my therapist, "tell me about your mother."

Son of man. . . you know only a heap of broken images. . . . 

DA. . . .

Shantih   shanti   shanti

"The Waste Land."  In fractures parts.  I feel the anxiety of influence, Mr. Bloom. 

 Today the sun will shine.  If you believe the forecast, it will be the last sunny day for over a week.  I will try to make the most of it.  I will soak it up and try to let it lift my spirits.  

And I will "think thin."  Yup.