March 2007 Archives

I looked at myself in the mirror. "I'll never fit on any of the rides".
My wife looked up from the laundry. "Don't be ridiculous, there are heavier people that go to DisneyWorld and go on rides".
"I won't be able to take the kids on any rides when we get there. 'Daddy, why are we only watching the rides?'"
"Oh stop it. You'll be fine".

The problem is that I didn't feel fine then. I haven't felt fine for a while. I've slinked around embarassed by my weight for years. One time walking through the hospital to a doctor's appointment, an old woman leaned in towards her husband and said "Look at the belly on that one".

I can't fault people for noticing. I do have a prodigious stomach, large and round like those on a Buddha statue. I'm not morbidly obese I'm not wearing size 60 pants, or even size 48. I can walk up the stairs without a break in the middle. I can run around the yard with the kids.

I'm just...overweight. I've got a programmer's gut, honed from years of Mt. Dew and sitting around programming. From junk food and treating myself to sweets and cheeseburgers and other "naughty" foods. From choices I've made over the last few years.

So I decided to do something about it.

I joined a website, traineo.com to help me track my weight and my progress. I resubscribed to Men's Health, and I'm eating better. I'm cutting back on the regular soda and drinking more and more water. I run up the stairs at the parking garage at the end of the day...well, by floor 5 I'm huffing...but I'm trying. More exercise, better food, a leaner Mo.

And all seemed great when I lost 6 lbs in the first week! Praise the Lord, right?!? I gained them right back. Ooo. Not awesome.

But I'm not despairing, because my pants already fit a little better, and I can feel the muscles tightening up under the blubber, and I feel better.

Paying attention to what I eat and do feels better; it feels like the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do so I can go on those rides at DisneyWorld. It's the right thing to do so I don't get noticed for my Wal-Mart sized gut. It's the right thing to do for me because it's my health, it's more time with my wife and kids, and it's the good example I set for them. And by caring about me I'm showing them I care about them too.

Dear American Girl Company,
I wanted to let you know that I recently read a story about a truly horrible experience a little girl had at your New York City doll salon.

I'm the father of a little girl, and I've been waiting to get an American Girl for her, but having now read this story, and seeing the type of people you hire and the policies you endorse, I will not be buying my daughter one of your dolls. I will further be telling EVERYONE I know about this experience.

One of your employees broke a little girl's heart and invalidated every good feeling she had about herself. This employee crushed this young woman's self-esteem, and it's absolutely deplorable.

There are not words strong enough for me to express my outrage, and it was not even my daughter.

I hope you act quickly to rectify this matter and take care of that little girl.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Maurice Reeves

http://oneofthosehorriblemoms.blogspot.com/2007/03/fake-out.html
http://consumerist.com/consumer/american-girl/american-girl-place-mocks-6-year+old-for-having-a-doll-from-target-refuses-to-style-the-dolls-hair-246666.php

In light of the stunning revelations, provided entirely willingly and never under duress or while being tortured (yeah right), from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, I thought it important to highlight some of the many things he did confess to that have gotten lost in the mix:

1. I shot Andy Warhol because of those damned soup cans,
2. I shot Archduke Ferdinand, thereby plunging Europe into WWI,
3. OJ is innocent. I stabbed Nicole and Ron,
4. I am responsible for New Coke,
5. I secretly sent those IMs, not Mark Foley,
6. I blew up the Hindenburg,
7. Oh, I gave John Wilkes Booth the gun he used to shoot Lincoln,
8. I created that dinosaur Barney,
9. I've was Katherine Harris' lover in college,
10. and I voted for Nader!

I bet he feels better getting all of that off his chest. I know I would.

I've been reading the stories on the death of Captain America for a week now, and letting it settle in my stomach. To give you a run down of the events that lead to his death, Superheroes are required to register with the government and reveal their true identity. Some refuse, and become fugitives, and a full-scale civil war erupts between heroes.

Eventually the battle comes to it's climax when the leader of the anti-registration forces, Captain America, is shot on the courthouse steps and killed.

I don't read as many comics as I once did, but this still makes me sad. I am a geek after all...

But it also resonates on a different level. The Superhuman Registration Act as shown in the comic books is looked at as a thinly-veiled analog of the PATRIOT Act, and the Civil War series in general explores the very same ideological battles politicians, pundits, bloggers, and so on have been fighting since 9/11.

I've come down on the side of opposing the PATRIOT Act and other government efforts to illegally imprison citizens, and other dangerous powers the Bush White House has sought to claim its own. I believe that given unchecked power to the authorities will be a disaster. I believe it will result in all manner of horrors I cannot begin to enumerate.

I think that the editors at Marvel feel the same way, because what I read in the death of Captain America is the death of America itself. Captain America stood for Liberty and Justice for All. He was the emblem of a nation that stood for freedom. He battled Hitler, he fought terrorists, but he was never the perpetrator of evil, and he certainly would not have advocated a place like Gitmo, or supported the extraordinary renditions of people to countries known to torture. But in the comic book, as in the United States, people are trading in their freedoms for some illusion of security.

And so, as Captain America lies dying on the steps of the courthouse, America dies.

My only hope is that, as with comic book heroes, America can be reborn and restored.

Captain America is dead. Love live Captain America!

I am eddied and buoyed on a sea of suffering. Friends losing parents, medical emergencies, people losing jobs, other's marriages in turmoil; dissolving and somehow I am floating above this pain and anguish.

I look around me at all of this horror and wonder 'Are we next?" I see the lives snapping and hearts breaking and I think "Will I continue to be lucky enough to not know this?"

Yes, Heather and I have walked through some very dark times: the seizures, me losing my job twice, two high-risk pregnancies, a teeming crowd of other snarling wolves knocking down our door, threatening to drag us into the shade.

Maybe it's because we've already been broken, sat dejectedly on Christmas morning with no money to buy anything and no prospect, to sit in the hospital weeping so many times that we're insulated now.

And still I think it's folly to believe that we've somehow banked good karma and can avoid the next big disaster.

But right now I look around me at all of the people, my people, pierced by the sharp teeth of life and think "This too will pass". What cold comfort that must be...but it's true. So maybe instead of saying that, I can hold them, each one of them and say "I'm sorry this has happened. I'm sorry you're hurt. I'm sorry you are suffering. You probably don't feel it right now, but you are stronger than this moment's anguish. And I love you."