It’s been over two years since O’Faolain’s became a permanent casualty of the pandemic, and I still haven’t found a suitable local replacement. Sally works today and Brandon is vacationing with his mom, and pre-pandemic this kind of weekend scenario typically meant spending a large chunk of the afternoon reading, temporarily taking over the jukebox, eating fries, doing some writing, and having a cider or two at O’Faolain’s. Admittedly, given the progression of Covid over the past 27+ months, I haven’t tried very hard to find my new favorite local spot away from home, but today was the kind of day screaming for such treatment.

So, after spending some time reading reviews of nearby pubs, I settled on The Ashburn Pub, where I’m currently pounding this out. Initial verdict: not a likely candidate. The atmosphere isn’t right, it’s a bit on the small side, and while they have cider in bottles, they don’t have it on tap. Furthermore, though there are a few items on the menu that look interesting, overall it isn’t doing that much for me. However, the jukebox is TouchTunes enabled, which is always a major plus. Alas, that isn’t enough, so the search will continue…

Along those lines, while deciding on The Ashburn Pub, a horrifying dystopian thought occurred to me: Red Robin is closer to my ideal pub than most of the other local places I’ve visited or considered. The truly frightening part is that I momentarily gave serious thought to going there. Clearly, unless there’s some hidden nearby currently unknown-to-me gem, Sally and I need to flee the exurbs to someplace that’s at least close to a proper urban area (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) as soon as it’s legitimately feasible…

Earlier this week, over on Facebook, someone who knew me back in high school engaged in some concern trolling with me because of a comment I left on a mutual friend’s post. What I said:

“The events of the last two years make it abundantly clear that women, non-ammosexual parents, blacks, and the LGTBQ+ community would absolutely be justified should decide to burn it all to the ground.

“If that time comes, this cis, straight, white male will help by supplying kerosene and lighters.”

The response:

“You scare me… Anger… justified, chaos and stupid online rhetoric isn’t.”

I am so fucking done with these moderate, “reasonable” assholes. The other side has been stating openly for years that “2nd Amendment solutions” are reasonably on the table should the American left go too far (I saw more than a few people state both in 2016 & 2020 that a Bernie Sanders presidency would justify such a use of violence.) In fact, they puts those words into action and fucking attempted a coup on January 6, 2021. Now, they are insisting that the public January 6 Committee hearings are somply grandstanding. Yet, my rhetoric – which in my mind was clearly a kind of metaphor and contained more than an hint of hyperbole – is a problem? My real mistake was attempting to debate this point with him. I need to remember more often that I’m truly out of fucks and that attempting to engage with such idiocy achieves nothing more than angering me…

By the way, not celebrating anything tomorrow. Nothing has materially changed since the BLM protests in the summer of 2020, women’s rights are being stripped away from them, the insane right-wing majority on the Supreme Court is busy making sure that Christian nationalists pretty much get whatever they want under the guise of “religious liberty,” and in the states where they currently control all the branches of government, the GOP is legally creating mini banana republics that make it exceedingly difficult to actually vote them out of power. Given that these are all signs of a slowly unfolding right-wing coup taking place, and that no one in a position to do so seems to be actively trying to derail it, it seems ridiculous to be celebrating the July 4 holiday… 

Part of yesterday afternoon was spent in downtown Frederick, and despite high humidity and temperatures in the upper 80s, I continually wore one of my denim jackets with the sleeves rolled up. Yes, I’m that dedicated to flying my freeky geek flag. A couple weeks ago, the realiation hit me that the jackets serve as my version of tattoos. The difference is that mine are removable and can be readily replaced with other depending on my mood. In fact, a couple of the jackets are more suitable for certain kinds of personal expression than other. I suppose it’s not surprising at all that Sally so easily readily talked me into adding patches and pins to a fifth jacket, rather than stop at four…

It wasn’t my intent, but for the past two months I’ve essentially maintained my weight rather than continue getting down to my goal weight. So, I have a good idea of what I need to do once I actually lose the remaining necessary pounds. However, I decided to let myself go for the last week of June and for the July 4 weekend. Haven’t stepped on a scale since June 22. Frankly, I am a little scared of what the scale states on the morning of July 5, but I have the utmost confidence in my ability to start doing all the right things again on that day…

That’s all I got for the moment.

My body has ways of making it clear when it hasn’t properly been tended to for far too long — when the excess weight is more than just an inconvenience or annoyance. It did so during the early spring of 2011, and the health problems that surfaced in turn motivated me to drop 60 pounds. For most of the time since then, the desire to prevent those issues from happening again drove me to take significantly better care of myself than I ever had. 

But, like many people, I put on weight during the pandemic. Fortunately, that meant a small increase of between five and 10 pounds. However, that’s only because when the pandemic started my weight was already at its highest in over nine years. Without getting into the details, a few years ago a couple high-stress, chronic situations resulted in my employing the coping tactic that soothes me best: stress eating. Not that I want stress in my life, but it would be awesome if it resulted in the pounds shedding off rather than stacking up on each other as easily as LEGO Duplo bricks. Thank to this, when the pandemic started my weight was already the highest it had been since 2011.

A common sentiment going around these days is that you shouldn’t beat yourself up for weight gain during such a stressful time — it’s more important that you maintain your mental health stability. Without question, I subscribed to it. By the start of this month, my weight was hovering roughly 10 pounds below my all-time peak. Then, on what should have been one of the best days since the start of the pandemic, my body decided to emphatically inform me that it was time to stop making excuses.

To be fair, it did send me a warning notice last month, when I experienced the worst hive attack I’ve had in years. At that time, Occam’s Razor provided the simplest explanation for my body freaking out: the months of cumulative stress brought about by living during a pandemic and mindfully trying to do all the right things (other than eating) finally became too much. Unfortunately, the simplicity of that explanation provided on easy excuse for me to ignore my physical fitness.

That purposeful lack of self-awareness came to a halt on Saturday, October 10, 2020. It should have been one of the best days of the year. It was my first day back in Philly since the pandemic started, Sally and Brandon were both there, I was seeing my dad for the first time since January, and the weather was exactly the kind we needed to safely spend most of our time in the city outdoors. When we did go into a few select shops, we felt relatively safe given that everyone was wearing masks, social distancing was readily evident, hand sanitizer was in ready supply, and the number of customers in them was actively being controlled.

Actually, it was the best day I’ve experienced since the pandemic started, but enjoyment of it was notably tempered by the fact that my sciatica announced its presence with authority throughout the day. The thing is that it’s only a problem when I’m grossly overweight and spending a significant amount of time on my feet — especially if most of that time is standing still or walking very slowly. To make matters worse, grabbing a table somewhere we could sit for a while and have a snack and beverage — the thing that would have best helped to alleviate the problem — simply wasn’t an option. Although we were able to settle on some solutions that eased some of the pain, such as simply sitting down for a half hour or so in the park immediately next to Christ Church in Old City, it didn’t lessen my overall frustration with simply having to deal with it.

That frustration and annoyance did not subside after returning home or during the following day. The more I thought about how the sciatica affected my day, the greater the frustration I felt about myself. So, much like the health problems back in 2011, that day in Philly is now motivating me to lose weight all the excess weight yet again. Using all the techniques that have worked in the past has already yielded results: I’m now down nearly 10 pounds in just 2½ weeks. Of course, knowing the holiday season is nearly here makes me question the wisdom of starting this endeavor at this time, but I also know to take full advantage of this kind of motivation.

So, I’m now obsessing about calories (both the quantity and kind of), getting enough exercise, and getting on the scale every morning. With some luck, the holidays won’t present too much of an obstacle. Hopefully, the next time I’m in Philly, the sciatica won’t flare up at all.