Hajj

It occurred today that it's more of a pilgrimage of sorts, more or less a ‘Journey To The Center Of Chris And His Asshat Motivations”.

Anyways, for whatever reasons, here are the projected dates:

Report to in-processing 17 January.

Begin BMT @ Ft. Sill, OK, 26 January.

Begin AIT @ Ft. Sam Houston, TX, (fricken TEXAS again!) 16 April.

Return to loving family and friends on or around 10 August. (Swimsuits and hamburger buns, yay!)

More to come

Motivations

It’s been mentioned to me that my weight loss motivations and goals have never been clearly or fully expressed here. Allow me to now correct this glaring oversight.
There are three main reasons or rather three categories from which reasoning can be gleaned. It should also be noted straight away and with no ambiguity whatsoever that neither healthfulness nor health in general had anything to do with wanting to lose weight.

1. Fighting robot-ninja-jedis ala cheesy HK action flicks filmed in my backyard.
This one has been mentioned a couple times in the course of this blog and remains firmly entrenched in my noggin and I need to be in shape in order to have my shirt ripped off me by an evil robot-ninja-jedi.

"my shirt ripped off me by an evil robot-ninja-jedi..."

A constant source of motivation, ideas for the filming of this are constantly being refined pretty much every time I see an action flick or an action flick parody. It’ll be awesome, and all are welcome to participate. Seriously, we got a decent camera so that part is covered. (Although its kinda MIA doin’ a different kind of filming *wink-wink*). We won’t need serious sound quality because we’re a-gonna dub it all in awful karate-movie fashion and we won’t need a serious costume budget, because, hey, all of its gonna get tore up anyways=) Truly, a film experience for the ages.

2. Be able to put my fricken wedding ring on without having to use the Jaws of Life and a quart of vasoline.
This one is covered in my immediately previous post and it’s also fairly self-explanatory. I miss my wedding band. It is another constant source of motivation whenever I see my darling wife wearing hers or I happen to notice my friends’ rings.

3. I want to look good naked.
“Are you like me? Do you have low self-esteem when it comes to your physical appearance? If you answered ‘yes’ then this program is for you. Call now and you too can learn how true inner beauty can be found blah, blah, blah.”
I think that’s just great. Inner beauty is a wonderful thing and it IS an important piece of the ‘happiness’ puzzle. Why, just this morning I clearly saw my friend’s caring, giving nature- her obvious discomfiture at other people’s discomfort and in that moment she struck me as truly beautiful.
But let’s be honest here. It’s not ‘inner beauty’ at all that initially catches our eyes from across the crowded room. Its not Angelina’s or Nicole’s or even Jennifer’s inner beauty that made you watch both Tomb Raider AND Tomb Raider 2, or every single crappy Tom Cruise flick, hoping to catch a glimpse of his savagely attractive (ex-)wife. It wasn’t inner beauty, at all, that made you TiVo that episode of Friends where Rachael takes off her bra on-screen, wearing only a thin, tight shirt afterwards. (BTW, TiVo called… yeah, you owe them for a new remote… you animal)

Ever since I decided for myself that a bit of vanity was a-okay, I have also had time to make myself comfortable with some of the reasoning. I wanna look good naked, dammit. My own, personal, inner beauty could very well be chalk-full of holes, like I’m some kind of narcissistic Scrooge-Grinch-Ann Coutler caricature but the people who are close to me accept me and love me for who I am and I return them the favor. That being said, it matters to me not at all if someone outside my circle of friends thinks I am a shallow dick. In honesty, I am likely both of those things (and more) often enough for the words to stick.

"I don’t go out of my way to be prickish..."

Please don’t misunderstand me; I don’t go out of my way to be prickish but I am human. I am that guy that laughed uproariously at you when you went to leave the bathroom and your drunken partner screamed, “Wash your hands you filthy bastard!” I am that guy with a strong appreciation for the female form and if my gaze should linger on you I honestly meant no offense. I am sure you are a lovely person, inner beauty and all that. I’m sure Angelina, Nicole and Jennifer are all lovely people, however, I don’t know them… and I don’t know you. What I do know is only what I see and some of the things I see are pleasant to behold. The chances of my covering my eyes and then developing an association with someone long enough to recognize their inner beauty without having been exposed to their physical appearance are slim.

For most of us, this is the very definition of first impressions. Something about you must capture a part of me and make me want to get to know you beyond a physical association. Often what we have to rely on is what we see and I want my advertisement, my initial presentation, to look good. Is that superficial? Sure, but only if its taken at face value=)

Milestone

An awesome thing happened to me this morning… “Something wonderful” as my good chum Dave Bowman would have put it. One of the reasons I have for wanting to lose weight was the fact that I could no longer put on my wedding band… in fact, it has been more than two-and-a-half years since I was able to, not since my last shot at quitting smoking. This morning I was able to, without the help of any kind of lubricant, put the dern thing on again. I cannot describe the feeling of elation I got from seeing that gold band on my finger again, feeling its weight and remembering the way it would rub against the two surrounding fingers. I used to play with my ring occasionally, as many of us do. I would cross my palm with my thumb and use it to manipulate the ring or to simply spin it, absentmindedly, in the dent or valley created by its constant presence. It was a familiar feeling, comforting and pleasant even after years of disunion.
Sadly, it was short-lived. You see, the white indention that most people have from the various rings they wear was gone making the ring still a bit uncomfortable for me. But, not to worry, it was positive sign that I was able to slip it on at all, let alone without dish soap or hand lotion greasing the way. It so encouraged me that, after only a little bit of waffling, I jumped into the fricken’ cold pool to do the aerobic portion of my workout. Soon I will be able to put the ring on for good and I swear that little bastid is a-gonna stay on there this time.
Soon, my precious, soooooon....

Sex & The Male Mind

Well, today marked a milestone for me in my war against my waist. This morning I went ahead and bought smaller underwear for the first time since, er, ever. After visiting with Dr. John yesterday and hearing that my BP and my weight both dropped nicely (222 lbs!!!! 27 lbs I’ve dropped so far!) I felt that mini-congrats were in order so I celebrated by getting new underwear. Yay.

Today is also the first day I’ve felt my new tattoos were healed enough for comfortably resuming my workout schedule. Working out, for me, is becoming something akin to having sex. While I’m sure this isn’t in any way a new concept, the similarities only recently became apparent to me. You got your nearly naked sweating bodies grunting and exerting, first only minimally but building gradually to a strenuous ending. You got your little victories at the end of a particularly satisfying encounter. You also get that great endorphin-induced euphoria at the end and, if you are with someone you care about, you get to share in their little victories as well. While you can certainly go it alone (or, as my junior-high buddies called it, “rollin’ solo”) it’s just not the same as when you have a partner. =)
Also, I find that if I am interrupted or disturbed in any way, I get that sense of longing and restlessness that can only be cured by working out in another way (see above), getting into a fight or by hitting myself in the head with a hammer until the feeling passes. A cold shower will also work in a pinch.

Oh, and last Saturday the missus and I went to see "Snakes on a Plane", and it was great! It was everything I expected it to be and a bit more, which is always nice. Anyways, iffn’ you are looking for some good, mindless summer fun, SoaP has it all. Ridiculously implausible plot? Check. Sam Jackson yelling the f-word? Check. Snakes going apeshit on a plane? Check. Boobies? Check. (2 big fake ‘checks’ there)