Happy New Year!!

Welcome to 2016!

I'm a little late, sorry about that, traffic was murder.  This is the right space to give a first of the year update on projects and life in general.

First and foremost, I (finally) completed the first draft of my next novel, with the working title Open.  Cue the champagne and balloons!!  It's part of the reason why this blog posting is so late as I took a break from writing anything other than my name over the last couple of weeks.  Now comes the largely fun task of rewriting and rewriting before I go into beta reads and edits.  The next six or seven weeks should be interesting.

I'm training for Tough Mudder 2016 in Whistler, BC.  It's one of those "focused goal" things I would like to do this year, finish the course in 4 hours or less.  Right now, it means lots of working out.

I don't have a whole lot else, but thanks for stopping by!

Age of Fitness

I'm finding that the unfortunate reality that I was warned about has come to pass.  It's hard to stay fit in your 30's.

Time was, maybe 10 years ago, I'd gain 10 or 20 pounds in the winter, then lose it in the summer plus five.  Summers in New York were hot and there was stuff to do, like copious amounts of basketball.  Beer made me sweat, not fat. And I could party all night on Sunday and do Monday with three or four hours sleep.  Those were the days. Now, I have to watch what I eat and how much, I have to do crazy intense workouts, I have to force myself to sleep (well, force is a strong word).  If I drink, I'm useless for two or three days after.  And I find myself fixated on my weight more than I ever have been at any point of my life (264, if you're asking).  I'm concerned of a family history of diabetes and high blood pressure, and I just want to get older and not feel like shit.

As my birthday came and went, I took a look at some of my habits and am actively trying to change them.

Diet:  I love sugar.  It's awesome and tasty and makes everything better.  I'm good about most of my diet, eating greenery and fruits and quinoa and stuff.  If you had known me five years ago, you know that this is a big deal.  I'm doing my best to cut baked goods out (goodbye, donuts and cinnamon rolls and anything delicious from Starbucks) and anything with added sugar.  I'm trying to limit bread to one slice per day with breakfast.  I want to not be lazy and juice more (I have a head not kale in my fridge that I should probably get to before it walks out).

Exercise: It's difficult to split time between writing, working a full time and per diem job, and having any kind of life.  Working out is one more thing to do that eats up time.  I hate to say it like that, but a fact is a fact.  As we get older, it gets harder to divvy up the time.  I don't even have kids yet and it's this difficult.  Or maybe I'm just lazy sometimes.  If it's important, you'll find a way, if it's not you'll find an excuse.  Sporadically, my excuse is I don't have the time, or I need to sleep, or I'll do it tomorrow.  That's got to stop.  This is important.

Sleep: Considering I work in sleep medicine when I'm not writing, I should know the importance of good solid sleep.  I don't get nearly enough of it and for no good reason.  Like I said, I don't even have kids.  I have got to force myself into bed when I get home, and I've got to stay there for at least seven hours.

I have a beard going right now because I promised myself I'd keep it until I got myself below 250 labs.  Now that I'm putting this out into the ether, I'd better get to it.

*** Quick Hits ***

NBA season starts in a couple of weeks.  To all my friends who are basketball fans, allow me to put in this piece of information:

The Knicks will be AT LEAST the #6 seed in the East this season.

I could cite their much improved defense, or the personnel moves that have players tailored to the offensive system they run.  I could talk about how underrated Robin Lopez is.  But I won't.

I'll just say 6 or better.

***

Went to Barnes and Noble today and decided to teach myself more about my craft.  I've been writing fiction for about 20 years now, published for 10, but I stilt want to learn more, hone my skills more, and be a better writer.  I'm starting with industry magazines (for probably the least glamorous industry on the planet.  I mean seriously...), but I'll work myself up to online seminars, going over stuff in the library.  I love what I do, so it couldn't hurt...

It Went Straight. Up. (Vacation, Day four part 1: Coney Island, Brooklyn, NYC)

Another day in Brooklyn started with the gym and no other particular agenda.  Ahh, that is the life.  I knew I wanted to hang with my niece, and that I wanted to go to Coney Island.  She, however, wanted to get a pedicure first.  I sometimes forget that she's 24 now, and the condition of her hands and feet are important tools in attracting men that my brothers and I would later intimidate.  Recalling that I very recently (and accidentally) shredded my girlfriend's sheets with my feet, I elected to join her.  It was relaxing, and right after we made our way to the train to Coney Island.

My niece and I went to the same high school, twelve or so years apart.  As we passed it on the train, we both fondly remembered some of the neighborhood's food options, largely consisting of bagels and pizza that I can confirm are simply much better in Brooklyn than anywhere else.  It's the tap water.  After that, we watched as the Q train pulled up past Brighton Beach and the iconic Parachute Jump came into view at Stillwell Avenue.  Welcome to Coney Island.

I hadn't been to Coney Island since 2008.  Know what?  That's too far to start in the story.

I'm a contradiction: I'm terrified of heights, but I love roller coasters.  I grew up with one of the most famous ones in the world in my own backyard, so to speak.  I last went to Coney Island in 2008 with a good friend of mine, and while the rides mostly sucked, the corn dogs were tasty and the log flume ride wasn't so bad (okay, okay, I screamed like a little girl and it was caught on camera).  But it was Coney Island, Astroland as it was called then, and it's heyday was well, well past.  Before that afternoon, I hadn't been to a real theme park, on a real roller coaster since 2004 or so.

A couple of years ago, Astroland closed and the area was almost completely razed except for the three landmarked spots: the Parachute Jump, the Wonder Wheel, and the world-famous Cyclone.  In its place was Luna Park, with upgraded and updated rides and attractions.  There were two that caught my eye: the Soarin' Eagle ride, and the New Thunderbolt.

My niece accompanied me to Luna Park, and it's nice to hang out with her as an adult. She had been like a little sister for so long, it was interesting and refreshing to finally interact with her as an adult and a peer instead of as a really smart kid.  I kept that in mind as I watched her descend into a terrified mess on the Wonder Wheel.  To be fair I wasn't much better.  It's a 94 year-old Ferris Wheel with selected cars that swing on a track.  We were on a swinging car.  I won't pretend like I was brave, but I couldn't panic the way I wanted because my niece was freaking out (Jesus, take the wheel, and such).

So after five minutes of protracted circular terror, I decided to venture on to the Thunderbolt.  Coney Island was going to be an abbreviated visit this time as we were meeting friends for drinks later that evening.  I had to decide between the Thunderbolt and the Soarin' Eagle, and the Thunderbolt looked interesting.  To me, at least; my niece decided that she would sit this one out.

Remember what I said about her being really smart?

From a distance, the Thunderbolt looked interesting.  It had a 90 degree initial ascent and a 90 degree initial descent, and loops and twists and the like.  There had been a couple of steel coasters in Coney Island's past, but they were mostly designed to scare seven year-olds.  I assumed the Thunderbolt was just a cool-looking continuation of this design sensibility.

Then I got up close and saw the thing got up to about 120 feet.  And it moved along at a pretty good clip.

Still though, I thought, this is New York City, where in the past a coaster of sufficient size and speed to actually be a thrill ride couldn't exist alongside the Cyclone, simply for reasons of not enough real estate.  How bad could it possibly be?

Spoiler alert: bad. Very, very bad.

The thing about a 90 degree ascent is that the car pointed straight up.  You were basically on your back, looking straight up.  The chain pulley towed the car straight up.  Most roller coasters drag out the terror with a gradual incline.  Even the legendary Cyclone, whose terror is based in its age and its composition (90+ years, made of wood, I believe it's the oldest wooden coaster still standing in the US) only had an initial drop of  58.1 degrees, and that drop was 85 feet. Not this nightmare.  Nope, the Thunderbolt would not delay gratification.  It went. Straight. Up.  After the hump, it went straight down.

Allegedly.  I had my eyes closed on the drop.

There were twists and turns and zero gravity sensations abound, and when it was over, all I could muster were a vacant stare and a constant drone of "Oh $#!7.  It went straight up." My niece, the smart one, laughed.

Afterward, we grabbed a quick bite to eat.  Neither of us had much in the way of food, and it was a long train ride to Park Slope, where we would meet old friends of mine for food and drink.  She had a knish, and I had a funnel cake.  Bits of happy all around.

Retrospective on The Fab 5

I have a confession to make.

Over the last three or four years I've been distancing myself from my first novel, The Fab 5.  I had what I thought was a good reason.  My grandmother, 84 years old at the time, read it.

The Fab 5.  Available on Amazon and B&N.

I never intended for her to read it.  I didn't write it for her.  And it never occurred to me for even a half a second that she would.  It's a street-flavored basketball story following five lifelong friends from Flatbush.  So when I wrote about some of the realities of living in a neighborhood not too dissimilar from the one in which I grew up, there was a heavy dose of, shall we say, colorful language.

                         Castillo’s face went purple, and I swear I saw steam come out of his ears. “Yo,

                   f*** you, you b****-a** monkey n****!”

                          Shiver stood up straight, shocked by the comment. He got right in between

                   Jay and Castillo, getting nearly nose-to-nose with him. “What did you say?”

                   Shiver said, as angry as I had ever seen him.

                          Jay forced his way back in between Shiver and Castillo, and forced them both

                    back. He held Shiver back, and turned to face the Puerto Rican kid. “F*** it,” he

                    said with a heavy sigh. “Get your squad together, Miguel.” Shiver stopped resisting,

                    and joined the four of us in a shocked look at Jay. “If it’s gonna shut his little

                    punk a** up, then fine, let’s beat him again.”

                         Castillo smiled as he walked past Jay. “Don’t go nowhere,” he said as he

                   walked toward the other side of the park. As he walked past Shiver, he said under

                   his breath, “B**** n****.”

And so on.  That is from page 18.  While some people were able to relate to and even appreciate the authenticity of the language -- if you grew up in a rougher neighborhood in New York, I suppose you would too -- I had some friends tell me they created the first literary drinking game in history for every time I swore in that book.  

Up until that point, the only book my grandmother had ever read was the Bible.  Sure, she read newspapers and magazines and such, but The Bible was all she read that came in a hardcover or paperback.  For the record, she still has both.  She had never read a novel.  

Until her youngest grandson gave her a signed copy of The Fab 5.

So several weeks later, when I did my good grandson thing and visited her after work, she looked at me sternly through her glasses like she always did and said in a thick Jamaican accent, "I read your book, Franklyn."  And suddenly every cuss word I wrote, every questionable situation I conceived flooded my head.  I mean, I referred to a certain female character in the five most unflattering ways you could in one line.  (I guess the fact that no word in that line was more than five letters can be considered impressive, if you squint one eye.)

My mouth hit the ground.   "You read it?!  Jeez, Mama, you weren't actually supposed to read the thing!"  I composed myself and cleared my throat.  "So what'd you think?"

She turned her attention to the word search puzzle she was doing and let the question hang for a while.  "I liked it," she said, I'm sure to be polite.  "Too many bad words though."

And just like that, my enthusiasm for promoting my first novel kind of tanked.  I was embarrassed that my grandmother read it.  There's no way there's a market for this thing, I thought.  And that was that.

Fast-forward to 2014.  I'm scrolling through Netflix and stumble across a documentary by Bobbito Garcia called Doin' It In the Park, which followed the streetball scene in the five boroughs, and suddenly I realize exactly how wrong I was.  Bobbito's respect for the sport that I played and loved was oozing from the film, and I saw elements of my book -- the gamesmanship, the competition, the trash-talking, the court culture and such-- played out in reality and motion.

I realized then that The Fab 5 did have value, and did have a market.  Was it perfect?  Not by any means. It's not even my best work; my second novel is leaps and bounds better, and all writers criticize their previous projects.  But it was an accurate depiction of what my world was like at 16, 17, and 18.  You had the park.  You had your crew.  You had a ball.

I may be more actively promoting my current novel, The Favorite, but my earlier work is (in my very humble and obviously biased opinion) very much worth the read.

And keep a bottle of Jack nearby in case you want to play the drinking game.

Summer in the City

It's no secret: I'm a big fan of summer.  All my favorite things are summer things.  All my favorite activities are summer activities.  And not just any summer, either.  City summer, the kind I haven't been a part of in half a decade.  Once the weather gets warm, everything about life I find worthwhile starts to happen.

Back home, summer meant kids.  After June 22, schools were out and all the kids in the city ran rampant around town.  To some that means playing in creeks and woods and what have you.  To me, it was no curfew, football in the streets (I had a mean arm once) until you couldn't see the ball.  It was basketball from noon 'til dusk, or later if the court was near a streetlamp.  It meant movie hopping from one summer flick to another, sneaking around ushers and cameras to turn a matinee ticket into an all-day film festival.

It meant the Mister Softer Ice Cream trucks, whose distinct jingle could be heard from blocks away like an approaching T-Rex.  On the hottest of those summer days, that jingle meant relief was coming and sprinkles were free.  It meant the Spanish dude selling Icees on the corner of Church and Flatbush Avenues, and how with a little hustle and the guts to stand the heat, you could turn a 20-pound block of ice and some syrups into shaved ice treats, happy kids, and money.

It meant baseball, and who didn't love baseball? It was the middle of the season and the pennant races were either really starting to get interesting, or really getting out of hand (I'm a Yankee fan, guess which end I usually saw?), and we waited in anticipation of the Home Run Derby.  It meant work for some, play for others.

As adolescence set in, summer meant exposed midriffs and cut-off shorts.  It meant teased hair and bikinis.  It meant sundresses.  It meant sweat making every inch of fabric, no matter how thin, stick strategically to bronzed skin.  It meant girls in their late teens and early 20's knowing full well they had me and my hormones in the palms of their hands.  As an adult summer meant late nights chasing women and thrills, fueled by drink and dance.  It meant that even if the temperature cooled slightly, the streets were just as hot as they were in the daytime.  It meant watching the transformation as women traded in their business wear for outfits that were less confining to their bodies and attitudes.

It meant thunderstorms.  It meant that just before one would hit, the air would be heavy with a certain energy, thick with humidity and heavy with expectation.  When it was over, the air was cool and light and if you were outside,  you were happily drenched and enjoyed a powerful lightshow full of sound and fury.

It meant Coney Island and the rides that, even though you had been on them a million times, you still once in a while ponied up that $5 for one more go at the Cyclone or the Zipper. 

It meant not having a backyard pool, but having a fire hydrant and a hollowed out tin can.  It meant skelly in the streets, and if you're from Brooklyn or the Bronx and I have to explain that to you, you need to put the video games down, son, and get out more.  (For my Canadian friends, think curling, only with bottlecaps on asphalt.)

Summertime was eight short weeks of wide open possibility, that always seemed to last forever until it was almost over.  And even though as a working man I never had summers off, there's still a conditioned mind-shift that you anticipate in late May, starts in earnest late June, winds down around Labor Day and ends around the first day of school.

I still love Summer.  Let the games begin.

Summer Resolutions

The one thing about living where I live is that the summers are gorgeous.  The sun doesn't go down until unfathomably late and while I sometimes get sentimental about the stultifying heat and humidity in New York City, a mild summer day isn't so bad.  Being outside in the summer in the Pacific Northwest is natural and encouraged.  I've developed an affection for Disc Golf.

The problem with that however is that the time I'm spending outside is time I'm not spending writing.  It's time I'm not spending on skill development or research or world building.  And while that's awesome in small doses, I worry about too much of a good thing.  I still carry with me a bit of the person that was on the Public School calendar, where I did a whole lot of not much between mid-June and Labor Day.  Old habits are hard to break.

But here's where I try: I've got a commitment in my head to not only finish the first draft of the new novel I'm working on, but to also post two short stories -- at least -- on this blog, all by the end of the summer.  Lofty goals, I know.  I've been working on the first draft for three years already, and I'm only a little better than halfway done.  That's why I'm stating it here, on the blog.

I joined a couple of like-minded individuals in a writing group that was based on a simple concept: accountability.  Our stories are our assignments.  Not unlike school, where a teacher handed out homework (Every.  Damn.  Day.), only here there's no algebra.  We are accountable to the group, lest we provide the coffee.

I'm also going to use the summer to make my weight loss goals, once again made public for the sake of accountability.  I'm going to restart the "Chubby Me" posting I did a couple of years ago and work myself into being less "fluffy."

And, of course, I'm going to blog more.

Discipline

It kind of came to me as I stepped out of the shower and stepped onto my bathroom scale.

That used to be a ritual I had before I went anywhere. My day would begin (or end, considering I work nights) with me getting home from the gym, showering, and taking a step on the scale, being proud that a workout ended in a slowly but surely shrinking number.  This ghost of my routine kicked in at the end of its cycle and I stepped on the scale without doing all the previous stuff, and the number I saw reminded me of it.

I haven't been to the gym -- not consistently, anyway -- in quite a while.

People are slaves to routine, followers of habit.  They do what they do with repetition, as the repetition is comfortable.  It's why bad habits are so hard to break; they become hardwired into our daily lives until our bodies and minds crave it.  Creative types -- artists and writers for instance -- are even more susceptible to habits, both good and bad, as they drive how and what we create.  I thought about that as well as I dried off and sucked in my gut as I looked in the mirror.  I've lost all my good habits.

I haven't written -- not consistently, anyway -- in quite a while.

We all have our reasons for this, of course, and some of them are even valid.  Good habits, for instance, are invariably the ones that are more difficult and more of an investment in time, and sometimes changing life situations -- good and/or bad -- make it tough to keep good habits.  Or sometimes we get lazy, as bad habits are easier, more instantly gratifying, and creep in when we least expect it.  Either way, whatever the reasons or excuses, the problem comes down to one thing: discipline.

My life situation has changed a bit.  I find myself less willing to engage in the high-energy, cardio-intensive routine of early-morning basketball two to three days a week, and more willing to spend that time in bed.  I end up talking myself out of my workouts as I drag my feet to get to the gym.  I'm completely unwilling to go for a run in the midst of the recent (and absolutely, insanely bitter) cold snap.  I find myself writing less, and I give myself reasons like "Gotta promote the novel," or "Don't have time right now.". Or, if I'm being truthful, the reasons are "I don't feel like it," or "I'm not in the headspace to produce anything good."

Damn that.  No more excuses.  Life is passing us by as we fill the days with stuff we should have done and reasons why we didn't do them.  Our bad habits are killing us.  My bad habits are killing me.  Not with any disease or anything, but with malaise and missed opportunity.  The game is not called because of cold.  We -- I -- just have to find the find the discipline, to create the good habits, that restores the natural order of things.

And with that, I reveal the number I saw. 271.

I say this a lot, but now I'm saying it publicly over the internet, which will hold me accountable.  I will reduce that number by 30 in the coming months.  It's going to take planning, hard work, and discipline.

The other thing, the writing?  Well, something must be done about that too.  At the beginning of the year, I set forth an unreachable goal: to write a million words of fiction.  I know the goal is insanely difficult, but I set it with the idea that if I try and don't make it, I'll stilt have done an unbelievable amount of work.  So far, my word count isn't all that impressive.  I'm going to take a NaNoWriMo-style approach and try to generate 1200 words a day of fiction.  Yeah, I'll be well short of my million-word mandate, but the point wasn't a million words, the point was forging the discipline to transition into a writing career.

And I trust the internet to hold me accountable.

Declarations of Independence

It's the American Dream, really.

It's the story we all are told as kids, how in this country, we have the opportunity to take our talents and make something of ourselves, create a better life, and get wealthy doing exactly what we want to do.  We hear about it from the top a lot, from the people who have already made it.  What about the rest of us?

As an independent author, I know that between the starting from nothing and the becoming something, there's a lot of grinding in the middle.  A lot of paid dues.  A lot of separation from the pack.  A lot of figuring out which way is your way.  To be honest, the stories of the people trying to make it is a lot more interesting than the ones of those that already did.  You never hear the stories from the middle, but maybe we should.

I will be taking it upon myself to find these stories and tell them, partly as shameless self-promotion and partly as a way to get the word out on people who are doing it themselves and meeting varying levels of success.  That's the inspiration for us all, isn't it?

So, look for "Declarations of Independence," profiles of independent artist, authors, designers, businessmen and women.  People who started with a passion and a good idea and turning a dream into reality.  And if any of you are out there and wanting to have your story told, contact me on Facebook or at frankcthomas@hotmail.com.

Cheers!

Keep The Iron Hot

There's a certain satisfaction we get from doing something difficult.

I don't know if I can accurately explain it, so forgive me if I stumble over some of the words, but I think that as humans, we have a somewhat masochistc streak about us.  How else do we explain our drive to persevere, to push against long odds, to accomplish what some people find at the very least improbable?  And why else would we, after doing the improbable, convince ourselves there's more to do, higher to go?  Do we enjoy the pain?  Are we as a species in love with the physical soreness, the headache, or the emotional fatigue that accompanies perseverance in sport, academia, or any other human endeavor?

The song stuck in my head lately opens with "There's nothing you can do that can't be done."  When you look at the sentence by itself, it's a little hard to decipher what John Lennon is saying; either keep pushing because it's doable, or don't waste your energy because its not.  There's is a pain involved either way, from the intense pain of pushing past an obstacle to eventual success to the crushing heartache in giving up and relegating the effort already put in to waste.  I firmly believe that most of us, the best of us, believe the former and strive for excellence, even if sometimes we lack the strength of conviction to actually do it.

We've all had the moment, where we stood atop our world, at the summit of our own self-made mountains.  And as people, we do one of two things: either we climb back down so we can start over, or we seek the next, higher peak on the right.  There's nothing wrong with either act; as a matter of fact, those two paths are really not htat different from one another.  It's merely a matter of perception.  Do we want to climb to 3,000 feet to climb back down and ascend another day? Or do we stop at 3,000 feet for a while, survey the cloudscape, and ascend another 3,000 feet?

Maybe I've misread it, and I'm the only masochist out there who likes the climb.  If that were the case though, I would be the only one on the mountain.  The quote says "It's lonely at the top."  I find that to be incomplete.  The rest should say "But there's a lot of traffic in the middle."

Reality Check.

Once upon a time, when we were children, we all said we would save the world.  I remember a particular English class in IS 391 (Thanks, Ms. Amy Greenberg) in which we wrote our own eulogies, and listed the accomplishments we would have made.  Some of us said we'd cure cancer or AIDS, some said we'd be rappers or movie stars, or famous lawyers and authors.  And while we have all enjoyed a modicum of success, I hazard to guess that very few of my friends from IS 391's class of 1992 have impacted the world the way we thought we would.  I guess that's a consequence of the reality of adulthood, putting away the bigger dreams of our childhood in favor of more practical ones.

I came across a YouTube clip of someone around my age who, when she was a child, actually TRIED to save the world, and is actively still doing so.

The young woman in question is Severn Cullis-Suzuki, who at 12 was an environmental activist.  She gives a compelling speech 20 years ago at a UN Environmental summit that is painfully relevant today.  It silenced a room full of adults in 1992, and very likely would do so again today.  It was honest and heartfelt, and filtered only through the honesty of a child.  In it was no political maneuvering, no base to pander to.  It was a direct, simple statement that showed how we did, and still, make things like communicating as adults more difficult and complicated than we need to. While some would criticize her naivete, her lack of understanding of how the world works, I believe that same quality is what makes it resonate so strongly.  She doesn't understand the way the works, not because she doesn't know but because it makes no sense. It moved me very nearly to tears and put a couple of things very sharply into perspective.

For starters, though we are taught differently as children, we are very wasteful people as adults.  We seek to consume and dominate without ever seeking balance, and what doesn't fit gets thrown to the wayside.  Our society is like this in every phase, from living environment and feeding, to work, to play, to religion, and everything in between.  Human nature seems to be about creating and overcoming struggle, and it doesn't need to be about all that.  Especially not us in the Western world, especially not in this day and age.  And a quickie review of the things in my life that are wasteful, I on a personal level don't need to completely rewrite my life to make things better for the people around me.

The other thing that was put into perspective was the definition of impact.  Ms. Suzuki made an impact that is still rippling today, as evidenced by the fact that the things she was right about in the above 1992 video, she's still right about now.  We are still watching her humble a room full of delegates, businessmen and "important people."   It made me stop and think about the lasting impact my actions have had, or will have.  How have I affected the world around me?  How will I?

And that's the big reality check.  I wrote in my eulogy in 1992 that I would cure cancer and AIDS before dying old and rich in the arms of my young supermodel wife.  It's funny now, but I genuinely believed I would back then, and that it would be no big deal.  I haven't done anything more important in my life than have that dream when I was 13.  And though some of us have families to provide for, mouths to feed, lives to help shape, I would dare say that most of us have never had dreams wider in scope than when we were 13.

And that, my friends, is a tragedy.  We have become the adults in the video.

PS: Severn Cullis-Suzuki is STILL trying to save the world, these days for her child and that generation.

Chubby Me, day 20

Today's weigh-in: 256.6 lbs.

I've had slip-ups. Lost weekends. Skipped training days. I really suck at dieting. The results however are encouraging. Eating right most of the time does allow the slip-ups to pass under the radar more.

Thank goodness for summer sports. Basketball and softball have been helpful in keeping the missed workouts marginalized. And 3 slip-up days out of 20 is a lot better than I thought I would do when I started.

I'm heading to Florida in October for my grandmother's 92nd birthday. My goal is to be in the best shape of anyone there. Softball today, basketball tomorrow, weights on Sunday and Monday...

Big shoutout to my good friend John from Jersey. He watched the documentary, is doing the full-on juice fast, and has seen great results. Inspiration begets inspiration, and he's inspired me to try harder.

Chubby Me

Ok, so as we all approach and live in our 30's, we come to the sad realization that we're not teenagers any more, and our collective metabolism ain't what it used to be. Some of us are fine with it, others aren't. I fall somewhere in the middle. Yeah, I work out, but not as consistently as I should. I eat okay, but not nearly right enough. I'm not fat, but I'm no Greek God, either.

I saw a documentary the other night called "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead." It chronicled the journey of two men, one highly overweight, the other morbidly obese, as they sought to better their individual health through better lifestyle choices. They each spent 90 days on a juice fast, initially losing tremendous amounts of weight, and through this action became something of an inspiration to those around them, and presumably anyone who has seen the documentary.

Now I'm not going on a juice fast. I like food too much. But for years, I've been told by people close to me that I lack the discipline to do what was necessary to make my body work for me. That bothers me. Also, on a more personal note, as I've gotten older, my GI tract and I haven't been seeing eye-to-eye as much as I would like. So today, I'm beginning what I'm calling "The Chubby Me Project." I'm going to chronicle in this blog my daily fight with my weight, my body and most importantly, my discipline. This is day 1.

I will post pics every day of what I look like, gambling that I will show some progress and hold myself accountable to anyone who is reading this. In my mind, it'll play out something like a P90X infomercial. Now I already have a pretty stringent workout/exercise routine, and I'm going to add to it the diet. It is by no means groundbreaking, but here's my plan:

Add more fruits and veggies to my diet. I've done a ballpark estimate as to how much "rabbit food" I eat. We're told that the normal diet should include 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day. It should account for about 25% of your daily intake. My intake is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5%. I want to move it up to 33%.

Better portion control. The average American eats simply way too much food. We have this notion that we should clean our plates every time, and our plates are way too full. I am by no means an exception. I'm going to simply eat less.

Goodbye McDonald's. And Wendy's. Burger King. Basically, for the next two months, I will only eat what comes from my kitchen.

Reduce caffeine, eliminate refined sugar, and no more alcohol. This is the hard stuff. I work nights, so coffee is king. I drink 2, sometimes 3 or more cups a night. And who doesn't like coffee dates? No more. I will only drink tea from here on. That will suck, of course. I also have a significant sweet tooth. Cookies, cakes, pastries, goodies like that are always a weakness for me. No mas. As for alcohol... well, this is more general health than anything else. I'm a lightweight to begin with, I get tipsy way too easily, and I just don't like the way a hangover feels.

Anyway, I'm going to start today, along with beefing up my workout schedule. My first order of business... make some juice.

Cheers!