Longing for the Old Fecundity of November

As I type this entry, the sweat continues to trickle off my brow, and my typing is interrupted occasionally by the lifting of my forearms, whose griminess frequently causes my skin to adhere to the paper surface of my blotter. I'm still warm, from a combination of both brief exposure to the heat and humidity of summer near-twilight and the internal combustion of muscle, bone, and sinews that worked for about 10 minutes to push my body on a short run. My brother and I couldn't have run for more than a half-mile, but I felt worse after this venture than I ever did during our winter runs of three times that length.

Part of me knows that I can write some of this fatigue off as the oppressiveness of the summer heat, which I never had to deal with when wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt during my December runs. But the rest of me knows I'm only kidding myself: I've been falling off the wagon for some time and not been able to bring myself back astride of the old pace.

Back in November, I reached the peak of my weight-loss venture. Upon returning home from Walt Disney World and getting back into the exercise swing, I'd successfully gotten myself down to 213 pounds, a low for the past six years (after the weight loss success of 8th grade gave way to the slow accumulation of sophomore year, I tried to stave off the gain but could never succeed). But with Thanksgiving, the holidays, and a long winter break ahead of me (during which there was no Dillon Gym at my beck and call), I knew the biggest goal was to simply maintain the weight. And with only a slight two-pound gain, I'd been successful.

The spring semester was supposed to continue my downward weight path, but I never got off the ground because I became too engrossed in (read: worried about) my work commitments. I'd made plans to walk and run throughout the summer to keep pace, but those efforts have been mostly for naught, as I've gained about five pounds -- I'm currently around 220 -- and have felt unbearably tired for much of the two months I've been home.

It's not for lack of motivation: with the prospect of my brother's wedding in two years and my fall success convincing me that the body I desired -- somewhere in the weight range of 155-175 pounds, about right for my body frame and height -- was unquestionably achievable, my head should definitely be in the right place. But for some reason, it's just not. I'm ashamed to count how many days I woke up convincing myself I'd eat right today (no junk, no sweets, no snacks) and then failed, chowing down on a Taylor ham, egg and cheese sandwich instead of the oatmeal I'd promised myself I'd eat. It's sad that I don't have the willpower to stick to one day of appropriate eating, but that's been the story of my motivation for months now.

I know I never really got out of the push-push-push mode when I started summer vacation, but is this sudden lack of fire starting to look like something I should be worried about? I still read, but I've got lots and lots of pages left on my summer list. I've got the ideas, but I still haven't written anything. Each day begins and ends the same way: wake up, curse the early hour, work until 2:30pm, do little in the afternoon, eat dinner, fill the following hours with some kind of amusement (sometimes it involves a walk, other times it involves a dessert I don't need but have anyway), and then curse myself for going to bed so late. Bowling has really been the only consistent thing all summer that I've embraced unquestionably, but it's only led to late bed times and thusly a delay in my personal aggravation. I'm happy enough, but I'm not relaxing at all and I'm pretty sure it's starting to show.

I'm going to need this vacation coming up, but even that's not going to be reasonably paced at all: two more working days of 8 hours apiece (starting at 6:00am and 7:00am respectively), to Hershey for three days starting Sunday, back for a day of work (7:30am-4:00pm), leagues that night at 8:00pm, then waking up to catch a 6:50am flight that will take me smack into a coaster road trip of over 1000 miles and 4 parks in 5 days. And the day after I come back, I'll probably be in work by 7:30am the next day! It's bad enough that my entire trip will feel in media res -- I'll be picked up on the way from and dropped off on the way back to Julia's house in Nashville in both cases, so they'll be picking me up mid-voyage (no pun intended, for those who get it) -- but I won't have any true recuperating time on either end of the journey. I'm really excited for this trip, but I'm afraid I'm only going to come back feeling more worn out than I already am.

Not to mention the fact that summer is half over, school is rapidly approaching, I still have to finish my pre-professional portfolio (only a few weeks left for that one), and I need to start looking into grad schools now if I don't want to get fucked by the process later.

At the end of last semester, my return home appeared to be the light at the end of the tunnel. But now it feels like that tunnel has just opened up onto an endless straightaway, with no turn-off or exit in sight.

This Hiatus Must End

Despite leaving the link to this blog on my Firefox bar, a spot that practically guaranteed I'd pay it copious attention, summer has begun, I've been free from my academic bonds for about six weeks, and here my blog sits rotting away, untouched by human hands since May. This was never my intention, but I suppose I picked an awfully inopportune time to start wanting to write again. It also didn't help that expelling 80-odd pages of academic writing didn't particularly inspire me to write any further.

That having been said, I've decided to try and kick this into high gear again, perhaps in the desperate hope that getting a few words down every so often will make me want to get some more words down on those stories I promised myself I'd begin working on this summer. Sigh.

Despite enjoying everything that's happened while I've been home -- the return of bowling night, my entrance into a piddling bowling league, several trips to various theme parks that are not Six Flags Great Adventure, and, most recently, my brother's engagement -- I haven't exactly been able to relax enough so that home actually feels like home yet. There's been something missing since the day after I returned home from Princeton...and promptly started working full-time hours at the hospital. Home on a Sunday, in work on a Monday does not make for warm, relaxing, inviting respite; just feels a bit too much like more of the same.

There are remedies to this problem on the horizon. Tomorrow, for instance, yields the return of Alicia from the dreadful morass of Washington, D.C. and summer classes. I know everyone's been around, and the crew has been particularly lively this summer, it just hasn't felt the same without everyone there, and everyone has, from the start, included Alicia. It'll be good to have everyone home at last, despite the delayed arrival.

Another solution will manifest itself in two weeks, when I continue my string of random coaster-whoring trips with Princetonian enthusiasts. This time, Charles, Julia, and I will be taking the Mason-Dixon Line by storm, running across it several times in an effort to bring myself to the coveted #150 -- to be taken upon Holiday World's newest wooden beast, The Voyage -- and well beyond. Trip reports on that will follow, naturally.

Of course, with all this traveling and working and hanging out and so forth, I've also been conscious of the need to relax and take a few deep breaths every now and then. To that degree, I've committed myself to a nice stack of books with which I shall dispatch as the months go on. Thus far I've completed three works: Stephen King's On Writing, Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and, just today, Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin. What's exciting about my reading this summer is that I'm not only finding myself deeply engaged in these texts, but I'm also seeing shreds of what I know I can create in my own work. I feel like my reading is finally starting to speak to me as a writer, and I'm beginning to believe myself capable of producing really fabulous work if I put my nose to the grindstone and strive to channel my creative energies. The reading also provides a nice balance to my hectic everyday life: while I do tend to become engrossed in my reading and commit large stretches of time thereto, at the very least I'm committing to distraction deprivation as well as an activity that requires of me no physical activity save for page-turning.

Of course, between all that reading and the sleeping I've been doing -- note to self: finish up quickly, the bed's voice is becoming more shrill and urgent by the second -- I've been doing a less-than-stellar job keeping up with my health commitments, but I'm not worried yet. I've put a couple pounds on, and I can definitely tell between my appearance and the fit of my clothes, but with a wedding to prepare for within the next two years, I'm confident I'll have the motivation needed to reach my ultimate goal.

Dave, get the fuck over here now!

Oh well. Best not piss my bed off anymore; heaven knows it's been good to me. I hope this update has satiated your appetite for my mostly pointless waste of webspace, and I promise I'll do better from here on out. But for now, the time has come to bid the audience good night.