The Writing Walls are Crumbling.

Tags

Biden, bipartisan, debate, discussion, left wing, moving forward, right wing, Trump, walls

I have had a very hard time blogging over the past four years. It wasn’t just Donny and his insane cabal but his many followers. I have unfriended many people during this reign, and I have blocked many of them. And I did try to listen. I tried to understand the divide, not just in America but in Canada and around the world . I have teased and ridiculed not only Donny but these followers. I knew converting the mindless was not possible, but they were never my target. I targeted the middle-of-the road centrists, the non-partisan voters who see truth above party politics. Unfortunately, these people tend to be more laissez-faire and vote less than the indoctrinated [on both sides]. Biden winning the vote feels like a victory but a tainted one. We are not in a good place.

Now that we have a change on the horizon, can I dump the farcical memes and get back to arguing with logic? I hope I can. I hope we all can. I would much rather see far-righters and far-lefties write out what they believe and openly discuss their arguments. I would hope we can all sit down quietly, read others’ stances on issues, and work to some consensus. It is this back and forth playing with ideas that moves us forward. It is how I move my writings forward. I don’t write knock-out stories in one go. It takes many tries of pushing that theme or pushing this character or pushing that conflict. All of my best writing has come from pushing into areas I never ended up in. The same is true, I believe, for moving forward in social and political discourse. Life is story, and those of us who write a lot of story can attest that what we think is best almost always is not.

I could not write much about life these past four years because so many have adopted views of life I do not agree with. And no, it is not just the righties. I am anti-government. When governments in my Canada want to implement new programs, I cringe, because I know my government’s debts will rise with no compensating benefit. Too many pay no service at all to our enormous debts.

What do I want to Write About?

The list is long, and I don’t claim to be qualified to write about much of it. But the following is a quick list.

• Socialism
  • what is it?
  • where should social policies fit in a capitalistic society?
  • what do Liberals really want?
  • what are Conservatives afraid of?
• Competition
  • I am for competition, when it makes sense
  • when does competition not make sense?
  • how do we manage non-competitive units so everyone is happy?
• Executive Accountability
  • this is currently a critical problem in not only America but in Canada and around the world
• Taxation
  • does the low-taxation-of-billionaires model make sense?
  • what is the logical management perspective on achieving good government?
  • of course, taxation of expatriates and management of tax fraud.
• Reading and Writing
  • I work at my writing every day. I have many ideas on making writing more interesting and relevant
  • reading is a forgotten skill. We have millions of experts who do not read anything more than Facebook posts or their favorite news headlines
  • how to correctly punctuate lists 😉
• Racial Injustice
  • unfortunately, the list is endless!
• My many other interests: books, fountain pens, inks, poetry, nutrition, diabetes, and more.

There is so much to write about and such little time to do it. I’ve been sitting on my hands for so long, I don’t really know if I can do this. Is Humpty Trumpty falling off the wall enough to get me back into this? But of course I have to write. The only way we’re going to move forward as a civilization is through discourse and debate. I remember when the Berlin Wall started to come down. It was the day my firstborn entered the world. I was so hopeful. The world really did seem to offer a brighter future. But of course we’ve erected replacement walls, and unfortunately we always will. I think the purpose of my writing and many other blogs has to be the dismantling of walls. These ideological walls need to crumble.

NaPoWriMo/PAD 2016 Day 24

Tags

vitrectomy

For today’s prompt, write a poem in which something is lost and then regained. Maybe a relationship is lost and then regained, or a special keepsake. Maybe it was stolen and won back. Or maybe it was in your possession the whole time, but you just didn’t know it.

Lost and regained. I lost most of my vision in one eye for a month and got it back with surgery. It kind of took over my inspiration for the day. It wanted to go corny, so I let it.

Vitrectomy — the death of Smog

Come and meet Lady Galadriel, the wizardess of white light and see-through dresses
Easy to say when there’s no Smaug in your eye.
When everyone wears the gold ring, they all vanish

There’s no point in a sword, when there’s no enemy but you.
Gut yourself from the inside with finely burnished blades
Vorpal the dragon, fling open the gates
Let the white-robed magicians cast their incantations, absorb
their blinding lase and see the world, again
for what it used to be

Lancet Changing Time

Tags

diabetes, hepatitis, infection, lancet

When to change one’s lancet is a common question among diabetics around the world. The authorities, those diabetic nurses, educators, and various ‘-ologist’ nomenclature all suggest we change our lancets every use, and if you cheat, change them at least daily. Stories exist of radicals in the wild: those nonconformists who dare fate my extending the dates, by pushing the limits of their luck, of diabetics changing their lancets *ghast* weekly.

I will say weekly is wrong. We are at risk of infection. We are at risk of catching one of those invisible little varmints that live in our blood and if left to live without restraint will overrun our internal defenses like a Donald Trump protest. We will become inflamed, turn red, and succumb to nasty foreign fevers and maladies. Extending the life of lancets increases the chances of these devastating complications.

The trouble is, such infections just do not occur. I belong to many diabetes forums and groups. I pay attention to threads. I know many diabetics and have hundreds of virtual friends. I talk about such things with my doctors. I pester my endocrinologists with such questions. My extended anecdotal evidence suggests this hypothesis is true.

Our bodies defend well against such infection, but I think there is more. I suspect we become more attuned to defense with the introduction of foreign bodies. With extended abuse of our fingers through lanceting, by introducing infection after infection, our immune systems learn to repel these amphibious assaults. Lancet tips are also not exactly a penthouse suite for infectious freeloaders. These are sharp tips made of stainless steel. They are typically also shielded by covers. I have never seen lingering blood or suppurated scum on a tip.

There are dangers, though. There are dangers in sharing lancet devices. Never, never, never share a lancet with another person. Hepatitis B and ‘other’ infections are cautioned about by the CDC.  I don’t know how quantifiable the risk is, but I never have shared a lancet and neither should you. Some body fluids we share; blood is not one of them.

Lancets can also become dull. Let your lancet go a year, you might as well use thumbtacks. At least according to the images. I question how true these are; I question the significance of the need for perfect sharpness. Most diabetics will recommend to find your own changing frequencies based on pain. If it hurts more on the second try, then change them each use. If your fingers are chronically sore, then increase the frequency. Our fingers callous, like a guitar player’s. An experienced guitar player with calloused fingers can play all day and all night. A new player’s fingers would bleed long before that. Constant use increases your physical defenses and you can extend your changing times longer and longer. The bottom line on comfort is to experiment with depth settings and changing frequency to find your own comfort zone.

I am writing this post because we just changed our clocks. This is too infrequent for me. I prefer to change on the equinox. Those extra two weeks that have been added on are torture. Not really. I have used lancets over a year before. I have also changed after a month. It’s not something I worry about. It’s not something that has ever caused me trouble. “Oh, that was painful,” might trigger an unscheduled change. But to be safe, I try to change on the equinox, the 21st of March and the 21st of September. I have a week to get ready.

John

Bulletproof Coffee

Tags

blend, Bulletproof, butter, coconut oil, coffee

I’ve been saying for some time that I drink Bulletproof Coffee. What is Bulletproof Coffee? It is a term invented by Dave Asprey at Bulletproof Exec. It is basically a branded, high fat, low carb coffee.

My morning coffees have consisted of varying portions of whipping cream, butter, coconut oil, and palm oil. They keep me full until the afternoon. My blood sugars are near perfectly stable during this time. Amazing breakfasts.

I’ve been getting off track, all year really. I stopped taking Victoza in September, and since then I’ve gained ten pounds. The once in awhile cheat is now all too regular. My weight is up to 237 which is not good. My lowest in the last decade is 221. I need to reset my diet, get back on a wagon.

I decided to re-examine my coffees. Anecdotal evidence suggests I should see better results. I should not get so hungry at nights. I smelled a problem, so a couple of days ago, I decided to read David Asprey’s site. *whack* I’d never read it before. I just assumed he was doing what I was doing, and any differences were branding efforts — he is trying to make money off of this. I like making money as well as anybody, but let’s be real — it introduces bias. Sometimes fact can become distorted in the name of sales. I was skeptical of his efforts, so I never dived into his site.

Recipe: How to Make Your Coffee Bulletproof®…And Your Morning Too

The first thing I learned is that one should use unsalted butter.

*duh*

Yeah, whenever I use butter, salted, I cannot add more than a teaspoon per cup or it tastes yuck. It can be fixed with cocoa powder, but I don’t always want my coffee turning into an Irish Cream concoction. Easy fix. We have awesome butter in New Brunswick. This is dairy cow paradise. I picked up a pound of unsalted butter.

Dave uses some sort of fat he trademarked as BrainOctane. At the moment, for me, this is nothing more than high priced coconut oil. Fat is fat — yes, I know about different types of fat — and my gut says he cannot improve on nature. Maybe he can, but my wallet says no. I will investigate it though. MCT has been a popular term used in LC forums, but I have never seen the science. I continue to use coconut oil, and I am not hung up on its virginity.

The next difference was the cream. Dave Asprey claims that cream cancels out the antioxidants in the coffee. Possible. I’m not an antioxidant fanatic. I get enough of them in my veggies, herbs, and fruit. If I need cream for my coffee to taste good, I will keep using it. But for my first try, I omitted it. I reckoned I could always add some if I needed it.

Dave also claims the concoction needs to be blended. I suppose he hates the layers of film fats give to coffee. Fine, they never bother me. I don’t have a full-sized blender, but I do have a magic bullet.

Finally, Dave claims coffee beans matter. He claims industrial coffee beans are infected with mold and the toxins from the mold affect our health. Maybe. He does supply some science links. I always buy freshly roasted coffee anyway. It it moldy? Is it dangerous? I’m not sold. Wouldn’t authorities somewhere have raised concerns if this was the case? I don’t know, but I’ll bet Dave would argue they don’t because coffee is such a huge industry. All I want to do is laugh. Accuse with one hand and commit foul with the other? I am not mail-ordering my coffee. I want it fresh and local. Oxygen is a bigger threat to coffee than anything, and industrial coffee, even improved, is more oxidized than my fresh Java Moose coffee.

So I made a batch of BPC, as close as I could get anyway. I French Pressed some coffee, poured some of it into my Magic Bullet where six tablespoons of unsalted butter and a tablespoon of coconut oil waited for it. I blended it until fluffy, then poured both containers into my regular coffee pot (for warmth in my drip maker).

All I can say is wow. Seriously. It tasted fantabulous. The coffee flavour stood out, and the creamy, blended butter and oil made it as smooth as … butter.

The interesting part came at lunch time, 1:30ish in the afternoon. I was not hungry at all, but I wanted more coffee. I made another batch, and I ate a small bowl of Campbell’s beef and veggie soup the wife had made. BG was 5.something.

7:30p.m. I woke from a four hour nap. Not coffee related at all. I hardly slept the night before. My blood sugar read 3.7. I was not hungry.

And then I ate a plate of nachos and fucked up my evening.

*sigh*

At this moment, it’s 2:30 p.m. and I am finishing my second batch of the day. I am not hungry and I feel energetic. I feel clear. My lunchtime BG was 5.2. I am looking forward to my next batch. I am looking forward to getting back on track.

Thanks Dave. I am not a full believer in all you claim, yet, but I do believe in HFLC. Keep up the good work!

Grandma’s House

Tags

beer, coke, pepsi, popcorn

Poetic Asides Prompt #268

Just think, If you’ve been religiously following Robert Brewer’s blog since inception, you’d have written 268 weekly poems by now.

This week’s prompt contained multiple words. We only needed to use one of them.

toast
pop
right
paper
howl
little

Toast and pop brought me immediately to my grandmother’s little house on E. Front St. in Wauzeka Wisconsin. I have not been in it since maybe I was about eleven or twelve years old, 1972 or 1973. My brain cells from that era are AWOL. It wasn’t anything special. It was small and cramped, and its bathroom was always in shambles, but it had a yard with a chestnut tree in back and a line of climbable maples in the front. It had a large propane tank we could climb on and a garage we could get in trouble in. The backyard was annually flooded by the Kickapoo river which we were not allowed near. For good reason too. It was brown and deep and if you fell in, they likely wouldn’t find you until New Orleans. Pft! The black trains ran by at night, and our only other pastimes were watching TV and playing cards. The Rockford Files, the lowly Milwaukee Brewers, the state news, cribbage, Euchre, Crazy Eights, and later Bridge were rituals. Cousin Mike — Grandma raised my cousins — might play his record collection of Dylan, CCR, Jethro Tull or one of his innumerable more local records such as Mason Proffit’s “Come And Gone.”

Coke and Pepsi were staples, along with popcorn, chips, and the new Tang. One of my younger brothers called Coke Coca Cola pop and the other called Pepsi Pessi-Cola pop. We celebrated the treats like any good 70’s family and turned these names into car-chants and we drove down highways 14 and 133 from Madison for the weekend. Is it any wonder I became diabetic a few years later? Don’t even bother with your retort that sugar doesn’t cause diabetes. I am not sold on that defense.

Card playing was pushed as safe, family entertainment — which it is — and while smoking and alcohol were not front and center, they were not exactly hidden. They tended to come out later at night when kids were sleeping, and only when company were present, which they always seemed to be. The 70’s homes were much more social than today’s. Grandma was the school librarian and English teacher. Dad taught the Hornets music for a few years until moving on like most teachers did then. A couple of years ago I stopped to chat with an older tourist at the Saint John City Market who wore a Wisconsin shirt. Turns out he was a music teacher from Praire du Chien, a few miles away and knew him. I whipped out the cell phone and they chatted a bit before he headed back to his cruise ship. Small world, 2200 miles away.

Grandma’s house also had bats. She hated the little demons with a passion. Always tried to scare us with her story of swatting 300 of them one night with her broom. One would squeak into her kitchen through a little hole and just as its legs waddled through, *whap*, she would let it have it. 300 little black demons piled up on her kitchen floor in a Wauzeka legend. We three boys and cousins Mike and Danny would stand out at dusk with busted tennis racquets, splintered baseball bats, and rolled up Mad Magazines and try to bash the little buggers as they orbited the house. Then we’d wail on each other until the referees jumped in, bathed us, and send us to he kitchen for card playing lessons — they taught us how to play, and we thought we were teaching them our own wisdom. Eventually family friends, fellow teachers, sweaty old farmers, and perhaps a local farm laborer dad had befriended, would trundle in with their beer, chips, and maybe a bottle of whisky which would be hidden until we disappeared to bed. The kitchen would soon fill with bodies, stories, and laughter. As young heads nodded and chairs became scarce, off we’d go to our beds upstairs.

Grandma’s house means bats
The little black screechers invade every summer evening
And we little ones howled all the way to bed
Until we learned how to play cards
Until we showed we could win at crazy eights or dirty clubs
We had to go to bed before the serious fun started
A kitchen full of grown-ups eating popcorn and drinking
Coca-Cola pop, Old Milwaukee, or that other stuff they wouldn’t
Bring out until we finally went to sleep
And even when we snuck down to peek
We were too young to read its dark, mysterious label
On that shiny, large clear bottle
We were pretty sure we saw its cousins lying shattered in a ditch

Am I Getting Enough Glucose?

One of the main objections with ketogenic diets is that they do not supply enough glucose for the body. Objectors claim that glucose is our main fuel, and if we do not get enough of it, our brain, heart, organs, and even muscle will shrivel up and die. They do not exactly say shrivel up and die. They just say it is bad. The truth seems to be they do not know the exact impacts. Why? Because the events have never happened.

People on hunger strikes do not generally succumb to brain and organ atrophy. There are many cases of people lasting many weeks with no food; yet their brains continue to function. Where do they get their glucose? We do store glucose in the form of glycogen. Ask a marathoner how long their glycogen store lasts. Not long enough to finish a marathon, usually. So how can it carry a person weeks through a hunger strike? How did so many Jews survive concentration camps?

Protein. 58% of protein will be converted to glucose. Yes, the number is in doubt, but that is not really relevant. Our daily carbohydrate need is estimated at between 80g and 120g a day. If you are on a 2,000 calorie diet and eat 20% of it as protein, that’s 400 calories / 4 * 58% or 58g of carbs.

Fat also contains glucose. True. Fat lives in the form of triglycerides, three fatty acids and a glycerol or sugar. About 10% of fat becomes carbohydrate. 1600 calories / 4 * .1 = 40g.

So before we eat any plant food at all, we have 98g of carbohydrates in our diet. Most of us on ketogenic diets eat about 50g of carbohydrates a day. Dr. Bernstein recommends 30g, so will go with that conservative number. It is pretty hard not to eat 30g of carbs a day. 58 + 40 + 30 = 128g. Bingo!

Yah, but.

Yeah, when we starve, our bodies will convert fat and protein to enough glucose for our vital parts.

“How often does your sugar go too low on a ketogenic diet?” John asks.
“How is that relevant?”
“If you have sufficient glucose in your bloodstream, your brain, heart, and organs are getting enough. It is like a gas gauge in a car. You cannot see your gas tank or your engine using the fuel, so how do you know there is enough? You look at a gas gauge. If there is sugar in our bloodstreams, our body is being fueled.”
“Yah, but if I don’t eat any carbs, and my glycogen runs out, my body will have to use its own protein.”
“People who starve get very thin, but the muscles atrophy before the organs fail.”
“Yah, but my dietitian says … ”
“Your dietitian might suffer from reactive hypoglycemia. It could explain her inability to use her brain.”

Reactive hypoglycemia is an ironic condition. It occurs when someone eats too much sugar, gets too steep a rise in blood sugars and their body responds with a large insulin response. Unlike a fibrous food, this sugar spike is short-lived. It shoots blood glucose sky-high but does not follow-up with more. A sweet potato on the other hand will also spike blood sugar, but it will keep adding sugar as much of it is entrapped in the fibre. Hopefully the large amount of butter you added also slows down the absorption. The result is a less intense insulin response and a closer time matching. In the case of the pure sugar consumer, the insulin will quickly drive down the blood sugar, but the insulin will linger, expecting follow-up sugar like “real food” will supply. Blood sugar drops below normal and the vital body parts go hungry. Trust me when I say that hypoglycemia affects your brain. I have experienced hundreds of diabetes related hypos, and you do not want to be doing anything dangerous when it happens. I truly am lucky to be alive today.

Yeah, I recommend at least 20% of your calories come from protein. Muscle repair is a constant need, and lets not kid ourselves. With less glucose in the pipeline, the pressure on gluconeogenesis to eat our muscle mass may actually be greater. That too doesn’t make complete sense to me, but nevertheless, eat your protein.

I just don’t see ketogenic eaters suffering from hypoglycemia. Sorry, but I don’t. And I don’t myself. I’ve never come close to it, even when fasting. And here’s the kicker for me. I perform much, much better aerobically and anaerobically when I eat ketogenically. I am too old and too lazy to test intense workouts, but when I walk, jog, lift weights, play hockey, or hike through the woods, I have done a million percent better [apologies for the Minaj mimic].

The worry that we do not get enough glucose in ketogenic diets is bogus in my mind.

Recent Writings — Canada Writes Creative Non-fiction

Tags

Canada Writes, contest, Creative Non-fiction, editing, Writing

I spent most of the six weeks ending January 31st on an entry for Canada Writes’ Creative Non-fiction contest. I’ve had this story in me for a while, and it was past time to let it out.

I canned my first draft. I regurgitated all the facts — a good exercise — but it was a very telling narrative: this happened then that happened. Facts, no creativity. I read some previous winners and some of the site’s articles on how to write these stories. I quickly saw what I had to do and I did it. *bang* 1987 words. The limit is 1500. I quickly pared it down to 1499 and took it to my January 5th writing group brunch where I read it.

“Wow!” times seven.

I knew the wows were deserved, but they were for the content, not the prose. How do I know that? Because all of my unedited prose stinks. I knew the content. I knew I had been through hell and I knew I’d captured enough of that experience with my words. But I knew it wasn’t crisp prose. I knew I needed to work at getting it to where it needed to be.

I must have edited it every day over those next ten days. I’d read it, mark it with red pen, and correct the document. I’d say to myself “it’s just about finished.” The next day I’d repeat the process. It was like errors fell from the sky and landed inside my computer. I thought my systems must have caught an error generating worm. On many days I found many more changes that needed to be made than the previous day. I wondered if I’d every find the right words.

On Wednesday January 16th I read it again at a weekly writing get-together at our main library branch. There were six of us, and two were at my first reading. I didn’t get any wows, but I did get a “that’s much tighter.” It still felt loose to me. I decided to shelve it for a bit.

The next Monday I pulled it out and a new set of problems showed themselves. I had number formatting consistency problems. I repeated a few ideas. I found repeated words. I found ideas that weren’t fleshed out completely — “this happened.” But what the hell is “this?” — and I found foreshadowing inconsistent with the actual events — I began with the concept of clean water but didn’t end it with dirty water, not explicitly. *water is a euphemism*

I felt like it was getting close to complete, but issues kept surfacing. I decided to look at it only every second day. On January 30th I spent all day downtown. I pulled it out at Starbucks and read through it with my red pen. I didn’t take the cover off. A friend joined me. Jon is a big reader with a sharp mind, a chess master. I know he was taken by my story, and of course it put him on the defensive. My story does that to you unless you know my experiences. Nobody has known; which is why I wrote it. My daughter called it scary. Jon and I have a fairly deep, respectful relationship only old kindred friends can have. He held off any emotions and gave me several points of feedback he knew I wanted: “I liked how this ties into that. I like this description. I like how …” I like are good words. I ignored them.

I read it again on January 31st. I liked it all. I said wow. I paid the $25 and submitted it. I don’t really care if it wins. I wrote my story, and people will read it. I’m proud of the piece, and I want people to read it. If it doesn’t win, I will publish it myself, somewhere, maybe here. If I publish it first, I can’t win, and $6,000 and a two-week trip to the Banff writing centre are too much to risk.

Weight Training – 1st plateau reached

Tags

rest, sleep, weight training; bill reynolds; progression; diabetes; muscle;

I am not an expert weight trainer by any stretch of the definition. When you read about it, articles often cover the idea of plateaus. A plateau in this context is a period or state of little or no growth or decline: to reach a plateau in one’s career. I can’t say I’ve reached a true plateau 11 sessions into my training. That would indicate I’ve done something very wrong. It’s more accurate to call it a resistance point: I’ve reached the level where every exercise is now difficult and they push me to failure.

As a refresher, my ten main exercises are Squat, Leg Extensions, Leg Curls, Calf Raises, Bench Press, Barbell Bent Rows, Overhead or Military Press, Upright Rows, Bicep Curls, and Tricep Curls. It’s a full body workout which focuses on volume over weight. My Bill Reynolds beginner book prescribes various repetitions. Some are 6-10, others 10-12, and still others are 12-15. Each week I progress the weight or the reps. When I add weight, I lower the reps. I’ve been doing 20 reps for squats, but I’m now at a weight where that’s just too much, so I’m dropping back to 15 max.

My goal is three months of training to build u a core of strength. My longer term goal is to add muscle for the real objectives of health, weight loss, and performance. My doctors all say I need to exercise more, and they won’t help me with weight loss until I do. So I am. I’ve gained three pounds this past month, hopefully all muscle.

My experiences say there are three phases when beginning a training program from scratch.

1. Stiffness – the first sessions should be very light to get the muscles used to the new stresses.
2. Finding the limits – we want to train to just about failure, but if you start too high, you’ll run into some very tough workouts that will over-stress your body and possibly lead to injury.
3. The zone – we’re doing fairly high reps with fairly low weight and the last reps are at or just about at failure

I’ve just reached step three after eleven sessions. I’m now in the working zone. Phase one was surprisingly brief. At past attempts, the first sessions would just about kill me, and we’re not talking big weight at all. This round I was arguably in the worse muscular shape of my life, yet I was barely stiff at all. I admit I had been working in the yard in the weeks leading up: stacking two cord of wood, weeding the garden, and trimming some evergreen trees. The wood probably served as a nice break-in. I’ll say phase 1 lasted three sessions and phase 2 seven sessions. I just completed session eleven.

I’ll throw some images at you, with sparse comments.

This graph breaks down my effort by total weight lifted. I’ll argue it doesn’t accurately measure strength or muscle gain, but I’m not picky. In my last session I lifted 23,282.5 pounds of weights in 100 minutes. The previous session I lifted 24,195, but I was stronger before my last session. The red line represents my lower body exercises and the green my upper body ones.

Squats use the biggest muscles and make up by far the biggest chunk of weight I move. 140 pounds is still very light, but I can feel it. I can feel it through the next day too. My thighs, but, calves, hamstrings are all getting tighter and more muscular. Add leg extensions, leg curls, and calf raises, and I get a burn that lasts. I love squats, and I feel awesome when I do them and after I do them. I have squatted 350 pounds in my home gym in previous, younger years. I don’t plan on pushing that level, not for a long time anyway, and probably not alone at home. I say probably because weight training can be addictive.

I prefer laying triceps extensions, but I do these instead with a curl-bar. This progression illustrates more how I will be proceeding from now on. It will be slow. I will add a few reps each session, and when I get to 12, 12, and 12, I will add weight and drop back to 8,8,8 or maybe 10,10,10, depending on weight added and how stressed I really was. My work graphs will proceed up but not as fast. It always amazes me that I feel like dying with the final rep, yet the next session I move past it rather easily. The secret to these beginning programs really is steady, mechanical progression tested by your failure points.

I work out three times a week: Friday, Sunday, and Wednesday. You really do need the rest, and that extra day is important. Good nutrition and good sleeps are important too.

Changes

Tags

author, character, diabetes, focus, novel, personality, plot, riptide, story, theme, unemployment, Writing

You can read David Bowie’s lyrics here and listen to his song here.

I’ve seen a lot of changes in my life. I’ve described this diabetes affliction as a ball and chain, an inhibitor of change. I’ve drug the thing around for nearly 37 years, and yes, it is a heavy burden. But I’ve moved forward. I no longer live with unknown blood sugars, hopelessness, 911 calls, constant late night hypos, or fear. Yes, those were the days prior to me pumping, prior to June 26, 2006. I’ve made major changes in my own health care. I’m now my doctors’ best patient. They shake their heads when I leave the room. I still carry the ball and chain, but I swing it like a grandfather watch. I look at it and ask it what time it is, and I slide it in my pocket as the master of a business empire might.

No, things are not now perfect, but they’re good. I have much more focus and much more confidence. I now call myself one of Canada’s best read authors based on my correspondence in various diabetes forums. I’ve made well over 15,000 posts, some of them quite lengthy. Even a mere 100 words each comes out to 1,500,000 words. Some have been read tens of thousands of times, some over a hundred thousand. That many posts times 1,000 reads each is 15 million reads. If this was my novel writing, I’d be rich and famous. I’m obscure at best. Many posts are fluff, but most are serious. I have fans. People have told me I’ve saved their life. I’ve told people they’ve saved my life, and they have. Their words have. The words they spoke when I asked the right questions. The questions I asked when I changed my attitude. The answers I finally heard when I began listening to others, the real experts, the other diabetics out there seeking help, seeking change.

I’ve learned to write, at least that’s what I tell myself. I am a type B personality. I am the furthest person on the scale my university organizational behavior professor had ever seen. I wish I could remember her name. She was hot. She wasn’t hot in the entertainment sense; she was hot as a person. She was strong, confident, yes she was good looking, but she moved forward with power and grace. She was not a woman young men ogled over. She was a woman young men feared. When she walked through the halls full of students, she didn’t fit in. She stood out gracefully. She never smiled in the halls. In class I could feel her words, her message: learn your own strengths; learn to change. I nearly failed that course. I found it distasteful to surgically categorize people, yet I loved it. It’s the one course in business school I use almost all the time when writing fiction: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Herzberg’s Dual-Factor Theory, and Vroom’s Expectancy Theory of Motivation stay with me. Dr. Stuart-Koetze’s textbook is the only one left on my shelf. Oh how that shelf has changed over the years too [blog idea alert]. I learned that I need to communicate. I love working on teams with people. I hate sitting alone working on a project — that didn’t sound right for a writer. I also learned I don’t lead by talking. My ideas come to the surface slowly. They perk like a good cup of Folgers, and my ideas are good to the clichéd last drop. Writing suits my soul. I love sitting alone working on a project when I’m tapped into my mind, when I’m free to let my ideas flow. I do think it’s my strength.

I have never looked negatively on change. I look negatively on stagnancy, even though I’m guilty of wearing boots unfit for trudging in mud. I’m a type B personality. I don’t create change for the sake of change; I simply ride the waves and enjoy the ride, trying to steer my board to a beach rather than rocks. I’m good at riding waves, not at finding new, better waves.

And now I’m faced with a new change in my life. I am no longer employed with the firm that employed me yesterday. Technically I still am, but I’m free to stay home and write blogs, drink rum, and play computer games. It’s not a change I’m upset about. It was expected. We used to be a shop of 150 and now about 30. I’m one of the last to go. I’m happy to be moving forward. I admit I needed a push. I have no idea what I want the new wave to look like or go, no, yes I do know. But that approach, that stretch of sand is filled with big, scary sharks and sharp rocks. It’s almost assured I will crash and be swept out to see, a casualty of this wave called life. I want to write. I want to be a writer. I remind myself it’s not the beach that’s important but the wave. It’s the words and ideas and self expression that matter, nothing else.

I can carry this attitude for a while; then I will have to find new employment. Joy. It’s tough writing these words; because, well, I am not a writer. I have no training, no experience, no supporters. When I tell people I’m writing a novel I get the standard “that’s nice John, but what are you really doing with your life” look. My wife is afraid to read it. She’s afraid of breaking John’s heart. My writing group nods passively — I don’t know if they really like it or if they don’t want to upset me with criticism. My friends think I’m just crazy. Novelists don’t make money; they don’t support their family; they have no hope for success. I admit I’m no Stephen King or Ken Follett. I have an impossible task in front of me.

This writing business is a real ball and chain. It’s not the same burden as diabetes. It’s a load I choose to carry. This is not a culmination of a life of experience; it’s merely another fad hobby in John’s life. It’s not hockey [midget AAA]; it’s not chess [CFC 1900 class A]; and it’s not photography. My infatuation will end like all my other diversions have ended. I no longer play hockey or chess. I no longer photograph much. I could drop writing just like that, couldn’t I? I have said over the years that I have a peculiar strength: I can see patterns others can’t. Playing hockey I could see the whole ice and the movement of every player. I had hands of stone, though. In chess I saw more forces at work than most players could see. I’ve surprised masters with my analysis. I’ve beaten a master. Yet I couldn’t easily see the straight route to the king. I find photography a natural fit. I let the lines and shapes fall into position on their own, yet photographing people posing for the shot is a completely mind-boggling task. I really think my strengths are suited to writing: I can see the plots, themes, motivations, tensions, etc. I am also not suited to writing. My focus on the complex story often leaves good writing technique drowning in a riptide as I walk along looking for shells and lost coins.

I wrote last night, and I think I wrote well. I now have 92,201 first draft quality words with 15,492 left to work through. I am planning on making the time over the next weeks to finish a draft of this thing ahead of schedule, get my wife to read it, then if she doesn’t die from embarrassment, get someone qualified in vetting stories to read it. I have two people in mind, both have suggested they are willing to help. But I need some feedback soon, and I need to get this weight off my shoulders. I also need cup of coffee number two and a shower.

Later.

*One of the drivers of wanting to complete this story is its potential commercial viability. I’ll be honest here: such thinking is wrong. I’m writing these words largely to expel them from my head; because they do not belong in a writer’s head. But it’s a big, attractive story. It’s a story any adult in Canada would turn their head at, and I can’t find any equivalents in my head. It’s not a fluffy character-based story where the plot needs to be extracted and can only be seen at the end. My story is not on the level of Harry Potter or Lord Of The Rings. I’m not that pretentious. The Grapes of Wrath comes to mind: it’s a national story, a story everybody will immediately recognize, but it’s a story with attractive bling not dusty destitution. I won’t claim the writing matches the story. I will need an expensive editor. I may need a new author.

Weekend At The Cottage

Tags

cottage, friends, huggable, nubile, Writing

We spent the weekend at a friend’s cottage along the Northumberland Strait in Nova Scotia, just east of Rushton’s Beach if you can find it on a map. The water was warm, the beer cold, and the 30 or so friends all friendly. We smoked some huge pieces of meat, played games, talked, and just vegged out.

I thought a bit about my writing and how I want to proceed. These casual discussions told me I’m not perceived as a writer, not by my wife, not by my friends, not by anybody but people who have heard me read.

Ah, a key piece of the puzzle. People need to read my writing. It’s a scary thought, though. I’ve been pounding the idea into my head for the last couple of years that I can write, that I do write, and that I should write, write for fame, and fortune, write to make a difference, write to write. I don’t know if I believe these purposes or not, but the last one sticks out whenever I think about it. It pops its head up like a previously sleeping dog smelling a plate of pulled pork entering a room. I need to write for the sake of writing.

Looking back over the year since last November I think I can say I have written. I expanded my current story from 52k words to a current 105k, and this effort involved ditching completely probably 50k words. I’ve written a lot of poetry too. I can’t honestly call it poetry, though. It’s more like prose-poetry, to me. Still, it’s creative. I’ve spent the majority of my writing time editing: massaging my prose. It’s hard work. It is creative work too, but it’s harder. It’s different.

A meal alone is different than a meal with friends. The extra food I took home will taste good, but it won’t taste as good as it did straight out of the oven and shared with 30 huggable people. And Ross, nubility does not apply.

By the way, my blood sugars stayed perfect, and I didn’t get drunk enough to fall down.

Writing is similar. There’s creatively juicy writing and businessy polished writing. I feel my creative juices flowing right now. I have an urge to write

The problem is I have story already to begin for NaNoWriMo. If I dig into it now, I’ll need a new story for November. It may also put my current editing on the shelve. I don’t like that idea; I may never get it off. But then again, maybe this creative outlet will help me with my editing. Maybe It will satisfy the urges enough for me to be able to sit down with my business focus.

Steven King does it, so why can’t I? The King works on two projects: one during the day and one in the evening. One is a new write and the other an edit. He can pay for his time, though. I can’t. I need to be a little more frugal.

Maybe I can try writing new stories one or two nights a week. Maybe that will be enough to whet the appetite and motivate me to edit more. Feed creativity with creativity.

Heck, what’s the worry? I’m a  writer. It’s only writing.