This entry's title is from a tune that popped in my head this morning as I cleaned out the pool skimmer basket and fired off the filter. The great thing about being in my backyard looking out toward Yale Rd is that it is at the crossroads of the present and my beloved past—it is nostalgic!

Thus, this Steely D song surfaces. And it lines up with my return...

To Do

The Expeditions are back! My jibber-jabbering about weight and fitness is back! Look, I know how to win; I've exhibited how to lose 150 lbs. I want to lose weight again. And This Is How We Do It:

• Daily Beef
• Daily Bacon
• Iced Whole Bean Coffee with Butter
• 200g+ of Fat; 75g of Protein

A year ago today, I blew up my 637-day diet streak. "On this day..." I Begin Again. "On this time, I can make it right with one more try."

Things to Avoid at All Costs! Got the Scars to Show.

• Heavy Whipping Cream!
• Food Application to the Past Rather Than Toward the Future!
• Existential Questions!
• Flavored Coffee!

Why is flavored coffee bad? Either a) it reminds a fella about carbs and/or b) it has a chemical aftertaste so that I don't wanna drink thereby I don't get my fat req's in, which is foundational to my success.

The Past's Anthem...Today

YouTube Link

The haunting rumble of a BNSF diesel resonates through my mind. Its 3 AM scream into the night parallels the corridor of my mind, along the sacrosanct stretches of interstate. My eyes sweep across the horizon to encounter "the moon rose over an open field", but my memory "swears the moon don't hang quite as high as it used to."

I persist in wadding up this site and tossing it into digital oblivion. After a few days, I will dive into the dumpster and root around for all of these old papers. Is there any present value in these things? This collection of hyperlinks and p tags is from a different time, whether the macro, an era of the Internet from decades ago, or the micro, the drive behind my posts—"And I must be what I must be and face tomorrow."

I guess I keep it up because I seek a bridge to how things used to be. I remember those days, the things I did, how the world was. I miss those autumns of yesteryear, but I recognize that it is gone forevermore, replaced by the frogs facing a fateful flood atop fangs of flame. Simply, it blows my mind as to how inauthentic today is—have you forgotten? As it has been said, "People are always telling you that change is a good thing. But all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all...has happened."

YouTube Link

A thought this morning: there may be value in exploring substitute goods as a way to mitigate the costs of emotional/escapism eating. What delivers the same results at a lower cost? (I am not speaking in terms of dollars.) And clearly to reinforce that new behavior, what complementary goods are in play? We do that all the time even if we do not label them as such.

Of course, the above is more of a reactionary approach. What if we identify and resolve our reaction to the issue that shoves us into the fridge? And maybe we cannot shake it and hence the above Kung Fu redirection.

This is nothing new and it amuses me to think I'm walking outside and saying...

"Look the Sun is good for you, not the cave! Put that cudgel down, Igor!"

"Eat our ancestral ready-to-eat meaty meals and not those Post Grape-Nuts in a box! Postum's wheat bran and molasses fail as a healthy alternative for coffee—if it was in the grocery sack on the seat of My DeLorean, it would have have never driven the change of the Industrial Revolution!"

"We are meant to live and not be governed by some arbitrary numbers written down on a clipboard by some fella schmoozing it up while on the prowl for the next bubblacious blonde at a medical conference in Vegas!"

Maybe all of this, the theme that ties everything together, is authenticity. Folks just aren't believable. But, what application is here for me?

In this space where others aren't what they appear to be, I can be me. Have I been authentic? Or better yet, where have I felt the most alive? Perhaps that's the true measure of authenticity, inasmuch as that fella I'm left alone to see in the mirror each morning. I look back to that time, way back in Plzeň, upon the threshold of adventure and what I was to be. These REM words resonated within me in that moment: "This place needs me here to start; this place is the beat of my heart."

I hear those old albums and feel the ache of what never was. Oh, Miniver Cheevy, what is in your fridge?