Cats Are Strange

It’s been a while since I’ve written about our cats. I know that disappoints many of you, so let me remedy that now.

Our cats are strange.

During the summer, we keep a window open for them so that they can go in and out at will. Last year, this window was in the dining room, and all of the cats (except Toto, who is old and frail) used it. The window was like a cat highway, with furry beasts shuffling in and out at all hours.

We did the same thing this year, but opened a window at the back of the house. Nemo — who I usually think of as stupid — is perfectly happy with this. He jumps in and out whenever he wants (although usually he’s asleep on the bed, or tormenting Max). But Simon? Simon won’t jump out the window. He’ll come in the window, but he refuses to go out, even if we carry him to it. He wants to go out a door. And Max? Max refuses to jump in the window. He’ll jump out the window, but even if we carry him to the back porch, he won’t jump in. Goofy beasts.

Meanwhile, Nemo is a complete jerk to Max. They used to get along great, but somewhere along the way, Nemo scared Max, and now it’s this terrible, terrible relationship. When Nemo sees Max, he bolts at him, and tries to take him down. Kris thinks Nemo is playing, and this is probably true (though he does use his claws), but Max doesn’t think it’s play. Max is truly frightened, and he cowers or runs away. In fact, he often runs out into the street. Nemo chases him straight out the door to the edge of the property, stopping to let Max cross to the neighbor’s yard.

While all this is going on, Toto isn’t dying. She was dying earlier in the summer, but she seems to have recovered. Now she’s just a colossal pest. I had been cuddling with her a lot because I love her and was sad that she’d soon be gone. Well, now she wants that all of the time. In fact, she just got up from her heating pad and ambled over to me at my keyboard, and she’s paw-paw-pawing my face, asking for me to pet her. She wants me all of the time.

On the food front, I’ve been feeding Toto wet food. She loves the food when it’s a new can and the food is warm. But if it’s been in the fridge? Or is a couple of days old? No way. She won’t eat it. Max will eat it, though. He’ll eat anything. That cat is a garbage disposal. Almost literally. He spends a lot of time in the kitchen sink, pulling out the rubber stopper that leads to the disposal, and then he’ll dig around inside to see if he can find any good morsels. What a meatball! Simon, who used to not like wet food, has decided that it’s actually pretty good stuff. He scavengers for anything Toto and Max haven’t eaten. And Nemo? Well, Nemo never eats anything. He always begs for fresh dry food in his bowl (never mind that the bowl is full and that the stuff in the bin is no fresher than the stuff that’s already out), but then he only eats a few morsels before tracking down Maxwell to thump on.

Goofy animals.

Stuck in a Moment

I’ve been stuck in a strange mental place for the past month, and I can’t seem to get out of it. During the second weekend of July, I traveled to Breckenridge, Colorado to be a speaker at a blogging conference. I had a great time and I learned a lot, but was relieved when the conference was over — it was the last large commitment looming on the horizon.

The following weekend, I met a life-long goal: I biked 100 miles in a day. I was a little short on training before the ride (having logged only 500 miles), but I felt fit. My weight loss was on-track, and I was exercising nearly every day, sometimes for hours at a time.

The first half of the century ride was, theoretically, the most difficult; it had all of the elevation gain. But I loved it. When I stopped for lunch at the 54-mile mark, I felt great. I felt like I could ride forever. Ha!

Unfortunately, the next 46 miles weren’t as easy as I thought they’d be. Sure the terrain was flat-ish, but I hadn’t counted on the wind. (As most bikers will tell you, we’d much rather bike uphill against a visible enemy than to bike into the wind against an invisible enemy.) Plus, the sun came out from behind the clouds and beat down on me with what seemed like searing coals of rage. Plus, whereas there were water stops ever ten miles in the first half of the course, there were only two water stops on the second half, with a gap of 28 miles between lunch and the first stop. Ugh.

I finished my 100-mile ride, but I did so a broken man. I was exhausted. I was sunburned. I was in pain. I was mentally shattered, and to such an extent that I still haven’t really recovered.

I’m not kidding.

In the month since that ride, I’ve biked a total of 73 miles, including a 53-mile ride from home to the box factory and back. (That ride included a nasty hill climb into the back side of Oregon City, which just made me even more resistant to get on a bike.)

Worse, my diet has been terrible since the century ride. Well, that’s not true. Mostly, my diet is fine. I’m eating lean protein and fruit and vegetables about 75% of the time. But it’s the other 25% of the time that’s frustrating me.

Take today, for example. I was exhausted, so I slept late, which meant I missed my Crossfit workout for the second time this week. When I woke, I craved donuts. I mean I craved donuts: It’s almost an ache for an apple fritter. Several days over the past month, I’ve caved; I’ve driven to get donuts. (Come on, at least I could walk or bike!) I’ve also eaten ice cream sundaes and other junk. Again, not a lot of it, but enough.

As a result, my weight has stayed very stead for the past thirty days. I’m not gaining weight because I’m still doing Crossfit four or five times a week. But I’m not losing weight, either, and my body composition has stayed roughly the same (25% fat, 35% muscle). This would be fine if I’d reached my target weight and body, but I haven’t. I still have a ways to go.

And another thing: Along with my physical stagnation has come a sort of mental stagnation. For the past month, I’ve been worthless at the office. I find it difficult to write about anything. I stare at the screen for hours, surfing aimlessly. It’s as if I’ve checked out of life. I don’t like it.

Again, this all goes back to Cycle Oregon Weekend and the 100-mile ride. It all started then. (I can even trace it to a particular stretch of road where I just sort of snapped. I was biking into the wind on a long never-ending straight-away and the sun was beating down and I was thirsty and I knew I had 30 more miles to ride before I was finished.)

So, what’s the point of all this? I’m not sure. I feel like I just need to get this out there so that other people know I’m stuck. Paul Jolstead saw it early on — within days of the ride — so he walked to lunch with me one day and we chatted. Kris is very aware of it, but doesn’t really know what to do about it. I don’t know either.

I’m trying to make slow progress by regimenting my life. I’m making lists of things that need to be done, and I’m trying to use my calendar extensively. This is working…sort of. I’m also doing my best to clean everything around me. I’ve heard that an ordered environment fosters and ordered mind, and in my case, I’ve found that’s true. So, I’m trying to keep things tidy.

But the real key is for me to start doing the right thing. When I crave donuts, I need to eat something else. In April, I adopted a policy that if I craved something bad for me, I could give my permission to eat anything in the world that I wanted that was healthy. So, instead of donuts for breakfast, I’d have a filet mignon for breakfast. Expensive, yes, but much better for me, and strangely satisfying. And I need to attack my to-do list with vigor.

What about today? I woke late and missed Crossfit, and I’ve had a palpable urge to eat two or three donuts. Well, I think I’ve found a solution. I still haven’t eaten breakfast (it’s 10:11 am), but as soon as I finish writing this, I’m going into the kitchen and I’m serving myself some roast chicken and watermelon. No, it’s not donuts, but I’ll be happy once my belly’s full. And then, at 11am, I’m going to get on my stupid bike and I’m going to ride to Lake Oswego for the noon class at Crossfit.

This won’t bring me any closer to getting my other tasks done, of course, but it will be a mental victory. And right now, that’s what I need. I need a bunch of mental victories so that I can get out of this funk I’ve been stewing in for the past thirty days.

Update: It’s been nearly an ideal past four hours since I posted this. I ate a breakfast of grilled chicken and salsa, with some cherries on the side. Then I got on my bike and pedaled ten miles to the gym, taking the cemetery route for the first time in two weeks (That means a 1.5-mile steep hill.) I did the Crossfit workout: back squats, hand stands, and some very clumsy L-sits/tucks. Then I biked ten miles home. Now I’m eating an apple and some ham. I’m at the office now, and I stink — I can barely stand to be in the same room with myself! — but I’m a lot happier than I was this morning.

Jane Austen’s Fight Club

I love it when two great (but unrelated) things get mashed together. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Jane Austen’s Fight Club.

It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty damn close. (For those of you who need some context: Fight Club is one of my favorite movies, and not because of the fighting — it’s about much much more than that. I think you can figure the Jane Austen stuff out for yourself.)

Why I Love Crossfit (part 3)

All my life, I’ve been the proverbial 98-pound weakling. I’m still no great shakes (something like a 185-pound weakling, I guess), but Crossfit has made me stronger than I’ve ever been in my life.

Just now, as I was outside mowing the lawn, I decided to do some push-ups. Usually when I try to do push-ups, I can do three. Tonight I busted out twenty good push-ups in a row, stood up, and walked to the mower without breaking a sweat.

I love Crossfit because it’s making me a stronger man than I ever thought I could be.

Yes, I know. Twenty push-ups is nothing to some of you. That’s fine. As I say, to me, twenty push-ups is amazing. And to do twenty without stopping? Unbelievable. I know a lot of people don’t like Crossfit because they think it’s too hard-core, etc. I don’t care. To me, it’s an amazing regimen that is helping me build strength and confidence.

Three months ago, I couldn’t do a pull-up. I could only do thee push-ups at a time. I weighed 203+. Today, I can almost do a pull-up (I need the blue band to assist me). I can do twenty push-ups at a time. And I weigh 185. (Actually, I weighed in at 183.2 this morning, but I think that was an anomaly.)

Have I turned into a Crossfit evangelist? If so, it’s only because it works. After I finish mowing the lawn, I’m going to jump rope — just for fun.

The Value of Relationships and Experiential Truth

Sometimes Kris wonders why I’m so easy-going, or why I don’t care passionately about politics like she does. Or a blog reader will wonder why I don’t get uptight about a comment. Or a friend asks why I don’t stand up for what I believe in. I’ve never been able to articulate it until now.

Colinmarshall recent posted this (awesome) Ask Metafilter question:

What in life did it take you a surprisingly long time to realize you’ve been doing wrong all along?

This question generated 750 responses from all over the map, both practical and philosophical. The response that resonated with me — the one that clarified for me why I’ve come to value relationships more than being right, than finding Absolute Truth — comes from joost de vries:

What I used to do wrong when I as younger is that I thought Truth was much more important than it is.

Yes, I could demolish a lot of positions by holding them up to the harsh glaring light of objective eternal truth. Hardly anything measures up actually. But then nothing much is left.

My discovery was that I realized that for me this seeking of ‘eternal truth’ had emotional and social underpinnings. Being happy and engaged with people would obviate the paramount need for logical truth.

Another take on this is that logic shows inconsistencies perhaps but can’t say anything about what is of value. What is of value is necessarily founded on subjective emotion and experience and thus inextricably linked with dependent truth, inconsistencies, experiential truths. Those people whose logic I criticized were much better in reasoning in this experiential logic than I was. I came to the conclusion that this kind of reasoning is an essential life skill to have a fulfilling life and that I had a lot to learn.

In other words: It’s better to be happy and have friends than it is to be right. Especially if what is “right” changes as you age.

This is why my personal motto is do what works for you. I really don’t believe there’s One True Way to anything. If you want to be Christian, be Christian. If you want to be Muslim, be Muslim. If you want to be atheist, be atheist. Choose the political party that makes you happy.

It saddens me when people feel the need to evangelize their positions, especially to the point that they say and do hateful things. What’s the point? What does that add to life?

The older I get, the more joy I get out of personal interaction, out of spending time with people of all ways of thought. What does it matter if my personal convictions are different than theirs? I can still learn from them and laugh with them. And it’s the learning and laughing that are important.

My Life as a Blogger

I’m in Breckenridge, Colorado this weekend, high in the Rocky Mountains. I’m presenting at the Savvy Blogging Summit, which is a gathering of ~65 amazing women bloggers (and Alex, the token man). I’m honored to have been asked to present on Building Community and Effective Monetization. I also gave the keynote talk last night, and though such a thing is far outside my comfort zone, I had fun. Here’s the written version of the talk (which is a bit different than the version I gave).

I started my first blog on 16 August 1997. I didn’t call it a blog — that word hadn’t been invented yet — I called it a web journal. I’d been reading other web journals for about a year, and I’d had a personal web page since 1994. Because I was a young man who wanted to be a writer, and because I was a young man who loved computers, starting a web journal seemed to make perfect sense.

The Olden Days

For two years, I participated in what is now a sort of blogging joke: I wrote about what I ate for lunch. And for dinner. And for breakfast. I used my web journal to track my fitness. Then, as now, I struggled with my weight, and I figured a web journal might provide some accountability. It worked. Even though my web journal only had a handful of readers, they’d e-mail me to comment on my progress. Using this web journal, I lost 40 pounds.

I kept a web journal on and off for the next couple of years. Gradually, I wrote less and less about diet and exercise, and more and more about my daily life. I found that I enjoyed writing for the web, and other people seemed to like what I wrote.

It was tough going, though. In the olden days, we didn’t have blogging tools like WordPress and Moveable Type. If we wanted to keep a web journal, we had to update it by hand. Today, we just type in our text, press “publish”, and we’re golden. But back then, we had to write the HTML to format every page. We had to build our archives by hand, and update them every day. It was a lot of work, and it was a colossal pain in the butt! How many of you would like to hand-update your blogs every time you upload a post?

Fortunately, some folks in San Francisco saw a business opportunity. A company called Pyra came along and created a tool called Blogger, which people could use to automatically update their weblogs. And what were weblogs? Nothing more than web journals!

Blogger was clunky and prone to crashes, but it sure beat updating a web journal by hand. So, on 16 March 2001, I made my first Blogger account and I used the software to start my first weblog.

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Jessica the Hippo

My cat Max is gigantic. He’s huge. First of all, he’s been eating his sister’s food. Because Toto is slowly dying, we’re indulging her by feeding her ocean whitefish and tuna, her favorite canned wet food. But her appetite is declining — and Max is pushy — so that big meatball is getting a lot of her food. Plus, I think maybe he’s eating at another house in the neighborhood.

Whatever the case, Max is fat. Like a hippo.

Speaking of hippos, here’s a crazy story about a domesticated hippo, one who thinks she’s a member of the family:

That story is crazy! From everything I’ve ever heard, hippos are Not to Be Messed With. They’re big, mean, and ugly, and they’re perfectly happy to squish you to a pulp. But apparently not Jessica. She just wants to be fed.

Too bad Jessica doesn’t live around here. I could introduce her to our hippo, Max.

Coffee with Lord Vader

Oak Grove was once — long ago — a thriving community. Back when the trolley line ran through the “downtown” area, the neighborhood supported a number of businesses. Many of those storefronts still remain, but since the trolley left in 1959, Oak Grove has struggled to keep the businesses around. Folks head out to the Superhighway (as 99e was once known) or into downtown Milwaukie.

Kris and I like to support the handful of businesses that do try to make it in downtown Oak Grove. I’m a too-frequent customer at the convenience store on the corner of Arista, where the owner Joe and I chat about books and politics as I buy my diet soda and sugary candy. And Kris loves the Oak Grove Coffeehouse, the neighborhood’s only real business of character.

Jason started the Oak Grove Coffeehouse a couple of years ago, and though business seems tepid at times, it seems to be enough to keep the doors open. I think it helps that Jason and his staff have become sort of community hubs. The coffehouse puts on “open mic” nights, hosts art shows, and more.

For reasons that are opaque to me, the Oak Grove Coffeehouse hosted a fund-raiser last Saturday. Okay, the fund-raiser part I understand; it’s the type of fund-raiser that baffles me. On Saturday, the OGCH held a Star Wars-themed barbecue. Seriously.

Kris and I didn’t stop by, but because we’re fans of the store on Facebook, I was able to see photos of the event, including this one, which cracks me up:

Such a hilarious photo. I’m not sure how Darth Vader is going to get that coffee through his ventilator, but it sure looks like he’s going to try!

Six Months of Fitness

On January 1st, I set just one goal for 2010. (I don’t do resolutions.) I vowed to lose 50 pounds by the end of the year. To that end, I dubbed 2010 The Year of Fitness.

Losing fifty pounds in 52 weeks is ambitious but doable. Nutrition and fitness experts suggest that losing a pound a week is a sustainable weight-loss goal. (Some even say that two pounds a week can work.)

In 1997, I dropped from 200 pounds on May 6th to 160 pounds on Halloween, so I know I have the mental toughness to do this. And make no mistake — losing weight like this takes a lot of hard work, yes, but it’s mostly about psychological strength. It’s about dedication.

I’m now six months into The Year of Fitness. How has it gone? Let’s review.

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Ten Days in Southeast Alaska

My neighbor across the street owns a boat. John is a 74-year-old shop teacher who is always on the move. During our dreary Oregon winters, he’s in New Zealand (where it’s summer), doing volunteer work on a series of farms. During the summer, he motors around southeast Alaska on his 38-foot boat. (He’s here for a couple of weeks in April, and then again for three months in the fall, but otherwise he’s on the move.)

John’s a generous guy, and for several years he’s been bugging me and Kris to spend a couple of weeks on his boat. This sort of thing just doesn’t interest Kris, but I like the idea of puttering around Alaska. I’ve been waiting for the free time to do so, and I finally found it. Last week, Mac and I ditched Real Life to spend ten days with John on Prime Time.

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