I'm so happy! I found an archive listing of Apple's Switch campaign ads at plex.us. My all-time favourites are Gianni Jacklone, gangsta IT Director, and Ellen "I'm incredibly stoned" Feiss, although there is plenty of choice material to choose from.
I always hated my body. Runty, last to be picked for any team, uncoordinated, skinny. Being a skinny man is unique, in that people feel free to comment on it. It's hard to imagine complete strangers saying to an overweight guy, "Holy shit but you're fat! Don't you ever stop eating?" but fall a few pounds below normal (okay, fine, a few tens of pounds), and it's like you have a target painted on your wee shallow chest. I actually love food, and one of the biggest frustrations I have is that people will say things like, "I'm going to bring in my world-famous perogies every day and fatten you up!" but show the slightest sign of enthusiasm at this idea and they quickly lose interest and wander off. I think they like the idea of saving me from my "obvious" dislike of food, and when I reveal that actually, I love perogies (and especially "fat-load" perogies that include artery-hardening quantities of butter, cheese and bacon) and maybe a double-helping would be a great idea, their plan is completely spoiled.
I was at the climbing gym yesterday, though, and Yuval noted that while I can't let it go too far, I have a natural edge in that I can climb relatively seldom and still manage to pull off relatively hard routes. This started me thinking about this runty body, and how maybe it really isn't such a rough gig after all. It does everything I ask it to (with the glaring exception of any climbing route harder than 5.12a) and I ask a fair bit, allows me to eat truly prodigious quantities of food without risking "Holy shit but you're fat!" comments, and really, as I approach 40, having a 28 inch waist seems much more desirable than it did at 25.
So maybe weights at the gym have far less effect than I would like, but I suppose I have to say that I'm lucky nonetheless.
Nee-nee is gone. Stephanie has said everything I could say about Janine and more. It's funny what occupies our minds (or maybe just mine) at times like these. Yesterday morning I spent considerable time deliberating over clothing to wear to the funeral. I own one suit, a sober charcoal that plays well at weddings and funerals. This was, of course, the obvious choice. But. I also own a bright scarlet faux-velvet (I know; the heart stops) jacket, and Janine loved this jacket. She would also, I thought, have loved the idea of me wearing this jacket to her funeral.
But. In the end I wore the grey suit. Even though this was Janine's funeral, the funeral was not actually for Janine. The funeral was for all of Janine's family and friends, to give them all a chance to come together and consider Janine, and her tremendous impact on their lives, and Janine's absence, and its terrible gut-wrenching impact on their lives. Who was I to upstage all of this with my look-at-me red jacket? No, much better to be just another mourner in my grey suit, keeping the attention where it belongs, on Janine.
The jacket will certainly be pulled out at Christmas, where it belongs, when Nee-nee's memory can enjoy it once again in context, with her family and friends who will remember her.
A couple of weeks ago, on two separate occasions, when I mentioned to relative strangers that I cycle around 30km to work they both said, "So that takes, what, 40 minutes?"
I went home and cried myself to sleep, thinking that if 40 minutes was a reasonable expectation then I was so far below the bar as to be completely underground. Okay, I didn't really cry myself to sleep, but I did feel mightily inadequate.
Here's a typical morning for me when I ride:
Add it up. That's 75 minutes, which is almost double their estimate. This upset me for a good long while, until I realized the following:
Met up with Wendy Eidson last week. She's making a video called Real Men Knit, and we taped an interview while she was in Toronto visiting family. The experience was remarkably unfrightening, and I recommend that anyone interested in participating (are you man enough?), especially if you live in central California, should get in touch with Wendy. She's completely charming. I was also going to add that the word "lanky" was invented for Wendy, but then I looked up some definitions I'm not certain I agree with. Webster says "ungracefully tall and thin," which wasn't what I meant at all. I was thinking more tall lean cowboy kind of lanky, and completely without the "ungraceful" slag. Now taking suggestions for a better word to describe this than "lanky"...
I'm not sure my ego can take this, but am I Hot or Not? This site is pretty hilarious, actually.