June 21

I had a nice walk yesterday. It was a little involuntary, but nice.

Here's what's going on. Yesterday, I went in to see my doctor for my annual ultrasound and ABI test. It's the usual "patient in the dark" procedure - the technician globs some gel on an ultrasound wand, gets readings at various spots in your body while furiously typing into a computer, then hands you a tissue and sends you on your way. Sometimes, I never know what the results were, which is good, I guess.

Before I went into the ultrasound room, however, my doctor talked to me about my weight.

"It's not good," he said.

"I don't know why," I said. "I work out five days a week now, plus basketball on Saturdays."

"Uh-huh," he said, looking down at my chart. "I think I'm going to start you on Ozempic."

This threw me for a loop. I'd heard good things - rapid weight loss - and bad things - gallstones, diarrhea, burps that taste like rotten eggs, lesions, and even something called "Ozempic face" where the elasticity of the skin on your face doesn't keep up with your weight loss.

Ozempic face.

"It's worked really well for other patients," he said. "Just a needle in your belly once a week."

Yuck.

As I was driving home, I got a text from the CVS telling me that the Ozempic prescription was pending insurance approval. For once, I was rooting for the cheapskates at Cigna to put a kibosh on this strategy.

I started canvassing my friends and family about my doctor's plan, and they were pretty uniformly against it.

"Um, no, dad," Sarah said.

"You need a new doctor," Josh said.

"You know that the way it works is by making you so sick, you have no appetite," my friend Elizabeth told me. "That's no way to live."

When I told Art, both of his eyebrows went up, an extremely rare occurrence. 

"I think it's a bad idea," he said. "You just need to commit to better choices. You want me to start making your dinner?"

As tempting as that was, I couldn't impose on him. I could bankrupt him, the way I eat. 

He then told me to eat lots of fresh vegetables, eat smarter proteins, and start drinking water instead of Diet Coke.

He also told me to get back on the 500 calories of cardio a day plan. "You have 400 calories left today," as he pointed to the treadmill at the gym.

When he told me that, I had just finished a workout with Sarah (a new and happy development for the summer) and she gave me a subtle stink-eye about having to stay any longer at the gym than necessary. So I told Art we needed to get back home, but that I would do it that night.

"Uh-huh," he said. "How do I know you'll do it?" He knew the non-existent value of my promises regarding self-directed exercise. 

"How about this?" he said. "If you don't do it, you pay for your partners' workouts for next week."

Not being made of money, I respectfully declined.

"Okay," he countered. "If you don't get your 400 calories in tonight, you walk a half-marathon with me this weekend."

Having "walked" with Art before, I knew that 13.1 miles would be three hours of aches, chafes, and blisters at a pace that would melt the soles of my shoes. Plus, it would be three hours in early Houston summer, where the morning "breeze" would be slow-roasting me like a pig on a rotisserie spit.

"Sure," I said, precisely because I knew it would make me go.

So, when I got home, I worked a little on my book, then I went outside and power-washed the sidewalk in front of my house. (Side note: there is nothing more satisfying than etching grime off of concrete and exposing the clean white surface underneath. After I was done, I went outside three times to admire it again and again.)

After that, I was wiped, but the prospect of Art's walk loomed over me. So I took a shower to get the grime splatter off of my legs, then laced up my shoes and walked in the dark until I got the calories in. Then I showered again, and slept the sleep of the righteous.

I am eating right, exercising more, and looking over my shoulder, trying to outrun the Ozempic vampire.

Onward.

P.S.    Here's a recording of my weird new dog Frankie. For a small dog, his bark seems to come from a deep, dark place in the depths of his old dog soul. He may be the best burglar deterrent I have ever owned. 

June 5

Hi!

I’m writing this from the balcony of the Houston House of Blues, waiting for one of my favorite bands to take the stage.  I’m here alone because it’s hard to explain to my friends how much I like this band without getting one of those looks.

“Toad the Wet Sprocket?”

“Yeah. They did ‘Walk on the Ocean.’ You’d know it if you heard it. No? ‘Fall Down’? ‘All I Want’? No?”

“What, do they perform in frog outfits? Are they some kind of art collective? Toad… the Wet Sprocket?”

Sigh. Even my wife begged off. Sometimes it feels like being Joe Schlabotnik’s only fan.

Anyway, what I feared at the beginning of this quest has come to pass - it’s now HOT. 

The additional complication now is that about a week ago, I had my face peeled off with a dermatological procedure called photodynamic therapy. It was to clear a bunch of pre-cancerous keratoses from my face, in lieu of freezing a bunch of individual spots.

I was told to be much more careful being out in the sun while my face heals. So, I have been - lots of sunscreen and couch-lounging, waiting for the danger to pass.

So when Art asked me why I hadn’t made any new entries in a while, I told him that I was following doctor’s orders.

He arched an eyebrow.

“Don’t you have a treadmill?”

“Yes, but it’s out of order. I need someone to tighten the belt and lube its joints,” I said.

“You know, you can get a new treadmill,” he said, arching the other eyebrow.

“I could,” I said, “but I won’t.”

Here’s what I know about treadmills: you buy one with the best intentions, and then they eventually (and inevitably) become a really expensive laundry rack. It’s why my old treadmill is in the garage - Lisa challenged me to tell her when I’d used it last, and I couldn’t remember.  And when I turned it on, the belt was sliding under my feet (a very vertiginous feeling, kind of like that scene in the opening credits to “The Jetsons”):

It also started making a funny smell as it ran, which could have been friction, or the accumulation of sweaty bacterial sweat from when I used to use it.

But all it needs is a tune-up, and after my son’s move-out last month, we have room upstairs to store it. It may take some spousal convincing, however, since she has a Plan for the upstairs that probably does not include featuring a decrepit treadmill in the middle of one of the rooms.

Anyway.

I am still committed to getting into half-marathon shape by next January, so this morning, I took the bull by the horns (brief aside: Who takes a bull by the horns? That is an idiotic idiom, and should really denote someone who wants a painful death, which now that I think about it, is kind of appropriate when talking about getting into half-marathon shape in June.  End of aside.) and I took a 4.5 mile walk at a clean 16 minute pace. Aside from some chafing, which I should have prepared for, it wasn’t so bad after a long layoff. And then an hour later, an hour with Art, doing arm exercises at the gym.

Tomorrow, the same, except that I will be working out at the gym with my daughter! So great - except that tomorrow will be working out the quads, which is kind of the worst for a first gym workout with a trainer.  Lots of squats. I hope Art will be kind to her.

The next couple of months will be pretty important to how the rest of the year goes. I play in the Main Event of the WSOP in July, I’m still working on my ethics book, and I need to start laying the foundation for 13.1 miles in January.  No more procrastinating.

Last thing: we have a new family member. We adopted a 12-year-old dog whose owner is in hospice care. He is every single day of his twelve years, with an apparently benign mass in his chest, a leaky eye, some patchy fur, and long claws that click on the floor. But how can you not love this old man, especially the way his paws splay out?

Onward.