A few brief snippets from the last couple weeks:

I can ski!

I briefly tried to ski six months after I hurt my ankle and was in such intense, stabbing pain I had to come down after two runs. I hadn’t skied since I had the surgery to fix my ankle almost four years ago, and I was really afraid that with everything this stupid ankle has taken away from me, it was going to take this too.

Since the NU ski trip was at Tahoe this year and a lot of my friends were going (well, in theory – in practice almost half our group got stuck in Chicago due to the blizzard), lift tickets were included, and ski rentals were seriously discounted, I decided to give it a shot. I tried to mentally prepare myself for never being able to ski again, but I’m not going to lie, the thought of not being able to do something I’ve been doing since I was two made me really, really upset.

About five seconds into my first run, I felt a huge burden lift off my shoulders. My ankle was fine. I felt like I’d never stopped skiing. I don’t think I’ve been that happy in a long, long time.

Now all I have to do is start making enough money to be able to afford to go skiing on a regular basis. Also: Probably start weightlifting to get my knees in better shape more than a month before I ski, because sweet god my patellar tendons are STILL mad at me for that one.

School suddenly got to be a lot more work.

My Android programming class is a ton of work (which is good, because I feel like I’m actually learning something in it). I’ve got a group project in another class where I’m doing about 50%-80% of the work in a given week because most everyone else a) is too consumed with their jobs b) doesn’t give a shit or c) both. Going to Tahoe for four days and getting approximately nothing accomplished didn’t help, and I wound up with all my midterms on the same week about a week after I got back. What also didn’t help was…

My damn computer went insane on me.

Kernel panics (complete system crashes, akin to the Windows Blue Screen of Death) galore, to the point where I was getting them hourly by the end of the debacle. I wound up having to drag it to the Apple Store to get a hardware issue ruled out. The good news is that it wasn’t the hardware, the bad news was that it meant I had to completely reinstall my operating system and then reimport all my files, which was a giant, time-consuming pain in the ass.

The biggest downside of it was that it happened right in the middle of my midterm week, so I wound up taking some time where I probably should have been studying and dealing with this horseshit. I’m getting my Database Management midterm back tonight, and I have a feeling I booted a couple questions I probably wouldn’t have if I’d been focused on studying and not on desperately trying to resuscitate my computer.

I’m probably going to have to replace my laptop sometime in the next few months – it’s clearly on its last legs, even with the fresh OS install. The good news is that I was expecting to need to take 4 classes next quarter and I only actually have to take 1, so all the money that I’m saving on classes is basically going to go directly into the New Computer Fund.

Overall though, despite being ridiculously busy, things have been going pretty well. As long as I can make it through the next couple weeks before my group project is due, then I think I’ll survive.

A year ago this weekend, I got on the scale, and the number I saw almost made my eyes bug out of my head.

I’d had to greatly reduce my gym time because of my ongoing foot problems, and I hit a number I’d sworn I’d never let myself hit. I saw that number, and said, goddamn it, that’s it.

I am doing something about my weight, and I’m getting this shit off for good. I am losing the eighty pounds it will take me to get back to where I was my junior year of high school, when I was swimming a kilometer a day, five days a week.

I am not eating obscene amounts of food anymore, I am drawing a line in the fucking sand, and saying this is the end of being dangerously overweight and horribly out of shape.

Of course, I didn’t actually say anything about it at the time, because I’ve tried to draw these lines before. I’ve dieted and dieted and dieted and taken the occasional stab at exercise. It has always come back with a vengeance.

This time, it’s different. This time exercise is the primary objective, with portion control following. I didn’t go on a diet, I changed the way I live my life. And I’ll be goddamned: It actually worked.

One calendar year later, nine months of working out until I practically fell over at the gym later (plus three months off for foot surgery and related follies), I have dropped 42 pounds. More than halfway to my eventual goal, and a very encouraging distance from where I started.

Two jeans sizes (and close to a third) smaller. Wearing shit I haven’t worn in years. Weighing what I weighed my sophomore year of college, a ridiculous seven years ago.

If I sound like I’m proud of myself, I damn well am. I’ll be honest, I did not know if I could do this. But when I started keeping an eye on calories and actually working out at the gym, instead of just going to the gym, it started coming off.

I can almost leg press my own body weight now. I’m doing bicep curls with 85 lbs, and chest-pressing 90 (after being almost killed by 40 lbs on each at the beginning). And the difference both the weight loss and the strength training I’m doing have made with my bad leg are huge.

When I first tried to switch from the recumbent bike to the elliptical in October, I could barely do 5 minutes without feeling like my leg was going to fall off. Now I can do 25 minutes AFTER doing a strenuous half hour on the bike.

I just feel so much better physically, it’s hard to describe without using a corny and overly literal phrase like “a weight off my shoulders.”

There’s a whole section of my life that’s been throw into ridiculous turmoil lately, but for this to finally, FINALLY, start to go right, it gives me so much more confidence that I can overcome the other nonsense that I’ve stressed so much less about the turmoil than I would have a year ago.

I will now give myself public motivation to finish the job: My goal, and it is a pretty big one, is to lose the remaining 38 pounds by Halloween. That puts me at losing about five pounds a month, which is roughly the speed I’ve been going.

It has to be done, and for once in my life, I can finally say with confidence: It will.

Two things I realize now, after going through my budget with a fine tooth comb to try and kick out a few extra pennies, that I probably should not have done:

1. Moved out of my old Russian-Mob-Owned shithole apartment in Venice. I might have wanted to strangle my neighbors on an hourly basis, but I’m paying almost half again more rent than I was, which is definitely in the category of Not Helpful when unemployed.

Also, the dipshit management company here is just as unresponsive to maintenance issues as the mobsters were, so why the fuck am I paying them all this money? I mean, other than to live in a neighborhood with fewer drive-bys.

2. Fucked up my ankle, requiring me to pay exorbitant COBRA rates instead of finding cheapo individual insurance because my ankle turns into a monstrously expensive preexisting condition if I get the individual coverage.

These two things alone are absolutely killing my unemployment budget. I’ve just looked at how much I’ve spent so far this month, and realized I can’t leave the house again until approximately February.

You’re all now officially On Notice.

Chicago was awesome. The game was ridiculous. Reuniafest was everything I’d hoped for and then some. I didn’t get to see everyone I wanted to see since I was only in town for two and a half days, but I got to see a decent number of y’all, which was great.

I didn’t want to come back, and I so do not want to go back to work tomorrow. Stupid reality.

Anyway, a few odds and ends from the weekend:

- Nate and I stayed with Mark, and that led to my favorite Inappropriate Joke of the weekend, which was that we were off having threesomes, but they were the worst threesomes ever because absolutely no one was getting what they wanted.

- [whining]I hate my foot. Hate hate hate hate hate. It hurt all weekend, I kept having to sit on barstools instead of actually standing to talk to people, I repeatedly had to leave early because it hurt, and I blew about $50 on cabs I probably wouldn’t have blown if I could walk more than a few blocks without feeling like my leg was going to fall off. This horseshit better end soon.[/whining]

- Man, I’ve gotten spoiled living in California where you basically can’t smoke anywhere indoors. My throat is still killing me from trying to shout over the music in several smoke-filled bars, and all my clothes smell like they spent the weekend at the bottom of an ashtray. You guys will love life when the ban goes into effect at the beginning of the year.

- So for those of you who heard me panicking about the potential writers’ strike, here’s a fairly good summary of why TV people in particular are panicking about this.

- On the flight back, as we were coming in for a landing, I got some sort of air bubble in my sinuses, leading to some of the most excruciating pain I’ve felt in several years. And I include everything involved in my foot ridiculousness in that. Fortunately, it managed to dissipate by the time we landed, but I’m still feeling residual pain. Ow.

I’ve lost 27 pounds since mid-February, despite a three-month break from the gym for two casts and a surgery. That’s good, but it’s not what I’m proud of.

What I’m proud of is that finally, nine months into 2007, I’ve finally finished reading 2006 issues of Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, and Entertainment Weekly.

If I keep going at this rate, I might actually catch up with the present sometime in 2008.

Part of why things have trailed off a touch on this blog is because of the absolutely absurd amount of gym time I’ve been putting in lately.

5 days a week, killing myself at the gym, waiting for the tiny little reward on Sundays when I see that, if I’m lucky and have been trying to watch what I eat, all that fighting has lost…one pound!

This all started in February, after several weeks of sedentary moping, when I looked at the scale and saw a number I swore I’d never see.

I’m a quarter of the way to where I want to be from where I was, which, thinking about it, is actually pretty decent. But the slow, slow pace is just maddening.

I’m hitting something similar with my foot (which I go to Physical Therapy for the other two days a week), where it’s miles better than it was, but the pain and continued PT are making me nuts.

I want to be in shape and running around, not fighting for ever tenth of an inch of plantarflexion and just about dying on the recumbent bike.

Stupid body. Why must you make me pay for my prior indiscretions?

God DAMN it.

I stopped by Best Buy tonight to continue my ongoing research into rigging a GPS into my car by actually looking at one in person. I wasn’t planning on buying anything (for reasons I will elaborate on later in the post), but then I saw two things:

1. Martin Starr, who played Haverchuck on Freaks and Geeks, among many other hilarious roles

2. Holding a Wii.

I have wanted a Wii for several months now. I’d resolved to buy one at Best Buy, as I have about $100 worth of gift cards, bringing the price down to just under $200 (including tax and a second Wiimote). And really, what else does Best Buy sell that am I not going to find cheaper online?

Unfortunately, Best Buy is always sold out of Wiis when I go, and they generally sell out any shipment they get within a couple of hours. Seeing Starr holding a Wii was the first time I’d actually seen one in a customer’s hands. I had to know if there were more.

So dispensing with my “do not approach people whose work you enjoy” policy, I went up to him and said, “excuse me, where did you get that Wii?” And he pointed out the stack around the corner. I thanked him and fled.

Oh, that stack taunted me, I tell you. But alas, there were two problems with buying a Wii an hour ago, both of which Joel reminded me of when I called and begged him to talk some sense into me:

Problem the first: I just got stuck with a big old pile of medical bills for my foot surgery, plus my physical therapy bill is swiftly approaching $500, and it appears it will not stop there. $25 a visit adds up distressingly fast.

Problem the second: I am leaning towards moving downstairs over Labor Day Weekend, and I’m estimating the one-time expenses for that (cleaning fee, moving supplies, movers because everyone I know is out of town that weekend, etc.) at about $600.

So basically, I am broke as a joke, and even the modest sum a Wii commands with gift cards factored in is currently out of my reach. Still, I was damn tempted.

It took every ounce of restraint I have to walk away from that pile of Wiis. It is a decision I am sure I will regret in a couple months when my finances loosen up and I still can’t find a damn Wii in a Best Buy.

So I’m finally back out of the boot, which is good. Walking around in regular shoes for the first time in a couple of months is a bit weird.

What’s really weird is that my physical therapist wants me to wear sneakers. I’ve worn nothing but hiking boots for the last several years, so trying to wear sneakers, I feel like my ankles are constantly in danger of turning over.

My foot is healing at an okay pace, although I still have a pretty decent limp. The best piece of news is that I’ve finally gotten cleared to start hitting the gym again.

The bad news is, now I have no excuse not to go to the gym.

Oh well. At least I can start hacking away at the giant stack of magazines that started piling back up again while I wasn’t going.

The cast is off! Sadly, I still can’t itch the scar because I’m still gauzed up, but at least the stitches are out (that, by the way, hurt like a motherfucker) and I can wash three weeks worth of crap off my leg.

It’s still pretty goddamn sore, and I can see a gigantic bruise peeking out from under my bandages at the site of the incision.

The good news is that for the most part, it doesn’t hurt when I’m not putting pressure on it, which is a distinct improvement from its pre-surgical state. The doc also said it’s making good progress.

Walking, if you can call it that, is still a fairly slow, painful process because of how badly my leg has atrophied, though it’s quite a bit better than it was when the cast first came off yesterday.

I start back with Physical Therapy on Friday, and then I go 3 nights a week for the next month and a half or so. It’s going to be a colossal inconvenience, but I’m ready. I want this nonsense done with.

I’m not counting any chickens, but it’s looking a lot more promising than it was.