Like most internet things I eventually get into, I resisted for quite a while, not quite seeing the point of it until some of my friends who seemed to get it faster really got into it.

But I think after following a few people for a bit, I see where a fun space for it lies between a blog and Facebook and a direct line from my brain to the internet.

Plus, I’ve been functionally unemployed since March. There’s really only so long you can resist a complete time-killer like Twitter when you’re unemployed for months at a time.

We’ll see how I get the hang of it over the next few weeks, but the good news is that the limits of the format dictate that even when what I post is not amusing, it’ll at least be short.

But oh, WordPress, trying to switch to you is making me EVEN FUCKING CRAZIER.

Why didn’t I learn something useful in school, like PHP programming? Then I could figure out what the fucking problem is.

More to come, possibly over here when I’m done tearing my hair out. In the meantime, feel free to tell me how fugly that design is.

At this point, I’m spending maybe half an hour each day at home that is not a) doing physical therapy or b) getting ready for work or c) sleeping.

So y’all may just have to entertain yourselves for a while.

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.

I’m slightly more concerned about next weekend, since I’m supposed to go to San Diego to visit my mom, who’s going to be there for a conference.

At the rate that town is burning, I’m just hoping Interstate 15 doesn’t melt.