So, trekking poles rule. Down is as much fun as up for the first time in years...
Does everyone know that Brian May completed his doctorate in Astrophysics and is now Dr. Brian May? This makes me happy. Guitarist/songwriter for Queen...and astrophysicist. His thesis is entitled Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud.

I recently went to the top of Eagle Peak near Mount Diablo, listening to Poulenc's sacred choral works while watching swallows barnstorm the peak as a turkey vulture hovered above me, waiting for something. Then I had another perfect moment driving back from the Steep Ravine Trail, bellowing Patsy Cline's "Why Can't He Be You?" at the top of my lungs, which segued to Slipknot and then Raymond Scott as I passed the Mill Valley 7-11, bopping giddily and reflecting on the large branch that nearly brained me at the end of its descent from the canopy above Steep Ravine. My fingers and face had tingled with adrenaline as I huffed and puffed from darting up the trail, looking back just in time to see what I'd heard crackling ominously directly above my head hit the ground where I'd stood. Yikes! Hiking on a weekday between clients. Life can be very good.

Sugar-free for 45 days, weigh less than an 8th of a ton, soon to be gloriously wed, business is booming, hikes are happening, commas are splicing...I have an incredible craving for rollercoasters and old friends...

And this bears repeating (as this Bear's repeating):
from 10/22/05
I hardly ever step onto a scale, just because it has been invariably disappointing for
many years and even when I'm living healthfully and feeling better, the scale has
tended to say "Hah! But look at your numbers, Butterball!" so, as I've learned
to do with people whose messages are discouraging to me, I ignore it.

But today, curiosity overcame me and I stepped up to find that I weigh just over
an eighth of a ton. I'm about 253 pounds. That means I have somehow lost
about 130 pounds in the past few years. In fact, I'm probably 40 or 50 pounds
lighter than the guy in my profile picture there. So, my question is this, can you forgive
me if I'm a little angry at all the skinny people who keep telling me how thin I look?
Can you folks just keep it to yourself please? Or save it and go tell a beautiful
heavy person how wonderful she/he looks? Or even an ugly one?

I was a beautiful human being at every weight. It was only because I realized this
and decided to concentrate on my health in honor of my Mom's (and countless others')
inability to choose her (their) corporeal fate that I look different now. OK, that is not
the whole truth--I also became very afraid that I would never experience passionate
romance again because I was too far off of the radar of so many women. Opening
this door a little wider was also an act of self-love, but I'm finding that as I creep
onto the radar of the more shallow among us, I'm often repelled. Not so
much by each well-meaning individual, but by the nauseating social cost of the
attitudes expressed again and again by people around me. Can we please try to let our
bodies be and value one another on other bases, like, habitually,
as a society? Perhaps I should focus my request on my own stratum,
HEY white middle class men, grow up and think about what you're perpetuating!
In so many realms... Let's not hate ourselves anymore! Especially when that self-hate,
in the hands of the dimwittedly privileged, trickles down (and sometimes
BARRELS down) into all manners and manifestations of self-hatred and self-destruction
among other members of this society. And I'm not disempowering
non-white non-male folks, suggesting that they are hapless victims of
white male dominance...no it is obvious all around me that strong people with the
courage to love self and others are actively and powerfully rejecting the weight
of racist-sexist-capitalist-patriarchy. But I would like my own kind to make it
easier for those folks to thrive by simply taking responsibility for whatever effect
our privilege and self-satisfied ignorance has had on social ills, and to
change ourselves accordingly.

Hmmm. Sorry. I was talking about weight, wasn't I.

So, I am asking for a favor from those around me. Call me crazy, but when I hear
"You've lost weight!" I actually hear "Your value as a human being has increased
because you are more attractive to the shallow folk who cast the dollar-votes that
decide what happens in this capitalist nightmare world!" (Really, it's OK to call me crazy)
But for some reason when I hear, "You look great!" it's completely different.
That phrase registers in me more as it is intended--like all my
hiking and community building and hard work and healthy habits and learning to
truly love myself and others can actually be detected in my physical presence. I know
this may not be what people mean, but it makes all the difference to me. I know
this is all in my head--that's why I say it's a favor I'm asking. And while I'm at it, let me
also ask that you take a look at someone who does not strike you immediately as
looking "great" and take a closer look and find the beauty there and compliment them.
Of course you probably do that already and I'm just irritating you now...
Anyway, I should shut up and take my own advice first.
We are all unmitigated miracles. You will never convince me otherwise.

God bless.

:)
Mike