Quick note

Sorry for the short notice.

I’m going to be on the radio between 3-4 p.m. Central time.

Go here.

If you miss it, I’ll post audio later, if possible.

“I’m blogging with someone else” or “Why don’t you love me?”

Today I blogged at the Mass Media Meltdown blog about my weight loss efforts.

As I am too lazy tired to blog more here, I will ask you to go there and read my latest post.

And if you love me, you will comment. And you will comment a lot, seeing as how none of you have voiced any support for me over there yet… Help me out! I have a bet (not one involving any actual money or anything) riding on this!

“Why 10K?” or “Metal fatigue”

Boy, oh, boy, what a week it has been.

First, I had visitor number 10,000 visit me! However, I have no idea who you are! Let’s recite some details: You’re using AOL (this might shame you into never revealing yourself), you visited on Wednesday at 1:24 p.m. my time and you stayed for only about 30 seconds… Come forward, and I will decide on a prize of awesomeness… or something.

Barring that, we’ll go by The Price is Right rules and visitor 9,999, who came closest without going over, will receive said prize. This person has already been informed of the potential for great awesome that exists from this situation.

Moving on.

Today, I had my biggest challenge with the new weight loss endeavor. It came not from outside, but from inside. I was craving a delicious, juicy, totally-horrible-for-you cheeseburger from any place that made them. Seriously, no discrimination here (discrimination in the burger world is good, not so much in the human world), I would have eaten White Castle if that was the only option.

Around this time the large doses of aspirin I’ve been taking to ward off the soreness were beginning to wear off and I was starting to ache again. I’m not talking an “ow, that hurts” ache. I’m talking an “I WANT MORPHINE!” ache. Based on this and my supremely high baby quotient, I began to think about quitting.

As I was thinking about quitting, I was getting out of my car at a local Subway, being the only fast-food restaurant whose food doesn’t all have the means to depth charge your circulatory system (and the diet you might be on). At the very moment I was exiting my car and thinking of surrendering like a Frenchman, the driver’s seat of my car broke.

Now, those of you thinking about this need to know. The seat itself did not break. The metal bracket that holds the seat itself to the frame of the car is what broke. It split right into two pieces, which is downright freakish and kinda scary.

Being the person I am, who doesn’t really believe in coincidence all that easily, I immediately took this to be a warning from the Almighty that should I cease my weight loss efforts, something might happen. Something bad. Needless to say, I’m still in the competition, and I’ve lost four pounds and about an inch off my waist.

I’ll continue to keep you informed!

“No more wait” or “Now I have a reason to do my Schwarzenegger impersonation”

When I went to my doctor two and a half weeks ago, I weighed 387 pounds.

387.

I can’t even think about the number without wanting to hide.

And I’ve decided to do something about it. 

Along with six others from the paper and seven from a local radio station, I’m engaged in a weight loss competition. I’m going to the gym 4 times a week (thank you 24-hour gym) and doing 20 minutes of cardio plus three rotations of strength training (4-8 machines and about 10-12 reps each machine).

I’m tired of looking like this:

When I’m done, I hope to feel and look a lot better. More importantly, I hope to have learned how to exercise properly and how to enjoy it. I may not look like this:

But at least I won’t be a deadman by 30.

“Don’t mind my seeming schizophrenia” or “’90s Flashback”

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had the unique ability to entertain myself with my seemingly endless memories of stupid scenes from movies, one-liners from past conversations, and even television commercials.

So today, as I stood over the sink washing a bowl so I could make some soup for lunch, I immediately began laughing to myself as an old 90s commercial dredged itself up from my memory. This commercial, a paltry 30 seconds, has been stuck in my mind, in its entirety and arcane glory, for over a decade. Of course, it’s also on Youtube.

Now, briefly, you may think it strange when someone laughs to themselves and you have no idea why. Sure, it’s likely that if it’s the hobo walking by you on the sidewalk, sure, you should wonder. But Dr. Mom never really got that memo and all throughout my childhood, whenever I would have a funny thought and laugh to myself out of nowhere, she would look at me strangely.

“Are you schizophrenic?” she asked me once.

I don’t think she appreciated my response, which was turning my head and beginning a conversation with the fridge.

Anyway, here’s the commercial. Enjoy. And yes, I know. It’s ridiculous. That’s why it’s funny. Nom nom nom, it’s bacon.

“Quite a pickle” or “Captain Snowcloud gets what he wants”

Brine.

Good for pickles. Good for the ocean. Bad for my streets.

The following is the opinion of Dariush Shafa and does not reflect on any of the work that he does for the local paper. He is a good journalist. And has magnificent, luxuriant, longer-than-ever-before (which isn’t really that much longer, kinda-just-a-little-below-the-ears-length ) hair.

Anyway, the local city government had an epiphany last year. Instead of pre-salting the roads in town, they would pre-brine the roads in town. Literally, they throw salt water onto the roads. The water evaporates, the salt is left behind and ice has a hard time on top of it.

Have you ever seen the movie Jurassic Park? Remember how Jeff Goldblum’s character is adamant that Mother Nature will pretty much say “Whatever!” to anything mankind does? Yeah. He was right.

On our roads here in Owensboro, tonight, we have a layer of brine. On top of that, we have a layer of two-inch thick ice and snow and slush and water. Driving my car home tonight was like driving my Pontiac on the Iditarod trail.

Now, if that wasn’t bad enough for you, six days ago we had an outbreak of tornadoes in this part of the state. Owensboro, mysteriously, did not have any problems. But I think this is pretty indicative of how ridiculous Kentucky weather is, where we go from 70 degrees and tornadoes to ice storm within the space of six days. Good times.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, last week, I came down with a case of the gank. That’s my catch-all term for anything that makes you feel sick, particularly of the nasal, runniness, sneezing, coughing grossness variety. It started on the Thursday night before last, January 31, as a tickle in the throat.

Fortunately for me, I had a doctor’s appointment the next day. And so I went, starting to feel miserable.

Let me tell you about how awesome it is to be a doctor’s kid. Aside from Dr. Mom’s constant search for a tumor, Dr. Dad’s giggling insistence that whatever symptoms I was suffering meant I was going to die (about the time I was 13, it became that a good, cleansing enema would fix me right up) and the mild hypochondria that the whole experience left me with, it was great. Why? Very few doctors’ visits. Dr. Dad was my doc when I broke my leg. Dr. Mom watched over me when I had a kidney infection (although the urologist was consulted to come in and examine my man parts, which weirded the bejazzus out of me for all time and has earned him the permanent name Dr. Badtouch in my mind). So now that I’ve moved away, Dr. Mom and Dr. Dad, though they be at opposite ends of the country, might as well be on Mars for all their medical abilities (Dr. Dad is there anyway. I think he’s from there).

So I made an appointment like a regular person. I went to see the doctor. He made me say “ahhhh.” Made me breathe while he listened to my breathing sounds through the stethoscope. And then he said, “Ok, we’re gonna bring in a gown. I want you to put it on and I’ll be right back.”

Right about that time was about the point where my mental applecart got hit by a train and I began thinking 1) that this was a stupid idea! and B) how to escape without being caught by a candystriper and returned to the room, kicking and screaming, to be poked and prodded where the sun doesn’t dare to shine on me.

Have you seen one of these ridiculous gowns?

This is what you see if you do a Google Image Search for “hospital gown.”

Darken the skin, add more hair on everywhere but my head and you’ve got me right there.

And there I stood, in the exam room, wearing this stupid gown, but still wearing my underjohns, and wondering if the doc would get annoyed at me for still having them on. Fear of ridicule and rebuke won out and the underjohns got tossed on the chair and I stood in the freezing cold exam room, wearing this outlandish and idiotic scrap of cloth and waiting for a stiff gust of wind to Marilyn Monroe me and give the whole doctor’s office a “How’s your father?” of terroristic magnitude.

But the doc came back in, looked at my legs a little bit (rather like a first date, except I was the lass, I think) and then had me get dressed again and gave me my slip for whatever and a “see you later.” For the briefest of moments, I’d been terrified that he was going to give me the “full” physical exam, complete with the digital exam which, don’t you wish, was restricted to real ones and zeros. I was also ready to break out lines from the movie Fletch or use Dr. Dad’s witty circa 40th birthday special “Do you like Star Trek, doc?” to which the doctor said “Yes, why?” and Dr. Dad replied, “Because you’re going where no man has gone before.”

But all went well. I’m still here. I’m not sick any more. My cat is still trying to drive me insane (but the game is much more back-and-forth) now). You’re still reading my blog. This is the way it should be. Except now I have “Moon River” stuck in my head… Oh well.

Editor’s note: One of today’s titles comes from a new nickname I picked up from a fellow blogger whom I have DELIGHTED in tormenting with news of the winter weather. As she lives in Iowa, she is getting hammered repeatedly by the powdery white stuff and very coldness. Good times.

“24″ or “No love for the groundhog”

Today is February 2. Today, 24 years ago, I was born spawned by a Puerto Rican woman who was married to an Iranian man.

My father wanted to name me Patrick, after the day that he had finished his internship and was a full-fledged doctor (or it was his residency… I can’t remember). My mom rejected this outright and instead demanded that my name start with a D, since her name and the names of my two sisters both start with D. The named me Dariush Shafa, thus ensuring that for the rest of my life, people would do the following:

1) Constantly screw up how my name is said
2) Ask me to spell my name for them. I do this about 3 times a day on average. D-as-in-David-A-R-I-U-S-H, S-H-A-F-as-in-Frank-A (my coworkers from the college paper still spell it like this whenever they see me just because they heard it so much.
3) Confuse my first name for Terry, Jerry, Barry, Gary, Larry and anything else that rhymes with Dari. One poor fellow thought my name was W. Shafu. A local official the other day, whom is a great man but can’t say my name at all, called me Bubba.

I don’t celebrate my birthday. In general, this day is nothing special except I get lots of phone calls from family and friends and my e-mail inbox explodes with well-wishes that almost always contain some form of “I know you don’t celebrate it, but I’m still thinking of you.” I’ve got 30-something today, not counting calls from family.

I love receiving these messages, and who wouldn’t? People I care about are showing me that they care back, and that’s one of the most fulfilling things I think any person can ever achieve.

Unfortunately, I picked up some lovely form of illness-causing garbage that has turned my upper respiratory tract into a general wasteland area. My nose runs in whatever direction I’m leaning and I sound a little bit like an old woman who has smoked for, oh say, 90 years. I’m trying to deal. Rock on.

I took a few minutes to think about my life today… Every day, I wake up, sit on my bed and try not to fall back asleep. This is about the time that Cyrus comes and says hello for the day, one of three-four times during the day that he will be my best friend.

Side note: Just as I finished writing that last line, I had to get up and dart into the kitchen to shoot him with the spray bottle with several good sprays. He’s taken to knocking over or moving his new water dish (it has one of those plastic canisters that holds a few days worth of water – the old dish barely lasted a day) and spilling water everywhere. He also still pulls down my drapes and claws me in the morning. However, when I went to Lexington for a night a week ago (Kentucky Press Association dinner – I won a second-place award with another writer from the college paper), he apparently was the best-behaved cat at the “pet resort” that the vet across the street runs. Go figure.

I shower. I shave. I brush my hair (which is stupidly long, but I can’t bring myself to let someone cut its luxuriant magnificence). I go to work. I talk to people. I stress out (I have numerous stress-relief items on my desk). I come home for lunch most days and Cyrus is waiting, happy to see me. When I come back at the end of the day, he greets me again and occasionally tries to climb my pants. At night, he sleeps at the foot of my bed and whenever I wake up in the middle of the night, he gets petted for being there.

I have a good life. I have a great family, friends whom I would be lost without. I’m living my life anew halfway across the state and wondering what each new day will bring. This will be my sixth month here in Owensboro, living the grown-up life, and the time has gone by as if I wasn’t noticing it at all. But I did. I just didn’t realize that the watched pot boiled over and the clock hands did move.

I’m 24. I still have a lot to work on. I have my health to improve, my career to build upon and (hopefully) plenty of time left to do it in. Just in case, I’m not wasting any time.

And so I thank you, each and every one of you, for sticking with me thus far on the journey. I ask that you follow me a while longer. We’ve much more to see, more stories to tell and plenty more pictures of my cat engaged in odd activities for me to caption.

You’re also welcome to join me in hatred of Punxsutawney Phil, or as I call him, “that stupid groundhog.” Once again he has doomed us to a lengthy winter (which he does about two out of every three times) and furthered the preposterous idea that he is in any way, shape or form qualified to make climatic predictions. No thanks, Phil. And watch out: If I ever ascend to power in a maniacal world-takeover scheme, I’m cooking your miserable carcass.

How much woodchuck could a Dariush chuck, if a Dariush could chuck woodchuck? If things go my way, we’ll find out.