Garg the Groper?

A couple of days ago, I was glancing at the front page of the Independent Alligator and noticed an article about the UF groper being apprehended and charged with 31 counts of groping.  Each count, it said, could carry a maximum one-year sentence and $1,000 fine.  Apparently, the 22-year-old Indian student was telling women they had a bug on them of some kind and when they started freaking out about it, acting like he was going to brush it away, he groped them instead.  You can imagine my surprise when I looked at the caption under his picture and it read "Garg."  The student's name is Robin Garg.  My friends have had a big kick out of it the last couple of days.

My weight has remained at 209 pounds for almost a week.  It's frustrating but I have continued to hit the gym and know that muscle is still being added and fat is still being subtracted from the equation.  Yesterday, I played basketball with Kesi, Kavi and Radha.  I am amazed how my energy is up.  We played two games of Kesi and Kavi against Radha and I.  The first game they won but the second game, I hit nine three-point range shots in a row and we went up 9-2.  They closed it to within 9-8 and then I was able to will the last two baskets in through sheer hustle for the win.  This was an accomplishment considering Kavi and Kesi are both taller than me and Radha never plays basketball.  Kesi has three inches on me and considerable stronger than I but I was able to block one of his charts and I frequently won the rebound battle, battling in the middle with the two of them.  In the process, someone kneed me in the calf and I am still a little sore from it.  After two games, they all quit but I wanted to play more.  As they stood around and talked, I jumped on the treadmill for another 15 minutes and continued to work up a sweat.

I believe I am leaving for the summer around May 7th or so.  I have to concentrate on finals for now.  This has been the worst semester of my life, grade-wise.  Taking six classes really back-fired.  I came into this semester with a 3.85 grade point average.  As of now, I have one A and am tottering with 3 C's.  I had to drop two of my classes and will make them up online during the summer.  What a mistake I made taking on such a work load!  At some point, my mind shut off and I could not get beyond the mental barrier.  I was burnt out and half-dead but still tottering on academic life-support.  I am a little annoyed with UF because they requested to know where I was between 1982 and 1983.  That was 27-years-ago for God's sake.  I hand-delivered a letter saying I was traveling the country after I graduated from High School.  After I found out that a girl I know from my Journalism class last semester got into to the Journalism college already, I became a little concerned for myself, having not heard from them yet.  THe kicker is that she got a C in that class, whereas I got an A.  When I checked my status online, I found out that they never processed the hand-delivered letter I gave them.  I called and had it corrected but am afraid that their gaff may have spoiled my chances to get in this fall. "You traveled around the country and weren't gainfully employed?" the man asked.  "Are you sure that's all you want to put?"  "Make up a better-looking story for me if you want," I said.  I was 18-years-old for Christ sake!   Anyway, if I don't get in for the Fall, I will try for the Spring of 2010 and just make more money instead in the meantime.  After all, without money, a man's sense of self-prestige is pretty low.

I watched Oliver Stone's "W" yesterday and was mortified by the incompetence of America's commander-in-chief for eight years.  He was not only a spoiled rich kid but an ignorant buffoon as well who desperately tried to prove himself to Daddy.  What an embarrassment it was to have this guy representing my country when I traveled overseas.  I know there was a lot of poetic license taken in the movie but I cringe to think that there were enough dumb Americans to elect this guy for two-terms.  Oh my God.  It's as W. said himself, "Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me a second time, I won't get fooled again."

Creepy Estate Sale and Getting Under 210 pounds

 Last Saturday, my brother Kesi and I went to an estate sale in Dunellon that advertised record albums.  The man explained to Kesi on the phone that he had about 300 albums he wanted to get rid of for one price as his parents had just died.  When we got there, a skinny and wrinkled man who appeared to be in his sixties greeted us.  When we walked into his cigarette-smoke-reeked home, whose living room looked more like a Las Vegas yard sale replete with a 60's slot machine in the foyer, the man led us into a narrow walk-in closet in a nearby bedroom.  The albums were piled up on the floor and he looked at us and said, "It's the whole lot or nothing, fellas."  Kesi and I knelt down in the back of the closet, the man hovering over between us and the doorway.  The albums were in lousy condition and there were a lot of things I didn't care for.  Apparently, someone was a big John Denver fan, as we thumbed through at least 11 of his LPs.  I am a little claustrophobic, so having the guy watch our every move in the confines of the smoky closet was not pleasant.  Kesi and I worked together to see if we could find anything. "Make me an offer I can't refuse," the man said.  When Kesi looked up at the man, he had a look of shock in his eyes.  "What is that?" Kesi asked.  I was facing my brother and could see in his eyes that something strange was going on.  "Oh, I just put a wig on," the man said.  By the time I turned around, he had taken off an orange wig and placed it on a pile of other wigs and "women's" accessories on the closet shelf.  After a moment of awkward silence, Kesi tried to change the subject, "These 78's are made of shellac and break easy."  "I just take them outside and shoot them with my gun," the man said.  Immediately, I started imagining the guy pulling out a gun and calculating how I would take him down.  In my mind, I was grateful I had been working out for the last few months and figured since I was bigger, faster, stronger and younger than him, I would have a good chance to knock away his gun.  Later, Kesi said he was thinking the guy might step out quickly and lock us in the closet.  It was definitely a creepy feeling.  Soon, the bidding started.  We offered $10 and he countered with $25.  Eventually, we settled on $18.  He helped us load them into my car and we drove away, our lives still intact.  Then I started thinking, you never really know when and if you have just met a serial killer.

Later, Kesi and I split up the ones we wanted.  I ended up with Neil Young's Harvest, Ricky Nelson's Greatest Hits, an ELO record, some Burt Bacharach and a bunch of classical albums. We are going to sell the ones we didn't want to a local dealer.  There was also a signed album from the group Alabama from the early eighties which we will try to sell on ebay. 

I am done with my American Government class.  It ended early with an easy Final exam, more than one week before the other classes end.

The last four days have seemed excruciatingly tedious for me in the weight-loss department but I have been able to lose another two pounds.  Now I have officially lost 40 and have reached my goal of May 1st.  I wanted to  get down to 210 by the beginning of May and as of this morning, I am at 209.  Now I set my sights on 199.  It will be a real milestone because I will get under 200 pounds for the first time in nine years and I will have officially lost 50 pounds.  

Storms, Plath, The I-Ching, and More Weight Lost

Storms are interesting creatures.  Tension builds and builds in the atmosphere until it has to be released.  Then, when it does, there are some explosions and wind and things get pushed around a lot faster than they usually would.  But then peace returns and the birds are chirping as if nothing ever happened. Life goes on and nobody blinks an eye.  I don't know why I like dark skies in the early morning when there should be light.

I am about to go to the gym right now but thought I should say a small hello since I haven't written anything but poems for awhile.  Gonna ride through the tornado-potential-storm and hope the power stays on there.  It's a great feeling waking up lighter.  I'm down to 211 pounds now; that's 38 pounds down and 46 to go.  My short-term goal was 210 pounds by May 1st. Almost there with 17 days to go. One day at a time, one pound at a time- Fataholics anonymous.

I am reading Ariel by Sylvia Plath right now and find it intense, intelligent and a little macabre.  She wrote several poems everyday before her death by suicide in 1963, according to Robert Lowell, who wrote the forward for the book.  As I read, I see she had a masterful way with words that express her pain beautifully and concisely.  Expressing and facing pain through poetry is a great way to become purged of it, especially when you're going through challenging periods of your life.  She, however, appears to have had no intention of becoming free of it but instead, seems surrendered to it from the get-go as if taking her own life was already a by-gone conclusion.  Anyway, I feel for her suffering and pray she is in a better place right now.  As for me, I am expanding my influences beyond all the lyric writing that I was brought up on and Plath's Ariel has been a great place to start.  

I threw the I-Ching yesterday for the first time in several years and remembered how I really liked it.  It is a conservative and somewhat eccentric oracle that sometimes seems a little more tight-lipped than my sometime impetuous personality.  Still, it strives to enlighten the user and make he or she a better human being.  I do think it stresses society a little too much for my comfort as I am strongly independent-minded and don't give much of a rat's ass about what society thinks about me.  Still, as a divination tool, it gives one insight about what kind of energies one will be dealing with in life and you can't ask for much more than that from an oracle, in my humble opinion.

Saturn's Interesting and Intense Influence

I feel very much in limbo these days as I await word on whether or not I will be accepted into UF's Journalism College.  I think I am psychologically prepared for either outcome.  If I get in, I will take it as a great opportunity to learn and hopefully have some semblance of a career soon.  When I went back to school two years ago, I was well aware that I could have started a free-lance writing career without a degree but I didn't think I was ready.  Now, that I have sharpened my skills a bit and have written practically everyday since the summer of 2006, I feel much more qualified to get the ball rolling.  Still, I would like more training.  A big difficulty during my schooling thus far has been lack of money.  Although I plan to work all summer, part of me wouldn't be so unhappy not to get into UF in the fall because then I could work even longer and get myself more set financially.  In such a scenario, I theoretically could get into a program in the Spring of 2010 with much less anxiety.  Whatever the case, as I said, I am psychologically prepared to focus on the positive of either outcome.  I will see whatever happens as Krishna's arrangement.

As of late, I have been going through a rather interesting but trying astrological transit. Interesting from the point of view for me as the astrologer but trying from the point of view as me the person.  However I see it externally, I ultimately see it more deeply as being good for me.  You see, I was born with a direct oppositional mutual aspect of Mercury, which is my ascendant lord, and the Moon.  In my birth chart, I am Virgo rising, with my rising lord Mercury at 24 degrees Leo and my Moon at 24 degrees in Aquarius.  I think this, more than anything else, has given me both proclivity in astrology as well as writing.  It has also made me kind of witty (if I do boast myself) and quick with the sometimes stupid or not so stupid joke.  As the Moon rules the mind and Mercury rules the intelligence, I am keenly aware of my thinking, feeling and willing processes and the role the intelligence plays (or should play) in directing the mind.  I am also very in touch with my subconscious through dreams and it has given me, to some extent, some intuitive and psychic prowess, as well as the ability to read people.  I can tell a lot about a person the first time I meet them.  As the saying goes, the cover sometimes makes the book or the expression on the face shows the index of the mind.  These things I have come to accept over time as good things but one of the pitfalls of the transit is I feel things way too deeply for my own personal comfort and I over-analyze things and thus think way too much.  I am also ultra-sensitive to what others are thinking and feel a little overwhelmed being in crowds sometimes.  Often, when I am doing readings, I can get burnt out by other people's psychic movements.

Now, it just so happens that the old hard-lesson-teacher Saturn himself, has been camping out over my ascendant degree, and directly aspecting my Moon for the last couple of months.  Not only that, but he seems to plan to stay a while longer.  Now, I am well acquainted with Saturn, as I have the planet in the same sign as my Moon in my birth chart and in a good place sign-wise in  Aquarius.  Aquarius is considered to be  Saturn's own sign and thus it tends to work well there.  It also happens to be exactly across from my Sun in my natal chart which is a heavy influence unto itself.  In short, I have learned a lot from Saturn and have experienced his teachings in the form of loss.  I have also acquired some of its better qualities through sheer association.  As a result, I have always been keenly aware of the miseries of life and have often felt compassionately for the suffering of others.  As my Moon is in Aquarius, I probably have not shown myself to be in that consciousness as far as others have observed, though.

Whatever the case, and please excuse my rambling, this current state of transiting Saturn has really hit on a number of my nerves.  Rather than feel depressed by Saturn's influence, I feel on some levels energized by embracing the intense mental austerity and on the precipice of positive change. It has made me peer into the fabric of life in such a penetrating fashion that I have become almost stymied or paralyzed by introspective analysis.  I am not getting much sleep and any time I am alone I gravitate toward peeling away the layers of my life and witnessing the utter rawness of my existence and other's as well.  Thankfully, Venus has been aspecting my ascendant during this process which has helped to considerably soften the blow. Because of this, the kindness and smiling faces of others, have made the whole ordeal bearable.  

Although, I am generally one to analyze something quickly and make a swift decision, I have begun to seriously question my life's direction and have become open for some much needed fine-tuning.  At the same time, I have felt over-burdened with an immense work and responsibility load (as is often the case with a Saturn transit) and find myself yearning the freedom to break out of the shackles that confine the real expression of the spirit soul in the material world.  In other words, I have become extremely sensitive to my own personal limitations and have received clues as how to free myself from them.  Most people live their lives wearing various masks which they think will somehow protect them from the threats of the outside world.  It is my realization that these masks, rather than protect us,  just make us phony and keep us from expressing our true selves free from the encumbrances of outside conditional pressure and expectations.  As a result, we settle for less and further entangle ourselves in a life of unnecessarily jumping through senseless hoops for others.  We end of leading lives that others want us to lead instead of what is good for us.  This does not help them and it sure doesn't help us as individuals.  I have felt rather isolated in this struggle, save and except for a few kindred souls, but have kept a positive attitude that I will come out of it a stronger, as well as a more creative and dynamic person.  In short, I want to break free of the endless cesspool of excrement and live a more honest and true to myself life.  Only in that state of consciousness will I be able to be creative in such a way to touch other's lives.  During this process, I don't really care too much what anyone else thinks, either.

Eat This or That, Grow Thin or Fat, Never Mind I Wouldn't Do That, I'm Fat Enough Now

Sorry to bore you with more weight loss stuff but I've had some realizations.  Okay, I started at 249 and I'm now at 215, which means I've lost 34 pounds.  Hooray.  But when someone took some pictures of me yesterday, I looked at them and thought, "Boy, I am still fat."  Does this reaction mean that I am not satisfied with my body and trying to come up to some ridiculous standard?  Well, the answer is yes- I am not satisfied with the state of my body and the answer is no- I am not trying to come up to some ridiculous standard.  I was just so far out there that it is taking sometime to get back to where I should be.  In reality, I was ridiculously fat and just because I've lost a good amount of weight doesn't mean I'm no longer fat.  It just means I'm less fat.  While I'm encouraged that I have been able to lose what I have, I am not satisfied.  Why? Because I'm still fat and I don't want to be fat.  

According to standard calculations, someone who is my height and age should really weigh no more than 169 pounds if they want to minimize health risks.  Well, that sounds about right to me because according to my estimation, I thought it would be nice to get down to at least 165 pounds when I first started my regimen.  If that is indeed my target weight, then the implication is I have 34 pounds down and 50 pounds left to go.  According to those numbers, I'm only 40 percent of the way there.  Now 34 pounds is  a lot of weight to have lost and I am happy and grateful about it.  Also, I appreciate the encouragement and support I have received from others.  When someone notices I have lost some weight, I can't help but cheer up a little. But the fact remains, if I really want to get down to an acceptable level, not only to my standards but what the general charts say, I will have to keep working at it for a long time.  After that, I will have to continue to monitor myself as not to undo all the hard work.  It's not going to be "Yippie, now please double-cheese the pizza," or anything close to that.

One of the reasons I think I can do it is because I have taken on a lifestyle where I am mostly mentally satisfied.  I am not really depriving myself.  I do have hunger attacks but I eat pretty much what I want to, I just eat less, I don't eat at night, and I exercise every day.  That's it. Also, I've been doing it long enough now that I feel it is becoming a habit.  Good habits are just as addictive as bad habits.  I'm just so used to be addicted to bad habits that being addicted to a good habit is feeling a little strange right about now.

I'm going to be doing some hard traveling in the summer with a very nice guy who happens to be an avid eater.  That is going to be quite a test.  I think I will be able to get through the travels with determination.  I will be able to hit the treadmill everyday at the hotel and hopefully do some other weight exercises to keep my body strong and in tone.  While i can't expect to lose weight at the same clip as when I was at home, if I set a target to at least lose something modest, I will deem the trip a success from the health standpoint.  May through August is going to be a long time but I am sure I will be okay if I stay sincere and keep up the good habits.

Still Fighting the Good Fight

For those of you (like me) who have been waiting for me to fall off the wagon- the breaking news is I haven't done it yet.  Over the last week I have lost another two pounds and am now down to 216 (that's 33 pounds vanished back into the totality of the material energy not including my body).  It is getting harder now.  I went through the 220's relatively fast but it feels like I have now entered into the vast intermediate zone.  I could get complacent now but I feel determined not to.  Besides the regular cardio-activity, the anaerobic regimen has worked like a charm.  I highly recommend it to anyone.  I started the weight-lifting on February 16, and now after a little more than a month-and-a-half I have gotten to the point of being open to going to the beach and walking around without my shirt on.  I feel I am now somewhat presentable and no longer the Blubber-man-Gargs that I once was.  Besides losing the weight, the weight-lifting has toned my body after only 15 total sessions.  To get an idea of how I've progressed, I will submit a little chart below reflecting each anaerobic exercise, the date I started it, the weight I started at and how much I am lifting now.  Each weight represents about 12 to 18 repetitions per session.  All those repetitions takes about one minute to complete:

Leg Extension-  start date: 2/16, starting weight: 80 pounds, present weight: 170 pounds

Leg Curl- start date: 2/16, starting weight: 80 pounds, present weight: 202 pounds

Pullover-  start date: 2/16, starting weight: 60 pounds, present weight: 106 pounds

Arm Cross-  start date:  2/16, starting weight: 60 pounds, present weight: 128 pounds

Chest Press- start date: 2/16, starting weight: 80 pounds, present weight: 146 pounds

Lateral Raise- start date: 2/16, starting weight: 60 pounds, present weight: 80 pounds

Overhead Press- start date: 2/16, starting weight: 100 pounds, present weight: 122 pounds

Bicep- start date: 2/16, starting weight: 80 pounds, present weight: 104 pounds

Tricep- start date: 2/16, starting weight: 60 pounds, present weight: 96 pounds

Ab Isolator- start date: 2/21, starting weight: 46 pounds, present weight 92 pounds

Torso Rotation- start date: 2/21, starting weight: 46 pounds, present weight: 124 pounds

Lumbar Strength- start date: 2/24, starting weight: 60 pounds, present weight: 158 pounds

I know this is not a huge amount of weight to lift for a grown man but you have to consider that although I excelled in sports as a teenager, I was also pretty much a nine-stone weakling with knobbily knees, as the Kink's song goes.  At the same time, I don't want to end up resembling one of those torqued-out bug-eyed freaks of nature cranked up on testosterone who look like someone stuck a knife in their back and kept twisting until they had a really bad attitude and a real scary look.  Anyway, the results have been coming for me including improved tone, posture, strength, speed, endurance, digestion, fat-burning etc, etc.  

The regular lifting along with the regular cardio and watching what I eat has been working well for me thus far and I see no reason to change anything.  I do want to add some stretching at some point, though.    A lot of  fat has fallen off my face, and mid section.  My chest has held onto the disgusting stuff the longest.  The two key words for me are patience and enthusiasm.  I have to keep it up.

Shyam's knee cap popped out during soccer practice on Thursday and then quickly popped back into place.  A similar thing happened to him when he was a sophomore in high school. I brought him to a specialist then who found no structural damage and he was out playing a game two days later.  It took about two weeks for him to get back to full strength.  Hopefully, this latest mishap, a little more than three years later, will also heal quickly and not be any kind of tear in his ligaments.

Radha and I went to the Santa Fe Art Show yesterday and I was impressed with a lot of the work.  Vrn had a painting on display which I thought was very good.  Leela also had one featured in the show as well.  I'm surrounded by artists- my brother is a great artist, my nephew Kavi is good, as is Shyam and Radha.  I pretty much suck but I would like to get into it just as therapy.  In the mean time, I have been reading a lot of poetry and will try to incorporate some new styles into my own endeavors.  

Wednesday at the downtown farmer's market, I  ran into Tulasi-priya and she suggested a writer's group as well as a poetry reading group I could go to regularly.  I am interested but think it will have to wait for the fall when my traveling is done. I hung out for about three hours with A.V. there and it was fun.  He was selling herbs and I helped him out a little and talked to some of the customers. It felt almost like I had a store again.