billymack

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Since life can no longer be a box of chocolates unless I want a fast trip to the emergency room...cue dumping syndrome, I must find other pursuits.  It's weird giving up all your vices.  I am still missing beer though I did have a shot glass full of Guinness the other day.  The irish in my soul danced a jig of glee, but it was short lived due to the fact it wasn't enough to get a flea drunk.  My liver is angrier at me than a drunken jock dating an evangelical cheerleader.   It called me a "tease."
So I am trying to find replacements in stress management.  This is not easy.  I mean reflecting on how important food was once in my life it it difficult to imagine replacing it.  I was thinking you know how hard we laugh at the people in medieval time period for their stupid ideas on medicine.  I mean come on people they believed that bleeding you out was the best way to cure what ailed you.  If that didn't work...throw on a leech or two.  Thank God for modern medicine.  If you had the sniffles back then time to bleed.  If you lungs sounded like dusty carborater...time to bleed.  If you were already bleeding...time to bleed some more and let's thrown on a leech or two for good measure.  They sure loved their blood back then.  It puts new meaning into understanding where the phrase, "bloody hell," came from.
I can laugh at this all I want but there is this steroid riddled ape of a monster named "Hypocrisy" that really wants to kick my ass.  Just a few months ago, if I had a headace it meant I needed a cheeseburger.  I know my head hurt, but it must be that demanding stomach god reminding me it needed to be appeased.  Yes, that very stomach god who demanded a virgin double cheesburger or else the rest of my body was cursed.  Picture a demanding volcano god and your hands like the subservient villagers scrambling to feed the beast.  Your fingers pray they wont be next.  If I had a cough nothing could satisfy it like a Snickers?  (Wouldn't it be funny to be endorsed by a candy bar company on a weight loss blog?  Sorry for the ADD moment but the irony is just too funny to ignore.)  The point is it is the 21st century and many of us are acting no different than our medieval brethern.  We stub our little tosies and we scream pass the chocolate cake.  We get too many red lights on the way home and we break out the triple fudgy-chunky-rocky-sprinkled-nutted ice cream with cement thick caramel and maraschino cherries on top.  See my point?  All that ice cream is missing is the damn leaches and then you could call it a medieval delicacy. I'm thinking that concoction would kill me personally.  Thank God six months ago I still had enough fight left in me to cry out, "I'm not dead yet!" (Monty Python Joke.)
Not long ago I had an Indiana Jones moment.  I found my sneakers of old.  I swept away the cobwebs and I could see a light trickle across their rubber souls (I know soles.) I dumped out the spiders and brushed away the dust not to see the words, "Holy Grail," but a Nike symbol that spoke to me the words in my mind, "Holy Shit."  An epiphany exploded in my head like fireworks on the 4th.  I could use these things.  The best joke in heaven for years must have been, "Bill owns running shoes...yes that Bill."
It was at this moment a second epiphany hit me.  Was cinderella a weightloss story because if she didn't wear her glass slippers she turned into a pumpkin?  Ok I know I am screwing that up, but you get the point.  I need to put on those damned running shoes on or else I was going to be a masculine flesh colored bowling ball shape for the rest of my life.  I know...sexy.
The sound of my feet remembering one foot in front of the other at first sounded like music you would expect from a monkey playing banjo.  However, with a little practice each step built  my momentum up till soon I was Baboon Van Halen.  I was rocking my new sneakers and had walked my first mile, and was on to my second.  Not only was I feeling great, but I had started to work out all my burdens from the day.  Sure I was still pissed the roads on my way home from work resembled a Baghdad traffic jam, but I was figuring out other ways to make it back.
Speaking of making my way back, when I got home from my walk I felt proud.  I was more Ralphie May than Bruce Jenner at the time, but I felt like I had won my own personal Olympics.  My house was the finish line.  Though I knew the crowd roaring was all in my head it was the motivation I needed to get my round but shapely ass back into the gym.  I have been going a couple times a week since then.  I could go more.  However, each time I go I feel like I am making progress.  Just a few months ago it would be unthinkable to see me run...yes run...2 1/2 miles.  Now I do that a couple times a week. I know some people are thinking great for that bastard, but going to the gym is a hassle.  I am not going to lie.  Sometimes going to the gym is a pain in the ass.  Yet, going is the hardest part because when I leave I never feel bad.  How can you feel bad about doing something so good for you?  I can have the crappiest day in the world and it can turn around because I know I at least accomplished one great thing by going to the gym.  I'm not going to run across the country like Forest Gump did, but damn it next time I'm in a foul mood my mind will cue the music and the words, "Run Bill..Run," will echo in the air

It is amazing how much people (non- WLS) want to know about you and your "super incredible tummy shrinking magic.  As if we after passing through this mystical process (ie. painful surgery with great painkillers)  we are the keepers of all this weightloss knowledge. This is cool. I'm a hell of a lot more imformed about losing weight than I was ever before. I dont mind sharing.  When you lose this much weight this fast it's sort of an enimga to behold.  I mean the only other way to lose weight this fast prior to the invention of WLS is to have had someone literally cut you in half, though a few shark bites could do the trick (cue jaws theme).   
I told a friend recently that if somebody cut their stomach into the size of a chicken nugget they'd lose weight too. Thank God no chef from the Ginsu knive factory claims that home weightloss surgery is one of the many tasks that it can handle with ease.  However, inventor Ron Popiel, Mr. Spray on Hair and Rotisserie Mad Man,  probably is only $19.95 away from that invention.
It's just that sometimes (cue the 80's music), "I always feel like...somebody's watching me.  Do you feel that way too?
Every bite you take when you hang with friends and family (especially friends who aren't with you 24/7) becomes a spectacle of intrigue.  I know its kind of interesting watching a WLS post op eat.  The reason being because any bite destined for the stomach could be like feeding an angry volcano god.  You know the one where villagers pray doesn't  could erupt.  However, watching eating in general is a pretty mundane activity.  Especially it is boring for us WLS because we have to chomp and chew and chomp again till its as soft as baby food.  Mooooooo sorry but I can't help but get the image of a cow in my head.  How exciting can that be to watch someone jaw wrestle their meal into oblivion?  I mean when is the last HBO special you caught called "Chew: The Apple sauce consistancy."  
Don't get me wrong I don't mind being in the spotlight. I just want some other part of me there other than my belly.  I know the chunkendale dancer jokes are coming now.  What I am saying is its cool for people to be curious about the weightloss, and I do enjoy attention.  It is just I was a cool, sexy bad ass before surgery.  Now I feel like all that is true but there is this Ripley's believe it or not crowd of ticket holders standing in line.  They are all staring at me wanting to put pennies in my belly button to see if it will get even smaller.  My life wasn't one big, bad Weird Al Yankovic "EAT IT" video before surgery and it isn't a "We are the World" starving one now.  I'm just trying to find a healthy normal for me. 

When I use a word like passion passion I think most people look at me like I am some sort of archeologist for scrabble.  It is almost people are afraid to use such a word because its implications are so unbridled or intimate.  Art for me is a passion.  It is philosophy made tangible, it is poetry given sight, and its the universal language that puts us that much closer to a God whose creativity made us all.  The celebrated pinnacle of western cultural achievement is called the renaissance.  The geniuses of the brush, pen and stone carved out their legacy with the passion of art.  However, art isn't just a picture or a sculpture.  It is an impression of an idea, a communication.  These great men and women from the renaissance chased dreams of understanding the world through science, mathematics, religion, and beyond.  The interpetation of these dreams became the Last Supper, the SIstine Chappel and the statue of David.  God Bless them.
I remember working with models learning how to understand the human figure.  In art school you have no choice but to study models who are large and small.  What you learn after awhile is to appreciate beauty regardless of size.  Often times it was the story behind the eyes I saw that I tried to bring to life in a persons face or gestures.  The fact that someone had a perfect set of legs or breasts at times becomes secondary if you couldn't discern a story behind their eyes.  You learn really quick that perfection is boring.  There is nothing there but plain.  Back in my days as a bar singer I wrote a song that began like this... "Sometimes we are shaped more by our scars than who we try to be or who we think we are."  Our imperfections make us interesting.  As I lose weight my body image can only improve which is scary since my ego is larger than the state of Texas. This is frightening I can assure you since if there is an ego contest between the Universe and Texas... the longhorn state would win.  However, I realize as an artist that I need to focus what makes me look good.  I hope those reading this will too.  Be your own artist and find the beauty in you celebrate it.  Use it to help you achieve your goals.  Inside beauty can only improve everything on the outside.

This weekend was a one of contradictions.   At one moment there was one of the sweetest memories in my life.  Holding my Godson touched my soul.  However, on the flipside, there was an outrageousness this weekend that brings tears of laughter from my eyes every time I think of a minute of it.  You see my best friends and I have know each other since diapers.  There is a chemistry there that is just trouble.   If you mix two of my buddies together you may be in the clear, but three you are in trouble.  When you get us all together legend is made and the universe pees itself.  You dont mix certain things together or its like dynamite or a nuclear explosion.  
This weekend was more the latter. I think they were sober for 3 hours.  Just being around them I felt I was drunk.  My buddy Eric (navy special forces) was full sprinting diving head first into an above ground hot tub from half way across the patio while trying not to spill his beer or break his neck.   At one point his boxers ripped and he fell into his wife's best friend lap "tackle out."  Needless to say that got a few laughs and shocked looks which only made us laugh harder.  His poor wife just stared in horror, but dont feel to sorry for her... he is at least Tommy Lee's equal. My other buddies also seemed to do equally ridiculous stunts that are shall remain forever sealed in memory lane until I need to laugh so hard that I crack my rib cage.  The best way to describe the debauchery...I mean fun this weekend is like this.  My friends and I spent the entire weekend horse-laughing.  It was a great time.  
However, beyond the antics I did get to hold my Godson for the first time.  Wow!  It was awesome to hold him.  I was the only person besides his parents that he didn't cry with.  There was the deep sense of pride knowing that forever this precious life will be connected to mine.  I am honored to know he will always be a part of my family and I his. 

    I am very excited this weekend.  I am going to meet my Godson for the very first time.  I know all babys are supposed to be cute.  However, I can attest I have seen some funky hair snot factories that expel vomit in ways that make sprinklers envy.  Those babies just are not the huggies commerical that we've been sold on all these years.  Lil' Ben though is adorable. 
    It's funny he's a spitting image of his dear old dad.  His father was the kid in highschool who you wouldn't have to dare to pull the fire alarm.  No Ben's father would have already been running from another direction as the words were forming in your mouth.  He mostly likely be running from a real fire that he started with firecrackers, greese from the cafeteria's sloppy joes and the school mascot uniform.  Yeah think of Ben's old man as Maguyver meets Jackass in one special package that has an airfreshner attached in the shape of bottle of whiskey.  However, I am proud of Ben's dad who has really grown up.   Eric is now Special Forces Search and Resuce in the Navy.  I can't wait to be the Godfather of his child.  Yet this weekend is going to be tough.  NO DRINKING?!? WTF? 
    The problem is this.  All of my buddies...friends I have known since pre-school are going to be there. None of them would be caught dead without a beer.  One guy you would think he had a can surgically fused to his right hand and a permanently lit cigarette in the other.  Oh well...maybe this is the reason I had to have surgical willpower...right?  I'll need everyone's prayers for strength this weekend as temptation will whispering sweet whooshing sounds of opening beer bottles and cans in my ear.

I hope everyone understands that the way I deal with everything in life is with humor.  It is not my intention to offend, but if you are offended then you are stupid or worthy of the offense you are getting. It is my hope that some people will find this page entertaining.  Have a great weekend everyone.