Tuesday 13 June 2000

Pic of the day: What, me fat? Have you never heard about "gut muscles"?
Incidentally, this shirt and trousers were found in my digs yesterday, and belatedly washed. Perhaps for the first time? I guess I just bought something new, when last I had used them.

Phat enuff

I was sick last night, and sleep was neither early nor too restful. As the Americans say, sh*t happens. I still have life and limbs, both highly appreciated. And I can survive for some days without much food. More about that later.

In the morning I had a series of chaotic dreams, and a headache. I remember the tail end of the last dream: In it I was sharing a flat with Superboy, and I was a bit worried about what people would think about two males living together. You know how people are. While thinking of this I went to Mega, the large grocery store in the city, to shop some food, but it was hard to decide on anything. As I tried to pass a shapely young woman, she shoved me into a corner and sat on my lap. I had to forcibly lift her off me. Ahem. I hurriedly grabbed a fairly large Toblerone chocolate and ran off. As I approached the door I found that I had not paid for the chocolate. No one seemed to notice, but I went back to the cash registers to pay for it. The female workers there regaled each others with true stories, such as about the false coins that were like 10 times too large. I knew that one was true because I saw some of them still lying there. The coins, not the females. One of them eventually saw fit to let me pay for the chokolate. I paid with two 20-kr coins, as the chocolate cost kr 38.50 (ca $4). As I came to Hannevika, just west of Kristiansand, there was a minor traffic accident. Luckily it turned out that it was I who was Superboy. Actually I did not have Superboy's powers, but my normal dream magic. Including the safe and energy saving teleportation which I've learned from Drew Gillmore. (No, it is not described there. I met him on a newsgroup. Cool man.) Anyway, my dream ended right after I teleported to the police station.

***

I've eaten a bit later in the day, but not much at a time. Just enough to stop the stomach hurting from hunger. My stomach tends to contract painfully when empty, so I feed it now and then. I cannot eat large meals any longer, I am so out of training. Living alone, I largely eat when I feel like it, which is often but little at a time. I've been like this for years. And so has my weight. Actually I guess I'm a bit lighter now than I was at the worst, but I still have a BMI of ca 26.

Male readers may not have heard of the BMI. It is a terribly simplified way of classifying weights. The formula is weight(kg)/height(m)^2. So you take the height, in my case 1.89 m, and multiply by itself for some reason. The meaningless number that emerges is for me 3.5721, though I don't know what it is 3 and a half of. Now take my weight, 93 kg, and divide it by 3.5721. (Actually today the weight would probably be more like 91. Heh. It's been a disgusting night.) Anyway, voila, my Body Mass Index (BMI) is 26. And any BMI over 25 is overweight, according to the popular science magazine.

Of course, life isn't like the magazines. People with lots of muscles would for instance clock in as overweight. Now, this does not apply to me, so I guess it's right on target here. Oh, and the BMI does not distinguish between fat on the stomach (which is dangerous) and fat on the thighs (which is harmless). Again, as you may have noticed, my fat distribution is not the healthy one. (It is fairly rare for men to have much fat on their thighs, at least until the upper body is pretty much full. It does happen, though. Perhaps evolution will eventually produce a pear-shaped humanity, unless we find some cool way to stop obesity in general.)

I know when I put on this weight too. I was rather slim when I was young, but gradually normalized. Then while I was programming for InkassoSentralen (a debt collecting agency) I got free dinners every day. Not one to pass up something free, I would eat as much as I could, and eventually assumed the shape I have today. Since then, I've sometimes lost weight if I have eaten only bread, and put on some weight if I eat more fat. But the weight has hovered in the range from 91 to 95 for a decade or so. Well, the ca 5 times I have checked my weight during that decade. I don't have the implements for this at home, because I don't care that much.

But it is safe to say that I won't starve to death one of the next few days.

***

Called in sick today, since I actually happened to be sick. I'm sure it was not very popular, because almost all the office were on some kind of social event way up in the mountains, paid in part by the state. So anyone left would have been a good thing. But I just dared not go. It takes about an hour from home to the office, and a lot can happen in an hour when I'm like that.

So I stayed at home, and wrote a bit and played a bit. You know me. Living vicariously where others live voraciously.