Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 559

A Charlie Brown Christmas, again and again and again

When my wife's parents bought this book and recorded themselves reading it (which is a clever idea), the intent was for my daughter to be able to open the book and listen to it read aloud without the assistance of another adult.

This was not to be. 

For reasons known only to her, Clara has determined that the book cannot be read alone.  Someone must "read" it to her, which means my wife or I must sit beside her and turn the pages at the appropriate time, even though she is perfectly capable of turning the pages herself.

Talk about the best laid plans of mice and men. 

Still, she can be pretty cute while listening to the book. She finds the last page, in which her Nani inserts her name into the story, especially funny. It almost always makes her laugh. Then she asks if we can hear the Peanuts singing (for reasons unknown) right before requesting that we "read" it to her again.

And again.  And again. 

Gratitude journal: Nick Bottom

Tonight I am thankful for Nick Bottom, the weaver-turned-actor from Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

When every other joke or bit of amusement is flying over the heads of my fifth grader students, I can always rely on Nick Bottom's amusing last name to garner a laugh and justify my claim that this play is a comedy.

Every time I say his name, regardless of how many times I've said it already, someone in the class snickers.  

Which is shocking considering the teacher reading to them is named Mr. Dicks.

You'd think my students would become immune to amusing last names, but I guess this is Shakespeare.  He's a master. 

Even when it comes to silly names.

In the company of greatness

My last name may have caused a kerfuffle in the UK, but it always places me in good company on the bookshelf, as one kind reader pointed out to me today:

Towers and castles and monuments, oh my!

Almost overnight, my daughter has gone from a three or four block tower builder into someone much more ambitious and highly skilled.

I'd like to think that she is constructing elaborate monuments to her father, but she has yet to express this sentiment in anything but her art.

That's alright. I'm a patient man. 

     

Why are you trying to lose weight?

In the past three years, I have lost 55 pounds.

I still get asked several times a week how I managed to accomplish this weight loss, and my standard answer is that I decided to eat a little less and exercise more. 

In reality, this means that I counted calories for the first year, reduced my portion size at every meal, and began exercising for at least 30 minutes a day.  I lost about half a pound a week for more than two years, and this resulted in a weight loss of 55 pounds, or about 23% of my body weight.

It's important to note that I did not change what I ate.  I only changed how much of it it I ate.  I still eat an Egg McMuffin and hash brown at McDonald's every morning.  I still eat burgers and hot dogs and prime rib and Doritos and apple pie and not nearly enough fruits or vegetables. 

I just eat less of these things.  And even then, only a little less.

As much as I hate to say it, losing weight was not very hard for me.

Why?

Why was I able to lose this weight when so many other try and fail?

I'd like to think that it has something to do with my superior determination, my naturally athletic build, and my ability to accomplish anything once I set my mind to it. 

I'd like to think these things, but I suspect that this is not the case. 

But I think I may have an answer, and it has to do with why I chose to lose the weight.

I began my program of weight loss almost immediately following the birth of my daughter.  Seeing my little girl for the first time made me realize that I wanted to remain in her life for as long as possible, and to be as healthy as possible during that time. Clara's birth was a wake-up call for me.

I did not begin losing weight in an effort to improve my physical appearance. 

I began losing weight in order to improve my health. 

I think this may be the key. 

Every day that I ate a little less and exercised a little more, I knew that I was improving my overall health.  I was elevating my heart rate for a sustained period of time, reducing the amount of fat entering my body, building core muscle groups and improving my cardiovascular performance. 

Even though I was not seeing any changes in the mirror, I knew that everyday that I adhered to my plan, I improved my overall health. 

I suspect that people who begin to lose weight in order to improve physical appearance fail because the effects of weight loss take a long time to see.  The first ten pounds can melt away without any noticeable difference in body mass. 

The first twenty pounds can disappear without any change in the size of your waist. 

Weight loss is annoying in that you first lose weight in all the places that no one sees or cares about, so if your goal is to look better, the results are slow in coming.

Even when the changes begin to happen, they will go relatively unnoticed until you begin wearing clothing that better fits your new size.  The amount of attention I received for my weight loss skyrocketed after my wife purchased me clothing that fit my new frame. 

Until then, the larger clothing effectively masked many of the changes in my body size.  The six inches that I took off my waist went practically unnoticed until my wife bought me a pair of jeans that actually fit.         

When I am exercising, and when I am opting for one plate of spaghetti and meatballs instead of two, I am constantly envisioning my heart and lungs.  I keep them ever present in my mind's eye.  With each positive choice that I make, I imagine them becoming stronger and healthier and longer lasting. 

For me, the change in physical appearance was simply a bonus.  An unexpected outcome.  The changes that have meant the most to me are revealed during my annual physical, when I am told that my blood pressure and resting heart rate are exceptional and my cholesterol has dropped into the near-normal range without the use of any drugs.   

I would like to propose that a person's rationale for a desired weight loss has a great deal to do with whether or not he or she will be successful.

I suspect that people who attempt to lose weight for reasons of health tend to be more successful in their weight loss.  I also suspect that this motive for losing weight is not nearly as common as the desire to improve physical appearance.

There's nothing wrong with attempting to lose weight in order to improve physical appearance, but I suspect that if this is your reason, you will be required to exert a greater degree patience and determination than I required. 

I would submit that successful weight loss has as much to do with why you are doing it as it does with what you are doing. 

Thoughts? 

Gratitude journal: My wifes tears

Tonight I am grateful for my wife's propensity to become teary-eyed when one of her students experiences success.  Today I watched her eyes fill up with tears in front of my class after examining the recent scores of a student with whom we both work. 

She's gone from classroom teacher to reading teacher and is now studying to become an teacher of students whose first language was something other than English. 

Regardless of her teaching capacity or type of student, I don't expect this emotional displays to end anytime soon. 

Nor should they. 

Underwhelming. No, more than that. Weird.

If this man were the president of my university, I would strongly advise against producing any future video messages. 

This message does not inspire confidence.

It might inspire me to write a poem about a deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming freight train.   

Or perhaps to write a short story about a man who suffers from an inability to blink his eyes naturally. 

But it does not convince me that he is the man to lead Penn State out of this recent scandal and into the future. 

The whole thing just looks strange.

Some people aren't suited for video.  Dr. Rodney A. Erickson would appear to be one of these people.

The inability to convey a message via video does not make him a bad leader.  It's the decision to post the video after previewing it that makes me question his judgment.  

SOMETHING MISSING: The Korean edition

My South Korean editor contacted me last night to inform  me that my first novel, SOMETHING MISSING, was published in Korea a couple weeks ago and has been receiving very positive reviews in the press.

It's so odd and so thrilling to think that my story, which published in the US in 2009, is now being read by people on the other side of the world. 

SOMETHING MISSING was sold to half a dozen foreign publishers, but the only translation that I have seen thus far is the German version, which is on my bookshelf.  My Korean editor informs me that a copy should arrive at my home soon, but until then, she sent along an image of the cover art.

It's quite interesting.  Nothing like anything I would have expected.

Three steps to happiness (as defined by spite)

A friend of mine sent this to me:

David Letterman to Ricky Gervais:  Why did you host Golden Globes a third time?

Gervais: Well, the first time I did it because it was a huge global audience for a comedian.  The second time I did it because I could improve on the first time.  The third time I did it because they said I'd never be invited back and I wanted to annoy them.

She suggested that Mr. Gervais and I would likely be fast friends.  I agreed.

Actually, if you examine his response, Gervais' participation in the Golden Globes follows a path that I fully endorse.

Do something hard because it will improve your current standing in life.  Continue to do it until you hone your skills and become an expert. Then continue to do it in order to spite your enemies and detractors.

It's that last part that I like the best.

Gratitude journal: Gloves and mittens

Tonight I am grateful for my gloves and mittens.

I was reminded last night that I did not have gloves or mittens for much of my childhood.  Instead, we wore socks on our hands in the winter.

Gloves and mittens were presumably too expensive for a family of very limited means, nor were we the most responsible in terms of keeping track of our belongings.

Had we been given mittens (and perhaps we had at one point), we would have likely lost them at some point.  

You'd think that kids who had so little would've taken better care of our things, but that just wasn't the case.  Having so little, we placed considerably value on personal possessions.

Stuff never meant very much to us.  So the lack of gloves and mittens just seemed normal at the time.

It was normal.       

But those socks never kept my hands warm or dry, no matter how many pairs I wore at one time. 

Today I own a pair of $65 mittens.  I wear them to Patriots games and my hands are always toasty warm.  I also own a pair of fur-lined gloves, a pair of gloves that can be used on a touch screen, and two other random pairs.  I also have a pair of mittens that can be buttoned back in order to expose my fingers if needed.

Compared to my childhood, I am drunk on mittens and gloves. 

More important, my daughter has enough mittens and gloves to keep her hands warm as well, as soon as she agrees to wear them on a regular basis.

Kids can be quite annoying when it comes to donning winter gear, as I have learned.