Four Days is Something

I’ve set up a little habitrail that unlocks every Friday.  On my bike ride home along Old Huguenot Street there’s a car just before the bend in the road that sports a bumper sticker I first remember acknowledging the profundity of back in San Francisco: “The Labor Movement, from the folks who brought you the weekend.”  Can’t mess with that.  My weekend mentally commences around 2:00AM on Friday when my last standing call is over.  China and all of Asia begins to wind down into the weekend.  My computer is still set to China time.  I too begin to think of the weekend. 

And for the last two months or so I’ve been on a strange regimen that is, I’d say only partially successful.  I’ve intermittently fasted for four days one week and then three the next, for the last eight weeks or so.  I’ve dropped pounds.  Tens of pounds.  Maybe more than thirty pounds which is pretty good I suppose.  But I think I’ve reached a plateau.  The paunch I’ve sported for the last few decades has tighter contours, but has not been convinced to depart.  Dare I extend the fasting period?

Four days is something I’ve tempered myself to.  You notice, certainly, but it’s navigable.  Coffee gets old.  Water isn’t much fun, but there’s a beautiful simplicity that comes from rejecting everything for a spell.  Today I rode north, and I tried to push myself, throughout the ride and in particular on the final dash home to get as sweaty and enervated as possible.  And one imagines after such an exhausting pedal that sheaves of stomach fat have been converted to energy to afford that ride as there isn’t much of anything else in the tank to power such a jaunt. 

And so, Friday, quitin’ time, 5:00PM is when I get to break the fasting every week.  Today I had to go to the Galeria Mall which only just reopened to get some emergency contacts.  On the way home I got my younger one and my nephew some bubble tea and the gecko Barack, some crickets..  My nephew is keen for lasagna.  Great.  I’ll make some.  I buy some veal and the fix-ins for some salad to accompany.  At the wine store they chill a bottle of Monte Carbonare for me as I fill out the rest of the case.  And soon, I’m back home with a glass of white and some smoked fish, very glad to break this fast and feast.  

Friday, 7/10/20