and the room, the room, the room is spinning around

today's subject is brought to you from prince's song lyric 'delirious', and it truly is the only way to describe friday evening's carnage.

i got in to the gym and trained christmas day, i came home ate a meal and proceeded to drain the 1/2 beer bottle worth of jamaican rum punch my father had left for me. from there i went straight into a hot shower. stop me when you see a problem. after the shower i proceeded to drink rum and coke zero. i had two cans and about 4 inches of antiguan rum.

at this point the details start to get a little fuzzy. i remember going out to the kitchen with the empty bottles, it was about the time that my brother and his wife had showed up. i hear that i was back out when a couple of the sisters showed up, but i don't remember any of that. i remember having motor function difficulties and i know that i spent time in my room. i did wake up from naps i didn't remember taking a couple of times. i do remember going out for dinner and i also remember another glass of my dad's rum based christmas drink.

i really didn't enjoy the alcohol in my stomach sensation and sleeping that night was not too much fun either. but the absolute worst was training the next day. there was just this waft of nausea after each set.

the long and the short of it was my mother was still not happy with my level of participation. apparently i spent far too much time in my bedroom being unsociable. since it ended up affecting my sleep and my training the next day that will be the last time i use alcohol to survive a family event. the question is, what am i going to do next time? i have NO idea.

we will survive

i will admit today's blog title didn't 'just come to me' i had to pop in an old nas cd for motivation. i've got a bit of good news the gig that i got just before the holidays has been extended a bit. they have booked me for their first week back after the holidays (jan. 4-8), as well i am on standby for the 28th and 29th. maybe, just maybe my luck is going to change???

the downside was that my knee was pretty unhappy with several days back in heels. it also didn't like all the clutch work from rush hour traffic. i've had to back off of the post workout cardio to compensate. i'd be more concerned but so far the weight seems to be doing well.

as i mentioned earlier i was returning to a strict mid-week diet and that has really been working well for me. so i guess the old adage is once again proven true... if it ain't broke...

tomorrow is xmas. my dad lived up to his word and made a huge amount of jamaican rum based holiday beverages. the first guests are due to arrive at 2:00 pm so i guess i will be diving into the sauce pretty dayum early lol. i have more than a few friends who are amused at the thought of me getting drunk, so i have promised to do some drunken texting.

i am mostly looking forward to saturday's cheat meal. i think i will be having it with my buddy scott, who is back in town visiting his family for the holidays. but if not we all know i am more than capable to take care of the cheat meal all on my own. holla!!!

happy holidays and all the best one and all!!!!

i got everything i need...almost

well the phone finally rang. it's not for long just a few days before xmas but the fact that i can go to work, even for a few days has gone a ways in improving my mood. sure i am not going to make what i am used to as there is a significant pay cut involved but staying home unable to find work really can play on your feelings of self worth.

yesterday's cheat meal was truly one of my best. i ordered a thick crust 6 slice pie from pizza pizza and i followed it with a mccain's delite chocolate cake. for those that don't know they now make two sizes of cake. the deep 'n delicious they have always made and the delite which as near as i can tell is for smaller sized families. okay so technically they also have the singles but really, have you looked at them? we are talking cupcakes here people... so they are stricken from the discussion.

i have also come up with the plan to get me through the holiday dinner. alcohol and lots of it. i have already pre-warned my father to make more of the traditional holiday spiked beverages than usual. in fact my exact words were "i'm going to need a bottle all to myself, i am going to have to pretty much on my ear if i am going to make it through this thing". my father laughed, i think he thinks i am kidding. i am not. i plan to start well before the guests arrive so that by the time they get here i will be feeling no pain. from there the plan will simply be to maintain that level of calm so that i don't actually harm any of my parents guests. ;-p

ebony and ivory

i am excited to blog again. for a while there i wasn't, it is hard to blog when i am in a mood, it makes for a dark blog and that is not really what i want this to be. i had a wake up call, that reminded me that it really wasn't fair to bring other people down. in my defense that was never my intention. but i have a place for my darker thoughts and since they won't be cluttering up my head, i expect this space will be more like it was in the past.

my last couple of workouts have really pleased me and it is kind of funny that they have. it isn't like i set any real pr's, but i am happy with them and that is really all that matters.

a few weeks back i decided to relax a bit on the mid-week diet. it was a test to see if i could have a few more calories and still maintain the look and weight that i chose for this offseason. perhaps the error was in not adding a specific number of calories, perhaps the relaxed nature is where i erred. either way the scale really only went up a couple of pounds (173.6) but at that weight i lost a lot of the detail in my arms and delts. that was not the way i wanted to look and so i returned to my structured mid week diet i've got the weight back down to 170.2 lbs but the detail isn't in yet. i suspect it will return the closer i get to 168 lbs.

there is approximately another 4 weeks until i receive my first set of orthovist shots in my knee. i am nervous about getting the shot but i am excited to get started. i have had a few conversations with people of late who have really inspired me. my g.p for example told me that she was sure that if anyone could get back to training heavy after this set back it was me. that sentiment was echoed by a lot of other people in my life. now i know that the belief that i can come back from this should have initiated within me, but i have always only been able to believe that i could do something after someone else first told me that i could. i know it isn't the best way to go through life but if i ended up believing in myself isn't that all that truly matters?

i drove home from the gym with blue oyster cult's "don't fear the reaper" playing on the radio. since i have been home that song is stuck in my head... i can't say i mind.

your a mean one... mr grinch

i kind of snapped on a guy at the gym today and even though i was well within my rights to do so, i feel guilty.

he is one of those people who, when you give an inch they take several miles. originally he asked me for a spot, which i was happy enough to do. but that was not all he wanted, he wanted me to critique his program, then he wanted me to critique his form. technically that was my fault. nothing irks me more than spotting someone who is doing an exercise horribly incorrectly. i feel like by spotting that, i am somehow signing off on it. i told the guy that he really needed to bend his elbows if he intended to bench 275lbs. that prompted him to explain how the pyramid program he was running called for a set of 275 x 8 and that it was okay if the form was 'loose'. loose my azz the bar and his chest weren't even in the same area code.

but i didn't want to lose anymore time out of my workout so i went off and did my thing. then he came back to get me to watch his form on a set of declines, which i did. as i was walking past his bench later on he started to ask me something else and that's when i tweaked. i do feel guilty about it because there were other people around and i know they are unaware of how many times he interrupted my workout. so it's just going to look like the gym bully snapped at some poor guy trying to ask a question.

the sad thing was it was, for me, a really decent workout.

you know things would be a hell of a lot easier if i didn't care so much what people thought of me.

it's beginning to look a lot like...

yeah, it is that time of year. frankly the beginning of my least favourite time of the year. the 3 month span that encompasses xmas, new years, and valentine's. this time of they year really forces you to recognize your failings.

find yourself single through the holidays and know that every holiday 'celebration' is merely another spotlight on your failure to merge. it starts off with the mistletoe at xmas segues into to the obligatory midnight kiss on new year's and finally after a few weeks wherein you are lulled into a false sense of security... bamm you are face to face with an arrow shooting cherub. sure, i do know that these holiday's are really just marketing tools to sell sh!t but that really doesn't take the pressure off.

not for lack of trying, but there has been no changes in my employment situation. xmas will find me under the tree feeling like a bum opening gifts, knowing that i wasn't able to provide any this year. even more exciting is the news that my parents are hosting xmas dinner. i look forward to a house full of guests, with the same zeal that i look forward to my yearly physical. actually i'd prefer the physical. i am currently mulling over a plan where i go to the gym to train, go grab something to eat and head to the theatre to catch the new robert downey jr. movie. if i played my cards right, by the time i got home most everyone would be gone. sure my mom would be pissed... but these days when isn't at least one person pissed at me??

my back is getting bigger or at least it is looking bigger. my quads are shrinking and i am still a few weeks away from starting treatment. through it all i am still hitting personal bests on stiff leg deadlifts. as well i have been using a strength program designed to improve my military press and my bench. with any luck these improvements will translate into muscle gains. it would be nice to have shoulders and upper chest thickness. it would also be nice to have calves and i job but somehow i doubt the fat guy has those pack in his sled.

anyway so add a little positivity to this post, here are some visuals for you to enjoy




















got to tell you i do love this shot!!!















almost makes me want to cry