After The Snow …

- The snow’s so deep! Why don’t you pick up the poor dog and carry it?

- It’s a Saint Bernard, ma’am.

New Year’s Resolutions, sketch

- To beet or not to beet … Now, that’s the question!

Somebody’s Going Down for This

The glossy magazines are fronting tape measures and diet food. So, it’s January and payback time and we all have different ways of coping. Some, like me, spend a lot of time looking for someone to blame; One spends some glorious weeks of carefree gluttony, and then one’s suddenly left with hips that barely fit into an armchair! You walk into the Christmas thing with unwavering confidence and physical strength like a water-buffalo, and during the holiday you transform into a jellyfish who’s breathing hard just from rummaging the fridge. Someone is surely to blame.

The media is on top of the blame list. For weeks they present you the unchecked, shameless seasonal cooking. Under such a heavy media influence one cannot be held responsible for the things one eats in December. In Norway, it’s illegal even to advertise for tobacco and alcohol. No need to underestimate the effects of cookie recipes.

In January, the media hands you the measure tape and gives the mic to health gurus that straight-faced tell you things like that weight-loss is directly connected to activity and healthy food. Shocker. Studies like that make it all too easy to resent research funding. With justified displeasure, I put up the next candidate on my blame list. – And wait, there’s more: You ought to stay away from desserts, but in return you can indulge in legumes, the health experts confirm. Who on Earth is emotionally capable of indulge in legumes? I blame the scientists for not being able to find me better happy food than peas and lentils.

Even home in the cradle, under the protective wings of family, one is after all surrounded by enemies who urge you to have five meals a day and second helpings of everything. Sitting here now, with the top button in my pants snapped open, quenching a burp, I blame my own loving mom for fattening me up all through Christmas like the evil witch in Hansel and Gretel.

Then one always has those friends or relatives that have miraculously slid through the Christmas feasting without gaining one single pound. They have been running and skiing through the holiday like Energizer bunnies. I have no qualms blaming them with all my heart. Somebody had to stay behind and show appreciation of the ongoing cooking, baking and tv-shows. It’s a tough job, but I did it. I ate my portions and theirs – including the second helpings.

There is most likely a lesson to be learned here. And for those occasions, there’s usually a proper saying. I have it right on the tip of my tongue, but it keeps resisting me. – Probably because my tongue is tired from all the excessive eating. But a good old saying is a wonderful thing. It reminds you that your blunders have been committed by man for ages, and that we’re all struggling to improve.

One saying about food and greed springs to mind: “You can’t have the cake and eat it too.” I’ve been giving this saying some thought, but can’t get it to work for me. It focuses too much on cake, and it’s easy to lose focus. I need a saying that indicates a life after the couch and the cake.

Another saying: “You are what you eat.” Alas, right now, I’m a heap of pork lard and cookie dough. But the saying states clearly that one can be something else. Something better. Like a legume. Nothing tempts or stirs a legume. It stays lean and mean all through Christmas, Easter and possibly an atomic war. Once I can wriggle free from the snug-fitting armchair, I’m on my way to redemption.

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Update Thirteen

Status update: January is already getting old, and I’m behind on my paid work, my blog, and every single New Year’s resolution. Prospects are gloriously vague and plans safe from being fully formed. Yessir, I’m gonna wing this year!

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The Christmas Cool, sketch

            – Keeping up appearances!

Update Twelve

Status update: Christmas in New York! Whoppee-do. I stack up all the traditions and tick them off one by one. Roasted chestnuts: Only if facing starvation. Apple cider: Probably healthy. I need to learn to love it. Eggnog: Not worth the calories, unless it’s with alcohol. Ice-skating in Central Park: For people with extremely hard skulls and ditto soft booties. 2000 multicolored light-bulbs outside the door: Tacky, unrefined, yet undeniably cheerful. Add the eggnog, and Christmas is here.

The Driving Force, sketch

- Hey! You’re breaking my stride, man!

- Sorry! … Trying for … 1st Ave! … Parking meter’s expired!

Update Eleven

Status update: The five W’s of Halloween: WHO ate the jumbo bag of mini chocolate bars? WHAT happened to the pie in the fridge? WHERE did the beer go? WHEN’s dinner and WHY are my jeans so tight?

One Of Them

The alarm goes off at four-thirty AM. Plenty of resourceful people despise mornings, but four-thirty hurts less than one might expect; numbing, in a merciful way. Maybe most of the nervous system is still asleep. The hours are arguable not even within the morning concept.  

Some start the day at this ungodly hour to squeeze into funky-smelling spandex, sweat suit and sneakers. Sane citizens are still in bed, leaving the cold and dark streets to be ruled by the garbage trucks and the people with sneakers.  

Five AM on a Tuesday, the local gym at Prince Street, Flushing, counts exactly four warm bodies; the slit-eyed, sleepy guy at the front desk, the Hispanic with the vacuum cleaner, and an early bird lifting weights. Yours sincerely would be over by the treadmills, sucking hard on a pre-workout juice mixed from powder. The powder came with a lot of text that looks like boring read. Whatevah. You know it is strong stuff when the box is the size of a face lotion container and a full scoop looks like a dose of cocain. At purchase, you feel tempted to make extra-sure that the point really is to mix the powder with water and not to snort it off a flat surface. When the juice kicks in, it evokes a sensation that your body is covered with high-sensitive flimmer hairs, and the brain is firing up all twelve cylinders. A bit unsettling, but so what? If you want to be a part of the funky-smelling people with sneakers, there’s no way back. Just Do It.

Personally, I have no qualms making shameless use of every cheating trick modern technology can pull for my physical build-up; iPods, treadmills, energy drinks, gel pads … If I was left to natural selection, I would be hunted down and eaten by some carnivorous beast, my genetic instincts being to sit perfectly still by the campfire and chip calendar marks in a rune stone. Now, thanks to the wonderful world of the fitness industry, I’m in the race along with the alphas.

My heart beats fast and arrhythmic when I declare that I’m a freshman New York Road Runner. Yes, yes, I am one of them. I run races that have ridiculously long names, and I pay hard cash to be rewarded with the taste own my own bloody lung tissue and a t-shirt.

One would be fair to ask the good reason for all this self-inflicted strain. Or as the song goes: “Why do they all act like they run for their lives? The world war ended in nineteen-forty-five!” The grounds for running are constructed, of course, due to a day-to-day shortage of carnivorous beasts and world wars. Fitness and Personal Challenge have replaced Necessity and Common Sense. One could, by a stretch, claim that one is running for cancer, kids and homeless critters, but no one really is. My morning run has the worthy purpose of not making a complete ass of myself in the races. And I’m very serious about my goal.

Back from the gym, NY1 greets the city with the weekend weather report, which is less than encouraging; chilly, with wind and rain. Three reporters are laughing their socks off, reflecting upon the scenario of thousands of skin-soaked, bone-chilled road runners sloshing trough the New York Marathon. With pudgy indoor bodies, the reporters cluck merrily away under the warm studio lamps like chickens in a poultry hatchery. Toes curl and uncurl in my funky-smelling sneakers. For a road runner, there is no way back. Just Do It.

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Countryside Charm, sketch

Yes. Size matters.