Category: Life As I Know It

On Sunday August 3, 2014, we lost my aunt Patricia, or “Trish” as she was known to me, to the illness she had battled for many years which I believe was Hepatitis based. This writing, however, is not about death or sadness or mourning. It’s about life. The life of one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known and a life that affected so many others in such a positive way. She is a huge part of who I am today and like a second mother to me, behind my own awesome matronly unit.

I have no memories of a life without Trish in it. She and my Uncle Mike have been married for almost my entire life (definitely at least around 40 years).

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Wow, I can’t believe that this isn’t documented anywhere on my blog. Weird.

In September of 2001, I was dating a wonderful woman who lived in England who would later become my wife (and then later, my ex-wife, though I hate that term as it seems to carry a negative connotation which is not at all apropos in our case). We had met on a Buffy The Vampire Slayer message board (which is a whole other story unto itself) and pretty immediately felt a connection like we’d never felt before. Several other people on this message board had ended up dating (and eventually getting married), and I think we were both sort of in the camp of “Hey, more power to you, although I don’t really see how you can know someone well enough on the internet to fall for them.” Then it happened to us and we were like “Ohhhh, that’s how that happens.” Jess came over for her first in person visit on September 9, 2001.

Two days later, we were getting ready to go to my job where she was going to spend the day with me and meet my co-workers. We had been in the shower and she had got out to get dressed and such while I stayed in to shave. I heard a disturbing “thud” noise and I pulled back the shower curtain to see Jess on the bathroom floor. Beside her were two of her teeth, knocked clean out roots and all and little bit of blood. I leapt out of the shower, in a slight panic. After a moment she was conscious and lucid but unaware of what exactly had just happened. I thought that maybe I should keep her from looking in the mirror in case that sent her into a panic, but she got up and looked at herself missing two teeth and with two more barely hanging in there and I think she just laughed. I had already called an ambulance, so I grabbed some of my sweats and got her dressed.

The medics arrived and got her onto the ambulance, and I climbed into the front of the ambulance for the ride to the hospital. That’s when I heard something on the radio about planes and the World Trade Center. I asked the ambulance driver what that was about, and he said “Oh you haven’t heard?” He explained the situation and we went to the hospital where they tended to Jess’s split bottom lip (stitches, I think) and told us we would then have to go to an oral surgeon to see about the teeth (I had kept the two other teeth in a container of milk, as I was instructed in case they could save them). I asked her if she wanted me to call her parents but she said she wanted to wait until she could actually speak to them herself so as not to cause more worry than necessary. Someone from the hospital took me home to get my truck and while I was there I finished shaving, since thus far, I’d been wandering around with a 1/3 shaved face. I returned and watched the news updates with everyone else in the waiting room.

They released Jess and I took her to the oral surgeon who removed the other two teeth which were barely hanging on anyway. They gave her some lovely drugs as well. When we finally got home that night, she called her parents. Of course, they immediately jumped straight to “We’ve been watching what’s been happening over there!” to which Jess replied “Yes, but there’s something else I have to tell you about…”

She spent the next two weeks meeting my friends and family with no top four teeth and making jokes about how she lost them. That day will always be very memorable for very personal reasons as well as the reasons that the rest of the world will remember it. They never figured out why she fainted. The best guess was a combinations of jetlag, not having eaten since the night before and the hot shower. We later figured out that she passed out right about the same time that first plane hit. I think she “felt a disturbance in the force.”

I feel like I’ve written about this before, but in my cursory search I didn’t find any posts here about this, so forgive me if I’m redundant.

I try to be a good person. Every day I try to be a better person than I was the day before. I remember this strange day in 7th or 8th grade when I just a complete epiphany. It was like I woke up and saw the world completely differently and want to work on my flaws and become a better person than I had been up until that point in my life. I’ve spent every since then working on just that, and I’m sure I will spend every day of the rest of my life doing just that.

I always try to take the “high road.” I’m not always successful. I try to meet anger and confrontation with peace and understanding. I try to be helpful and generous. My friends are very important to me and I am always trying to sing their praises, get them opportunities whenever I can and say the things that they are too modest to say about themselves. I want the world to know how awesome these people are. This all being said, it’s very important to note once again that I often fail in my endeavors. I am definitely an imperfect being with many flaws. I can be selfish, I have certain behaviors that I don’t know how I feel about and sometimes feel maybe I need a little too much validation and love from others as my fuel. I am hopefully modest enough but not as modest as I’d like to be. So I’m not writing all this to say “Aren’t I a great guy?”

My real point here is that often times the “high road” and trying to be a good person is a very lonely journey. It can often like it a very lop-sided, sometimes one-way street. Sometimes it can feel like you try to put so much into the world, for so many other people but rarely get anything back the other way. And this is the key thing that you need to change if you feel this way. You shouldn’t do good things in hopes of some return or karmic payback. We are all human, and of course it can be frustrating if it feel unreciprocated, which it most certainly will on occasion. You should do go for its own sake. And yet, even then, it’s never truly for its own sake because doing good should make you feel good. Knowing that you’re making the world a better place and helping people you love.

And just as importantly, appreciate and never lose sight of when the good does come back your way. It’s human nature to focus on the negative. You can get ten compliments but it will be that one negative comment that sticks in your head and draws all your focus. Be thankful when someone does sing your praises, or send you a sincere thanks for what you did, or just offers you an opportunity without you even asking. Recognize these things and remember them. And take all the greedy personal joy you like out of the good things you do for others and the world at large, but keep the ego in check and don’t do it for accolades, praise or the hopes of some reward or payback. Those are always dangerous motives.

Well, this suddenly feels over serious. Let’s remedy that.

I think I just put my finger on the hardest part about diet and exercise and trying get in shape and be generally healthy: it’s that you have to work hard now for some potential results that are supposedly down the road. It’s kind of like if someone said “If you let me punch you in the face now, I’ll give you $5000 in 6 months.”

If I knew that could skip that burger and fries right now and see an inch come off my ass-ular region, that would be something! We all want immediate results. It’s hard to set down a difficult path in the hopes that it will all pay off at some indeterminate point in the future. Meanwhile, you’re “sacrificing” now and still unhappy with your body/health/etc.

Eye of the tiger, my friends. Eye of the tiger!

I was a pretty skinny kid until I was about 18. 30 inch waist and mostly skin and bones. When I hit 18 my metabolism screeched to halt plus I was driving and not walking nearly as much and I had formed horrible eating habits. I loved sweets, fast food, junk all around. I think that full sugar sodas were the only liquid I put into my body and did so in great quantities. Strangely, I didn’t really notice myself getting bigger. I’m not sure how it slipped by me but one day I went to get some new pants and realized I was wearing 40″ pants now. I occasionally tried to jump on whatever train I had overheard was the way to being fit, but never with any success. I topped out at about 230 pounds on my 5’10” frame. Apparently, I wore it well. When I went for a costume fitting once, the costumer didn’t believe me when I gave her my measurements.

Fast forward to 2004. I was married and living in Austin and somehow stumbled upon the South Beach Diet. I read the book. It was the first “diet” that really clicked with me. Mainly because it wasn’t just some fad diet that was a quick shortcut to losing weight. It was a scientific explanation of how the body processes the fuel you put into it and it just made sense to me. It was a change of lifestyle, not just a “magic formula.” With the help of my (now ex) wife, I managed to drop 60 pounds and get into the best shape of my life. I still wasn’t where I would optimally like to be, but I was definitely in the healthy weight range for my body. I could feel it. My body finally moved right and didn’t feel like I was wearing a fat suit. Since then, I’ve mostly kept it off with some small swings and backslides on the dietary front.

A few years ago I got into hot yoga and did that 5 times a week for about a year or more and definitely got in the best shape of my life. Eventually my diet slid a little farther than I would have liked and eventually the exercise did too, a bit. I was now a single guy who doesn’t like to cook, prepare or really spend any time on eating at all. Once I got back into a full time day job (as opposed to all my years freelancing) then yoga disappeared. Carving out an extra 2 hour window to go, do the class and shower felt like a Herculean task. I also hate deciding what to eat (which is usually my downfall). Now, 9 years after I finally got my diet in line, I am in the worst shape I’ve been in since dropping all the weight. I’m hovering at 190 which is at least 20 pounds more than I’m comfortable with (though I have added some muscle as well so the weight can’t truly be trusted to judge by). I toyed with “4-hour body” but quickly abandoned it. Food and the state of my body have become a major point of frustration and depression at times for me.

Let me divert for a moment to say that I know I have severely warped body image issues. I really have no idea what I really look like. Or maybe I do, I guess I don’t know but I know I’m not happy. As an actor, sadly, physical image is something I have to be concerned about. When I see myself on film it’s even worse than the mirror. I personally do not believe the “camera adds 10 pounds” crap. It’s a device that captures an image and I believe that it probably shows us truer than we see ourselves. I will also be the first to admit that while health is a factor on my mind, that vanity is the larger factor. I don’t like the way I look.

Lately I’ve found trying to eat healthy to be overwhelming and frustrating. I know low carb seems to work for me but I’ve now realized that I was probably not taking in nearly as many calories as I should have been either. Trying to eat low carb and get enough calories seems like a lot of work. I tried simply calorie counting a la Weight Watchers or MyFitnessPal but, puzzlingly, did not seem to get results. I’ve accrued a lot of nutritional knowledge over the years to the point where I now end up going down a rabbit hole and getting overwhelmed. For example, I think I’ll try to go low carb. Oh but I need to get enough calories as well. I don’t really like to cook or spend time eating so I go pre-packaged. But with pre-packaged, it’s hard to find low-carb options. I end up with some microwavable chicken breasts and a microwavable bag of seasoned broccoli, and then don’t like what I’m eating because it’s bland. Oh, and you should stay away from processed foods anyway which rules out almost everything I would normally eat that’s easy, pre-packaged or microwavable. Forget it, I’m tired of it and will just grab something somewhere. Just the other day, I went to the store with intentions of starting a new healthier lifestyle and within minutes, felt on the verge of tears, defeated and just grabbed some bacon, egg and cheese Lean Pockets.

Let’s address another big point. I truly believe I am a food addict. I don’t drink, smoke or do drugs of any kind. I’ve cut out diet sodas and am trying to cut out sugar (which I’ve done before back when I lost all the weight). Food is my vice. My drug. My addiction. It’s where I turn for comfort. It’s what I look forward to. It’s a source of happiness. I heard someone (I believe it was Riki Lindhome) make a great point which is that if you kick heroin or alcohol or many other addictions, you can go the rest of your life without those substances, but we all have to eat. We can’t give up food so there’s an extra layer of temptation there (and please know that I am not at all trying to compare or devalue the amazing accomplishment of kicking any substance addiction). I often feel out of control and like I “can’t stop myself” from getting and eating that thing as guilt sets in before I’ve even taken a bite because I’m unhappy with my own body and have no one to blame but myself. I suck at moderation. I can’t seem to eat a cookie or two, I eat the whole package. With foods I like, I can devour them in bulk, while sometimes I have trouble choking down a “healthy” meal if it’s something I’m not enjoying. I have a lifetime of really crappy eating habits to fight against and my tastes naturally run to the not healthy side. While I have had vegetables prepared that I have enjoyed, they still don’t exist in my mind’s database of “things I like.”

More frustrating is that I have done it before! I changed my diet and dropped 60 pounds so why can’t I find that place is again? Is it because I no longer have a wife who knows how to shop and cook? I remember how after a couple of weeks of changing my diet, that “I must have the french fries! I can not resist!” turned into “I would like some fries, but I can live without them.” I have not been able to find that place again yet.

I have often said that I wanted to find some kind of “People Chow.” Something I could make a huge batch of for the week that just had all the nutrients I needed. I don’t mind lack of variety if I don’t have to think about it and can just get rid of the hunger and give my body fuel. Enter my next adventure, Soylent. I’d read about Soylent quite a while back when it was basically one guy experimenting with formulating a drink he could drink 3 times a day to fulfill all his nutritional needs. Now they’ve raised millions of dollars and are going into mass production. They’ve been getting feedback, consulting scientists and dieticians and refining the formula and will start shipping by the end of this year. I will be trying a one month supply. The more interesting implications are as a solution to world hunger. I’m sure it will be controversial, and many will cry that no magical formula can replace nutrients from whole foods and such. I guess we will see. I’m certainly willing to give it a shot. The makers even make the point themselves that even if it’s not as good as eating a healthy whole food diet, it could still be a huge step up in health for many people who eat like crap.

Tonight as I once again battled the grocery store, determined to kick start my body again, I once again came close to giving up out of frustration. I grabbed some fully cooked microwavable chicken breasts and then my mind went down that rabbit hole again, “these are probably processed and not nearly as healthy as cooking and seasoning a chicken breast yourself and that microwavable bag of Tuscan Seasoned broccoli has who knows what else in it and the regular unseasoned broccoli is probably way healthier, but then I won’t want to eat it because it will be bland and, and, and…”

Eventually, I just stopped my mind and instead of giving up completely, I got the microwavable chicken breasts and broccoli. Because it’s still a lot better than grabbing burgers, fries, shakes, pizza and ice cream. I always want to do these severe and complete overhauls when it’s been proven time and time again, that small changes are far more likely to stick.

So that’s where I am. At least until my Soylent arrives, I will keep fighting this battle. I’ve failed before, and probably will again, but I guess what’s important is to keep fighting.

I’ve noticed a strange trend in my life. I am often “forgotten.” Accidentally left off of invites, left off the credits, etc. Now first of all, let me say that this is not me whining, or “whoa is me,” or “nobody likes me,” etc. That is not my point, nor how I feel. It is more a genuine bafflement with this ongoing phenomenon from an analytical point of view as I feel it happens often, or certainly more than normal. There must be a reason for this.

If I were to hazard a guess, there are many factors that could come into play here. First, I tend to be a major homebody and isolate myself from the world quite a bit. I also, in general, tend to want to be unobtrusive and not bother people or force myself on them. I only like to be where I am welcome and wanted. Consequently this can sometimes come off as being aloof or distant or maybe disinterested.

I am not generally an initiator and if I do initiate, I will only do so 2 or three times, maximum and if that does not produce results or at least some initiative from the other party, then I will give up and assume I should leave them alone (lunch dates or meetings for example).

While, admittedly, I do sometimes enjoy the spotlight, I don’t like asking for it, competing for it or fighting for it so if there is someone who is bigger, louder, more gregarious, then many times I’ll meld into the shadows. In my acting, for example, I strive for a Gary Oldman-like career of variety and disappearing into characters more than being some blockbuster star.

Of course, some may posit the argument that maybe it’s no “accident” that I get left off of invites, but in the examples that I’m talking about here, I do truly believe it is not intentional for a variety of reasons.

Does it suck sometimes? Sure. Does it play on my own insecurities? Absolutely. But in the end, I truly believe it’s merely the effect of some cause within myself. I don’t mean being a bad person or anything like that, but just my own isolation inertia.

And just so I don’t seem completely myopic, believe me, there are many people who never forget me and plenty of times when I’m always included. Perhaps I’m not “forgotten” more than anyone else on the planet and there is no real phenomenon at all other than the human phenomenon to focus on the one negative aspect while being blind to the 10 positive positive aspects. That’s probably it.

One day at work, an email was sent out about having found someone’s “Fitbit.” I think there was another email or two about people who really liked theirs and would hate to lose them or something. This got me looking into this “Fitbit” thing. At first, I wasn’t really interested. Basically just a pedometer that counts your steps. It just didn’t seem like something I would care about or use. Yet it stayed on my mind. I kept researching. Started considering the Nike Fuelband, Jawbone Flex and others. After a whole lotta internet reading, I decided the Fitbit One was the one I was most interested in for various reasons too long to go into here. Suffice to say, do your own research and see which one sounds best for you. One day I finally just decided to get one from Best Buy and try it out and judge for myself.

I’ve been shocked at what a difference it’s made. I definitely think it will work better for certain types of people, but it’s definitely worked to motivate me. Having that goal of 10,000 steps a day is constantly planted in my brain. I park further away or take a longer route somewhere to get those extra steps. I get home, and while previously I would have just parked my ass on the couch and watched TV all night, if I see that I still have a few thousand steps to go, I’ll go walk a couple of miles to hit that goal. If it’s raining, I’ll run in place while I watch TV. When playing gigs with my band, they have been known to look on in confusion as I do laps around a courtyard, parking lot or whatever is in the area to get my steps for the day, and it also makes me more active on stage, putting on a more energetic show. That simple little number drives me to try to reach it however I can, always encouraging those little extra bits of activity. On the one day I forgot it at home, I went home at lunch to get it because I didn’t want to lose those steps!

At work I set a timer and ever 25 minutes, I walk around the building. This actually serves multiple purposes* and usually nets me my 10,000 before the work day is done (or at least very close to it). Of course, I’m lucky enough to have a job where I can do that.

All in all, I think it’s definitely had a positive impact and at least doubled the amount of physical activity I get in a day, or more. It does have other function such as estimating how many calories you burn, showing elevation change (equivalent to how many flights of stairs you’ve walked up/down), tracks your sleep patterns if you want (though I am dubious of this accuracy), and more. And as silly and trivial as it is, I like the little positive message it gives me when I pick it up like “HUG ME,” or “YOU ROCK, HEATH.”

As I said before, it probably works better with certain types of people. Maybe more obsessive or compulsive people. If you’re like me, you’ll feel the need to hit that number. Other people might just ignore it and think “I’m at 4357. Eh, whatever.” If you’re competitive (I am not at all), then you can also add friends and see your comparative step totals as well. It’s also pretty small and versatile as to the places you can wear, keep or hide it. That’s one great reason I prefer it to any wrist worn devices. I highly recommend this little device. I give it 10,000 steps up.

*Aside form my step count this also falls in line with the “Pomodoro” technique or other similar techniques that claim you are more productive when you take breaks every 25 minutes. It also helps with the “20/20/20” idea to reduce eyestrain for people who work in front of computers, the idea being that every 20 minutes you should look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. In addition, it also is supposedly healthier to get up and move around every 20 minutes or so and not sit down all day. Many of my colleagues have gone to standing desks but I’ve also read that standing all day has it’s own adverse side effects and after much research, it seemed to me the getting up every 20 minutes was the best of both worlds and healthiest compromise between sitting or standing all day.