The lesson is simple: the time that you close off and draw away from your friends is the time that you probably need them the most.There have been no gym stories for a while, and that should be a tip-off that I'm struggling. The month before dragon*con is always a wash for me when it comes to workouts, because my brain gets eaten by the twin towers of tech and DCTV. Coming on top of May's pneumonia diagnosis, things have sputtered for months. What had started off terribly well ended up in a major disappointment for me; the costume I had spent a year and a half researching was one I could not fit into when it came time for dragon*con 2005.

I put it away for another year. Not without tears, though.

The squeak of bedsprings told me Jeff was shifting about for a more comfortable reading spot on the master bed. Their familiar squeal is one of the few sounds that transmit reliably through the walls of our house; from my blanket-wrapped perch in the reading room I could tell what was going on without question or movement.

When I dropped it in, the spoon clinked against the glass. Another cup of Saturday tea, chestnut and opaque from half-and-half and sweetener, sacrificed to the literary gods. Naptime, perhaps. Tired.

"Would you be interested?"

« perhaps. »

"I know I'm asking a lot of you. I can't offer you a long-term commitment - not even one that will last you through the summer. I don't want to pretend to be something I'm not, and I don't want you to get your hopes up. I see our relationship as being intense, but in the end, only temporary. In a few months, I'll have to move on."

« it would be foolish to hope for more. at least you are being honest. »

"Shall we see if we fit?"

« it wouldn't hurt. »

I'd planned to be serious and contemplative and say something marginally insightful or interesting regarding the mess that is the legal fight surrounding Terri Schiavo, but then I managed to splatter chocolate yogurt down most of my bare leg, and most of my thought processes got devoted to whether or not I actually had the flexibility to lick most of it off.I thought about doing it, and then I realized that I've apparently inhaled WAY too much cat fur, because no sane human would ever admit to thinking such a thing. So I just reached down and scooped it off with a finger.

Hey, my leg was clean -- but, I think, the post is pretty much lost to the ether.

We'll get back to the flexibility issue after a brief, maundering segue into the realm of the serious.

* * * * *

I have a notebook. Small, spiral. When I go somewhere, it goes too. It has a lot of things in it, mostly mundane: iterations of the ever-changing shopping list and to-do list. Errands I'd like to run. Thoughts. Phone numbers to call. During trips away from home, lists of postcards to send and assortments of new addresses and driving directions tend to pop up.

Were my notebook just comprised of those lists, I'd have no hesitation in letting anyone see the contents. The problem is that there's always a little more in there, and that "little more" is personal enough for me that I just can't share the full contents with anyone else.

Those are my lists of things I want out of my life as my weight loss progresses. Some of them are overarching. Some are little. Some are just dumb. Every one of them represents something intensely personal that I've felt I've lost due to the extra weight I carried.

The importance of some things can't be overstated. I've known this day was coming, and said nothing, keeping the date close to my chest in order to have just a little more time to think about it.

When I came back from a Colorado vacation a year ago this week, I told you the superficial stories first. I saved the crucial one for last and dreaded the telling, because I knew how much of a surprise its contents would be for virtually everyone I've ever known: