On the way home from the gym today:

To tell you truth I've said it before

tomorrow I start in a new direction

I know I've been half asleep

I'm never doing that again

I look straight at what's coming ahead

and soon it's gonna change in a new direction

Every night as I'm falling asleep

these words repeated in my head

Guster - 'Come Downstairs and Say Hello'

I've been singing that a lot lately. (In fact, it's playing right now.)

I reached my first weight goal today. Ten pounds gone.

Ten pounds doesn't feel like much; in the gym, that's a weight I can toss back and forth between hands without much thought or care. But extracting that amount of weight from one's body is a different story, especially when your method of extraction involves both cardiovascular work and heavy-duty weight training.

Speaking of weight training, Rick's a believer now. He tagged along for Saturday's workout. While he's annoyed that he didn't finish my workout, he has to admit that I have a three-month head start on him. Six months from now, the disparity between our frames (me, 5'1½"; him, somewhere around 6'3") will mean that I will be unable to complete his workout.

Mark my words, Rick. Six months from now, and probably fewer than that if I'm really honest, you're going to see a totally different story.

Ten pounds. I have cried and fought and hated and cursed them, because what everyone tells you is true: when you're doing weight training, and doing it right, those first ten pounds are murderously difficult to remove. My muscle gains far outstripped my fat loss; it took well into my second month of workouts before my weight even dropped back below my start weight. Even though the cumulative weight loss was negligible, the results were not.

I've been lectured a lot for having many lofty end goals, but few intermediate, more reasonable, goals. Sure, I want to hike a couple of trails in the Grand Canyon, and surprise a few members of tech staff with a couple of outfits that will make up for years of my not costuming at dragon*con, and maybe take karate or tennis lessons, but what's to get me through the meantime?

Neil Gaiman's 'Sandman' comics.

I've wanted them for quite some time, but couldn't come up with a reason to spend the money to get them. They're a treat, something visible and tangible, and something that I absolutely will not go out and buy for myself until I've earned them. Ten pounds per book. There are a few more books in the series than ten-pound increments of weight I need to lose, but as rewards go, they'll do.

Here's hoping the next ten aren't quite so difficult.

For now, you'll have to excuse me. I have a book to order, and a happy dance to do before anyone else can get to the house to photograph it.