Rolf Danner

Today is a very happy day. With the California Supreme Court ruling marriage for gay and lesbian couples has become a reality. The pleasure might be temporarily but I’m willing to put my faith in the California electorate.

It is a day worth celebrating. It also is a real scorcher here in LA. Our adorable 1930s apartment was designed without air-conditioning in mind. Recently one of our neighbors moved out and left us a small window unit. Though so far we’ve used it only in dire situations at night. If the thermometer keeps climbing like today, I will grab my laptop and bunker down in the bedroom.

This really is going to be an entry about losing weight. I promise. Just for once, the larger world is overshadowing our life here with good news. It’s about time too. We have seen much distressing and deeply saddening stories on the news in the last week. I guess the best we can do is to stay with the path we’ve set out on. Even if the going gets tough and rewards are not readily apparent. At least my bathroom scale seems to have stopped cooperating. In a moment of doubt I stepped on the scale at the gym. Obviously, the tall snooty number there is in cahoots with the little white thing that lives with us. They both claim that I weigh the same, OK a half-pound more, than last week.

Can I reframe this as an opportunity to show that I can stick with a decision, and go all the way, even if gratification doesn’t come along for the ride? Let’s stay with that thought for now. Or could it possible be the slice of carrot cake I had at an office party this week? Banding together with the two glasses of red wine from the weekend? I picture them standing on the side of my scale and pulling me down, sending the numbers higher and higher. On the up side, there is still progress around my middle, meaning there is a little less than there used to be. That’s going in the right direction.

Have you ever seen these ads where they show the “proud” patient with two gallons of their own body fat neatly drawn into plastic bags? I must not be in the target group of these ads because they make me want to run from any such procedure as fast as I can. Recently, I’ve gotten quite a bit faster too. A very rough estimate of the change of my waistline leads me to believe that I shrunk my midsection by around six cups of fat. Not shabby considering this came without surgery and even saved me some money on food. Granted, protein powder isn’t cheap, so it probably comes out even. Now I’m just waiting for the money of the liposuction I didn’t have to show up in my bank account.