jaytan

HOLY SHIT, I'm 209. Lbs., that is. Damn, I'm trippin'. This is the lightest I've been in years, the only other time being the day of "King of the Streets," when my day started at 7am and ended at about 4am the next morning. I remember living on a small coffee, a danish, and 2 cans of Diet Coke all that day. I ate pretty well today, conversely. Salmon benedict with a croissant and Nutella (friends wanted a French brunch, and they were paying? What, you expect me to boycott?), and even some Cold Stone Creamery. I was 213 before the gym, and although I ran pretty hard, I only did 25 minutes (about my maximum right now) on the treadmill, and somehow that gets me down to 209?! Trick now is to capitalize on it -- eat light (but don't fast) over the next few days to let my body adjust.

Feels like my life is at a major crossroads right now. Unfortunately, thats the nature of working in the entertainment biz, that there's never any real steady job security, but that also seems to be quite the case for our generation in general. What's strange is that for all that is wrong with the world today, you'd think that there would be plenty of jobs for everybody. So why the descrepancy?

First thing that comes to mind, which coincides very much with what people in my line of work (and well as friends outside my industry) seem to face, is that it takes longer to make a decent living than it did, say, a generation or two ago. As if we have to work harder and harder for less and less. Life in general is more complicated, with higher health insurance, a standard of living that's increased faster than the national average of wages, more things for us to spend money on, etc. But I've often wondered, if those in power aren't also simply getting stingier and stingier, such that companies are less and less willing to spend on their labor and employees, keeping more of the profits for themselves than before. Granted, this is an unresearched diatribe here, but knowing the private business investments that the old white men whom we're forced to call our government leaders, and knowing that they're as prone to lie and protect their own interests as much as any other unelected, irresponsible citizen (like me), I can't help but suspect that there's at least an unspoken common belief that as a company grows, those who deserve the most financial reward are those who make the executive decisions -- despite the importance of keeping the labor motivated and loyal. Or am I just being a conspiracy theorist?

Weigh-In Addendum: I just drank two liters of water and had a large vegetable tofu soup. To no surprise, all that water weight put me back up at 214.5. I'm not concerned about this, given that it's all water and vegetables. If I can revisit that 209 number sometime this week after another workout, I'll consider it a big step in the right direction, which I know will help drive the diet dedication.

Here we go, into another work week. Hold breath. . . . . . NOW.