Obamarama

Wow, as a formerly jaded political observer, I am shocked at how thrilled I am that Barack Obama won Iowa. And I'm TOTALLY stunned. A black man - not a LIBERAL black man, but a reasonably progressive one, anyway - carried this state, arguably the nation's biggest bastion of corn-fed conservatism.

Iowa? Iowa! That's nearly my neck of the woods! Perhaps there's hope after all for the region of this country that I had personally written off as hopelessly reactionary and boring?

Lord, though, after the initial joy ebbed, I realized that I'm completely scared for him. (There's a good blogger article about this fear here, if you are so interested.) I was born at the end of the sixties, but I remember the mood of the country in the years immediately following, when the Kennedys and King were still fresh in people's minds. A brief survey of the crazies over at Free Republic confirms my suspicions. The vitriol they have been spewing about Hillary will just be transferred to Obama, if he wins the nomination, and I'm 100% certain that this means that his life will be in danger at every public appearance. (I'm getting the vibe that they'd prefer to "character assassinate" Hillary, but this may not be as easy with Obama.)

Please, let his security detail be strong and vigilant. I don't want to be scared for him every time he comes on the TV.
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Resolution check: So far, I've been to the gym three times since joining on Jan. 2. I've done the EFX and lifted weights, and - get this - I've even STRETCHED afterwards. (Those Type A's among you will likely relate, I'm thinking, to my COMPLETE impatience and boredom with any sort of exercise that does not directly burn calories. I KNOW, I know, I need to do more yoga and Pilates to "strengthen my core" or some such - and I'm committed to trying to incorporate these - but, quite frankly, it's hard to convince me to do anything, exercise-wise, that is not going to specifically allow me to eat more bacon cheeseburgers.)

I miss having Karla exercise with me, though. It's easier to get through it if you have another person to push you, you know? Even if we were mostly listening to our Walkmans (yeah, that was a few years ago) rather than being chit-chatty, I appreciated the company.

The diet is going fairly well. I'm not rejoining Weight Watchers yet - it's possible I will do so next week - but I'm spending so much on the gym, that I hate to throw another $40 a month into the mix. I'd like to see a few pounds off by next week, and if I don't, then I'm going to have to rejoin. Again, I wish I had a buddy, though. WW meetings are best if you have somebody to laugh with at the golly-gosh earnestness of most of the leaders.

My favorite WW memory was of the time that the MOST Pollyanna-ish of all of the leaders passed out popsicle sticks and had us do a sort of visualization exercise, in which we focused all of our determination and conviction to lose weight onto our popsicle stick. I was fine until she uttered her closing directive, which was "Now, when you feel the temptation to eat something you shouldn't, all you need to do is hold your stick." I thought I was going to explode from holding in my giggles.
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For those of you that have inquired, my mom's doing fairly well; thanks for asking. She has her good days and her bad days, for sure, but she sounds all right most days.

My dad didn't tell her where a lot of all of his important papers were, so she's had to spend a lot of time calling around and digging in file cabinets. Perhaps she'd disagree with me, but I kind of wonder if that isn't a blessing in disguise, as she's got so much to figure out that I think it's taking her mind off of things.

I'm not in the funk I was in for several weeks afterwards, but I definitely know what people mean when they say that losing someone in your family gives you a sort of "phantom limb" feeling. The pain takes the form of a hole, rather than a jab.