On and On We Go.

Well, I spoke with my stepmother, and she clearly rejected any financial assistance for the time being, telling me that she’s appreciative that it was offered and will keep it in mind. I’ll reach out to her periodically. Until such time as she wants the kind of assistance I can provide, there’s not much else I can or should do. I’ll continue doing the little (and I recognize it’s very little) that I have always done, which is send them gift cards on special occasions.

I continue to do the things I need to do to build my own life according to my father’s instructions. Not necessarily the ones he gave me verbally and with intent, but the ones he gave me by showing me what will happen if I follow the path that I am rather seductively pulled towards: drink, sloth, and self-centeredness. There have been some exciting developments.

My job here at MECMC is going about as well as I could hope. I’ve been promoted, I am now hiring an underling to train as an acolyte. Soon, hopefully, I will be the director of my own “laboratory”, though that’s not likely what it will be called. And I will essentially have the entire hospital as my playground, and be able to do science, and engineering, and academics galore.

I am also now being considered for two different faculty positions at one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions of health and medicine. I don’t know if I want either one. But frankly, it is something of a coup in my life just to be on the shortlist for such a place. If I get so far as to go give a job talk and a chalk talk, I’ll be over the moon. But I don’t know that I would take a job if it were offered. There’d be salary issues, and it would mean a shift to either a heavy teaching load, or to soft-money research. But they’d also be closer to BB. If I’m fortunate enough to get an offer, there will be a lot of thinking to do.

I am continuing the marathon training and fitness regime. It’s really coming along since the dark days of 2011. Monday, I ran an 8:30 mile in 94° heat. (For those of you who think in Celsius, that’s 168°.) I’m up to about 73 miles in July, on my way to about 102. August will be closer to 120. I have also added in the bike for about 90 minutes a week, which is nice. I don’t work as hard on the bike as I do when at the gym or running, so it’s a nice active break for my routine.

I’ve been really pleased with the effect of my workout regimen on the things that actually really matter. As much as I’d love to be very fit and lean and sexy, what truly matters is my metabolism and my mobility. Seeing those things destroyed in my father has had a powerful effect on me. I know there are no guarantees in life, but I know that people who do what I do are far less likely to suffer those kinds of consequences in middle age.

My A1c and my blood pressure have been very good for a couple of years. I am not, according to basic diagnoses, diabetic yet. though as my doctor says, I’m definitely insulin resistant. I have a lot of work to do for the rest of my life to maintain my metabolic health. But the last time I took my blood pressure, it was 112/63, and my resting pulse was 47. Those are the numbers of a man in reasonable cardiovascular health. As I build my skeletal muscle, I ought to improve my insulin resistance significantly.

Fitness, especially when one has allowed themselves to become as ill-conditioned as I allowed myself to become, it a project of moments and years. I’m now working out something like 8-10 hours a week. All those little moments that I have to devote to retraining my body. And it retrains my mind and my spirit as well. I am a different man than I was only a few years ago. And I think I’m a better man than I was only a few years ago. One step at a time. Sober. Getting fit. Reaching forward.