All That Remains

When it’s all over, who and what will live on

Sometimes, I think of hope as the palliative we use to keep from getting lost or going insane, and not much more. It may not always be believable or logical, but it’s a North Star, a guide, an aspirational quest to keep us from ending it all prematurely. Hope, itself, is an act of faith that things will get better. Never has this been more important to our collective sanity than it is right now.

I was on my daily walk and listening to comedian Marc Maron talk to Mark Flanagan, the legendary owner and booker of Largo, the arts venue in Los Angeles known for its music and comedy. Flanagan, as he is known throughout the world, grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the height of the troubles, but was able to escape with his family when he was twelve. He initially came to America to study psychology, but after visiting Los Angeles in the early 90s, and being a lifelong music aficionado, he changed his focus to entertainment and never looked back.

His own story, as well as that of Largo and its influence on comedy and music, is fascinating and well worth discovering on your own, but in their conversation, almost as an aside, Flanagan mentioned Trump and the moment we’re in right now. He equated it all to what was going on in Ireland in the 1970s, when he was a boy.

“When you’re in the middle of it,” he said, “you can’t imagine that it will ever end, but it does. People like Trump never last, and it doesn’t ever end well for them either. That’s the thing you have to remember, no matter how bad it gets. The troubles always end.”

I know that one thing doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the other, but his words rang true, and suddenly, I had a sliver of hope.

No One Cares

I’ve already overshared on the topic of my beard, or current lack thereof, which was clearly more traumatic for me than anyone else, so I hesitate to say any more on the subject. Still, I can’t help but think about why that is. I was certainly anticipating a much bigger response, or at least a different one. No one even seemed to notice or care. Like I’d dyed my eyebrows. “Oh, yeah. I thought you looked different,” they might say. “I couldn’t figure out what it was.”

Most people said nothing at all.

This reaction is dramatically different than the last time I did something like this, which was a decade ago or two ago. I had done a juice fast, where I consumed nothing but fruit and vegetable juice and water. Overnight, I quit alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, and solid food. I literally quit eating, drinking, and smoking, all at once. It was a bold move, to be sure. I did it for 30 days and lost 30 pounds. It was admittedly a bit drastic and clearly not sustainable, but it did have some positive outcomes.

The most important thing is that I have never again smoked. I was smoking a pack a day at the time. It’s been close to 20 years now, and I never went back to smoking. I don’t even really smoke cigars or a pipe anymore. I just sort of lost my taste for it. Even the pot that I “smoke” comes in the form of a distillate that produces a vapor, but no smoke, and it’s not habitual for me. Eventually, I went back to eating poorly, not exercising, and drinking regularly, and so not only gained the weight back, but now that I wasn’t smoking, found a way to add weight I’d never seen before.

In December of 2024, I weighed in at 265 pounds. Today, I’m hovering at just over 200, and I’m hoping to keep working on it and get it down to 185–190. The beard was just collateral damage in my attempt to reinvent myself. The only reason I even considered shaving the beard was because I knew I wasn’t quite so fat underneath it, but I didn’t really know what to expect. There was hope that it would end well, but it was still a risk.

Back when I did the juice fast and lost the first 30 pounds, I had been at 230 pounds, and made my way down to 200, but once I began eating solid food, I popped back up to about 215 and stayed there for as long as I was doing CrossFit and dieting. It was never a sustainable process. It took about six months, an injury, and I was back to my original weight before I knew it.

That first time I lost the weight, is when I also drastically attempted to change my appearance. I shaved my beard, grew out my hair, replaced my glasses with contacts, and showed up to work with an entirely new look. People were shocked. They didn’t recognize me. They couldn’t believe it. The funny thing is, my beard back then was considerably shorter, and I lost a lot less weight. This time I lost twice the weight and three times the beard, and almost no one gave me a second look.

This, I find shocking, as I’m surprised every time I catch my own reflection, and no one else seems to even notice. Even my grandchildren, whom I thought would make a fuss, were barely curious. My one granddaughter was more interested in showing me her missing front teeth, which was clearly a much bigger deal than my silly beard.

It was all a bit humbling, I have to admit. No one cared. They weren’t paying that much attention in the first place, and it wasn’t that big a deal after all.

Good to know.

A Rough Sketch

I loved to draw as a kid. It was not only something I did, but something I was known for. That said, I was never particularly good. I have known naturally gifted artists who could just draw. I was always copying something someone else had done. I wasn’t able to start from scratch, from real life or memory.

One thing I have learned is that, like most things, drawing takes practice, and this I never did. I did not doodle in any way that was instructive. I didn’t try to draw something and fail over and over again. I never put in the work.

Now I have this fantasy in my head that I would like to sketch things from real life. I could conceivably combine this with the fantasy of teaching myself how to write properly in cursive once more. I began printing only a year or two after learning cursive, and so never developed good handwriting. My signature is a colossal mess that I’m shocked is allowed to exist. It’s not even abstract. I might as well be signing with an “X,” like an illiterate.

I love the idea of sketchbook journaling as a form of artistic expression. It’s a different style of writing and a different sort of art. It’s its own thing. Sketch a little drawing and add a little story. More like a greeting card than a serious work of art or long-form narrative. It’s a snapshot.

I have no idea what to do with this longing. I don’t sit around doodling or sketching in my free time. There is no particular subject that I’m drawn to, were I to try my hand. I have shown no proclivity towards drawing or painting in the past, yet I feel a desire to express myself in this way somehow. I’m not even sure that’s what I want to do, but something is calling me.

I just haven’t figured out what that is yet.

Thrift Store Style

There was a time, back when I was ambitious and dreamed of being filthy rich, that I was more brand-conscious and would spend money on things such as Armani suits, Ferragamo shoes, and Prada bags. I considered certain types of watches and accessories to be emblems of social value, tokens worth coveting.

Over time, as I got older and more and more out of shape, I became more limited in my fashion choices. I went from suits to jeans and sport coats, and then to work clothes such as Carhartt, Dickies, and Red Wings. I always tried to do the best with what I had, but I had painted myself into a corner. I looked like an off-duty auto mechanic.

Now that I’m lighter and more able to wear a wider variety of things, I no longer have the disposable income required to dress fancy by just spending money on big-name brands. I have to actually be more creative with how I put myself together, which is frankly, much more fun. I see lovely things online, but I’m not paying $120 for a T-shirt. I’m going to hit up thrift stores and big box discounters like Marshalls. I couldn’t care less about brand names, but I do appreciate quality.

I’m fine spending $350 on a pair of Red Wing boots that are going to last me 20 years, because I’m going to pair them with ten-year-old Levi’s 501s, a $6 t-shirt, and a linen waistcoat I found in a thrift store for $3. Shit like that.

My main problem, at the moment, is that all my clothes are too big. I look like I borrowed them from an older brother or fat uncle. I was able to dig out four pairs of jeans that I refused to throw out more than a decade ago, but kept in my closet like the hoarder I am, but any shirts from that era were taken to the thrift store by my wife and against my wishes. If she had left me alone, I’d still have all those shirts.

My biggest fear is that I’ll discover this was all a fluke and I’ll just get fat again. The weight loss wasn’t intentional in the first place, not the result of a diet or lifestyle change, which is both good and bad. I can’t entirely say why I lost the weight, which concerns me, but it also wasn’t a gimmick or a diet, so it’s possible that something more fundamental has changed. I did cut way back on alcohol and soda (sugar), but also that I also had surgery to remedy the constant bleeding that was causing me to be critically anemic.

You’d think it was the latter, but I’m not sure of anything. I’d like to think that this is the new me and that the new me will remain, but that has not been my experience, and I don’t trust it. I’m hoping for the best.

When September Ends

I watch baseball. A lot of baseball. I watched at least some part of every one of 162 regular-season games this year, most of them live and in full. This is only the one team, mind you, the Philadelphia Phillies. I’m not actually a sports fan. I only follow teams from my town, and only if they’re any good. It’s been so long since we’ve had a good basketball or hockey team that the Sixers and Flyers haven’t gotten a lot of love from me. It’s mainly the Eagles and Phillies. If my team isn’t playing, I’m not watching.

The past few years have been tough on Phillies fans. We’ve come close, but as yet have been unable to make it to the Promised Land. Here we are again in Red October, with arguably our best team in decades, and there’s no guarantee that we will be victorious. Normally, this would be cause for great consternation and anxiety, and it is to a point.

Given my stress level about life in general these days, what with climate change, America’s fall from grace, rising prices, and the growing threat of fascism, baseball, and sports in general, have taken a back seat to my existential crisis. I care, but let’s be honest, it’s not really going to make a significant difference in my life if they win or lose. I have decided to be happy with what I have and appreciate the season I was given.

This is a good thing, because they just lost the first two games in the postseason and look to be sent packing momentarily. C’est la vie.

How I Lost The Weight

My weight loss was actually quite gradual and mostly went unnoticed for a long time. I don’t think anyone paid it any mind until they saw me on the beach. Even I wasn’t all that impressed until I shaved my beard. Wow, I really had lost a lot of weight. My mother was the first to make a fuss. She said she could see it in my face.

People have asked if I was on Ozempic®, or one of the drugs like it. It’s a perfectly reasonable question, I suppose, given that apparently everyone and their mother is on the wonder drug. I mostly avoid prescription drugs whenever possible, so I would never have voluntarily taken a drug for something as trivial as weight loss. On top of which, the drug supposedly works by curbing your appetite, and that’s never been my problem. My wife complains that I eat like a bird. Overeating wasn’t my issue. A low metabolism caused by severe anemia, however, was.

Once I solved my anemia, I suspect that a combination of factors then occurred in concert. I quit drinking, and with that went soda, so I cut out a ton of sugar. I had been eating lightly because I didn’t feel well, and I believe I just got used to eating smaller portions, and we don’t keep junk food in the house. My employment changed drastically, and we made a conscious effort not to spend any unnecessary money and rarely went out. I wasn’t drinking, not taking in so much sugar, eating whole foods, snacking on fruit, and walking several times a week. Maybe it wasn’t any more complicated than that.

On the one hand, I’m thinking that maybe I just finally did it right, but I’m also worried it wasn’t intentional enough for it to last. I’m not entirely sure how I lost the weight, so in many ways, I don’t trust this as a permanent solution. I don’t trust myself. In the meantime, I’m going to continue doing what I’ve been doing. Eating responsibly. Drinking as little as possible (haven’t quite quit entirely). Exercising regularly.

It seems reasonable enough.

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Essay Hope Philosophy