Brick

This must be the way to get a cou­ple of New Year’s res­o­lu­tions accom­plished: Start and fin­ish early. It works, it has to work this time.

On Dec. 26, My Beloved and I returned to Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet. By mid-month, I dropped nine pounds and relaxed into the just-a-little-carb Phase 2. She’s been doing real well, too.

I don’t intend into fall back into the Big Bag o’ Chips Almost Daily (and whole Tub o’ Dip) rou­tine, which is where 2006 ended. That urge is gone.

MB thinks it’s eas­ier for me than her due to gen­der, but there are lots of guys with seri­ous weight prob­lems. Mine was mod­est. All I can say is that my moti­va­tion was rage. When I got angry enough at myself — when I saw my gut pok­ing my shirt out from beneath a sweater vest — I got on and stuck to this sen­si­ble diet (third time in four years). A woman at work said I’m not heavy. True enough, but I felt lethar­gic, and that just won’t do.

Oh, the sec­ond res­o­lu­tion? More fre­quent Brick post­ings. An attack of the shy’s hit me on the New Year. This Infe­ri­ous Curse (has Harry Pot­ter learned a potion to spell that one?) blocked me, had me con­vinced I have noth­ing vital to say to my “15 read­ers.”

The page for Wednes­day, Jan. 17, 2007, of my Poetry Speaks page-a-day cal­en­dar has a mini-biography of William Stafford, being his birth­day. It empha­sizes that he wrote a poem every day for decades, includ­ing the morn­ing of the day he died. “Stafford urged writ­ers to ‘lower one’s stan­dard’ in order to sus­tain the ongo­ing prac­tice of a writ­ing life. In his final poem he coun­seled, ‘Be ready for what God sends.’”

Lots of folks would think that quote means: Keep look­ing up. We daily writ­ers (just because no Bricks have been uploaded doesn’t mean ol’ Long­hand hasn’t been swirling Water­man ink across Claire­fontaine paper), know Bill means that God gives the best inspi­ra­tion and more fre­quently to those who go ahead and get going with­out it.

As I approach 10 pounds lighter, I have the energy to heed the reminders of my sec­ond res­o­lu­tion: Two sticky notes that read: “Daily.” “Local.” But Daily means for­get thought­ful pieces. But Local means ignore Press­ing Issues. Or do they?

Writer’s Block? That’s like the oppo­site of SPF block, where you get burned by avoid­ing expo­sure to sun­light by stay­ing indoors at your desk. Write? Get out! Don’t for­get a hat. –30–