Even though there is very little chance that she will ever read this, I want to make sure that I wish my grandmother Ansonia Walls a happy birthday.
If I recall correctly, she was actually born Stephia Ansonia Walls, in Anderson, NC. My great-grandfather wanted to name her Andersonia, but my great-grandmother vetoed that idea and she became Ansonia instead. I remember being in my twenties when I found out that her first name was actually Stephia (which I may be spelling wrong), but since she didn’t like it too much, she never used it.
This is actually a trend for her and her children. My mother’s first name is Lillian, but she goes by Bonnie, which plays off of her middle name Bonita. My aunt’s first name is Lydia, but she usually goes by her middle name Cheryl. My uncle’s real name is Adolphus Vaughn Walls, but he goes by Vaughn for people who don’t call him by his nickname Skip.
I only halfway follow that trend. Most people who are introduced to me call me Derek, but only family and very few childhood friends call me Chris. In fact, if I’m only used to you calling me by one name I will not answer to the other.
Anyway, she was born on January 10, 1927 in Anderson, NC and currently lives on the East Side of Detroit.
One of the presents we gave Stephen for Christmas was a V-Tech digital camera. The thing is covered in rubber and looks pretty fake, but it is a working digital camera that takes still pictures and short videos (as well as plays games like tic-tac-toe and match-the-pictures). The quality is pretty much what you would expect for what is essentially a kid’s toy (or a digital camera from 1996). The controls are very simple and he learned how to work it in a very short time.
One of his first pictures was of Daddy’s belly and it is the amorphous blob you see above. He also took a short video of me that looks like the early trailers of the movie Cloverfield where glimpses of the monster were finally shown. It was enough for me to go “What was THAT? Oh no, that was ME!”
It has finally sunk into my head that I am fat. When I was growing up, I was always thin. In fact, most of my relatives were always trying to make me eat because they thought I looked sickly.
Eating wasn’t the problem because I could eat more than a lot of my friends. It wasn’t odd for me to eat an entire 12 inch submarine or four Filet-o-Fish sandwiches from McDonald’s in one sitting. I could eat an entire King Don (or Ding Dong depending on what part of the country you are in) in one bite. In another life, I might have been a pretty kickass competitive eater.
For a while I was lifting weights, hoping to add more body mass. Instead, the exercise just toned up what I already had, which wasn’t much. So while my cousins and friends were getting bigger, I was getting more cut. I didn’t want cut, I wanted big. I purposely stopped lifting weights out hoping the muscle would turn into fat and I would get bigger that way. To me, that’s what seemed to happen to athletes who stopped working out. Didn’t work.
Finally, I just quit trying to do things to change my body shape and took to wearing really big clothes. This was in the days before the whole “saggy, look like we are carrying a concealed weapon” fashion trend so I just looked like a schlub.
At the time, I walked everywhere and that activity was burning up most of my calories, keeping me svelte. Walking everywhere wasn’t by choice, I didn’t have a car or the patience for bus waiting. I usually caught the bus to work due to time constraints, but walked the eight miles home. If I needed to be somewhere I would just pop a cassette tape into my Walkman and just start walking until I got there. Good times.
If you made it this far, you are probably wondering how I put on so much weight. I started dating a woman with a car. She drove me everywhere and at first, I still didn’t put on a lot of weight. I packed on the pounds when we got married and due to our living with another family, we spent years eating almost nothing but fast food. I went from 150 to 230 in less than two years.
People who had known me were amazed. Some of them said that I was carrying the weight well and I looked a lot healthier. I didn’t get it, I still felt like the same skinny kid. My marriage crumbled and I got even bigger (275 at my absolute heaviest), but in my head I was still the same skinny kid.
When I got my own place and I was on the opposite side of town from all of my friends and family, I started working out again, not because of any desire to tone up or lose weight, but simply because I was bored. Between the weightlifting, the desire to not cook (because I hate washing dishes) and all of the smoking, I got down to 230 again. A guy I worked with, but who hadn’t seen me in a while asked me how I lost “all that weight”, I told him about my cigarettes and starvation diet. He never asked me about it again.
A friend of mine warned me about losing weight before I reached 40 because after that it would be more difficult to lose. I had no idea why she was telling me that.
When I held a contest for a new logo for my Comic Book Noise podcast, the winning entry had a cartoony picture of me. Another friend saw it and said “I like the image. It looks like you lost some weight and bought some new shoes. ha ha.” I thought “Yeah, I don’t wear red shoes.”
I have taken pictures of me over the years but for some reason the angles were all very flattering. I’ve had pictures taken of me, but maybe my narcissism won’t let me look past my pretty pretty face to see anything else.
This totally candid shot taken at a totally candid angle shows me that I am truly fat. I have paid lip service to the fact that I need to lose some weight but in my head it has always been just to tone up my stomach. I still contend I only have fat there and nowhere else. I can “pinch an inch” there, but I am hard pressed to get more than a centimeter anywhere else.
So I guess I need to get back into the habit of walking somewhere, even if it in the basement. I need to keep a better eye on what I eat. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I don’t smoke anymore, so I have to come up with another diet plan.
I’m not the type of person who likes to make New Year’s Resolutions, I would rather give myself attainable goals, then reach them. I think I need to resolve to lose an inch or two off my stomach. That seems doable.
Tags: digital camera, eating, exercise, fat, marriage, resolution, stephen, toys, walking, weight, weightlifting
I was doing a Google search for the term “you and your father” for a smart assed remark, but instead got sidetracked when I saw a question on Yahoo! answers. The original page has been removed from Yahoo! Answers but it was still in Google Cache and said “Who would win between you and your father in your prime in a boxing match?”
I thought that the question was poorly worded but at its core, it is an interesting one. I think that a lot of guys wonder some variation of it at times in their lives. To make the question more interesting I think that both subjects have to be their prime.
So I sat and thought about it.
In his prime, my father played basketball, was in the Army, played semipro football, played softball and was a Deputy Sheriff serving warrants in the streets of Detroit. He had cancer in multiple organs including his stomach and thought it was just acid reflux. His prime lasted from about 15 until his death at 57.
In my prime, I was able to do twelve straight pushups and could walk 8 miles home from work with no problem. I have allergies so bad that I can’t even cut my own grass without wheezing. My prime lasted from about 24 until 25.
Advantage: Dad
Tags: dad
This is a picture of my grandmother, my granddaughter Gabryale, my daughter Jaymie, my mother and me. It was taken by my other daughter Jazmyn on Thanksgiving 2008. I have no idea why it was datestamped 6/16/2007.
This was the first time that Gabryale had met my mother and grandmother. At first she didn’t want to go to anyone but Jaymie (and begrudgingly to Jazmyn), but for some reason she wanted to go to my grandmother. After two minutes, she didn’t want to go anyone else.
My mother and grandmother had already been there for hours by the time the girls showed up and were ready to leave. My mother works midnights and while she had already took a nap on my couch, she wanted to go home and try to catch a few minutes before she had to get up again. However, I don’t think it worked out that way.
When my grandmother handed Gaby back to Jaymie, the baby started to cry and howl. Her reaction to being separated from her great-grandmother took everybody by surprise. The only other time that I had ever seen her that upset was when I was holding her and she didn’t want me holding her. She cried the tears of separation until my grandmother was no longer in sight.
She sniffled a little while and my daughters kept giving her a pacifier, which I immediately took out of her mouth every time and since she didn’t fight me about it, I guess I did the right thing. Finally she just looked at me for a while and let me hold her.
It occurred to me much later that I should have gotten a picture with Jazmyn and Stephen as well. OK, actually Patti had to point it out that I should have gotten a picture with Jazmyn and Stephen as well.
Overall, it was a pretty good night.
I still miss my puppy. She was the sweetest dog I have ever seen. I know that everybody says that, but I’m the only one who is right. 
She was the only one of her litter to not be adopted out. It had something to do with the white markings on her face not being symmetrical (or some other dog geek reason). The “breeder” wanted to give her to us because she knew that Patti loved boxers. As a cat person, my only response to Patti was “Just remember that this is your Christmas gift.” Almost immediately upon walking through the door, the dog gravitated towards me.
One of the selling points that Patti made to me was that Izzy didn’t have a problem with being in a dog cage. She had apparently been in the dog cage at the animal hospital where Patti works and was a very quiet girl. We have a dog cage set up in the living room, so she would be able to hear if not see us at bed time. (I’m not going to say which one of us snores louder, but I have been run out of the room on a couple of occasions.)
The second that she walked into the cage and the door closed, Izzy let loose with a heartbreaking cry of loss and pain. She barked against the injustice of being separated from her new family and her throat was instantly raspy at the anguish of being so close and yet so far. I looked at Patti with an expression that said “Are you kidding me? Seriously? Is this ‘good in a dog cage’?” Patti blushed and sheepishly said “I swear to you, she was NOT like this at the clinic.”
Needless to say, we let her out of the cage and she immediately shut up. I miss Izzy.
A true conversation:
Me: Hey Stephen, when you took your picture did you smile?
Stephen: Yes.
Me: Are you sure?
Stephen: Yes.
Me: Was it a real smile or did you just show your teeth?
Stephen: It was a real smile.
Me: Are you sure?
Stephen: Yeah.
I’ll let you decide what kind of smile it was.
Tags: school picture, stephen
Hello, this is the brand new DerekCoward.com. This is a website that will keep people up to date with me and my family. Right now it is pretty sparse, but I plan on adding interesting things, such as photos, videos and stories behind some of those photos and videos.
