Grin and Bear it...

First, an update; then, what's really on my mind.
Update: Tough couple of days - Canada Day and we started the day with Canadian Sparkling Wine (Cuvée Catherine)and Chocolate Croissant - it's a tradition. It was gorgeous day to sit out and eat and drink Canada... Oka cheese, Strawberries, Scallops, Pork Loin, fresh Pickerel, greens from my backyard, glorious wines from Fielding Estates, Thirty Bench... and then roasting marshmallows in the backyard watching fireworks. Not good for weight loss... so I didn't look.
Friday - Toronto Fringe Festival - 4 plays, lots of walking... but also stopping for a glass of wine between plays, street meat for a quick lunch.. oh, and a pint of Guinness at 11am watching the World Cup (Ho, Ho, HOLY HOLLAND!!) Out for dinner... and I didn't want to weigh in at the end of that day. Sort of started to think that I'd probably put all of my lost weight back on... but fear not, gentle reader... I hit the scales today still below 260! So, I've lost about 24 pound real pounds or 21 according to the contest (remember, I lied at my weigh in, not wanting to admit that I weighed 283).
So, my sins were not so egregious... BUT they sure were fun! (Just want you wanted to hear from a preacher: The Joys of Sin)

Now, to what's really on my mind:

After what I thought was a hot date... teenage me, taking home teenage hottie, after a light dinner and great evening of theater (very sophisticated, me thinksed) heard these words - "Gee thanks, that was really neat, the sort of thing my mother would take me to"

At lunch not long ago... no where near teenage me, enjoying lunch with a hottie (probably out of my league, but I only play home games now, so who cares?), heard these words - "that's a really nice shirt... very LL Bean.. I buy those shirts for my Dad"

The girl and the woman who delivered these crushing blows, had no idea that they were dealing with a very fragile male ego. A male who looks in the mirror and does not see Winnie-the-Pooh with a beard, but sees Humphrey Bogart in "Casablanca", Cary Grant in "To Catch a Thief" and Roger Moore in "The Saint". In an instant that illusion is shattered... But I am a big boy, I pick myself up, focus my energies and reclaim my delusions! In both cases, I drove away very quickly, screeched into a bar and calmly ordered a vodka, martini, shaken not stirred.... and waited for the James Bond theme to start playing in my head again.

Currently, the one that gets me is.. "Oh, you look like you've lost weight, you must feel so much better...!" Words offered by kind, loving well-meaning folk... but words that strip away my fantasies of being a Millionaire Ninja, masquerading as a minister, and remind me that I am pretty much a regular guy who really needed (and needs) to lose weight. I'm not always as gracious as I might be when people say these things... but I am trying.
I am reminded of friend named David. I haven't seen David in over 20 years, but when I knew him, he weighed close to 400 lbs and then he lost over 180lbs. Everyone kept telling him how great he looked and how happy he must be to have lost all of that weight... After about 6 months of this, he began to intentionally put it back on again. He was so tired of people telling him how great he looked - he didn't like having his own view of himself corrected (or assaulted), so he put it back on again so that people would stop talking about him.
I'm not there... I'm happy when people say encouraging things and I wouldn't want people to feel that they couldn't say anything around me... but I am a little surprised how many people don't recognize me as Cary Grant's twin brother... and so, I have to work a little at being gracious and even harder at maintaining the illusion of being a young Robert Wagner - because clearly nobody is going to do it for me.