Dorrier Underwood

Everyone else followed the same protocol: stand behind the lectern; look at your notes below the mike. But she didn’t stay safe behind the big block of wood on the stage. Even as the applause continued for her famous name, she started messing with the microphone, taking it off the stand and unwrapping the cord from around it. Then she stepped out in front of the lectern, in her professional-looking black patterned dress just above the knee, put her hand on her hip, and unleashed that Kennedy magic. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend definitely has the family poise, charisma, humor and intelligence, not to mention the ability to play a crowd like a musical instrument. I found myself wondering what it would take for politics to become thought of as an honorable profession again in America – FDR, Adlai Stevenson, George McGovern, Howard Baker, Sam Ervin, Sam Nunn, Leon Panetta – we admired their character beyond their political positions. And then I looked at the crinkles around her eyes and...

In my younger and more vulnerable years I always though 245 was fat. I was in college and had gained all of the freshman 15 and then some. I had been 197 as a sophomore and was 230 in high school which was big. I had been on a diet since I was 10 years old when Dr. Brown told my mom no more carrots they have too much sugar, since doc brown I have been on rice, no rice, potatoes, steak, shakes, veggie juice and even did a stint on the diet called the crazy diet where you ate one food all day, from watermelon to cabbage. What I have finally decided is that I know it all. I don’t need more information. It really is a function of math, calories in – calories burned = surplus or deficit. I need a deficit of 24 more pounds. So I could really say exactly how many calories and how much exercise would get me there. I might be off a bit because of the newest science, but I can tell you, I don’t have a plan for the peanut butter cracker afternoon binging. I think the peanut butter crac...

It's not a decision, it is a bunch of coordinated choices. I did NOT want to run today. First I go eat pasta at lunch with CREAM SAUCE. The conversation is good and the food is amazing, but as I come home on the belt-line I notice I am only going 50 and on the side of the road. I will nap. But you were going to run this afternoon, But I am so tired and I am only running a 5k. I have been so good, I deserve it, I will not eat the pasta again, just let me nap this time and I will be good. Choice, I take the exit towards the gym. But that exit also takes me to my house. Choice, I go straight at Kildaire. But I could just ride by, and I am PRETTY SURE I WILL. Choice, I turn in. I sit in the parking lot and listen to Hunter Thompson, in the worst throes of a pasta coma. As he describes his drug induced escapade, I drift in and out of consciousness. I wake up, it has been 10 minutes since I parked, and I have been passed out, I should just go home. Choice, I get m...