What I am going to eat today
Again, a quick menu, starting from Meal 1…

Cheerios, turkey sandwich, big salad, fruit platter (with two apples, an orange and a nectarine!).

That should add up to about 1,400-1,600 calories.

What I am not going to do tomorrow
Work out. Why? Substituting Monday’s workout for Thursday, since I happen to have a rare Thursday off this week. Plus, I find it hard to go four days in a row. (Catch the hint there that I went to the gym Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I am doing pretty well.)

The real reason I brought you here today
I am dancing in my chair with new, yet familiar, musical sounds buzzing about the room. I am wearing a year-old light blue T-shirt that once hugged my body, but now hangs loosely and comfortably over my torso.

I am writing by lamplight with a space heater warming my legs. I am gazing around my room and seeing a typical, whimsical mess of clothes, books, a scale and bedding.

I am attentive to what the future will bring. I am hopeful and realistic and aware of the challenges ahead.

I am aware of success, those in the past and those coming around the corner. The former must be celebrated while the latter coddled. I know success doesn’t happen right now. It is an entity that exists either in the past or the future. I am not successful, but I have been successful and I will be successful. Now is always the time for reflection. Now is when you figure out how you did and how you will.

I am not high.

Not at all, actually.

Instead, I am just happy on this Sunday night. I can’t exactly figure out why. Perhaps it is just one of those nights where I get to sit at my computer, listening to new music and enjoying the fruits of labor of the past week.

Before I get into specifics, I am going to toss a quick plug out there. I am listening to the new Counting Crows album, as I have been all weekend. And though I am still in the breaking-it-all-down stage, I think I am ready to label this a great album. Of course, it helps that, after all these years, I am still huge Counting Crows fan and credit Adam Duritz with helping me get over every heartbreak I have ever experienced. Still, upon four listenings and a few glances at the lyrics, I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those albums that defines a time period for me.

Kind of like when I was a freshman in College and bought “The Dave Mattews Band Live at Red Rocks”, or when Blues Traveler’s “Four” got me through my junior year of high school, or when O.A.R.’s “The Wanderer” was all over the place during my third summer in college, or when “White Blood Cells” by the White Stripes guided my studies through that deciding fifth year of college, or, more recently, when I spent my first full summer in California listening to the Hold Steady. I think you get the point.

Anyway, there is a very good chance that “Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings” by the Counting Crows will immediately remind me of that time I got down to 240 pounds.