Here is the gym near work that I go to when I can find the time/motivation. It's called Crunch. I like the gym, but not the name. I guess it means crunch like "doing crunches" or it's just supposed to sound intense. To me, though, "crunch" makes me think of either food, or being mangled in a terrible exercise accident.

I am overweight. Actually, that's not quite right. According to the body mass index I am officially obese. I'm a tall dude (6'4'') so I can carry the weight a little better than some. I have an undeniably prominent gut, but I think I look more overweight (husky?) than outright obese. When the homeless people near iO yell out, "Big man, spare some change" I think, "They mean Big Man as in tall." Maybe I'm fooling myself.

I'm okay with myself. I'd like to be healthier and thinner, but my sense of self worth is only ever-so-slightly bruised by weight issues. Sarah rubs my belly and says, "I like your size," and I choose to believe her.

Sometimes I think about famously fat comedians. Stand-ups and commercial actors whose very career is based on the fact that they could be considered comically overweight (just like there are actors whose work all translates to, "I am very old" or "I am weird looking"). I imagine they have mixed feelings about their success, but I suppose it's equally possible they just think it's awesome. "This is who I am, and I get paid lots of money because of it. Are you going to eat that? I'm just kidding. That's one of my jokes. Lunch is on me."

I once met a fairly successful fat actor who had recently lost a lot of weight. It was way back when I was in Comedy Corner and he came to the university to perform with us as an alum. I had never heard of him before but he'd been in a lot of movies (playing characters called Morgan Poundage and Fat Elmer) and I realized I had seen him in 'Blade,' as a fat vampire. He seemed like a nice guy and was very proud of all the weight he'd lost, but his stand-up was... weird. Again and again he kept saying, "All my jokes are about being fat. I lost all this weight and I lost all my jokes." He tried to tell his old jokes, but they didn't work anymore.

Just now, I looked him up on IMDB, and it's heartening to see he's still getting regular work (although his characters don't seem to have names anymore, just Manager, Delivery Guy, Police Officer). The only biographical information posted is that he was born in 1966 and he "lost 210 pounds with help from a personal trainer."