I am fifty years old, and I am fat. Not mid­dle-aged thick, not suck in your gut for pic­tures. I am Fat­ty d’Fat Fat, Lord Fatisi­mo of the Great and Wide Fat­ties. I am also male, most­ly white, most­ly Irish by way of the South, and I grew up a non-prac­tic­ing Epis­co­palian in the north­ern sub­urbs of Los Ange­les Coun­ty. Which makes me both obso­lete and redun­dant. I’m also part Venezue­lan, part Catholic, part Jew (how else can I explain my Irish Catholic pater­nal grand­moth­er’s maid­en name : Lowen­stein?), and part Mormon.

The Mor­mon part is of my own doing. I joined the Mor­mon church when I was 17, and I left the church 13 years lat­er. I say that I am still part Mor­mon not because of any ves­ti­gial beliefs I might be wag­ging behind me, but because my two sons Hunter and Noah were raised in the church. Hunter’s rejec­tion and Noah’s embrace of the faith are both part­ly results of my choic­es. When you are a father, no deci­sion you make can be unmade. I can play music mod­er­ate­ly well. I can­not whis­tle. I sing poor­ly, but I sing much bet­ter than I should because I have tried all my life. I wish I could sing bet­ter, but it’s a great plea­sure to hear Noah sing so well. Oskar sings too, and while Hunter nev­er sings in front of me, he whis­tles with a per­fect pitch and a gor­geous tone.

I love most sports but I cant play any oth­er than base­ball. I did not exer­cise what­so­ev­er until high school. As a result entropy and resis­tance to fit­ness are my nat­ur­al modes. But how­ev­er unlike­ly, I fell in love with bicy­cles when I was a kid. My first bike was a Peu­got 10 speed, some­thing like this :

My Scout troop went on a two day 100 mile ride, and inex­plic­a­bly, I smoked every­one else in my troop, includ­ing the adults. The sup­port truck had to find me and tell me to slow down. Con­tin­ue read­ing →