Baslow's Dirty Little Secret

Baslow has always thought of himself as a shy, a very shy, person. For the most part, deep down, it is true. He did, after all, refuse to attend his own fifth birthday party, locking himself in his room and letting his mother entertain all the invited five-year-olds for two hours.

He has never quite acknowledged to himself, however, the degree to which the opposite is also true: Baslow wants attention. He wants lots of attention. He'll go to some lengths to get attention. He will let you know that he wants you to attend to him. He just hasn't let himself know it.

Once Baslow seized upon the idea of posting what, to his shyer self, seemed like a damn-near-naked photo of himself for the purposes of demonstrating his morbid obesity he began to have to come to terms with what he will do to get attention. He will do things other people would not (they have told him) consider doing. He has startled his wife. He has baffled his children.

Yet it seems to be working, so far. It doesn't work perfectly but it seems to work well enough. Baslow envisions an audience, a public, to whom he is now accountable. When he woke up this morning to see the ground covered in five inches of snow he did not, as he has done so many times, pull the covers over his head and sleep another half an hour. He grumblingly got out of bed, went through his morning preparations, and made it to the gym. At the cafeteria he recognized that he was restraining himself so that he wouldn't have to report a lapse to his "public".

He will have to find ways of making this all new enough, over and over, for a long time to pull himself through the long haul that is major weight loss and, more importantly, weight maintenance. He suspects that Baslow-fatigue will set in rather quickly among people who wish him well but really don't want to hear every time he has lost two pounds.

Still, it is a start. Perhaps it is enough of a start to provide him with the momentum he will need to follow through.