It’s been a few months since returning from a quick jaunt to the Philippines. I was warned that the country was reaching its hottest months before the rainy season. This made for light luggage consisting of 4 t-shirts, 3 shorts, underwear, and flip flops. Though the days were wonderfully mild, it was jarring to go from wearing warm fashionable layers to sweating through a single ill-fitting cotton layer. Although there weren’t any terribly uncomfortable days, I did put on trousers certain days so that I could blend in with the natives.

To further fit my native guise, I took meals without reservation. The cuisine was familiar and was like a refresher course in ancestral protocol. Food was constantly being prepared, served, offered, and talked about. My body must have reacted to eating so many meals and staying hydrated. Throwing out rules of any/all sensible and fad diets out there I just shoved it in. I admit that the freshness and quality of the food isn’t the same as we get here, but going on sheer volume of food consumed, I should have just worn an eatin’ dress. Amazingly enough I lost a good amount of weight, enough to notice that clothes weren’t fitting right but not enough to get paranoid about dysentery, tape worm, or dehydration.

I write this because it’s starting to warm up here in Michigan, and I want to recapture this magical cycle of eating and thinning out. We normally sit in the comfort of air conditioning but I’m thinking that bearing the heat is what my body wants. Coupled with smoking again… I’m on my way to becoming an emaciated relief map of veins for the summer. This is by no means a goal, I like my booty… but it’s so unfortunate that the world of factory-multiple fashionable clothing require a lot of alterations to look good on me. So, if you see a husky filipino boy eating like crazy out in the sweltering heat this summer, give him the thumbs up… he’s losing weight.