I’m not sure what you’ve heard about me on TMZ lately, but I would like to officially declare that I do not think everything is all about me. Contrary to what was reported on Entertainment Tonight, I do not take every situation and make it about myself. It is very unfortunate that my simple question regarding why I was not nominated for Best Actor at the 2018 Oscars was so blown out of proportion. In my opinion, it was a valid question. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that one.

Now that I think about it, I can see why it may sometimes appear that I’m focused solely on myself. After all, the web address for my blog is JustMichael.net. Hmmm. I guess that doesn’t exactly work in my favor. Neither does this unfortunate incident that happened the other day while I was innocently doing my duty as a good soon and supporting my dad at the hospital after his procedure:

Nurse: Do you feel any pain?

Dad: No.

Me: Cough.

Nurse: Are you taking aspirin?

Dad: No.

Me: Cough-Cough.

Nurse: Good. Don’t take aspirin for the next week.

Dad: I won’t.

Me: Cough-Cough-COUGH!!!!

Nurse: Taking aspirin this soon after a procedure can lead to excessive bleeding.

Dad: Good to know.

Me: COUGH-COU-COUGH-CO-COU-COUGH!!!!!

Mom: Nurse, is Tylenol a problem?

Nurse: No, Tylenol is fine.

Me: ***clutching chest while still coughing*** So ya’ll are just going to let me die here in the middle of the operating floor surrounded by EKG machines?!?!?

Now that I read that back, I can see where that may have been a bit problematic. Here my dad had just awaken from a procedure, and I completely hijacked his moment by choking on absolutely nothing. Well, maybe I choked on my pride. Who knows? But it wasn’t intentional. I didn’t choose that particular moment to have a choking episode. That moment chose me.

Apparently, my body felt completely comfortable to almost die while visiting someone else at the hospital. When it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go. Because I’m somehow still writing this, I guess it wasn’t exactly my time to go. Perhaps I should be thankful. And in case you are wondering, I’m happy to tell you that I am completely fine. The coughing eventually subsided and we all moved on with our day. Oh, and just to give proof that it is not all about me, my dad is OK too. Clearly, it wasn’t his time to go either.

In other health-related news, as you may know, I’ve decided to put a bit more effort into being health-conscious. For me that means having four chicken wings instead of five, drinking fewer than eight sodas a day, and not getting seconds or thirds after every meal. Do you know how much gravy I’ve let pass me by over the past few weeks? Do you know how many biscuits were spared because I’ve ignored my primal instincts? I really should be given an award . . . perhaps an Oscar.

My drive to be my best physical self means going to the gym more. You should see me. I’ve started going several times a week religiously . . . except, of course, for the weeks I do not go several times religiously. Hey, nobody’s perfect. And when I do go, I sometimes even do more than just use the free WiFi. I know, I’m just as surprised as you are.

I have even learned how to use some of the equipment correctly. At least I think I’m using them correctly. At first, I assumed those stationary bikes were supposed to be used to support yourself while stretching and to hold your water bottle when your hand gets tired! However, I learned the hard way that people don’t like for you to do that, especially when they are on the bike when you decide to lean on it to do your stretches. And they really don’t like it if you innocently remove their water bottle and set it on the floor to place your own in the cup holder. They may be adults, but some people still haven’t mastered the art of sharing.

Because of all this extra effort, I expected to see rapid changes. I mean, if you’re going to go for the large McDonald’s fries instead of the extra large, there better be some form of reward or else! Since the body mass index chart has been listing me as overweight since 1940, I wanted to see a dramatic decrease on the scale. I expected the numbers to have dropped faster than my credit score that one time I was two days late paying my Netflix bill.

One day before getting chicken wings at the local Shoppers supermarket, I decided to get on their higi machine to check my stats. Confident, I ordered the works, which included my weight, blood pressure, and body fat percentage. I’m still not sure how holding my hands still on a machine lets it check my body fat level accurately, but I decided to give it a try anyway. Even if the results were bad, because I’d entered my information, I figured I’d be doing my daily government check in so that the Feds would know where I was and that I hadn’t gone off the grid again.

Much to my surprise, even though I was still categorized as overweight, the higi machine registered me at 169 pounds. I was so excited that I did cartwheels all the way down aisle eight. I can’t tell you the last time a scale read 169 while I was standing on it. I think maybe Lincoln was in office at the time. Either way, I proudly showed everyone my numbers as I high-fived the cashier and kissed a few babies on my way out. I even pondered writing a book on my weight loss strategies and planned on touring the country to tell everyone just how I did it.

When I got home, I looked in the mirror and wondered just where exactly I had lost all the weight. To me, I looked the same as I had when I was at 185 pounds. Hmmm. It was then that I remembered my mama’s stern advice to question everything. At the time she was referring to my kindergarten teacher telling the class that the letter C came after the letter B, but I wasn’t so sure. As we all learned from the movie The Player’s Club, “Don’t trust anyone’s research but your own.??? If that teacher thought I was just going to accept her lesson plan as truth, she had another thing coming.

Because clothes can add a few pounds, I stripped down to a sensible sweater and corduroys and headed for my scale. Hesitantly, I stepped on. As the number displayed, I screamed in horror. 184 pounds! Less than a half hour before I had been writing up a press release about my reaching 169 pounds. Just like that I had gained 15 pounds on the way home! Distraught, I was happy that my drive was as short as it was. I mean, if I gained 15 pounds during that 10-minute car ride, imagine if the commute had been longer. Ugh!

As you can see, this week has been full of disappointments for me. In addition to me not being nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, I apparently won’t be able to fit into the tuxedo I ordered during the 20 minutes I weighed 169 pounds either. However, because I didn’t die due to that freak coughing spell at the hospital, I guess I still have more time to make my goal—and the body mass index chart’s goal—of eventually reaching 169 pounds or less. However, if I never actually make that goal, at least I’ve found a machine that will show otherwise.

Michael Rochelle
Access my full blog: http://www.justmichael.net/blog
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/michael.rochelle1
Instagram and Twitter handles: @mikeyllo