After a show at Smokey’s in Burlington, NC, the owner offered me a t-shirt and asked my size. “Men’s small,” I said. Surprised and tippled on his own toddies, he looked me up and down. A drunk Southerner is still a Southerner, and he slowly calculated a compliment from his thoughts.
“You walk bigger than that.”
I’ve always been a skinny guy. In my late teens and early twenties, if we were having hamburgers, I’d order three. I’d eat an entire box of cereal for breakfast. Still, I was 6’1” and weighed 155 lbs. For my scientific readers, that’s about 70kg or 3.7x10⁻²⁴ Jupiters. I know matter is neither created nor destroyed, but I think I may have been pushing the limits of conservation laws.
The most I ever weighed was 180 lbs, which is roughly the same amount of Jupiters but a significant difference for a human. I was in the Navy, working 12-16 hours a day and eating more than an average midwestern family. When I left the Navy, I went right back to my fighting weight.
Last year, I moved myself, my mother, and my son out of the country and into a townhouse where we could use the local gym, among other urban amenities. Most people in developed countries go to the gym to lose weight. I’m so skinny I literally can’t buy pants in a store; I have to find what I like and see if they manufacture my size online, and many don’t. I wanted to know if I could gain enough weight to wear something off the rack.
Today, I weigh 175 lbs, which is still about the same number of Jupiters. I say that I eat five meals a day, but honestly, there’s always something within reach. I’m eating right now and mostly typing with one hand. I’m much stronger than I was a few months ago, which feels great, but the big win is that I can wear a small shirt off the rack or a medium “slim fit.”
On a clear night, even Jupiter looks like it might wear a men’s large at most. It’s just a bright star. You wouldn’t know by sight that it’s the sideshow freak of the solar system. Today, for fun, I added up the masses of everything in the solar system except for the sun and Jupiter. Mercury, Mars, Venus, Earth, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, Makemake, Quoaor — the whole Kuiper Belt, Oort Cloud, and asteroid belt. Then, I divided the mass of all that stuff by Jupiter’s mass, which is how you get a percentage. Do you wanna take a guess?
42%. No, Jupiter isn’t 42%. Everything in the solar system besides Jupiter is 42% the mass of Jupiter. Like me, Jupiter cannot buy pants at the mall.
So, for more fun, I added the 42% to Jupiter to make one uber-planet out of everything in the solar system and then divided that by the sun’s mass. Wanna take a guess?
.13 %. Yes, that is a leading decimal. Everything in the solar system is 13% of 1% of the sun’s mass. I know, I know. Jupiter walks bigger than that.
175 lbs is still pretty slim for an American guy over six feet tall. When I look in the mirror, I seem really buff compared to my lifelong mirror image. Then, a normal dude walks into the locker room, and I realize I’m still just an asteroid.
But in terms of Jupiters, we’re essentially the same.
This is one of my favorite short films. Take 7 minutes to watch these guys build a scale model of the solar system in the Black Rock Desert.
Come see my slightly more muscular version in Hillsborough, North Carolina, this Wednesday in the round with Rebecca Newton and Kirk Ridge.
June 16th, 7pm
Yonder: Southern Cocktails and Brew
114 West King Street
Hillsborough, NC 27278
https://yonderbarnc.com/events/songwriters-over-yonder-june/
no cover, pass the hat
Doctor Zeus