I just weighed myself for the first time in months, and I weigh about five pounds more than I’d expected.

But my waist size has fallen since I joined the gym four months ago.

That must mean I’ve put on muscle mass! Yay!

I could still lose a little ab fat, though.

And I really wish I could develop these.

* * *

We trekked out to Astoria yesterday to visit the Museum of the Moving Image. (We got in for free with my Bank of America card.) It was so much fun. I don’t know what was my favorite part: the scale model of the interior of New York’s long-gone Roxy Theater, the Chewbacca mask and original animatronic Yoda, the Tut’s Fever Movie Palace, the vintage Pong, Asteroids and Apple IIe, the working Tron and Donkey Kong arcade games (which were there for the playing, and I played them), or the collection of movie cameras and vintage television sets. What a great place.

Scene: Our living room, the other day.

From the TV, we hear the sound of horses and carriages and falling rain. Lots of galloping and rushing and ominous music. This goes on for a couple of minutes. Then the scene changes; we hear the sound of an indoor hubbub, a crowd of people. The smash of a gavel.

Voice from TV: Silence in the court!

Second voice from TV: Now we come, not for the first time, to Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

Matt: This seems like a pretty elaborate setup for just a reality show.

Me: …

Matt: …

Me: …

Matt: Isn’t this a reality show?

Long pause.

Me (confused): Uh, no…

Another long pause, then something finally clicks inside my head.

Oh my god, are you thinking of 1900 House? Or maybe Frontier House? Those reality shows?

Matt (beginning to laugh): Oh… maybe…

Me: This is CHARLES DICKENS!

Matt: Oh, okay! I was like, “Why is Jeff renting a random reality show?”

Matt and I spend the next several minutes doubled over in laughter until our stomach muscles hurt and we can hardly breathe. I finally have to go into a different room to get myself to stop.

Exeunt.

Straight (and Not) Out of the Comics: Both DC and Marvel are making efforts to have a more diverse slate of superheroes. Marvel has had the famously gay Northstar for a while, but apparently the current efforts are more extensive.

Another effort to link old and new characters centers on Kathy Kane, the gay Batwoman who will appear in costume for the first time in a July issue of “52” [a yearlong DC Comics series]. Batwoman was introduced in 1956, but she was one of several, often silly additions to the Bat family, including Ace the Bat-Hound (1955), Bat-Mite (1959) and Bat-Girl (1961). In her latest incarnation, Batwoman is a wealthy, buxom lipstick lesbian who has a history with Renee Montoya, an ex-police detective who has a starring role in “52.”

That’s kinda neat.

The concern is understandable given DC’s uneven history with introducing minority characters en masse. In 1988 it published “The New Guardians,” about a super-powered team that included an aboriginal girl, an Eskimo man and Extrano, an H.I.V.-positive gay man who wanted to be called Auntie, who was dismissed online by a fan as a “limp-wristed caricature.”

That sound you hear is me cringing. Yes, I’m cringing so hard it’s audible.