"Raiding an Englishman's fridge is like dating a nun: You're never gonna get the good stuff."

i'm a hypocrite of my last post and it only took me a day. i went to the mall and bought the size 12 jeans last night. for full price. take that controlling my personal finances. the thing is that i went home and changed out of my work clothes (which miraculously still look ok 20 pounds later?) and put on some jeans. some size 14 jeans i bought a month ago and have hardly worn (see emotional attachment to baggy size 16's) and are now too big. the waist is workable with a belt but the ass. oh, the ass. there is no ass. there is only denim. tent like denim. so i went and picked up the 12's.

i drove an hour both ways for no reason other than to buy a pair of jeans that cost more than my monthly clothing budget and don't actually fit well enough to wear out of the house. i spent that whole saturday telling myself that cute clothes would be there when they fit me and when i have the money. and it was fine. i was just happy to see the progress. really. and then i went home last night and put on my brand new tent ass jeans and i guess i sort of snapped. on the one hand i have to remember that this is a work in progress and the rewards will be there when i'm ready. on the other i feel like all this work is worthless if i still hate the way i look.

can you tell that i still feel guilty. that the guilt is oozing out of my pores. i'm secretly hoping that the shipment of underwires winging their way to my door don't fit so i can recoup the money for this months budget. i'm also painfully relieved that there is some strange 90 day return policy at the gap this month. i have 90 days to fit into those jeans. i want to write a letter but i hardly think they'll appreciate thanks from someone so grateful to return their merchandise.

on the fat front the scale read 174 again this morning. so i'll be working on returning to 171. and holding there. that's the new issue, maintaining a few pounds at a time. i've bounced back up from 171 to 174 a few times and it's getting old. i get lazy, or someone visits, or i visit my family and i lose my ability to maintain. i know i can do better than that. i know the difference between one occasional indulgence and constant indulgences i'm just not putting it into practice as well as i could be. something to work on.

"How will I know what to wear?" "Do you own anything else?" "Not as such, no."

i came here all intending to write about these jeans at the gap. and how they were size 12's. and i could button them. it was a very hallmark sort of moment i had in the dressing room and now i'm all distracted because i got a days worth of hits already and all from the wall street journal. i hit the link and apparently you need to be a subscriber to see more than pq's blurb. you'll all be proud to know it only took me 5 minutes to remember that i work in a BANK...and we get the wall street journal every day. so i was able to find the article (on the back page if anyone else is looking for it on paper) and it's very nice. a little re-cap and plug for a few weightlosing blogsters.

it was good timing for newcomers because i just did the year wrap up thing. i do feel this need to go back and capitalize and use grammar and speak english. but that wouldn't be honest. in that vein, i am "honestly" a little worried about my financial ridiculousnesses being under the practiced eye of journal readers but, dude, that's what blogs are. if i didn't want to lay it all out i'd do the pen and ink thing in the privacy of my own home. which i do have a sort of victorian sentimentality for i just never seem get around to it. and then who would read it and support my lust for buffy quotes and feed my ego. no one. tres sad.

but back to the pants. size 12's. i didn't buy them. because you don't buy 70 dollar jeans just because you can button them. you wait until you can both button them and maintain a sitting position without dying. but that's the next goal right there. and pretty soon i'll meet it.

i'm a little torn about the last living pair of 16's in my closet. also a pair of gap jeans that i've worn and loved for probably two years. i have a sort of bizarre attachment to them. i remember when they were too small. that would have been right around when i started this new blog. i remember how fat and awful i felt when those jeans didn't fit. hopeless. to have them falling off now is such a high that it's kept me wearing them long after i should have put them away. i've mentioned before that i don't have any fat clothes. i've been getting rid of them slowly because it depressed me to see them around. but i think i'll keep this pair, so when i do that woman's day cover i can hold them out and show the empty space that would fit five hams. and the headline will totally say "lost five hams just by typing badly in a public format! you can too!".

so, welcome new readers and thanks to the journal for the blurb!

happy fataversary to me

today marks exactly one year since i started posting on this here blog. a few days after my inital post i stepped on the scale at my first physical since before college and weighed 196. my highest documented weight. at my height that weight gave me a BMI of 31.6 and placed me as obese. a category i'd never properly considered for myself. it's not like i didn't know i was fat. or that i was happy about it or anything. i just really didn't care. i suppose that's what happens when all of your energy is spent on surviving grief. you get up everyday and you do the things you have to do and nothing really registers. the starting of this blog was the beginning of me rebuilding my life.

the blog has taken some different turns in a year. from the very personal journal of a person coming out of depression to an exercise and diet journal to whatever the hell it is now. when i go back through the archives the obvious need for therapy is sort of frightening but i'm very impressed by my motivation. it was almost manic. full throttle. which i guess worked for a while. i had to prove to myself that i could enact change and i did with the south beach diet thing and enough running/walking to give myself shin splints. and then i sort of stalled.

when i started to feel better emotionally and lost about ten pounds, watching every bite and running in negative degree weather wasn't so important anymore. i still lost a little, but it was slow. nowhere near what the manic motivator had projected (i can't bring myself to link to that post but somewhere i wrote i'd be at goal before summer...hehehe) but i got myself into the merely overweight range for BMI.

i gave up south beach sometime at the end of february and went it alone foodplan wise. i counted calories for awhile which was very enlightening if not a successful tool for me longterm. it taught me to see reality and not merely my perception of it. i learned having soda once in a while was not a one way ticket back to obesity. i also learned how perfectly healthy things, when you eat them 24/7, aren't the key to a size six bod. so now i work the middle. i read labels and make choices. the low-fat thing isn't always the low cal thing. the low-sugar things sometimes have more chemicals than a dupont factory. if i really crave some milanos it's better not to read the back of the bag...but it's best to share them with the boyfriend.

somewhere along the line i decided i was ready to be serious and motivated again and i made some little changes. and shaved off another ten or so pounds. this morning, after a week of not very careful eating and no weighing at all, i came in at 174 with a BMI of 28.9. i've lost a total of 22 pounds and about 3 BMI points. to get back to normal, i need to lose another 20 pounds. somehow i feel normal already and those 20 pounds seem like more of a bonus. reason enough to keep the extra chips and cookies out of the house, but not out of my life completely. reason enough to hop on the stepper or the pilates mat, but not to live with shin splints.

when i started this blog i sort of assumed that this year would suck. i would spend it in a gym surrounded by spandex clad stick insects and eating one rice cake a week and inevitably end in failure. but the year didn't suck. and i'm sort of shocked that i didn't fail myself. i don't think i've thought about it quite that way before. i made the assumption this year in weightloss would be another self-fulfilling prophecy of my inability to change for the better. but it wasn't. i'm still surprised by that. and glad. there's a lot of years left to live and blog and be skinny and i look forward to surprising the hell out of myself at every years' end.

"Hey, good news. The doctor says that the itching and the swelling and the burning should clear up, but we gotta keep using the ointment."

when i was doing the clean house or bust thing this weekend i tore a big ass chunk out of my finger. i didn't realize how nasty it really was until yesterday when matt suggested maybe there was a cream or a bandage i could put on it. mostly i was going through the days saying "ow" a lot and trying not to get sharp things stuck in the wound. it's a truth universally acknowledged that if your boyfriend who has spent time picking metal out of the drill hole in his hand thinks your cut is gross, you should probably bond with some antibiotics.

besides the ointment problem it could have been a really good day. the utility company came through and finished their work yesterday. it was a beautiful thing and it brought us much joy. for about an hour. until mr. matt got a call saying that his dad and brother went ahead and turned on the juice without calling him first...and fried the brand new transformer the very day it was put in. four months and six thousand dollars later we have a brand new broken transformer. ha. isn't that ironic. like a fly in your chardonnay. like rain on your wedding day. like having your son/brother change his locks so you can't fuck up his house with anymore "help". ironic.

so matt's spending his day out at the house with a locksmith, an electrician and his overflowing well of tears. the poor dear. i'm spending my day looking for furniture for the new house. hopeful shopping. lookout february, we might actually get to move. it's so exciting when you stop thinking about what a pain it all is in practice. i can't wait.

"That's the kind of wooly: headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten."

see what happens when you encourage me, more buffy quotes. i don't know about the poundage because i totally forgot to do the scale thing this morning. probably because i was up all night waiting for an amy and biting my fingernails because apparently it snowed like a biatch but only in portland. a fluke if there ever was one. but she's here and she's safe and if i could keep her chained to the furnace i would because i'm already bummed that she has to leave again.

in fat news, or clothing news, i found some great stuff when i cleaned out the wardrobes. including a skirt that i had convinced myself i gave away and have been mourning, and it almost fits. it's a relic from the years the limited actually had a 12 and that 12 actually fit me. i'm hoping to get some wear out of it this winter as it's wool and beautiful. i haven't worn it since the summer of my junior year of college. (a wool skirt in summer. yes, i was an idiot, but a size 12 idiot) good things can come of cleaning. (D&D i don't know about the skinny=clean but i like finding stuff i forgot i had)

"You know all that stork stuff is just a smokescreen"

i do make a lot with the buffy quotes, count me among the legions of joss whedon love slaves. i personally can't wait to see the referrals that come for that last sentence, it's gonna be a party. speaking of parties, some of my favorite girls are coming to visit today. i'm starting the week at about 171 and hopefully i can finish not too much higher. which shouldn't be a problem because i think i got a weeks' worth of exercise yesterday cleaning my house. which reminds me, if you have wood floors and a cat i highly recommend using pledge in the living room. there are few things more life affirming than watching your cat slide across the room.

i cut my closet in half this weekend. it was a very everything must go sort of event. i have a huge garbage bag full of clothes to give away. i haven't necessarily grown out of them, i just don't want to wear them. they sort of remind me of being depressed and fat and sad. screw that. there are people here who can use warm clothes so they're going away to someone who'll be glad to have them. there's no reason to keep clothes that make me depressed and fill up my closet. funny, i don't feel that way about shoes...

so my college friends are due to arrive way late this evening. all i've thought about all weekend is what to feed them. someone wrote recently about knowing a few feeders...that's definitely me. there's definitely some much repressed mothering urge going on there. i've been holding out cooking anything too calorific just for myself incase things worked and they did make their visit. full steam ahead for macaroni and cheese and flourless chocolate cake. i love visitors. so much so that i scrubbed my floor three times on my hands and knees. i really want to leave it dirty for the landlord for my own sadistic and self satisfying reasons. maybe i'll have time to trash it before we move. i hope.

"what's your favorite humming noise?"

today i had a glorious weigh in of 173. it was a beautiful thing. i'm pretty sure angels sang and fairies wept. i've vowed to never move the scale again. whatever is up with the magnetism in that particular spot is exactly the kind of magnetism i want to encourage. go forces of nature. woot!

in other news, the snow that caused them to cancel today's school day yesterday is actually rain. and it's 41 degrees. not that i'm complaining. we did however do the grocery shopping last night so as to avoid the eggs/bread/milk/apocolypse shoppers this afternoon. and we bought a ton a of ice cream. and yet managed to forgot an integral part of dinner so i have to hit the market again on the way home. so much planning, so little success. in the girl scout cookies as crack vein, we bought samoas ice cream. i had a spoonful last night and pretty much it just makes you want the real thing. almost edy's, but no cigar on that one.

pounds are on the move again and more of my clothes do not fit. i have to do another clearout before we move. thankfully i get to ditch some bras this time around. the awful padded ones i had to buy almost exactly a year ago because the ones i fit into again now were too small. that was a horrible experience. one i don't really want to repeat. but i'm wondering if i'll ever be able to buy nice brassieres again. lane bryant has seriously let me down. i'm relieved not to have to shop there, even if i did only ever buy Cacique, but it's not because of the sizes. they still carry my size it's just that all of their stuff is awful. you've got the choice of whore sub-category babylon or grandma and it's not ok. anything remotely attractive does not exist over a D or is painfully unflattering in practice. and this is where i asked for suggestions...until i realized that all the stores that didn't carry my size before i started do carry it now.

including the gap. where i was searching for jeans that are both short and wide but not as wide as the ones i have right now and then decided to check out the bras for kicks. i'm pretty excited. i also fit into victoria's secret now, albeit selectively. matt will be excited about that. it seemed to really offend him that the breast empire had nothing for me. maybe they can make up now my size has changed.

"we could invite the chess club, but they drink...start fights."

it's an amazing fact that if you actually eat lunch you don't spend the afternoon thinking "hungry...so hungry". we ordered thai food today and it was a very good decision. it was neither cheap not low calorie and it was great. i especially liked that i can still only eat half because then i get dinner out of it too. and that pleases me. we spent all day watching the construction that is preventing us from having customers. the thai food excursion was the definitive of boredom eating. i have to learn to accept that it's ok to give in once in a while. not the end of the world. and it's nice not to be counting the minutes till dinner because i keep forgetting extra snacks.

i keep reading about how green tea is supposed to boost your metabolism amongst the myriad* other great things it does for you. i found a few bags of lady grey green in the great tea consolidation of 2007 and wow, i really liked that tea. now i'm working on my earl grey green which is almost as good and which i have a lot more of to whittle down. i have to say i've been hungry with capital grrr since i started drinking it. i can't prove it's related but i love unlikely and un-provable weightloss theorems so it works for me all around. and it's tasty. if i figure out a way to measure honey well and am happy with the calorie content (don't know it off the top of my head) i might switch there as well. honey is up on all the same lists for goodness of health so it would be a good habit.

and for no reason in particular, the four door wrangler is painfully unpleasant to look at. vomitously so. fyi.

*i can't seem to decide if this is a correct usage. sarah?

"no shoes, no pulse, no service"

since i have a financial job and i live in seemingly constant financial crisis it was only a matter of time that i did the all i can think about is taxes post. that's all i can think about lately, taxes. i'm determined that it will not suck like it did last year. so i did a pre-run through and i owe 47 dollars. so far IRS-2 points : Me-weeping incessantly.

i refuse to pay this year. what good is living on the poverty line if you still have to give bush money? no good, there is no good there. so i'm going to do everything i can think of to lower the bar of my tax burden. sadly, i can't go blind for a prior tax year. it's much too late to birth dependants for 2006 or buy a house. too late to marry, although i don't know if that would really help me anyway, and too late to take everything i own to goodwill for a charitable contribution receipt.

however, all is not lost. it's not too late to make the most of the excise tax refund. i printed no less than two trees worth of phone bills to see if it's worth itemizing the spanish war deduction. i'm not sure it's worth it. i have to go back to 2003 and do some more research. but i did learn that you should save your bills instead of shredding them. i always told myself one day i'd suffer my refusal to save them and here i am, an amy of my word.

and then i opened a health savings account, which if you have a high deductible policy i highly recommend; not only can you do this until april 15 (or april 17 in Maine and Mass.) for a prior tax year, if you make it to 65 without having a medical emergency you can go to tahiti; it's a win-win situation.* the fine print, i must admit, makes me a little wary but i absolutely refuse to pay this year so there it is. it must be done. i'm also considering an IRA, which would be just as good if not better because you can withdraw the principle whenever/whyever and would help me write off more funds, but frankly i'm a little cash poor so i might have to work that mojo next year.

with my tweaks, it looks like i'll clear this year even rather than owing. i don't ask for much do i? course the state will be a different matter. the state does not careth how thou masketh thee earnings. thou must payeth, and with haste. i could do a run through with my assumed federal numbers but i'm a little worried. i'm not emotionally ready. i have, however, been showing a pound loss for a couple of days. which pleases me very much. if i can hold on to that progress the state of maine might not break my heart after all.

*i do hope you realize auto-spell check did this, i would never use a semi-colon let alone two in one sentence. be advised.

"what is this? a tour of the world's hottest places and the next stop is hell?"

walmart is even more evil than i thought, and i'll tell you why. this weekend matt needed stuff for an oil change and since it's five dollars cheaper at walmart i couldn't begrudge him the savings. so we went. and it was awful. for one reason. an evil, cloven footed man asked me if i wanted to try some slimfast. not only is that a really bad sales strategy, it's a one way trip to on the job injuries. i hardly ever want to punch people at stores but that would have been reasonable violence. practically self defense. no jury would convict. you have to wonder about a company that would let someone stand at the door with little cups of slimfast picking out fat ladies doing their shopping. it's just wrong.

never tell IT your computer responds to violence

they won't believe you. they might actually think it's your fault that the monitor doesn't work because you have to encourage it. the strong willed dell flatscreen...coming to bookstores near you.

i really hope i got that title right otherwise that joke sucks. they're pimping girlscout cookies on the radio. not only will no girlscouts cross my path but it'll be months before they start selling them out of the backs of vans like scallops. clearly i'm feeling a little weak just now and a box of samoas (or the more pc caramel delights depending on your region) would really be awesome.

remember that thing i wrote that time, about buying stuff and not eating it. matt and i had this conversation about the cupboard. the one with the 14 bags of chocolate chips. yeah, i wasn't joking about that. i also have 4 or 5 (can't remember) bottles of aunt jemima. because a. pancakes are the one thing my crohn's boyfriend can always eat. and b. it's sort of expensive for high fructose corn syrup and i buy bulk when it's on sale. well, it's on sale this week and i have coupons. a lot of coupons. there was clearly some meddling by the gods because i got to sort through four set of coupons this weekend and now i have four coupons for pancake syrup. the buy two save a dollar kind. that's eight. eight plus 4 is WAY too many for my kitchen.

clearly i'm a compulsive coupon shopper, no denial here. today. but i really don't think i can resist buying atleast two. and the greater issue is that i still need to allow myself the opportunity of being a glutton if i wanted to. a different amy in a different life wouldn't have a stockpile of baking chocolate because she would've used every last morsel by now. as evidenced by her ass and it's largess. by the same token, i used to join matt for pancakes on the weekends. it's rare now that i start my day off with all that sugar and that's why we have a quartet of jemimas. so really, all that crap food in my cupboard is progress and not unreasonable hoarding. see? the sense, it practically oozes from the screen.

err...

one should be careful when filing reports of fraud on one's credit report because one might remember that BayBank, where one opened one's account as a child, changed hands more often than a 2 dollar hooker and could very well have closed out as Bank of America. whoopsy.

"i am the bug man, coo-koo catchoo"

i can tell you from experience that it's very difficult to find the right spelling of coo koo catchoo. pretty much every possible spelling has been used on hundreds of pages and it's pretty much impossible. just so y'all know. consider it a public service announcement.

i made nachos for dinner last night. and now i need to think of a vehicle for the red kidney beans i didn't use. i haven't been cooking much lately. the holiday baking thing sort of ruined me for food preparation for awhile. there's been a lot of spaghetti with homemade albeit frozen sauce and broiled fish which doesn't actually take any work. the beans are trickier in that the possibilities are pretty much endless. how lazy am i? lazy enough to make some spanish rice from a box and just chuck the beans in? or will i saute some vaguely mexican-y vegetables and make fajitas?

this sort of reminds me of how they served vegetables in college. the most interesting part of the food was always the name. like how every corn side dish they served was a mix of corn, beans and something green and they would give it an appropriate name to go with the main dish. mediterranean corn, california corn, and mexi-corn which has to be my favorite. maybe i'll make mexi-beans. i have some college friends visiting soon and i have this urge to label all the foods and maybe put up a sneeze guard.

anyway, cooking. which i haven't been doing. and what to do with the beans so they don't spoil before i plan something. i'm sort of thinking soup. because i went through my cupboards last night (14 bags of assorted chocolate chips, for the love of god) and i have many, many things that need to get used before their time. including free-range organic chicken broth for all you dooce fans and some house of thai coconut milk i don't actually remember buying. have you ever gone to allrecipes.com and put in all the random stuff in your cupboard? sadly my whole list doesn't have any recipes, but if i edit the coconut milk i get some decent choices. and if i take out the boring ass chicken broth i get some really cool recipes.

i guess i'm a fan of sweet rice and beans. and links apparently. which i feel sort of bad about. it's sort of like blog roulette around here, whether or not i'll have something interesting to talk about. i don't know what to say about that really. things are definitely different now that i've lost a bit of weight. like the urgency is gone. it seems it wasn't impossible after all and now the impossible part is to keep going. which i definitely want to do. i just have to remind myself more frequently. and with charts. and a power point presentation.

i've definitely been snacking when i wasn't hungry, but just because i wanted something. i haven't done that in ages and it's not helping me get below 174. which is the primary goal right now. i'd really like to do another 20 this year, but i'm going to do it one pound at a time and i'm going to look at it like that. because it's been working for me. i'm not going to be upset that i didn't lose 5 pounds after a hard week, i'm going to be glad that i kept one off. i will retrain my brain if the process kills me. like the marines but with grapefruit.

"no, YOU should go to japanese restaurant hostess school"

i spent this weekend at home. with my sister. and we were silly together. which is really the only way to be with one's sister. and her children who are perfect. even when they fight. the phrase "i am ignoring you. i hate dora." will live on beyond that aisle in target where em and i crashed with laughter and left a bewildered matt to handle the children. and then we went to a japanese steakhouse and waited for three hours for dinner. and we tried to make matt call the restaurant on his cell and ask weird questions but he wouldn't play with us. overall it was a goodtime. i love going home. except when i come back sick.

that's what i did yesterday. i sat on my bed watching Bones and blowing my nose. and drinking tea. and not doing anything remotely diet-y. holding at 174. could be more depressing. it can always be more depressing. it's the knowing i've been giving myself slack that i don't necessarily need that irks me. aww, you don't feel good? have some candy. s.l.a.c.k.e.r.

so i'm going for a walk today. i'm mostly feeling better but i can always pick up some nyquil on my walk if i feel the need of it. it would be wrong not to take advantage of this freakishly beautiful weather. apparently new england hasn't seen temperatures like this (50-60) since 1950. which actually makes me feel better. if it happened 50 years ago and the world didn't end the odds are on our side, right?

waiting...

i spend most of my day watching the clock turn and waiting to go home. today my intrepid co-workers and i completed a years worth of training modules. and we still finished before lunch. apparently they expect us to know what kind of gun is holding us up. unlikely. the boyfriend and i are heading to NH this weekend. for the family christmas that never was because of the weather. and tax free shopping. and liquor. we have the best stocked liquor cabinet of any teetotallers i know. i feel the most intense need to ply my guests with liquor in the winter, so they won't notice all the nothing there is to do. not that you need more than good food and drinks when friends visit. and trivial pursuit 80's. which is worthwile for the love-a-lot bear game piece alone. i'm thinking this month is going to be another difficult one for weight reduction. one weekend home another week with friends. i really can't hide my excitement. i love having people to cook for and i don't want to spend the whole time worrying about what i'm eating. i might have to face the realities of a maintain before i set myself up for a disappointment. this is definitely a time to be joyful rather than guilty. mantra mantra mantra.

countdown

i spend most of my day watching the clock turn and waiting to go home. today my intrepid co-workers and i completed a years worth of training modules. and we still finished before lunch. apparently they expect us to know what kind of gun is holding us up. unlikely.

the boyfriend and i are heading to NH this weekend. for the family christmas that never was because of the weather. and tax free shopping. and liquor. we have the best stocked liquor cabinet of any teetotallers i know. i feel the most intense need to ply my guests with liquor in the winter, so they won't notice all the nothing there is to do. not that you need more than good food and drinks when friends visit. and trivial pursuit 80's. which is worthwile for the love-a-lot bear game piece alone.

i'm thinking this month is going to be another difficult one for weight reduction. one weekend home another week with friends. i really can't hide my excitement. i love having people to cook for and i don't want to spend the whole time worrying about what i'm eating. i might have to face the realities of a maintain before i set myself up for a disappointment. this is definitely a time to be joyful rather than guilty. mantra mantra mantra.

carpal who?

i spent hours this morning rearranging my work area so my right arm won't fall off. it's amazingly difficult to use the mouse with my left hand but i'm getting better. since i won't fork up the money for actual medical care, the least i can do is be ergonomically correct.

i've been weighing in between 174-175 the last few days. i'm not terribly surprised as it's taken a while to get back to my routine. what amazes me is how much better i feel when i do the routine things. i don't always remember that, but i'm trying to and that's all i can do really. i've been noticing a too free hand with my daily tea and sugar intake. so i've gone back to the pre-measured packets. it's amazing how the little things add up like that. i'm determined to set things right before it becomes an issue.

on that note i need to re-set my exercise button. in that i haven't done any since october. i had a good plan set up wherein i got to work early and did a half hour tour of town. when it started to get arctic (which has since receded to sub-tropical. the end is totally nigh) i got a little disheartened and limited myself to the short walk i could take at lunch between training duties. and now it's gorgeous and we're full staffed and i could totally be walking all the time, i'm not. i'm sitting on my ass eating granola. so why? even if i get back on my oatmeal regime, i won't lose another twenty pounds in 2007 if i don't get off my arse.

i'm planning to have atleast one good walking session, one stepping session and one pilates session a week. and hopefully i won't do it all on saturday because i'm a lazy bum all week. i'm sure i should be planning to do more, but i'll never stick it. i'll plan to do these three and hope i do more but i won't expect to. i also want to look into what the bank will be buying me for fitness equiptment this year. i really want a treadmill but the reality is i have no room for one. for me to have a chance of using it regularly, it would need to be near a tv. probably it would be worth it to buy a cheap 2nd tv and make an exercise area someplace...but doesn't that sound like a lot of work?

i have to do something and i have a little bit of money to help me out, i guess i have to do some research and see what would be the best use of the money. back to basics: don't eat everything in your house, move your ass, stop feeling quilty because it just makes you depressed. i think i'll have that last one stencilled on my walls.

unworthy

i can't think of anything great i want to say about 2006. i never really set goals (nothing reasonable anyway) and i haven't reached the end of my official year yet. i figure i have about three weeks left to get back into my routine and maybe keep a steady 173 or 172. today i'm at 174. but i really think i can do a pound or two more before mon anniversaire. i'm going to try. and if it doesn't happen...i have another year. i would be happy to lose another 20 pounds, even if it takes another year...if i can keep it off.

see how reasonable i am. and patient. and not at all freaking out about how long this whole damn thing takes? that's because i'm channelling all of my freak into my finances. i'm starting my whole budget over. it really worked last year until i "trusted" myself. clearly, i'm not trustworthy. and i don't deserve to earn cash back. so from now until a. we move or b. i get the fark out of debt...i am an all cash amy.

i wrote before about missing out on some financial goals i wanted to hit. but i completely neglected the fact that i have not made one purchase this year that was left on credit. i may have used my discover card with less thrift than i ought, i paid the bugger off every month. that's an accomplishment. i have paid off almost three quarters of the debt i started this year with and have an actual savings account for actual emergencies that aren't paying the rent. i went down a dress size. i can button jackets i used to leave open for "the style"...ah huh.

so i'm starting 2007 knowing that i will be out of debt this year, that i will continue to do my best to lose another 20 pounds, and that i've used my yearly quota of these ... grammatically insipid writing devices. and maybe i'll find out if i can start baking for fun and profit. maybe.

david and goliath

either my scale is dying or my ass is expanding. how did it go from 172 to 176 in a day? obviously something is amiss. i'm working on the assumption that no break for exercise is a factor. a little one. the biggest factor, i think, is my lack of intuitive eating this week. the bank has this policy of buying us lunch when we're stuck in the building. in my notes for this post i actually wrote "intuitive eating vs. bank". like it's the bank's fault they bought me french fries. and made me eat them. bastards.

the point is it's put my eating routine out of sync this week. i've become very good lately at eating when i'm hungry and mostly eating what i want to. then the options are few...as they are this time of year...i've been filling up on oatmeal and yogurt and lightly sweetened tea. the idea being that if i really wanted a grilled cheese, i could get one...but i don't. most of the time i'm just a little hungry and the foods i've been eating satisfy without making my blood sugar spike (i did research on blood sugar stabilizing foods and all my favorites are on there). not that i'm being sciency, or trying to. but mostly it works.

this week we've been ordering lunch. i've been choosing things that i usually enjoy because that's part of my rules. if i want something, i have it. i've been doing this thing long enough to know that if i tell myself i can't have something i give myself a series of unsatisfying substitutes until i finally give in. thus eating the daily calorie needs for seven men in an hour. bad move. so i've had two servings of french fries this week. two more than i have in the last two months combined. and, honestly, i felt like crap after eating them. did i still order them two days in a row? yes. because i am an idiot. and also it's just easier.

so i guess it's no mystery about the scale. it's just lard. but it's proof the intuitive eating things works. for me. it's proof the blood sugar reducing foods do make a difference when it comes to dodging cravings. for me. i've proven to myself that what i was doing was good for me...i just have to get through today without ordering french fries. or drinking anything till the water comes back on. but that's a different story.

thirsty.

a burning desire

this week my intrepid co-worker and i are working without breaks. there's a good reason we can't leave the bank when we're short staffed. i wouldn't want to be robbed while she was at subway anymore than she would. but for weeks at a time it's supremely unpleasant and leaves us scratching at the windows. this is one of those weeks. and to add to our fun, tomorrow they're shutting off the water.

there's been a lot of construction in town causing all of the major streets to be shut off at random. driving through town has become like a mouse searching for the cheese. and the cheese keeps moving! value for money that is. apparently the water pipes are up to 25 feet below the road and were installed over one hundred years ago. and there's a leak. a big leak. a leak leaky enough that the town with the tighest ass in state spending record has been forced to find it under 25 feet of dirt digging in atleast four different places under four major* roads.

so, tomorrow, we get to not only enjoy the dubious thrill of earth shaking machinery but we can do it with tip top full bladders and no hope of escape. i know you all want my job. i can feel your communal envy leeching from the screen. but you can't have it. it's all mine. mwahahaha.


*major as in the town only has four important roads.

black on black

you know you're getting cocky about your weightloss when you start making tickers. i haven't done one in ages. and now i remember why...you can't read the bastards on my template. oh well. it makes me all nostalgic for the year having the whole thing up there. now i have to go open an account for a millionaire. exciting job.

roar!

172. lost two pounds over christmas. i'm calling it the russell stover diet. i can't explain it but i'm not complaining. we had a nice christmas...no dramas. i have a lifetime supply of silicone bakeware. which i love. there's something about floppy things that makes me unreasonably happy. and for some reason it's all blue. which is great because it all matches. and that makes my inner martha beam.

you know what is the saddest part of working in banking. i thought it was returning people's oil checks for insufficient funds but i'm starting to think it's seeing how many people use match.com. i have this need to get them all together in a rec hall with some punch. it's heartbreaking.

someone adorable sent me a cookbook of cakes. and when she comes to visit i want to make a pavlova. and we won't tell matt what it is. we'll just make him eat it. and he'll like it. and then we'll teach him about thai food.

oh yeah, and i lost two pounds in a day. that can't possibly be right but it looked really good this morning and i'm sticking with it. i'm pretty excited.

"i'm just one stomach flu away from my goal weight"

did i already write about being uber frustrated with the new blogger or do i just think about it everytime i try to post. and then get grumpy. and then not post anything. i can't remember because the frustration cortex of my brain swelled and exploded and now all i can do is growl. grrr.

i've been a grumpaholic lately and i can't seem to shake it. maybe it's the incessant job search that is killing my soul. i feel like i'm constantly spitting out resumes to make 2 dollars an hour more. if i just stopped with the constant mailings i could probably save that in stamps and fancy paper. maybe not, but i can't help think the process itself is a financial drain. i'm still at 174, despite eating almost an entire box of russell stover by myself. the upside of eating so much candy is that you're too sick to eat anything else. i'm happy to see things going down so steadily even though i've been a gourmand. it makes me think i've finally got a handle on this part of my life. my budget, however, has gone to hell.

it seems i can't have my diet and my budget going in the same direction at one time. i really believe that getting my finances under control helped me get everything else under control. it does worry me a little that i let some financial goals slip these last months. ofcourse everyone spends more than they think at christmas. when i look at my reciepts and charges there really isn't anything unreasonable. i'm not buying myself coach bags every day, it's just not as strict as it once was. i'm relieved that i don't have to worry as much as i did in january about every penny. the fear was a great motivator that i sort of miss in an extremely masochistic way.

i really wanted to start 2007 in a different place financially. even more than i wanted to start 2007 in a different clothing size. as much as being thin is regarded as a sign of success, i'd rather have assets growing. i have to remember that last year i would have loved to have more than 30 cents in my savings account and 22 pounds less on my body. i have to remember that whining and worrying doesn't make me feel any better and doesn't in itself enact change. it's part of a process (finger quotes) and i have to take my steps one at a time (more finger quotes) and i have to get over it once in a while and enjoy my time on this earth. before i croak over the shock that yogurt went up 24 cents overnight (and orange juice and bacon...why 24 cents? was a quarter too conspicuous?). i really need to lighten up. and also stop using my discover card. i knew getting the pink one would be too tempting. the flesh is weak.

i essentially wasted the last two days of vacation that i had for this year. i'm starting to feel a little guilty about it for no good reason except that in retrospect i could've done so much more. i just didn't feel like it. i think i spent every bit of excess energy trying to figure out my new cell phone. there's no better way to punctuate a birthday than by flogging yourself with technology. there is atleast one button with no purpose but to frustrate me and i have no idea how to turn up the volume after searching for almost a week. so i'm deaf and old and i can't find my address book. WOOH! i love 26.

and i really can't wait for christmas to be over. i feel like if we can make it until tuesday we'll get our lives back. and if matt makes it through today without threatening anyone we'll have electricity. he's off loan shopping because apparently you need to pay your exorbitant electricity bill before they spend a second hooking you up. this whole thing is making me wish we were amish. i like pennsylvania, i like those soft pretzels, it could work.

in the realm of food news i bought some mini bagels this weekend. the label says mini and as far as i can tell they are exactly the same size as a normal bagel of 15 years ago. 90 calories a piece. i'm in love with them. when i think of mini i think of the ones so tiny you want to shelac them and put a magnet on the back. i know portions are out of control but to call normal "mini" is too weird. it makes me want to scratch the mini off the labels at the store. but i'd hate to show up in police beat for grocery vandalism. what would the in-laws say?

just say no!

for the love of god if you haven't already gone google on your blogger DON'T DO IT. remember me my ass. i don't know about you all but i'm way too lazy to sign in all the damn time. to leave comments, to post. it's really starting to drive me nuts and there's no way to go back. i'm trapped. just me and my impetuousness and look where it got me.

so i didn't bake a damn thing because i just didn't feel like it. christmas who? and then i almost forgot to post. i done lost my mind. that's what that pound was.

another pound bites the dust

down to 174. never thought that would happen. i'm off the next two days...using the last of 2006 vacation time. and hopefully not eating all of my christmas baking myself.

how many bagel bites is too many?

and life's other mysteries. such as why did i have to call 5 different people at cingular to keep my plan and add a line. there's no good reason. but it makes a soft spot in my heart for betty. betty is an asset to their customer support team and i heart her. she declined my offer to mail her a lobster. maybe next time.

i've been eating way too many frozen bagel bites lately. it hasn't affected my numbers but it's certainly affecting my moral. can you imagine the situation at the grocery store when bagel bites become the best option. i think the problem is that they're at the end of the grocery store and by the time i've searched all the fresh food and found nothing, everything in the last aisle looks tempting. microwave chipped beef! it's mmmmm-riffic!

i wallowed a little last night and made nasty boxed mac and cheese for dinner. instead of the stuffed shells i had been planning. if your dinner only takes 15 minutes to prepare there's distinctly more time to lay on your bed and scowl.

so clearly i've been eating awful food lately. i've been existing on oatmeal and yogurt at work. which usually works for me. the job is so boring this time of year that it's really easy to spend most of the day grazing. so i only bring a few things. yogurt and granola, oatmeal and plenty of tea. and then i do a normal dinner. my life is fiber-full atleast. if i can lay off the mini bagels for awhile.

first i was late, and then it started to go badly

i wrote down the wrong time. it's my favorite to sink my own ship before it even leaves the harbor. so i'm sitting in my car chanting "i'm definitely not getting out of the car before x time...and then i'll fix my shirt and lint roll and it'll be great". instead i had this weird feeling and i checked my cell which i had put on silent and lo and behold there is a message saying "where the hell are you" and so i went running down the street fixing my shirt and wishing i had a black cat so i wouldn't have fur all over me. (i swear i rolled before i got in the car...i don't know why i was so furry...i hardly ever let the cat drive.)

so, i was all flustered and totally not in control of the interview, like i was last time and was all psyched about. head, meet wall. liver, meet cocktail. this day bites.

"fancy" blogger

i switched over to beta blogger this afternoon. the most exciting parts so far are the colors and the fonts. it's almost as cool as word, i swear! it's the kewlest. i don't have much else to say. i'm pretty much at the weight i started the weekend with. so that losing another pound was a bust and i totally blame making that chart. and also the pecan pie. and the hummus and the amazing squishy pitas they served with it, or maybe it was the hello kitty waffles we made on my birthday. which, by the way, are actually very good and cute...if anyone was contemplating a purchase.

so i can blame my resiliant pound on sanrio and i'm glad. what have they done for me anyway? except make me buy tons of pink cooking products and notepads i think are too precious to actually use. it's a sickness.

our lobby is balsam-rific

that's the one thing i love about this season, the pine freshness. so, you want to know about the interview? it went pretty well. unless i get a mean rejection letter before next wednesday i think i'll be all full of confidence. bursting, if you will. i have a bit of studying to do for it but it's really cool to, like, use my brain for once.

come saturday i have four suits to return to target. one of them, it turns out, doesn't even fit. which is confusing because i tried it on before i bought it. why did i buy it? i just don't know. so it's going back. with all it's friends. and then my discover bill won't make my heart stop when i get it. god willing.

i made a calendar diagram thing last night (so much free time after the big event i guess?) and it seems like i'm losing about a pound a week. i hold steady for the week and then i start the next week about a pound down. i kindof wish i hadn't done that chart because it's better for me when i don't have expectations. so i'm going to pretend i never did it. and i'll just be really happy if i come back on monday at 174. and so on and so on. but i'm going to turn off that part of my brain right now so i don't go insane. (as i cross all my fingers for a miracle next monday)

i said "smorgasbord" to a possible employer

i got a call yesterday about interviewing for a job that would culminate everything i went to school to do. and when she gave me the list of times i said it was a smorgasbord of choices. because i am an idiot. she laughed instead of hanging up, so that's good. i just have to cut of my tongue like in Quills before next wednesday. and learn sign language.

the interview i was hopped up about before is this afternoon. and i found enough suity things to make me look as though i dress like a grownup all the time. that was the goal anyway, i think i look more like the father of the bride. but maybe that's an exaggeration stemmed from nerves. i'm practising cool confidence. because i am cooly confident. and also they called me first. i'm still riding that high, the tail end.

random ass updates. still holding at 175. trying not to daydream about dream job so i won't freak out when they hire someone with actual experience. also going to try not to summarise the feelings above for the next week and until i get a call back. so as not to bore you lovely folks. we're still waiting for power and not holding our collective breath about getting it before winter really hits. and currently trying to decide how much time i have to spend with matt's family for my birthday without offending anyone. my family is so much easier. they would never grill me about matt's birthday/or christmas.*

(edited to add rant warning, proceed at your own gossip laden risk.)

*look, i went and put the footnote right exactly below the noted entry. kate turabian is in chicago weeping. what happened with the christmas tree thing? i don't know i wasn't there. apparently the brother's girlfriend is all hot for christmas and spent an evening nagging matt about going on the family christmas tree hunt. her other hobby must be pushing rocks up hills because there's no one that hates christmas more than matt. causing a fight over whether or not someone's going to get a christmas tree is really in the spirit of the season. i'm thinking we're going to become jehovah's witnesses just to avoid all this holiday crap. and they have such fascinating literature. i don't hate christmas, but it doesn't do anything for me and i'll be damned if i'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to live up to someone else's holiday expectations. especially someone i'm not related to in any way. but maybe that's just me. and maybe it makes me a little grumpy about having to spend the holiday with them. (but really, the girl put victoria's secret gift certificate on her christmas list for her boyfriend's parents...classy.)

interview countdown: 2 days

i have two days till my interview. i have two possible suits, 1 shirt, 2 skirts and zero appropriate shoes. i can't believe i have no shoes. i have a lot of shoes and none of them are right for a suit. or a dress skirt. it's bewildering. and since i'm going on about numbers...175 as of this morning. 21 pounds lost, about 20 left to lose. woo hoo!

sadly i didn't get to do the limited skirt test. because their blazers didn't button for me. i need a titanium minimizer for that to happen. if only i could find one. i ended up getting my suits at target (h&m only had one blazer in my size and it didn't match anything. at all.) in the isaac mizrahi section, convenient so when i freak out and decide i hate it i can take it back. i have to choose one so i can take up the hem. matt doesn't know it yet but he has a fashion show scheduled for tonight. i know he'll be pleased.

flirting with disaster

as in, oh my god my wrist hurts. i'm trying not to use it so i'm typing with my left hand. and it sux. i have the dread feeling that this will turn into the world's longest text message. lol;) so i'll spare you and concentrate my efforts on my new resume so i'll have enough feeling in my arm later to play spider solitaire. prioritizing is on my list of skills. next to one handed typing and solitaire expertise.

ohhhh man

you ever get half through your day and realize that you completly neglected deodorant of any kind that morning? and then you remember you were all excited because you got back to your pre-holiday weight and that's probably why you forgot. and if you can just not eat two pizzas when you go home this weekend maybe you can take your loss a little further next week. that would be cool. but you still stink today. unfortunately.

uhm, ahhh, yeah

i just had an epiphany. remember a thousand years ago when i wrote about that skirt at the limited that didn't fit and how i was going to totally make that skirt fit. and you know how yesterday i was all "i need nice clothes that fit". yeah, well, i'm going to the land of decent stores again this weekend and i will find things that fit. it's extra good motivation to lay off the ice cream sammiches this week. and maybe try out that new pilates dvd i got. essentially re-commit to the skirt thing and get a nice work outfit out of it. and meet a goal...which hasn't happened on this site very often.

(good thoughts, good karma) she says to herself so as not to be all whiny.

the best part of that plan is that i won't have to haul my ass to bangor this week. i'll only have to haul it to nh at the weekend. that's a blessing in itself. it's hard to get much done when the sun sets at 4. motivation flees with the light and pretty much i spend my nights watching buffy and looking at the 50 excel spreadsheets i have to monitor every facet of my life. isn't my life riveting? i made a household spending graph that really impressed the boyfriend. to the point where he suggested i take up crocheting. because knit one pearl two is a better use of my time.*

i do need a hobby. beyond coupon cutting and filing my receipts in alphabetical order.** so i pulled out my printmaking supplies (which i had packed to move...) and i'm playing around with those a bit. textures mostly. starting at the beginning and hoping it takes me closer to where i want to end up. as with all things i need to learn to appreciate the process and the steps and not just be pissed off that the result isn't what i want it to be.

i know i should be baking and working out recipes for when i might be able to start this business...but i'm saving my enthusiasm for christmas at the moment. especially as i want to fit that skirt. but i am thinking of things to make for the holidays. y'all think dark chocolate cookies with bits of cherry is worth trying? or should i stick with the old favorites? i'm wondering if i use dried if they'll react like raisins and soften up a bit in the cookies. i'll have to give it a test drive and let you know. after i make the perfect print and learn to knit, ofcourse.


*and yes, i know that those are knitting references and not crocheting references. or maybe they are, i have no idea. it's sort of like that quilted northern toilet paper commercial where the cartoon ladies are quilting with knitting needles that makes my sister growl like a rottweiler.
**i wish i could put stuff like this on my resume, some employers might find my dedication to the alphabet endearing.

bonafide

i have an actual interview. they called me first. first as in before all others. now what the fuck do i wear? the job is a town position, so conservative. i'll have to buy a suit and get it tailored. i've been meaning to and now i have a reason. that's gonna be hard. if the snow stops i'll be a shopping tonight. and i will not have a cow when it doesn't fit me in a few months. i will just take it to the tailor and the angels will sing.

i will not whine. because i finally got a call back. i was starting to think i'd never hear anything positive back and i am half done re-working my resume. i'm still re-working it, i still have some new jobs to send it to. it's nice to have an interview coming up though. i feel that much more positive about sending out more when it's not completely fruitless.

so i'm employable, i've lost one of my new pounds, and i'm overall in a good mood. despite the snow. the snow would be great, if we had electricity set up at the apartment. the 5000 dollar fun-o-rama of getting the place wired can't be completed if the road is impassable. and that would suck. but i am happy about the pound. and the job interview. it's not the one i reallllly wanted, but they called me first. which rocks! and it rocks that he told me that. it made my day. and i get to go shopping. it's a good things trifecta.

it is officially...

snowing.

those who call the shots are never in the line of fire

the concert was great. the greatness of being able to go see a group like the goo goo dolls without having to leave the state sort of got burried by the holiday. our backs did make it on the local news because frozen ass people waiting for a concert was the most exciting thing to put on the 6 o'clock news. atleast we weren't upstaged by gross murders, there are some things to love about bangor.

the holiday went well. there was a lot of eating...but strangely matt and i spent much of the weekend hungry and searching out food in my dad's house. it seemed like all of his food was sweet based: coffee cakes, cookies, quick breads. i'm not doing anything in particular, but i can't survive on sugar and i don't want to. that's the one real difference in my life, i'm getting very sugar averse. so we ended up eating out more than was strictly necessary to have normal food and i do show a wee gain today.

my sister in particular didn't seem convinced about my "nothing" doing, and i didn't have time to elaborate. it's not that i'm doing nothing and eating from dusk till dawn. i'm exercising as much as i can and i'm eating what i want. i don't know how to describe it but i'm just in this place where i'm ok with things. the angry fat girls had a similar post up today. sortof karma-esque, feeling good makes good things happen. that's where i am. things are just sort of falling into place.

i can probably link my little 2 pound gain to 1. not getting a lot of exercise, 2. having thanksgiving followed up by two meals of pizza (long story) and 3. eating three ice cream sandwiches yesterday. even though i'm living rule free, three ice cream sandwiches in one day was probably avoidable. but...i'm over it. i got a lot done yesterday between my ice cream breaks and it's not worth worrying about. being unburdened by guilt is my favorite thing to be thankful for this holiday season.

imminent domain

i read the best article today about thanksgiving. a third grade teacher donned a pilgrim hat and walked around his classroom discovering his students pencils and gluesticks and claiming them as his own. it's a shame we adopted indian giver and not pilgrim thief. everyday imperialism.

so, there's some big eating holiday tomorrow. i can't really seem to hold that thought. i have all these travel thoughts in my head like packing and getting cash and remembering the concert tickets. i'm really going one day at a time here.

i'm not worried about eating my weight in turkey, i'm just looking forward to playing with my nieces and seeing some friends. i'm thinking of it more as an opportunity to eat food that i don't have to cook. we have some restaurant plans aswell. we've entered "all the good restaurants are closed" season and are really looking forward to some good meals out. food-a-pa-looza here we come!

see y'all next week!

on the fence

someone got here by searching "big fat aggressive hos". i can't decide why that's so hilarious but it's been cracking me up all morning. maybe because this is so not the place to find big fat aggressive hos. i'm living ho free now a days.

i've been having all these english as a second language moments lately. every email i get has some kind of spelling error, grammar error, erroneous vocabulary. earlier this week we got an email saying the budget couldn't condone buying calendars. the budget has moral authority does it? the budget hopes we'll make better choices next time. language as powertrip is less effective when used incorrectly. it's wearing me out.

i've been really paranoid lately about my own writing. while making our video my boss and i had a five minute conversation about contractions which i really hope makes the bloopers reel. geeks gone wild! it would be like ghetto school house rock. i should probably place my apology for hypocrisy here...because i know there are spelling mistakes on this blog. and grammar mistakes. the worst thing you can do when you write your blog like you're drunk doodling on a cocktail napkin is criticize the writing of others. but look, i'm doing it anyway. i'm a rebel. without a clause. ha.

i wish i could remember all of the grammar i was supposed to learn in school because it would help me now with my fastidiousness. it's hard to pull off being pompous when you can't remember how to diagram a sentence. i should buy myself Eats, Shoots, and Leaves for christmas. then i could whine with authority.

i've been thinking about how i could relate this rant to dieting and i decided i totally could. no matter who you are and what you're doing, someone thinks they can do it better. dieting, speaking, writing. there's always a loudmouth telling you what you're doing wrong. thinking about that makes me feel a little bad that we spent hours mocking the girl who gave the budget feelings. only a little though. it was pretty funny.


the budget wants you to go to your room! now!

no, thank you!

one of the jobs i had high hopes of just posted another ad. a new one. sure, it's probably procedure but it's ego crushing. like with an anvil. from a tenth story window. bastards don't know what they're missing.

terriers average twenty pounds...terriers pick you up when you are down...

today, officially, twenty pounds down. i think i stressed it off during the making of our video this morning. it's still a reprehensible hoop to have to jump through, but it's better now that it's over. and also i lost 20 pounds. to celebrate the movie being over, we're going out to lunch. thai. and then i'm going to walk 1000 miles so i'll still have 176 tomorrow. a good a plan as any, i say.

draft # 25596913

i keep thinking i have something to say...and then i don't. there are a slew of half assed saved drafts hanging around my blogger homepage just now. i don't have anything new to say about being fat today. my favorite skirt doesn't fit anymore. it's falling off. how many times have i posted that experience? you'd need like all the computers in the world to process the number.

the super good news is that my wrist hurts. probably from all the at home resume typing i have been doing. which is great because how better to start off a new job if indeed i get one than by getting carpal tunnel. it would be pretty cool.

i know this space has been pretty dead for awhile, i'm working on it. and then i realized that i'm almost at 20 pounds lost. and it only took a year. i couldn't be any more proud.

"don't say no right away, could we burn down the house?"

another pound down this morning. which is great. except all i can focus on just now is the bag of utz chips in my cupboard at home. probably if i were at home i wouldn't even care that they were there (they exist in my house because they are friend in healthy oil and matt likes them and he needs snack foods) but knowing that they are there and i am at work is making me a little crazy. it's probably partly because we're slower than slow at work and i'm in between books.

and i can't think of a damn interesting thing to write about. except chips. pathetic doesn't encompass the situation.

"i hold a blackbelt in multi-tasking"

i didn't actually write that on my performance appraisal, but i thought about it. what's the deal with doing self appraisals anyway. i think i do an excellent job, at all times, in all situations, and also i deserve a raise. who's going to say they spend most of their time on the internet waiting to get dooced. nobody, that's who.

but my boss likes me, so it's all good. dedication out of desperation is better than no dedication at all. there was a certain sense of irony about completing the stupid things. i got to check the "always completes projects on time" box, even though i almost forgot to do the evaluation and today's the due date. i got to say "demonstrates a positive attitude" when we've all spent that last three weeks bitching about the video. and unless they've bugged our desks no one will be the wiser. (wink)

and also, it's not a bank holiday. veteran's day is tomorrow. 11th hour, 11th day, 11th month. no one knows their history anymore.

"this is all making the kind of sense that doesn't"

i have a ton of white donut sugar powder on my pants. and that's all i have to say about that.

there isn't so much going on. i thought i'd be all into morning exercise what with the time change, but it seems not. it's not like last winter at all, when i really enjoyed a morning jog. this year i'm still lazy from the summer. i'm still sleepier than is warranted with all these early sunrises. and also matt thinks i'm starving myself.

obviously, the attention, he does not pay. but he's not at my house every day and he doesn't see the dwindling supply of dove squares in my piggy jar. he does have a point that i'm eating less. but i've also felt like poo for weeks. i've had an ear infection since the industrial revolution it seems, and it doesn't show signs of waning. i'm getting really tired of it. and i'm getting tired of saying WHAT! every 2.4 seconds. it would be nicer to say pardon. but then no one would know what i meant. that's the trouble with words in the ever shifting context of our modern vernacular.

on that note. i'm going to go invite him to take me to lunch so he can see that a. i still like food and secondly that he should be more careful with his accusations. not eating? me. my house is a shrine to food. the very idea, tsk tsk.

hungry with a capital GRRRR

those of you from the old days will remember that i've totally used that title before. i'm stealing it from myself. because the meaning resonates on a deeper plane and i like it, and i'm hungry. it's weird because i haven't felt hungry in ages and i'm kind of mad that i'm hungry now. like it's an inposition to feel hunger. weird.

can you tell by my cheery positive outlook that things are going well? i'm maintaining my 178 rather well. mostly i'm not thinking about it that much. except that randomly i know the calorie content of everything in my house. did you know three tiny pickles only have 5 calories? i do. i couldn't believe they were so lo-cal until i remembered THEY'RE CUCUMBERS! but i digress. i also know by heart that a teaspoon of sugar has 15 calories. which makes a cup of tea and three tiny pickles my 20 calorie snack of choice.

it's not that i'm counting calories, it just interests me. like why did i think sugar was the enemy (atkins who?) when a teaspoon only has 15 calories and it's not made of chemicals. so i bought a few bags of the demerera teaspoon sticks and i use one every time i make tea. and it's enough. if i'm caught without a stick handy and i pour what i think is a teaspoon of sugar, it's too much. i don't like the extra sugar anymore. soda is way too sweet. regular cookies, desserts, they're all too sweet for me. everything's changed lately, it's like planet of the body snatchers or something.

i'm kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. the shoe that stops me from feeling full with half portions and buys all the half price halloween candy just because it's there. i don't want to do that ever again. it's pathetic and greedy and i genuinely fear being like that again. i'm not that broke or disturbed that i need a whole bag of snickers at $1.50 to eat by myself.

all that stuff is a bore isn't it. calories this. binge potential that. somehow in the last two weeks i've been able to tune out from all of it. i'm really happy that i can have success (blech, that word makes me feel like an oprah clone) without regimenting my life interminably. i have great respect for regimenting and scheduling and planning and the people who do it and have success with it. i've had success with it. the idea that i can't contain myself without an arms list of rules makes me feel like a failure above and beyond what it does for my body. i can't live like that forever. i wouldn't want to. i hope i won't have to. i have everything crossed for that hope.

christmas jackassery

that woman on the radio with the horns, delilah, was playing christmas music on saturday night. horrors never do cease. not to say that i listen to her as a rule. but i was driving and all of my cds sucked and i was left with the radio. so i wasn't really listening to her but flipping and there was accapella silver bells on 92.5. it's just not ok. it's not even close to december. living in the world makes me hate the holidays. what's to celebrate about buying on credit and feeding the capitalist machine? but maybe i'm just pissed that the mall is full of morons taking all the good spots.

stylish haircut who?

you know your hair needs help when your hairdresser phones your place of work while she has laringitis because she's been thinking about your hair and something must be done. you know you look like someone's hapless aunt when you get that call. the aunt with the cat sweatshirts who buys those collectible dolls from the home shopping channel. so tomorrow, if i don't flake and forget, i will be getting a "choppier, funkier" do. the adjective that would best describe my hair right now would be wide. maybe attractivity challenged.

for honesty's sake, and posterity, i've had two milky ways and one m&m peanut pack. but i feel like that shouldn't count because it has peanuts. which have protein. which you need to live. but maybe i'm over thinking it. if you got a call from your stylist and she couldn't live a moment longer knowing your hair existed you'd eat the milky ways too. don't tell me you wouldn't.

had-dock

we finished watching the last of big love. that's a fascinating show. i couldn't stop watching it. and now i have to wait like a whole year for season two to be on dvd. i'm genuinely worried about what will happen after they get outed. will home plus survive? will ben get his virginity back? it plucks at the heart strings. but the best scene was after the barbecue for betty when they have $2000 in lobsters hanging around. and they put them in tupperware. for me, in maine, it was hilarious. i just don't have words for how perfect that detail was.

it makes me nervous about the rest of the details though. like how much truth is there in the rest of the stories. my boss and all my co-workers grew up catholic. i'm surrounded by recovering catholics. when you grow up catholic you live life with the reasonable assumption that that's as crazy as it gets. we bond over our spiritual whoopsies. my best friend lied to the priest in her first confession because she couldn't think of anything she did wrong. i lied about giving my first confession because those booths are f-ing scary when you're six. better to lie and take the body and blood of christ at your first communion in sin than admit the priests freak you out.

while you were sleeping is one of my favorite movies because of the church scene. and the grandmother says she misses the mass in latin, it was nicer when you didn't know that they were saying. it's just so true. what weirds me out is how hollywood can so perfectly capture how i feel about catholicism, how close to reality is big love. i'm really torn about it. on the one hand the compound women don't seem to have many choices and that sucks as a way of life. but on the other hand the people where i live have kids with any number of spouses/neighbors/distant relatives, ongoing open relationships, polyamory whatever. and uhh...no one cares. but it seems to be a big huge deal on the show. a business make or break, a secret to keep. i don't get it.

all these thoughts because i can't get the lobster/tupperware scene out of my head. and i went back up a pound and it seems better not to dwell on that. why not chit chat about polygamy and religions and get every one mad at me. better than talking about my desk drawer full of tiny milkyways. no one has to know about that. except GOD. ha.

yogurt = skinny, and other equations

when we were still training our last new recruit, the one who weighs nothing and wants to lose and boasts of anorexia, well she said a lot of other crazy things. one being she'd never heard of haagen dasz. is life even worth living without that information, doubtful. she also said she saw me eating yogurt all week and that's why i was losing weight. maybe it's the way she said it, the certainty of her own logic that i found so amusing. it was like this paul reiser stand-up bit from years ago when he's talking about if you eat cottage cheese and half a grapefruit for lunch you're likely to disappear altogether by dinner.

apparently it didn't occur to her that i could eat yogurt during the day and go home and eat a vat of the mysterious haagen dasz and maybe i wouldn't lose weight. she really thought yogurt was the key. if only it were that simple. flick a switch, eat yogurt, life on course. that would rock. it's a process. losing weight, finding a new job where you don't have to make videos, growing your hair out of it's don king stage. everything is a process.

i've stopped writing about the reasons my job sucks and all the resumes i've been sending out because it sucks. the business is still in mind but that process is stalled beyond all reasonable stallage so finding acceptable employment is the top priority. if i work on it like i work on this health kick/weightloss thing eventually things will improve. i have to believe that. i also have to believe that it will work in two weeks or as soon as they fire me for not doing this video. i have lots of hope. and desperation. and perseverance. but mostly hope. what's the point of going on at all if you don't believe things will get better? so i believe that i will find a new job that i like and i will keep losing pounds here and there and that eventually we will have power and water and heat at the apartment. as soon as the hydro fixes all the damn poles maybe they'll get to hooking us up. and also that that lady won't file a claim and i won't have to sell my soul for liability coverage.

catholic guilt no more

saturday morning there was a big sale at my new favorite jeweler. so i showed up at almost the last minute and spent a lot of money on myself. and i felt really guilty about it until two hours later, when the lady in front of me slammed on her brakes. in the rain. for no apparent reason. so we collided. my grill is gone. the radiator is about two inches farther back than it should be. the headlight is all floppy. fortunately, they're all things matt can fix. fortunately because i don't carry collision insurance. roll of the dice as they say.

since my weekend sucked i'm enjoying the hell out of my new jewels. before my insurance goes up and i have to hawk all my possessions. cough. i'm lucky that the power came back at all, there are a few parts of the island still waiting. i'm also lucky that we lost power before the temp. was below freezing. that would have been more than a little unpleasant. especially as i'm out of candles.

and look at that, i almost forgot the most horrifying part of this debacle of a weekend. we have to make a god damn video. about customer service. every branch has to do one. we have to write, star and direct the bastards. i'm really thinking about looking for a janitorial position. atleast they don't have to jump through managerial wetdream hoops. banker...highschool student...banker...highschool student. it's an identity crisis in the making.

but i promised myself i'd stop whining on here. it's not a bit nice. so for happy thoughts tonight we're handing out candy at a friend's house. i have great hopes after my two disappointing halloweens in maine. rural maine is not the best place to go trick-or-treating. not enough doors per mile. the candy strategist in me understands this, but it still bums me out. if everything goes well we'll have lots of kids to give candy to and see lots of costumes. and not eat all the candy ourselves. i'm looking forward to a real halloween. i even pulled out one of my sister's kimonos. i'm pink hair punk kimono girl. with kitten heels. all fear me.

i think they call it perspective

just to show that karma is a bitch, i spent my weekend thusly:

having a car accident (no injuries)

without power or heat in my apartment

with the bridge to the mainland closed indefinitely and a boyfriend on the wrong side

but i'm still weighing in at 178 so it's all good.

mr. i have my reasons

i just let some asshole walk all over me at work. now i'm tearing up because i didn't stand my ground. probably i'll feel better when matt offers to shoot him. always a silver lining.

better than build your own ice luge

poodles is now officially my favorite referral term ever. there's no group this website speaks more clearly to than poodle lovers. obviously. i wonder what would happen if i typed cocka-poo. or golden-doodle. or the breed that really makes me swoon, labradoodle. that one really flows. no hyphen required.

did you think i might write about fat or something? nah. when statcounter gives you such gems you must embrace them. and when a reasonable band like the goo goo dolls is playing in bangor, you must get tickets. i'm not a huge fan, but it's enough that they are actually coming, here, to bangor that we have to go. pop culture doesn't swing north this often so we're going to take advantage of it.

we're not social creatures so this is good for us. we can go out and enjoy without having to actually talk to anyone. unlike all the parties we keep getting invited to. neither of us drink, matt in particular doesn't want to dress up for halloween, and we're not that keen on driving an hour both ways to do all these things we don't really want to do. if the stars align, we'll be buying a refridgerator instead. if that's not the stuff that keeps you young i don't know what is. mmm, kenmore.

is it horribly anti-social to not want to go to a friend of a friend's halloween party. reasonable or neurosis? should i be worried that i don't want to go to these parties...that at the ripe old age of 25 i'd rather take my beau out for pizza and groceries than mix with my peers? there's been a lot of do-it-yourself psychology around here lately. that's probably unfortunate.

"do snakes have fur?" "they do when they're ferrets."

consider this an open letter to all the people and groups that write me emails and ask me to plug their site/product/diet.

dear sirs/madams/list generators,

if you want me to read your email, you have to call my blog by the right name. it's not "does this blog make me look fat", it's not "does this make me look fat" it's certainly not "do i look fat". it makes a bad first impression when you don't get the details on your spamming correct. the shame of it, i'm sure it burns.

besides, you guys totally ruin the joke for me and that puts me off. bad public relations. adding insult to unsolicited email. tsk. but seriously, you'd probably do better to research first, spam later. greater odds. but probably not here. i'm not interested in sharing your wack diet, site with spendy registration fees, crack pot product with my readers. if you read my blog, you'd know that's not me. you shouldn't mess with a girl who ponders how many calories it would burn to bury her boyfriend in the backyard. just sayin'.

thanks! peace out.

still too short

i bought some new jeans this weekend. i've been doing really well this week and i rewarded myself. and i had a coupon, shoot me. i also had this crazy idea that eventually my waist and leg ratios would come closer together and i would be a regular shopper. so i took a bunch of 14 regular jeans into the fitting room. i have so much to learn. it seems no matter how much i lose, i will always be too short. the delusion, it runs deep. so i bought some short jeans that fit, and i won't have to walk around holding my pants up.

one of the pairs i bought is sort of skinny jeans esq. they're not as skinny as the popular ones, which i must say i think look ridiculous on almost everyone but that's just me, but they're sort of a similar cut. i should note here that i didn't actually try them on. i got a little fitting weary and just grabbed a second pair of the same, rather elusive size and headed to the checkout. but the funky hipster jeans didn't have a tag. so they're mine...forever. i'm planning to wear them with a lot of black and feign a rotund kate moss. or i can wear them to scrub my toilet because atleast they fit and i won't have to hold them up with one hand and scrub with the other. the lesson here, try the damn things on first.

right now my 135 pound, 5'5 co-worker trainee is telling my boss she wants to lose weight. and any minute i expect my boss to tear her apart like a group of lions. last week she was near gloating because her doctor thinks she has an eating disorder. i joke about wanting a tape worm, but i don't think i could ever be happy about having an eating disorder. it's one of my bigger fears surrounding dieting.

like today, i have a whole pumpkin pie at home because you can't buy just one piece. but i've only eaten one piece and i only will eat one piece. i feel extraordinarily in control right now. and i love it. it's what i loved about the beginning of my dieting adventure. the control aspect of dieting is addictive. it kind of freaks me out. like i could easily go too far and i'm not sure i'd know when i crossed the line.

i've discovered months too late that the secret to my success is not not buying junkfood. it's buying it and not eating it. that's pretty fucked up. i have a bag of mini peanut butter cups in my drawer at work. i bought them for my sister in japan. only she's moving to slovenia or something and i can't send any more mail. so they're at hands reach all day and i haven't eaten one of them. and i like it that way.

when i think back to the beginning, i bought a lot of the things i wasn't eating. i bought them and i put them in my cupboards and that was it. i did a lot of that. i've now given away or trashed most of that stuff. but it's like i'm starting over. one uneaten pie at a time. can i afford to waste the money on such a bizarre pattern? or should i probably be spending it on a therapist.

raining cats and poodles

there's nothing like a rainy day to make you realize your pants are getting too long. i've been doing this coquettish holding them up thing that's really best reserved for wearing skirts or living in 1893. since i've had these pants for years, i was confounded that they're too long when they were perfect last winter. and since it's me i'm speaking about you'll understand that my first thought was "oh my god, i'm shrinking". and then i took some tums. for the calcium. so my osteoporized bones might hold out a bit longer.

it wasn't until i reached work that i realized that it's not my bones that are shrinking. it's moments like this which make me glad i keep my diploma on my wall (like a dentist) because i'd never believe someone gave me such a thing if i didn't have proof. what would i do with my time if i didn't spend so much of thinking the worst. idle hands are the devils workshop.

so, pants. is there anything more complicated than dressing a changing body? do i hem them or do i buy new ones that may or may not be replaced in the next months? these are tricky questions for me because i'm really tired of dressing like a student. i hate making clothing choices out of necessity rather than pleasure, but i love that the same clothes i was worried would be lost because they were too small are now too big. i have to remember that i could be needing new things like seatbelt extenders rather than smaller pants. it could be so much worse.

i feel like i write this post every other week. hey, i'm fat and my clothes don't fit. that should be my new title. guaranteeing repetition with every post! i can't deny the truth universally acknowledged that you can't feel good about yourself if you think you look like shit all the time. in the vein of choosing things that will work with me along my "journey" i'm thinking skirts. short ones. it'll be good for the morale, the boyfriend's, if nothing else.

a timely discovery

check me with my two posts in one day. almost two in an hour. that's how hot i am today. hot and burning. want to know where? it's better than porn, i'm burning my face off. i've been under the impression that i have had a fever the last few days. since last week. my face is all pink and flushed and burning with the hotness. since i'm too cheap to have a thermometer i've been using the boyfriend-o-meter to guage whether or not i'm fevered. not that i've been home from work or resting, anything that normal sick people might do. but hey, i'm not sick at all. i'm just burning my face off. with my clean and clear dual acids which burn facial moisturizer(c).

i got a trial size with my last purchase of their pore scrub (i'd liken it to proactiv for the desperately thrifty) and i tried it while i was at home last weekend because it was tiny and easy to pack. i noticed a tingling sensation and i loved it. if it tingles it has to be working on pimple eradication right? that's logical, right? so i've been using it every morning. and every day i feel the burning. the you have a cold, flu, ecoli, thing has been going on for almost two weeks and i just put it together half an hour ago.

my boss' son just acquired a boxer puppy, cuter than should be allowed, and he licked all over my face. when they left i washed my face of puppy slobber and lo and behold, no more burning. it's a good thing i forgot to buy a doomsday supply of that stuff when i was shopping this weekend. i had planned on it. my skin looks great. if a little like i got too close to a fire.

a few good things

i just got my monthly martha. so many things i want to cook. so many things for thanksgiving. i love the holidays, if only in theory. i always look at all the wonderful recipes and ideas that are around and plan this crazy fabulous menu. and then it turns out i'm not hosting a big family meal..i'm always someone else's guest. that's the difficulty of holidays in your 20's, you have no control when it comes to holiday meal planning. it's hard if you're on a diet, or you're vegetarian, or if you're just really OCD like i am.

i want the creative control but i'm not certain i'll want the responsibility of doing it every year. that's a lot of turkeys. the one saving factor for me is that matt doesn't care at all about holidays. if we never celebrated thanksgiving or christmas it wouldn't bother him a bit. we could easily get away with staying home and making spaghetti, whether his family would forgive us i don't know.

but i have dreams. dreams of setting a martha table of antiques and serving a gorgeous dinner and all the side dishes and desserts that make you drool on the page. the mini cranberry meringue pies in particular would look lovely on my yardsale bought table. but it's not a great idea. i'd be better served to indulge my need for finery on the boyfriend alone, or when my nearest and dearest visit from lands afar. i would rather put my heart into cooking for people i love being with than because it's required of me on the last thursday of the 11th month and everything else is closed.

i've been a lazy cook lately, making blt's for matt and eating a lot of high fiber* cereal for dinner. the stupid thing is that i like to cook. i just have to re-think it. take my enthusiasm for holiday dishes and use it whenever i want to. set the table like someone who actually eats at a table and use the right silverware instead of the clean silverware. and maybe then i'll really understand what matt means when he says he'd rather enjoy an ordinary day instead of being expected to rejoice on demand.


*trying to stress the good carb thing there with too much detail, does it work?

the stand

i bought a carrot cake last night for no other reason than that it was there. at the grocery store. with the rest of the cakes. just sitting there, taunting passersby. forces were aligned against me. and today we're having an ice cream party. with monster cookies. and bags and bags of halloween candy. it would be easier to turn it all down if the party weren't being thrown by people whose presence makes you want to chew through your wrists to end the pain. or have a snickers. or 7.

i keep thinking about it and there's just no reason for my life to be this stressful. i'm not a brain surgeon. i'm not an accountant at tax time. there's no reason for my job to effect the success of my day to such a degree. it's just silly. i've got to find a way to rise above all this daily stuff so a bag of nasty ass snickers doesn't sound my downfall. wish me luck.

181: the final frontier

i took an extra day off on tuesday. apparently i have some vacation time left and i'll be damned if i don't take it all. so, ofcourse, i went shopping. i have no other pass-time, and no other love. that's not true, i just feel dramatic today. i had the strongest urge to title this post "i shot jr" but it just didn't feel right. maybe next time. so, shopping. while i was in the car i heard the craziest thing. some radio drones were talking about a study that concluded that women dress more attractively when they're most fertile. wow. just like on the discovery channel. the conductees were noting the lack of fertility signalling in humans and lo and behold, they found it. darwin would wet himself.

what do we think of it though. it's totally subconcious so how would we know. if anyone out there practices the rhythm method and notes shorter skirts on ovulation days let me know. i think it's fascinating. hormones make life so much more interesting, don't they? it's nice they make us prettier aswell as cranky. it's only fair.

i ended the post here originally because we got wicked busy and it was either a half arsed post or no post at all. so i went half arsed. which i do alot. i'm the queen of half-arsing. i never even finished my shopping rant, and i had a good one. i bought the best fat girl belt ever this weekend. it's not the normal loop and holes and all that, it's like a fold over with knobs. whoa, that sentence makes no sense at all. but really, it's great. you can get super fat or super skinny and it still fits. it's the best 6 dollars i ever spent.

i love things that still look good but can be worn at different weights. i'm still trying not to invest too much money in clothes at this stage, except for a few things that do work with different weights. so i'm working on my accessory collection. belts and shoes and handbags. why save money when i can have red mary janes and leather tooled by children in mexico? writing that sentence makes me wish i was wearing a god bless america t-shirt with a flag on it. but that's not in my budget. maybe when i reach goal!!!

"i don't know if her ass was good, but it was huge so there was this tremendous sense of value for it"

i talked myself into a perfectly sinful lunch today, instead of the healthy low calorie one i had planned. but i totally skipped the fries because i have morals and also they were cold. cold fries are the worst, better to be virtuous. so far my exercise has been walking in three inch heels. which i'm convinced burns more calories than flats. i don't have any proof or anything, it just seems like it should. i'm a believer anyway.

i'm also a believer in columbus day if only because we get the day off. bank holidays are beautiful things.

audit who?

we got audited this morning. surprise! it was cool though, we do everything as we should so there isn't any reason to worry. we're just tense because even though we know we do everything right, there's some ingrained thing about scrutiny causing tension. my boss was smiling so hard i thought i heard her jaw crack. but it's all over now.

being tense is a tiring process. my teeth hurt. i went for a long walk to relax and now i'm worn out. one stressful morning kicks my arse. i have the strongest desire to get a pizza for dinner so i don't have to kick. it'll be one of those evenings where you flop on the couch and the most activity you entertain is punching the remote and kicking the empty pizza box to the corner. i'll have to check out the will-o-meter before closing and see the consensus. wait with baited breath.

"is mel gibson in this movie?" "braveheart? yes. he is."

i'm very bummed that i've now seen all of the project runway seasons netflix has. but the "daniel franco where did you go" song is prefectly stuck in matt's head so the magic isn't all lost. the worst part is i keep calling it "fashion runway". which means i am officially my mother. god help me.

not to get off track or anything, but, speaking of god help me we had a big ass earthquake last night. it's the third big-ish one in two weeks. it's just not right. we get sub-zero temperatures, feet on feet of snow, ice storms, hail storms, hurricanes, forest fires and now earthquakes too? it's a smorgasbord of natural disasters and we got the early bird special. you know what the next season is? locusts. and i stole that from lewis black because it is the fucking gospel. locusts are next. i have this intense desire to buy bottled water and canned beans and an all terrain cat carrier. fear based consumerism is the wave of the future.

i called matt because i couldn't think of anything else to do and if my 17th century farmhouse is going to colapse on me damned if i want to be alone. so he came over. stopping out to his property to check on things. he didn't tell me last night what he was checking, but now i know. while we have tiny little earthquakes (4.2) we have big ass granite boulders. perched on mountains. there is one that has remade the guardrail at the tarn, having rolled down a mountain. guess who has a ton of boulders perched on the precipice of route 9 (important road to canada)? matt. that's what he was going to see. how many of his boulders done rolled into the highway. he didn't spend hours on the road with the backhoe so i'm guessing nothing happened. but the rock at the tarn is pretty cool.

but back to fashion runway. i really miss it. i'm not that excited about my netflix now that season 2 is all done (but i am getting a kick out of calling my sister and saying "designers, rock the casbah"). i'm not that excited about shopping either, which is just plain weird. especially as it's %10 off tuesday at the gap and my pulse is barely racing. but i lost four pounds in a day. so that's cool. it's not realistic but it's a great panacea. if i just stay off the scale till i get my diet on for a bit i might even have, like, genuine success. maybe.



*if miss pinky is reading i love the discs you sent me, i just haven't gotten to putting them on the computer to see which are my favorites. i just listen to it like a soundtrack. you should rename yourself jammastah pink!*

he thinks my garlic bread is sexy

it's supposed to be south beach week, but i had toast for breakfast. and i have spaghetti for lunch. this is called serious lack of planning. but tonight, i will go to the grocery store and i will buy vegetables and i'll start being skinny tomorrow. what? i'm a slacker you say. ofcourse i'm a slacker. if i wasn't i wouldn't need a diet blog. it's the circle of life like in the movie with the singing lions.