*

10 pounds down 32 pounds to go!

Monday, July 31, 2006

ads, what ads?

pretend it's not there. it's not supposed to be there. i don't know why it's there. for the love of god don't search anything in it. one minute i was reading the fine print and thinking "i'll never remember all these rules" and then i looked at my page and i have a thing. hopefully the wonderful folks at google will help me get rid of it very soon. frankly it scares me. i deal all day in fine print and i don't need another thing to screw up.

do i have a reader in winter harbor, ayuh!

don't be freaked out, i'm just excited to see you, hi! i've been meaning to say a special hello to the maine readers, especially the ones in portland because i really want to know where the dsw is. i have a map, but i still don't get it. so, um, hi.

two potatoes does not a dinner make

ed. on a scale of one to ten, this post makes no sense at all. i tried to fix it, but i'd need like 4 hours and a table saw. it's that screwed up. sorry


in the vein of all things turkey being good for you, i tried to make turkey filets this weekend. i say filets for lack of a better term, these bastards were skinny. super thin slices of turkey. i say tried because i think they came out one level below shoe leather, but matt was happy enough. i guess it's a learning experience. just because it's on sale it doesn't mean you have to buy it.

i was hoping it would work out as turkey is supposed to be so good for you. and tasty. but alas i guess i'm stuck with chicken, or thicker turkies. this week is kind of food filled and i was thinking it would be great to have the leftovers (uhm, yeah, trashed). matt's birthday lands in the middle of this week so we have a whole lot of family dinners to go to. we'll be going to reel pizza (pirates of the carribean, organic pepperoni pizza) and then there's the cake and his parents are having a party at the weekend. is there some law about celebrations and food or is it a tradition so ingrained in humanity that abundance of food is to be celebrated? but then i made cinnamon rolls to start off his week of TURNING THIRTY!!! it's probably not great that the recipe is so easy and came out so well. i don't need any help talking myself into baking swirls'o'lard.

is it sabotage? nah...actually i came in under all my previous numbers at 183. and all of my calories seem to be coming under what i should have. which i find hard to believe. how can you have two ice cream cones and come in under calories? i entered it correctly, i double checked. i'm not sure what the deal is. and i'm not sure how i feel about it. if i can eat like a moron and still come in under calories and yet show no real improvement i'm going to have to go to gruel and water to see any change. and maybe i'll a lick a lemon every third day to ward off the scurvy.

so is spark whacked or is it me? or is this possible? if it's true and i really am consuming way fewer calories than i thought, uh oh. it lays to waste all my theories about all the calories i eat and if i eliminated them and yadda yadda. you can only exist on so much before your metabolism packs up and moves to vegas. the devil wears html and i'm beginning to wish i never signed up for spark. informational bastards.

Friday, July 28, 2006

"it doesn't matter that your dad is a doctor, maybe he's a bad doctor"

it's been a long day. it must have been a record for crazy people wanting to cash checks. we damn near ran out of money. oh, and it's hot like fire. i'd been gloating about how bar harbor had been spared the heatwave. last night we grilled wearing sweatshirts. and now it is hot. craazy hot (so crazy it gets two a's). me'thinks they call it karma.

i went and joined sparkpeople because the boring is unbearable. and it's pretty entertaining to see how many calories everything has. instead of dinner you can have two candy bars. or not. it is interesting. especially the meal plans. who would have a bowl of cereal and half a bagel for breakfast. on purpose. it just seems odds to me. maybe cereal and a banana. a bagel and a peach. one dinner was a lettuce and cucumber salad with two slices of bread. unless you make croutons i don't see how that goes together in a way anyone would want to eat it. but then i watch tv and listen to the radio at the same time. i can't be trusted to say what's normal.

i'm not sure what next week will bring. matt and i have a funeral and a birthday to celebrate. and maybe some job calls to look forward to. so, if i'm not around...that's why. have a good weekend all!

Thursday, July 27, 2006

the beatings will continue until morale improves

if you've been doing pilates for a while, for the love of god don't stop. because when you start again months after you say you're going to it will kick your ass. i finally started the pilates again and OW. i used to be so good at it, and now i have to start over. atleast i'm finally doing it again.

and i finally went to the dentist. no cavities. the hygienist is in love with my teeth even after a two year absence. i have this catholic guilt thing when i don't go to the dentist and i just assume all of my teeth are going to fall out if i miss an appointment. but they didn't! yay!

while i was at the dentist i was reading gourmet magazine. i keep seeing it at the grocery checkout and wondering about it. i mean, it's gorgeous. i want to put the covers in my kitchen and stare at them instead of actually eating. nothing i cook is that pretty. if it was i might never eat again but then that might not be such a bad thing.

i've been thinking of getting more magazine subscriptions. it's a fairly cheap form of entertainment and some have great ideas. i love martha stewart living. she's a bitch and you never want to drive up her driveway but i'll be damned if her recipes aren't top notch. there's something to this never accepting second best thing she has going on. 'course it helps if you have millions to make things happen. but it won't be gourmet. i didn't see much that i would ever cook. if i can identify with martha my imagination is pretty darn stretchy but it just doesn't reach to gourmet. it's unfortunate because the gourmet cookbook is reviewed as one of the best and it's been on my wishlist for ages (every book i buy is used. because i'm a cheap bitch i won't buy it until it's less than five bucks. in time my friends, in time.).

does anyone have recommendations? is cooking light as boring as it sounds?

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

hey, look over there!

i'm trying to think of a distraction, something worthy. i really want to write about how on last night's news there was a spot on women who become virgins again after bearing their children. the world is splitting at the seams and this is what they put on the news. great! but i'm relieved to see that i'm not alone. thanks for that. so back to the fat.

actually, i have nothing to say about fat because i'm too busy searching for jobs and weeping over my resume and feeling worthless. YAY! but my rings keep falling off so my fingers are getting skinny. that's worth writing home about, isn't it?

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

77 cents on the dollar

jus me of chubby toes and i have been having a wee discussion in her comments about feminism and i've got to admit it's got my dander up. i mean no derision and i hope we can still talk about things in the future, but i think i should explain why i feel so passionately about it. i took this class in college with a new professor fresh from kansas. the class was called simply "racism" and there was no topic we weren't free to discuss.

the day rusty (his mom wanted a son his dad wanted a golden retriever...ha) started this particular class we were discussing sexism as related to racism. in the course of the class he asked which of us would call ourselves a feminist. three people raised their hands in a classroom of 25, me, him and an exchange student from spain. i honestly thought the man was going to fall over. here he took a job at a liberal women's college back east and he was standing in a room of women talking about the evils of sexism and only two of them would cop to being feminists. one european and the other queer. and then he started asking us questions.

he said he had a daughter and he had a son and he thought they were both valuable people. he said they both worked hard and they were both honest and smart. and then he said when they go out into the world one of them will earn a dollar and one of them will earn .77 cents for no other reason than what's between their legs. and he asked us if we agreed with that. and there was a chorus of uproar.

most of these girls grew up in single parent homes in baltimore. they know how hard their moms worked to get them to college. where they wore their "I don't go to a girl's school without men I go to a women's college without boys" t-shirts but wouldn't let the word feminist cross their lips. and he asked us why no one raised their hands. and they stammered. they didn't know why. they just know that they aren't supposed to want to be feminists. he asked us if we liked being able to vote, liked being able to own property, the right to our children if we bear them, the right not to be the property of our husbands. because feminism is not solely the bra burning construction of the seventies. if anything that should have been the culmination of the efforts of women since the year 500.

but it wasn't. the ERA didn't pass. legally, a man and a women do not have equal rights in this country. the same class that fought for two sessions over the iconic validity of aunt jemima had not a word to say about their own status as citizens. i've never been more ashamed. anyone who thinks that feminism is something of the past, or was taken too far, why? explain to me why a woman's rights aren't worth fighting for. why it's wrong to say women and men are equal. why should we be ashamed to say that every person on this earth is valuable and worthy? because i just don't understand.

tithes

i was the tiniest bit crabby last night about the job thing and the future thing and the hour commute thing i'll be facing in the fall. i know how worried matt is about my sanity because he said he only needs to sell two cords of wood a month to pay the mortgage. i think he would really enjoy having a wife from the fifties and dinner on the table when he got home. but mostly he just wants me to stop being a crab all the time and if cutting and splitting two cords of wood a month will make that happen it's a fair price to pay.

i can't stop working though, not completely anyway. on the one hand i'd have lots of time to write and cook and shop for bargains (and exercise of course). on the other i'd go completely insane. oh and we'd be broke all the time. i'm just getting comfortable with the little bit of financial security i have and i'm not ready to pitch it in. if i stay in my current job i'll never earn a raise of more than .03% a year, i'll never have more than 3 weeks of vacation (and that not for two more years) and i'll never do anything more exciting than count cash and hand out receipts. i do essentially get paid to play on the internet but can that sustain me for another 30 years of working? i have to have more ambition than that. just a sliver? a molecule?

the resume is officially mailed and now i wait with a dwindling ratio of nail to finger. just like last time. and the time before that. but what i really want to know is how much y'all would hate me if i put ads up? would you stick your collective tongues out at your screens? or would it be just another thing in the sidebar you don't worry about? i really do want to know. it's just something i've been thinking about in the atypical employment department. that and alligator wrestling. hmmm.

Monday, July 24, 2006

there's no there there

so i'm doing that quarter year thing when i hate my life and all of my choices and i spend all day searching the bangor daily for relevant job openings. maybe someplace that doesn't berate you for accruing 6 dollars of overtime out of the same face that spends hundreds of thousands to make all their signs "more" purple. and then i find a job that i really like the idea of and i totally imagine my life if i had that job and how much better it would be and all that rational stuff that accompanies the job search of the mentally unstable. as you see i've been busy. and tonight i'll be sending out applications. atleast this time i won't have to weep in the dressing room at the mall if i get an interview. see! there's always a silver lining if you squint hard enough.

Friday, July 21, 2006

a purpose driven blog

in housekeeping news i'm the proud new owner of over 200 anonymous comments. i'll never believe that this site is original nor does it have great graphics so i'm going to have to pronounce them spam. if you can believe it. so i've gone to registered users only. if you folks think this is more annoying than comment verification, let me know and i'll switch. customer service is at the heart of this organization after all.

so, the title. it seems that i've fulfilled the sub-header of this here site. my ass is frickin' disappearing. as far as i can tell, it's the only thing disappearing but who am i to complain? it's what i set out to do, isn't it. the downside is that again my pants are falling down. nothing makes you feel chic like hitching up your pants in the center court of the mall. so i guess soon i have to go shopping again. or start wearing elastic. even chic-er than showing off your ass crack. fact.

there's nothing like repeatedly losing your pants to underline, capitalize and bold the truth of your progress. i know i've been the hypocrit from hell about not worrying about the number on the scale and then using it as a title post every day for months. and then every time i feel successful it's because of my clothes, not the stupid white box with the numbers. i am a hypocrit, i admit it. go ahead, register and berate me with your comments. i'll be waiting with my disappearing ass and my jeans 'round my knees still pissed off because the scale says nothing has changed and i believe it.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

"put that cat down i'm allergic"

the lights are on but there's no one at home. i have NO idea as to how to change the font size. i must have tried for like 5 minutes. seriously. there's not a damn thing that says "hey, make me bigger and that guy in chicago will be happy". i looked at some new templates but the fonts aren't any better and i'm sort of getting used to this one.* it makes me feel like some tragically misunderstood goth teen. with a weight problem. ha.

if anyone has, like, any suggestions. bring 'em on.

and also, for anyone who hasn't noticed, the cool ass link monitoring thing is from the fabulous snackiepoo and will probably disapear when my free membership is up. but hey, it's fun for now.

*and then five minutes later i changed it. i just don't have the patience to refresh that much.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

under construction

what do you think? too dark?

184

as fluffie bunnie points out in the comments on the last post, my house is exactly like a gingerbread house with frosting binding the seams*. only the treats hiding hither and yon are of unknown age and quality. as sarah learned when trying to eat some of the maple candy** we brought back from vacation last year. so i tossed a few things last night. i saved everything with a reasonable sell by date. i don't know why really, i just don't have the heart to throw it away yet.

i don't know what the deal was with buying all that stuff in the first place. the lovely D and i had a chat about similar stuff a few months ago. like we feel we have to prove we have the right to buy this stuff whether or not we're going to eat it. that we could if we wanted to. it's so obscure. something to do with the denial you feel when you're on a hardcore diet. on an average day, when i'm not thinking about carbs or calories or exercise, i don't think about buying or eating a sleeve of chips ahoy. the minute you tell yourself you can't have those pre-packaged preservative laden discs of evil, you go and buy some. it's like required to bring the 7th level of hell to a full circle.

i'm thinking about shipping them all to my sister in japan. they have an earnest appreciation of all things american, more preservatives the better. she once traded a box of kraft mac and cheese for a vcr. think of what she'll get for the doubl stuff. and it's way too expensive for her to call and be mad at me. unlike my sister in new hampshire. who incidentally called me last night and illustrated why i love my family so much.

ring ring
me: yo.
her: hi! amy? can i borrow some money so i can get liposuction?
me: sure. check's in the mail.
her: ok. thanks. bye.

and then she hung up. she's really making the most of this free calls on the cell phone thing. bless her.




*mmm...frosting
**i originally wrote "maple canada" here instead of maple candy. wouldn't that be great, half a continent of solid maple sugar candy? fuckin' awesome.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

183

so, err, i didn't get run over by anyone from the garden state but we have been busy. our trainee has been sort or unreliable. friday she went home sick before lunch, and yesterday she went home distraught at ten because she got a text saying her boyfriend was cheating on her. technology is the root of all evil.

in the midst of the madness i haven't had time to tell you all about the clicking in my heel. it's been fascinating me for days. what is there to "click" at the back of one's heel/achilles area. can't think of anything can you? me either. today i have the added bonus of unrelenting pain that's been making me think of greek cliches all morning. unrelenting pain at both ends! woohoo!

i'm driving myself crazy, some guy from indiana really thinks i should cash his paycheck from lowe's (cash your damn paycheck before you go on vacation, moron) but atleast no one has stopped in to ask me the directions to starbucks this year. which is sort of a shame because they went and built one in bangor and i'd really like to say to someone "sure: go up this street and take a right and THEN DRIVE FOR AN HOUR. it's on the left, you can't miss it".

it's been a weird week and it's only tuesday. i cleaned out my cupboards last night. that's what 20 somethings do on gorgeous summer nights, right? catalogue the canned beans? and i noticed that i have a stockpile of packaged cookies. i vaguely remember there being sales in the winter. probably when i wasn't eating sugar and i seem to have hidden oreos and chips ahoy all over the kitchen. under the sink, fudge stripes. in the stationary drawer (as in it holds stationary not that it doesn't move because then it would be more of a box than a drawer*) there are vienna fingers. who hides vienna fingers? they're freaking vanilla? what kind of crazy person has a compulsion for vienna fingers? and then hides them with the hello kitty notecards. atleast i haven't eaten any of them. surely i get points for that...


*ever since we watched Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang i've been narrating to myself the same way robert downey jr. does. i did mention that i'm driving myself crazy right? right here, this behavior, top of that list.

Monday, July 17, 2006

geez

i don't love lane bryant, but this is ridiculous. i guess they'd rather have badly dressed fat people.

ooopsy!

a poor dear from vermont accidentally ran and won a 15k before winning a marathon in bangor this weekend. hot damn.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

184

means to an end? i guess we'll see. it's so interesting to see what brings out the comments, apparently the cola war is all consuming. i love pinky's Triumverate Of Evil. it's so true how some food information sticks out in the mind. i will forever feel guilty every time i'm offered wheat bread and refuse. i know it's supposed to be better for you, we're beaten over the head by it. but i hate it. with a passion that burns like one thousand suns. i've never liked it and i never will, but when i choose rye or white over wheat i always feel like the waitress is judging me. it's another one of those moments when you have to remember that the only person agonizing over your bread choice is you.

i've been thinking about the calorie counting thing lately. to go along with my journaling. that rings so loudly of a genuine diet that it scares me. but i'm almost interested enough in my daily caloric consumption to do the math. almost. i'm trying to talk myself into looking at it like a science experiment, anything but being a "dieter". i hate that word. i hate the images it brings to my mind of my mom dieting. she did one that was all grapefruit and one that was all ice cream. to be the person who came up with the ice cream diet would have to be like a religious experience. but then sometimes i think my mom made it up because she liked ice cream.

so i've been using the word lately. trying to get comfortable with it, but it's work. i suppose that is the most obvious way of looking at what i'm trying to do for myself. but that's not what it means to me. i'm trying to change my life and change my habits. it's not just about losing a few pounds for an outfit or an event like you might with a diet. that's part of my issue with diet foods. i'm not going to eat diet foods forever, i'm just not. i buy reduced fat when i can, dairy products mostly. it's a perfectly natural process of removing the fat from the milk and they've done it since ever. but i refuse to buy any product that lists anal leakage on the facts panel to save a few calories. it's just not worth it to me.

it is worth it to me to eat dessert sometimes, and have soda sometimes and to put sugar in my cheerios once in a while. these choices aren't going to get me a size 10 ass. i know it and i live with it. maybe sharing tiramisu with the boyfriend isn't going to make me as happy in the long run as being fit and buying smaller sizes might. but i could get hit by a cloven hooved woman from new jersey tomorrow. life expectancies are significantly lower in the summer in bar harbor and i'd hate to die without properly romancing the boyfriend. it wouldn't be right.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

186

i'm in love with granola. i've been eating it with my yogurt the last week or two and it's wonderful. i bought the hannaford brand because apparently you have two choices for granola in bar harbor: store brand or hippie. and the store brand is a hell of a lot cheaper. and i've been loving the store brand. it's so yummy. and today i figured out why. 13 grams of sugar per serving. it only took me two weeks to read the back of the box. jeepers. 13 grams. no wonder it's so good. so, as soon as it's gone i'll be buying the hippie granola from the health food store. at roughly the cost of my soul per ounce.

it's one of those realizations that not everything that you think is good for you is. my sister and i have this argument every time we talk about coke and diet coke. she can't believe i drink coke. the real thing with all the sugar. i admit it's not a great choice, and i've been having more than i should. but it still amounts to about 5 cans a month, maybe six. she drinks 2 or 3 diet cokes a day. A DAY! for the love of god, how can that be better for you than full sugar coke 5 times a month. but this is the essence of my sister. she would rather have the shake for breakfast, the shake for lunch and a cake for dinner than give up on the cake altogether. but then she fears being fat more than i do. because she's skinnier.

i don't have alot of diet food in my house. only the splenda from my south beach adventure. i don't like it and i don't like eating chemicals if i don't have to. it's not the food's fault i have more than i should. so we will continue to argue the point about coke and diet coke. diet may keep down the calories but i defy her to find it better for you than regular. as if such a question is even worth being asked.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

errrr

it seems that when you spell poorly, as it seems that i do, you write peek instead of peak. and it's like a whole other sentence. expensive education, what expensive education???

so, i didn't go to highschool with a bunch of perverts. i went to highschool with a bunch of asshats. for clarification.

186

i know that officially i keep getting fatter, but i'm not upset about it. i have such a crush on my legs, i don't care how much they weigh. muscles are so cool. i'd spend all day groping myself if i wasn't on camera.

so, it seems running is the new black. everyone's doing it. everyone's in love with it. and theoretically it's just as slimming. i have to admit it makes me feel sporty in a way i never thought i would. i have these horrid flashbacks of running the dread mile in highschool. i never believed that i could run the mile, so i put my mind to cheating before we'd even started. i feel really awkward about liking running now. like i'm betraying my teenage self. but, whatever. i have to keep reminding myself that i don't have to compete with people who peeked in high school. not anymore.

Monday, July 10, 2006

paranoid, not me

i didn't step near the scale at all this weekend as i was too busying worrying myself into a frenzy because ye olde mestruation was two days late. two days you say! you must be pregnant. commence meltdown. but alas, no. that was the best part about dating girls, no silly reproduction worries. so, i spent my weekend shopping and skirting the pregnancy test aisle. i bought moldy cheese (going back tonight) a birthday card for matt (it says i love you more than shoes, get it?) and two packs of on sale toilet paper (because if the apocolypse comes i want to be ready).

i've been doing that end of the month shopping where you try to use up all of your coupons before they expire. so we have 3 cans of condensed milk, two pound cakes (don't ask) and whole wheat pasta at $.80 a package. but i didn't buy any icecream. mistress sarah will back me up when i say that i don't need to buy ice cream EVER AGAIN, as she experienced my freezer hoarding first hand. the problem with the ice cream isn't even that i eat it. i don't really. matt eats it. and he needs to. that boy burns more calories standing still than i ever could stepping or running for hours.

the problem with the ice cream is that it's always on sale and i can't pass up sales. i physically can't. the breyers is going for $1.77. i'm only flesh and bone here. i can't resist it. and the best part is that i don't even like breyers so if i buy a ton of it i'm not that interested in eating it. but you see, the freezer can take only so much and it's officially full. i've been asking matt if he wants ice cream every five minutes since tuesday. he thinks i'm trying to fatten him up. HA. i have better motives. i want to make chili with the 600 cans of beans i found in the cupboard. and i want to freeze it in portions for last minute lunches. good idea right? low fat, protein packed, vegetarian chili...if i can ever shift the ice cream.

so the journaling is going well. i'm enjoying it more than i thought i would. it's much more positive than i expected it to be. i was thinking it would be a list of reasons for recrimination but it's turned into a list of reasons why i should be happy with my choices. that's freaking awesome. it's so easy to focus on the one slip up and feel like all you ever eat is cupcakes for breakfast but when you see in print that it's actually not the truth, it's exciting. it's like proof positive that i'm not failing myself. woohoo, journals!

Friday, July 07, 2006

185

today i hemmed my pants with duct tape. my mom would have been so proud.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

185

last night i lost ten pounds. of freaking junk. well not junk actually, ten pounds of paper that i used to think would decide my future. i have moved from three residences no less than 20 grad school applications in triplicate and the accompanying admissions materials. might have been more like twenty pounds really. so much paper. my objective is to purge the house before i have to move. there are so many things that it's time to let go of that are slowly working their way to the dumpster.

i found some old artwork and a veritable store of art supplies. damn joyce* for making me buy all that graphite. what the hell am i going to do with graphite and natural crayon and 72 pencils? but i really enjoyed finding the print of sarah with the quote "I just don't think a shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch and a sensible dinner would hold me." i can't remember the conversation that quote came from but i wish i could. it must have been a good one. it also proves that everything you do everyday can be related to your weightloss blog. even cleaning under your couch. it's like that game with kevin bacon. only fatter.

so my house is getting thinner even if i'm not. even the bookshelves. even the shed. i found three bags of polyfill. apparently i was going to make pillows. in 1995. and i haven't gotten around to it so i've just been moving it from house to house. atleast it's light. i can't quite decide what to do with them, they're not actually trash and yet if i don't make pillows before the next century they're not actually useful either. and the shoe boxes...trash or waiting to fulfill their final destiny? so many decisions.


*certifiable insane art teacher.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

QM2

the queen mary two is here today. not that anyone can see it. the fog is slowly burning off and maybe they'll get to come off the ship...eventually. we were expecting to be crazy busy, but at this point no. so we're sitting on our asses. and i can't even waste my day on the internet because we're training a new girl today. so we have to feign professionalism.

the poor thing, she thought the susan b anthony dollars were canadian. oh, to be so young, it's unpardonable. but she complimented my pants so now we're best friends. i'm drinking coke right now, a sin against nature i know, but i wrote it down. see how that validates me. and the writing burns maybe a calorie. and the scowling too.

i'm intrigued about what sarah said about the expression of pain burning into your skull. does that mean that perpetual wrinkle in my forehead from making the "what's your deal?" face is burned into my skull? because i think i'd prefer that to calling it a wrinkle. "wrinkles, at my age? no, no, no that's just sarcasm burned into my skull". or i could get botox.

Monday, July 03, 2006

the new frontier

today i started my food journal. i'd been planning meals and keeping track that way, but there were too many "i don't wanna cook, i'll just get pizza" nights. so now i'm journaling. i'm writing what actually gets eaten instead of what i should be eating. it may not discourage me from getting pizza but atleast i can say at the end of the week what exactly i ate. it's a learning period. an experiment if you will. to see what kind of choices i make when i don't actually force myself to eat salad every day.

?

my favorite thing about the tourists is when there are 4 skinny girls standing in the cheese section debating the fat content and calories of two kinds of mozzarella. bless them for being so conscientious while on vacation. but why must they discuss it in the middle of the aisle? i've had the impatient look of the local for weeks already and it's starting to wear thin. the good news is that the police ticketed some tourist for going too slow. i love police beat.