re: why i'm a freak about what my boyfriend eats

PQ's question in the comments is a tricky one. so much so that i had to make a post to answer it because my reply was getting way too long. you see, when i talk about feeding the boyfriend it's only for me. purely academic. i feel bad about keeping hot dogs and ramen in the house because i know those aren't good foods to be eating, but matt complicates the issue. one, because he doesn't care about food and two because it makes no difference what he eats, and i'll explain that later i swear. i worry about it because i do the shopping. it's not that he can't stop at a store and buy what he wants, he certainly could but he never will because he doesn't care. that's my half of the domestic bargain because i like it and i could never give up control of what i eat, and also because i don't want to spend a saturday splitting wood or cutting down trees or changing the oil in my car. i would much rather shop at the best market in bangor and put endless thought into the week's menus even if it makes me insane sometimes. not as insane as me with an axe, for sure.

matt is one of those skinny people everyone hates. he would work all day and never notice that he didn't eat lunch if i didn't suggest it. maybe if he got peckish he'd drink some water. secretly it drives me nuts that he can go around all day without thinking about food because most of the time that's what i'm thinking about. what i'm going to cook, how i'm going to serve the food, the plates i'll use. people, i think about the plates. if he had to cook and shop for himself he would buy bacon, and maybe pancake mix, and probably some hot dogs. he knows how to cook more than that, but it's just of no consequence to him what he eats. he is supportive of whatever i cook and usually complimentary but only because he's trying to do the right thing for all my efforts.

the thing is, that as a chron's patient, it doesn't matter what he eats. most of what he eats gives him no nutritional value whatsoever. he could eat a steak dinner or suck on a lollipop and the calories he got out of it at the end would be pretty much the same. that's his life. there's nothing to be done about it, but his body is essentially starving all the time no matter what he eats or how much. since i do the cooking, i try to make rounded meals. rounded high calorie meals. atleast for him. i know it doesn't matter, but i still try. he doesn't worry about it because he's been bombarded by doctors for half his life telling him to eat more, eat this, don't eat that. if he listened to every doctor and what they said not to eat, he'd be drinking water for every meal (not that he'd mind, heh). so he doesn't think about it. he's trained himself not to think about it. and that's a big part of why he doesn't care about food. i also think he's just one of those people who can look at food strictly as fuel (and would even if he never got sick). and then there's the every time he eats it hurts thing. the boy can't win.

he gave up soda, he's never been a drinker, and he doesn't like to eat too much junk or fastfood. but it doesn't really matter. he chooses not to do those things because they are healthy things not to do. in reality he'll never be overweight, he'll never have high cholesterol whether good or bad. eating more greens won't save him from cancer, more calcium won't help his bones, not like a healthy person. it's sort of like weight loss surgery where the food bypasses all absorption, only without the morbid obesity and with a better prognosis.

so there's the part that frustrates me, the part where if he's hungry he can eat just the one cookie and never think about eating the whole box. and there's the part where i feel guilty when he eats hot dogs for dinner because that's what i bought for him. and there's the part where it doesn't matter anyway because his body is starving him no matter what he eats. i write about it because i worry about it, not because it can be resolved through writing about it. it's just always on my mind. the only benefit is that my need to feed him healthy food feeds me healthy food too. which, even though it would make a difference in my life, i'm not all the pressed to do. so, while i feel a little bad about keeping ramen noodles in the house for him it doesn't really matter. i might as well save the cash and give up the guilt. but what fun would that be.

"Breathtaking. It's like somebody slaughtered an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog."

back to the saltmines at 172. i don't know what to say about the weekend. i sort of thought i'd end up fatter. we had a very weird meal schedule going on. usually i'm a worrier and a planner with a back up plan. atleast when it comes to feeding matt. this weekend there was no plan and he had ramen noodles for atleast one meal. part of me can't believe i didn't capitalize on that sooner because it's a wicked cheap way to deal with lunch and the other part can't believe i let him eat powdered ground chicken broth as a meal. is it worse than hot dog day? is that even a worthy debate?

i found bangor's best grocery store. it was genius putting it right near the mall. it's practically invisible. there was hardly a soul there on saturday mid-day. five old ladies in the canned goods aisle, it was like a dream with cheese sticks and that frozen bread dough matt likes. i also got some new t-shirts, which was almost as much a revelation as the market. it finally occurred to me that my top half is shrinking too. why it escaped me that my shirts were too big i'm not really sure. probably since too big shirts don't fall off they weren't made a priority. but they still make you look fat and sloppy. it's worth it for the self esteem to have clothes that fit.

in other news, i'm not sure how long i'll have blog access at work. the computers they are unhappy. so far, blogger has escaped the firewall of protection for our own good but who knows for how long. it's a good reason to get my act together about internet in the home. that's as soon as i replace my dvd player. the bastard died on the last disk of the last season of buffy. how could it leave the world dangling on the edge of peril like that. reckless magnavox. be it known that if i disappear i shall be back. and probably verbose for lack of appropriate release. i could call you all and whine but the sniveling is really better in print. i can erase the excessive "ya know"'s and dance on the fine line of correct grammar. and dancing burns calories so it's important to stay online. i'm certain i wouldn't have lost almost 25 pounds without this website, i could never stay away for long.

"Okay, either I'm borrowing all your albums or I'm moving in."

it's still snowing and i still like april because it's not march and i don't want to throw up. however, i can't say a touch of spring wouldn't be nice. the weather's in the 30's atleast, for which we are grateful. snow is one thing but freezing to death in april is just going too far. you know you live in maine when you're happy about 30 degrees.

i had rum cake and coke for breakfast, which i thought was amusing, and i'm not even feeling guilty about it yet. i exercised yesterday. which since we got out early is not all that great of an achievement but it's better than sitting around. otherwise nothing's happening. snow, food, guilt. it's very winter mentality. atleast it's friday. i'm looking forward to not having to do anything. days like that are nice sometimes, a little shopping and a little cooking and nothing important to get done. we're avoiding matt's family easter dinner. because we're heathens, and also selfish. maybe i'll cook matt a ham steak and he can enjoy the re-birth of jesus with mashed potatoes.

happy easter if that's your thing!

can we say 1" per hour? april schmapril.

"Who died and made you the Iron Chef?"

i didn't end up using the eggs last night. because i am an idiot. i didn't stop for a bundt pan 'cause i was going to make a ton of cookie dough, i thought that was the best way to not eat it. mix and freeze, that was all i was going to do. except that by ton i meant literally. 6 eggs, using the recipe that required the most eggs, would have begat thirteen and a half dozen cookies. even frozen, that's an army of chocolate chips. the other recipes would have been almost 20 dozen. which would be fine if i was a certified insured kitchen and i could cart their chocolatey asses to the market and sell 'em, but i can't. now i have to go to walmart (evilly convenient) and buy a bundt pan so i can go home and intoxicate a very eggy cake. right now is an i wish i could stop thinking about this so i don't go insane moment.

one of my co-workers just started an almost south beach thing. her husband was pronounced obese and with high blood pressure. he was shocked, as are all the everyday obese folks who get through most of their day just fine. he was one of those people who think obese means you need heavy equipment to get you out of your house. reality is a harsh mistress. they're doing the diet together, after she convinced him that she is technically obese too. we've been talking a lot about diets the last few days. diets and coupon clipping are our big bonding points and they don't really work well together. bad for me, but it's worse for her.

the thing is, there are hardly ever coupons for fresh vegetables. no, the coupons are for cake mix and cookies and sugar cereals. or god save us hamburger helper. not only are these things big in the coupon section, they're also always on sale. the establishment is practically paying you to eat this crap. i fell into that trap, no i lived in that trap, when i was really broke. that's where she is, she has a house full of potatoes in a box and sodium white rice blends and cinnamon rolls in a can. because it was cheap and it got the job done and when you eat it all the time it tastes good. it's hard to get out of that situation when you can't afford to lose all that food and your health can't afford to eat it.

she gave me all her "bad" coupons. shoot me, i accepted some cookie mix coupons. do i need that, NO. see first paragraph, one thousand times no. but i took them. let's just hope i have the strength not to use them myself. or the one for eggos. although matt could really use the calories. the list of rationalizations goes on and on and on.

"I've Googled 'til I just can't Google no more."

that's not what i had intended to write about today. i was thinking i could talk about how mad i am that the hormones a'cometh right when i'm all ready to rock and are farking up my scale, or the latest fire in my kitchen which is a perennial favorite, or how i dropped a carton of pete and gerry's organic eggs in my kitchen and now i need a recipe that uses 6 eggs. accidentally telling the world wide web you're getting married can be so distracting. speaking of which, i can't wait to tell matt about it and watch him twitch. what's love for if you can't torment your beloved for your own amusement.

i hadn't really settled on a topic, they're all so exciting. i really love buying new bamboo kitchen utensils and then leaving them near the gas range. who thought it would only take a month for the first fire to pop up. and matt said "maybe we should get a fire alarm". yeah babe, maybe we should get on that.

the hormones and the scale are pretty self explanatory. and yet every month i forget and i spend a few days feeling like a bad, bad dieter. i moved the scale around looking for a better spot for five minutes before i remembered that it's not the scale, it's the ass. and the water retention. i'm always so willing to believe that i gained 3 pounds in a day. it's amazing more people don't cop to shooting jfk, all the guilt we carry around.

oh, and the eggs. two seconds after telling matt the groceries were delicate, i let the bag fall off the chair. ca-thunk crash crack. i'm way too cheap to let pricey organic eggs get tossed, so all the reasonably not too nasty ones got cracked into a tupperware bowl. which should be fine for a day or so. only thing is i put six in one bowl. whoops. i know you can mix it up and then divide by six or three or whatever (here comes the dread kitchen math again) but that sucks. i really wanted a recipe that asks for six eggs. and can i tell you not even quiche wants six eggs. i could make a ridiculous chocolate cake, but that's not really in the spirit of the diet.

my options are to make three times the recipe of cookie dough and freeze it or i can guesstimate two eggs and make a rum cake that freezes well with the other four. i haven't decided yet. i had intended to make a rum cake anyway, because we have a lot of rum around (i don't know why, neither of us drinks it) and freezing it would keep me from taste testing. i have to decide today because i don't know how long eggs are good out of their native habitat. and i don't really want to eat scrambled eggs for five hours on end. not that there's anything wrong with that. except the puking. could there be a worse time for the what to bake with these rich calorie laden ingredients challenge?

"Take it easy, you'll get your kittens."

no, i'm not getting married. the only time i'd ever post that is when i'm embellishing my love for 1/12 of the year. apparently i haven't been whining about march as much online as i have been in the three d world. i've been really annoying about march, you see. repeatedly, incessantly, infuriatingly whiny about that horrible no good month. and april, well, i like it. we're going steady. like how when you pass a dude with a mullet and a motley crue t-shirt and you tell your sister "he's your boyfriend" but you don't mean it. you're just being a jerk. that's me. there's no marriage here.

that freaked me out, and it was totally my fault. and i forgot to go to this thing i was supposed to go to this morning. a boring work thing that could be over by now, but i forgot and now i have to reschedule. and it's snowing. we have about 4 inches. which isn't unheard of in april, just sad-making. i'm glad that i got a long walk in yesterday before the weather. i have to remember to take the exercise when i can get it and not put it off. i always feel so accomplished afterwards.

i still haven't done bean fest. i should just shut up about it already. if you guessed i spent my night sorting through the last box we packed as we ran screaming from my apartment, you were right. candle holders, half a cocktail shaker, cat claw clippers and the handle to the vacuum. the last box is officially unpacked. and the house seems so big now. it's amazing what moving out the world of cardboard will do for a kitchen.

and i'd better get this retraction up before the mixers and toasters start piling in. married, indeed.

Dear Sarah,

everytime i see you on my statcounter i sing "Massachusetts, Boston and Albany New York". you're my very own animaniac.

"If anyone sees my spine laying around, just try not to step on it."

matt and i both declared that we need to drink more water this weekend, together we finished off over 6 liters. which means i need to buy some more. i could even plan to buy the recommended amount for two people for every day. imagine. but then i'd have to math and that stinks. or i stink at it. i spent valuable chocolate eating time this weekend trying to figure out how many chocolate chips are in an ounce. i thought if i divided the 12 ounce bag by the serving size i could figure it out. so i counted 200 chocolate chips to find that my half empty bag had about 204 chocolate chips in it and pretty much i could have just emptied the bag and my cake would've been fine. chocolate math karma sucks. but the cake was good.

i didn't get to all my proteiny cooking, but the house is completely clean. all the boxes are gone. it's a very wonderful thing. i'll be beaning it up tonight instead. i did three of the things i had hoped to do. i know i've said before that you shouldn't stop pilates because when you start again you die right there on mat, but i'll say it again. i started up on sunday and i died on the mat. i didn't even make it to the teaser. tonight i'll step and tomorrow night i'll try again.

i keep wondering how i lost those first twenty pounds and i'm really astounded until i remember that i exercised like a fiend. and then i sort of petered out. the whole getting comfortable thing. i keep saying i'm going to get uncomfortable again (and here's where it gets confusing) and now i'm finally comfortable enough to get uncomfortable. having my house be a wreck really made me nuts. more than i think i realize even now. the peacefulness i feel right now is amazing. i love april and we're getting married. it rocks as much as i thought it would.

i feel like i'm ready to get serious. serious like i was last winter. i've been maintaining pretty well on food alone, time to add back the exercise. i would really like to make pilates a habit again, every other day. and half an hour of stepping on the days in between. like i used to do religiously LAST YEAR. oh, and the walking. like how i used to do enough to give myself shin splints. i don't need to do that but i do want to walk again. i've been avoiding it for no real reason. i used to really like it. the pier and the ocean and the sun just rising. why would i want to avoid that? it's just stupid.

it's a little harder to motivate when you've lost some of the desperation. which is tricky because it's good not to feel desperate and hate yourself and punish yourself for everything you do. that's a good place to be, but it's like the hotel california. i can't apologize enough for that analogy but it's true, you all know it's true. you have to leave and stay at the same time. physics just doesn't work with a diet, oil and water. physics and biology. imagine our ancestors working to not be fat and happy. no wonder dieting is so hard, it's against the grain of evolution and our innate need to survive. it gives every success a new meaning doesn't it, we're beating even more odds than we thought.

"Is it possible to have too much character?"

you'll all be surprised that the boyfriend doesn't think ice cream sandwiches are a healthy breakfast choice. which is just crazy obviously because, hello, calcium. and i bet they waved those cookie outsides near some grain at some point so who's the one rushing to rash judgements and making poor decisions? ha. err. it's friday, a girl has to celebrate. it's amazing what i can convince myself of at 6 o'clock in the morning. i didn't take a coke with me, which is a small victory, because it's hard to fight off the carbonated chaser of an ice cream breakfast. one battle at a time.

i have a big long list of things i need to do today, and this weekend, and in general. today i need to hit the grocery store for food i won't have to rationalize eating. this weekend i need to fill my freezer with things i can grab for work that have protein and are good for me. and i need to dust off the pilates mat atleast once. in general i need to start drinking more water. i haven't been drinking enough at work or at home for silly reasons. at work we drink bottled and we were running low. at my old place i drank tap water all the time. big glasses of it and i'm not dead. there's no reason i can't drink tap at work when we're running low.

we're drinking bottled water at home too because we haven't tested the well yet (apparently you have to wait a while to get an accurate reading, so we use it for showers and dishes but we drink bottled). so it's that much more difficult to drink my big glasses. i mean, i have to open the fridge and everything. and i have to pay for it. it's amazing how little it takes for my mind to see an obstacle and run the other way. i need to think about it more and make sure i have a glass or water around all the time like i did at the old place. it worked for me there and i can make it work for me at the new house if i keep my mind on it.

that's my list. i think it's pretty do-able. habit making things if i keep at it every week. and stop buying ice cream sandwiches. clearly i can't handle the responsibility.

"My mom's making her famous call to the Chinese place."

so...i was a moose accident on the highway last night. we stopped at wendy's on our way home. which we never do so i won't be too guilty about it. mr. matt had to go hang some blinds for a friend and the hunger, it may have been emotionally scarring, so it was better avoided. the only concern i have now is that we're going out again today for our anniversary. we always have lunch at the same place where we had our first date. and then later we're grilling. as you can see it's going to be a very foody day. in retrospect, i probably didn't need to add to the mayhem the day before with french fries. i just have to think it's all better than a big crazy meal out at night when i'll have no chance to burn off the calories.

scale is still 170 after being moosey so that's good. i've been looking up dessert recipes for tonight. i don't know if that should be labeled good or bad. the theory is that you only have an anniversary once a year so it probably won't kill me to bake something. i haven't done much baking in the new house, i have a lot to learn about gas ovens. i also have a lot of whipping cream that needs love (see, i had baking intentions) so i'll probably make a french chocolate cake. sort of a flourless chocolate cake only with like 2 tablespoons of flour. still very dark and dense and yummy. with whipped cream. i just need to summon the energy while matt does his boy thing with the grill.

i had thought moving would make me want to cook proper meals, because my dining partner really needs them. but so far i'm exactly as much a slacker as i always was. i don't know why i believed so heartily that geography would make a difference. i cook reasonable food for him most nights, but not always for me. he's been eating more hotdogs than is probably good for him, and for me grilled cheese. which i suppose has a certain amount of protein but mostly it's butter.

the short of the long is that i need to think about protein for me. and i need to plan for it. i'm thinking of keeping a pot of black bean soup around at all times. or maybe for every lunch. i'm clearly too lazy to cook real food at night during the week. i'm going to have to be one of the many who prepares all their food on the weekends. odds on i'm too lazy to do that too, but it's a start in the right direction. maybe i'll bond with my freezer and it'll be life changing. a girl and her pyrex. that's almost dirty, in a fastidious housewares kind of way. roar!

"I like chocolate. There is no bad here."

what happens when blood sugar goes bad! i have to say i've never really been able to eat at taco bell. i love mexican as much as the next scottish/quebecois american, but just not out of a window. that, and that one time that girl at college said she got a cow tendon in her bean burrito. i couldn't survive a misplaced tendon. i've accepted my limits and i love myself anyway.

speaking of the abyss of fast food, did anyone else know the dip at dairyqueen is lard? LARD. what is with the modern use of lard. isn't that why we went to the trouble of making all those chemicals, so lard could retire and move to florida like everyone else? my sister's bestfriend worked at a daryqueen in highschool and read the ingredients. you know how long ago that was? 15 years. my sister has left me in the lard dark for 15 years. i thought it was wax all this time. which is gross, but not lard gross. she is so not inheriting my buffy collection. i'd rather see it go to strangers.

i'm doing that thinking way too much about food thing i do whenever i am trapped in the bank and i can't go buy any. it's a good thing i'm stuck because i finally came back to 170 and i'd really like to keep it. the lure of cheezits might be too strong to resist if had the freedom to procure them. i've been way into salty lately. like those moose that lick the road in winter. you know what happens to them, they get hit by tractor trailers. shame i can't secure that kind of consequence for buying ridiculous snackfood. threat of a speeding 18 wheeler just might keep me out of the market all together.

"i was being patient but it took too long."

i'm wearing my new pants today. the scale read 171 just like yesterday. and still i feel ridiculously fat. you ever feel like your body is expanding all around you like some alice in wonderland thing. that's how i feel today. all expandy. technical term. really i'm at my skinniest and somehow my laziness has started to affect my feelings about my body. i haven't exercised properly in, uhm, a very long time. i can't even remember. atleast a month. there's been physical labor but none for the sake of fitness, or thinness or duty even. but lately i've started to catch the spring diet rejuvenation bug.

right now i'm working on my coke dependancy. i've been clean two days. i just keep telling myself it removes rust. if i still want it after that i'll have one but mostly it's been working. i've been replacing it with tea, but at least i control the sugar and the calories that way. food on the other hand is a little weird. because i haven't been trying. our schedules are still a little crazy and mostly i worry about matt getting the right food. since i gave up chicken i know i'm not getting enough protein. sometime i'll be in a better place to fix that, it's just not now.

i know i need to eat better and exercise more to go beyond maintaining these 25 pounds. i also know laying down a do it or die plan does not work for me. the minute i'm writing about it i'm all over it, but in reality that kind of structure doesn't do any good for me. however, i know what i can do if i try harder. if i can remember that i had some chocolate at lunch, i don't need any at dinner. and that if i'm just sitting watching tv, i could just step and watch tv. and also that life won't end if i don't lose as fast as i want to. i'll still wake up every day and face the same decisions and that won't kill me either.

my rope has been short and fraying this month but i'm starting to feel better. i need to accept that moving was hard in a lot of ways, and being sick and having your family be sick is all hard too. i need to accept that i did the best i could and i can't do any of it over even if i wanted to re-live it. and i think i need to be happy that i'm ending march one pound down from where i started. this month could have broken me, but it didn't. i'm still here and i'm no worse off with so much to look forward to. and i know i've been making with the saccharine after school special posts lately, that's not usually my style. i think it does me good every once in a while to re-group and remember what i'm doing and why. even i can't talk about clothes all the time.

"Quiet! You'll miss the humourous conclusion."

the goal to fit limited 12 has been met. i bought some perfect size 12's, short for the tall impaired, and i'm very happy. they cost more than a week's worth of groceries, so that'll probably be the last thing i buy in a 12 if i can help it. i picked up one other pair of pants at old navy that were also perfect, and ridiculously cheap, but also wool and lined. and i do not want to be wearing a 12 the next time i need lined wool pants. so as much as it pains me, i will take them back. i'm seriously tired of finding clothes with tags that do not fit anymore. it's a dubious thrill being too skinny for clothes paid for and never worn.

what else...i chose to be without coke today. which, considering my current addiction, i think is quite a show of commitment. i sort of remembered that i don't want to be doing this forever. those wool pants reminded me. i don't want to maintain until next winter. if that happens, i'll have to deal with it, but i'm not going to sit on my hands and self fulfill the prophecy. and i had a nice 171 this morning even after a weekend of pizza and easter candy. since i know i can do better than that, i have new found inspiration.

and there's more good news, it's march 26. the month of expense and disaster and pestilence is almost over. april had better kick some serious ass. some ass that doesn't involve buying a new washing machine. 'cause i'm looking forward to that being over with. especially the bill. i'd like to file that under march and move the hell on.

on that note, i'll be at consumer reports making the most of my last shred of sanity. welcome to monday!

"I happen to be very biteable, pal. I'm moist and delicious."

the weather report reads A OK so i'll finally be off home this weekend. i can get my car and spend copious amounts of money at the limited and also i need hinges. but that's neither here nor there. actually, i'm hoping it works out like a tv commercial. you know the kind, where the flighty woman walks in to the home repair store with a picture of hinges on her cell phone and some dude in a cape, like, flies them right to the aisle. and then everyone smiles. i'm hoping it'll be like that because i'm not that interested in spending my shopping time wearing ye olde soles in search of hinges. not when there's a mall and an auntie anne's pretzels so near by.

usually i worry about what horrors of food await me at home. i.e. pizza. i've already decided i'm going to take the calorific bull by the horns and cook. i'm going to make pasta, it's a so-so choice but atleast it's not pizza. my sister asked me to teach her how to make spaghetti sauce so i'll be doing that. and probably cake, but it should be fine if i leave it in a different state. which reminds me, has anyone else heard about the possible chocolate shortage? that kind of news is so not good for my hoarding tendencies. i'm going to end up with a bomb shelter filled with chocolate bunnies and cadbury eggs and i'm not coming out till the last fluffy tail's been had.

cough. not that i'm feeling weak or anything. which is good because there's a little party in our honor this afternoon. matt's co-workers are having a house warming for us. beyond adorable. is it rude to turn down meat at a party thrown for you if you're a vegetarian. even if you're a crappy vegetarian? where does emily post stand on making yourself sick for the sake of decorum?

"And I should do what in my spare time? Sit at home knitting cunning sweater sets?"

we watched the kitten poker episode last night. there's nothing like debating the use of live kittens as currency to make an evening. i, for one, feel complete. particularly since i lost a rebate of 50 dollars (had it, gone now, no idea) and i'm just not that upset. i was upset, that was a lot of kittens, but today i'm all eh. which i'm loving. dig me and my newly found perspective. it's just money. heh. i feel so balanced today. balanced and full of snot, but emotionally sound so rock on.

i edged back up to 173 this morning. that's a bit of a disappointment. i favored unpacking last night instead of exercise proper, and uh..i drank two cokes. which sucks as a nutritional choice but at least my house is coming together. i hung curtains and we put up a coat rack, we moved in a desk. little things that make me feel better. i've been really worried about where i was going to put my three hole punch. you can't leave that sort of thing to chance, you know.

and, because random seems the order of the day, what's up with the all caps sodium celebration on coke cans? is it me or are they grasping at straws for something to gloat about. 39 grams of sugar but only 50 miligrams of sodium! that's something to sing about. not that it matters, i just think they should embrace their true selves. warts and all. just a little heartfelt message to coke, i'm ok you're ok.

obviously i have nothing today. i'm glad to be suzy sunshine for a little while. perpetually grumpy is no way to live. but the most exciting things i have to talk about are long gone tv series and desk accessories so i'll spare you further details. hope everyone has a genuinely fabulous thursday.

"Check this out, they put cheese on round bread. It's gonna be big."

i had this whole post written and wow...depressing, so it's gone and now i have nada. i've been writing that a lot lately. big depresso posts and then i delete them. i'm sort of an all or nothing writer, always have been. 30 page history paper due tomorrow "oh! i don't like this sentence." delete the whole thing and start over. i've never been an editor. can you tell? i usually scrap projects the second it looks like they won't finish up the way i planned. sometimes i start over, sometimes i give up completely. that is the essence of why this "project" is so unique. it's the waking up everyday and not quitting that makes the difference.

i've been wondering lately about some dieters. folks who've been at the same weight for ages and ages and are still trying even though nothing seems to change. i've been wondering where the breaking point is? when is it time to accept mediocrity if not defeat? i wonder because at heart i'm a quitter. seeing people struggle makes me cringe, struggling myself makes me insane. there's nothing a quitter likes better than company. a big circle of cowards to lament their failings together for all eternity. but that's not going to happen because they're all too strong. they face the hard times and they keep going. and so will i. i have nothing to lose in trying and everything to gain with my patience.

and that's what i'm thinking about. that and all the folks who've come and gone since the first of the year. if you're still around, you're always welcome. we're here to support eachother and you if you need us. we all know what it's like to have days where you can't face another failure, when the pain of it breaks your heart. i just wanted to say don't give up, that's the only thing worth regretting.

"Look at her shoes. If a fashion magazine told her to, she'd wear cats strapped to her feet."

172 and my feet are wet. the shoes i wear almost every day hath crackethed. and i'm totally bummed even though i have enough shoes. that's not really the point is it, shoe loving friends o' mine? the point is that my everyday shoes, they've been mortally wounded in the course of their duties. as i type this a single tear falls to the keyboard. it's just that poignant. so i'm doing the zappos thing. no stone unturned. finding the right pair of every day shoes is a difficult task.

it's either that or pay my phone bill. f'ing boring. so i click. the problem now is that i'm attracted to all these earthy, suedey, hippie flat soled creations. completely adorable and so not what i'm looking for. i thought i would eventually be the right height for my waist, you know in pants sizes. but that was dillusional. my legs will always be too short, and i will always need heels. and these are cute too.

i've been all worried about drowning my sorrows in easter bunnies, when hello...shopping. that's way better for the scale. but i have to admit that i haven't found anything i can actually buy. i've given myself permission to replace the aldo's i'm wearing because they were worn everyday, they're over two years old, and they're legitimately making my feet wet with their leakyness. i got my fifty bucks worth. i'm calling it progress that i haven't already checked out of my zappos cart with all those cute shoes that won't meet my current needs. and i'll call it progress when, while at aldo's (duh), if i find a good replacement i buy them without dusting off the catholic guilt.

"I have come to redefine the words pain and suffering since I fell in love with you."

wow, was i grumpy a few inches below this or what? i already feel better. sorry for the rant. if it wasn't for posterity i'd delete it. you just can't underestimate the healing power of complaining on the internet. it's all very special.

"Maybe he's a gigolo. Was his shirt all shiny?"

with this morning's weight my bmi is officially in the dead center of overweight. you can tell by how fascinating that tidbit is that absolutely nothing is going on in my life. so instead i'll whine about not having a car right now and how i'm feeling trapped and not quite at home in my new place. and there's nothing i can do about it. i can try not to comfort myself with chocolate, but i can't change the situation. i'm hoping i'll feel better at the weekend, but it seems such a long way away. so many days to get through.

i'm getting a little tired of just getting through. passing time till things get better. i've been spending too many weeks lately just waiting for them to be over. at home, at my old apartment, watching buffy and cooking and using my stepper wasn't such a bad week. boring, but not painful. i suppose the difference is that i chose it rather than being without choices. i'm beginning to worry that i'll never feel at home in the new apartment and i'm running out of false cheery enthusiasm to push through.

the temptation to eat something to make me feel better is almost too much. almost. i really hope tomorrow is better.

"I bet even covert operatives eat curly fries. They're really good."

truer words were never spoken. curly fries are one of the few things we have ventured to cook in our "new" really old oven. it's gas, and also fickle. matt lights it for me. it's the chivalrous thing to do, to blow up for your girlfriend in the name of curly fries. regardless of faux fried curly goodness, 172 this morning. probably evidence that i didn't eat much yesterday, but i'm still relieved. i'm always astonished when numbers come down. like i'm never quite sure this will work for me. but it did and i'm going into the weekend all happy and skinny and feeling much less like i'm going to need a fainting couch.

dragging like a wet bag of hammers...

atleast i'm down a pound. otherwise, urgh. i think i caught the baby's flu. which is extremely unpleasant but maybe if i puke enough i'll be back down a few pounds. heh. i'd much rather be fat than feel like this but since i can't control it does it make me nuts to hope it works in my favor? opportunity based eating disorder? whatever. i'm sure nyquil has calories.

"I've got a theory! It could be bunnies."

another freakin' 174. grumpitty grump. 'course i realized today that i haven't been doing anything i had been doing when the numbers fell so easily. funny that. i mean, i kind of knew that i wasn't doing the same things, but today it really hit me. so i'm hitting the yogurt and granola trail again, which i love incidentally, and hopefully i won't regress to 175.

i cleaned out my closet (again) and found more clothes that are too big (you don't say?) and that's pretty much the only reason i have room for everything in the wardrobe. and i am a little sad, like i always am, because i was so excited to fit those clothes. cute short skirts and fancy pants (i just wanted to type fancy pants, they're not really that fancy. it was worth it.) tossed to the wayside. or my sister. or my bestfriend from highschool. or you. write me if you fit a gap 14. some of the bastards still have tags. way too many actually. shopping addict's anonymous here i come. but the good news is that the bedroom almost looks like a place grownups might sleep. i'm centimeters from maturity here. look out scrapbooking and appliqued sweatshirts!

what else. err. oh yeah, when i was whining about my cute skirts falling off, matt asked me what i was going to do with them. and when i told him he said "you aren't going to save them for when you get fat again?". and then i buried his corpse in the woods. if anyone asks, it was bears. bears with spades. and opposable thumbs. it was one of those moments when he knew he was in trouble before the words were out of his mouth and if he could build himself a vacuum feature i know he would. we both know what he meant was "what if" or "maybe you could wear them again" it wasn't meant to be negative. it makes me realize that that's not what i want. ever. i'm not going to let my life get out of control like that again. so there's no need to hold on to them. i'm downright pleased to give them away so maybe someone else can be all sweetness and light until they get too skinny.

"I mean, the last time I tortured somebody, they didn't even have chainsaws."

the baby is home, safe and well. the wardrobe was built with hardly any blood loss. the scale read 174. which is way better than 196 so i'm putting on a happy face. and i got a compliment today. from a fairly mentally unstable source but why look a gift horse in the mouth? he says i look like i've lost 50 pounds. and since he only saw me from the shoulders up i'm thinking he embellished. what with the insanity. i'd much rather think he rounded up than think i looked that fat before. probably it's just one of those times that show no one really knows what a few pounds looks like.

what does a pound look like? i get that referral about 50 times a day. a pound of what, ham? are folks confused about british currency? i just assume they mean on the human body and that's an unanswerable question. all of our pounds look different. like snowflakes. no one really knows. who notices one pound? i only notice because of the scale. frankly i'm only noticing 4 pounds because of the scale. i've never woken up thinking "gee, i feel 3.5 pounds fatter today...rats!".

i didn't give mr. unstable any more information. i'm not going to ramble on and say really i've lost 26, but i've sort of gained back 4 so i guess i've lost 22 'kay, bye. not just because he's creepy, i just don't like talking about it. atleast not with people who aren't in the know. it's not that i'm ashamed or embarrassed, it's nice to have the loss noticed. it's just that i don't want to hear something like "gee, only 80 pounds more to go. good job!"

the few people who've remarked to the boyfriend about my loss, mostly his colleagues, make assessments like that. and they just have no idea. one of them thinks that every woman needs to lose ten pounds. "hehe, if she lost ten pounds she'd be hot!" how does he know? did she see her ten pounds ago? no, he's just being a jerk. people who talk like that are only telling you you'll never be good enough. no one knows what pounds are going to look like as they fall and it doesn't really matter. either you're happy or you're not. numbers are good when you're dieting, a scale to mark progess. but there's no hot-o-meter where in number of pounds equals sexiness.

i'm tired of hearing about it. i don't need the criticism, objective or not. what's the old saying? a fat girl is her own worst critic? that's not an old saying? it should be. or maybe it should be any girl is her own worst critic. but then i'm not even happy when i get a compliment so i should look up some sayings about being overly sensitive and paranoid. and rude to the mentally ill. maybe i'll check the farmer's almanac.

"Girls always tell me that. Right before they run away."

check me out, i'm in spanish. statcounter never ceases to amuse. i just wish i remembered enough spanish to see if the translator fixes my grammatical errors. that would make a case for being in spanish all the time. i wonder what it does for allusions in french. do they get translated too? je me demande.

so, obviously, i'm in a better mood. there's nothing any of us can do except wait, no sense in holding my jaw tight enough to crack walnuts. and so i am officially chilling out. dudes.

i didn't get to do a lot of the things i was going to do while i was home. like glorious tax free shopping. i'm warming to the idea of some new clothes. i'd been trying to wait to pick up new things, telling myself it isn't important, that i should wait till these are really falling off. it's not important, not really, not in the sense that life will end if i wear the baggy pants for a while longer. there is however a problem with the momentum.

when i take more care in how i look i feel that much more like not eating easter bunnies. being excited about clothes does a little something for my motivation that i was trying to ignore to save some money. the problem is that i'm getting comfortable when i need to be just tickled enough to keep going. so when i have a bit of time i'm going to head back to the limited and see if their 12 fits. if it's "close enough" i'm going to get something, atleast one thing, to have a point to motivate to. it's not quite time to get comfortable.

it's true that i'm not ready to maintain, but do y'all reckon the clothes thing is a genuine motivater? or do i just want to spend money? it's only been five minute since i wrote that and i'm already wondering. when i get stressed i want to shop. i anticipate this habit, trying to protect myself from unnecessary spending. the theory did work for the jeans from the gap. knowing i spent the money on them forced me to make it work. does anyone else feel inspired by their expanding wardrobe?

"Wrong? Why? How did you play doctor?"

babies should not have to be sick ever. it's too hard. it puts every other thing in perspective. my 15 month old niece started having seizures on saturday in the middle of ikea. she was rushed to boston children's hospital but we still don't know what's wrong. they're ruled out some biggies but we don't know what happened. she'll be there until they do.

i should be home taking care of my sister's children but i'm here. she told me to go and i did, when i should be there. so i'll be spending my week wringing my hands and jumping at the phone and cooking to stock her freezer. i don't know what else to do. matt and i will be building the wardrobe i bought. i already hate it. i should've abandoned the sucker then, emily said to get it. so i did. apparently in a crisis i'm obedient to a fault.

so i don't know what i weigh and it's just not that important to me today. i can tell you that i spent one day taking care of two kids by myself and it was unbelievably hard. hard like i don't know how the species survives. all i had to do was feed them and dress them. if i'd had to take them to school i would still be crying. i don't know how people do it, i really don't.

"For talking and conversation. I'm, um, quick as a bunny."

there's something about doing up a meal plan that makes ye hungry. maybe it's all the food, and the thinking about food, and then thinking about it some more. that's probably it. but it's a necessary evil. for both my budget, my behind and my boyfriend. (yeah the both is sort of defunct there but isn't the alliteration worthwhile? i thought so.) it's not that easy thinking of a weeks worth of food. which is sort of surprising considering how much i like food in general.

the ocd in me really likes writing that sort of thing down. a week of meals all decided. all i have to do is buy the right food and then cook it. it's the same part of me that puts the budget in three different excel spreadsheets every month. the overkill part of me maybe.

i've been spending a lot of time recently looking at why i'm back to 172 this week. for one i haven't been drinking my green tea every morning and i am very curious to see whether that makes a difference. for the other i've been super stressed about money. not that things are going badly. they're just going slightly more expensively. i can pay all my bills without trouble but things are tighter than usual. until this month i hadn't written myself into the red in about two years. march is gonna be close.

i'll always feel that poverty begets obesity. for lots of reasons but for me it's the stress. i feel more like a failure when my budget is off than when i eat something i shouldn't. i've been anticipating this move in a financial way for a long time and now that it's here i'm disappointed in the delayed gratification. next month...april...will be fabulous. but march sort of bites. and there's rather a lot of it left being only the 9th. there's nothing like a daily blog to document your impatience.

if i'm patient enough to take a whole year to lose 20 pounds, i should be patient enough to wait 5 more months to be completely free of credit card debt. it's a cake walk considering where i started. i don't think i'll ever be able to really give myself praise for getting out of this. i'll be paying for it emotionally for a long time. and yet the same mistakes led to my weight gain and i am able to positively appreciate my loss. here i thought being fat was the the bigger emotional burden. i guess my world doesn't revolve around my weight as much as my bank balance. i'm almost surprised.

"I love the smell of desperate librarian in the morning."

desperate is right. i'm completely and totally lacking of anything worthwile to say. i've been sitting here all day freezing my ass off and thinking literally nothing interesting at all. i have had not one original thought today. sky is blue. grass green. that e=mc^2 thing. it's all been friggin' done already. how are you all? good? i hope you're all good. i'm bracing myself to go home and cook dinner and sit on my ass. do you ever feel a need to write off a whole week. i know i just said yesterday that it's stupid to wait around to do things but i live to contrdict myself. i can't wait to make a fresh start next week. a fresh start with ikea furniture and a place to put all my towels and sheets. i'm tired of feeling unsettled and half-assed. i'm pinning a lot of hopes on monday.

"Peace of Westphalia! ...Oh, you moron. That dinette set should be mine."

there are four empty coke cans on my desk right now.
i've eaten two easter bunnies and it's not even april.
i have six boxes of girlscout cookies wimpering before me.
the scale read 173 this morning.
it's been seven days since we moved.
my credit score has come up 100 points from last year.

my life in numbers. some are good, i've been working really hard to pay off debt and raise my credit score. some are bad, i haven't been working very hard to keep my scale down. i also didn't need to buy 6 boxes of samoas from either a financial or a weightloss perspective. i'm limited offer amy. give me a short ass time frame and i'll spend like a champ. there's a goldmine for a therapist in there. psycho-analytical dollar signs.

however, things are slowly coming together. the first week of moving was all about survival. hopefully now i can focus on progress. i finally have my kitchen together so i can cook. and i'm learning that sauteing in olive oil is not as lardy as i thought it would be. i expected very heavy dinners from cooking only on the stove top but so far it's been fine. add fear of the unknown to my therapy bill.

everything's going fine. however, part of me is just wanting time to pass. especially the financially freaked out part of me. checks recieved, bills paid, debt gone. way to grab life by the horns. i've got to get a grip and stop worrying. i'm sure i can think of something better to do than make graphs of my debt payoffs over and over. maybe there's a rock i can push up a hill? something like that.

"There's something about food that moves by itself that gives me the heebie-jeebies."

i moved my scale this morning. and now i'm thinking i probably should have used it where it was first. matt built a very pretty apartment, but the tile floor in the bathroom is for sure not even. i'm not sure if the wood floors are perfectly even either but i sure liked the scale number better. 175 vs 172. course that 175 could be accurate. god forbid. seeing as the doctor had me at 176. that would be about right probably. i'm not really sure what i'll do, but i'll probably move it back to the vanity floor. fragile, fragile psyche.

i'm almost in to a new routine. i have breakfast at the same time i used to, only now i have it at work. i'm not as ridiculously hungry for dinner when i get home as i thought i would be. i think regulating my blood sugar has been the biggest benefit of this thing i've been doing. i used to feel faint and nauseas when i was getting hungry. it used to be a huge deal, at least to me, to avoid having this happen. especially in company. i can't remember the last time i felt that way. it makes eating like a normal person that much more possible.

in fat news i'm officially the same size as i was when i left college. i fit in to all of my size 12 jeans. i am so relieved on the one hand because i won't have to buy jeans for awhile. on the other, i still need work clothes. i'm hoping to hold out till spring. what a thing to have seasonally appropriate clothes that fit. my word! i won't know what to do myself. on the third hand, for lack of an appropriate seque, it seems i was way fatter in college than i thought i was.

i'm not sure why i'm surprised considering that i never felt particularly skinny then, i guess i just chalked it up to dismorphic disorder. i've been looking on the me of that time as a sort of a goal. regretting how badly i felt about my body, which i'm sure led me to treat it the way i ultimately did. if i am today the same size as when i left school, i was a little more overweight than i thought. not that it matters. can't do much about the then can i? i guess i'm in a better place to deal with reality than i was then, on some level. it does make me wonder what will happen if i ever do reach my bmi reccomended weight. i hope i can be happy with it. most of the time i am happy with my body. i know i have work to do to be satisfied. i just wish i knew what satisfied was. i don't want to miss it.

"I can say what I want - I still got Nazi bullets in my ass."

can i tell you i spent my weekend melting snow on my stove? in sauce pans. because we ran out of water. it's a very long story, involving plumbers and renting pressure sprayers and large sums of money and i'm sure no one wants to hear it anymore than i want to tell it. but we now have running water. it's just like ancient rome.

so, what else. i haven't decided about the drugs. see melting snow on a stove. i'll have to keep thinking about it. i'm once again back at 172. i thought it would be worse coming into this week (does this reporting of stats make anyone else feel like a sports announcer? it's like a bizarre football pool.). i can live with two pounds after that week.

hopefully i'll get my stuff together to be back at 170 soon. and go from there. i had made a goal to start pilates again. i just have to find my mat. i know i packed it, but that's the last time i saw it. the sucker's bright green, it really shouldn't be this hard. anyway i have to get back on the exercise wagon. i can't lament my progress if i don't take any steps toward some. i have to keep reminding myself about that. eventually what i get out of watching my diet alone won't be enough to keep losing. i'd like to be prepared for that.

speaking of preparedness. i'm using my three weeks of girlscout training and preparing lunches in advance. tonight i'm making blackbean soup and chicken quesadillas. matt won't touch the soup so i'll have a week's worth of lunches. this soup thing cleans my cabinets of food and endless tupperware so it's a dream come true. i'm trying to think of other proteiny things i can freeze. pretty much it's the wonderful world of beans. unless y'all have any ideas?

things to do with chicken when you're all alone

i've spent the last two days searching for skillet chicken recipes. because our oven doesn't work. i'm usually a broiler kind of girl. not for any diety reason, i just like dry chicken. and it doesn't actually take any work. marinate it, stick it in a pan, broil. maybe you turn it, if you're feeling fancy. i sometimes place it on a rack. which is fun. and then the miniscule amount of fat in the boneless, skinless chicken breasts drips off. skillet chicken is a different story with the whole cooking in the fat thing. the fat conversation is all pretty academic though because i'm not going to be eating it. matt's going to be eating it. which means the more fat the better. but he also has to like it. which makes it tricky.

i haven't figured out all the kinks in the care and feeding of the boyfriend. will he eat sauteed lime herb chicken? he will if i don't tell him what it is. or should i go with the blackened pan seared? or should i just breadcrumb it and go with the frying? i have all afternoon to decide.

and i have till tuesday to decide about the thyroid thing. the facts that my level went down on it's own, i haven't had trouble losing weight (as in i can when i try) and i don't show a whole lot of the other symptoms leads her to believe that i don't need to be medicated. but i can be if i want to. isn't that a conundrum. would it help me lose weight, is that a good reason to take drugs if i don't really have to. could it be that i've been living with my symptoms for so long i don't know whether i feel good or not. it's possible that i would feel better down at a 1. or i'd feel like shit. the questions i didn't think to ask, and will have to for tuesday, are whether or not i'll do permanent damage by playing with the dosages.

mostly i'm battling the demons of vanity on this one. it's true that i have lost weight without taking my thyroid meds. it's also true that my level went down. is that related, she didn't seem to think so. the big questions is whether or not the things i'm doing now would be good enough for a lifetime of relative skinnyness if i was at a level 1. or am i chasing the dream.

lots to think about.

"Oh! Great! I'm so the 'Net girl."

i don't have a weigh in because finding the scale this morning was way more effort than my brain could handle. what with the well line being frozen again and the fact that i am moved out but not yet moved in, i just couldn't get behind an all out search. let's say, fat. it's probably a mercy that i didn't find it because almost the last thing i did last night was eat 4 olive garden breadsticks. with a full dinner. we had a very busy evening and sadly dinner was way late. and we were startving. and we decimated the olive garden. or we would have if we weren't so fatigued with hunger. why a wait on a wednesday night? who needs cookie cutter italian food at 8pm mid-week. more than we did.

but anyway, i ate four breadsticks. and i have more in my take out box. greedy breadstick whore. that was my mantra last night and i really didn't care. which worries me. my life in food is going to be way different from now on. most nights when i was a single lass, i had dinner at around four thirty. maybe five if i had something to do on the way home. i was an early eater and i liked it. i didn't do much in the way of snacking after dinner, drank a lot of water. things are going to be way different. like dinner at 6 every night. i don't know if it will mean a big change in the way my weight has run. but i know i'll be eating more during the day to compensate for the later dinner. i'm planning to bring better lunches and get more more exercise, i just don't know how the equation will work out.

course i'm starting out great today with two lunches waiting for me and some cookies under my belt already. i'm a rock. i really have to get a grip. i tried on those pants last night and all but one pair fit. i actually fit into twelvs i don't have to pay for. i'd really hate to wreck that feeling with free thai food and italian left overs. not in one day anyway.

i'm off to think of a plan to deal with this day. and to not eat all the food available to me just because i'm stressed. it'll be there when i'm hungry right? that's something to keep in mind.

"And nothing says thank you like dollars in the waistband."

so i tracked down the blood test lady and got my numbers for the thyroid test. this is where the story gets confusing. see how it's barely started and already i'm apologizing for it, yeah. anyway, i'm at 3.63. which is way lower than the 4.29 i had last year. last year when normal was 4.25 and i didn't have to take and drugs because it was pretty close. but this year the doc said that 1 is the new normal so why did she mark my chart normal when i'm 3.63. she's supposed to call me and explain but probably i'll end up having to stalk her. does that make the sense to anyone, i could really use the help.

"Unbelievable. 'Do you like my mask? Isn't it pretty? It raises the dead.' Americans."

you spend one day at home with your belongings that seem to reproduce like rabbits and you miss getting reviewed by calorie lab. bummer. i can't say i don't like seeing myself quoted. looking at my statcounter makes me feel all tingly. just sometimes when i see things i wrote last year i have this feeling that they've made it cooler or funnier or somehow more worthy of reproduction. me from last year is so different than me of this year. i guess i have a supremely short term memory. like goldfish.

what news? back to 170. i'm relieved about that. it was worrying me a little that the scale was going up. especially as i felt so buff. whiny. but buff. i didn't have any trouble carrying all of that heavy stuff and now i feel accomplished. i'm not quite done but i'm ready for a little self appreciation.

speaking of which, maybe, i found some old size 12 jeans. from college. i haven't gotten to try them on yet but i'm hoping that some of them fit. or will fit soon. i'm not sure where i stand in pants sizes right now. the jeans of enlightenment don't fit quite right yet. but all my 14's are laughably big. hammer pants big. the old jeans will be telling. i'd like to know how close i am to my college body (which i have promised myself to appreciate this time). the one problem is the lack of vanity sizing from 5 years ago meaning they might be actual 12's. maybe i'll get lucky and they'll be stretched.

i haven't heard back about the thyroid thing yet. i've made a note to call the doctor this afternoon. it's lucky for them i've been preoccupied. there is some feral part of me emerging that really wants this thyroid thing to make a difference. 98% of me is capable of doing the right things and waiting patiently but that 2% is ready for a big change now. nower. yesterday. last week actually. not that i've been daydreaming about it or anything.

i'll be back with more salivation if i get news from the medical profession. if anyone understands how i feel, i know this community will.

"I'm a good cook. In theory. I've eaten a lot."

i've been thinking all morning about french fries. you know how sometimes you fantasize about some food for so long that the actual experience is pre-ordained to pale in comparison. i hate that. i really wanted those french fries i had for lunch to solve all my problems. and decorate my living room. but really it's just another notch in my belt of crappy food choices lately. i didn't need to eat all that pizza this weekend. i didn't need to make ben and jerry the first occupants of my new freezer. no matter how many calories i burned hauling boxes up stairs.

part of it is that i don't have the time or the supplies to make real food right now. but mostly, being under the smallest bit of strain encourages me to give myself permission to eat badly. i treat stress like a free pass, when probably i'd feel much better if i did a little more to eat decent food. i do the same things every time i'm under pressure. and fall into the same traps. i end up feeling physically ill, emotionally weak, and usually financially wrecked. all of which, of course, stress me out more. and on and on.

i have a few more nights of living in two houses, packing and driving all night, and buying stuff i can't actually afford (two words: well pump). i just have to make the most of what i have for two more nights. the only thing i have going for me is the insane amount of calories you burn while pushing a mattress up a flight of stairs. better than nothing i suppose.

"No, those weren't vampires. Those were just... guys in thunder need of a facial."

i'm tired. there's something about picking up everything you own and putting it somewhere else that wears thee out. we moved the big ticket items yesterday. couch, bed, tv (which is a heavy bastard if you haven't tried to dance with yours lately) and now i'm in a coma. the kind of coma where you can summon the energy to type and that's pretty much the extent. the worst part is that we're not done yet. it was one of those days where you wanted to keep pushing just so you'd have an end to look forward to. but no. almost. there's that pesky hour drive both ways that hampers the speed of the operation.

i'm sort of relieved to be at work because everything hurts. including my feelings because i had a few days of 170 and now i'm back to 172. which has to be a product of the lifting and pouting i just don't know how exactly. at work i don't have to do anything but smile and count bits of paper. and i can sit. i'm not even writing lists because i gave myself a big giant cardboard cut right where you would use your list making pencil. rest without relaxation.

am i whining too much? it's just that i hate this a lot. i'm trying to think of ways i'll never have to move this crap again. and i've come up with a plan. if the situation ever arises that i would need to move, i'm joining a commune. the first busload of hippies i come accross is my new family.

peace out unless i think of something less desperate to post.

"Does this sweater make me look fat?" "No. The fact that you're fat makes you look fat. That sweater just makes you look purple."

this will probably be a random sort of post because i'm feeling..err..sort of random. pretty much the bulk of the move will be over this weekend. bully for you all because you won't have to hear about it anymore. woohoo!

i received a great big ol' box from amazon last night. the last remaining buffy seasons and a giant box of earl grey green tea. 6 cartons times 20 bags is a lot of tea. but i legitimately couldn't find it here (why, i don't know) and it was relatively cheap. and i've been really into green tea lately. it must be a phase.

per sarah and the "i'm not going to unpack, i'm just going to sit in my room and cry" way of life, i'm a little worried about my future kitchen. i really wanted to unpack things in an orderly, anal compulsive way...but i'm way beyond that now. i'm in stuff it in now, sort it out later mode. so much for planning.

i've also noticed that i'm completely incapable of working without my stereo. i gave myself a choice between the tv and the stereo and i chose the tv (specifically for the arrival of the joss whedon collection). turns out i'm way less interested in packing up my tupperware without music. i know, it's shocking.

what else, oh...nothing. i've got nothing. i'm still at 171. i'm only halfway through the frozen ravioli. i haven't done a proper minute of exercise in weeks. the dove bars and the whole loaf of bread are gone. as in eaten not as in thrown away. imagine how skinny-rific i could be if i ate properly this week. and how fat i could be if i lived near a pizza hut. a world of possibilities.

you ever wonder how much of your life is like one of those adventure books where you choose the ending? if your heroine bought organic bananas turn to page 7, if she bought bakery style banana muffins turn to page 9, if she ordered in thai take out for the 7th day in a row turn to page 175 and adjust your pants accordingly. i find myself thinking like this all the time. if i nixed this thing and did more of that thing. the point is, however, that that's all in the past. i can't change last week. i can only work on changing next week. or i can try to anyway. and i can try to chastise myself less for choices that i've already made and accepted even if i don't like them as much from this side.

if i can just forgive myself for not packing the tupperware maybe i can move on enough to shove it in a glad bag when i get home and call it good.

"And you're sitting here at the Bronze looking like you just got diagnosed with cancer of the puppy."

back to 171 of late. how depressing. i'm pretty sure it's the loaf of useless white bread i was compelled to buy this week. and maybe the dove bars. which i'm enjoying much less than the toast and yet feel more guilt over. is it me or is there some inherent emotional baggage that comes with eating chocolate? what do they call that, i want to say bullshit posturing. is that it? anyway, one pound fatter. c'est la vie.

i was supposed to do laundry last night. but i got an attack of the lazy. which i will totally regret this weekend when i'm lugging trashbags of dirty linens to the new house. doesn't that sound skanky? i guess i'll have to do the laundry thing friday night instead. if i add enough rum and coke, pizza, and buffy re-runs that might not be such a bad night. and i wonder about the pounds creeping up. well, no, i don't really. more i'm sadly aware of exactly why that pound came back. it's just under the radar right now. 174, now that would piss me off. that would make me give up the pizza. so we'll see what happens.

last night i packed two rubbermaid tubs worth of cereal. i've got to give up the bulk shopping. once and for all. the nice thing about not being completely broke is that if i want cheerios i can just buy cheerios and i won't have to feel bad about not having a coupon. i should really just shred all coupons that say you have to buy two of something. unless it's ice cream. otherwise it's just a spending trap i have difficulty avoiding. especially with things that aren't perishable. i just don't need that much food on hand and finally seeing it all in the light of moving has opened my eyes.

i'm really hoping those habits will be easier to break in my new living situation. i'm going to have to change the way i cook and shop. i could never feed matt fruity pebbles for dinner and i've sworn i'm never buying bologna, so we'll both be eating differently. i'm committed to cooking healthy food for him so it'll have to rub off on me. atleast a little.

"You mean winter, as in Eskimos and igloos and penguins and ICE?"

if you live in maine you know you pay the highest taxes in the nation. you also know that the state doesn't do a damn thing with the money except sit on it and sing na-na-na while you sob. so when every bridge is left to fall into the water it's not a big surprise. that would be the bridge that makes our hour commute to the new house possible. the road is still shitty, but it's way less shitty than the 30 mile detour alternative. what they don't mention in the article, although apparently they mention it on tv, is the ice road. the ice road that pissed off locals have plowed over the lake. ice roads have their places, their uses. however, a lake with a dam and a current is probably not the safest. but then last night i drove the alternative route and pretty much that's all ice too. a screeching, frozen death seems rather inevitable.

so anyway, my stress level is like...a million. but we got the fridge set up. and i can put coke in it. and weep with joy so i'm all set. things are going along pretty well actually. i still reserve my right to freak, but it's not a constant state anymore. and i ordered curtains. check me and my adult decision making.

i've been awaiting a call from my doctor about my thyroid. long ago she said that i didn't really need to take my medicine because my numbers were only a smidge above normal. i took them for awhile because i thought it might help me lose weight* but i stopped when i couldn't keep it up. and i didn't feel any better or worse so i quit. but apparently normal changed (see how this fits the theme lately, the everchanging state of normalcy) and now it's way below what i am. like, three points. so i might be going back on my pills. *(hey, i went and put the footnote in the middle. ahh, the freedom) there was this girl in college i keep thinking about. she was sort of dowdy every so slightly overweight girl. i would never have called her fat, but she wasn't a skinny girl. and then she got diagnosed with a thyroid condition. in a month she was a stick.

i know how we always talk about how your body isn't you, it's just what carries you around. well damn, this girl became the body. she went from frumpy t-shirts to strappy halters practically overnight. and damn was i jealous. if it could be that easy. i've never really held out any hope that that would happen for me. considering i was already taking the meds and had been for years, i wasn't waiting for a miracle. but part of me can't help thinking that if i'm running three points high i'm probably in for some changes if i go back on the medication. and i really hope it's strappy halters kind of changes. it'd be nice to have the option, even if i never rock the look in real life.

"Being this popular is not just my right, but my responsibility."

someone tagged me for a meme. six facts. could there possibly be six things i haven't shared? let's see.

1. firstly, when i make lists like this i always start with a. and follow with 2. and i think it's funny every single time. i think it's from sixteen candles or similar and just thinking about it makes me smile.

2. i have almost no pictures from college, and i hate it. what was i doing for four years that i never had a camera? it's one of my biggest regrets that i didn't take more time to capture those moments.

3. i feel more guilty about calling in sick when i am sick than when i'm not.

4. i'm obsessed with erasing my past and think every day about deleting my old blog. but then i'd have no record of college and that would be really sad.

5. i didn't answer the phone on purpose when my dad called to tell me my mom had passed away. i already knew, i just wasn't ready to face it.

6. sometimes i wish i still had the discipline of ocd. part of me would really like to have cupboards like the guy in sleeping with the enemy.


i'm not going to tag anyone but if anyone feels like divulging their deepest and darkest let us know in the comments so we can stop by and be nosy!

"Gentleman of leisure? Isn't that just British for unemployed?"

the doctor business wasn't so bad. she's gonna check my thyroid again and she was fairly impressed with my "official" 20 pounds lost. i demurred a bit on the "how are you doing it?" thing. i'm not really trying didn't seem like a good answer, so instead of giving her my url i just said "uhm, i'm not depressed anymore". which seemed to suffice. caring about your life sort of makes an impression. and you have better things to do than watch netflix and eat macaroni and cheese and never leave your house.

she was very democratic about suggesting i lose more. she said about 155 would be the weight where i would experience fewer health problems. not that i am experiencing any at the moment. she said it in a good way where she was happy with my loss and not pushing too much. 155 is about where i'd like to be too. on my scale of course. where i'm only 15 pounds away. i suppose my 150 would equal her 156 so my goal will be somewhere around there. i like the ring of just 15 more pounds. i had just gotten used to 20 more pounds so 15 feels like i'm already ahead.

it is technically true that i'm not doing anything in particular. like a plan. i definitely don't have a plan. it's not entirely accurate either. i don't make macaroni and cheese once a week. i don't make it once a month. i've made it once in the new year when i had company and i can't remember the time before that. why? because it's solid fat and useless carbs. i've always known that, the difference i suppose is that now i think about it. and i think, that's not what i want, it's not what my body needs, so i don't cook it very often. i'm probably getting a little too detaily with the macaroni metaphor. the point is that i think about some things more. and some things less.

it never would have made a difference to the me of two years ago that there's a lot of fat in some of my favorite dishes. i might well have made them all in a week and not cared. now i think about my week and form a plan even if it isn't written in stone. i've changed the way i think about food and that's the big difference. so many of us have worried about food and weight for so long, since we were children, that the worry has tainted the way we think about everything else in our lives too. i can't count the hours i've wasted thinking about how someone else would choose in my place. what someone else thinks i should be choosing. like i'd better order the salad so this person will know that i know that i'm fat and they'll think i'm trying. what a waste. there's no other word. now i base my choices on my wants, with some perspective thrown in, and i spend a lot less time worrying and a lot more doing. at the very least i'm able to say i'm doing my best. what more can you do for yourself.

"It's funny how the earth never opens up and swallows you when you want it to."

this morning, 170. making a nice even 26 lost. if i can just defy gravity until 11 i'm all set. i think.

"I would, but I'm paralyzed with not caring very much."

i didn't want to, but i made an appointment with my doctor. i did recently get the annual visit reminder in the mail and matt is all worried about the puking* even though i'm feeling better today. the worry isn't so good for his condition so i'm getting it over with tomorrow. and i can find out what the medical opinion is on my efforts of this year. i've pretty much decided that they'll be positive. if not, i'll just get a new doctor in bangor when we move. i'm not all that interested in supporting professionals who don't support me. as of now i'm at 171 which makes 25 pounds lost. all i have to do is watch it until tomorrow lunch. i'm somewhat obsessed with having the lowest possible number on my chart now that i've made the appointment. like cramming for a test.

and when it's over i can start my long weekend of moving and buying curtains. which is actually quite difficult and i had no idea. i've never had to decorate a room i actually cared about before and it's not as easy as i'd thought. i've spent so long doing things on the cheap in temporary apartments i feel like i'm funnelling years of decorative energy into these three rooms**. i'm totally crippled by it.

i painted one room, the bedroom. the color came out all wrong but it's too much work to do over, so i'm making due with the shade of green. it sort of matches my head *** so i'm making that my theme. how does one match curtains to a head? i'm thinking of these. shabby chic sort of goes with my half antique/half ikea design concept. cough. i've already planned to hide all the modern stuff behind the door and sort of focus on the old stuff. atleast until i can afford an antique wardrobe, which will be never so i'd better get curtains i like. and then make a duvet to match so i can go off to acadia mental hospital in peace.

i'd debated making my own curtains. but i don't think i can do it fast enough. i've been making a concerted effort to finish the projects i start (read not moving the poly-fil to another apartment still unused) but i think it would be unwise to push it just now. we'll end up curtainless and fabricfull and i'll just be mad that i let myself down. better to grapple with target.com and the uselessness of their enlarged photos. how are you supposed to see the shade of green in those curtains? it's madness.



*you can't imagine the you're pregnant teasing, i'm not. really.
**they're big rooms, there just aren't many of them.
***not mine exactly but very close.

"God, every day here is the same." "Bright, sunny, beautiful… however can we escape this torment?"

apparently it's news that it's snowing. in maine. in february. i hate watching the news. but anyway, we bought a kenmore. it has a light in the freezer, slide out-spill proof shelves, it has a crisper...ooooh. we went without the ice maker. so we can fit more ice cream. or deer or whatever. it's a wonderful thing. if we survive the blitz we'll pick it up on saturday. and i can start filling it. score!

i hadn't been planning anything for dinner tonight since i wasn't expecting a valentine. but now i have one so i had to buy dinner on the fly this morning. before the "milk, eggs, bread, apocolypse" crowd decimated the grocery store. i got a big ass chicken (hey, you're not eating the chickens! ehh, i might, i haven't decided) and red potatoes. because they're valentinesy. i didn't think i'd have time to make the fancy mousse cake but we just got news we're closing early. so i get to go home and cover myself in chocolate. which should be fun. i just hope i bought enough whipping cream. no way am i going back to the market today. ooops, i only have one egg at home. i'll think of something.

happy valentine's day everyone!

"She irons her jeans. She's evil. She has to be destroyed."

matt and i are doing the traditional valentine's visit to sears tonight. i found me a fridge. it's everything a refridgerator should be. according to consumer reports. it's a kenmore. and on sale. and what with the boiler needing wood every few hours plus the nor'easter we're supposed to get tomorrow valentine's day is sort of busted. so we're going tonight. and having dinner with his parents. maybe we'll stop at dairy queen for that extra special specialness.

i'm not exactly bitter. we sort of knew the boiler would need attention when it got set up, we just didn't know it would be up and running to change our plans. i just have to hope we get the water running and then we can stay there and feeding the beast won't be such a big deal. dramatic sigh here.

back to fat. still holding at 172. which is great. not going up is all i can ask for with everything going on. not that food is out of control. even if i wanted to rely on convenience food i couldn't. no fast food is worth a half hour drive. the best thing about living here is that there is no real opportunity to binge for the lazy. you have to be industrious to be a binger in rural maine. you have to cook, or drive, or have enough money and guts to sit in one of the few open restaurants and order three entrees. but nothing like that is happening.

actually i haven't been feeling much like eating. which is making the ridding of the food rather difficult. i'm sure it's the stress. there really aren't any other factors. money is good, family isn't in crisis, must be the moving. somehow i'm just not very hungry lately and when i do eat...ughh...i feel awful. i'm paying more attention to what i'm eating and when than i have in ages. to see if i can find something that doesn't make me ill. if only to convince matt i'm not starving myself. but feeling nauseas isn't all it's cracked up to be. hopefully i just have to survive two more weeks of moving stress and i'll be all bliss for march. i'll be crossing my fingers.

"i'll just go to her, chain her up and torture her till she likes me again."

this is just so wrong. the point wasn't that dawn french was overweight, the point was that she was a woman. and also completely hilarious. and talented. wrong is not a strong enough word. insane maybe. painfully so.

like my weekend with the packing. i was a very devoted mover. i only did the tiniest bit of extra-curricular shopping. i went to the pretty jewelry store and picked up a present for my sister and some things for myself. and i didn't have a car accident this time. i was very careful. and i'm very excited about the bracelet that alison is making just for me. to match my earrings. i love shiny things. i'm turning into such a girl.

speaking of which, i don't feel like i moved that much but it was clearly too much. i'm beat. all the books are gone, and the games, and all the wall art. which was a bad idea because my house is really depressing now with nothing but holes in the walls. i packed up all my fancy dishes and my bakeware. i have a whole lot of unnecessary things in my house. and they're all heavy. or fragile. or otherwise difficult to pack. how have i done this so many times and not gone insane?

i've set-up a few things in the new house and it's a little strange. i feel a little like i'm taking my life and laying it over matt's house like a blanket. i keep asking him if he'd like more of his stuff and less of my stuff, and he keeps saying he doesn't have any stuff. i suppose he's right. for him to make more of an impression on the apartment he'd have to do a lot of shopping. i can't help feeling weird about it, but he really doesn't seem to care. i guess i'll just keep asking him until he goes nuts (soon) or starts putting up naked lady pictures like his brother (unlikely).

what else. oh yeah, i successfully didn't buy any groceries. it probably won't do much for the diet eating pasta every night, maybe i'll burn enough calories by fretting and making lists that it won't matter. it frees up a lot of money anyway. a very beautiful thing.

"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."

i packed 5 boxes last night. and my house is a wreck. so this afternoon i ate a chocolate bar to forget about it and now i feel ill. so the plan worked. sort of.

since we're pretty sure we'll be moving, i need to actually buy a refridgerator. i've been hemming and hawing as you do over your first refridgerator purchase. what with the mammoth cost involved. i have no idea what is a good brand of fridge to buy. we'll probably end up with the shiniest one out of pure desperation. bikini contest of appliance buying.

another goal is to try to eat all the food in the current fridge. so i don't have to move it. we're looking at frozen ravioli for dinner every night until february the 28th. i don't know why i'm worried about this. it's cold out. it's freezing actually. so what does it matter if i have to drive the cold food to the new fridge? it doesn't. i just don't want to put the old crap in the new fridge. the feta from 1984 and those olives with the film. it embarrasses me to think i'll start the new life in the new place with things i moved from the old place. and the place before that. it's time to pull the plug. but since i can't bear to waste the food...we have to eat. it. all.

meals are going to be sort of crappy for a while. consisting of the oldest food on half the plates with half the cooking implements. not that it matters because i'm only feeding me. matt has to hang out there so he can feed wood to the furnace. i'm thinking aslong as it's just me i'll burn through the perishables and then eat cereal. one box, one bowl, milk, spoon. minimalist. like the army if they got fruity pebbles instead of mre's.

can you sense the panic? i feel completely unprepared. like if i can't fill the boxes tonight i'll have to pay march rent. since i can't pack at work i've been making lists all day. of all the things i should pack when i get home. and another for all the things i can't pack yet. and then the things i can pack between the pack firsts and the pack lasts. i'm definitely putting liquor into the last pack category. not that i'm much of a drinker, but i feel a need to keep my options open.

"the only ism hollywood believes in is plagiarism"

proof positive that whatever we do it will never be good enough. the adorable mimi is in the normal BMI range, but she's not normal enough. you have to be in the middle of normal to be normal. what's the point of normal if it isn't in fact good enough? that makes me grry. it also makes me totally glad that i haven't scheduled an annual yet. i really don't think i could handle her telling me i'm not doing enough.

if she told me it was a matter of eating less as dr. smartypants did there might be violence. as if that's the magical solution and nobody knows. i guess my physician actually wasn't that bad. she said i was over the normal range and she was right. it wasn't as negligible as not hitting the perfect middle of normal. forty pounds over normal is a different story. i guess i never considered that she might not be pleased with my progress, and now i have a new thing to be anxious about. goodie!

the big annual doctor fun will have to wait though. matt is 98% certain that we'll be in the new place by march 1st. which means i have to shake it with the packing. and the moving. i've been thinning out the clothes knowing there's no room for them, but that's probably the smallest issue i could have worried about. i need to start worrying about books. and movies. and cd's. and the dishes. sweet lord, the dishes. i've already started moving those and i still have 5 full shelves. and a drawer. it'll be great exercise, lifting boxes of books. the last time i moved my entire collection at once my father asked if i was hiding a body. painfully accurate, he was.

matt isn't all that worried but he doesn't have all those alphabetized cd's to move. he just has a neurotic girlfriend to deal with. child's play in comparison.

"the sun's gone dim, the moon's turned black, for i loved him and he didn't love back"

back to mrs. p week. oh, and valentine's day. i've been thinking for a while about what i'll be doing for mr. me this year. last year we made dinner at home. i was doing the no carb thing which made meal planning rather difficult. i can't remember what i actually made for dinner, but i do remember what i made for dessert. chocolate mousse* from a recipe that is so easy and so close to sugar free that i almost didn't feel guilty about it.

i was so much more together last year. i haven't even made valentines yet, let alone planning any kind of meal. i did think of maybe cutting a filet mignon to look like a heart, but that might be kind of gross. i do have a heart shaped cake pan this year and it would be foolish not to use it on this occasion of all occasions, so i'll definitely be making a cake. that's all i've got. i think maybe we'll get takeout. then i won't have to think beyond frosting.

i've sort of gone back to the cooking doldrums. the only factors in my meal planning are whether or not matt needs lunch the next day. so he's been eating a lot of chicken at my house. where as i'm eating less. i'm thinking about going back to a more vegetarian diet, which i only stopped when i started dating matt. not that he cared, it was just too much to manage when everything else was so hard. it means planning more carefully about protein and preparing two main courses instead of one. i'm almost ready to do that full time. i've been skipping the chicken at home when i make it for matt. soon it might be a permanent switch. it's a hell of a lot cheaper to buy meat for one so there's an instant bonus. i'm starting to look forward to it, so probably there's no reason to wait.



*whip 10 ounces of heavy cream to soft peaks. melt 8 ounces very dark chocolate (60% cocoa atleast) in a double boiler/glass bowl on pot of water/microwave. allow chocolate to cool a few minutes, fold chocolate into cream, spoon into gorgeous glasses and chill. i use whipping cream instead simply because i can whip the remaining cream with a drop of vanilla and or sugar and use to serve so none of the cream is wasted. this should serve four. should...

accessories

it's really great what some people put into their search engines. the queries that bring people here never cease to make me laugh. this one:

does my boyfriend make me look fat

is particularly fun. i get a lot of does this or that make me look fat. the really fascinating part is deciding whether folks actually think the internets are going to give them an answer. google as magic eight ball. fascinating.

"i hate almost all rich people, but i think i'd be darling at it."

that is to say that i've been spending a lot of money on myself lately. i've spent more time on amazon these last few weeks than i have in my whole life. i'm almost sure. yesterday i ordered some perfume (versace: bright crystal...mmm), i just got my almost full set of hardback harry potters in the mail, and i have a few books set to ship on their release dates. oh, and expensive jeans and new bras and, oh yeah, a new pair of shoes. i'm feeling sort of guilty about it...although it really doesn't cause a financial crisis. everything will be entered into the budget. accounted for. analyzed and immortalized in excel.

the perfume is much cheaper than in the one store i where i could walk in and buy it, if it weren't out of stock for the last month. the release date books (some ian rankin, not all rowling) are also cheaper than i can pick them up at borders, plus they'll show up free of charge instead of using two hours worth of gas. i have to accept that some new clothes are necessary, sometimes, and apparently shoes too. lastly, the 5 hardback harry potters, well that's just pure indulgence. i have them all in paperback. but i'm an ocd freak and it's really important to me that my set matches. so the 7th book will feel welcome when it arrives. you don't have to tell me, i know i'm a dork.

i've boiled it down to two probable causes. a) i'm jumping the gun on moving (psst...boiler man coming thursday. heat rocks!). which will make me comparatively rich and i can stop torturing myself over every cent (i picked up some* 2 cent cans of tomatoes this weekend...spaghetti forever...). or b) i'm filling the void where overeating and depression used to be. with shopping. i'm having a hard time deciding. defintely the poverty was a contributing factor to the depression. and the horrible nutritional choices. but i had thought i got over most of the emotional spending problem. i still think i have.

example: i've wanted the hp series in hardcover for ages and i've waited a damn long time to buy it for myself. why, i'm rational enough to know that i don't need them to survive and that they'll still be there when i have/had the extra money. see, that's healthy. also healthy...i'm not out buying tons of new stuff for the new house. i know i'll need something for a closet and curtains and probably even more closet/storage thingies. but i'm waiting. i'm looking around incase some great deal pops up but pretty much target will have the same plywood stuff i already own when i'm ready to buy it. i'm doubting there will be a plywood shortage.

probably it's something of both. it's actually sort of great to feel deserving and validated in spending a little. and not nauseas. as sometimes happens. i always thought that the new wardrobe i'd need would be my "reward" in this weightloss scenario. sort of inevitably. maybe taking an interest in my self again is the real reward.


*read 9. i'm a double coupon whore and i like it.

"you can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think."

i'm having a mrs. parker week. i bought myself a book of her less published works and i'm just in love. a present of sorts because i've totally held on to 172 and dipped to 171 today. and we got pizza. from pizza hut. with a side of lard. as they're famous for.

it is cold as a witchs' teat today (technical term) and i can't think of anything good to say about it. i can't think at all because i left my coat in the car and it's too cold to get it.

thoughts that don't equal posts of their own:

has anyone else noticed their shoes getting too big as they lose? it's much more sad to think about giving away fat shoes than fat clothes. it might take me a while to make the break.

is it strange that fruity pebbles have more fiber than corn flakes? they're both fairly useless as foodstuffs i admit but sometimes it reminds me of fun parts of my childhood. knowing a serving of fruity pebbles has three grams of fiber makes me feel a little better. just don't ask about the sugar.

i have to get new holes in all of my belts. apparently i ditched all the skinny belts at some point and now i don't have any with enough holes on the small end. so matt is going to hole them for me. a boyfriend of many talents.

and now, tea.

"There are some things I can just smell. It's like a 6th sense." "Well, actually, that would be one of the five."

you know, it strikes me that i deleted that first post because it was boring and then i replaced it with more bore. the only other stuff i did today was file my taxes (the state of maine can bite me and my $5 tax bill) and go to lunch with the boyfriend. we went to subway. we live on the edge.

i forgot to mention before that i've held on to my 172 for three days now. i'm very happy and i'll be even happier if i can report that weight next monday. i have some healthy meals planned for the weekend. i'm also going to try to make baked beans. i'm not sure if that qualifies as healthy cooking but beans are always good for you. so much fiber. so much protein. there's a hell of a lot of sugar though...which is sort of the point with baked beans i suppose.

also in news, darling fluff is joining me on the road to the hellmouth for anyone else who's a buffy fan!

don't you wish you knew better by now when you're old enough not to

i just wrote this long ass post about the big day i have planned. i'm going to close out some credit cards. i wrote it because i'm worried about it even though i've researched it for months and it really won't make a difference for 7 years. but it was some kind of boring. even i was bored and i read money for fun. so, long story short: i'm ending a very depressing chapter of my life.

the chapter during which i was so broke, desperate and, well, fat obviously that i took a lot of risks with my credit...amongst other things. that chapter really sucked. this thing with closing out the accounts is really small in the long run, but i'm incredibly nervous about it. i wonder why? could it be my paralyzing fear of returning to that place? huh? you think? so i'm working through that and i'm going to cancel those cards. i have to start proving to myself that i'm not going to let things get that bad again. that i'm better. really better. and things will keep getting better.

it's not an easy thing to let go of all that fear. it's work to get better. and it's work to stay better. it's work to let go. somehow growing up it's a big secret how difficult life actually is. when my friend amy was visiting we had a long talk about this. teachers, parents, they tell you all you need to succeed in life is to get good grades, don't do drugs, do what you're told. yeah, right. that A in a. p. european history really makes surviving grief and staying out of debt that much easier. should've worked for an A+. that would have made the difference. is it just easier to ignore the harshness of reality and hope for the best? i'd like to think the mentors of my youth didn't have the heart to tell us that highschool and college and getting A's really don't mean anything. that they believed in the system, for what it was worth.

"Oh, I don't know. Looking in the mirror everyday and seeing nothing there. It's an overrated pleasure."

i have officially given up hope of ever seeing the new bras i ordered. i just spoke to gap.com customer service. and now my brain is dead. they were unable to tell me why my package has been thus delayed. or when indeed it might arrive. they were unable to tell me why the tracking number they provided doesn't exist and is in fact completely useless. the rep. i spoke to didn't know the date. or that martin luther kind day was actually before the day i placed my order and therefor really couldn't be the cause of the delay. she said repeatedly that post office box addresses always take a long time. firstly...if this were the case they could mention it at checkout. secondly...everything i've ever bought for the last three years has come to my post office box with no issue. is this new? perhaps a new shipping method is being used? no, po boxes always take a long time. (insert pirate growl here) (and again here)

but the good news is that i can see the site now. no idea what that was all about. but i'm glad it's fixed because i'm at the end of my rope for handling stress today. my first customer this morning looked, acted, and berrated just like a quick change artist. it was my misfortune that he was actually right. i did short him. and i fixed it. it was my good luck that he walked away in a huff before i had to admit the mistake. if he hadn't been such an ass with a hole it would've been fixed in less than five minutes. telling my boss i'm incompetent took valuable time out of me solving your problem. moron.

fun facts to know and share: if you think your bank teller made a mistake, the last thing you do is take the cash out of her sight and put it next to your wallet on the counter where she can't see what you're doing. and then the really last thing you do is demand she give you more money. see, they call that bank robbery and that can turn ugly real fast.

so today sort of sucks. i think i might call customer service again just to vent. would that be morally objectionable? i'm pretty attached to those bras already.*

*i just called them again and wow! am i ever a happy customer. the lovely lady i spoke to said "gee, you really should have got that by now. let me call them and check on that for you. rats, their line is busy. let me re-send that package to you express for monday. and oh wait, they're on sale now! so you'll be seeing a credit. is there any other way i can help you?" and then i cried. if i was going to make a baby someday i'd name it after her. i'm that pleased.

"It's just like fun, only boring."

sooo, i can't see the site at all. apparently i can post just fine but who knows if anyone can see it. it's a mystery. i'll be working on it...as much as one can when one has no idea what the error actually is. more later...