"This isn't a needle in a haystack. This is a needle in Kansas.

169 and totally full of cookies. matt requested cookies last night, and since he's skinny enough to hide behind a lamp post, i obliged. the problem is that he refuses to take every last cookie with him to work. it's so hard for me to remember that people with normal relationships with food don't have to worry about how lonely the cookies are when you leave them at home. they pine, i know they do. so i took a few to work with me. just the two he left in a little baggy. and they're oatmeal so they're chock full of whole grain goodness. and chocolate. which is also, uhh, very healthy.

i'm not really decieving myself, i'm just feeling a little devil-may-care on the cookie front. or the food front at large. does anyone else go through days when you could ignore the existence of chocolate in the world with no trouble and then suddenly, the next day, you have to find and eat it ALLLLLLLL. i guess i'm on day two of that cycle, only it's been a few days of copious chocolate eating. it would probably have had no effect if i'd been walking/running every morning but uhm...i haven't since monday. insert excuses here. i just haven't felt like it. uninspired. it probably has something to do with the fog and the dark and the cold but that's just silly since i spent one whole winter getting up early and moving my ass. i'm just lazy lately.

i think i'm going to break with tradition and embrace the laze for a few days. and then go low carb again. i might just need to plan my months this way. two weeks of low carb eating, one week of maintaining and one week of holding on for dear life. that makes this week a maintaining week, and that means the cookies go to work with matt tomorrow. but next week, ahhh next week, we are so going out for ice cream if it's sunny.

i just thought of this "plan" the second i typed it, but i kind of like it right now. probably because i'm smack in the middle of the easy weeks. all plans sound awesome before the hard part starts. not that low carb eating is all that hard. most days are low carb days at my house anyway, but when i'm not strictly trying to avoid sugar i don't avoid it all that well. it's somehow easier when it's a blanket thing, all or nothing. wow, i'm pretty excited about that spur of the moment plan. it'll be interesting to see how well it goes when i really start.

"Oh, yeah, fun was had. Also frolic, merriment, and near-death hijinks.

it's starting to bother me that i can't enter any titles. there are quips going unquipt here. it's just wrong. and other things that are wrong, apparently it's very hot on the east coast...except here where it is 52 degrees. i'm not complaining, i like the cold, it's just sort of screwing with my season clock. it's supposed to be summer, or something. whatever.

i suppose the farmer's market went well. one of the things i made sold completely and one sold not at all. it was a half successful venture. i'm doing a bit more on thursday and then taking a bit of a break. mostly because my vendor wants the goods the day before. you know why they sell the day old baked goods for half nothing? because they're crap. so i'm only going to do the things i can bake and sell the same day and have some control over how they're kept. should you put the cream cheese danish in the sun, err, probably not. call me crazy. so it's not as exciting as i had hoped but it's better than standing still. sort of.

so, 168. that's a relief. it was a very long weekend stressing over how things went at the farmer's market and there was a lot of chocolate eaten. and some potato chips. i think wielding the rolling pin must burn more calories than i thought because i rather expected a gain. it is very heavy. maybe i should jog with it. it would rock for self defense. which is sort of becoming a concern. i worried about running on the road because of the traffic, but now i worry about the parked cars. there have been a few trucks with guys hanging around my normal route. generally i just turn at that point and head back. i don't know enough of my neighbors to know who's a freak and who's not.

a few weeks ago they found a skull and jaw down the road, today they found a whole body. when we heard the news we thought it might have been our abandoned car with possible body in the trunk, but it wasn't. it's a totally different guy who's very definitely dead. it's all making the treadmill thing sound better and betterer. and i was so proud of myself for sucking it up until winter, now not so much. that or find my mace. atleast until people parts stop popping up. thank goodness i don't have cable, if i could watch law and order all day everyday i'd never leave my house at all.

"Are you going to torture me, or just bore me to death?"

i just made up some ingredient cards for my products. and i spaced walnuts on the banana muffins. whoops! guess they'll be nutless. c'est la vie. i could print them again but i'm trying not to nervous myself out of all competence. besides, nuts or no nuts, who cares. it's an experiment and it's supposed to be something i enjoy so i'm keeping it light. which is a hell of a lot of work. it's very "this is me breathing", if you know what i mean.

ironically, as i was reading the recipe to make up the cards i almost decided to try something new. i've always made this recipe in a big square pan but the recipe calls for lined muffin tins and gee don't they look cute! clearly i'm not evolving here. i'm asking for trouble thinking about shaking things up at this stage. silly silly silly.

dyan reminded me of a bunch of things i haven't thought about in a long while. so many feelings that i used to feel all the damn time, like the getting my money's worth at the soda fountain. it was a feeling that made me sad at the time, thinking that this is the sum of my life...worrying about a carbonated beverage. looking back on it now it's a punch to the gut. there are so many bits and pieces that go into changing your life. innumerable really. and of course that's what this is about. i keep finding myself reading blogs where people want to lose weight but don't want to change anything about their life. they want to eat at mcdonalds and take the elevator and aren't honestly willing to sacrifice anything and it's frustrating to read.

but it's more frustrating to live. i think of how hard it was for me at that stage and i cringe. the stage where you tell yourself you're trying to lose weight but you aren't really trying at all. you just say this to yourself so you can get through the day without crying too much. everybody goes through that right? the totally desperate but not quite ready to change stage. that has to be the worst of the process, the pre-beginning stage. what do they say about insanity? it's doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.

i'm happy to be at the place where i can recognize the difference between effort and fooling myself. and i'm especially happy not to be at a place where i spend my whole day passing moral judgement on my choices at subway. i'm glad that i wrote down those feelings. it was a very important part of the process, the being honest with yourself part. right now, as i go through every day running and having salad because it's summer and it's yummy and not because i'm punishing myself, i would not remember feeling so lost if i didn't write it all down. i'm also glad i was able to get beyond it, it seems like a rare gift.

"I build each one of my days out of hope"

i'm always hopeful and confident when i try out a new recipe. sure, it'll work out fine and if it doesn't...the world will not end. i'm that cheerful until i pull the damn thing out of the oven. and most of the time the finished product is just fine. in some cases it's freakin' fantastic. and then there was yesterday. a lot of things went wrong yesterday and most of the day i wanted to break something. or somethings. i'd like to say i handle pressure well, and i'm certain that quality is among the myriad truth stretchings on my resume, but i really don't. i started my baking at 7 am and put my boss' birthday carrot cake in the oven by 7:30. and then matt came upstairs and said "what's this cup of flour for?". oh ho ho, what is the flour for indeed. the cake that is already in the oven.

i think i survived the ruining of the carrot cake pretty well, all things considered. i took stock of the fridge and what i had left to work with and found a recipe that would use the cream cheese for the carrot cake's frosting and be a little special for a birthday. i got that recipe ready to go and was more of less optimistic about it. and then apparently i stopped reading directions and rolled the very delicate dough on one of my dough boards. instead of in the pan as suggested. you know why they suggest that? because after you braid the dough over the filling you cannot move the bastard. luckily that recipe made two and i was able to learn my lesson without too much trouble. i guess i was alright at this point. relatively happy with way things were going. i had a little something for the birthday and five loaves of cinnamon bread for matt. i almost stopped here. i figured i could use the raspberry braid as a "sample" of my baking for the farmer's market folks and use the rest of the day to clean up the unbelievable mess of my kitchen.

i had promised to make cinnamon rolls but i wasn't feeling it at the time. matt talked me into it, saying a little practice wouldn't be so bad. and he was right. i had no real reason not to make the cinnamon rolls, i was just feeling sorry for myself. but i feel worse now because i went a tried a new recipe (from the book where the magic brownies and the miraculous pizza dough and the very pretty raspberry braid came from) and wow did it ever suck. i got some really great stuff out of that book and had every reason to hope the cinnamon rolls would be better than my usual, or at least just as good. sometimes i'm truly stunned by my own stupidity. you're starting a business, you want to make a good impression, so you pick a brand new recipe on a day that is definitely not touched by an angel. way to work the confidence mo-jo.

i could go on about stupid decisions i made and how i made things worse by trying to fix them being more rash than i was to start with, but i'd really rather just forget. i won't use that recipe again. and you know what, the raspberry cream cheese braid thing is freakin' amazing. my boss suggested i make it a staple for my farmer's marketing and that would probably be a very good idea. i'm trying to turn my frown upside down today so i can get a grip for friday's baking. i'm also going to get some big ass poster board and make a list like "Flour 1, 2, 3 cups" and a giant marker to check them off as i go. i can't believe i wasted so many ingredients because of pure thoughtlessness. that's what bothers me the most. a bad recipe is a bad recipe and you have to make it to know, but not being careful is just that and it'll cost me a fortune to screw up my baking for profit by making careless mistakes. (insert bitch slap here)

you know what's even more depressing? i was so busy rolling dough and hating myself i forgot to eat yesterday and i still weigh 170 this morning. verging on 171. that's just not right.

"It is a sham, but it's a sham with yams. It's a yam sham."

i'm making an effort to be punctual today. and not take 8 hours to write a post that's defunct by the time i publish it. my co-hort in baking is not at all worried about packaging. thank goodness. we're gonna go old school and put them in a basket. with napkins. i can just about put that together by friday.

i had a nice post written here, about walking and pushing further and taking time for me in the mornings. it was very hallmark channel. and then i checked the tracking on my new cookbooks from amazon and hello! they've been at the post office since last week. once again the box was on the floor. that is the most pathetic excuse ever. oh gee, i wouldn't want you to have to look on the floor. and really, what kind of excuse is that? who do you think put it on the floor in the first place. aargh. it's insane. i'm going insane here. all i have to do is buy a basket and a pack of napkins and i'm still going nuts. if i had real work to do for this venture i'd be crying in the corner. as it is i'm going out for thai for lunch. the owner is having an american idol week in honor of the holiday. he's playing the guitar and singing for all the customers. can't miss that, it would be un-american.

"I assume there's a perfectly reasonable and not at all insane explanation here."

this weekend i weighed in at 168, bought some new pants and made some killer brownies. although not so much in that order. the 168 sort of came and went throughout the weekend. the brownie testing will probably rear it's ugly head tomorrow and give me a gain, but whatever. i have too much baking to do to worry about it. i'm starting this weekend. good lord. i have so much mixing to do, it's crazy. it's too exciting, my brain is going to explode. and i thought finding 12A pants in the gap was going to be the highlight of my week. it's an amazing thing finding my size in that store. like st. peter at the gates. and their khaki's have a very special ass raising quality that makes them that much more desirable. it's an experience hard to top is all i'm saying.

it's taken me all day to get that paragraph written. ALL DAY. and we're not the definition of busy. i don't know what the deal is, i really don't. i didn't even have the where-with-all to start our new harry potter audio book this morning (i'm dragging matt through the series, we're on book three. he has a very long way to go.). i'm sort of all systems go on just getting a couple dozen goodies out the door on saturday. and a price list tomorrow. and samples on thursday. i never thought i'd be so excited for the fourth of july. normally it's a bummer to have a mid-week holiday but it's so much a blessing this week i'm practically singing. and while i'm singing i'm going to throw in a verse for my knee that ran this morning and does not hurt. i'm over run with blessings at the moment.

"So how's everything looking down there?" "Like we should start gathering up two of every animal."

it's been raining a lot here. and making with the lightening and the thunder. chairman meow has been under the couch for three days straight so the lightening can't find her. which proved wise because matt got himself electrocuted twice. that happens when you insist on grilling in a thunder storm with a big ass metal fork. i can be flippant because he's fine. he's just a moron. he finished up his grilling with some pink plastic salad tongs and a three foot fog of swears and threats. this summer is going to rock! i can feel it.

so, to no one's surprise, i've been dragging my feet about some very important things. i've finally calculated the costs of almost everything i bake with. i'm learning all about teaspoons per ounce and yadda yadda price per cup. unsalted butter is officially the most expensive thing i bake with. followed by chocolate and vanilla, i'm fascinated. anyway, what i really need to think about is packaging and labeling. i've been worrying over recipes but for no real reason. if something bombs one week, i won't make it the next week. but i do need an inventory of what i'll probably be making to choose the right boxes, bags or whatever. i'm rather fond of the pink ones. but are they worth the extra 3 cents at this stage? if this all crashes down around me i can wallpaper my house in pink cardboard and go all charlotte perkins gilman. but in pink.

in reference to the business end of this blog, i.e. the fat burning: 169. i was a little disappointed and then i remembered that i ate almost an entire box of girlscout cookies this week. whoops! don't know how that happened. i've been a little distracted lately with my meal planning although i've kept up my two miles a day walking or running. this would be a good time to say i'm going to get all in sync and be a size 8 by next week, but that's just crazy talk. i'm doing the best i can at living a healthy balanced life. actually, i'm doing pretty awesome. even with the extra girlscout cookies. wow, making some decisions about those boxes has really made a difference in my outlook. maybe i should be decisive more often.

"So it's an evil limo. I get that. Does that mean we don't re-stock the cherries?"

i'd love to chat, but i have a whole lot of nothing to say. i'm all busy with the thinking and the quasi-planning. i am, however, wearing noteworthy pants today. noteworthy because they fit, but only in the waist. apparently before i gained weight i was six inches taller than i am now. and so are my pants. i'm wearing the entire garment district. but i'm desperate. so i'm walking around looking like a demented village people sailor that sometime got drunk and lost his platforms. so remember when i said that one pair of pants would totally last me. and then that second pair, two pairs were totally enough. two pairs in theory is just fine but two pairs in reality is like no pants at all. i'm pantsless in a sea of theory and isn't that what college is for? so i'm going shopping. and then i'm gonna shut the hell up about it. i can't work both sides of the shop, don't shop coin forever. it's tiring, maintaining that level of hypocrisy.

"Get up, get out, get drunk, repeat as needed. It's just more elegant."

wow, i'm back already. i just have to do some math and we've struck a deal. a deal doing what? a deal doing market research. which sounds dull as dishwater but in reality it means she's going to treat me as a vendor to re-sell at her liability. i don't really understand it, but pretty much she's taking a risk on me with the hopes that down the line maybe we can joint venture into a kitchen of our own. maybe a store frontage. sometime wayyyy down the line. in the meantime i can work up some items, package them, and see if they sell. nothing to lose really. woohoo!

"But I haven't spent any money. I was all... dead and frugal."

you know it's going to be a good day when you start off with an offer from glamour shots for an airbrush makeover. there's just not enough glamour shots in my life and the cosmos knew it. very good sign. and now i'm ticking off the minutes until noon. not that it's so desperate. she either needs something for a specific event, or she has a place for me to bake. either way i'll have an ally for whatever i decide to do in the future. very exciting. and i'm having this feeling that i use that word much too frequently and i maybe need a thesaurus.

so, anyway, obviously...we're drowning in baked goods at my house. some that i made with absolutely no intention of taking to lunch, strictly out of some need to cream butter and sugar and stick it in an oven. i made cupcakes for matt's lunchbox because i'm just that stepford, i made caramel oat bars because we had both oats and heavy cream that just ached to made into something, and the chocolate cherry chip cookies to actually take to lunch. the baking coincided with cleaning out the cupboards. it seems i'm making genuine headway into the apocolypse hoard, as there was lots of empty space to clean and reassign. i get such pleasure out of being so anal, i sort of wish i was a little more ocd so my house would be cleaner. i got out my sharpie and dated everything unmarked, and then arranged my dry goods both alphabetically and by date. don't you wish you lived with me, i know you do.

despite drowning in sugar, 169 post hormones. not too shabby. it was mostly beautiful weather but i didn't make it out for a walk. which means i chose to sit on my ass and date cans of beans instead of exercising. things on the road were getting a little dicey, i keep almost getting run over by right to life mobiles and i'm just dying of irony. i didn't get out the door earlier enough to beat the worst of the traffic and matt wasn't around this weekend to cart me to the emergency room, so i chose to stay in. and honestly, when you let your house get as dirty as i do mine, it's work to clean it up again. cardio with the softscrub is nothing to laugh at, my arms are killing me today with the scrubbing with the stirring.

almost off to lunch and giddy with the nerves. thank god i don't drink coffee.

"Testosterone is a great equalizer. It turns all men into morons."

i've been contemplating posts all morning. one about peanut butter and almost coming to blows over whether or not it's on sale. one about doing the happy, but also depressing, math about this summer's debt end extravaganza. and then i got a phone call. there's a completely adorable, and very tiny, indian woman who sells her food aroudn town and at farmer's markets. she's been working on me to bake and sell at farmer's markets too, which would be awesome...except i don't have a certified kitchen and i don't have the very important insurance. she does have these things, and it seems as though she has a proposition. we have a little meeting set up for monday. i am excited. and nervous. and wondering what to bake for our lunch date.

i'm going to be a basketcase until monday lunch. lucky matt will be working all weekend, and i'll be home baking cookies until my hands fall off. which is ultimately what i want out of life so i should be excited right. and not nervous. and not worrying already because there might be nothing to worry about. i can't wait to hear what she has to say.

"I'm nearly out of money. I've never had to afford things before and it's making me bitter."

yesterday i had the strongest desire to go shopping. and then eat a pizza. my knee was hurting last night, not the clicky one...the other one, and i thought "gee, isn't that strange". this morning i got up early to go for a walk, like every other day, but i stepped on the scale and it said 170 and then i had to take a nap. and it took me until RIGHT NOW to pull out my calendar and put it all together. i was really pissed about that 170 after yesterday's 168. now i'm not so upset, just sort of resigned to the fluctuation and hoping it'll pass in a few days.

i thought the shopping and the pizza were money worry related. the sort of spiralling out of control that happens when you realize you owe your sister a cars' worth of money and she'll be visiting in a month. heh. in this new light i'm pretty impressed with the way i'm dealing with the money and the owing. i knew this could happen and i knew i could get the money together if i really had to. and now i do really have to and it will be ok. mildly stressful, but in the end i'll really be done owing people money. completely done. i can't think of anything better than that. so many things are coming together right now, i hardly know what to make of it. i never thought i'd be so pleased to give someone such a large sum of money, but i truly am. it's wonderful to be so in control and moving forward. things would be perfect if i just had some chocolate.

"I go online sometimes, but everyone's spelling is really bad, and it's depressing."

168. if i knew i'd lose a pound i'd have done the weightloss whining death match thing ages ago. i think less talk more do would be good for me.

"I'm very into Britney Spears' early work, before she sold out. So mostly her, um, finger painting and macaroni art."

anyone out there from des moines? if so, could you please explain to me what the deal is with angel dvd's and your town? i am having a very hard time believing that iowa was the nearest port o'call for season 4 disc 3. netflix is the devil. i have discs 4 and 5 and you know what, cordelia is evil, angelus is back, fred and gunn broke up and pretty much you need to watch this season in order. boston, portland, worcester, i'm thinking there are closer places to search for the vampire with a soul. not that i'm obsessed, or anything.

169 again. same as this day last month. two pounds less than this day in april. i'm running out of june if i want to do better than a holding pattern. and also, it has come to my attention that i am wasting my time here. i have fifteen more pounds to ditch before i hit normal. and then what. i've already decided i'm not going to purposely take it any farther than that. i want to keep it up with the running as much as i can, and walking and taking the incidental exercise where i can get it, but i'm ready to be done. if i develop a healthy running schedule and things work out and i lose a bit more, i'm not going to cry over it. if i don't and i can reasonable keep at normal, i'm not going to cry about that either.

i guess i'm not feeling that committed right now because things have changed enough for me to be happy with them. i'm committed just enough that i want this over and maybe that alone will get me though the next 15 pounds. i'm not sure aggrivation works as a motivator, but maybe light at the end of the tunnel will.

"I anticipate many years before my death. Excepting disease or airbag failure."

does anyone know what the deal is with wendy's and the baconator? i keep passing their signs. i sort of wish i could see the commercials, i'm envisioning robotic metal bacon with a vengeance! bacon on the edge. bacon in a clock tower with a high powered rifle. and you know what else i'm thinking, not enough people use the word "dollop" anymore. it was used in a recipe i made this weekend and i love it. i'm going to go out of my way to say "dollop" as much as possible from now on.

i had sort of a weird weekend, but great. i didn't do any actual exercise and i spent much of sunday eating the reese's ice cream that matt insisted he had to try but didn't actually like. but i did, so now i have to eat a half gallon. emphasis on the have, because i couldn't possibly just throw it away! the waste. the peanut buttery chocolate chunk fudge fudgety waste. i'd be a pariah. it does say light in very small letters, i wonder if that does anything for me.

obviously i've been floundering a bit since my last...err "space mission". i haven't gained over my 169, that's good. but not very progressy. which should probably bother me more, it just doesn't. but i am going to put a bit more effort into my meal planning. i do my absolute best when i pack a protein packed lunch and i haven't been lately. tonight i'm going to prepare a set of lunches for the week, all pre-packed. which i could have done, say, this weekend when i was sitting around reading. but i did set up tonights dinner to just pop in the oven so i'm still half an hour ahead. if only i weren't too lazy to pre-prep everything, i'd be drowning in time. enough of the rambling, i'm going back to very low carbs starting tomorrow (my pre-prep was baked ziti...whoops!) to see if i can shift down to 167 and maintain down there for awhile. that's the next goal, two pounds. itty bitty baby steps, the best way to go for minimum diet brain freakout. back to the low salt mines for me.

"You don't have to work out. You're eternal."

the week of "hey, you don't need those groceries!" is almost over. or since it's my week i say it is over, because i'm totally going to shaw's tonight to catch the sales. "but i have a coupon" will be engraved on my tombstone, if my family can find one on sale. this week went really well. i'm always so much more creative under pressure and, you know, unsalted butter makes a pretty good grilled cheese. this week has randomly been all about unsalted butter because i forgot to buy regular. it's ironic that that same morning i had told a friend to keep unsalted around for baking because it's higher quality and you wouldn't want to eat it (heh). you see she had called me with a flat cookie problem. she used brummel & brown yogurt spread which apparently is not interchangeable for butter, in baking. who knew? well, nothing ventured nothing gained i guess.

the matt is working all weekend and i hardly know what to do with myself. exercising, shopping, baking, is pretty much my holy trinity. i do want to practice some baby birthday cakes (i talked my sister into letting me make her next one, so i have 'til december to get it right) but i want to get out of the house too. a wild and crazy thought, i could go beyond the mall this weekend. i might even fake being my age and wander around downtown. maybe go to a "coffee shop". do the cool cats still hang out there or am i ten years too late? anyway i'm going to make a concerted effort to break out of my pattern and have a great day. maybe envision where a little bakery could set up shop.

i'm trying super hard to fixate on the positive because this week has been a little slipshod optimism wise. it's not that i thought being a runner would fix all of my problems and turn me into some waif on the spot. i thought that sticking with something would be good for me and i was really happy that first week i ran every morning. it made me feel accomplished in a way that not eating something ever could. i'm not giving up on running, but i am forcing myself to contain my zeal. every day i don't have some crazy huge loss i think "well atleast i'm not fatter". i have this very strong belief that i really won't go back up, that that part of my life is over. but if i screw up my knee permanently it gets a little shaky. so that's what i'm really afraid of, that i'll break my knee and end up fat and trapped in my house trailer with 17 cats and eating frosting out of a tub and they'll need a big can opener to get me out. not that i've thought about it or anything. and that's why i've been whining about my knee so much, the underlying fear that i will screw up and end up worse off than i started. this weightloss thing is a complicated business, isn't it?

"Okay, so how do you know if one's aura's dirty? Somebody come by with a finger and write "wash me" on it?"

today's grouch-a-rama post is brought to you by "that kid from last summer who said i was stealing his money" and the letter t, for traffic, tourists and tsch! (the noise i make when driving behind tourists in traffic). mr. "where's all my money" is back again this year and i promise all of you dear folks i was totally not mean the first time he came in. i forgave, of not forgot, and this was going to be a new year. and then yesterday he gave me "the hand". you know what i mean, 1994 talk to the hand all that and a bag of chips. maybe in jamaica you can do that to your bank teller and she won't come across the counter and smack you, but not here. all i can think about is how i'm not going to cash his checks anymore and how sad he will be. and belligerent. i can't wait for that, i really can't. most of our foreign customers are very eager to learn the rules and we are eager to help them because it's just easier to conduct business in that friendly way. but dude, the bank does not have to do anything for you. no shoes, no shirt, no civility, no service.

i won't whine about the tourists and the driving because no one wants to hear me say "take your foot off the brake and shove it up your ass" anymore than necessary, me included. today has just been icky for no one reason. it's an icky grouchy day and i'm so glad it's almost time to go home and watch angel and drink the world's most pathetic cocktail (not the drink at large, just my preparation). i am stopping by to say i'm finally back to 169. i haven't been trying the last week, but i have been exercising so something is working...if only a little. oh, and thanks for all the info on the shuffle. i've got some ducks to line up first but it looks like with all of your help i might be able to figure it out. kicking and screaming into the 21st century, am i.

Dear Internets:

please help, i am a moron. does anyone have an ipod shuffle? does anyone have an ipod shuffle and no other ipod-i-ness? i'm trying to figure out the deal with the i-tunes software. the software is not listed in the contents of the box and i do not have of the internet at home to download it. should i stick with my walkman or can i buy this thing-y and have it work out of the box? think of me as kathy in wuthering heights...help me.

"and what are we going to need for operation 'chance in hell'?"

so the office bogarted that buffy quote? interesting. i suppose that's appopriate for a re-make show. ouch, who knew that would make me so bitter. i have to work on my emotional involvement with television i guess. in real life i've never seen that show, although i do sort of like scranton. a fierce pride they have, scrantonites. just don't speed there 'cuz whoa, police everywhere. check how easily distracted i am. i was going to say a little something about running. i was gonna start "a girl and her knee strap".

the strap thing helped a lot while i was running, that could involve (which is way more fun when you mis-spell it as invovle, hehe, but isn't the right wording at all so pretend i said "that could be the result of" instead 'kay?) the route change. i used to pound up a hill (read mountain) and then pound down a hill (still a mountain) to my driveway (also, mountain). i really liked that route but it's just not that great for a novice runner to be running downhill that hard on a regular basis. so now i go down a hill (less mountainy) and come up a hill (gradual incline) to my driveway (mountain). it's a little more depressing but much less impact. this is me beig a grown-up and accepting my limitations. sigh.

hey, you know what else is depressing? i have a pimple that could squash new york. and i can't pop it because it's really a pimple budget value pack and if i pop the one the other two will, well, you know. it'll be gross. it's making me want to be all veronica lake with my hair. or possibly a veil. or a lot of cleavage. breasts can be very distracting.

hey, you know what isn't depressing. besides cake and puppies and chocolate fondue? i read this neat-o blip in my employee health newsletter that said "expressive writing" can boost mental and physical health. so we're all apple-a-day healthy girls and boys. pats on the back all around!

"You know, computers are on the way out. I think paper's gonna make a big comeback."

you know how i said i was clicking in the knee of the running? i talked to a professional last night. my bestest friend who went to school for athletic training and then instead became a nurse, doubly appropriate for this particular problem. anyway, when i first explained the pain she made a sound. the kind of sound that is reminiscent of the dentist saying "uh oh" when they're drilling. the "oh my god my best friend is going to be paralyzed" sound. so i made her explain in great detail the clicking possibilities. 1 or a, there is a badness with the meniscus which could be a very serious badness. 2 or b, the muscle that lives over the knee bones is getting stuck as it glides back and forth with the moving. urgh. she said it's probably "urgh" and recommended a band. in her professional days they'd make one out of tape wrapped 'round the knee but she said you can buy them too. the very same recommendation as debbi, by the way.

so i stopped here this afternoon and bought one. the sales person was very helpful and suffers a similar condition and showed me her brace, the poor dear. i tried on the simplest one and practiced on a stepper they had out, since stairs are the only place it hurts anymore. and lo the clicking. i said "can you hear that?" and she said "i could hear it when you were walking before". so now i'm really paranoid and listening for clicks. it's just not right that doing something good for you should be so much trouble. anyway there were some other models i didn't even try on, they seemed so ungainly. upper and lower support. it would probably be like angels singing on high to wear it, it just makes me feel so afternoon special. like the girl with the farrah hair who buys the magazines and the candy bar to hide the kotex in the checkout line. i have thirty days to try it out and working up the courage of a thirteen year old buying hygiene products. or maybe the lower band will be enough combined with the rest and the route change.

it's so frustratingly me that by the time (see more than a year) that i finally get really into running i get some dumbass injury. is it really that bad or am i psyching myself out and into being a lazy bum? should i power through or seek medical attention? it's a beautiful day so i'm going to test the band out tonight. full update tomorrow, hopefully less clicky.

"I'm pretty spry for a corpse."

one of the things i like best about being home is the radio. when i'm in maine, i listen to cd's and books on tape and pretty much anything that isn't local radio. stephen king's station, fm 103, is the only worthwhile station but they've never played marky mark and the funky bunch. at 8 am on a sunday morning good vibrations is a religious experience. we had a pretty fabulous time in NH. we saw my sister cuddle rosie the boa constrictor at my nephew's birthday party and we ate more pizza, ice cream and cake than i ever really want to see again. i sort of can't believe that i didn't gain anything while we were gone. we ate pizza for three meals, half a donzen donuts and stopped for ice cream twice not counting the birthday party food. it was a trainwreck, nutritionally speaking, but it was so much fun to just do whatever. 'course this week is all about not spending money on groceries so it'll be a creative pantry protein party at my house. beans beware!

i did a ton of shopping while i was home because that's what i do. i buy. maybe it's my sorry ass reasoning skills. actually i got some very good deals. i'm the proud new owner of a kitchen food processor, retail 169.99 and all mine for 75 bucks. and since i realllllly didn't need it, i have to make a point of using it every single day. or something. i'm hoping it'll help improve my bread baking. it's a skill i'd very much like to master and i just can't seem to get it right. argh.

the one weird thing that happened is that my dad has finally noticed that i've been losing weight. my sister has been noticing all along and it seemed weird to me that my dad hadn't, if only because they're both obsessed with dieting (not me though, with the daily blog. i'm not obsessed. ahem.). this weekend he must've said something three times and it started to get a little strange. when i'm away i forget how obsessed he is with weight and food. he has a heart attack when he thinks i don't eat something (meat, egg yolks, meat) but at the same time he's critical about everyone's weight. that's why i think he's never been very successful with losing his own weight. he used to make these huge breakfasts and he'd be genuinely pissed off if you didn't everything. but every article of clothing he's ever bought me has been an extra large because that's how he thinks of us. his extra large children. he wants things both ways, like most people do. it pisses me off that the only time i remember my dad saying he was proud of me is because i lost thirty pounds. and yet he still doesn't respect my choices. maybe if i lose the rest he'll get his head out of his ass.

"sneaky sneaky, sir"

good for kids, good for folks who want to get more out of less.

"It involves a feather boa and the theme to A Summer Place. I can't discuss it here."

my scale this morning said 171 which means maybe the laissez faire thing has gone a bit too far. time to get back to ye olde routine. in the spirit of which i went for a jog last night. a paltry one miler because i died right on the side of the highway. i had half a mind to hitch back. i usually jog first thing in the morning and after last week i thought i'd be inspired to get up early and do it before work. and then it rained every single morning. which isn't a problem in itself, it's the darkness. it's hard to be inspired at 5 am when it's freezing and raining and dark.

yesterday afternoon the sun finally came out and i was inspired when i got home. so i ran and it was really nice, until my knee fell off. it was getting a sore last week and i thought well obviously it's because you've never run 8 miles in a week before, ever, obviously things might be a little sore. and then last night pow! now it feels a bit better but it's making a clicking sound and it's awful going up stairs. of course this morning it was gorgeous and i wanted to go out only OW so i couldn't. i might try a walk tonight, i'm a little worried i'll genuinely hurt myself if i push it.

in opposition of the scale, i've noticed some "wow, i'm getting smaller" things. my class ring is getting huge. or, my finger is getting skinny. last night i almost lost it in a grocery bag and just missed paying for 14 carat broccoli. mental note to buy a ring guard. it's strange how some places lose weight, i never thought my fingers were that fat.

also to buy, new brassieres. which i am loathing. while i was on vacation i stopped into victoria secret to "look" and tried on a few things. i have a suspicion i've changed sizes again and i can never remember how high they go.* things have changed a bit since the last time i went in and they have sort of big breast section in the back, around a corner. so i grabbed a few and tried them on only to see that wow, these really don't fit. so i put everything back and was walking out before i realized i picked a complete set of the wrong damn size. the 36's didn't fit because i'm not a 36 yet. i should have been looking for 38D to replace the 38DD i currently have that is getting too large. i was too pissed to go back, maybe next weekend. maybe i'll take my brain with me.

all of my belts are getting too big too. i have a pile waiting for matt to give them new holes. maybe they'll just end up at goodwill. i've got the feeling i'll be parked at size 12 for a while which makes me think i should pick up another pair of pants. i was holding out for size 10 before getting a new wardrobe. i really didn't want to stay at 12 forever but there are things i'd like to work on beyond just getting to size 10. pilates, pain part 2, is still kicking my ass. i want to focus on working my core and the running. i'm thinking there would be more merit in a smokin' hot size 12 versus a paranoid size 10. but probably i'll change my mind when i get there, or tomorrow. or five minutes from now. behold the ever-evolving theory of a fatblog.




*how matt hates this store, he doesn't understand why a store dedicated to breasts caters to women who don't have any. i don't either for that matter.

"Nooo... I think you're up in the clocktower with a high-powered rifle because you wanna blend in."

i'm trying to get my blog on early while i'm still in a good mood. i had a bit of a breakdown on the way to monkey shopping last night. i do feel better now after talking to matt about all the things i hate about being here and why and he understands. if i had to leave, he'd come with me. that makes a huge difference. he's thinking of doing something new too, that might make him a shit load of money. he offered to be my sugar daddy, which i'm not really comfortable with but it was a nice offer. i think if i was home all day i'd be bored off my arse. i don't know what to do with myself when i have free time. i must lack motivation. heh.

there's something about being almost debt free that has me feeling a little weird. when it's finally gone in the next month or so, i will only have one monthly bill. i've been living the work-a-day pay your bills grind so long i don't know what to do with that freedom. if i really wanted to, i could quit my job. i could work part time. if i saved a bit first i could go to school. i could sell my plasma. take in washing. it's a world of oysters i'm not entirely comfortable with. i have to answer some hard questions that i've been avoiding. i'm running through my allotted breaths and steps on this earth with no real purpose and it's starting to get old.

wow, that was deep. really i just want to make cupcakes all day. only i can't do that without a little more sacrifice. which is not unreasonable, i know. it shouldn't be a burden to sacrifice for something you really want. i guess i'm just feeling overburdened, or out-burdened, or something. like maybe a little lack of responsibility wouldn't be so bad. the short of the long is that i don't know what to do with myself. it's not new, i've never known what to do with myself. i have inklings of things that could be and i'm feeling stifled by my inability to do them RIGHT NOW.

money, fat, motivation...a pile of dumb things that keep us from doing what we want to do. man, it's boring. and indulgent too as i'm sitting here at my cushy better than minimum wage paying job complaining with plenty of food to eat and clean water and a place to live. there's never a cattle prod around when you need one.

"monday, no...monday afternoon."

so you know somedays when you check your email and all you have are 1000 notes from netflix. they're sending and receiving and when did you send this? those days suck. i especially hate the "when did you send ?" ones. when did i send it back, i don't know. was it in the red envelope? with the red on it? i sent that, uhh, this week. it bothers me that i might be lying because it could have a serious effect on my quality of service. what if i'm lying and saying it takes 8 minutes for all of my mail to get to portland and it really takes 8 weeks and i can't tell the difference? what happens to my service then? and seriously, how do they expect you to see in the envelope to know what you're mailing. am i supposed to remember what i watched, because i don't. check with hilly and you'll know that i only ever watch angel and i do not know which disk i'm on. the one with david boreanaz in it and then something tragic happens.

i'm sort of in a mood today and i can't think of anything relevant to say so i choose rambling. i have to haul ass to the mall today so i can return my nephew's birthday present. apparently webkins are the new beanie babies, and i bought the wrong one. frog and tree frog are not the same and anyway he has both of them. so i have to get the ugly ass monkey. or a savings bond. i'm "this" close to a pencil sharpener and my best wishes. not that it's his fault. i'd feel worse if he wanted gun and naked lady games for his computer.

the ugh part is that we'll be dining at the mall. i'm going through this period where nothing seems very appealing. even bad food that normally would make me guilty and greedy and giddy isn't turning me on. i'm sure i'll get over it in time to eat pizza and very possibly ice cream and come home and go to bed. and then tell you all about it tomorrow. with a picture of that monkey. really, they look like they have the mange. it's bizarre.

"Don't worry, don't be nervous. Do what I do, just picture yourself naked."

i'm back and feeling all perky. a chilled out vacation was a good thing. i did a lot of cooking (note: making sushi is hard), not as much eating as i thought and getting in more exercise than i thought possible. and i get to keep my gold medal in maintaining as i'm back here at 169. i didn't do much of "the dieting" while i was gone. it would have been a bit too difficult to restrict while hanging around my house baking and watching movies and rearranging my furniture. but i had a good week and i felt really good about everything i did, even if i do spend every vacation thinking i could be making better use of my time. i have a little trouble embracing the true meaning of the word. from now on i'm working on embracing the true meaning of vacation, translated directly from the latin as "chill the fuck out".

so i mentioned that i had some really good runs last week. it was way better than good. they were amazing. the kind of runs where you can't actually breath but your legs just won't stop because they're that happy. i honestly never knew i could do that and i'm stunned and amazed and even a little worried that it won't last. and it sort of got me wondering about my running and my motivation and all that stuff. i've been "running" for most of my time doing "the dieting". until recently it's only been as a tool of the weightloss, not because i really wanted to. i ran when i could as much as i could to burn more calories. i never really got good at it, or even wanted to. it was like running the mile in gym class; hard, embarrassing, an emotional hurdle aswell as physical.

i wasn't motivated to do it, i did it because i had to. that's more or less how i feel about weightloss as a whole. it wasn't like i woke up one day ready to fix my life. i woke up one day and couldn't go on being broken. maybe in some lights that's the same thing, but not for me. PQ has said some things about motivation and weightloss, that was weeks ago but i'm in that time warp that happens when you go away and expect to come back where you left off so forgive me. it's true though, when you get to that point where your life is ticking by and you're not living it and you decide to do something...that's not motivation. that's the end of the line. i don't buy lowfat cheese because i'm motivated, i do it because i have to. same for exercise.

i do the things i have to do and i do them regularly enough that they've become habits but it's nothing to do with motivation. it's hard work. and routine. if you're waiting to get motivated you're just feeding yourself excuses. which is fine, it's a big chunk of the process. none of us would be here if we didn't do our time with excuses. when you're ready, you do it. no one wakes up one day running marathons and eating whole grain yogurt smoothies for every meal when they only had remote controls and big macs the day before. i really think motivation as a concept is built only to make people feel bad about what they're not accomplishing. we get enough of that on our own i think.

"bourbon! how much bourbon?"

i said i'd be posting pictures only the weather sucks. i've had a few fabulous runs early in morning and then five minutes later the skies go black for the rest of the day. every single day. it's weird. that and the roadkill which really seems to be expanding exponentially while i've been home. and i'm thinking no one wants pictures of that. but anyway i'm enjoying the running. and the pilates. i sarted up the second video and OH MY GOD. it's amazing and painful and i'm totally hooked. exercise and sado masochism are like "this" close, seriously.

so i'm totally not making any sense and probably i should get back to not doing anything. which sounds great on the surface but on day five you really want a hobby. i'm thinking clog dancing. who wouldn't want pictures of that?

"do we take american express?"

i'm at work on my vacation because i am just that sad. and i didn't want to wait at the library. and now i'm off to start a tab at the liquor store. it's that kind of vacation. the kind where i spend the whole week baking and shopping and eating. it's kind of awesome.

i had a nice run this morning, and now inexplicably my arms hurt. i don't get it. but what's new. all this time and i'm still learning about my body. fascinating.

right, i'm boring myself here. i'll be putting up some pictures by phone so it might look a little weird till i get back to a computer. sorry. hope everyone has a great week!

"Will hiding in a cavern with stockpiled chocolate goods be any part of this plan?"

for not thinking about food this week i've sure done a lot of meal planning. not as in "green beans tuesday and kale sunday" but as in we're going to this restaurant for lunch and this one for dinner. whooops! i wasn't going to do that. but at the moment i'm in the best mood i've been in for ages and if that means pizza before hitting the bead shop for vacation supplies so be it. i'm extremely looking forward to not working. i shall probably be internet-less for much of the week, which might actually get me off my ass on the setting up a phone line front. internet at home would keep me glued to my computer though when i want to spend it glued to my tv...and uh my running shoes.

what else what else. same poundage as the rest of the week and it's very hot. it was high thirties until today. today it's 90. i'm almost glad i'm stuck in the bank till five. we're short handed for the long weekend so it's lunch out and no walk, but i don't mind since it's so hot. i'm hoping we're so busy today that the calories just burn away as i hand money over the counter. i can hope.

this, i think, is the audio link to the conference call with dr. hill. that's not what they call him, something fancy like hill, phd. very magnum pi. it reminds me of robson green to say doctor hill, happy thoughts. did i mention vacation, because i'm going. i'm going to not work for a week and i'm so excited. now all i need is a muffler incase i want to leave maine. my dad will die on the spot if i come home with a car sounding like an overgrown lawnmower.

i have this feeling that my mom's car will last me exactly until i have the money to buy a new one, and then it will be kaput! which is good, i'd like to be able to afford the next one i just thought maybe i could save some money in between. fate is so finnicky like that. and intractable. the good thing is that the possible need of a vehicle, say one that starts, isn't making me hyperventilate. i'd just deal with it and it would be fine. it might even be fun to choose a car for myself. there's no money panic at all over the possibility. what a difference a year can make!

"I know my ABC's, my history, I know who's President, and that I sorta wish I didn't."

two days before i go on vacation. not sure what i'm doing or where. what i'm trying to think about today is what i'm doing with my diet on vacation. i'm not going anywhere fancy so i won't be too tempted to spend all my money and time on food. normally when i go away almost every meal is eaten out, that's the way it is on vacation. if i'm home, i'll have way fewer options but i'll also be next to my fridge all day. i'm gonna keep thinking about it today.

i keep thinking about everything because i'm all confused about this vacation. usually i have very exact plans to get the absolute most out of my small paid allotment. but not this time. things have sort of fallen through and now my car needs some work and actually hanging out at home doing all the things i've been meaning to do forever sounds kind of nice. i can go to the beach or the mall or whatever for no reason and it will still be using less gas than if i drove to maryland so i won't have to feel guilty. a week without guilty would be awesome. i'm looking forward to this vacation more and more the fewer decisions i have to make. i love being a slug.

and since i mentioned it on debbi's blog i finally did lose that pound back to 169. patience is a virtue. if only it weren't so fucking difficult.

fark this!

stop thinking, you'll feel better.

"These musty old books have a great deal more to say than in any of your... fabulous web pages."

someday i'm going to bump in to the person, completely by accident, who gives their voice to the unicell voice message and i'm going to go insane on the spot. "welcome to unicell, please dial all 10 digits!". i did you bastards. i dialed all ten digits five hundred times. that's a lot of digits. a slew. a gaggle of numbers. and then i had an ice cream sandwich and took a nap. so i didn't participate in that call thing last night, and i had debbi's question all ready to steal and make my own. the laws of copyright infringement are far reaching. so my evening was a bust, audio blogger fame is not to be mine, alas. and also i'm starving.

i already had breakfast so i'm trying diligently to chill. my scale read an unadulturated 170 this morning. the audacity, can you imagine? i'm pretty sure it's hormones and probably all the damn salt i've been eating. and maybe those french fries. things have been a little crazy foodwise, but i've got lots of good walks in and it's only wednesday. if i can push through the hormone thing at 170 that'll rock and i promise i won't complain. cross my heart.

i made the mistake of checking out my bmi and goal weights and yadda yadda. and i thought gee, 154 would be just under normal and it's only like 15 pounds (or 16 now i guess, see me not complaining?) and it's totally do-able. and then i thought, gee, if i keep up two pounds a week i'll be there in 8 weeks. july, i'll be skinny by july. is there a better way to be sure you never lose another pound than mapping it on a calendar. maybe buying a whole wardrobe in size 8, that would be bad too. i really wish i'd never thought about it, like "how much is hypnotherapy" wish i'd never thought about it. i'm going to try to forget about the 2 pounds a week and the july thing but remember the 154. i think that's a reasonable goal, right around normal. maybe i'll discover a secret formula that takes me below that with no trouble, but i doubt it. that's my goal. wish me luck!

"I would pass by in the day but I feel I'm outgrowing my whole "burst into flame" phase."

wow, i seriously have not one thing i want to ask that doctor tonight. maybe if he was a psychologist, but a medical doctor? pretty much i know it's bad for me when i have an ice cream sandwich for breakfast. i don't need someone with an expensive degree to tell me that. i appreciate the medical industry's interest in the whole obesity thing but i think most people get it. we know what's good for us and what's bad for us and less in more out and we just don't care. having the facts doesn't mean that you still won't make bad choices. we're human and we like to err. a lot, some of us anyway.

i'm not saying that some medical facts aren't useful. for instance, i read somewhere that losing more than two pounds a week probably means you're losing muscle. so the optimum is two pounds a week to lose fat. that's a good fact and i like it and it will make a difference to me. if ever i'm losing more than two pounds a week i'll know that i'm doing something bad. but the other stuff, like fresh fruit and vegetables are better than a bag of chips. i think we all know that and if we want the chips we have them anyway. and sometimes we want them every single day and we do that too and then we get fat.

it's possible that that's a little off topic, i just don't know how to express how i feel about obesity and medicine. maybe it's all about bedside manner and if i'd had more reasonable doctors in my experience i might feel more of a connection. as we know i wasn't completely honest with my physician about my loss at my last visit. she might have assumed that i was living off one bag of cheetos a day and just never said. i really liked how she handled things compared to some of my other doctors. no pressure, no patronising, no telling me that i was buckling my own knees (hey, you're still bitter about that? yes, yes i am! the bastard!).

i guess for me it's more about the mind than the body. the body likes going for walks and runs and bikerides, the mind likes to watch Bones all afternoon. on the couch. with cupcakes. but i have no delusions that that's the way to a svelter me. i don't need a doctor to tell me, i never did. i may have needed counseling many different times in my life. i'm sure i needed financial counseling. i'm not sure i needed medical attention.

i guess i have not a thing to talk to this guy about. maybe i'll have a freudian slip and forget my phone at work. god i hope so. i don't need to be a moron in audio feed and via the written word. one medium is enough for me.

arghh, err

so, uhh, i guess i am doing that phone interview. but only if i have cell service. i don't even know where to find a payphone in this fascinating modern world we live in. the problem is that i have no idea what i'd even ask. any of y'all have burning diet doctor questions you want answers to? comment or email if you do, i'm seriously desperate.

mrrow

oh my god!

"That was real manly how you shrieked and all."

aww, man, 169. granted it was a weekend of gluttony and i've no right to expect anything, i'm still a little bummed but it's nothing to worry about. now that the rain has finally stopped, i can get back to exercising. i should be glad i didn't gain over 170 after almost a whole week with no exercise. it's not a great way to go about losing weight, sitting on your ass.

at the moment, i have none of the things i need to have a reasonable on diet day. i completely forgot to buy diet food at the grocery store. yogurt, cheese sticks, stuff like that. i stopped at the store this morning to take care of it and whoops! they're completely sold out of the only two things i wanted. i hate that. low fat cheese sticks just aren't that hard to find, can't be. they're not made of gold or orgasms or anything. geez. so i got an odwalla protein drink instead. i was desperate. i've already had my two servings of it, breakfast and snack. it wasn't so bad. i expect if i drank it on a regular basis i would get used to it. a little chalky, a little too sweet, but i'm not too hungry sitting here typing. it might just be a new find, especially for emergencies.

i had some adventures with tofu last night. for some reason i kept forgetting that i had already put soy sauce in the stir fry and i kept pouring in more. thank god it was low sodium. it was way way too salty, but i'm going to try to eat the left overs. with about a gallon of water handy. i suppose that could explain the extra pound in itself, the six pounds of salt i ate yesterday. i hate guessing like that though, it's much more likely a combination of things that together aren't so great for the body. i know i wasn't doing my best last week and this weekend, maybe i've got some of it out of my system. i'd like to have a fresh start on this last week before my vacation. to maintain atleast my 168.

in the course of the weekend of gluttony, i did a little shopping. testing the waters of size twelve. i picked up some more pants at the 15 dollar sale in new york and co. they're not bad really. i could've had a cute suit for 30 bucks, but i'm not a 12 up top yet. it was almost closing though. which means i should really test the size 16 suit jacket from february. it's probably a little undergrown. more stuff for the charity shop, brand frickin' new. i keep amazing myself with how big 16's and 14's seem now. and then when i'm wearing the 12's i think, gee i could actually be a lot smaller than this.

i thought 12 was smaller when i was fatter. the least i can say for my fatter self is that i kept my skinny dreams quite realistic, size 12 isn't so skinny as to be impossible. i think i'm being a little more hard on myself now than when i had less hope. it's funny how your expectations change with you. the impossible is a moving target now. something to catch up with. i really like that image. i think i'll keep it in mind while i try to figure out my new goals. i'm not ready to think about a new low goal yet. if ever. i don't want to chase a number when i might be perfectly happy a bit over. i guess i'll have to keep thinking about it and waiting and seeing and trying to stay happy with what i'm doing. and i am right now, happy with what i'm doing. i don't feel like i'm limiting myself, i feel like i'm not eating things that i don't want only because they're there. it's a big difference mentally. walking into the ring versus being dragged in. roar!

"I love syphilis more than you."

last night i had way too much pie. technically it was only the one piece, but i totally should have stopped at half. it was just so pie-y. chocolate bourbon pecan with homemade whipped cream. and if i ever figure out how to make it you'll never hear from me again because i'll be at home rolling on the floor and drooling for the rest of my life. unfortunately for me last night, when i ate all the pie, i went to bed full of the pie and there was too much pie. i dreamed of overeating and being uncomfortable and it ended with matt handing me a piece of toast and me trying to take one more bite and there just wasn't room. i've had a dream or two about food, but not like that. that was frightening, i can still taste the toast. no more excess pie before bed for me, i can't take the consequences to my subconscious.

fortunately for me there weren't any consequences for my ass. still 168. which means another two pound loss this week. and i'm not even going to mention how much i like losing two pounds a week. i wouldn't want to jinx anything or appear hopelessly optomistic. so i won't say anything about it. at all. see? discretion be my name. (two pounds a week...tehehehe) (cough)

in adult land i have all these decisions to make at the moment. the health insurance debate is rearing it's ugly head again. since i had no major, or even minor really, medical matters this year i'm going to stick to the high deductible. the self insuring i talked about last may. the extra money made a lot of things possible. things that, i think, make me a healthier person. i'm less stressed, less fat, and more active than i was last year. i have doubts that i would be in this much control of my life without that extra money. money i was only paying out of fear of the unknown. is it a bit too much to say that i don't fear the unknown anymore because i got backed into a corner over health insurance? probably. but it was a big personal step that opened a lot of doors for me. it was a little thing that made me realize i can face what comes and i don't have to work to prevent bad things from happening to me. i can save my effort to make good things happen to me and just enjoy them without fear. that's all, enjoying without fear. maybe i should write to hr and let her know that while everyone else feels fucked by last years cost cutting, it works for me. i bet she'd liked that.

"Can't this thing go any faster? Ultimate driving machine, my ass."

i just turned down an offer to phone interview some fab diet doctor. anyone else get that email? he seems like a decent guy. shame i don't have a phone. there are a lot of good things about being out of the modern loop, like never hearing from telemarketers, but sometimes it is kind of a bummer. like when your dad keeps calling your cell and it never rings and then he thinks you're dead. bummer. so, cindy, i'm genuinely sorry. it's rare i miss a chance for shameless self promotion. but not rare enough to stand out at a payphone for an hour. i'd miss my shows. heh.

but anyway, yeah, 168 two days in a row. check me and my skinniness. i'm even wearing clothes that fit today. some ancient skirt from the limited when a 12 was really a 12. 'course i'm freezing, i think i got frostbite on my morning walk. what is with may when april was so hot. when it wasn't snowing. and they say the climate isn't changing.

i guess i'm feeling a little dramatic today. i'm on this mission to streamline my spending, and of course the space thing, and still i bought an ice cream cake last night. it was sort of a foody night. i didn't eat the ice cream cake. probably i'll leave it in the freezer till the pink icing petrifies, but i sort of had to have it. like how the pizza place shined it's lights on last night just as we were leaving work. the bastards opened early this year. how am i supposed to go home to tofu stir fry when the red light pizza district beckons? i know tomorrow i will fail. i'm frickin' planning on it. matt has to work late so i'm on my own for dinner. thank the lord i can buy it by the slice, that way i can take my dignity home instead of half a pie.

what else is up. skinny, skirt, oh yeah...tights. you know how when you're getting fatter you try really hard to wear your normal clothes? so you can convince yourself you haven't gained ten pounds in three days and everything will be fine again just wait and see? when you start to come down again is when you realize just how much you've stretched those clothes. and how they're pretty much ruined. i didn't know it could happen to tights. well, i just never thought about it. tights, it's all in the name. i had assumed they're supposed to want to kill you when you're wearing them. apparently no. my skirt salvation was damn near void this morning when i couldn't find any tights that would stay up. thirty pounds is a lot of thigh. i finally found some before i had an actual breakdown about it. some that had never been opened. the upside of being a shopaholic packrat. i know it's just clothes, just things i bought to make myself feel pretty, i'm really sad about throwing them away. like i'm throwing away the person who used to wear them and how maybe that's the right thing to do. it's hard to take in sometimes.

"Jesus was not a zombie. I shouldn't have to tell you that."

welcome to the wonderful world of random!


my scale read 168 this morning and i didn't have to move it around for ten minutes to get there. not that i'd ever do that. ahem.

i think i left a comment yesterday somewhere that was fucked up. i meant to say "the elephant in the room" and i think i might have said "the white elephant in the room". it's hemingway tourrettes.

the cupcake site didn't update yesterday and i was really sad. practically despondent. what can i say, i like the pictures.

someone yesterday said "on the diet" in quotes and it's still making me laugh. are you "having the sex?" "are you doing the drugs?" sarah, please remind me where this came from.

i have an insatiable craving for a veggie bagel sandwich from sheetz like we used to get in the middle of the night in college. which means it's almost time for vacation in Frederick. i'm looking forward to it. and frozen custard. and seeing my friends. and probably more eating. i'm not sure how it's all going to work out because everyone's lives are changing and i might have to get a hotel room. growing up can be such a trial. and expensive. i'm a cheap bitch, aren't i? maybe if i have to pay to stay i won't eat my way up and down market street. but then what's the point of going? clearly i still have "the issues". le sigh.

"Don't you watch television? I thought all children despise effort and enjoy cartoons.

169 with hardly any effort. i'm so pleased. pleased in the way that makes me want to not eat bad stuff so that number will hang around. that and it's a rainy day which really helps me fight the ice cream craving that's been rearing its' ugly head. in bizarre news a woman, who yesterday told me i looked like i lost a lot of weight since last year, said today that my pants were too big and made me look fat. thanks lady. i know that already and i don't need to hear it on the streets. i should be wearing skirts, like i said i would, but it's effing cold here. what can you do, some days are about the process and not the result and this is part of the process.

you think she would have said my clothes looked bad if i was too fat for them? it's probably more socially acceptable to say someone looks fat when you think they're thin. which sounds fucked up but it seems to be the norm. skinny things saying how fat they are and no one blinks an eye. i hate that. self-deprecation is the new black.

enough about crazy people (who seems to be the only ones commenting on my new...state. is that me self deprecating, i only hear compliments from the mentally ill?) and floppy clothes, i'm all about food today. it struck me this weekend while i was roaming the organic meats and eggs that i'm pretty confused about my organic shopping. i buy organic eggs because the featherless slave chickens make me sad, i buy unscrewed with chickens for the same reason and also because matt doesn't need the antibiotics they feed the aforementioned featherless slave chickens. i buy the shitty bacon because that's what matt likes but mostly he agrees with me about buying natural products. i choose unbleached flour, raw sugar...but i buy regular milk and produce. what's up with that? it doesn't actually make any sense. not now that i can afford to buy groceries i feel better about. so i'm going to be working on going more organic. maybe even soy with my milk. which i haven't tried since my sister was in high school and maybe i would like it now. ten years later.

i have been spending a little more than i budget for. it's hard to help the feeling that you're rich when you aren't suffocating in debt. i planned for this. i knew i would be a little free with the purse strings when things started to look up, but i'm trying to be realistic about it. i still can't afford to be careless and i've learned enough about spending and goal setting that i want to see things happen with my money that aren't limited to the expansion of my dvd shelf. i upped my budget by a small amount so i won't plan myself into a corner and come up short where i shouldn't be and still have a little fun.

however, it might be time to reassess my financial priorities. do i want to go organic badly enough to spend the money and give up something somewhere else? do i want to be eating into savings to have happy cow milk? or am i saving enough by not eating meat that it won't be a big deal to add organics. i've been all track and add and compare with my grocery bills the last few weeks to figure some things out. i do my best budgeting when i'm ocd about it. but i have to be ocd with an open mind. part of the freedom of getting out of debt is doing some of the things i've been putting off. good food is one thing, buying the books i want is another, and building hobbies is up there too. art supplies and classes, even fitness classes, cost money. i don't want to deny myself these things forever, i know they'll add to my happiness and quality of life and be worth every penny i spend. it's just there's this part of me that doesn't think i'm done paying for some of the mistakes i've made. a part of me that wants to be scrimping and saving incase something goes wrong or i make another bad choice. i have a lot of thinking to do. and some forgiving. and getting-over-ing. everyone makes bad choices, it's what you learn from them that matters. i'll be keeping that in mind while i crunch numbers. less punishment, more joy.

"beans are a roof over your stomach"

because we're listening to tortilla flat on our commute and i'm totally in love with steinbeck, and beans, it seems appropriate. not that i cooked any beans this weekend. actually, i ate like a fat girl. bad, bad amy. i had an ice cream cone and half a coke, i made some peanut butter cookies and stole a few while they were hot and crumbly. i'm still at 170 and that's how i'll start this week. we had a good weekend and i didn't gain so i have to be happy with that. i also had some pretty decent runs although i strained a muscle in my calf. i ran farther and longer each day and i was so poroud of myself, until my leg started to hurt. i'm trying to be reasonable about not really injuring myself so i only went for a very tiny walk this morning. it won't do me any good to completely kill my leg and lose a week of exercise instead of a day. so i'm taking it easy.

i'm trying to get a handle on today's diet strategy to keep even with not doing my daily exercise stuff. i had some inspirations of a sort this weekend, despite the sweet snacking i did. firstly i have a lot of cookbooks i don't use. and why do i keep them if i never open them. so i picked one my mom got for me from building 19 when i was still in college. a little flippy thing from good housekeeping all about cooking vegetables. there's a fragrant cinnamon couscous i want to try when i'm eating of the carbs more regularly and a bean burrito with rice and corn that i'm going to try too. i think i'm going to work through all my books like that. i really should have cookbooks i use, not just ones that are pretty. there's a really great shiitake fried rice recipe in one of my books that my mom cooked for me a few times that i've never made for myself. i think she'd like it if i made it, it would make me think of her.

and while i should still be in pennance for my eating, i think my ass is changing sizes again. the jeans i just bought seem a little roomy and 99% of my work pants are just way too big. i'm going to try to shrink them tonight to get a little more wear out of them, but mostly i'm going to have to get my skirt on for the summer. i have a slew of flimsy elastic waist skirts that should hold me over till i hit size 10. which would be amazing. i haven't contemplated size ten since the 10th grade. the fact that it's quickly becoming a possibility is unbelievable to me. a little something to keep me on the thin and narrow for the next week.

"I assume there's a perfectly reasonable and not at all insane explanation here."

170. which makes me grumpy. it could be the sore of my muscles holding on to some water, or it could be the ice cream cone. since it was a really tiny cone, it must be the muscles. logic be thy name. right now i'm trying to figure out my calories for yesterday but the spark page is really slow. either a whole lot of people feel penitent about their ice cream cones, or our servers are a little slow today which is probably the case. it adds a certain drama to the process. you wonder how bad you screwed up your diet and you enter all the bad food and your imagination is whetted with anticipation and fear while that stupid flag unfurls in the corner. goodthing i have all this chocolate to pass the time with...hehe. diet humor. it rawks!!

i am starting to feel sort of bad about the decision to have an ice cream last night. i didn't really need it. or want it. it was just such a nice day and everyone was walking around half naked and licking. it was hard to resist the breyers when i got home. too hard. today is a new day though and it's not as sunny and hot and i have no continued desire for ice cream. i'm just going to pick up where i left off and keep going.

it's almost the end of my first week. i started at 172 and for blog purposes i'm finishing at 170. 2 pounds isn't so shabby of a loss. the whole beach thing is supposed to be a bit more dramatic, but then you aren't supposed to cheat. that could have something to do with it. but i don't want to toss myself off a bridge with this way of eating so i'll definitely be sticking with it. maybe for longer than i thought. or as long as it takes to be successfully in the 60's. we'll see. can i tell ya i'm still waiting for the info on how bad yesterday was? how can i properly flog myself with the facts. life is hard y'all.

"They were supposed to be my light at the end of the tunnel. I guess they were a train."

it seems like wednesday was excessively humpy for some of us. i survived without pizza and now i feel much better. i'm trying to remember if there was a hurdle like that the last time i did this space thing, but nothing is coming to mind. it might be indicative of having spent my morning in a compulsory self help rally, but i'm actually in a pretty good place right now. i was feeling a little *roar* about having to go, and while i still think it's a huge waste of money that could be in my paycheck or something, i'm wondering if maybe i'm being a little more closed off than necessary.

i hate it, everyone hates it, we're all being paid to be yes men and that sucks. what i never considered is that the principles of thinking positive and being kind to people aren't all that bad. when you take away all the ridiculous self help crap and the asinine note cards and the homework assignments, the basics are good every day reminders. i do believe it's better to look at the light of a situation instead of sulking in the dark. who am i to say that putting a note on my desk to that effect wouldn't be helpful? i've never tried it. i slam those sort of doors shut before i've even thought about what could be inside. it can't be healthy to be that rigid, so that's going to be my post it. chill out.

i'm going to try to open up a bit and think things through more. i've been tunnel vision girl lately, which is sort of good for dieting but bad for doing other things. i've screwed up a lot of baking this week. seeing as that has become my number one hobby, why aren't i putting any thought in to it. i put the batter for 24 cupcakes in 12 cups, they all came out sloppy. i defrosted some bread dough on the counter one day, when i went back to roll it the dough was the size of a rottweiler. you know how hard it is to roll flat a rottweiler? pretty much you give up after five minutes and let it eat you, that's how hard it is. i can't go on like that. so i'm going to make an effort to be thoughtful girl. thinking it through girl.

and also, as an aside, or for the record...this morning my scale said 169. i can't remember if that's ever happened before. it makes that pizza craving a distant memory. thank god.

"Ooh! Snacks! The secret to any successful migration."

if i could get pizza without having to drive a half hour, i would have a box on my lap right now.

how's your day?

"If we all do our parts, believe it, we'll be the ones left standing. Here endeth the lesson."

171. one pound, one day. i can dig it. it's not all that hard avoiding the simple sugars. the structure is just the jolt i needed to be more mindful of what i should be doing. i don't have to cut those things out, i'm choosing to. this is all about choices not directives from on high. it'll do me good to remember that this is what i want.

the peppy pep talk to keep me on the straight and narrow (or the queer and still somewhat wide, whatever) and now for gossip. apparently our trainee lost 125 pounds last year. i don't have a lot of these stories in my real life, people losing a lot of weight and changing their lives in my own neighborhood, it's sort of novel. i would be envious if i saw that she ate more than a pack of peanut butter crackers and a diet soda all day. it makes you wonder if eating a lot of bad food is better or worse than eating a little bad food. i'm just not sure.

on the exercise front, i must be doing more walking because my legs are falling off. it's very cool. there's something very marquis de sade about exercising to lose weight. i like it when it hurts. it makes me feel like i'm working my body hard enough and that lets my mind rest. it's great too because i've remembered my sneakers and haven't have any trouble with shin splints. it's better if it's just my muscles getting a workout and not tearing away from the bone. i hate that. i even hate typing it. if i think about it too much i'll pass out so whenever it pops into my head i have to think about kittens. furry ones. which reminds me there was a beat up looking cat at the dentist this morning (they wanted paying) that i wanted to take home. but it has a collar so it must have a home somewhere. actually, thinking about sad bloodied cats makes me want to pass out too. tricksy sensitive brainses.

that reminds me of my mom and her refusal to watch any part of the lord of the rings trilogy that wasn't hobbits or talking trees. which makes me think of cake, which is bad because i do not want cake. and now i will go read a book so the stream of consciousness thing going on doesn't kill anyone with boredom, or force me to go to the bakery. a few times.

"As a psych major, I'm qualified to go hmmm."

the fluffster hit me up with a thinking blogger award. so here i am being thinky to show my appreciation and to spread the internet peer award sharing love. so far i'm down one for three because there's this button i'm supposed to put up and i totally would if i could figure out how. but i can do the rest. the linking and the tagging, which is one in the same really. i can click that button with the chain and the world on it like a pro.

mal is utterly charming, frank, and a cunning gardener. michelle who is always positive and pregnant and isn't giving up. rachel who will be very much missed. sarah who comments but does not blog, the bitch. and pinky who i've been reading since 2002 (gasp!) and has since gone private but i still heart her pinkness. consider yourselves awarded and/or tagged, you know, if you want.

"Which begs the question, what kind of an unholy creature fancies cheap tasteless statuary?"

today is the day that i'll spend reminding myself why it is that i don't want to eat sugar and bread and all their bosom buddies. carb free. sans carb. carbius limitus. it's sort of difficult, the remembering. i'm thinking i shouldn't have moved the start date so far from the desperate inspiration date but it woudn't have been super fun any day so why get all retrospective now? it's time to be future-spective. like how happy i'll be at the end. not only because hopefully i might lose some pounds, but because i actually followed through on something. whoo! that'll be cool.

i'm starting the week at 172. i'm really quite a talented maintainer. which is why i have to take a firmer stand here, so i can maintain a little lower. this carblessness is not forever. it's not a life sentence, it's two weeks. and then we'll see. (i always make statements like that "we'll see", like i'm a committee instead of one fat girl plotting her future. i foresee a whole lot of parenthetical rambling this week, i must be psychic.)

i don't know where i was going with that paragraph, except to say i'm working the mantra. i had my yogurt for breakfast, a super gross cheese stick. it's almost lunch time and i'm hardly salivating. check me out, i'm rockin' and rollin'. and using apostrophes instead of letters. the hallmark of carefree momentum. ahem.

"who died and made you Elvis"

i just spent a wee sum at gap.com. they send you these damn coupon codes and then you go online and poke around and you end up buying a gorgeous asymetrical belt that won't even hold your pants up. but you have to spend x to get free shipping so you buy some t-shirts too. and then you're upset about it even though you click submit order and just this morning you put on your last clean gap t-shirt and you thought gee i could use some more for the summer. but the point is that it's the company's fault that i like their t-shirts and useless bits of leather. and i know i'm supposed to be mad at them because their sister old navy is ditching plus sizes in their stores but i'm just not. every time i go to my local (and also very small) old navy the (very large) plus section is over run with clearance. it's probably terrible rude to say that 80% of the women i see every day in bangor are overweight, but it's also true. and they're not shopping at old navy, atleast not in the plus section. old navy's bread and butter is volume, maybe they really do get more sales online.

i totally forgot about popcorn by the time i got home last night and then i caught the top of my last post and whoops! now i want some again. if i had a better memory i'd be way fatter. i do remember that we made plans to get mexican tonight. we're going to the place with the tiny flan and i'm very excited. they do a reasonable set menu with the whole works and itty bitty desserts and every time we go i wonder why we don't go more often. which only backs up my theory about short term memory and my ass.

what else, oh, i finally have a menu and a very long shopping list for the whole rocket man thing. i've left nothing up to chance. i'm sort of interested to see how well i do. i've been trying to build a mantra for myself that i really want this. i want to make it work and there's no reason i can't give it a week. i know it's two weeks but i'm trying to take it one week at a time. i'm going to see what works with week one before i do the week two menu. in all honesty i'm not changing that much from my normal fare. the biggest change is the protein, which i've been rambling on about needing to fix but hadn't actually done yet.

and then, the exercise. what good is a stricter eating plan if i spend all my time on the couch thinking about cupcakes? i've taken to jogging in place at home. i started running on the road on weekend mornings, which is awesome and hard and very hilly, but after work and dinner and dishes it's still too dark. so when i'm tired of stepping, i jog in place like a demented richard simmons on a loop. what can i say, it's working for me at the moment. it keeps me from sitting on my butt while i'm watching angel and MI-5. that's the important part to me, the sweating. anything is better than sitting still, no?

"Now might be a good time for something heroic."

all i can think about is popcorn. with real butter. there's never a movie theater in your house when you want one. i guess i'll have to make my own. this random craving has me thinking of what else i want to eat before i go to space (which, incidentally, is my favorite new code word for dieting. when someone asks why i'm not eating carbs i'll say "i'm not dieting, i'm in nasa. it's all very hush hush."). except for the popcorn and the totally unnecessary desire to finish that box of sugar cereal, i'm not feeling any food cravings. maybe i should fetch the thermometer, check for mysterious rashes, that sort of thing.

"I've been accused of a great many things in my time, but paranoid has never been one of them."

i had a high speed dental appointment this morning. apparently, my teeth are perfect. i have a 4.0 in teeth. only i have too many and i have to get my solitary wisdom tooth removed. apparently it's over-exploded which sounds pretty bad but really is meaningless, atleast in my case. it's just sort of a blip and they want to de-blip me. i always go to the dentist waiting for them to tell me all of my teeth need to be replaced, and i'm always so happy when they don't. i have a tiny, tiny life. apparently.

i got an email from a south beach devotee that says i can still eat yogurt, as long as it isn't full sugar and fat. thanks for the hook-up, that will makes things much easier for me. i've been playing with my menu and it isn't all that different. it's a nice surprise. the fewer things i have to remove the better off i should be, i think. it just occurred to me that i'm treating this like i'm preparing to go into space or something. i wonder why they haven't marketed dieting in space. there's absolutely no way to get cheetos in a rocket. someone is going to make a fortune on the lunar diet someday i'm sure.

to prepare for outer space i've been trying to use less and less sugar in my tea. it's not bothering me at all. it's unnerving to think how much sugar i used to drink in tea. i can't drink it super sweet anymore which is a testament to how you can teach your body new habits. i can't think of any other new habits i've taught my body, except maybe to feel full with less. i'd love to learn to eat more slowly, that one i can't seem to master. i guess i've got the rest of my life to figure it out. sometimes the scope of this life change is a good thing, when you aren't daunted by the ridiculously longness of the rest of your life. atleast we have time to change and grow, there's no finish line for healthy choices. and on that note, i'm so having fruity pebbles for lunch. i feel this need to use up the box before facing the last frontier. see how my teeth like that, eh?

"I have heard a few complaints over the years, but then I just killed whoever spoke up, and that was pretty much that."

the week of "still not dieting" is going well. weight is holding, i hardly want to eat everything i see and i'm only doing the smallest amount of compulsive shopping. could you resist these rain boots for your neices, no you couldn't. they're painfully cute. i couldn't resist season one of bones either. david boreanaz is worth it. apparently when i rented it before i missed the last episode with the big ass cliffhanger. if you know what happened to brennan's dad write me, i'll send you cookies, i'm that desperate.

i'm a little short on relevance and long on drama at the moment. there's some stuff going on with matt's family that makes me nervous. like possibly not seeing them very much anymore. but nothing's settled yet. is it wrong to want to have one "family" dinner without a sex conversation? openness is one thing, but grown-ups should have atleast one conversation starter that isn't about sex, like weather maybe. it might indeed be too much to ask, but i refuse to listen to what sexual thing i must do with my dentures in 40 years so i'm making a stink now.

i'm a little surprised that the stress hasn't made me gain. i'm actually noticing my very last pair of 16's getting too big. i don't know how my ancient old navy 16's were staying up when my newer old navy 14's were at my ankles. that's beyond vanity sizing, there had to be a screw up somewhere. but i'm glad they're finally going out the door. i know in my head that the labels on the clothes don't make a difference, i'm really happy to see the back of size 16's in my closet anyway. that number takes me back to the day i tried on some 16's at the gap and they didn't fit. they looked awful. that was before i started this here blog and it was definitely a turning point for me. i still get a bit angry when i try on a 12 and they're maybe a little tight, but now it's only for a minute. i feel now like things are in my grasp and if i really want some pair of pants to fit, i can make that happen. but it's also much less important to me lately.

when i was wearing larger sizes, i shopped all the time. it would be safe to say that i was obsessed. not just with shopping, although i recongnize the importance of that, but also with my appearance. like i was trying to make up for how awful i thought i looked by wearing better outfits. at the time i thought that if i was skinnier i would take the time and wear really excellent clothes. i still have anthropologie bookmarked. obviously i've had to buy clothes as the old ones grew too large but i've lost a bit of the obsession. i'm still clearly insane when it comes to shoes, but i'm not that concerned with the rest of my clothes.

yesterday i was poking around on the anthropologie site and i almost bought a sweater. it was cute, it wasn't debtor's prison expensive, it seemed like the one thing i could buy and probably use well. and then i didn't buy it. i don't need to buy clothes to make me feel good about myself anymore. i might have worn it every day, i might have loved it inside and out, i just didn't need to have it so i left the site. something has changed for me recently about clothes. it seems like the longing is gone. the longing to be like other women, thinner women who don't have to hide themselves, is leaving me.

i'd like to think that i still dress reasonably well, but i don't think about it anymore. i used to spend hours in front of the mirror trying to find something to wear, something that i could leave the house wearing that wouldn't make me cry. trying to find the outfit that would hide the flaws that were the only things i could see. there isn't a black skirt perfect enough to make hating yourself look good, i have looked everywhere. i haven't thought about those days in a long time. i haven't had a morning like that in a long time. i didn't realize until just now how lucky i am to be away from that.

"I mean, retail? I'd rather be dead. Again."

i dragged matt all the way out to the mall, the shoes were still there, and i didn't buy them again. i'm not sure how much of a victory it is considering all the gnashing of thoughts and all the extra driving, but it does seem like i regained some control of myself. which is good. somehow i wasn't trusting myself about this stupid stupid purchase. i passed them up twice, for a reason. they weren't worth it. like when you think about chocolate all day and then you end up eating some hersheys crap and then it's just wasted calories. i really hope i learned something from all this, i'm drained.

i'm thinking i might try the south beach weeks 1-2 sometime soon. sometime after ye hormones pass. i'm trying to put together a vegetarian menu for it, which is interesting to say the least. eggs, cheese, nuts. oh, and salad. i'm working on it. how many beans can one person eat? i guess i'll find out. i know i've been saying i'm happy with the way i've been eating, that's still true. this is just a jump start thing. a test, if you will. it's not going to be a way of life. i don't think it's very healthy to cut out such a huge chunk of foods (says the vegetarian) forever. i don't think i could do more than two weeks without yogurt and sweetened tea and oatmeal. in moderation, i don't think these carbs are bad for me. i'm just interested in seeing if there's a change and if i can maintain it.

that'll probably be next week. for the rest of this week i'll try to hang on to my 173 and get the last of the sugar cravings out of my system. i'm sort of looking forward to it, probably because it's still so far away. we'll see how i feel on sunday when the bell tolls.