the comfort of strangers

Over lunch today, I headed to the gym. My gym, which happens to be (conveniently) right across the street from my office, recently bought these snazzy elliptical machines that are designed so that there is no pedaling backwards...it's all one motion. I can't imagine trying to work out on one of those if I was 5'2 or something. The degree to to which you have to adjust your stride is pretty extreme. Regardless, I try to hop on the new machines if one is available because the workout is more intense than your usual gym elliptical. I choose "weight loss" or "cross training", punch in the weight and age and I'm off.

I got my heart rate up to 158 today. That's workin' it for me. I huffed through 35 intense cardio minutes and then went to do my crunches. (I had a limited amount of time so I had to skip the weights.) I've been getting back into crunches on the balance ball, and they kick my abs. Then it was time to stretch. As I neared the end of my workout, stretching my hip muscle on a low wall in front of the treadmills, a woman on the treadmill in front of me said suddenly:

"I worked out next to you last week, right?"

I eyed her a bit suspiciously. For one thing, I pay little attention to people around me when I'm in the gym. In fact, it's one of the only times in my waking life when my inner critic shuts off and I'm not looking at people's feet going "man, those shoes are impractical on a day like today." I admit it--I'm ruthless with fashion, esp. shoes. It's not that I'm Ms. Hip or anything, I just can't abide fashion impracticality.

Anyway, I go to the gym to work out. I don't usually remember who was next to me during those times when the areas underneath my lovely yet pendulous breasts have turned into drainage ditches of sweat.

"I don't know," I finally respond.
"Yeah, it was you," she says. "You were kicking ass. I thought it was so cool. I mean, I have such issues around going to the gym..."
It finally registers that she is talking to me because she admires me. She actually thinks I kick ass. And judging by her size--she was actually smaller than I, but shorter--I could tell that the subtext of this conversation was something like "I can't stand these skinny asses in their short shorts and sports bras who look at people like me and feel pity." Okay, so maybe not in so many words, but I'm sure I'm not that far off.
"Well," I say, "I come here, do my thing, and get out. If I paid attention to what everyone else was doing, I'd never come."
"Yeah I hear ya," she says. "But you kick ass."
I emerge from my mind long enough to finally say "Thanks." Then I add "you keep working at it."
"You too," and she plugs herself in.

Walking back to my office, I think of one of my favorite quotes: "The last thing we know is our effect." (Carolyn Kizer) I think of how often that phrase needles itself into my conscious life and sticks there, a reminder of how every positive action and encounter can make a difference. We never know how we effect one another--we can only walk through our days with the hope that we might effect the world positively, might bring a little sun to what might have been an otherwise dreary day. Maybe we do it by helping an elderly woman cross the street or maybe it's by saving a co-worker from the chopping block by tying up the loose ends of his project while he takes his sick dog to the vet or, in today's instance, we (I) do it just by weighing over 200lbs and getting back on the elliptical again and again, with determination and a smattering of self-love, and unknowingly setting a kick ass example for some shy overweight young woman who then says, "hey, if she can do it, I can do it too."

All I can say now is that I am humbled in the face of this. And I hope I see her again someday.

my two right feet

I was going to head to the gym about 10 minutes ago, you know, beat the 5:00 crowds. And I spy a hair tie on my desk that I know I will want to use to get my hair off my neck once I get to the gym, and think "I should put that in my gym bag." So I open said bag, drop in the hair tie and...one of my hiking shoes stares right back at me. Wait a minute, my brain says, slowly. Wait.......a..........minute. I open the bag wider. There's my running shoe. Shoe. Singular. It registers: I packed one hiking shoe and one running shoe in my gym bag. What the hell was I thinking?

So I'm not going to the gym. Instead I'm going to leave here at the stroke of 5 and buzz home and jump on my Chase (bike, that is) and get in a good ride. Because I need it. Because this body is starvin' for some exercise action. Because sitting at home, in my closet, are two unmatched shoes.

It's official: my brain is on vacation. While the brain lounges in some tropical locale sipping commemorativo margaritas and noshing on skewer after skewer of beef satay, the body is left at home to deal. Deal with a hellish work environment. Deal with friends proffering glasses of luscious shiraz and little toasts of fresh mozzerella and sun dried tomato pesto. Deal with saying no thank you four times to large slice of coworker's "mmmmmm moist" birthday cake. (What is it with my office and CAKE!!??) Deal with insane cravings for veggie egg rolls and moo sho shrimp from local Chinese joint.

"Oh MAN," whines Mouth, "you're killing me here!"

So now here sits Body, munching on Smart Balance non-hydrogenated microwave popcorn (No Trans Fats! Light Butter!) and chugging tumbler #7 of the day's water ration. Body is anxious to get out of this chair and MOVE ITS ASS.

Body so cranky. Wish Brain would cut short vacation and climb back in head.

yeah, I'm ready to order

I'll take the House, and could I get a side of Fries, and then maybe a Strip Mall for dessert?

What is it about spring that makes me SO DAMN HUNGRY?

I asked the girlfriend (who also seems particularly voracious lately) and she explained that the qi is rising because Spring has finally started.

So me and my qi are working through this, and I'm headed off to go grocery shopping at Central Market (after I've had breakfast of course), and I'm gonna load up on additional fruits and vegetables, because they are all like little life preservers to me, and I'm feeling like I need a little safety in the water right about now.

easing up on the reins/Zelda Lives!/The Rhythm of the Fried

I'm 2.4 pounds from my goal weight.

A funny thing happens this close to goal:I wouldn't call it narcolepsy, because it's more willful than that. But it isn't sheer teenage rebellion, either. Yes, there's a kind of fatigue underneath it all, a bit of the ol' too tired to care. I can't nail it with a word (or even two), but I will tell you this:

I can feel the part of me that wants to stop trying so hard. The part of me that feels done. The part that says this, right here, is good enough, and even the part that only wishes to push the boundaries, to see how much I can backslide before I gain again.

I'm not proud of this. But I know this part of me-- I've seen it before, under similar circumstances. As far as this other part of myself-- let's call her Zelda-- as far as Zelda is concerned, we're done. It's time to shut off all that goddamned counting (what could be more boring than simple, repetitive addition?), all the measuring, all the agonizing considerations (do I want 1% or 2% milk? -- the answer, by the way, is 2%, because it doesn't feel like suffering). Zelda wants to feel that luscious rhythm of hand-to-mouth with no brain inbetween. Zelda wants to eat Cheese Bakes (or maybe something even more wicked) straight from the bag. Zelda is also not adverse to doing so under the influence of AK-47 or some other fabulously nomered herbal influence. The chewing is always so great that way.

So now, in this tiny apartment, I am living with my 5'10" self, my 5'10" girlfriend, 3 geriatric but chipper and fit girlcats-- and Zelda. It's feeling a bit crowded. The good news is that Zelda hangs out mainly in the kitchen, close to the stove, probably under the cutting board. She sneaks out in a manner not unlike a rodent, and either props the refrigerator door open, or grabs a box of granola or some other previously I'm not gonna have that treat and holds the carton open with a little beckoning hand gesture.

I've done a decent job of avoiding her, but she's making me tired. So I've gotta keep my guard up until she goes back into her hole. And another thing: there's no way in hell that bitch is going shopping at the Co-Op with me.


THE ZELDA HOLE: IS IT "TIMED" or "NORMAL"?

manicotti malaise

Last night was Writing Posse. About every six weeks or so, a group of us, all women, gather at a member’s home and workshop. Mostly we critique poems, but we’ve also got an essayist in the mix, so it keeps things interesting. We drink wine, have recently implemented a nopotsmoking rule (the ingestion of THC, most of the time quite potent, seems to invite some potentially dangerous dynamics), eat delicious food oft’prepared by the host, and workshop. Sometimes, as was the case last night, we roll other celebrations into Posse, like a birthday or engagement announcement. Suffice it to say, I ate too much, drank a little too much vino and capped the night off with a frosty pint of ESB. I’d abstained from alcohol since the previous weekend, and was at the tail end of my period, and I think I was particularly susceptible to getting all warm and buzzy. Friday nights in Denver are notorious for massive DUI sweeps by ticket-happy cops. Driving home was probably not the best idea. Luckily, I had a ride.

So I was told last night that I looked like I’d lost weight. 13 pounds I announced proudly, raising my arms above my head in some kind of Mary Lou Retton stick-the-landing stance. I AM proud. But I also ate way too much last night—stuffed manicotti, a heaping salad plate of spinach greens and strawberries sprinkled with those sinfully delicious fried onions that Americas use for their ubiquitous Thanksgiving green bean casseroles, a smallish pie-shaped slice of foccacia, aforementioned wine. Oh and from-scratch chocolate cake with fresh raspberries and blackberries. I picked at the berries decorating the cake with an abandon I have not allowed myself since starting this weight loss journey. It was something to put into my mouth that seemed fairly innocuous, and much better than the second piece of cake that I really wanted.

13 pounds.

All too comfortably I slipped back into my age old habits of overeating last night. I allowed myself to lower the resistance wall and let the old Fuck It voice climb into my secret, up-until-then-well-tended garden. I could feel it creeping in as early as 3:00 yesterday, when I bellied up to a bar, ordered a Sunshine Wheat with lemon, and read through the Posse poems one last time. Work had let us all go early due to the Easter holiday, and my office had a working lunch scheduled for 1:00 at said restaurant/bar; we finished our meeting by 2:30, so after walking my boss out, I grabbed my poetry binder from the truck and went back into the bar. One wonderfully cold beer and three critiqued poems later, I walked outside into the hot spring afternoon and went to pick up some wine for the evening. It was my requested “contribution”. Not cake. Not bread. Wine.

I also had to stop by the local record shop to grab a couple jewel cases. As luck would have it, I spied a nearly new copy of Sarah Harmer’s latest, I’m a Mountain, in the used cd section and snapped it up immediately. $8.99. Not bad at all, since I’d already decided that I simply couldn’t lay down $19.99 for the limited edition of Beth Orton’s new one. Budgetary woes have curtailed my monthly cd purchases. Credit cards be damned. I don’t use ‘em anymore at all.

13 pounds. I lift a ten pound free weight and think “this much weight is no longer hanging from my frame…plus three MORE pounds.” I don’t want to stop now. I can’t stop now. I have to just let last night be what it was and start from HERE, from NOW. I enjoyed myself last night, but was also keenly aware (especially post-devouring a mega heap of manicotti) that I was eating too much. I could have said, when the Italian deliciousness (stuffed that day at a local Italian grocery) was being served, “oh, half of that serving, please” but I didn’t. I was hungry. But I also remember feeling full once I’d eaten half of what was on my plate and I didn’t stop. Stopping would have meant getting up from the table, taking my plate into the kitchen and leaving it there. That seemed rude, somehow. Every bite of the dreamy manicotti melted in my mouth. The company was optimal. The zinfandel I’d brought—Earth, Zin and Fire from a winery in Lodi, California—was plush with berries and pepper. I couldn’t just put my fork down. Mmmm Good overrode sense, wiped out self control.

I trip up occasionally, yes, but for the most part I’m managing to maintain a consistent exercise plan and eat pretty well, especially when it comes to fruits and veggies. I’m less gassy (well, I am) and sleeping better. I can walk three flights of stairs at work and not feel like I’m going to faint. I’ve hit 35 minutes on the elliptical at level 8, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. My intent is to make permanent, health-conscious changes, and I believe that I’m on the right track. But social functions are still my greatest weakness. My gregarious nature emerges in those situations, and an appetite for excess follows directly in its wake. In time, I hope to learn how to enjoy myself without feeling deprived or like I’m missing out on something that simply should not be missed. I’ve got to learn this particular way of balancing all my hard work with my desire (unchanging, so far as I’m concerned) to play hard. I’m not talking dropping acid and climbing trees; I’m not talking kamikaze shots chased with red bull and falling into bed at 3 a.m. I just want to figure out how to be sensible without losing my sanity or feeling like I’m offending the cook by leaving too much on my plate. (That is SOOO my upbringing. Another blog on that particular topic is waiting for me down this long ass road…)

13 pounds. I clutch the number to my chest like a trophy.

The irony does not escape me: I must lose in order to win.

just say NO to fruit tart

it was just sitting there-- one single piece-- up for grabs in the student lunch room. I salivated at the sight of it. I could taste the pastry cream. I could taste the berries. I'm the only one who would have felt the conflict-- the tipping of the balance from reasonable to un-. These are secret wars waged within. These are the things I need to think about that I think no one else considers. I know I'm wrong. But when I'm high upon my pity pony (it's a very big breed),no one goes through what I do on a daily basis.

I was not on my pity pony today. I did the ol' vini.vidi.vici. with that dessert. There may have been a little stutter-step as I walked by, but I kept on going. Perhaps a phantom twitch of the fingers, but my arms stayed at my sides.

I am hooked on phonics! I am learning to read!

the binge and the bastard dive

Seeing a picture of my Dad on the blog is freaking me out a little. But I'm not taking it down. Instead I'll post this poem I've been working on...just to move that photo down a bit...there is still some revision required here, but it's getting there. Somewhere.


The Binge and the Bastard Dive


If it had a name, it would be alarm
an unmistakable ringing in the bones
that grows loud with each succumbing.
This is what we return to, again and again,
scratch of voice, trumpet of thought,
how we try to rein it all in, how we
rationalize and explicate. But where
were we? Back where we said we wouldn’t be,
the weight of houses and old familiars,
taste of beer and smoke and race of heart.

~

Done, you believe,
with damning the whole
exercise, certain there must be
a better view as another year
winds down to bone weary
blank-stare-thoughtlessness.

You being you
dear
being you
count mistakes like tableware
set the humble table
this knife for yesterday’s
hangover, these spoons for
fighting mean, a relish fork
for the smallest of sins,
the not calling back.

You being you
dear, being you
enormous in its implications and
downright transparent, these cradles
of consumption you return to.

~

A single beam cues the cotton-tongued
dream on repeat, like a line
from a song again,
a line from a song, again
a line from a song and

O this hideous reaching for
any word that resembles
the dissonant crash of confession
even a stutter, just to say, just to say
yes, well, it’s a problem, there are
families, hell, whole clans
clamoring at the gate seeking
refuge in the inhale and the sale,
fullness in the bite and chew,
haze in the pour and swallow.
With a single utterance the entire
throng would disperse, nothing left
but gin-sweat-stale-smoke air.
But to say it makes it true. To speak
holds accountable the one who’s
devoid of follow through.

~

Found at age five: bi-fed uvula cleft,
a defect gone so long unnoticed
you cannot pronounce your own name.

Given at age ten: blowjob.Field of overgrown grass, sticks
piercing your knees and the sun in your
eyes when you look up to see him
looking down.

Lost at age fifteen:
hammer, anvil, stirrup.
Life in mono, feigned comprehension
and the master of smile and nod.

Sweet seventeen: stoned. The distance
between pain and more pain
thick with smoke.

At twenty-five: Turn towards me,
turn towards me, turn away,
a little more, a little more
your head contorts
while the scope slides deeper
into the canal. Otological cripple,
you list to one side, even in photographs.

Hard to believe, at thirty-three,
puss still pours from the ear.
Otitis externa sends its
throbbing minions down your neck
and you, once more a child,
writhe beneath the covers
certain that this time you can outrun it.

~

It’s the spin that gets you
the littler lies, the ivory fib,
whom you told what to, or who
knows too much, your grand
pronouncements piling up like so
many useless pretty things.

Around and around, hair flying,
wind in the eyes ‘til they water,
and O what a beautiful blur
nothing with edges,
nothing with ends,
nothing to portend the actuality
of no control, no say in the matter,
just another pill, another
warning to remember

this will not be filmed
this cannot be cured
there will be no memory beyond
the cartography you have created
and the color! and the definition!
all drawn by your hand —

north for blue where cold winds blow
west bleeds red where the sun sets low
east to green barks the sickly queen
south turns black so she won’t backtrack

no boundaries, no problem,
not a border in sight, these roads
easy to navigate, each lit by
burning bridges that span
rivers of stubborn refusals

but still your are not seen
(tectonic plates of scars)
you are not heard
(deliberate obfuscation)
you are
(combustible) are
a window broken
ragged breath, a wild top
spinning for spinning’s sake

O anything not to look
too closely or disturb
art reduced to ashes,
need to just a word.

the politics of infrastructure

Today, I meditate on the idea of self-care. Why I'm so bad at it. Why, oftentimes, the care of others comes well before care for myself. I am genuine in my externalization of attention, advice, comfort. I am downright ruthless and without mercy in my internalization of same. I'm not even sure there's any room for forgiveness amid all the emotionally charged flotsam taking up so much of my psychic space.

Immediately, when I think of where I learned to ignore my body and exist soley in my head, an image of my father comes into sharp focus. I have never known him to be anything but overweight to the point of uncomfortability--he now has two fake knees, both of them having blown out under the stress of carrying so much poundage for so long. His second knee, in fact, got so bad that by the time doctors went into operate, he not only had no cartilage and a patella that was swimming in a sea of puss and bone shards, but the pressure of his femur against the fibula and tibia had literally caused the tibia to split, and the femur was grinding into it. Makes you wince, doesn't it? I cannot imagine the pain my father was in, though I did see him not long before his surgery, when he and my mother came to visit me in Colorado. My dad could hardly walk. Two, three blocks was too much for him. He anesthesized himself with loads of Aleve and nightly martinis that would have put a horse under. And he was a bear to be around. Constantly irritable, quick to ignite into a rage over the smallest things. My mother bore the brunt of it, of course, and I think she felt sorry for him, because after 40+ years of marriage, you know when you're partner is in pain. And you want to help. But there's nothing you can do.

Finally Dad relented and had the surgery. He's now even playing golf, which was something I could not fathom him doing just two years ago. His knee pain is almost non-existent, though I know he still takes Aleve, so he must experience some kind of discomfort.

When I get a twinge in my knee, I freak a little inside. One of the primary reasons for losing weight is so that I don't walk--or crawl--the same path as my Dad. I want to keep these knees, but I know that I am built like him--at least from the waist down--and there's a very good chance that I inherited his bone structure. Before I started back on WW, one of the things that cemented my decision was a persistent ache in my right knee. S. would rub it at night while we lounged on the couch together, and it felt so good, but it was also a sign that carrying 240 lbs could not continue.

I chose this particular photo of my father because he's reading in it. For as long as I can remember, my father (and mother) was a voracious reader...if he wasn't reading the paper, which he did every night after coming home from work (as the years wore on and his stress/pain levels rose, martinis became a permanent fixture on the coaster next to his seat on the couch), he was reading some tome of a book, probably a biography or 500 pages of historic non-fiction which detailed a particular WW II battle. If the TV was on, he would always have something to read in his lap: the National Review, Time (before it slanted, in his mind, too far left) , Fine Woodworking. His was not a one track mind. I don't believe it was about attention span as much as it was about being constantly stimulated. So long as his mind worked overtime, he could do without his body. Or so it seemed.

I inherited my parent's love of reading, and not that long ago noticed that I too have become one of those people who find sitting and watching TV only a grand waste of time. If a show really sparks my interest--say "60 Minutes" or "History Detectives" or, my favorite indulgence, "America's Next Top Model"--I might give it my undivided attention. But I am a periodical junkie, and take the daily paper too (NYTimes on Sundays) so there's always reading to catch up on. I'll read while S. watches CSI--oh how David Caruso grates on my nerves!--or yet another episode of Law and Order. I will tune it all out and concentrate on the words before me. Just last night I read the latest issue of Vanity Fair while S. watched Caruso deliver canned lines in his affected baritone. I plowed through Garydon's letter and Dunne's latest missive, perused Oscar night photos and began an article on mining in West Virginia. Then I went to bed.

Try as I might, I cannot deny that I carry a legacy riddled with addiction and fed by an insatiable curiosity. Not all that I have inherited is bad, but there's a heck of a lot of baggage to sort through. When I saw my first stretch mark winding its way across my stomach, I was 15. I am thin skinned and fair, and it wasn't long before that one stretch mark became a veritable highway interchange of silvery scars that seemed to cover my whole body. I stopped looking at my body altogether. I believed that I was disgusting, that objectively, no one could look at me and say that I was beautiful. If they did, they were lying. Those stretchmarks were the price I paid for a whole manner of wrongs done to various people in my youth. I was destined to carry the scars of my lies and betrayal forever. That was truly what I believed.

Why choose to inhabit a body that is rife with imperfection? If I keep my nose in a book, if I can engage in intellectual banter with the best of 'em, if I can be a poet instead of a pretty girl, then surely I will have succeeded.

But it comes down to this: I don't want to be the poet/intellectual/well read woman with a body that's failing. Waking up one day to a 300lb me is simply not an option. Why can't I have it all? Maybe I can. Maybe embodiment will augment my art in ways I cannot fathom. I sure do hope so. I'm hanging my hat on that one.

choose to stay

It’s been well over a week since I last chewed any fat, and I attribute this to many things, not the least of all is that slippery, gaudy attention whore called life. Even though it is a beautiful day here and the garden is calling to me—I continued reconstruction of wall sections yesterday, and will try to finish a better part of it today—I wanted to put some words down that reflected my recent head space, an attempt to articulate how “all my thoughts are jumbled into some crazy state of grace,” to borrow a phrase from Melissa Ferrick.

I jumped into this blog with the intention of exploring some of the n’er before seen reaches of my struggle with weight loss and weight issues in general, and initially so much came so fast that I could’ve blogged two, three times a day. Last Friday, that is, two Fridays ago now, I was talking to a good friend about this process, and relayed a shit ton of “revelatory” information in a relatively short time, to which she calmly replied, “that’s some heavy shit.” Yes, yes it is, a whole ton’s worth.

Through all of last weekend and into the work week, and even today, I’ve been reflecting on that conversation. I’ve heard the words “heavy shit” in my head and visited the memory of said friend taking a long draw off her Stone Pale Ale right after she said it, the pause that ensued, the way she tapped her smoke before lighting it, then inhaled deeply, like a heavy sigh. Similar to a Jarmusch film, our conversations are often riddled with silences. She weighs her words carefully with me, knowing that I chew them fully and digest slowly.

“It seems like you’re on a roll,” she says finally.

“I wouldn’t say roll,” I reply. “Just opening up a bit, shedding my papery skin in the light of longer days.”

I think that’s an approximation of what I actually said. I was drinking on a fairly empty stomach and remember finally ordering a hummus plate for gnoshing, something to soak up the ale.

Whatever the metaphor, I did feel a little like I was waking up from some long, fitful sleep, some decades long nap. A little Van Winkle-esque with Sleeping Beauty in a supporting role. There were little things: writing about anorexia and then spending a good 10 minutes—which felt like 10 hours—looking at my body naked in the dresser mirror, even going so far as standing on the bed so I could see the entire picture. Imagining the fat giving way to skin stretched tight across hip bone, pelvis. Thinking, I’ll take something in between this and that. It had been more than five years since I’d looked –really looked – at my body in that way or anything even close. Or contending with the hangover-like feeling I got from writing the piece on going to my grandparent’s house in Dayton and the life-altering fight that would rock our family for years to come – I felt off kilter for a couple days after shaking out that particular rug, which may have been the result of dredging up hard memories, choking on all the long-dormant dust or the soul-shaking cry that occurred right after I posted those words. Hell, maybe a combination of all three. Probably more, though, probably more than I will ever consciously realize.


The point is, this is work. This is why I’m here, why I choose to come back, why I will keep digging and poking and shedding those papery skins—like the creamy white daffodils in our front bed this morning, just blooming—with the hope that what remains is beautiful and whole and long lasting. These places I choose to revisit and analyze aren’t often pretty when I first get there. I’m in this for the long haul rehab, knowing that there are treasures to be unearthed behind every painted-shut door. I’m not interested in the fix and flip, the glance and the look away for fear that looking too long might reduce me to straight-jacket land.

But. Like I said, this is work. And sometime I need a vacation. I think I just took one, and I’m back in one piece, ready to peel back another layer of paint. I’m sure there will be these gaps in my processing, those times when I have to take a step back, check out, lay in the sun for a spell and drink faux margaritas (real ones will take me into the over-points stratosphere) and nibble on pretzels. No checking in, no obligatory entries. Just me tending to what I’ve already planted, what has been exposed and needs patching. One thing at a time. I think weight loss isn’t just about losing pounds--it’s about gaining perspective.

And about choosing to stay.

the closer i get to you

Yesterday, as I was walking home from the bus stop, I had a little check in with myself. I observed that I had a pissy attitude. This pissitude had developed around cooking school, and why I was there and how I didn't feel like I wanted to continue, and I felt this kind of downward-spiral on a slippery-slope thing that's all too familiar. It's the point where I talk myself out of achieving a goal I've set for myself. I am really good at this. I am a master persuader. Ever see that old produce label with the picture of the kid in the baseball hat and above it the phrase "Lil' Hustler"? That's me. If I didn't have the power-Frau telling me that I'm not allowed to quit, I'd be out looking for a job today-- that is, right after I'd maybe done a few bonghits and watched STARTING OVER.

But I'm not there, am I? I'm still in school. In fact, I'm about to sit down at the kitchen table and write out my objectives for this quarter (my chef wants this information).

And what, pray tell, does all of this have to do with weightloss? It's the quitting, the eventual and inevitable lack of sticktoitiveness that develops over time. I always go there/here. It's the part of me that says

Right here is fine. Over there, that's too much work. It's not gonna be easy. I want easy.

and another thing:

Wah!

and so all that stuff seeps (or rather, surges) in, and I get washed back to where I was before, justifying myself the whole way. I don't need to get to goal. I've worked hard enough. I'm so damn tired.

But that's not an option anymore. I mean, I can't do it with cooking school, and in not doing it with cooking school, I'm looking at what it means to not do it at all, and let me tell you, I'm not so comfortable right now.

It's like someone's walked through this heaping pile of shit, and I can smell the shit, and it's like

Okay now, who walked through that?

only when I keep trying to trace the footsteps, I get this weird feeling, and then I look down at my feet (which are, by the way, bare) and Voila!, there it is in all it's steaming, streaking, smeared and stanking grandeur.

Oh, my.

So I've washed my feet off, but I can't really get over that kind of thing, and perhaps I shouldn't.

the power of numbers

For the first time since I started back at this, I've posted a gain. One pound exactly, close enough to the arrival of my Lady Days that it all makes sense, and yet it's sent me in a wee tailspin. When the scale goes up, I ask myself what I've done wrong, what I could do differently, if I'll ever make it, do I really want to, and so on, and on and on.

Never mind that it's normal. Never mind the old period, never mind a week in which I rested a lot, ate a a bit more than planned and generally speaking, did fine. None of that seems acceptable, whereas jumping to all kinds of conclusions (complete with booming Monster!Truck!Rally! voice in my head) does.

I don't know if I should indulge and explore all of this, or simply brush it off. Once upon a time, the weight I'm currently at would have been my goal. This is the weight I stopped at last time (and slowly rose above-- funny how that gain sounds so noble when phrased that way).

There's another voice that slips in when the stadium voice

Lazy! Girls! Gain!

is catching it's breath. It's kinda like my inner Jack Nicholson voice

It's just a fucking pound.

And it's just one week, and it really is just a snapshot. But it's stuff like this that makes a relatively reasonable person like myself get a little nutty.

So I keep asking myself, What can be done? And monster truck lady says

Stop!Eating!Now!Work!Out!Hard!

and Lady Nicholson (although I'd like to imagine her looking like Anjelica Huston) says

Cut some slack. You've done nothing wrong.

and I'd like to believe her, but it's so hard to muster compassion for myself.

It's one week in a lifetime of weeks. One pound in a lifetime of ups and downs and pounds. Perhaps this work, like the work I do on the inside of me, makes me weary. Yes, sometimes it does. But it's no different. Body and soul are one, despite my desires to see them as separate. How can I believe that if I "fix" my body, my mind and behaviour(s) will fall into place, effortlessly. It's one big, beautiful, tangled package. Knotted yarn, many shoestrings, all these powercords. I cannot isolate one, remove it, put it in order, without dealing (eventually) with all of them. Untangling is not for the impatient. And somedays, I don't possess the patience, somedays it's all about

Lose!Weight!Now!

and that's fine. I'll grant those Monster Truck Rallies of weight loss. But I don't have to go. I mean, can't I sit at home and watch it on TV? And I can sit on the floor with a big pile of knots and a hot cup of tea and I can slowly, casually untie stuff, right?

Right, baby, right.

8 more lbs GONE!

April Fool's. (damn)

Up earlier than usual on a Saturday, waiting for the coffee to properly steep in the French press.

S. still sleeps, dreams.

Yesterday was officially a tailspin. And to think it all started with a donut and ended with a hella delicious veggie calzone.

I need to get closer to this pissy, foot-stomp-on-floor-in-indignation part of myself who sees no better solution to letting off steam (and comforting nerves and allaying fears) than classic overindulgence.

A friend tried to kill himself this week. Tuesday and Wednesday, to be exact. He started drinking, as we understand it, around 9 am on Tuesday, and by noon he’d ingested 100 pills and who knows how much alcohol. He feel into a deep sleep, and woke many hours later, disoriented but alive, and positively livid that he was still breathing. We don’t know what transpired between the time he woke up and when he decided to go the carbon monoxide route in his garage, but when he didn’t show up for work on Thursday, his coworkers went looking and found him there. He’s now on 72 hour psych watch at a local hospital, and there is talk of detox. No one can visit him save family, so we wait. And wonder if we’d go visit anyway. Would I want a visitor following two botched suicide attempts? Probably not. But then again, we want him to know that he’s not alone in this. We want to say “damn you, we love you, don’t do that again, we know you’re really struggling and we don’t know exactly what to do but we’ll so something, just call us first.”

This difficult news, coupled with a horrendously stressful week at work (during which there were very specific moments when I wanted to bitch slap my spineless boss) and the general malaise of too much to do and never enough time to do it led me straight toward the road of debauchery yesterday. Oh yeah, and it was Friday, and I have discovered recently that my salivary glands start sending messages to my brain around three o’clock every Friday and the message is simple: two hours til happy hour. Damn 9-5 workdays that string together into a work week and come crashing into Friday with a whoop and holler and cocktail in hand. Dare I say it is the way of the (my) world?

My road began Friday morning with a simple donut, old fashioned glazed from the local supermarket, continued into leftover lemongrass shrimp (with brown rice!) for lunch and then roared headlong into chips and guacamole and beer and margaritas as the evening turned to night. By 8 pm I was savoring every bite of a veggie calzone add jalapenos and garlic while watching the extremely weird but incredibly thought-provoking film, Donnie Darko.

Now. There was a time when the guilt I felt from indulging in this manner would be, well, present, but not overwhelming. This time was different. And frankly, as I write this, sitting here as the day comes on and Daisy sighs loudly (which translates to “get thee dressed and take me on a walk”), I feel a tremendous need to try and undo all the “damage” of yesterday and move my body. The guilt, if that IS what this emotion is (I think it’s far too complicated than that) it pretty overwhelming, actually. I’m not sure why I can’t seem to alter my world enough to fit my dream of a healthier me. Patterns, yes. Cultural/social norms, check. Crutches, present. Is it control? Is it wanting to project the idea that I have changed without anyone ever noticing that I tried? Ah, that’s interesting. Projecting effortlessness. See, I am so good at discipline that no one knows how frantically I’m pulling the levers behind this curtain of incredibly thin skin. After all, evidence of trying invites failure potential. And I have failed so much, so many. Better not to let on at all. Better to show up one day, 30 lbs lighter, and have someone say “you look like you’ve lost weight! Have you been doing anything different?” to which I can simply shrug my shoulders and respond “just trying to make some changes.” See? No big deal. No celebratory parade.

And just beneath that insanely transparent response, a thin, reedy whisper: “I’ve been walking through fire. I’m hungry almost all the time. I don’t know how long I can keep this up. Lifetime? Maintenance? Pure drudgery. Counting points is for the weak.”

On that load of shit note, I’m off to take that walk.