there is no there there

I'm still working on understanding this whole maintenance thing, or rather, my relationship to it.

I woke up early this morning and asked myself why I felt so unsettled. I realized that I've been a bit stressed out about weight loss/maintenance, like I'm fighting this losing battle. Part of it stems from the fact that I decided to lose 5 more pounds, and that hasn't happened. In fact, I've been within 2 pounds of my goal weight ever since I made goal (whenever that was). This is an achievement. But the part of me that likes the idea of weighing 165 is not happy. So I'm having to look at that and ask myself if that target is a realistic goal. There's a concept: realistic rather than idealistic.

I work with food. I love love love love love food. I will always have to make my decisions carefully in this arena. I'm getting used to that.

I exercise. Alot. Each of the past two days went something like this: 45 minute moderate-brisk/strenuous ride to work, 9 hours line cooking (standing, reaching, crouching, lifting, twirling [really] in that "busy little beehive of a kitchen"[direct quote of a customer]), 45 minute moderate-brisk/strenuous ride home. The other days I work aren't much different, save for a slightly shorter ride in.

So I've gotten to wondering why I'm not still losing. And, when I consider it, I don't know that I like the idea that I require all this exercise to maintain a healthy weight. Maybe that's because maintaining this much exercise also requires eating, and, well, could eating make me nervous?

The last thing I can afford to do is undereat. It makes working horrible, and bicycle commuting even worse. So It's a matter of making sure I get enough fuel without worrying that I'm not OP, or following a plan. And I want the pleasure of food, too. I don't wanna freak out about eating a banana (the best bike fuel I know) because it's 2 whole points, and what if I run out at the end of the day. See, I can get a little punitive, I can run my world on a scarcity model. But here's the deal-- if I keep the exercise up, I don't have to punish myself for (most of) my gastronomical desires. I also don't have to turn exercise into this evil, unenjoyable "food pass" program, either.

Oh, my. I'm still working this out. I'm still trying to find my way, to get where this all feels normalized, like it's just what I do. Only, maybe it'll always be what I think to do.

everybody's smoking and no one's getting high

I'll admit it. I had this idea that maintenance was gonna be easier than it seems to be. I mean, I thought I'd somehow have this base from which to operate, a kind of steady framework that--- oh, wait a minute, I thought I'd have an autopilot, that's what I thought. So here I am, and it feels like working without losing, and I might just have to stick my thumb in my mouth (thumb! a zero-point food!) and cry. Maybe it's because I can't identify any reward from staying (more, or less) the same every week. I know that good health and energy and all that count, but at this point, I must fess up to being more tied into my quantitative nature than I'd like to admit.

I want stuff. I want numbers, sliding. I want results.

And maybe I don't see them. That's entirely possible. It's just that I thought this would be, well, more harmonious. I thought it would feel different. Now let me back up and say that I do feel different than I did a year ago. I feel much better. I guess I thought that there would be an overall "rightness" to everything I do, but that isn't here (or at least not this month). I still have to think about what I put in my mouth. I still have to make sure I get enough exercise to balance the stuff that goes into said mouth. I suppose that this is actually a normal state of affairs for most people who are trying to maintain a healthy weight, and seeing as I have never really maintained a healthy weight, my surprise is really no, uh, surprise.

But I still feel surprise at figuring this out. Wah! I'm a little shocked, despite my intellect.

So how to reframe this? How to make this work? How to somehow etch this ledger of ins and outs deep into my consciousness, how to work it into my routine in a meaningful and positive manner?

How?

oooh, that smell. the smell of it surrounds you...

when I ride to my catering job, there are two different routes I can take. One, through the locks and then Magnolia, exposes me to the rather flavorul waft of Fish and Chips production at Trident Seafoods. The other, through Fremont, then up and over Dexter Avenue, brings me past Hostess Cakes. Hostess Cakes often emits the unmistakable scent of glazed fruit pies as I pedal by.

I'm not gonna stop my bike and saunter in to either location. But I do find it interesting to note the power of smell, and how it can make you feel, well, insane or, perhaps, like you'd like to relinquish all self-control to either sugar or grease. And it isn't the sugar or grease itself, but maybe the memories lodged therein, the comfort (or so you thought) contained in an Apple Pie or Fish Sticks, and how strange for me that after all these years, I still haven't shaken all that loose.

perhaps I'll find a new route in-- one that sends out the unmistakable aroma of love.

ForwardHO

Today is a landmark day.

It's not like I'm back to eating water crackers and carrott sticks three square meals a day (hell, I was never that strict) but I am doing all that I can to set myself up to WIN re: WW and healthy eating and...healthy thinking, the latter being the hardest of course. I changed my screen name on WW and basically revamped my profile. I needed a fresh start. I like my new name, even if it's a tad dramatic: ForwardHope. I have felt quite backwards lately, or, more to the point, like I was sliding back into a morass of self loathing and self-destruction, and I didn't like the way that felt, not one bit. So a reclamation of sorts is in order, and I'm starting small, careful not to set myself up for failure.

I thought the other day: What if you died tomorrow? You would never know what it was like to inhabit a body you love. And that made me so very sad. I also had a conversation recently with my ex, during which she told me about the love triangle that her indecision continues to perpetuate and I remember saying to her (in reference to the "other woman"), "Are you in love with her?" .......silence, umm's....and then, regarding her partner, from whom she is currently separated "Are you in love with HER?" and the response was a quick "of course!" I then responded with "then you have your answer! Life is just too short..." which is so fucking pat, I know, but dammit it's true!! And why am I not applying it to my own life? Why am I so convinced that I'm shit, rotten from the outside in? Because I was taught to believe that. Because I let myself believe it. Because notions of beauty, when I was growing up, were based on impossible measurements that I would/could never attain.

This moment, this day, is when all the power I have left--whatever shred of self-respect and strength I can muster--is called upon to be present. I'm pushing this obese specter off of me with all my might and looking it square in the eye. I'm saying no more you fat fuck. I won't let you hurt me anymore. Now go have that fifth serving of pasta and that fourth martini and leave me to my happiness, will you?

Faithfulness to the past is a kind of death above ground. Writing of the past is a resurrection; the past then lives in your words and you are free.

enough

I annoy myself the most, you know.

Feels like the spell is broken, or at least cracked. I had this epiphany yesterday about this whole marriage/family/weight thing, a moment in which all issues aligned and I was able see myself clearly for the first time in many many days. What I'm feeling now, what I have been experiencing during this dark time is OLD OLD OLD, meaning young young young, and of course I would revert back to tried and true behaviours that work, or so I like to believe. Eat, smoke, drink, write, smoke some more, sip, exhale, scratch out a line, then two, let your fingers do the talking. I spent a good part of Sunday writing, and now, looking back at lines I penned just 48 hours ago, I can clearly see the adolescent pain and rage bleeding on to the page. Good. I'll leave it to stop on its own. No one will tell me that what I have chosen-whom I have chosen-is not good and right and perfect. No one.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=354057227367687976

I think it's time to start calling my father by his first name. He hates that.

if you speak the truth, they will shun

It's been raining for two days now. We've officially entered the Colorado monsoon season, and there are greens emerging that we aren't usually privvy to here in the central Rockies. Lovely really. It forces people indoors, incites reaarrangement of closets and linen chests, slows down the manic forces inherent to this city. The zinnias look like they've been injected by steroids, and if I don't move the potted (read: restrained) morning glory from it's current climbing route, it's going to invade the entire corner of the garden.

I've been completely unmotivated and uninterested in just about anything resembling exercise and healthy eating. It's not SO bad, i.e. I am not shoveling the Mickey D's into my bottomless gut or macking on a whole pizza, but I did buy a pounder bag of peanut m & m's last Tuesday (the "mega" kind in "rich colors," which includes cornflower blue, a maroon evoking the Victorian age, and god forgive us, the ubiquitous taupe) and the bag is almost gone. I've been on an avocado binge. Yesterday, for lunch, I savored a cup of butternut squash soup and a chinois salad at the local Puck cafe. Yogurt and granola and fresh blueberries at 4:30. Amy's burrito especial topped with homemade salsa and low fat sour cream and guac at 7:30. M & M's by 9 p.m.

I'm lonely and I'm still angry. I miss S terribly, and four more long days exist between the now and the time she returns to her home, her life, her wife. Our wedding feels light years behind us. I spoke to my father yesterday for the first time since I told him that I got married and the conversation was terse, superficial. He was busy trimming ribs and pork butt for a barbeque feast. I could imagine the small bottles of my father's dry rubs lined up on the kitchen counter, awaiting their chance to flavor the racks of meat stacked three, four high on the butcher block. Though I made it through the Fourth of July holiday without consuming any pork products (one hamburger, one hot dog), I've experienced a low level of craving for bbq for weeks now. One of the finest bbq establishments in the city sits a mere five blocks from my house. I love their ribs, the accompanying greens and corn bread. But resist I have. I must. I've fallen too far already.

I am fighting a fight that has no clear winner. The winner should be me, but the finish line is barely perceptible, if at all, through this fog of expectations thwarted, hopes dashed. I am desperately, desperately trying to retain a semblance of power and balance through it all. And I'm not doing the best job of it, which pisses me off to no end, because I'm thirty-fucking-five years old and I'm exhausted by myriad attempts at being seen--truly seen and loved--in my family and I thought that I'd stopped caring long ago. But we never really stop caring, right? I can put up a good fight and put on a happy face, but deep inside I'm ready to blow. I don't want to beg for validation here. I just want to be treated like every other newlywed who just took the biggest leap of her life...

I say thirty-five, but the truth is, I'll be 36 in five short weeks. Take the first number and double it. 3 + 3 = 6. Half a life ago I graduated from high school; half a life ago I tasted my first bit of sweet Chiba. I was more than happy to leave the halls of GlenOak High, pack up my things, and head 40 miles from my hometown to a small liberal arts college that would, for the next four years, challenge and infuriate and test me as I uncovered the intellectual, sexual and emotional person that I was meant to be. Or so I thought. Leaving behind the boring, wet streets of Canton, Ohio was not difficult, but I had not an inkling of an idea that those seemingly innocent "experiments" with marijuana would result in the drug binding to my receptors and refusing to let go-- smoke curling into my brain and covering everything like a diaphanous blanket, softening reality, distancing me from pain. Weed as miracle worker. And now, half a life later, I believe it has become my albatross, my secret burden, the thing-that-works-like-a-charm-but-with-definite-trade-offs. I am so far from myself these days that when I look in the mirror I see little more than a screened back image, ghost-like, my ever-fatter body double, doubling.

There. I said it.

and perhaps i should add

this place of being more stiner-- it's not all that familiar. I often think I'm more familiar with my other sense of self-- the one that I've formed over the years, the one that is a system of beliefs about myself, rather than the reality of how I can feel, or what I'm actually capable of doing.

there. that's enough about me.

lately, i've been thinking

yeah, I've been thinking about the difficulty or effort involved in weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight. I've been asking myself which is harder, living this way, or slipping back to the old ways and going that route. I'd have to say the latter, though the perceived difficulty of not paying attention seems to be nil. But it isn't.

to my mind at least, life is less of a struggle right now. Sure, there's the paying attention, the not slipping up, the constant weighing of options, the striving to find healthy routine-- there's all of that. But it's ultimately energizing. When I go back to not paying attention, to doing what (I think) I want, there's this way that my core energy is slowly depleted, this way where I move further away from some sense of essential self. There's also that shit where my clothes don't fit and I feel (for lack of a better word) useless.

i'm thinking and writing this because i need a reminder, because after losing much of my sense of routine, i've gotten ungrounded, and now, in the process of trying to get all of that back, i've had to remember what comes with it.

it's a whole lotta intangibles really. Sure there's feeling better in my (few) clothes-- but to call it better is understatement. I don't just feel better, I feel Stiner.

More Stiner.