the century mark

I see that we have hit 100 posts here at Chewing the Fat. What an accomplishment! I am very proud of us. I am saluting us. Of course, I am no thinner than I was when we started this blog, but that's okay, right? It's the process that counts, yes?

Hope is the thing without butter and cream added to it. Forgive me Ms. Dickinson, but in this 21st century, "the thing with feathers" does not cut it. Hope, for me, is one moment at a time, conquering an hour wherein I do not consume that pan of brownies, or (alone), head for the local burrito joint and mosh on a plate full of carnitas. It is making it to the end of the day without hiding in my kitchen, out of ear shot and vision from my wife, scraping the bottom of the casserole dish and savoring every little piece of cheesy fond. It is believing that someday soon, I can get back on the scale and not have a nervous breakdown when the digital numbers flash a weight that makes me yearn for repeated bulemic episodes.

I ate enough for a small village over the Thanksgiving holiday. I am still digesting, one week later. Most of the left overs are gone, but some still remain. Nothing that I can't ignore though. The dastardly mac-n-cheese that I made from these leftovers (turkey, green-bean-&-mushroom casserole, greyure, parm, milk, elbow mac all layered and baked to brown perfection) is finally gone. S. ate the last of it two nights ago. No more lemon cake (a friend who was here for Thanksgiving was also celebrating a birthday, so of course I had to make a cake), no more mashed potatoes, no more stuffing. A little cranberry sauce here, a few turkey pieces there. I think our turkey carcass is still in the cooler out back, but it's 12 degrees outside and I don't feel like freezing my ass off to go dump the boney thing in the alley. It's not like it's going anywhere or is going to start to smell. It's wrapped in five plastic bags and I've already picked it clean. I don't think there will be any turkey stock this year. I need to leave this holiday behind, make it a distant memory.

Hope is believing that I can handle Christmas a little better than I did Thanksgiving.

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

cold-- or maybe lukewarm-- turkey

I am back in the saddle-- or perhaps sidesaddle-- on my weightloss/maintenance pony. I am hooked on phonics I am learning to read and I am writing it all down (as much as I hate it-- or rather, hate that this is what I must do).

I do like some turkey carcass soup.

a good day to weigh-- not!

the day before yesterday I stepped upon ye olde Tanita even though I was 9 hours into what has turned out the be one of the fouler (as in heavier, puffier) periods in recent memory.

so I stepped on the scale and had a little gasp and then decided that this would be a "bye" week in terms of recording my weight, but as I type that now, I think, HEY! WHO AM I FOOLING? Like I can neatly compartmentalize and forget what the scale said? So maybe I will record it, in an effort to let go of it rather than lugging around the image of those numbers in my head and referring to myself by code names such as Chubette and Puffy.

Let's face it: it's a sucky time of year for maintenance, even. I exercised a fair amount last week, but it's been tough. Oh, and the period. What a mind-fuck that is. So I may be at my winter weight and not even know it, or I may be higher (or lower) but at some point I have to let go of number and ask myself,

How do you want to be this week?

I think I wanna be better. I think I wanna make some healthier decisions, despite my constant desire to check out from the stress that is finishing this derned culinary program. So that's what I'm gonna do.

And I'm not gonna get all dogmatic on my own ass (weightloss equivalent of chasing one's own tail). Just a few little goals for activity-- maybe "1/2 hour a day, minimum" or some such thing.

I got it yesterday that I'm tired. The 18 - 20 mile roundtrip ride for school isn't even possible some days due to my exhaustion. That's sad. That said, a brisk walk somewhere in there is completely possible.

I'm gonna go put that scary number in my spreadsheet. And then I'm gonna start making my way back up that slippery slope.

return of the black jeans

S. and I live in a bungalow in NE Denver that was built in 1906. We love it, and are constantly working on it, but historic housing does have its drawbacks. The biggest one, as far as I'm concerned, is closet space.

We have two closets, one in each bedroom. That's IT. No hall closet, no linen closet, nada. Just the bedroom closets, which are deep but not that big, and we've managed to fill them completely with--shocker!--clothes, but only about 30% of what we own. The other 70% lives in our "dressing room,"which is really just laundry baskets and shelves and plastic drawers (ew) cobbled together in the basement. I don't get dressed without a trip to the basement. Most days I don't mind it. This morning, however, it sucked dirty socks.

See, I was looking for a pair of grey pants with a wide cuff that I thought would look stylin' with my red jacket and red clogs. I'd seen the pants amid our clothing piles at one point in the not-so-distant-past, so I thought maybe I could find them again. Wrong-O. I searched and searched--no pants. I bitched at S. about our "clothes situation" and she just looked at me with a pained look on her face. (It is all she can do, in these moments, not to try and make everything okay, not to try to "fix" it. Her silence is an indication that she is succeeding in this endeavor, and I can't get angry about it, really, because she CAN'T fix it, unless she's planning on building closets in the basement today.) I couldn't find the ding dang pants. In exasperation, I grabbed a pair of black jeans that I used to wear all the time (five years ago) and tried them on.

I had been thinking about the black jeans as I drifted off the sleep the night before. I don't know what made me think of them, but I wondered what would happen if I tried them on. I was afraid to try them on. I vaguely remembered a time, maybe two years ago, before my first WW-induced weight loss, when I wore them and, driving home that night, felt so fat and uncomfortable that I punched my bulging stomach while stopped at a light. My self hatred was so palpable that I had to take it out on something--and there was my stomach, my nasty punching bag, just waiting to take the blows.

I don't remember the next time I wore the black jeans. I do recall a time when they were loose, when my legs swam in them, and I liked that feeling. I remember once, quite clearly, when I was walking to the bathroom at work and I could feel the fabric billowing about my legs. When does denim ever billow? Ah, the good ol days.

So this morning, completely exasperated by my inability to find my grey pants, I pulled out the black jeans from the bottom of the PANTS laundry basket. Cautiously optimistic, I tried them on. I buttoned them. They were snug, but they fit. I walked around a bit. Could I wear these all day? Would I find myself driving home tonight, abusing myself because eight hours in tight jeans makes me want to cut off my gut?

Well, here I am, at the office, wearing my black jeans. So far so good. I feel kinda sexy in them, because they FIT. They're not baggy (I will admit to missing the billow) but they're not take-your-breath and dig-into-belly-skin tight either. I feel a modicum of victory, actually. Like maybe, just maybe, there's hope for this body yet.

serenity prayer, November

Gawd, grant me the serenity
to accept the MINI PUMPKIN CHEESECAKES I cannot eat,
the courage to eat the MINI PUMPKIN CHEESECAKES I can,
and the MINI PUMPKIN CHEESECAKES to know the difference.

the gas we pass (out)

Sometimes, when you're working out, the little gas maniacs (as in GAStrointestinal) release nasty little toots when you least expect it. Most of the time the combination of music blaring from various speakers and the mechanized sounds of exercise machines provide the white noise necessary to drown out a chorus of flatulence, but sometimes...

As in every day goings on, it's the SBD's that you have to worry about. I bring all this up because someone was working out next to me yesterday who had the foulest ass EVAH, and it was all I could do to keep from moving from the equipment upstairs to an environment of pure(r) air downstairs. One would think that the four fans blowing at us from various angles would serve to stir up the stench and dissipate it, but in this case, the cloud of nastiness hung around myself and my fellow workout brethren like a swarm of newly hatched black flies pestering an unwitting (insane) sunbather on an otherwise lovely June day in Canada's Kawarthas. No matter how many times I held my breath in hopes that the fetid smell would dissipate (and one should not, really, be holding one's breath while simultaneously increasing one's heart rate), I could not escape it.

Really, let's be honest here: if you're farting up a storm while working out and you KNOW it smells (there is no way this person could NOT know unless s/he was born without a nose, and no one fitting that description was nearby) then maybe you should go to the bathroom? Squeeze the nastiness out? Yeah, I know, it's hard to let oneself relax in a public bathroom, and even harder when the sound of your ass emissions are amplified like echoes into a vast canyon, but perhaps employing the lesser of two evils is the way to approach this matter. Wouldn't you rather suffer through a moment or two of embarrassment in a somewhat-anonymous private stall than instill the wrath of fellow exercisers as they huff and puff --deeply breathing, deeply deeply--the gaseous remains of your chimichanga?

I ran into a friend right as I was getting off my machine. She looked at me and said "lucky you, you're all done" and I said "and how, someone's got some nasty gas in here." She had noticed it too. "You'd think the fans would help," she said. "You'd think," I replied over my shoulder, hightailing it to the showers.

permission granted

I am trying to do what I can do to make it through this particularly, uh, stagnant time of year. I think I want the T-shirt of this one...

a day of mourning, a day of celebration...

...I say Let's Eat.

Or, in the words of Baudelaire: "ask the wind, the wave, the stars, the clock, all that which flees, all that which groans, all that which rolls, all that which sings, all that which speaks, ask them, what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the stars, the birds, and the clock, they will all reply: "It is time to get drunk! So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk, get drunk, and never pause for rest! With wine, poetry, or virtue, as you choose!"

I'm so all talk. But it sounds good. It seems fitting, given the fact that the citizenry of seven states in the good ol US of A felt that it was their duty to "protect" marriage from the evil clutches of homosexuals.

This morning, to be quite frank, I was spitting barbed thoughts at all my straight friends (in my head):

"What did YOU do to help us gain equal rights?!!"
"Another notch on the belt of heterosexual privilege. Lucky you."
"Bitter? Who me? Now why would this second class citizen dyke be bitter?"
"You might as well be a Republican."

I know this does nothing to further the cause of equal rights for GLBT folks. But I can't help but think of those friends who DO enjoy hundreds of rights (given to them simply because they said "I Do" to someone of the opposite sex) on a daily basis and they don't think twice about it. Yeah, I know, we should all be jumping up and down over the victories in the House and Senate. I don't take any of that for granted, but let's face it--the people decided to send a message to the President about the Iraq War and he could not help but see this "thumping" (his words) as a call for Change. But I don't believe that those who chose to send that message were thinking, in any way, about the thousands of GLBT people who are disenfranchised in this country every day. I am not saying that equal rights for GLBT people should take precedent over the Iraq war quagmire--I just think that these democratic victories are not some great indication of a sea change in social policy in America. The individual state races made that very, very clear.

I should say too that it's not just the straight-but-not-narrow people who I was screaming at in my head. I also have to acknowledge the members of my own (rainbow) family who believed that this domestic partnership bill was just a half-assed way to keep gay people from having the exact same rights as straight people. These folks want MARRIAGE, all of it, and nothing else will do. How many people who share this mindset actually voted no on I? Did it swing the outcome? We will never know. All I can think to say is Why? Why not take what we can get in a world that would rather, it seems, see us disappear than hold out for a miracle that WILL NOT COME in our lifetime? What's the point? Is making a political statement more important than having the right to visit my wife in an intensive care unit?

I'm tired. It's not over 'til the fat lady sings, and I ain't sung yet, but I barely have a voice at this point.

I love you, Pants. I will use my last breath to say that, over and over and over again, and even if you never read this, it's out there. I am a woman who loves a woman and in that I feel absolutely positively no shame.

My shame rests with the people of Colorado, who voted with their fear and not their hearts.

election day

There's a lot at stake in these mid-term elections, and Colorado--my home-- is no exception.

I am going to step back from the weighty issues that usually pepper this blog and say a few things here about what today means to me as a (legally) married lesbian taxpaying homeowner.

First, context. Once revered and seen as one of God's chosen people, the reverend Ted Haggard has fallen from grace--swiftly. Haggard was "outed" by a gay male prostitute who claims that he had sex with Haggard monthly for three years and also helped Haggard obtain crystal meth, a drug that is commonly used to heighten the sexual experience.

Initially, Haggard denied the claims. He said he didn't know this man, this "Mike Jones." A day later, he copped to knowing Jones and buying meth ("I was curious") but said he threw the meth away. Now Haggard has lost his pulpit and left town with his wife and five kids. The elders of Haggard's New Life Church claim that he was not removed because he had gay relations; he was removed because he committed an "immoral" act--adultery.

"When there is a relationship outside marriage - regardless of who it is with - it is immoral. It didn't matter to us if it was a male or a female, if it were bestiality. It would have been immoral." --the Rev. Michael Ware, senior pastor of Victory Church in Westminster, CO

Ah, once again, engaging in bestiality isn't close behind engaging in gay sex.

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4614255

Here's the thing. If Haggard were man enough (yes, gay men are real men too) to come out of the closet and admit to being gay, he could single-handedly blow huge holes in the Religious Right's argument that being gay is a choice. Instead, Haggard uses words like "darkness" and "repulsive" to describe his illicit affair with a gay male prostitute. Yeah, if I were having sex with a prostitute, I'd probably feel a little icky. But that's not the "darkness" that Haggard refers to. His "darkness" is all about attraction to the same sex, and we are to believe that the only way to see "light" is to be heterosexual.

Haggard will undergo a "restoration process," which is supposed to prove (or disprove) whether or not Haggard is gay. Make no mistake that if those involved in Haggard's "restoration" find that he is, indeed, gay, "restoration" will become "devastation." Haggard will be forced to exorcise his "gay demons" and be "healed". Thank goodness Christ was a heterosexual so we can point to our Lord and Savior as an example of a good straight male who happened to be the son of God.

From Haggard's letter to his congregation:

"There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life. For extended periods of time, I would enjoy victory and rejoice in freedom. (I would lie to myself and my family and my friends. VICTORY!) Then, from time to time, the dirt that I thought was gone would resurface, (what are you, a window?) and I would find myself thinking thoughts and experiencing desires that were contrary to everything I believe and teach. Through the years, I've sought assistance in a variety of ways, with none of them proving to be effective in me. (Oh really? could it be because you're GAY?) Then, because of pride, I began deceiving those I love the most because didn't want to hurt or disappoint them. The public person I wasn't a lie; it was just incomplete. When I stopped communicating about my problems, the darkness (i.e. The Truth) increased (fought for light) and finally dominated me. As a result, I did things that were contrary to everything I believe. Because of the negative publicity I've created with my foolishness, we can now demonstrate to the world how our sick and wounded can be healed (like lepers?), and how even disappointed and betrayed church bodies can prosper and rejoice."

I am appalled by this rhetoric. It sickens me to think that there are thousands upon thousands of people in Colorado and beyond who take hate-filled words like Haggard's to heart. And all of this on the eve of election day, when voters in Colorado will decide whether or not committed GLBT couples will receive the same basic legal rights afforded to heterosexual couples. And then there's Amendment 43, which proposes adding a new section to Article II of the Colorado Constitution that defines marriage in Colorado as only a union between one man and one woman. The ads touting 43 are terribly offensive to me--just watch this:

http://www.cofamily.org/smp/media_player.htm?&playMedia=video%7CGenerations

Then there's this comment, pulled from the mouths of ignorant idiots who call themselves Colorado Family Action: "But the fact is that gay people are already treated fairly and equally to all other citizens."

What the fu...? My wife can still be fired from her job for being gay. Matthew Shepard was not murdered because he was wearing an ugly sweater. The military's policy of "don't ask, don't tell" is not just lip service. Prosecuting hate crimes against GLBT persons is a joke; most states don't even recognize the fact that GLBT hate crimes exist. How can anyone say that I am treated fairly and equally as a lesbian? Hell, I'm not even treated fairly as a woman! I still make an average of 25% less than a man, regardless of my position or experience.

I could write about these issues all day, but I actually have a job and there's much work to be done. I do feel, however, that if the citizens of my state choose to amendmentement 43 and vote down Ref. I, my wife and I will be seriously talking of leaving. We're done living in a place where our love is seen as a disease that needs to be cured. We're sick of Dobson and his ilk. We had to leave our own freakin' country in order to marry, and that in itself was a huge blow to our feeling "at home" in the good ol' U.S. of A. But now it's all in our backyard, and make no mistake--in light of the Haggard debacle, myriad (brainless) voters are going to seize on the need to keep the Homos in Check and vote yes on 43 and no on I. Should this happen, my heart will break. And we will all lose.

bike ride

Okay, I'm gonna post something really quick before my meeting...

This past Saturday, me and my gal, we went riding. Bike riding that is--we huffed it to the new Tattered Cover/Twist and Shout location (local independent book/music store combo, so cool), bought thank you notes, rode to Hamburger Mary's (local gay-esque hamburger joint), ate lunch, wrote cards, then rode home. All in all, I'd say we spent about 40 minutes on our bikes. For me, to be honest, this is not HUGE, but for S.--it is. It's monumental. And it made me sooooooooo happy. It made me swoon. It made me grab the lapels of her coat and pull her to me while we were standing on the sidewalk after lunch, pull her sweet face to me and kiss her big. She was pretty spent when we got home, but I could tell she was happy that she did it. I am so proud of her. A family that exercises together...

what if?

this morning on the way to the bustop, before I checked my voicemail and found out my oldest friend's father passed away and then felt the freedom of crying about it while walking in the rain, I was thinking about the seasonality of weight. So I'm gonna go there again now, hours and hours later.

I guess it just occurred to me that we are not static beings. Like the seasons, we take on energies and changes and this fall/winter thing, instead of feeling constantly at odds with a few extra pounds, why can't I just embrace them as part of the cycle? I'll tell you why (it seems) I can't:
I don't believe it's just for the season.
I don't believe (in my head) that I'm connected to the natural world.

I think it's time for me to re-envision weight as it relates to time. Is there really anything wrong with allowing my body this (say, 5 pound) weight as I make my way through a cold, wet somewhat less active season. Can I trust that my energy and vibrancy will return in full when the days grow longer and warmer and brighther? What would it mean to accept myself as I am, 5 pounds heavier than my ideal, knowing that the winter is a less than ideal time for me, that it's not about being all that I can be, but rather, resting, restoring, being a bit more sedentary than I might like, but perhaps perhaps perhaps that's a natural cycle?

Is it?

Can I live with myself without being at odds? Can I accept this, accept me, as I am right now without it being an excuse or a segueway into ye old slippery slope of "I don't need to weigh myself anymore and I don't care" or whatever. What if I give myself permission? And what if I give myself the same permission to work my way back to 170 when the energies permit?

How will I know? I guess I'll have to find out...

me and my shadow

An inner dialogue:

Helloween candy is Satanic.

(Butterfingers have healing properties.)

I hate the way ingesting too much sugar makes me feel.

(Now really, how many calories are in a single M & M?)

My stomach is bigger than a basketball.

(I just got paid! Let's go gorge ourselves on sushi!)

Pot gives me the munchies. I just have to face it. Pot is not my weight loss friend. Even as a weekend warrior, it's no bueno, because then on the weekends, I'm consuming enough for three. Or four.

(Is it 4:20 somewhere?)

They say that consuming three eight-ounce glasses of milk a day can significantly help with weight loss.

(Surely a quarter cup of half-n-half counts as one eight-ounce glass of milk. And it's all in my coffee! Double bonus!)

If I exercise after every meal, I'll lose weight for sure!

(I am not obsessive. I am not obsessive. I am not obsessive.)

And so it goes.

Of course, now that me and Michelle Kwan are workout partners, I'll be at the gym daily! Well, okay, we're not really weight loss partners, but she and I did work out together--I mean, in the same vicinity--yesterday. It took me a minute to figure out where I "knew" her from...was it work? No, not work. I was definitely getting the TV vibe. Maybe she's on 9News; maybe she's Adelle Arakawa's love child. No...no...wait! I know! Put a red string around her neck, dress her in a skin tight 'tard and frilly mini-skirt and yes! It's Michelle Kwan!

I feel bad for her, though...there she is, hauling it on the elliptical, and this guy next to her is totally stopped on his machine, mid-stride, chattering away about some bullshit. She nods, provides the occasional, "mmmhmm" and tries to be polite, but I can tell that she's thinking "shut the fuck up You." How many times a day does she have to put up with this kind of privacy invasion? How often is she stopped while walking across the DU campus and asked some inane question about skating, or training, or the Olympics? Does she carry a Sharpie for autographs? Does she carry pepper spray? I bet she wishes that she had her pepper spray on her now so she could hold it up to the loser who won't stop talking and say, calmly, "Either you let me work out in peace or you're going to leave this place screaming."

(Ninja Kwan! I bow before thee.)