When the Heart’s Desire Is a Little Backwards

Posted on October 18, 2015 by KatieComeBack

So it appears that there’s a Harry Potter marathon on TV this weekend.

Of course, upon making this discovery, we immediately abandoned our plans (which, admittedly, weren’t any more ambitious than to order takeout and to bingewatch Season 4 of Friends. But Friends is on Netflix ANY time, right? Okay, Harry Potter probably is, too, but it’s just DIFFERENT when you can’t pause it AND it’s peppered with commercials for fast food, pharmaceuticals, and feminine hygiene products, and it’s ONLY THIS WEEKEND so we HAVE to watch it NOW NOW NOW!)

<cough> Anyway.

Since we’re ordering takeout today, I’ve already wasted much of the morning agonizing over THAT Big Life-Changing Decision – what to get, how much to get, do I splurge on pizza or stick to steamed veggies and chicken, and don’t even THINK about ice cream….

If you live in this hell, you know the drill.

<strums guitar> Come on and join me in the campfire singalong!

Can I eat this many calories today?

Will the sodium bloat me for a week?

Will the kids notice if I only eat half of it?

Will I be able to only eat half of it? (HAHAHAHAHA no)

How long will it take to run this off?

Can’t you all just shut up and let me freaking EAT?

Um…What’s for dessert?

Compounding the struggle to complete this mental exercise is the painful guilt bruise I’m sporting courtesy of last night’s food bender. In addition to a balanced, healthy dinner (OK, it was Taco Bell, SHADDUP) I managed to stuff both a 6-serving bag of cheese popcorn AND two Hershey bars down my pie hole. (This dalliance will take at least three runs to burn off. UGH.) So I shouldn’t be eating much today. But I should eat SOMETHING, but I don’t know what, or how much, and I’m ~~not even~~ have no right to be hungry anyway, right? RIGHT?!?

And dammit, none of this is worth the energy I spend on it. It’s just food, not deciding which kid to feed to the dragons first. (Although today one is sporting a significant ‘tude that might make THAT selection pretty simple.)

While I was arguing passionately with the voices in my head, a scene from the movie (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) interrupted the melee and momentarily silenced the crowd.

Harry’s skulking along under a camo tarp that makes him invisible, spying on his teachers (we ALL wanted a peek at what REALLY goes on in the mysterious Teacher’s Lounge, didn’t we?) when he stumbles upon a magical mirror. When he peers into it, what he sees reflected back is an image of himself – WITH his parents. Now, Harry’s parents were killed by the Main Scary Evil Villain Dude when Harry was a baby, so he actually has no memory of his parents…but there they are in the mirror, looking back at him, smiling away all normal like they’re ready to toss him a football and bake him some cookies or something.

Harry eagerly brings his token redhead buddy to the mirror, excited to show proof that he didn’t self-generate from an unfortunate chemical spill. But Copper Mop doesn’t see Harry’s folks in the mirror. Instead, he sees himself actually passing gym class, or something. (Lame.)

But it wasn’t some evil ginger magic that broke the mirror. We learn this from the Grand Poobah Wizard Bro, who swings by in a few and says when he looks in the mirror, he only gets to see himself holding a pair of socks. (Lame, but less lame than gym class. I mean, socks can have, like, penguins on them. Penguins trump gym class any day.)

So it turns out that the mirror is rigged to reflect “only the deepest desire of our hearts.”

But now that the cool trick is revealed, the Head Honcho in a Poncho says he’s going to go off and hide the thing in a land far, far away. Because people are stupid, and lack willpower, and will sit in front of the blasted contraption for hours, days, even WEEKS, going bonkers, dying of starvation, or both, while obsessively staring into the glass, seeing exactly what they want to see.

(So, basically…it’s TV tuned to Say Yes to the Dress, or Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Come on, TELL me you haven’t lost HOURS of your life riveted to that drivel. Ah well. Since so many establishments deliver food via text or emoji nowadays, at least we won’t starve to death.)

(AND AND AND. Come on, Dumbledore. “I’m gonna hide it, but don’t you dare try to find it, because it’s bad for you.” Dude, that didn’t work on any kid, EVER, for shiz like Christmas gifts or Halloween candy; how exactly do you picture this working for something as SUPER AWESOME as an enchanted mirror? Clearly you don’t have much experience with the prepubescent set. I guess that’s why your magic school doesn’t start with pre-K.)

So it’s clear that this mirror is powerful, but dangerous. Dumbledore says something fairly profound about it:

Wait. What?

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Remember that.“

Whoa there, Sorcerer Santa Man. That hits pretty close to home.

All this extraneous noise in my head – how big are my thighs, how much food did I eat, what do I weigh today, can I eat anything else, when can I eat again, when will I get a grip and stick to a diet and finally lose weight – isn’t that dwelling on dreams? Shooting for a fictional figure, a meaningless number? Aiming for a target that darts and hides, and gets smaller and smaller, shrinking and reducing itself as I do?

Aren’t all these voices – with their commands and beratings, with their taunts and threats – distracting me from real life? From what should truly matter? From what I really could be?

I’ve been staring into this mirror for the better part of thirty years. It’s a permanent fixture in my spiritual home; it has a featured spot right in the entryway to my funhouse.

And it’s kept me from truly living.

I understand now why Professor DumbleD was trying to hide this thing. It’s been a major time-suck and hasn’t done me a lick of good. I’ve wasted years of my life stuck right in front of it, starving myself and sacrificing my sanity in an attempt to match the reflection.

If only I could get my hands on a house elf. Maybe, when he gets a break from washing the windows, he could get that sucker unloaded on eBay or something, and buy me a nice, benign, limited-edition Kinkade to hang in its place. A painting that, when you pass it, lets you stop and gaze for just a moment, recharging your spiritual batteries instead of draining them. A thing of beauty that gives you a small serving of light and peace, packed lovingly in a to-go box so you can carry it with you, taking small nibbles as you need them as you go about living your day.

That sounds like a nice change. Soothing. Healing.

If only I could tear this mirror out.

Breaking a mirror is rumored to bring you seven years of bad luck.

I’m holding a sledgehammer and preparing to swing.

You may want to back up a bit. This might get messy.

You Put One Foot In, You Got One Shoe Out

Posted on September 21, 2015 by KatieComeBack

Before I start on yet another brain dump on the grenade my spouse dropped on our marriage last week, I want to thank all of you who have reached out, commented, and connected with me. I don’t have anyone to talk to about this in real life, and I can feel your support seeping through the interwebs like the heat from a camp bonfire, where we sit around and melt away the chill and make calorie-free, gluten-free s’mores with peanut butter and drink wine. (You are also free to roast hot dogs if you like, but with that as an alibi, don’t ask me what’s on the end of MY stick. Mkay?)

I appreciate y’all sticking around while the power’s out. Hopefully the generator will kick on shortly. Thanks for sitting in the dark with me and keeping me company. It means more than you know.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been the sort of person that craves both security AND independence. I think this can be best illustrated by a story my mom likes to tell: When I was a baby, she would occasionally stick me in the playpen. (This was, of course, back in the 70s, when playpens were actually death traps, and I would’ve apparently been safer playing with a hair dryer in a shark-infested bath tub. But no one knew this at the time, and I’m pretty certain she wasn’t plotting to kill me. That came later, when I became a teenager and fully deserved it.)

Anyway, when Mom needed just five minutes to take cookies out of the oven, or use the bathroom, or whatever, she’d plop me in the playpen, pulling the sides up so I couldn’t wander off. This was my cue to scream, cry, and generally throw an Oscar-worthy hissy fit. I HATED being trapped in there. Shortly, she’d decide that neither her sanity nor her bladder could take the wailing, and, resignedly, she’d put the side down and let me out.

But then, a couple of hours later, a funny thing happened. I’d creep over to the playpen and, noting the sides were down, crawl RIGHT IN and blissfully play with my toys. Putting the sides up turned it into a torture chamber, but with the exit wide open, I was perfectly happy to hang out there all day. (Even as a baby, I drove my poor mother nuts. I’m sorry, Mom. I love you. Thank you for letting me live.)

And this is, historically, how I have approached relationships. I want you to stay, but I can’t be confined. And, now that I’ve been forced to reflect, I see that this has been true with my current spouse – even though I thought he was the love of my life*, I’ve kept the escape hatch propped open.

*He may still be. Or he may meet the fate of the aforementioned hot dog. Jury’s out yet.

For one thing, when we got married, I didn’t take his name. Well, I did, but I hyphenated it with my ex’s name. It made sense at the time; I had 12 years of professional experience under my previous name, plus I wanted to share a last name with my kids.

Lately I’d been toying with the idea of dropping my ex’s name from the two. It’s part of my legal name, but I never actually USE it, and incidentally, hyphenating is a royal pain in the keister. (Don’t ever do it, ladies. JUST PICK ONE NAME. Otherwise you’re constantly wondering which name (or names) you’ve used on which credit cards and internet sites, and you’ll never remember which company’s systems use hyphens, which use spaces, and which just shove both names together into an intimidating tangle of letters, and you’ll have to spell every possible permutation of your name EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME anyone has to look you up. By the way, no two airlines handle hyphens the same way. This keeps you on the short list for free invasion of your personal space.)

Anyway, I haven’t dropped the prior name yet. Just didn’t get around to it.

Hmm.

Another example that perhaps I wasn’t all in: My spouse and I keep separate finances. Remember how I said I was a math geek? Well, every month, he pays the mortgage, and I pay the rest of the bills. I enter everything into a spreadsheet, and we “true up” at the end of the month. We even buy a lot of our own food. I know it SOUNDS ridiculous, but we never fight about money. And in my last marriage, I was the sole breadwinner while my spouse stayed home buying old watches on eBay. I was NOT having any of THAT again, so I control my own funds.

It’s always seemed to make sense for us, but with the current filter on my lens, it seems to suggest that I was keeping the sides of the playpen down.

Oh, another thing. I have this tattoo (I swear it’s less crappy than this photo makes it look):

It’s a kokopelli – he represents the spirit of music, and he’s also a prankster. Even if you’re not terribly spiritual, you can usually hang with a fun musical deity. There are three music notes beside him – one for me, one for my son, and one for my daughter – symbolizing our survival of the divorce. (And to further drive that point home – I bought this tattoo with the money I made hocking my first wedding ring set. Heh.)

My current spouse wondered aloud why there wasn’t a note for him. We were engaged when I got it…surely he’d be a permanent part of my life, right?

But I didn’t add a little note for him. I’ve thought about going back and doing it…but….

(Yeah, I know, you never ever EVER tattoo yourself with a relationship. Not ever. Here’s another reason why not to, I guess. I mean, don’t be this guy):

(By the way? Don’t bother sending this to your friend Brenda. Trust me, she’s already seen it.)

One more thing. I have a backup plan. I just wrote about that a week ago. I SAID it was in the event of my spouse’s death. But perhaps I was keeping my parachute packed not just in case of sudden engine failure, but also in the event that I didn’t like where the plane was going.

Given all this, maybe I wasn’t truly as blindsided by this as I originally thought.

When I’m poking around my brain, it’s definitely one of the tender spots. For some reason, I keep rubbing it to make sure it still hurts.

One positive to this whole mess is that it’s been a super-effective weight loss plan. Based on my complete loss of appetite, and my stomach’s reaction to stress*, I’m sure I’ve dropped a few pounds. I won’t actually know until Tuesday, because in order to keep from being obsessive, I’m only allowed to step on the scale on Tuesday morning. (Perfectly logical, yes?)

*When I’m stressed, I normally eat. However, when I peg the meter – divorce hearing, child illness, or, apparently, your husband flipping the “Available” light on the commitment taxi – my stomach pulls the evacuation alarm, and suddenly there just aren’t enough lifeboats on the Titanic, if ya know what I mean.

About 2-3 years ago, I was at my lowest weight since my anorexic high school days, due to some stomach issues and recurrent mononucleosis. Since then, I’d put on ten pounds and just haven’t been comfortable in my skin. So when I put on another five recently, I stepped up my game. My weight loss has been…slow (which is expected, as I wrote about here.):

Week 1: six pounds (Whoa. Clearly I was retaining water like the Hoover Dam.)
Week 2: zip
Week 3: one pound
Week 4: donut
Week 5: GAINED A F%(^!N& pound

Week 6 is Tuesday. I think I crushed the plateau like Godzilla in a bad Japanese movie. ROWR <stomp stomp stomp>

Ironically, my low weight hits the same time frame as the rest of this whole debacle. Which would lead a normal person to NOT want to be that weight again, right?

But then, if food and I were normal, I wouldn’t have started this blog in the first place.

Sigh.

In the meantime, since food doesn’t appeal, I’ve been binge-shopping. I stocked up on new workout gear on Friday, and today visited the local farmers market and treated myself.

In addition to veggies, I bought myself flowers:

And because flowers die, I bought some jewelry, too. BECAUSE I DESERVE IT.

Silver and clay ring:

And a couple of pieces from Mind of Madness Design:

Red agate/silver on braided leather

Hot pink and gold. LOVE THIS

Here’s what it looks like on. Bold, eh?

I may be all scrambled up like a smoothie on the inside, but I’ll glam up my game face and keep my brave on.

Fake it ’till ya make it.

Glass Slipper, Shattered

Posted on September 19, 2015 by KatieComeBack

This week, I had an unexpected visitor.

It was someone from my past. Someone who, in the back of my mind, I feared would come to visit me one day. And although I certainly wasn’t looking forward to her arrival, I fully deserved her company.

Sure, I had cut off all contact with her, or at least I TRIED to. But she found me. How? Well, I suppose I could blame this blog; while it’s anonymous, my guest this week is quite resourceful at connecting the dots, and I did throw some things “out there” to the blogosphere, and to the universe. I started this blog to fix the issues in my head, but sticking my Swiffer into the cobwebs meant sharing some dark, dirty corners of my life that my friends and family aren’t typically privy to.

That’s the risk you take when you’re honest. Someone might find you.

And she always does, eventually.

Obviously, I didn’t want her to find me. While I wanted to use my writing to expunge some demons, I certainly didn’t want them to darken my doorstep in real life. But she found my address, and it’s my own fault that she did, and now I need to find a way to make room for her in my life, because I have no right to ask her to leave.

She came knocking at my door on Thursday night, pulling her overstuffed, heavy Louis Vuitton roller bags, and when I opened the door just a crack, she came barging in, her luggage banging on the floor and denting the walls as she roughly threw an impossible number of suitcases and steamer trunks in a huge pile in the center of the room, forcing me to face it all and deal with the mess.

She turned her back to the giant, precarious stack. Haughtily, she stood facing me, her feet firmly planted to the ground in a wide stance in severe Prada ankle boots, her Chanel power suit inexplicably perfectly pressed. She looked me directly in the eye, then, her eyebrows slightly raised and her right hand assuming the position of authority on her hip.

Challenging me.

Daring me to speak.

I blinked. Once. Twice. My mind racing. Why was she here? What does she want?

I didn’t have to ask that question aloud. You never do with her. She knows.

She stuck her perfectly manicured hand (OPI’s I’m Not Really a Waitress) into her sleek Gucci messenger bag, and pulled out a document and handed it to me.

A hollow, cold blackness tore through my heart and slowly snaked its way to my brain as I read the words in front of me.

The document? This.

The mysterious Angel of Vindication had found me.

Her name? Karma.

And she was forcing me to be held accountable for the most despicable, wretched thing I’ve ever done.

It was time to pay the piper.

She watched me with an ironic, sanctimonious smirk as I digested the evidence she had presented.

I closed my eyes for a moment. Hadn’t I always suspected she was coming?

I looked at her then, resigned.

Waiting.

She met my gaze for a full half minute, drinking in my discomfort.

I braced myself for the inevitable.

Finally, she spoke.

Two words.

Ashley Madison.

She let the words hang in the air for a moment, watching my reaction with a satisfied glare. Then she turned on her heel and marched toward my bedroom, slamming the door hard.

There was a brief silence as her words, and what they meant to me and my marriage, sunk in more deeply.

As the noxious fog of her message crept into my pores, poisoning my soul, I was startled out of the eerie quiet as a loud crash of glass shattered the silence.

Hesitantly, I stepped toward the unstable, haphazard pile of baggage, unsure what had broken, yet afraid to look.

I saw the remains of a single glass slipper, smashed to unrecognizable bits by its plunge to the hard, cold floor of reality.

He confessed to me on Thursday night, under the cloak of darkness that only a rainstorm can bring.

About two years ago, he established an account. He took the deliberate steps to set up a new email address, he paid the fee, and he contacted two women, conversing with four. He claims he never met any of them.

Of the many, many thoughts, fears, and questions racing through my mind, there are two dominating thoughts.

The first: How did I not know? How did I miss this? My career is reading people, for f#ck’s sake. And yet, my own husband was able to deceive me. Effortlessly.

We had talked about the Ashley Madison data breach over the dinner table. I had heard about it on NPR, and brought it up merely as a point of conversation. Weren’t we all talking about it? Unlike politics or global warming, this was actually kind of…fascinating. Juicy.

(Funny how quickly that juice turns into a rancid vinegar once it’s served to you at the dinner table in your own home.)

It would certainly have been more interesting news had I realized that my husband turned several shades of red and started to sweat when I brought up the subject.

But apparently, I didn’t even notice.

Not even a blip on the radar. No thread of a red flag. Clueless. Oblivious. Chalked it up to my spicy tofu stir-fry.

But if I look back…I mentioned in this post that the hubs had recently stepped up his game. He’s been, and I quote, “absolutely amazing lately.”

Lately = last couple of weeks.

The data breach hit the news July 15. I made that post September 9.

Usually, I like math. (Karma knows that, too.)

In retrospect, I know I had casually made the observation that he had seemed to lose much of his appetite. (He’s 6’4″, and he’s a dude. Big cup of DUH there.) And he started therapy a couple of weeks ago; he said it was to better manage his ability to hold eye contact with people at work. (He is on the autism spectrum, after all.)

The clue phone was clearly set to vibrate, sending those calls right to voice mail.

It was like I was happily tapping along on my mental laptop, not worrying about saving my work because it was plugged in, after all, and was confused when the battery suddenly died and I discovered that in my foolish reliance on the consistency of the power cord, I had apparently neglected to actually plug the damn thing into the wall.

Despite all of our challenges over the last year, the one thing I knew – I KNEW, with absolute certainly and with the absence of any and all doubt – was that I could rely on his faithfulness. We’d talked about it; we’d said on several occasions that if we ever felt the need to step out, we respected each other enough to discuss it first. Decide whether to fix it or move on. Like adults in a mature relationship.

Of course, that was all hypothetical, because it was never going to actually happen.

And now, I’m like the child who has discovered that there is no Santa Claus, that peanut butter cups will always have too many calories, and that, simply put, there are no fairy tales.

I have to face the reality that my husband and I aren’t unique or special. Our relationship is no longer a beautiful story that little girls dress up and dream about. It’s as raw, gritty, and real as everyone else’s, with rough edges that snag the tulle and sticky dust that dulls the sparkles on your tiara.

Our relationship is painfully human.

So now, I’m looking for a dustpan that I never thought I’d need, as I begin sweeping up the pieces of my broken glass slipper. I’m just starting the cleanup, and there are little shards everywhere – under couches and in the African violets – so it’ll take a while.

This is messy work, I’m finding, and the slivers are getting under my fingernails and into my eyes, contorting how I see the comforting and familiar into caricatures with a different shape and color.

I don’t know where the scars will land.

Which brings me to my second thought.

As my spouse was confessing – as he was purging his soul of the demons that have occupied him, as he was begging forgiveness – I didn’t feel anything.

No sadness. No anger.

I suppose I was, and have been, in shock.

Instead, inside my head was a clear, calm, meditative treble, that simply stated:

Now you never, ever have to eat again.

Is this the end, or the beginning?

…to be continued….

Humpday Chuckles: Photopourri

Posted on September 16, 2015 by KatieComeBack

Have I mentioned that I’m not a fan of clutter?

Long before Hoarders became a watercooler topic, I had a Hoarder-like experience with my ex and his family.

The ex’s parents had a four-bedroom house crammed full of…stuff. Clothes, books, shoes, more clothes. The bedrooms were wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling piles with a narrow path from door to bed. The family room was only half-useable; the rest was filled with “stuff we might need someday.”

His mom was a child of Depression-era parents, and she couldn’t bear to donate or toss anything that might have use. His dad? Well, he retired early and frequented garage sales, auctions, and flea markets, and accumulated an impressive collection of…

Guess.

No, really, c’mon. Guess.

CAKE PLATES.

Photo from http://lamourcheznous.com/2014/03/29/vintage-glass-cake-stands/

Were you close?

No, of course you weren’t. Of all the things for a seventy-year-old man to collect, this probably wasn’t one of your first five ~~thousand~~ guesses. But for some reason, this is what he always found – and brought home. And he had HUNDREDS. I’m literally being literal here. HUNDREDS. Stacked along every wall, shelf, crevice, and ledge.

But I married his son anyway. (And that wasn’t even the biggest red flag. Not by a longshot.)

I should have known I was in trouble when he wouldn’t let me cancel the newspaper subscription – even when several weeks’ worth were found – not only unread, but still rolled up – under the couch. The tipping point came several years later when we bought our second house – it came with a four-car garage, but we had so much stuff THERE WAS NO ROOM FOR ME TO PARK. My reaction was to throw out an entire closet full of plastic Cool Whip and cottage cheese containers. NONE OF WHICH HAD MATCHING LIDS ANYWAY BUT FOR SOME REASON WE HAAAAAAAAAAAAD TO KEEP THEM

To this day I have an aversion to clutter. When I relocated out West, and had to move from my three-bedroom, two-bath abode, the movers scheduled 8 hours and an empty tractor trailer to pack up the contents of the house. They were finished by 11AM and had my life’s belongings in less than a fifth of the trailer.

Anyway. I was thinking of this as I went to organize my Blog Pictures folder (which now has a sophisticated system of color-coded subfolders.) As I was reorganizing, I found some…uh…gems…that I haven’t posted yet.

So before I file them, I thought I’d share them in one big honkin’ motley medley picture parade.

Let’s start with a billboard. I pass this one on occasion when I’m traveling and it always makes me chuckle. I mean….well, look at it:

Belle: “Oh, Beauregard….of COURSE I’ll marry you! Where ever did you FIND this GEM? It’s so…”

Bo: “I giddyapped and went to Kirk’s! YEE HAW!”

Belle: <weeps softly into her sweet tea>

Today’s Weather: Rain, yo.

That’s chill.

Word.

Next, I’d like to share a religious symbol with y’all.

I may have mentioned that I sing in a band on occasion. Normally, when we perform at a church, we’re up front, to the side of the altar, facing the congregation. At this gig, we warmed up and started the service – so far, so good. Then, as the pastor started to speak, I turned toward the altar to face him…

…and I saw…

This.

Unfortunately, the keyboardist and I saw it at the same time, and turned into poorly-behaved schoolkids who could. not. stop. snickering.

(We haven’t been invited back to the church yet.)

I’m sure one of the church elders lovingly handcrafted this artifact and graciously donated it to the church, along with a significant endowment, resulting in no one wanting to offend the dude ~~and his money~~ by suggesting they display a nice spray of lilies instead.

One question. If a dove bearing an olive branch is a symbol of peace, what is this supposed to symbolize?

Never mind. I do NOT wanna know.

Here’s a feline edition of “Where’s Waldo?” adapted from my cat’s last trip to the vet. Can you find him?

You know how cats like boxes? Mine turned into one.

One more. A little while back, I posted about my hair. I really like my hair. It’s really thick and wavy, and it’s supposed to look something like this:

But wavy hair often has its own ideas. Today it had something a bit more avant-garde in mind:

#iwokeuplikethis LEGIT.

Thank goodness for hats.

Have a great week, peeps. 😉 <MWAH>

Liebster, Revisited: Part 3 of 3: How I Met the Hubs. And Shoes.

Posted on September 9, 2015 by KatieComeBack

For those of you just tuning in now, this is the third and final installation of the challenge presented to me by sonofabeach96, who kindly nominated me for the Liebster Award:

(You can find Part 1, and Da Rulz, HERE. Part 2 is HERE.)

Eleven simple questions, eleven long, convoluted answers. Okay, I swear this is the final chapter in this disjointed series. Then we can move along to something interesting, like politics, paint drying, taxes, or landscaping.

<snurk>

So, the rest of the questions:

What is your favorite vacation destination, and where would you want to travel if money were no object?

I actually haven’t really had many vacations, other than to see family. Which, as much as I love them, doesn’t count, because being around family requires you to wear heavy, impenetrable armor, and after a few days, it just wears a gal down.

But I do have a couple of dream vacations. I want to visit the West Coast (the last time I was there, I was sorely tempted to cancel my return ticket) and see mountains, ocean, and giant redwoods. (Oh, and yeah, a few wineries.) I want to take a cruise to Alaska. And I’d like to eventually visit Hawaii, because it’s both warm AND beautiful.

But the thought of being on a plane for four or five hours exhausts me – I’ve had several jobs where I’ve had to travel a lot – like 75% – and they’ve sucked all the glamour out of travel and basically ruined me for airports for life.

If money were no object, I’d sit in first class, and I expect it’d be a heckuva lot nicer. Plus there’d be no hurry to return. So maybe, in that case, I’d squeeze in a side jaunt to Australia.

BECAUSE KANGAROOS.

If you’re married, how did you meet your spouse?

The story behind my “starter spouse” is, unfortunately, not all that interesting. We were in college together and married right after graduation.* Very typical, very average. And, just like everyone** else, we got divorced a few years later.

*Technically, I was three credits shy of graduation. Details, details….I did finish three years later.

**I actually only know one couple who married right after college and stayed married. Actually, she was my roommate and he was my ex’s roommate, so they spent a good bit of time together somewhat by default, and eventually decided to be a couple. We always thought they were really odd together – culturally, spiritually, physically, personality-wise – they just never appeared as a matching set. As the Brits would say – cheese and chalk. But then again, who really had a good man-picker in college, anyway? Clearly not EVERYONE ELSE who wound up divorced. Twenty-plus years later, I guess they WERE the odd couple, at least in tenacity.

The story behind the hubs is much juicier.

Fast forward a few years. I’m going through a divorce and juggling a new job. In the midst of dividing up a life’s worth of possessions and trying to establish a “new normal”…I met someone.

It was a lousy time to begin a relationship – all the experts on divorce recovery will tell you “take time for yourself” and “don’t rush into something new.” But I was never great at following a vague “they say” (or, for that matter, any voice of authority.) Plus, I was enjoying my freedom – I had recently come to discover that my first spouse was mentally abusive (and likely suffering from some sort of personality disorder. We flunked out of three therapists (which is a story for another time) so I never found out for sure. Suffice it to say that if it walks like a duck, it ain’t a donut.)

And this was not the relationship to start, for a number of reasons. In addition to the fact that it was a long-distance relationship, he simply wasn’t available, and neither he nor I knew the difference between drama and love. So while there was admittedly a lot of passion, it was the over-inflated extremist version that would rival any long-running soap on afternoon TV. And I hadn’t learned enough about relationships to understand that while, on paper, he appeared to be the polar opposite of my ex (physically, politically, socially, etc.,) the reality was that they shared some startlingly similar personality traits (controlling, belittling, demeaning) that I failed to recognize until the bitter, melodramatic termination of the relationship.

And we pretty much had nothing in common, save loneliness. Hard to build a long-term bond on the absence of something.

I didn’t marry that guy. (Although, we looked at rings, and I bought a dress – which, after several moves, is currently sitting in a local consignment shop, tags still on it, ready to complete YOUR dream wedding!) But I did endure about two years of emotional highs and lows, the soaring and plummeting of which would earn the envy and admiration of amusement park thrill ride engineers globally.

To further complicate matters, I had just been offered another job 900 miles away, in this guy’s metro area.

Kismet! This was MEANT TO BE!

(Maybe.)

And then we broke up. Again.

My sister decided that enough was enough, and perhaps I could try to meet someone else. With renewed resolve, I reactivated my online dating profile (it had been created, utilized, and deactivated several times between our frequent breakups and reconciliations – you know, for added entertainment and histrionics -) and changed my location to my pending address.

Ahhhh. A fresh start, a new city, a clean slate, a whole new buffet of man candy. My sister and I clicked through profiles, evaluating and reviewing each one. (Side note: Online dating is like shoe shopping. You can sift through a ton online, but until you walk in them a while, you really don’t have any idea whether they’ll actually work with your wardrobe and your lifestyle.)

A profile popped up. “Ooh! He’s cute. His ears are kind of big. But he’s cute. Click him!”

So I did. And I liked what I read: He sounded intelligent and honest. Plus, he was cute. Waaaaay out of my league cute. But…what the heck? My last boyfriend was fond of saying, “You miss all the shots you don’t take.” So I shot.

I composed a message – I commented on a few things he listed in his profile, and closed with, “I think peeling some mental onions with you could prove interesting.”

He said he fell for me right there. (Aww. <barf>)

So what happened to the other guy? Well, he did try to get me back. (No one saw THAT coming, right?) His argument was – I kid you not – “We weren’t really broken up. We were just taking a break. We were supposed to get back together in a couple of months. You weren’t supposed to meet someone else and fall in love.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEn9YvJ3Gfg

(Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)

I’m embarrassed to admit that he and I briefly got back together one more time before the hubs and I became exclusive. But our final breakup was empowering – I used my words, and my voice, and by ceremoniously dumping him, I was able to purge my soul of both him and my ex-spouse, and define how I deserved to be treated.

(Odd how it sounds like much of my eating disorder. Like I “had” to stuff myself with pizza and ice cream one last time before I started The Official Diet. Hmm. Gonna have to think about that one.)

After the final fireworks died out and the audience went home, I emailed my now-hubs, told him I’d love to see him again, and the rest is history. And while we’ve had some challenges over the last year, it would be unfair of me not to mention that he’s been absolutely amazing lately. He’s trying so very hard and has put in some tremendous effort after I was clear with him about what was so troublesome – especially lately. (Funny how that works in healthy adult relationships….you rationally and calmly state what you need, and you get it. It really can be that easy.)

P.S. The dating site I used? Don’t laugh. Plenty of Fish. It’s free. Which means…well, you know what it means. The hubs often tells people that he found me in the “FREE” box at a yard sale. <snort>

Describe your personality and what type of people are you drawn to?

I think I’m drawn to people who have the traits I like in myself. So, here’s my list:

I like funny people who can laugh at themselves, but not at the expense of others. (Well, maybe a little.) <snurk>
I like people who have opinions they’re not afraid to use – as long as they use their ears and their brains as effectively as their mouths.
Bonus points if you have great shoes. BECAUSE SHOES.

Speaking of which – here’s my latest haul. Enjoy!

My most expensive shoes are my running shoes….

GOLD SHOES. TWELVE DOLLARS. SCORE.

These just make me happy. Lipstick for the feet!

Liebster, Revisited: Part 2 of 3: High School Never Ends, Cars, and Christmas Trees

Posted on September 7, 2015 by KatieComeBack

This is a continuation of my last post, where I started responding to sonofabeach96’s nomination of me for a Liebster Award:

Because I’m the verbal equivalent of Niagara Falls, I couldn’t get it all into one post. So here are three more of the questions…and three more long-winded answers:

What were your high school days like? Good, bad, or indifferent and why?

On the surface, high school wasn’t that bad. I wasn’t really bullied. I had friends. I was involved in every music activity our small district had available. I got excellent grades.

But it’s hard to reminisce about high school without noting, as a point of reference, where I was with my eating disorder. It’s like having a sterile, undisturbing stock photo of a smiling family set inside a dusty, chipped, weather-beaten picture frame.

The story’s in the setting, not the scene.

Ninth grade started with a bang, because <dramatic pause> I met a boy. When you’re fourteen, this is typical. When you’re fourteen and chubby, and he likes you back, it’s life-changing. He was older (by one year – oh, the SCANDAL!) and was (of COURSE!) as thin as a rail with a sky-high metabolism. (Seriously – weren’t they all?) I coasted through most of freshman year with a lot of “firsts” – first kiss, first date, first formal – and, for the first time since fifth grade, didn’t focus too much on my weight.

I ended my first year of high school wearing a size 11 and weighing about 145.

And then summer hit. And with the heat came last year’s clothes that were way, way too small. And by August, I was appalled to discover that my marching band uniform had shrunk. Significantly.

Now, as an adult, I can objectively look back and see that truly, I was pretty much “normal.” Probably a bit chubby, especially compared to the track stars and cheerleaders. But surely I didn’t stand out as the fattest kid in the class. I understand intellectually that I didn’t look all that different from my classmates – to this day, when I occasionally page through an old yearbook, it never fails to strike me how downright NORMAL I appear.

But at the time? I was FAT. And Something Had To Be Done About That.

I knew all too well what worked. I quit eating.

I started tenth grade a good 25 pounds less than I had ended freshman year. I walked into my first day of my sophomore year with my size 7 jeans hanging off me.

Bolstered by success and compliments from my classmates, I kept going. I kept going despite occasional blackouts. Despite a blood pressure of 80/40. Despite lectures from the school nurse. Despite missing family meals. Despite peer praise turning to worry. Despite bodily functions ceasing to exist. Despite my (new) boyfriend begging me to eat.

I finally settled in at just barely over 100 pounds, logging every calorie and measuring every morsel of food (including mustard and Crystal Light – I was hardcore, bro).

This was my existence for the next two years.

Outwardly, things looked to be great – I was thin, I was active in music stuff, I had a boyfriend who loved me dearly and was going to take care of me ALWAYS, and as long as I controlled my body and the food I put into it, I was safe and secure.

Then, during my first semester as a senior, my boyfriend – my first love, the boy who swore he’d marry me one day and would love me forever – unceremoniously dumped me. (Because college, ya know.) Suddenly, after over two years of coasting in the shade, the sun was beating down on me, burning off the fog and forcing its bright, harsh light directly into my eyes, commanding my pupils to constrict as my eyes ached from pained, constant squinting.

With absolutely no idea how to cope, I started to eat.

Once the dam broke, it was impossible to stop the flood. I gained fifty pounds the last half of senior year, as I filled the time with extracurricular activities (read: boys) trying to find my self-worth while simultaneously feeding my starving soul with anything I could get my hands on. (Unfortunately, I was feeding it the equivalent of onion rings and Twinkies. But I had to start somewhere.)

I left for college in the fall with the Bright Future of weighing 170 pounds and having absolutely no idea what to do with my life.

So…yeah. High school was…high school.

And here I am, ~~twenty-five~~ over twenty years later, still wrestling the same pigs and getting just as dirty. True, I have cuter shoes and no boa. But still….

What was your first car?

The first car that was actually MINE was a 1991 Chevy Lumina. I’d love to say it was a sweet ride, but the only people to say that about this car is the bluehair-and-Bingo set.

I mean…just…gaaaah:

Photo courtesy of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Lumina

Really makes a statement, doesn’t it? In addition to its edgy, bad@ss look, it also featured a speedometer that pegged at a hairnet-blowing 85mph. Which is totally un-American, and un-German, and un-everything-under-age-seventy.

So why did I have this? Well, as is the case with most first cars, I wasn’t actually involved in picking it out. It actually came into my possession courtesy of my now-ex-in-laws.

See, my former mother-in-law cleaned houses for a living – generally for the elderly. Consequently, they often paid her in either quarters, baked goods, or castoff clothing.

Still, she persisted. We think she was hoping that someday, one of her clients would kick the bucket and mention her in the will.

That never happened.

But, since most of her customers were in their late eighties, they did hop the heaven bus to harp lessons on occasion. And, as the stereotypes dictate, they often left behind an older, low-miles vehicle – which she’d then volunteer to buy, at a bargain price, from the grieving family.

I kid you not.

(I guess it’s a small reward for choking down loaf after loaf of soggy, well-intentioned pumpkin bread.)

At the time, my then-spouse and I were newlyweds – and I had finally, after years of resistance*, learned to drive. So we needed a second car, and this one met all of our requirements and qualifications (read: it ran and it was cheap.) It wasn’t exactly hip and trendy, but it was only a couple of years old with less than 15,000 miles on it. SOLD! I drove that sucker into the ground, tooling around in it until we eventually popped out some offspring and traded it in for a minivan.

*Side note: I didn’t actually learn to drive until I was 24. Why? Well, if you asked me directly, I’d tell you, as I flipped my hair and narrowed my eyes coyly, “I always had a boy or two to drive me around.” That was partially true; I also had an older brother and a younger sister who were more than happy to play chauffeur. But the truth? I’m hopelessly uncoordinated, easily distracted, and a champion procrastinator. Plus, I wanted to spend my babysitting dinero on clothes and shoes, not gas and insurance. Priorities, ya know.

What is the one thing that grates on your last nerve?

OK, there is NO WAY I can only pick only one thing. I talked about a few Things I Hate in the Love/Hate Challenge (which took me SIX posts. I am ridiculous.)

But out of all those posts, there was one thing I missed that absolutely drives me to shoot fire from my face holes and rant in unholy tongues.

It’s Christmas lights that BLINK IN SECTIONS.

They don’t twinkle. They don’t flutter off and on to music. They just ALL flip on and off AT THE SAME TIME, like some idiot minion is half-wittedly turning the switch off and on, off and on.

Off. On. Off. On.

These are usually at the house that’s hung just one string, usually lining a roof or a window. Or part of a roof. Or half a window. Or until the string of lights just ran out.

THEY’RE LIGHTS THAT DON’T EVEN TRY.

And please note – when I say “you didn’t try,” I have a pretty high threshold for what I consider gallant effort. Witness our family Christmas Tree a few years ago:

Shout out to Problems with Infinity (http://problemswithinfinity.com/) – see? SEE?!?

Yes. It’s a stuffed frog and a pool noodle. BUT IT SAYS “TREE” SO IT’S LEGIT. And I didn’t have to step on a single needle. I WIN.

This tree is creative and unique (and affordable, I might add!) But lights that blink in sections? It’s like Christmas just gave up. It’s Christmas sadness.

Don’t be that house. Don’t be the Holiday Spirit Slayer. Leave your lights on, in all their energy-sapping, glowing glory. Your neighbors will shovel your walkways and bring you cookies, and there will be world peace and harmony.

Or, at least, I won’t have to violently hurl the Fruitcake of Christmas Past through your front window.

You…Should Take the Segway….

Posted on August 29, 2015 by KatieComeBack

As far as earworms go, this is a decent one to have. 🙂

So in my quest to get outside of myself a little bit and try new things, I stumbled upon the opportunity to try out a Segway.

Wait…a what?

A Segway is basically an electric scooter – except it doesn’t have a seat. You stand on this contraption and lean backward or forward to make it go or stop. The thing is designed with computerized sensors and gyroscopes that somehow sense your motions and respond accordingly.

Which I read as “the computer will SMELL YOUR FEAR and laugh maniacally as it pitches you violently to the ground.”

The Segway whistles innocently as it searches for a place to bury the body.

It looks pretty menacing. And, for the record, the dude who bought the company in 2010 was promptly thrown off a cliff by one of his products. TRUE STORY BRO.

But, on the other hand, thousands of people ride these things every year. I see Security zipping around the airport and the mall on Segways all the time. And many major metropolitan areas have local tours, given while riding Segways.

So…how bad can it be? If you can chuck a group of jet-lagged novices on these, and generally have a reasonable expectation that you’ll end the tour with the same number of people you started with, it’s gotta be somewhat safe…right?

I located a local Segway tour and signed myself and my son up. (My daughter wasn’t all that interested. Plus, this way, if my son and I perished in a terrible Segway fire, there’d be someone to inherit my jewelry.)

My son was mildly interested in trying the Segway. He was decidedly less interested in the tour itself, however. (He’s 15. Can you blame him?) Most of the available tours feature historical sites – “historical” coming from the ancient Greek word meaning “boring crap your grandpa won’t shut up about” – so I decided to sign us up for the sculpture tour, instead. I figured that was our best bet – buildings might not be all that exciting to a teenager, but an unusual sculpture might get at least a “blink and shrug.” Or just a blink. (Like I said, he’s 15. I set my expectations accordingly.)

The day of our tour was hot – it was about 90. (Which I actually love, because I’m always cold. I recognize that pretty much everyone else is dying when it gets that hot, but I just stand outside and soak that shiz up.) Because it was stupid hot, my son and I were the only two people signed up for the tour that day. BONUS – undivided attention!

There are a few things you have to do before they’ll let you tool around on the Segway. Those bad boys can zoom up to 12.5mph, so safety first, right? You have to watch a safety video, put a helmet on, and…um…something else I think I missed because I was finishing level 432 on Candy Crush. Then you can take off on the official tour.

But before they make you invest all that time in safety, they give you a quick trial on the thing, to make sure you aren’t a complete lost cause on the balance front. (Which is nice, because generally, gravity hates me, and sometimes, when I’m trying something completely off the rails like, I dunno, WALKING, the ground jumps up completely at random to slap some sense into me.)

(Hmm. I wonder if someone called ahead and warned them about me. Maybe that’s why no one else was on this tour.)

So I was introduced to my Segway. Her name was Eunice.

After a quick primer, they had me hop on and try some quick maneuvers.

I got on, and enthusiastically leaned forward.

And promptly ran over the instructor’s foot.

My son was not amused.

You can HEAR the eyeroll.

My son is a natural athlete (with a KILLER arm, by the way #mombrag) so he was fearlessly flying around on the thing in no time. Being a world-class klutz, I wasn’t quite as confident. But, after a few minutes, I was deemed passable. (Clearly, the bar was so low, I ran THAT over, too. And I never fully got the hang of standing still, so every time we stopped for a quick explanation on a sculpture or sign, I sort of coasted back and forth. Sometimes gently into a wall or a stop sign. I’m sure I appeared mildly drunk. I’m sure they’ve seen worse. I mean, tourists. Right?)

The tour was pretty cool. I’ve lived in this city for nine years (!!) now, and saw a million things I’ve never seen before.

We crossed historic bridges:

explored some of our city’s many bike trails:

and checked out some…art, I guess?

Yeah…this is called, creatively and literally, “Spoonbridge and Cherry.” Because it’s a bridge that’s a spoon, and there’s a cherry on the end.

This is located in an 11-acre sculpture garden outside a local “modern art” museum. Now, I don’t pretend to know anything about art – but some of the displays are…well….Last time I was there, they had a wall of salt and pepper shakers. Like Hell’s Yard Sale. Which I would have understood if they had CALLED it that, but it had some other lame name like “Modern Salt Shakers of the Century.” And the time before THAT, there was a whole room dedicated to the variant shadings of cubism and graphite. Which means SOMEONE DOODLED ON GRAPH PAPER WITH A PENCIL.

I will never understand art.

I tried, I really did. I studied the sculpture for a moment, cocking my head and squinting intellectually. Cupping my chin in my hand, I pondered aloud how the tonality of the structure might be modified if the artist had chosen to represent the cherry with, let’s say, an olive. I remarked that the timbre would quickly shift from whimsical and insouciant to somewhat disillusioned, yet sophisticated.

Glare from my son. “MOM. No one eats olives with a spoon.”

(Actually, I do. At midnight. When no one is looking. But apparently, that’s still a secret.)

The rest of the tour passed without incident. And by “without incident,” I mean that we had to take an off-road, unplanned detour down a pedestrians-only, bar-lined street, DURING HAPPY HOUR, due to road construction, and I crashed soundly and resolutely into a bridge. Which caused the tour guide (YES, the one whose foot I flattened) to solidly rearend me, sandwiching me between himself, Eunice, and the wrought-iron guard rail.

Hil-freakin-larious.

In my son’s words: “Dude. You were going straight, and you just didn’t TURN, and BOOM!” Soooo descriptive. And helpful. I cannot WAIT until you get your permit, buster.

I suppose he may as well learn that I never go out with anything less than a bang. <takes bow>

P.S. Yes, that’s me in the pictures. (Well not the maroon T-shirt; that’s my son, obviously.) I’ve added and deleted these photos several times. I may delete them again after I hit “publish.” Because I hate pictures of myself; I can’t look at one without scrutinizing what’s too big and too lumpy and too much and too everything. And then I wasn’t going to point OUT that it was me, because that’s calling attention to the whole thing, which means you are totally going to go back and click on the pictures now. Right? But part of the reason I’m here is to deal with my food and body issues – and normal people wouldn’t think twice about posting what SHOULD be perfectly innocuous pictures of something fun they did, because it’s NOT about the size of my azzmatazz, but about the event, and if I hadn’t SAID anything, no one would even have THOUGHT to check out the width of my thighs. So this whole paragraph is mental anxiety vomit about me TRYING TO BE NORMAL, which defeats the point entirely, but there ya go. I get a Participation Trophy for showing up, right? 😉

Losing Weight Is Hard. Because Math

Posted on August 28, 2015 by KatieComeBack

If you’ve ever embarked on a weight loss journey, you’ve probably encountered several folks who have attempted to provide tips and advice. I bet you’ve heard – or even uttered – some of these gems:

“Oh…just cut back on the carbs/fat/sugar.”

“Eat less processed food. That’ll do the trick.”

“Walk for an hour a day. The weight will fall right off.”

“Drink more water.”

“Lift weights! That just melts the fat away!”

“Don’t eat after 8 PM – those calories stick right to ya.”

I’m going to tell you right now that most of these folks are well-meaning (OK, maybe just nosy) – but entirely unhelpful. Because while these tips are certainly useful if you want to incorporate healthier habits, they won’t take anyone from obese to svelte. And they certainly won’t take twenty pounds off any female.

If losing weight were as easy as taking a daily walk, we’d all be in shape. Yet nearly 35% of Americans are obese. Let that sink in a minute. THIRTY-FIVE PERCENT of us aren’t merely overweight – we’re obese. And if you’re between the ages of 40 and 59, that figure rises to nearly FORTY PERCENT. 40% of that age group is obese.

Because I like pictures, here’s where all the fat people live:

Courtesy of http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html

So now I’m going to tell you why losing weight is so dang hard. And I’m talking about women – especially women over 40 – here. (If you’re a dude, yes, I KNOW you can lose 5 pounds this week by replacing six of your french fries with a banana. GO AWAY before I bite you.)

This actually came up in conversation this week while I was talking with my company’s CFO. He mentioned his wife’s weight struggles, and his “helpful” suggestion of exercise. (Fortunately for him, we have good dental insurance.)

Since he’s the CFO, I thought laying out the numbers might help him understand what women truly have to go through to make any noticeable dent in their weight.

We’re going to do some math here, folks. Bear with me, though. This is gold.

For my food and activity tracking, I like to use the free tool MyFitnessPal. It has a huge database of foods and the calories they contain, and it syncs nicely with MapMyFitness, so my calories burned and calories eaten are all in the same place.

So let’s open up MyFitnessPal and see what it has to say.

I enter my age, my height, and my weight. Next, I input my activity level. I have a desk job, and a 45-minute commute, so I guess “sedentary” will cover it.

And my results….

To maintain my weight, I can eat 1450 calories a day.

<blink>

If you know anything about calories, you know that ain’t a lot. I’m of pretty average height and pretty average build, and my daily caloric allowance to MAINTAIN my weight can be consumed in one moderate meal:

McDonald’s: A Bacon Clubhouse Grilled Chicken sandwich (610), medium order of fries (340), and a small chocolate chip frappe (520). (1470. I didn’t even get any ketchup.)

Red Lobster: a half-order of the Crab Linguini Alfredo (1030!! for half!!), a Cheddar Bay Biscuit (160), and a garden salad (70) with French dressing (180). (1440. I had to skip the drinks…I guess I could afford a lemon wedge in my water.)

These are not unreasonable meals. I certainly know I can pack away a heckuva lot more in a day. But by selecting one of these, I’ve spent my ENTIRE caloric allotment for the day IN ONE SITTING. (And yes, I know there are better choices available. The point here is that these are not inappropriately obnoxious plates of food, and if you’re not absolutely militant about knowing what you’re eating, the fat ninjas will jump you and tattoo themselves to your backside.)

Isn’t this FUN?!! Let’s try going on a date. How about:

Applebee’s: Split an order of Spinach and Artichoke dip (980) and a Blue Ribbon brownie (1670). Drink one light beer. (Which is kinda pointless, right? But that brings you to about 1430.)

Don Pablo’s: Eat no more than eight tortilla chips (191 calories for 13) while waiting for your order. Split an order of Buffalo Wings (752) and a plate of Chicken Cantina Nachos (1059). Drink two Slenderitas. (211 each.) It’s not a very interesting date, but you munched 1445 calories while listening to him drone on about beating his mother on World of Warcraft.

That’s an entire day’s worth of calories right there, folks. IN ONE DATE.

Depressed yet? Because there’s more.

Let’s now shift our focus to actual weight loss.

Remember, to MAINTAIN my weight, I get to eat 1450 calories a day. That means that if I want to LOSE, I actually have to eat less.

But how much less? Well, we know you need a 3500-calorie deficit to lose a pound. So, to lose a pound a week, we’d need to cut 500 calories a day. (3500 / 7 = 500.)

<beep beep> Back up the truck here. I get 1450 calories to MAINTAIN my weight.

1450 – 500 = 950. (Or a medium Chocolate Xtreme Blizzard at Dairy Queen. BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS YO)

But wait a sec….we’ve all heard the guideline that you shouldn’t eat fewer than 1200 calories a day. Frankly, it’s extremely difficult to get the recommended nutrition you need on 1200 calories – not to mention most of us get dangerously hangry and will bite your head clean off the clavicle.

Let’s be real – for most of us, a daily allowance of 950 calories is just not gonna happen, at least not on a regular, sustained basis. You might be able to keep it up for a week or so, but eventually, your body will force you into survival by shoving you face-first into a deep dish pizza. So let’s try to be somewhat moderate here.

1450 – 1200 = 250. 250 * 7 = 1750. So by eating 1200 calories a day, I can expect to lose a half pound a week.

Yippee.

If I have five pounds to lose, that means I have to stick to 1200 calories a day, EVERY DAY, for TEN WEEKS. (Two and a half months. Pretty much an entire season.)

I don’t think I have to explain the level of discipline required to stick to this for ten weeks straight.

But let’s interject some real life here.

How many of us have gone into the weekend with steel resolve, only to be swayed by the mental chant of “I worked hard all week, I deserve a TREAT!” on Friday night or Saturday?

Because we’re being moderate, let’s allow ourselves a small indulgence. How about, after resolutely following our diets for six days straight, we have a little Saturday treat? You know I like ice cream – let’s get a two-scoop sundae from Culver’s.

There goes 1040 calories of the 1750 deficit. (And it was delicious.)

So now, I have a 710-calorie deficit for the week. (1750 – 1040 = 710.)

Which means it will take me NEARLY FIVE WEEKS to lose ONE pound (3500 / 710 = 4.93) ….and to lose five pounds? TWENTY-FOUR AND A HALF WEEKS. (3500 * 5 / 710 = 24.65)

Yes, folks. If I eat 1200 calories a day, with the SOLE exception of ONE two-scoop sundae cheat a week, it will take me SIX FREAKING @#($@#$ MONTHS to lose FIVE POUNDS.

Oh, wait, though – I can add exercise! Ooh, that’s gotta help! Right?

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a runner. Four days a week, I have a not-insignificant run of 3.5 miles. And I’m not slogging along, either – I’m doing a 9.25 minute mile.

So…3 miles at a jog, with a quarter mile warm-up and cool-down walk. Let’s put that into MyFitnessPal.

303 calories. (1 1/2 Pop Tarts.)

So if I manage to get out of bed and DO this four days a week, I’ll have burned off the equivalent of one pint of Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk. (Which, according to the label, has 1200 calories and is designed to serve four people. To which I say HAHAHAHAHAHA)

In other words – if I run four days a week, I can eat 1450 calories a day + one pint of ice cream and MAINTAIN my weight…or I can lose ONE pound in just under three weeks by eating 1450 calories a day and RUNNING FULL TILT four times a week.

Are you seeing how freaking ridiculous this is?

And we haven’t even added any complicating factors. Thyroid issues. Hormones. Water retention. Leftover Happy Meal fries. Muscle loss and the metabolism slowdown that comes with aging. And the fact that the more weight you lose, the fewer calories your body needs.

Is it any wonder that so many of us struggle with our weight, and with food?

So, fellas? If a woman you care about is frustrated with her weight, don’t tell her to hit the gym. Don’t remind her that ice cream is fattening. And for the love of all that is holy and good, do NOT tell her that she is anything but absolutely beautiful.

Just tell her that you love her, no matter what.

And give her a hug from me while you’re at it. Because I’m right there with ya, chica.

The Love/Hate Challenge! Part 3: Ride Away from the Fat Wagon

Posted on August 7, 2015 by KatieComeBack

So about…uh…two weeks ago, Chelise from Caterpillar to Butterfly nominated me for the Love/Hate Challenge:

DA RULES:

List 10 things you LOVE
List 10 things you HATE
Nominate a few suckers to do the same

And this challenge has dragged on for awhile, partly because I procrastinate, partly because it’s summer, partly because I haven’t been traveling (so I haven’t been stuck in an airport with absolutely nothing to do but dodge creepers, germs, and crappy food), and partly because I can’t keep it short once I DO start. (Like here in this post I already have over 100 words and I HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED ACTUALLY SAYING ANYTHING YET. Man, I am exhausting.)

Part of the problem: If I feel passionately enough about something to LOVE or HATE it, there is NO WAY I can explain that in less than a bound dissertation. I mean, if you truly HATE something, how on earth do you adequately describe THAT in under 200 words? Or under 500? If it’s only one page, isn’t it more like “slight irritation”?

Anyway. Taking another swing at the verbal piñata and makin’ it RAIN, baby….

10 THINGS I LOVE and 10 THINGS I HATE (in unranked order) – PART 3:

6a. I hate butter.

I can hear the <whoosh> of people rushing to click “unfollow” now. Yeah, I know. It’s pretty much un-American to not like butter. But hear me out.

It’s Oprah’s fault.

I was a fairly normal, butter-loving kid, who grew into a butter-eating teenager (well, when I was eating at all; at that point, if I remember correctly, I was in the middle of my 900-calories-a-day diet. So I was quite aware of the calorie bomb that is butter – but I still ATE it, because sometimes ya gotta.)

It was November 15, 1988 when everything changed. That was the fateful day that, despite a schedule chock-full of band, choir, AP classes, and boys, I just happened to be home from school, and just happened to be watching TV, when Oprah strutted out on stage with a black turtleneck, size 10 Calvin Klein jeans, and…this.

Picture from http://www.oprah.com

Anyone else remember this? (If your answer is “No, I wasn’t born yet” – shut it. You can watch the clip HERE.)

As a teenager who, at the time, barely moved the big weight to the three-digit notch on the doctor’s scale (slam some water and wear boots and a sweater so the school nurse gets off your back, you know the drill) – this was life-altering. I was HORRIFIED. The Radio Flyer Lardcart was a GIANT DEATH WAGON OF BUTTER that, in addition to being un-heart-healthy and just plain nasty, WOULD MAKE ME FAT.

And ever since then? Every stick of butter brings me right back to…

Photo from http://www.oprah.com

Mmmmm…don’t you want some TOAST right now? <gag>

Looking back on this now – with the perspective and experience of twenty more years of dieting since then – some thoughts/observations:

1. Oprah lost the weight after four months on a liquid diet. I seem to remember it was Medifast, but I can’t find a source to confirm. What she DID share:

“I had literally starved myself for four months, not a morsel of food, to get into that pair of size 10 Calvin Klein jeans,” Winfrey recalls. “Two hours after that show, I started eating to celebrate, of course, within two days those jeans no longer fit!”

1a. It took you TWO days to grow out of those? Color me impressed. I can bust a button in a week, but two days is ACHIEVEMENT, yo. Not that Oprah is known for doing things halfway. But still. !!

2. It’s a little mind-blowing to realize that you can be one of the wealthiest, most socially dominant women in the WORLD, with every resource and support available to you, and still not have whatever it takes to have a normal relationship with food.

That’s…powerful, yet humbling. Depressing, yet oddly reassuring. I mean, if SHE struggles with this…doesn’t that give me permission to, I dunno, maybe not beat myself up quite so hard if I can’t do it?

Folks, this is Oprah. She can do ANYTHING.

And she’s just as human as the rest of us, putting on her pants (and Spanx) one mortal, flawed leg at a time.

I don’t know whether to high-five her, or give her a hug.

You can read Oprah’s Weight Loss Confession here. It’s a little stilted, and I detect the faint smell of false bravado from her accounting of it all, but what struck me was this quote from her trainer (Bob Greene):

“She didn’t really learn how to be happy. I think she learned more survival tools and not how to be happy,” he says. “That’s where Oprah has a lot of work to do.”

Well. Huh.

That’s why I started this whole blog dealio in the first place.

Because that’s where I have a lot of work to do, too.

3. Size 10? Are you kidding me, Calvin? They’re AT MOST a 6, prolly a 4 nowadays. Gotta love vanity sizing. <eyeroll>

OK. On to a “love”….

6b. I love riding my bike.

Generally, I support the principle of physics that states, “An object on a comfortable sofa stays on a comfortable sofa.” (Or starts to LOOK like the comfortable sofa.) Suffice it to say I’ve never really been a fan of exercise.

But I’ve always loved to ride my bicycle.

My first bike was a hand-me-down from one of my cousins. How it worked in our family was that you learned to ride on THIS bike:

Note: Not actual bike. Pic borrowed from http://ratrodbikes.com where some dude named “dogdart” was selling it. But he’s in PA so it COULD HAVE BEEN MINE YO

…and then, on your 10th birthday, you got a 10-speed bike – NEW, from the little bike shop downtown, which incidentally was owned by the dad of a girl who rode my bus and sat next to me in band, and we weren’t really friends because she was popular and I was fat, so she was only my friend on the bus for the four years her parents forced her to play clarinet. And her dad was also my parents’ tax accountant, and eventually he went to jail for tax fraud or something, and his daughter dated the high school football captain who ended up calling her a slut and breaking her heart, so I guess being popular isn’t all glitter and unicorns.

But I loved that bike. It looked a lot like this one:

Photo from http://www.sweatershoppe.com/

Also not actual bike. Original is currently mummified in my parents’ basement. Photo borrowed from http://www.sweatershoppe.com/

That bike was my ticket to freedom. It was my getaway car – I’d hop on that thing and be off on an adventure. It wasn’t unusual for me to take off for four, five hours at a time, just riding along, stopping to pick wild blackberries on the side of the road or catch crawfish at the creek.

Later, when I got a speedometer, I got to see how far – and how fast – I could go. I grew up in PA, which is very hilly – those gears came in handy, and the payoff was zooming downhill, at 30mph. (Without a helmet. Between that, riding in the back of the station wagon without seat belts, and sleeping in death-trap cribs, how did anyone survive childhood in the 70s and 80s? Never mind roadside pesticide blackberries, copperheads under the rocks at the creek, and generalized Stranger Danger.)

Once I got to high school, I quit riding so much. But years later – after college, marriage, two kids, and a painful divorce – I got a gift:

Actual photo. You can tell by the craptacular background.

Actual photo. You can tell by the sucktacular composition and the general lack of housekeeping.

It was another hand-me-down bike…but it was in pristine condition, purchased by a friend who had more money than ambition (she also smoked a lot and drank a lot – while I don’t judge, I suspect this hindered her desire to hop on a bike.)

I didn’t use the bike much at first; it sat largely unused for several years. But recently, I’ve rediscovered the sorts of things you can explore while you’re escaping from the world for awhile:

At the top of a hill in rural Wisconsin. A REALLY BIG HILL. #worthit

Like a little firework burst.

I love these. They’re like little snowballs. IN SUMMER.

Tucked behind a small bend.

On a bike, you’re not focused on exercising. The goal isn’t necessarily to burn calories. (Yeah, I track them. When an hour of hard riding burns off like four Oreos, you take credit every calorie you can get.)

When you’re standing on the pedals to kick a hill’s butt – when you’re flying down the other side, drinking in the thrill of the speed and the relief of the breeze – when you’re taking in, free of charge, all that nature has to offer – you’re not worried about the size of your thighs and the bulges around your waist. You aren’t beating yourself up over the amount of space you occupy.

You can just…be.

You’re free. At least for a little while.

Even if it’s temporary – even if life keeps me tethered to a lot of heavy, messy, cumbersome things – I’m so very thankful that I can remember what it feels like to fly.

Six down, four to go. Light. Tunnel. ONWARD!

Today’s ~~victim~~ select recipient is Mermaid in a Mudslide – she has such a variety of topics, I suspect she’d be all over something like this. Plus, her posts make me smile. 🙂

The Courage to Change, The Patience to Persevere, the Guts to Grow

Posted on July 24, 2015 by KatieComeBack

I am thankful today to have not one, but two, nominations from the gracious Chelise at Caterpillar to Butterfly. I’m thankful because these awards and challenges give me something different to think about – and therefore WRITE about. They give the repetitive, demanding voices in my head a new sound bite to discuss. They’re a nice respite from thinking simultaneously about how fat I am and WHAT IS THERE TO FREAKING EAT IN THIS PLACE YO

Sigh.

This first nomination was super-sweet of Chelise, because while I’ve been trying to pull myself out of a lifetime of food issues, and sometimes I feel like I’m making progress, it’s certainly not been a beeline target. More often, on good days, it’s like I’ve been sitting on a precarious perch in a dunk tank, blissfully oblivious to the pool of denial swirling below me, until life lobs a hefty, matted tennis ball squarely at the target, sending me plunging back into the muck and leaving me to clutch at any floating debris I can find. Sometimes it’s a life preserver; others, it’s a crocodile.

Two steps forward, one step back, and sometimes, all we can do is keep treading water and looking for a safer buoy to cling to.

But that’s what makes us courageous – it’s the ability to keep going. It’s what gets us through the day, worn and weary, but alive. It enables us to get out of bed the next day to face the same demons and confront the same pain.

Yeah, sure, some days we don’t actually GET out of bed. And that’s OK – because we’re doing we need to do to recharge for the next battle. We’re still breathing. We’re still alive.

Courage doesn’t mean you don’t rest. Being brave doesn’t mean you don’t admit you’re tired. I mean, even heroes need to take a break from saving the planet once in a while.

Being strong just means you don’t quit. Every valiant knight and crusader has felt fear – they just haven’t let it stop them. And sure, occasionally the bad guys – anxiety, fear, hopelessness – temporarily take us down, but the joke’s on them, because we’re slowly, gradually learning from each and every battle, bruise, and scar just how to throw a carefully placed sucker punch right back.

There are a lot of folks on WordPress who struggle with a variety of things. In reading the challenges of others, you see incredible strength. It’s inspiring. It’s contagious. You also see the heartache – the beauty and the pain in the raw, unfiltered honesty. And that’s where we all support each other – if we all lean on each other in a circle, nobody falls down. (Or we all fall down. Especially if wine was involved. But at least we do it together. And it would be freakin’ hilarious, as long as no one spills the wine.)

The “Courage to Change” Award

I want to acknowledge that it takes courage to put ourselves out there for the world to see.
It takes courage to work through the pain that binds us.
It takes courage to make changes in our lives.
It takes courage to leave behind everything you have always known (mentally, emotionally & sometime physically) and do things differently.

Courage is:

the ability to do something that frightens one
strength in the face of pain or grief

The guidelines for this award:

Award it to whomever you chose and let them know
No questions to ask
No questions to answer
If you receive the award, there is nothing you have to do but KNOW others support and believe in you! However, I hope you to pay it forward and encourage someone who is on their own personal journey to freedom (from whatever they may be struggling with).

My picks for the “Courage to Change” Award:

Nikki at Undiagnosed Warrior and Cass at Indisposed and Undiagnosed – these two young, strong women are very talented writers who have been kind enough to share their quests to get diagnoses for debilitating, undiagnosed illnesses. Their strength, their perseverance, and their tenacity as they struggle to get well are amazing. They are brave and show continued courage.

Zoé at gathering the pieces of me – I have said it before; this is some of the best writing you’ll read online. Her writing is art; it’s poetry, and it’s raw and beautiful. She has been incredibly inspiring as she outlines her struggles to be well.

THANK YOU, ladies, for putting it out there. You help me, you help countless others – you make WordPress a better, richer place. We’re all in this together – lean over when you need to. I pray for peace, healing, and laughter for you every day!

Next up: The Love/Hate Blogger Challenge! (Thankfully. I can only take so much of this warm and fuzzy goo. Tree’s dry, no more sap for awhile.) 😉

Carrots in My Carryon

My emotional baggage is packed with food

Tag Archives: beauty

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You Put One Foot In, You Got One Shoe Out

Glass Slipper, Shattered

Humpday Chuckles: Photopourri

Liebster, Revisited: Part 3 of 3: How I Met the Hubs. And Shoes.

Liebster, Revisited: Part 2 of 3: High School Never Ends, Cars, and Christmas Trees

You…Should Take the Segway….

Losing Weight Is Hard. Because Math

The Love/Hate Challenge! Part 3: Ride Away from the Fat Wagon

The Courage to Change, The Patience to Persevere, the Guts to Grow

The “Courage to Change” Award

My picks for the “Courage to Change” Award:

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The “Courage to Change” Award

My picks for the “Courage to Change” Award:

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