Tag Archives: food issues

Glass Slipper, Revisited: What to Do with the Other Shoe

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My last post was decidedly unfunny.  I’d apologize for that, but it’s not every day that the man you married confesses to dabbling with Ashley Madison.  I think I’ve earned a temporary hall pass on that.

This post won’t be all that hilarious, either.  I need to take some time to purge the thoughts in my head.  It’s like I binged on a full jar of chocolate peanut butter and a large pizza; it’s bloating me and congealing on my insides, and I’m desperate to get it out as quickly as I can before it consumes me.

I’m finding myself trapped in the incongruous dichotomy of having a racing mind, yet not being able to actually feel anything.

I’m keenly aware of a number of thoughts (How did I miss this? and My spouse cheated) bouncing uncontrollably around my head like a giant tub of Super Balls broke and scattered all over a gymnasium – hundreds of thousands of pinging bullets that roll and bounce and refuse to be stilled.

Yet, at the same time…I should be upset.  It would be natural to be angry.  Logical to be yelling.  You might expect me to cry.

But other than one or two stray tears, I’ve been numb.  I’ve been walking around like I’ve been mentally anesthetized.  I feel detached; I’m absently letting the situation play in the background like some third-rate sitcom while I nonchalantly go about my business, seemingly unaffected.

This can’t be real, can it?  This is just a very long, drawn-out dream; soon I’ll be rudely interrupted by the morning show blaring through my clock radio and be jolted into a perfectly normal day.

You’ve certainly heard the old adage, “Pinch me, I must be dreaming.”  Unfortunately, I’ve tried that, and it just isn’t effective.  I used to pinch myself when I was dreaming – but my brain outsmarted me by allowing me to feel pain while I sleep.  I’d actually feel the pinch, but wouldn’t wake up.  So I devised a new trick to help me discern dreams from reality:  telekinesis.  If I can move things with my mind, I’ll know INSTANTLY that the situation isn’t real, and I can happily coast along knowing it’s just a dream and I’ll wake up soon and it’ll all go away.  When I’m having a bad dream, I focus on something lightweight – a tissue, a piece of paper (because even though it’s a dream, we don’t want to get all crazy here by trying to throw cars.) If I can get it to move – if I can get that piece of paper to twitch, even just a little bit – it gives me the courage to stand up to whatever demon is chasing me, because I’ll know I’m only dreaming.

Suffice it to say on Thursday night, and at least hourly since then, I’ve desperately tried to get papers to flicker.  I’ve begged tissues to please, please, just flutter a teensy bit so I know this will be over soon.

But all the paper products have conspired against me and refuse to budge.

What the hell do I do now?

I work in HR.  My career is built on how I react when people surprise me.  But this has struck me as unexpectedly as a truck barreling through a stop sign, hitting me so hard that I’m having a discarnate experience, watching my body violently bounce off the hood while thinking, “Dayum…that’s gotta hurt!” as I painlessly float above the carnage.

He tells me that, although he was on the site, he didn’t actually meet anyone.

In the unlikely event that it isn’t blatantly obvious, this article provides an excellent summary of everything that’s wrong with this.  But, in the spirit of trying to get it to soak in so I can accept it and address it, I’ll list it out.

He set up an account, with a new email I’d not been aware of.  Deception with intent to harm.

He paid for the account.  To the tune of $250 or so.  And when I think of all the forgotten birthdays and neglected anniversaries, this is the closest I can get to tears.   He’s never spent that much on me.  His wife.  Yet he found it a worthy investment to make in the collapse of my trust.  (Him:  “I promise there was no further money spent.  I didn’t mortgage the house.”  Me:  “No.  Just our marriage.”)

He contacted two women and communicated to four.   But he insists that he never met any of them.  And it was two years ago.  In the past.

Where I struggle with this:  My gut is convinced he’s telling the truth.  But based on how many clues I missed – based on how completely oblivious I was to his discomfort when the data breach broke – I can’t trust my gut.  I would be foolish to do so.

And frankly, what would YOU tell your best friend in this situation?  If she said, “He was on the site, but he swears he never actually met anyone”?

<cue the rousing chorus of “Yeah…riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.”>

I am a smart woman.  Aren’t I?

How can I possibly believe him when I can’t believe myself?

He tells me that he’s tried a number of times to tell me.  (Well, once the news broke and it was conceivable that he’d get caught.  Eyeroll.)  To his credit, he knew it’d be better if he told me, as opposed to waiting until I found out.   And there were a number of reasons why it wasn’t a good time – the kids were home all day during the summer, which segued into my super-busy season at work – and he knows about my food issues and my anxiety and wanted to wait until a time where I’d be better equipped to handle it.

As misguided as it was, he was sort of trying to do the right thing.  (Which would have been a much nicer sentiment when he was whipping out his credit card to buy deception and lies. Obvs.)

But there’s no good time for bad news. HR folks talk about this quite a bit, in the context of “what’s the best day of the week to fire someone?”  Is it Friday, so they have the weekend to cool down? Is it Monday, so they have a full week to job hunt and file for unemployment?  There is no clear answer.  (Although, if you can avoid canning someone on their birthday, they usually appreciate that.  My sincere apologies to Pat.  Know that I learned from it, and I always check birthdays before a layoff now.)

He tells me that he’s incredibly sorry, and that he’ll do anything – ANYTHING – that I need him to do in order to make this work.  He’s already offered me full access to all of his PCs and his phone; he’s volunteered to carry a GPS 24/7.

He’s begging me to stay.  To give him another chance.  He pleaded with me to go to counseling with him, to please, please let him try to fix this.

He’ll do anything.  Anything.

He’s doing his best to give me space, backing off quickly when I don’t want him near enough to touch.

Over the last two days, he’s broken down completely.  I’ve never seen him close to anything like this.  We’re talking big, ugly, snot-dribbling sobbing here.

While I sit there, numbly, listening.

It’s so surreal.

He is absolutely terrified that I’m going to leave him.

And I don’t know that I won’t.

My heart desperately wants to forgive him.  My head, however, knows that I need to do my due diligence here – while it may be a long time before I can trust him, he can certainly work his a$$ off proving to me that he means what he says in the meantime.

I’ve told him that I don’t know where this will go.  That I may seem fine some days, and then suddenly be angry, and I have every right to react in whatever way my emotions choose to express themselves.

He said he’s just thankful I haven’t left yet.  That I’m talking to him.  He said he’ll take any and every moment now, because he realized in full force what it would mean to lose me.

All the right words.

Will the right actions follow?  As we say in HR: “Immediate, significant, and sustained improvement is required for continued employment.”

Show me.

I attempted to escape from this today by taking my bike out.  I thought a long ride would do me some good – if I logged a solid 20 miles, perhaps I’d burn off some of this numbness and be able to sleep.

It was a beautiful ride.  Good for the soul.

bikedam1 bikedam2 bikecity1Unfortunately, I got lost, and ended up clocking 27 miles before I got home.  But, as with my marriage, I can take all the time I need.  There’s no deadline here; I can take it moment by moment, stopping to snap some pictures or to rest a bit, and head home – or wherever I want to be – when I’m ready.

Glass Slipper, Shattered

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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.

KarmaKnot

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….

Food Issues Aren’t Child’s Play

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Remember the playground?

When your parents parked the car, or when the bell for recess FINALLY rang…where did you run first?

I was all about the swings.  Unlike the monkey bars, they didn’t require much athletic ability, and they didn’t scald the skin on your thighs like the metal slide did on a hot summer day.  Didn’t we all pinch our fingers in the chains at least once when we were lost in the challenge of swinging hard enough to fly all the way around the bar?

(I recognize that some of you are too young to remember a playground that had actual safety hazards.  But back in MY day <hitching up suspenders> we didn’t have plastic coatings over the chains.  We had shiny metal slides that heated up to skin-blistering, egg-frying temperatures in August.  Seat belts on the swings?  You have GOT to be kidding.  And we had NONE of that sissy-boy recycled-tire mulch at the bottom of the monkey bars.    We had good old-fashioned DIRT.  Soft landings = soft adults!  Got a boo-boo?  Pop that sucker back into joint, rub some gravel on it and get back outside!)

Anyway.

As adults, I think we look for that same thrill that the playground used to give us.  We all need to find our fun, right?

Some of us look to extreme sports (100-milers.  The Ironman.)  Others look to death-defying activities.  (Bungee jumping, anyone?  Skydiving?  That’s a big helping of NOT ME.  But you go on with yo’ bad self.)  And a few get way too absorbed in the drama of politics, Big Brother, or Facebook.

Some of us get a little lost looking for that playground thrill.  That’s where things like gambling and alcohol come into play.  And for me, obviously, food.

Recently, the hubs and I went to our local State Fair, where they historically feature diabetes and obesity “on a stick.”  (Delicious, delicious diabetes.  OMNOMNOM)  You can find something for every palate – pickle juice Popsicles, chocolate-covered bacon, funnel cake, and deep-fried everything from candy bars to cookie dough – even butter.  (But butter sort of terrifies me, so we are NOT having any of THAT.)

I joke occasionally that the State Fair is “the one day I allow myself to eat.”  Now, I’ve been trying desperately to get these last ten fifteen five few pounds off, and I’ve been trying to not go all eating-disorder starvation crazy about it.  For the last four weeks, I’ve conscientiously eaten 1200 calories a day and gone for a run 3-4 times a week, with long bike rides on the weekends.  Balanced.  Healthy.  Right?

So I knew the fair was coming up, and I know I like to eat fair food, so I decided to just have a day of “screw it” and eat what I felt like eating at the fair.  One planned afternoon of once-a-year treats.

And eat I did.  I had:

  • a blueberry/honey/chipotle muffin (they were gluten-free, so I had to try one)
  • a scoop of chocolate raspberry wine ice cream (fabulous)
  • a beer-battered fried brat (also gluten-free!)
  • a “triple peanut threat” milkshake (peanut butter, Reese’s pieces, and Butterfingers, which probably aren’t gluten-free, but my throttle was jammed firmly into don’t-give-a-s#it gear at this point.
  • a chocolate-coated pecan nut roll (gluten?  WHO CARES SUGAR SUGAR SUGARSUGARSUGARSUUUUUUUGAAAARRRR)

Now, that’s a lot of food, but trust me, in past years, when I didn’t need to worry about not eating wheat, I’ve done a LOT worse.  (Add not one, but TWO, orders of deep-fried cheese curds, and probably a chocolate sandwich, which YES, is as good as it sounds, and maybe some sweet potato fries with a small lake of ketchup.)  So, given that this was a planned indulgence, this wasn’t TOO bad for a full day of food, especially when you’re walking all day, too.

Right?

Right  If I’d have STOPPED there.

I had been having quite a time on the monkey bars, enjoying the view up high, until I slipped, fell hard, and whacked my elbow on the unforgiving pavement.  THUD.

Unable to do anything halfway, I gave moderation a hostile middle finger and ate half a king-sized pillow bag of popcorn once I got home.

And, despite sticking religiously to my diet for the rest of the week – zero weight loss.

Well, what did I expect, exactly?  I guess I should feel lucky that I didn’t gain from my dalliance with debauchery.  I know that one day off from diligence – one bad meal, actually – will cost me (I wrote about why here.)

But I also know it’s dangerous to dance close to the edge of that oh-so-slippery slope.  Because with eating disorders, there is no “just once.”  There’s no minor diversion.  No day off.  It’s black or white.  All or nothing.

It’s kind of ironic, actually.  I mean, when you’re starving yourself (alternating with periods of stuffing yourself senseless) you spend a lot of time on a scale.  And if you’ve ever waded in past your knees in the eating-issues pool, you have a food scale, too.

The scale.  A symbol of balance.  A precise measuring device calculating, gram by gram, the distance of an object from zero.  Calculating the mass between the amount of space you take up and the amount of space that’s acceptable to occupy.

Physically, you’re constantly working with this instrument to find balance.

Yet, when it comes to the food?  Mentally, we can’t get off the seesaw.  Up.  Down.  Back up.  Quickly down.  One minute, you’re briefly at the top, and in the next moment, you’re bouncing painfully off the ground when your partner bails from the ride.

It’s all or nothing.

And we all know how it SHOULD be, right?  Mentally, we should strive to be balanced, aiming mightily for that elusive “moderation” bullseye, while physically, the scale should be an occasional, twice-a-year checkup at the doctor’s office.

My relationship with food, and my weight, should look like this:

But it feels more like this (except picture the elephant tumbling @ss over teakettle to the ground in a thunderous crash):

Or this:

Or, more accurately, this:

Somehow, I need to move myself to the center of the seesaw.  It doesn’t HAVE to be all-or-nothing, right?  Most people eat when they’re hungry, stop when they’re not, and don’t burn up so much freaking mental energy on this stuff.

They just DO it.  It’s like breathing.

It’s not so automatic for me.  I have to keep reminding myself to find my balance.

Keep shifting to the center.

Try to balance.

Fall.

Get back up.  Rub some dirt on it.

Try again.

<sigh>

Anyone wanna go back to the swings with me?  Let’s leave all this food baggage in Mom’s purse on the ground, and just rock back and forth for a while.

If I lean back, and point my toes to the sky, I’ll go higher and higher, alternately reaching for the moon and gently floating back to earth, not having a care in the world.

For a moment.

See Saw, Margery Daw

Katie shall have a new master

But she shall lose just two ounces a day

Because she can’t starve any faster

The Future’s So Right…. I Gotta Get Weighed

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I love a good challenge…gets me off the inertia couch and writing…SOMETHING.  It generally ends up being a word salad, but salad is good for you, right?  I like to think my word salad has lots of crunchy, salty bits, a bit of sweet, and a deceptively creamy dressing that is miraculously fat-free.  But I may be dreaming.

Speaking of dreaming…fattymccupcakes, who is going to be my new best friend if she ever moves here (that’s not creepy, is it?) nominated me for the Future Challenge.  So thanks for the mental shove, chica.  (And if you haven’t picked up her blog – she is freaking hilarious.  So you need to totally go read her.)

DA RULZ:

  • Thank the blogger who nominated you.
  • Next, link back to the original creator of the challenge, Dreams and Movie Screens, so they can see how far their challenge has spread.
  • Then, share 5 things about your future.
  • Finally, nominate 5 bloggers to share their own future.

So, about my future….

The challenge didn’t say I had to be totally realistic.  (Not that I’m a great rule-follower, anyway.  Speed limits?  MERELY A SUGGESTION.)  But I think it makes sense to chuck your desires at the universe.  You can look at it as a goal to reach for, or a dream to follow, or some woo-woo hippie-dippie full-bore shot at The Secret.

Either way, I can’t help but believe that thinking positively does me more good than embracing gloom-and-doom.  (Remind me of this in the middle of the night when my mind is racing maniacally to the tune of “the EEO report is due this month and I have to read 500 reviews and book flights for November before the holiday traffic takes all the good seats and someday my cats will die, my parents will die, and what if my kids or the hubs dies, they’ll ALL die someday or maybe one of my flights will crash and none of this will matter except then how will my kids buy shoes and why can’t I sleep EVER and my run tomorrow morning is gonna SUCK if I can’t get more than four hours of sleep and will my knee hold out, because if it doesn’t I am totally doomed to be fat forever and….” Do you know this one?  Sing along when we get to the chorus.  Anxiety always suckers me in to attending the after-party, and there’s no mental Uber to give me a ride home at 3 AM.)

Side note:  I’m one of those peeps who copes by attempting to take control by taking action.  (Which kind of explains the whole eating disorder dealio.)  So, for example, if I’m having a craptacular day at work, I peruse job boards and send out a couple of resumes.  To that end, I actually have a plan in place should something happen to my spouse:  I’m selling off most of my belongings and moving somewhere warm – probably Arizona – but I’ve been eyeing this little town called Truth or Consequences in New Mexico. There aren’t many jobs there – most of them are entry-level – but housing is cheap, and I’d use this as an opportunity to simplify and scale back.  Plus, the neighboring town is called – get this – Elephant Butte.  Which makes me giggle, because mentally, I’m still twelve.

Barring tragedy, though…given the canvas I own and the paints I have, here’s how I’m sketching out my future:

Financial Health:  I’ll have sufficient funds to retire more than comfortably by age 55.  (OK, admittedly a stretch.  65?)  And by “comfortably,” I mean I’ll have enough to both travel AND to make Christmas really special for the kids and grandkids.  (Of which I’ll have four.  NO PRESSURE KIDDOS.)

Physical Health:  I’ll be in excellent shape (relative to most of the US – not planning on doing an Ironman or any of that cray shiz) and quite active.  Since I’ll be retired, I’ll have plenty of time to work on my landscaping, as well as go hiking and biking as weather permits.  And I’ll still be able to complete the airport sprint (when you have 15 minutes to get to your gate 1.2 miles away) at a dead run if I need to.  My knees and hips will be in top form, and my bones will be strong.  People will marvel at my energy level, and won’t add “for your age”, because they know they’ll get a fierce roundhouse kick to the cranium.  BOOM.

Spiritual Health:  I’ll be at peace with myself and with the universe.  I’ll still read a lot, and talk up the issues, because that’s how we learn, right?  The grandkids will seek advice and guidance from me because of how grounded and non-judgmental Grandma is:  cool and calm, untroubled and relaxed, dynamic and feisty.  (See “roundhouse kick” above.  I don’t ever think I will suffer fools well.  That ain’t in my DNA.)

Mental Health (#1):  I’ll have found my voice and stood up to the bullying taunts in my  head that tells me I’m not enough.  I’ll know that I AM enough.  I am whole and complete and have value.

In the future, I’ll be able to believe it – and I’ll live my life that way.

Mental Health (#2):  I will finally be at peace with my body.  I will have forgiven myself for taking up so much space, and will issue my thighs a pardon for their genetic makeup.

No.  Wait.

Forgive?

What was the crime, exactly?

I guess I have a way to go before I get to this Future place.  But I knew that; that’s kind of why I’m here.

But, try as I might, I still can’t envision a future without a scale in it.  I can’t wrap my mind around how to exist without it.  It’s easier to picture other what-ifs, like my relocation contingency plan above.

I’ve made some attempts at getting better – I’m working on some healthier habits, and tried therapy. Well, for a while.  I haven’t been totally consistent, other than when I fall, I’m trying really, really hard to get back up. And I usually do.

The funny thing about failing at life?  If you look outside your lane, you see you’re not the only one sprawled on the cinders.  There’s camaraderie in life’s pileups.  That’s why we lean on each other in the blogosphere, right?

I think the key is to keep going.  And if we don’t like the direction we’re headed, we can always turn around.  Or start over.

We can only really start from where we stand right now, right?

I’m putting on my sneakers, my knee brace, and my zaniest running capris.

The door’s open.  I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, visualizing the finish line so I have a better chance of crossing it.

I’d like to invite these five bloggers to step into the TARDIS* and share their own futures.  Have at it, ladies!  🙂

*This isn’t my typical genre, but the kiddos got me hooked, and for the record?  I am TOTALLY TEAM TENTH DOCTOR.  In fact, I had a dream about David Tennant the other night that was so <cough> detailed and explicit, I couldn’t look the hubs in the eye for two whole days.  Anyway, if you haven’t watched, take a gamble and add it to your Netflix queue.  At the very least, you’ll understand all these vague pop-culture references that erupt on your Facebook feed.  And you’ll never look at angel statues the same way again.  <shudder>

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

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7

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

liebster3Because 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.

KatieSeniorPic

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: 

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:

frogpoolnoodletree

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.

Losing Weight Is Hard. Because Math

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23

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

<insert obvious joke about moving to West By-God Virginia so I can be the slimmest woman with the best – and most – teeth.  I’d be a freaking SUPERMODEL, yo.>

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.

Sunshine on My Blog Page Makes Me Happy

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12

Anyone else remember that song?

When I think of John Denver, I either think of Sunshine on My Shoulders, or, peculiarly, Kermit the Frog.

I’m not entirely certain why my brain equates John Denver with the Muppets. I know he was featured on the Muppet Show a few times, and this was the early 70s (which where my formative years, NOT because anyone I knew was smoking anything suspect.  Then again, I was a kid; what did I know?)  Although John Denver appears to have had a full life and career outside Kermit’s world, it simply doesn’t exist in my brain.

Anyway…sunshine’s on my mind today.  Both Chelise at Caterpillar to Butterfly and Nikki at Undiagnosed Warrior nominated me for the Sunshine Blog Award (so I get TWO pretty things to hang on my wall!  And they’re ORANGE!  My fave!!!)

sunshine-blog-awardsunshine-awardDA RULES:

  • Thank the person who nominated you in a blog post
  • Answer the 11 questions set by the person who nominated you
  • Nominate 11 blogs to receive the award, and write them 11 new questions

So that means I have TWENTY-TWO QUESTIONS to answer.  Yowza.  This could take awhile….

What is the most important thing to you?   I probably am supposed to say something poignant and sentimental here about my kids and the hubs. 

Realistically, though, the longest item of focus in my life has been my weight. 

Wow…that’s kind of…pathetic, isn’t it.  (Not a question. A statement.)

But I guess if I’m being honest here, my weight is something I’ve kept a close eye on fairly consistently for…<does quick math> THIRTY-THREE-FOUR FREAKING YEARS. 

Yikes.  That’s kind of an eye-opener.

Seriously – I need to think about this for a bit.

Do I really want this to be my legacy? 

<shuts laptop and goes outside to mow lawn and contemplate meaning of life vs. weight loss>

OK.  I’m sweaty now, and have clippings stuck to my neck.  (There’s probably a fetish site for that. NOT GOOGLING.)  Burned 300+ calories, have well-manicured lawn, and am no closer to setting life goals.

Ah well, it’ll grow back and I can try again.  <shrugs>

<tucks into rest of post>

If you could go anywhere right now, where would it be?  Back to bed with my coffee.  Ahhhhh. 

As far as physical places go – I would love to take an Alaskan cruise, although I’m a bit iffy on the whole cold-weather thing.  I really want to spend time on the west coast – mountains AND ocean and ginormous trees, and lots of wine.  What could be better?  (Also will take recommendations….HINT HINT)

What’s your favorite thing about blogging?  Camaraderie.  I love my new invisible friends!  

What’s your favorite thing about yourself?  I crack myself up.  🙂

What has been your biggest challenge in life so far?  I think the hardest time in my life was my divorce.  It’s like breaking a Fabergé egg.  You have this thing (marriage) that you’ve worked up in your mind to be beautiful; to be treasured and protected – and you have to smash it on the ground and sweep up the pieces, reordering them into something that will never resemble the ideal ever again.  You and your kids WILL get to a point where things are OK…but it won’t be the Fabergé egg.  That no longer exists.

Whoa.  Deep. 

Do you believe in love at first sight?  Only with shoes. Everything else needs to be tried on and worked into the wardrobe, and sometimes, no matter how fabulous he appears to be on the rack, he just doesn’t work with your lifestyle.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?  Hopefully I’ll be a grandmother and taking FABULOUS vacations out west!  (No pressure, kids.  Even though I have fed and diapered you since birth, and have sacrificed <sob> SO MUCH for your happiness….)

How many languages do you speak?  What languages do you speak fluidly? English only.  Although I used to understand Spanish fairly well – I’ve worked in a few bilingual facilities; between that and four years of high school Spanish, I often only needed an interpreter one way.  (However, no amount of language training can prepare you to explain how an HSA works.  Heck, it’s nearly impossible in English.)

What do you think is your best post so far? Link it.  I’m picking two, because I’m a thug rebel like that.  Why I Hate Deer is one.  The other is a little darker but I needed to get it out of my head:  Frosting

What’s your favorite quote?  “The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.” ~ Paulo Coelho

If you could recommend one fellow blogger for me to follow, who would it be and why?  Click on Problems With Infinity.  Quirky humor AND PICTURES.  LOVE.

Favorite vacation spot? Sadly, I have no idea, as I haven’t been on one in over ten years….

Favorite time of day?  Evening.  I’m not quite the night owl I used to be (thanks for NOTHING, societal norms) but I do my best thinking after 4 PM.  Or maybe I just LOOK good in comparison because by that time of day, everyone else’s battery is pretty much drained.  Ha.

Ocean or Lake?  Mountains. 🙂

Dogs or cats?  I’m a cat person. You can read about my eating-disordered cats HERE.

Favorite season?  Notwinter.  THAT TOTALLY COUNTS.  Fall = Football, Summer = Warm, Spring = Flowers and End of Winter.  All good, all not winter. 

Zodiac Sign? Both sides of my brain are firmly Gemini. So is the hubs. Makes life interesting, if you like seesaws and being randomly off-balance.

Exerciser or Couch Potato? Genetically, a couch potato.  I do exercise, but it’s always a chore.  It’s like brushing my teeth – I may never LOVE it, but I’ll DO it, because I don’t like what things look like when I don’t.

How long have you been blogging?  I started this blog 2/4/15.  It’s been six months and over 50 posts – wow, that adds up!

Camping or Hotel? This is much like asking, “buy new shoes or stab self with fish hooks?”  I love indoor plumbing.  I do NOT love schlepping 100+ pounds of crapola from house to forest in order to sleep outside when Man has invented PERFECTLY GOOD devices for this in sheltered areas. 

Nor do I relish the thought of hauling all the sweaty linens, dishes, and shelter, with freshly accumulated dirt and leaves, back home to have to clean and put away.  Seriously – hauling half a week’s worth of groceries kind of sucks.  You want me to carry my bed, my food, AND my roof around the wilderness?  Just thinking about that makes me too tired to actually go outside.  HOW IS THIS FUN? 

And there’s no WiFi.

I seriously think y’all who enjoy this are just pretending.  I simply cannot wrap my head around it. 

Favorite movie?  Again, I have two.  While I normally lack the attention span to sit through an entire movie (two hours?  Kill me) there are two that I’ll watch over and over and over again.

First:  The Incredibles.

blah blah

(Weird glitch isn't letting me caption this. Photo from http://movies.disney.com/the-incredibles)

So many gems in that one.  I seriously overuse “You got me monolouging” and “WHERE.  IS MY SUPERSUIT” and “Abort! Abort! There are children aboard!”  And I reference Bob’s opinion of incessant graduations ALL.THE.TIME.  Go HERE and read ALL the quotes.   It’s totally a scientific sociological specimen.  100%. Seriously.  WATCH THIS.  Now.

You also need to run out and go see Hitch.  BECAUSE IT’S HILARIOUS.

Photo from http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/hitch/

Every adult in the dating world needs to watch this – after you do, you’ll feel strangely better about the whole mess.  I promise.

This is another one with so many relatable quotes I can’t even.  “Don’t need no pizza.  They got plenty of food there.”  BEST QUOTE ON BAD DANCING EVER.

See?  Now you’re intrigued, aren’t ya.  GO WATCH IT. It’s on Netflix and it will TOTALLY brighten your day.  Like sunshine.

Passing the torch along to eleven bloggers who do a nice job of spreading light.  I won’t be offended if you don’t take this challenge on.  Just know that you brighten my day.

<barf>

  1. theGoodVader
  2. Happiness, Health, and Hypnosis
  3. sonofabeach96
  4. fattymccupcakes
  5. karmasarma
  6. Mermaid in a Mudslide
  7. This Little Diary
  8. Cat in the Cactus
  9. Remember the Good Stuff
  10. a funny thing happened when I was learning myself
  11. surviving the specter

YOUR QUESTIONS:

1. Describe to me, in detail, your favorite pizza.  (Bonus points if you can make it sound sultry.)

2.  Congratulations!  You just won a boat.  What do you name her?

3.  INTRUDER ALERT!  Someone’s breaking into your house!  What do you grab to fend him off? 

4.  What is your least favorite household chore?

5.  A stranger hands you $100 and one condition:  you have to spend it on something COMPLETELY frivolous, or a puppy dies.  What do you spend it on?

6.  Say something spiritual about doing laundry.

7.  What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten (on purpose?)

8.  What’s the oldest thing in your fridge right now?

9.  Describe your sleeping space. 

10. Thrill rides:  Yes or no, and why or why not?

11. What’s your favorite joke?

That oughta do it, for now. The sun is setting on this post.

<gong>

The Love/Hate Challenge! Part 5: A Second Pot of Coffee

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9

Bear with me, folks – we’re on part five of six – I PROMISE I’m wrapping this up here.  Eventually.

Coffee was the subject of my last post, and I suspect will occupy the better part of this one.  But because my daily cup of personality allows me to spell it “morning” instead of “mourning,” it deserves a little extra love and attention.  So pour yourself a fresh cuppa joe, prop up your feet, and get comfy.

lovehatechallengeDA RULES:

  1. List 10 things you LOVE
  2. List 10 things you HATE
  3. Nominate a few suckers to do the same

10 THINGS I LOVE and 10 THINGS I HATE (in unranked order)

PART 5:  MORE COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE

9.  I love gas station coffee, and I hate Starbucks.

In my last post, I may have mentioned that I love coffee.  And while this is very true, I’m totally blue-collar about it.  As long as you’re drinking it black, I’m the furthest thing from a coffee snob that there is.

Confession:  I actually drink – and like – coffee from the gas station.

<passes smelling salts for delicate flowers who dead-fainted>

Hey, don’t knock it ’till ya try it – if you can’t find a McDonald’s, know that Sheetz, Holiday, KwikTrip, and SuperAmerica all have decent roasts – and they sell 24oz cups to tote it in.  WINNING.  (Side note:  Sheetz actually has some decent food, too, for a 24/7 gas station.  Certainly a few notches above Taco Bell, and deny all you want, I KNOW you are totally eating that shiz on the sly.  Taco Bell is the Walmart of fast food – the largest chain where <cough> “nobody” eats, EVER.)

My fave chain coffee is Dunkin’ Donuts.  I’m self-aware enough to realize that it was probably because I was raised on the stuff – I’m from the East Coast, and Dunkin’ dominated; back home, this chain is everywhere. Although Tim Hortons is seriously encroaching on the terrain; once we let him out of Canada, he started to spread like some sort of mutant coffee kudzu.  But if he chokes out Starbucks, I’ll consider it a symbiotic relationship and agree to peacefully coexist.

Side note:  Where you’re raised definitely influences your tastes.  I remember reading a study years ago (it was probably Consumer Reports, but do you think I can find it now?) with taste-test results for different brands of dark chocolate.  Hershey’s makes one called Special Dark.  You probably remember this as the also-ran in the bag of miniatures, left to grow stale long after the Mr. Goodbars and Krackels were gone.  (Except in my house, where Mom and I fought over them.  We also fought over the Brazil nuts in the Chex Mix.  Ah well.)  Although it tends to get mediocre ratings nationwide, Special Dark tends to be the favored brand of dark in the region surrounding Hershey, PA.  Whether they actually like it, or pretend to out of unfailing loyalty, I can’t say for certain, but if you know any Steelers fans, you’ll likely lean to the latter theory.   Because those people are in their own special category of uniquely nutzoid.  Green Bay and Dallas fans have NOTHING on loyalty next to Steelers fans.  Nada.  Zip.

Usually, I brew my own coffee at home.  I justify my addiction by supporting small farmers and/or local businesses while I’m getting my fix.  (Shout out to Velasquez Family Coffee, who delivers my monthly prescription subscription of beautifully delicious beans.  African Cinnamon is da bomb, but they’re all excellent.  Trust me.)

But if I’m on the road, and there’s no Dunkin’ available, I will happily hit the local fill station for my morning boost.  No matter how questionable the store appears, the coffee there HAS to be better than what I’ll find at Starbucks.

Ah, Starbucks.  The one chain coffee I canNOT stomach.

This isn’t a political statement, nor is it a protest against the overpriced blended dessert drinks made-to-order with a brutally bastardized handwritten approximation of your first name.

It’s simply because THEIR COFFEE IS TERRIBLE.

Aficionados of the swill will claim, with their noses pointed high, “it’s DARK roast…you must not like coffee that dark and robust.”  I raise my pinky delicately <snort> and call BS on y’all.  Folks, it’s not “dark roast” any more than charcoal is ebony wood, or broken glass looks JUST LIKE diamonds.  The Emperor is naked – in the name of decency, grab a tarp to cover the floppy bits.  THAT SHIZ IS BURNT YO.

The last time I voluntarily drank a cup of Starbucks coffee was in 2005.  I had to make a long drive, and it was early in the morning on a holiday and I was bone-tired.  I was heading into a rural area (read:  nothing open, not even gas stations) and, out of desperation, made a regrettable decision – I pulled into Starbucks to grab a small cup.  Just a little, to get me through the drive.  I mean, it was either that or headbob my way into swerving offroad through the forest.

I did what I had to do.  I knew it wouldn’t be great, but how bad could it be?   I needed it, right?

I selected something called Christmas Blend.  Gamely, I raised the cup to my lips.  My sophisticated tasting palate has identified the composition of this brew, just in case you’d like to replicate it at home:

  1. Chop down a pine tree.
  2. Let it rot in your backyard for approximately 12 months.
  3. Burn it to ashes (be sure to leave the dead bugs, dog hair, and bird droppings!)  Grind well.
  4. Pour hot water over the whole thing and drink up.

Halfway through the cup, I gave up and chucked it out the window.  And probably killed an endangered turtle or something.

My aversion to Starbucks has gotten so bad that the very smell of it triggers my gag reflex.  It’s like morning sickness all over again, when the smell of the fireplace, of all things, sent me on a frenzied sprint to find a bathroom. (Hmm.  Fireplace = burnt wood.  Coincidence?  I THINK NOT, Starbucks.  I.  Think.  Not.)

If Starbucks is the only option available, I will actually make the risky and painful decision to <gasp> FOREGO coffee, even when I desperately need it (read:  mornings with boring meetings, mornings when I didn’t get much sleep, mornings in general, and mornings on days of the week ending in Y.)

I’ve attended enough local seminars to know which hotels have the hazard placard on the silver vat of caffeine:

hazardsign

Image obviously from http://www.starbucks.com

(Dear Hilton:  I used to be an HHonors Diamond member.  DIAMOND.  THIS IS HOW YOU THANK ME?)

Thankfully, Starbucks hasn’t ruined tea.  Yet.  So that’s still a relatively safe bet if you’re stuck in an endless meeting and can’t get out to bring your own.  It’s a poor substitute, true, but it might be just enough caffeine to keep you on the left side of regrettable decisions that get you fired, arrested, or both.

Of course, that might be a super effective way to get banned from meetings for a while.

<raises Friendship mug and winks conspiratorially>

One more and I PROMISE we’ll be done with this.

I pass the torch to Lauren Hayley at Madness, Sparkle, and Creative Flair.  She’s pretty busy but I suspect she has a lot to say, too. 🙂

The Love/Hate Challenge! Part 4: COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE

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And here we have part four of what was, for most bloggers, a simple challenge:

lovehatechallengeDA RULES:

  1. List 10 things you LOVE
  2. List 10 things you HATE
  3. Nominate a few suckers to do the same

(Really, this is getting ridiculous now.  Part FOUR?!?  Stand up and flush already!)

Like I said in my last post, it’s hard for me to condense “hate” and “love” into a compact form – it doesn’t do the words justice, ya know?

So do you think we can wrap this thing up here and ship it out?  Place your bets, peeps.  <dealer spins>

10 THINGS I LOVE and 10 THINGS I HATE (in unranked order)

PART FREAKING 4:  ALL ABOUT COFFEE

Coffee and I have such a long relationship, it gets its own post.  YAY COFFEE

7.  I love coffee, but hate when people pretend to love it.

Coffee and I have been seeing each other regularly ever since high school (really, isn’t that where most haunting life rituals and obsessions get started?)

I first picked up the habit to meet a dual need of 1) keeping warm yet 2) not ingesting any additional calories.  Every woman in America who’s ever flirted with dieting or food issues knows that coffee is pretty much calorie-free AND that caffeine keeps you both awake and kills your appetite.  Also, I’ve mentioned before that I have Raynaud’s Syndrome, and keeping your hands warm when you’re trying to play clarinet and march around a football field when it’s sleeting presents its own unique challenge.  (I usually failed.  But as long as you keep marching, nobody cares.  You can’t really expect a clarinet to be heard in a stadium filled with 90,000+ drunken fans, anyway.)

I drink my coffee black.  If you truly love coffee, you will too.  Adding sugar, cream, and sprinkles to it means you are drinking dessert. It’s a coffee-flavored milkshake – THIS IS SO NOT THE SAME THING AS COFFEE.

Now, don’t get me wrong –  I have NOTHING against dessert here, folks.  There’s a time and a place for it.  Just don’t lie to me and pretend you are drinking coffee.  Because you are not.

This is like the Pizza Lie, which I also hate.  If you tell me “we’re having pizza”, this will lead a gal to have certain…expectations.  Such as red sauce…maaaaaayyyybe white.  But there will be sauce on the crust.  There will also be cheese. No cheese = NOT PIZZA.

And there may be toppings within the realm of socially acceptable parameters.  Cured meats?  Sure.  Ham, chicken?  Also OK…but pushing it.

Veggies?  Slow down there, cowboy – there are a few that are OK, but this ain’t a free-for-all.  Feel free to chuck on onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, even olives, if that’s what puffs your sails.  But when your pizza starts to look like a not-so-cleverly disguised salad, YOU HAVE CROSSED A LINE.  Broccoli?  Oh hell no.  Cauliflower?  You’re joking.  Arugula?  I may have to stab you.

And don’t even TRY to pass off Thai Stir-Fry, Taco, or Cheeseburger as “pizza.”  That is food on a crust.  It may be edible.  It may not suck.  But it is not pizza.  Just like milkshakes who once participated in a flash mob with coffee ARE NOT COFFEE.  They’re…acquainted – a third-degree connection on LinkedIn at best.  But firmly in the category of Not Coffee.

8.  I love my coffee mugs, and I hate tiny coffee cups.

In my twenties (OK, and my thirties…and maybe a couple times last week) I drank a LOT of coffee.  This did not go unnoticed by my coworkers:  At one of my first jobs, the boss had handmade pottery mugs made for each of us for Christmas one year.  Everyone received a normal-sized mug except me.

Mine held HALF A POT OF COFFEE.  SCORE.

I drank three cups of coffee a day at that job.  (That’s a pot and a half, for those of you who haven’t had any coffee yet today, and/or don’t math, or both.)

Now that I’m older, and need to work a little harder at things that used to be easy (Sleep? I’m giving you the death stare) I’m down to just one cup of coffee a day.  (It’s about 24 ounces.  BUT TOTALLY COUNTS AS ONE CUP, just like when you pick the biggest slice of pizza in the box and count it as “one slice” on MyFitnessPal.)

For my daily commute (40 minutes without traffic – attempting this without a shot of caffeine is a hay bale on the NOPE farm) my mug of choice is a Bubba Keg, one of the only travel mugs out there that both holds a sufficient volume of coffee AND fits in a standard car’s cup holder.  Which doesn’t sound that significant, but you’d be surprised how hard THAT combo is to find.  I have a few older versions of this one:

BubbaKeg

Buy one at shopbubba.com. Really, go do it.

When I’m at home, and can get up for frequent refills (because cold coffee is just a black vat of sadness and disappointment) I rotate between these mugs:

coffee mugs

Note my champion photo editing skills. Snort.

From left to right:

A.  I got this one from a friend about 15 years ago as a gift.  I haven’t been in touch with her for at least 10 years – the only reason I keep it is because it’s incredibly sappy and, like, totally ironic to use first thing in the morning when I legit want to punch people smack in the happy.

B.  I bought this in NYC when I went to my FIRST BROADWAY SHOW EVAH.  My true soulmates will know which show this is.  The rest of you can no longer Drink With Me even One Day More.  Also note that this mug was from the ORIGINAL tour – not the recent refresh that generated the movie.  Which means that this mug is older than some of you reading this post right now.

This kind of blows my mind because that means this mug has survived <counting furiously in my head> FOURTEEN MOVES.  That’s gotta be some kind of physics miracle.  I mean, doesn’t everyone break at least six coffee mugs when they move?

C.  I got this from a local church as a welcome/guest gift around move nine.  I love the message – who can’t benefit from a reminder that they might be loved? – but it also sort of irritates the hubs, due to him being an avid nonbeliever.  So this is the mug I use most often.  Heh. (Hey, cut me some slack.  I’m reaching for this BEFORE I’ve had any coffee.  It’s either passive aggression or a body count.)

Anyway – the point here is that there are PLENTY of coffee mugs out there that hold more than a shot of java.  Hotels and conference centers of America?  I’m raising my eyebrows and pointing finger-guns directly at you.

You’ve noticed this, right?  When you have the “privilege” (read: lost the office Fantasy Football pool and ponied up by “volunteering” for conference duty) of attending an offsite training session, seminar, or conference, you’re rewarded with hard, unforgiving chairs in a room with the ambiance of a meat locker and the treat of mystery chicken in secret sauce for lunch…and to top of the indignity of it all, they serve a sad excuse for coffee in little baby-sized cups.  Your grandmother, upon spotting the array, would have picked one up, shrugged, and stuffed it in her purse to repurpose as a thimble.

Seriously, when you have an audience that has been involuntarily restrained for four, six, EIGHT FREAKING HOURS in a freezing-cold, mind-numbing coffin of monotony, is there some sick and twisted delight that meeting planners take in ordering coffee cups that would be an inadequate helmet for a window-bombing sparrow?

I don’t ask for much.  But at 8 AM, when faced with a full day of detailed, riveting Powerpoints and presenters who obligingly read them aloud to you word by word, GIVE A GIRL SOME SERIOUS JAVA or someone’s gonna get cut.

Hmm.  I guess I hate conferences, too.

I get to go to a couple of these a year.  You’ll know if I’m ever at one you’re attending.    I’m the chick walking in ten minutes late, muttering obscenities to herself while balancing three miniscule cups of coffee to the last remaining seat in the front row.

Feel free to introduce yourself.

AFTER the cups are empty.  AFTER.

So…I’m not quite finished yet.  Dealer is collecting chips from those of you who bet red.  I think one more post will do it.

And today’s nominee for this challenge….Walking After Midnight.  Because she hasn’t posted in awhile.  <poke poke>  😉

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

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

lovehatechallengeDA RULES:

  1. List 10 things you LOVE
  2. List 10 things you HATE
  3. 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.

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…

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:

schwinn

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:

Lake1

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

bikeflowers.

Like a little firework burst.

bikeflowers2

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

swans

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.  🙂