So, first of all, regarding this post, thank you all so, so much for commenting and lending your support and understanding. I was literally overwhelmed by all of the people who came out to offer a comment, letting me know that, while crazy, I am not alone.
Still doing Weight Watchers, though a sort of loose version. I adapt it as I need to. I’m slowly losing weight and things feel different this time. I attribute that mostly to my new-found fervor with regard to healthier food. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m pretty frightened by the food industry in the U.S. and all of the icky governmental circle jerks that contribute to it.
So, this time around, going the easy route by stuffing my freezer with Lean Cuisine wasn’t really an option. In fact, since giving up Diet Dr. Pepper, I’ve pretty much done away with all “light” foods. That is, I don’t really buy light versions of foods. I don’t buy diet bread or light or fat-free salad dressings or light butter or skim milk or fat-free cheese or freakish 100-calorie desserts. None of that. (However, I do buy low-fat organic yogurt. Full disclosure, n’at.) I want Food. This has taken some effort on my part because I could eat more if I bought such things, but I just no longer see the point of sustaining myself on edible food-like things, which will inevitably become tiresome.
I’m eating a little less during the day so that I can eat a regular dinner with the dudes. That’s the major change that I’ve made. And you know what? It’s working really well. Mentally, I’m in a much better space. I’ve noticed that I feel satisfied/full much easier. On days when I indulge a little, I feel uncomfortably full and I think for awhile that became my normal “full” feeling. There were a lot of emotions involved, ya know? I would eat past that point for any number of reasons, stress being the main one.
I still genuinely love cooking and baking and, most of all, eating. I’m amassing an insane collection of favorite recipes and even more recipes that I want to try. I just today signed up at Evernote to work on a system of organizing recipes from all of the food blogs that I read because I want to try all of them. (Evernote, by the way, is pretty cool. I don’t know, for my purposes, if it’s a huge departure from the organizing/tagging features on Google Reader, but it’s still very nice.)
I also wanted to touch on a few points that were raised in the post mentioned above. I do not hate my body or the way it is shaped. I used to and believe me the way that I feel about myself now is so much healthier than the way I felt about it for a long, long time. And I kind of feel like I do accept my body and that my desire to lose weight, while certainly tied up in the bullshit that I’ve been dealing with for nearly all of my life, actually comes from a good place, if that makes any sense.
Anyway, I think there’s like…stuff going on in the world besides my ass vigilance. But here’s a (dark, crappy, phone) picture of my cat being forced to wear a babushka.
Mandatory annual trip to Kennywood: completed Friday, August 14th (just under the self-imposed deadline)
High temperature on date of trip: 92 F
Humidity: 6 bajillion %
People in attendance: seemingly the entire population of the tri-state area. Apparently, there was a picnic happening that day for employees of Giant Eagle. This was funny to us because our last few trips to Idlewild have always coincided with Italian Day, during which you cannot spit without hitting five guys named Tony and the tarantella will haunt your dreams for weeks afterward. We managed to avoid that crappy timing this year, but were at Kennywood while Italian Day was going on at Idlewild. We’re subconsciously drawn to crowds, which is funny because we hate people. But I guess we need stuff to bitch about.
Hours at Kennywood: 9
Rides enjoyed: only 10 (see also: People in attendance)
Vomit puddles spotted and narrowly avoided: 2
Buckets sweated: At least 35
Potato Patch fries consumed: about 10, personally. Chewing and digesting made me sweat more.
Other fried goods consumed: sadly, none
Children whose lives I changed (probably for the worst) by shoving him onto the Phantom’s Revenge with me: 1 (mine)
How I accomplished that: we told him we were in line for the Turnpike. (This charade didn’t last that long, but I did have to convince him that we would come out the other side alive and days later I’m not sure that he believes me yet.)
Number of times I saw that lady that I always see at Kuhn’s who kind of looks like the Cryptkeeper: 1
Minutes I blatantly stared at her: too many
Number of stars for that night’s post-Kennywood shower and slumber: Five. With a bullet.
Writing that out is really weird and honestly I think I have an easier time saying it than typing the words.
My BMI puts me firmly in the overweight category, though I don’t put much stock in the BMI. We can look around and see that these categories are very questionable and they really don’t say much, if anything, about a person’s actual health. I am actually leaning toward the obese category and while I will admit to some bad habits that have led to weight gain, I just don’t consider myself obese. I think.
Herein kind of lies the problem.
I was a ballet dancer and, not surprisingly, that really messed with how I ate, how I viewed myself, and how I viewed others. Much of my worth as a dancer (and, therefore, myself) was tied up in whether or not my instructors thought that I was thin enough.
Ultimately, I was fired from my first dancing job for being too fat. At the time, I believed them, but looking back at pictures of me from that time, and knowing that I was maybe 105 lbs. (I’m 5’4″) makes me realize that maybe they were a little…insane. What was especially upsetting about that firing was that they had told me at the beginning of my time there that I needed to lose a lot of weight. And I worked really really hard to get down to their standards. My body just couldn’t do it, though. I’m really just not cut out to be 95 lbs. (which is where I needed to be for them) and be able to, like, dance or sit upright or whatever.
But it wasn’t just that instance that gave me trouble. Because I started dancing when I was very young, I’ve been concerned about my weight and/or actively dieting since I was six or seven years old. Yes, I’m serious.
After I was fired from that dancing job, I decided that ballet wasn’t for me, after all. I wasn’t looking forward to having to move every year and always worrying about having a job. And I realized that my weight would always be an issue and, frankly, I was hungry. After I quit, I kind of just reveled in being able to eat whatever I wanted. I had many happy reunions with hot fudge sundaes that I hadn’t seen in years.
But that lifelong deferral to what someone else determines “thin enough” has stayed with me. I KNOW that it’s all about what you feel comfortable with and what is right for you, but for the most part, my brain believes that there is an objective standard. I’ve been working really hard to shake that belief off, but it’s really hard shutting up a voice that’s been in your brain since you were a kid.
I’ve gone back and forth between wanting desperately to meet this standard that I’m so sure exists and just doing whatever I want. Obviously, what I need to do is find some middle ground where I look out for my health but celebrate my body for what it is.
Lately, I’ve been doing whatever I want. Part of the reason for this is because I have too much going on in life and I know that I don’t have time or energy to obsess over my diet and weight the way that I know I will. As of two weeks ago, I was very, very close to my 9-months-pregnant weight. Granted, I had my son in my early 20s and I’m 30 now, so some extra pounds are to be expected. But I’ve been blatantly ignoring what I eat and how much simply because it is comforting to not think or worry about it.
The thing is, I’ve gone through this cycle many times before. Most recently, in late 2007. After I did Weight Watchers for a few months and lost about 15 pounds, other stuff got in the way and I abandoned the diet. I told myself that if I ever worked on losing the weight again, I wouldn’t publicly declare it because going back and reading several series of posts that go through that predictable process of, “I just started Weight Watchers (again) and I feel great! -> I’m still on WW and I’ve lost this much! I love being healthy! -> I know I haven’t mentioned it in awhile but I’m still kind of doing WW and it’s alright. -> What diet?” is kind of embarrassing.
But here it is: I started Weight Watchers again last week and I’ve lost a few pounds. Whoopee. I’m not setting any expectations for myself and I’m not going to beat myself up if, in the middle of the semester, I realize that I just can’t deal with this right now and I need a pie.
So why am I mentioning it? I don’t know. Because I guess I hope that someone understands.
Saturday, I managed to wake up in time for breakfast and went to the opening session, which included a cooking demo using all Wal-Mart ingredients. Helpful, sure, but it’s all Wal-Mart all the time at my house and sometimes I can use a break from the endless parade of Great Value products (Dana commented on one of the unnamed-sponsor lunches, “I don’t want to eat the shit I make at home!”).
There was also an interview with Tina Brown and Ilene Chaiken and another Important Woman who I’ve totally forgotten. I was barely paying attention because I didn’t grab enough coffee. I know that they talked about various forms of media migrating to the internet…which was basically saying, “Print and TV and film are going to take over…soooo bloggers better recognize.” Well, not exactly, but that’s kind of what I read into it. But maybe displaced bloggers can take over TV and movie studios and newspapers? And those will become these retro media giants? And we’ll go back and forth with this power struggle like the Star-Bellied Sneetches? Who have blogs upon thars?
I went to a panel about blogging identity that was pretty interesting. I’m not uncomfortable wearing the title of “mommyblogger,” though it sounds a tad precious. I’m a mother and I write about parenting sometimes and I’m proud of that, but actually the only time that someone has called me a mommyblogger is as an insult. But they were tiny people with the acuity of applesauce anyway so it’s not really even worth considering.
I don’t think the panel touched on the use of the term “mommyblogger” as a pejorative, because that wasn’t the focus. But I guess I was assuming that they were going to talk about how to focus your blog if you’re a parent but write about other stuff, too, but it was more for people who have very topical blogs that aren’t about parenting. Not totally relevant for me but it was interesting.
Things did take a weird turn when there was some vaguely anti-parentblog sentiments thrown around. Well, maybe they weren’t anti, per se, but there was some level of irritation over the fact that mommybloggers receive the most attention from marketers and whatnot. I can imagine that if you’re building a blog audience about a topic and your audience is sizable, it can be very frustrating to be passed over. But things change and, seriously, blogging as a serious industry is still very, very young. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the balance shift in the next year or so.
But I did think about this site and how I kind of just write about whatever. If I wanted to, I could probably build a larger audience by focusing solely on one thing.
The husband’s blog really took off because he has a super-specific topic and there just aren’t many people writing about what he does. (I call him Dooce sometimes because he gets all gushy about his huge readership, which makes me wonder if this just all relates to penis size, and then I threaten to shut his site down because I run things.) But that’s not me and that’s not this site. I’m a human being and therefore multi-faceted. And I’m not sure that the world needs another memoirist so I’ll just plop shit here like so much slop in a trough with the occasional complete steak and let you guys come to it. And I think I just called my readers pigs. I didn’t mean it. I just…I missed the panel on storytelling and metaphor and that was obviously a big mistake.
Lunch!
I can’t remember if I went to another panel on Saturday, besides the MamaPop session. I don’t think I did. I’ll do better next year. But the MamaPop session was REALLY good. There was lots of interesting discussion and debate about pop culture and if there’s a feminist way to gossip. And I’m pretty sure that we won the Big Word competition for “schadenfreude” and “Aristotelian” being dropped.
With a few hours to kill, Dana and I ventured about 20 feet outside of the hotel and went to Niu for dinner. We had, no lie, the best sushi either of us had ever tasted and incredible mojitos.
I hit up the CheeseburgHerz party for a little bit but it became extremely crowded and I had to roll out. In the morning, Dana and Tracey and I went to the recovery breakfast and said some goodbyes before heading to the airport.
My only regrets were not seeing more of the city and not meeting more people. Obviously, I met a lot of people that I’ve known online for awhile in real life for the first time, and that’s always fun. But as far as people that, for whatever reason, I just didn’t know about until bumping into them at BlogHer, I can only say that I met a small handful. So, if I go next year, my mission will be to just branch out.
My only criticisms were that the wi-fi issue was just kind of ridiculous, considering it was a blogging conference, and that the expo booths were a little too girly. More nerdy tech stuff!
The last matter I want to address about BlogHer is the people that I met and hung out with. There is absolutely no way that I can make a complete list (see also: drunk on Thursday; 1,500 attendees). But I do want to touch on a few key encounters:
– Receiving a huge hug from Tanis within minutes of arriving at the hotel and later laughing with her about trying to fit into college writing desks while pregnant
– Receiving a huge hug from Grace after randomly bumping into her in the lobby
– Doing a slow-motion run through a field of daisies on a sidewalk when we first spotted Amber and Miss Banshee and Lena
– Discussing existential crises with Katie
– Flopping around on the Chi Bar couch with Miss Grace (both of us only vaguely recall this, but I’m pretty sure it happened…unless that wasn’t her tattoo but, in fact, Where the Wild Things Are coming to life before my eyes)
– Grinding to Ludacris with Y
– Trying to convince Amy to pull the bottom of her dress up between her legs, diaper-style
– Forgetting that I had gum in my mouth and nearly choking when I ate a piece of unicorn cake, and, though I didn’t introduce myself formally, having Bossy exclaim to me that she had just done the exact same thing.
– Finally succeeding in meeting Kristabella and Izzy
– The MamaPop group hug at the end of Sparklecorn, during which Heather gave me a gigantic kiss on the cheek, complete with, “MmmmmWAH!”
– Reintroducing myself to the lovely Kate, another casualty of Thursday’s beverage-induced amnesia
– Creepily lurking outside of Erin’s door looking for stickers that she placed there for me (feel better soon, lady!)
– Teasing Neil with his cattiness comments
– Just getting to hang out and giggle with Dana
– Just getting to pinch the cheeks of Schmutzie and Palinode, both of whom I love and want to put in my pocket
– Sleeping with Tracey every night (boom chick a bow wow) in the amazing beds at the Sheraton
– Anyone that I didn’t mention here that I even brushed up against that weekend
I also need to send a special thank you to Kim, who sold me her ticket to the conference after she realized that she couldn’t attend. I know that she was extremely sad that she couldn’t go, but she promises to be there next year. Go Kim!
I’m headed to Baltimore this weekend to visit Tracey (she can’t get enough of me) and Angela and some other assorted Baltimore characters. Note to would-be burglars: my very ferocious husband and my very ferocious cat will be home so BACK OFF.
Things in my house that are probably housing dangerous molds and spores and stuff:
– the fridge
– the toilets
– me
I really, really need to do some stuff here today but the past week and a half just caught up with me and now I can’t really imagine doing anything but watching old episodes of Mad Men.
Speaking of, and in honor of today’s uselessness, I give you kdiddy a la Mad Men:
The baby had his first soccer practice today. The coach freaked me out by openly talking shit on the parents of two kids who couldn’t be at today’s practice. Not cool. I had to spend the practice attempting to find a dry patch of ground that was in shade so that I wouldn’t combust, which means that I need to go whole hog on this soccer mom thing and buy a folding chair with an umbrella. I need something that will protect my pallor while I hand out Sunny D and say stuff like, “Gosh!” and “Golly!” and “Kick the shit out of it, kid!”
In stark contrast to my surroundings just two days ago, I’m writing to you from a lake in upstate PA. It’s family vacation time and I’m tapping this out on my iPhone because there’s no Internet. Therefore I have hives.
Anyway, I just wanted to pop up real quick to say that I will post about my BlogHer experience next week…when everyone has moved on and no longer cares. I think that when I find my “mommyblogging tribe” we shall call ourselves, “Those Late Betches.” Should look nice on a silk jacket.
The husband and I went to a wedding on Saturday night. The groom has been friends with the husband for a number of years, but neither of us had met the bride, despite them being together for over two years. She knew of the husband and knew that he was DJing the first portion of the evening. But when she spotted me at the reception she looked a little concerned, like I might be a wedding crasher.
“I’m [the husband]’s wife! Also, you and I are friends on Facebook! Congratulations!” I saw the spark of recognition and all was well.
By the way, the husband’s DJing portion was pretty rad. The bride walked out to “It’s a Man’s World” by Marvin Gaye and then right after the couple kissed and started making their way down the aisle, he played “Lovely Day” by Bill Whithers. It was pretty sweet.
The ceremony and reception were both at Phipps, which was lovely and the couple kept things light by just having a tower of cupcakes from Dozen and hors d’oeuvres. The only flaw with this plan was that they had an open bar (wine and beer) and the hors d’oeuvres were light and limited. Soooo people got kind of rowdy…including a certain blogger we all know and love and whose name rhymes with jbibby.
The husband and I were 1 for 1 for exes present. My ex was easily avoided. The husband’s ex came and sat with us to chat at around Chardonnay #4 on a relatively empty stomach. I remember this conversation going just fine and even commiserating with her over our badly stubbed toes.
After she rejoined her date, the husband turned to me later and said, “You were all loud and kind of snippy with her.”
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I WAS NOT!”
“Yeah, you were. It’s okay, though. It was kind of funny.”
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU MEAN, JAGOFF.”
And, yes, I do feel kind of sheepish about the fact that my last two blog entries have been about my twisted ability to accidentally get drunk, as though I don’t know what causes it.
Speaking of alcoholics, our useless neighbors forgot to put their trash out again and dumped it with ours. This practice in and of itself doesn’t bother me. I’m scatterbrained and can’t really judge anyone for forgetting such a task. However, it’s the CONTENTS of their trash that infuriates me. In the entry I linked to above, it was a bag of dirty diapers.
This week it was two cases of Beast. *horf*
As we got in the car to leave this morning, I said, loudly so that they might hear it, “I don’t want anyone thinking we drink that shit!” Think of my reputation, jerkfaces.
I realize that it’s been over a week since I posted here. That’s mostly because things have been pretty uneventful. The picture above is from last Friday morning/afternoon. Faced with a day off for the holiday, I drank just a few beers (honest!) while we were out on Thursday night and woke up the next morning surprised to find myself feeling rather crap-like. Luckily, my cat provided the necessary head-to-head services that I didn’t even know I needed.
Other than that, I got nothing. We got W. from Netflix and I’ve been trying to watch for, literally, weeks and I keep falling asleep. It’s not a particularly bad movie, per se. There are some funny moments. And Josh Brolin’s performance is actually kind of creepily accurate (though the parts of him as young W. are just laughable). I just kinda…don’t care.
We’ve also been watching Arrested Development upon several emphatic suggestions from friends. I was skeptical because we had watched one episode while at the beach with Tracey and Co. a few years ago, but I think it was some random episode and was out of context and I couldn’t figure out why the Bluths were so fucking odd. Seeing it from the beginning though has really made me appreciate it. I’ve been in tears laughing several times and have gone to bed extremely late every night this week because of that fateful, “Let’s just watch one more…” declaration that has got to be close to being a psychological disorder in the DSM, afflicting adults in the era of DVDs.
Also, this:
That is Honey Bourbon Caramel Peach pie and it’s pretty much an orgasm in a dish. I was excited about this pie, not only because it promised to be amazing, but also because I thought I would be able to keep it in a cake stand that I bought a few months ago. For some reason, I keep thinking cake stands are bell jars, even though I know that’s not the case. However, the handles on the pie dish prevented the dome of the bell jar/cake stand from fitting properly…so I stuck my head in the oven.
Also this week we spent a small fortune at Ikea on shelving and other bins and crap in the name of organizing our house and now our house is cluttered with not-yet-assembled flat packs and Allen wrenches. I can’t win.
Today we’re going to a wedding of some friends of ours, so I think I’m going to go and, like, shower or something.
The baby often accompanies me to the nail shop and has come to develop an appreciation for good manicures. He recently asked me if he could pick out a color and/or airbrush design the next time we went. I agreed, but quickly realized I needed to have some veto power when, while standing at “Nail Polish Station,” the words “sparkles” and “bright yellow” got tossed around.
We compromised. I picked a relatively neutral shade for my fingers and he got to pick the color for my toes, since I decided yesterday that I was in desperate need of a pedicure.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m still not very much of a girly girl and my patronage to the nail shop has raised more than a few eyebrows. I feel weird saying this but in my…circle of culture (?), fake nails and the like just aren’t done. They’re too corny and brash. And the hipsters stay far away because they’re too ostentatious to be ironic.
But I like them. I don’t know why. I’ve come to find a little piece of delight in the ritual of my biweekly fill-ins and smiling politely when I’m not included in the Vietnamese conversations. And chuckling when the co-owner, while holding my ballet-abused feet in his hands, tells me that he really doesn’t like doing pedicures.
Unrelated to any anniversary activities, last night I made some strawberry honey butter because some strawberries that we got in our CSA box last week were on their last legs. When it was done, I shoved the rubber spatula into the husband’s face and said, “Taste.” He wrinkled up his nose and pushed his head back. “What is it?” I told him and he tentatively stuck his tongue out. “Ugh. It’s good but it’s like eating butter,” he said, like that was a bad thing. I don’t understand his logic.
We had some pretty impressive storms last night. The husband called me from this meeting he was attending in Squirrel Hill and said that things were teetering on apocalyptic over there and that there were reports of tornadoes in the area. Because I have awesome survival skills, I crossed my fingers that the power would stay on long enough for me to Google “what the fuck the do I do during a tornado?” then started furiously searching for a compass app on my iPhone so that I could determine which walls in my basement I needed to avoid. Don’t you want me around for your next natural disaster?
However, the clouds and activity, while notable, didn’t seem tornado-level. So I did the sensible thing and left my child alone in the house with any number of short-circuitable things and went outside and took pictures.
Video, because I like to provide a multimedia experience whenever possible:
Please note that I did not take this picture in black and white. That’s just how ominous it was.
Eeek!
On the upside, I won’t need to water my plants for a few days.
