Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was fun.

I exhausted myself, but it was fun. And I didn't hear any complaints from the guests, so that makes it a success in my mind.

I'm still exhausted. All I want to do is sleep, lay around, enjoy the comfort that is my couch.

We painted the main bathroom. By 'we' I mean T's brother C. (I sorta helped. Painted corners, edges, and one wall.) It looks so much better--seriously.

However, I woke up this morning, went into the master bathroom, (also known as the tiniest room in the house, right off of our bedroom) and looked up at the fan.

The paint is blistered around it, it's wet, water is dripping out of the fan. It smells moldy.

Which means.....

We get to tear out the bathroom. Which is a project that we can't afford. Hooray! But it's better than being sick.

Counting down

I need to run my vacuum cleaner. I need to clean J's bathroom. I need to put away the laundry. Go to the grocery store.

I would rather do what I've been doing, you know, laying on the couch in my bathrobe refusing to bathe or eat.

Instead, I will do what I do best: Pretend.

Ok, there's more

I'm alone a lot lately. I mean, whatever. I'm the unemployed slob in a house filled with working people. J is a party boy and only comes home to sleep and do laundry a few times a week. T works 48 hours a week, shift work, either gone all day or gone all night. I went from living, breathing, existing only to bake for those horrible people, busting my ass, going straight from work to see my coworkers and commiserate, straight from commiseration to home where I would see T either home from work and feed him and fall exhausted into bed, or see him off to work and then feed myself and fall exhausted into bed. Now....Nothing. Stasis.

It's a good thing, you know? I know this. I know it's good to take time off to recover from the shit box bakery and the terrorism therein.

But being alone? Makes me think. Makes me think a lot. About stuff I don't want to think about, things I don't ever think about, things that I don't like, that I fear, that I'd just as soon leave in their little boxes on their cataloged shelves in my brain and let them collect dust into infinity.

I understand that you have to think about things, process things, to get past them, to move on, whatever. But I really would just rather not.

I don't want to think about my stepdad, so I don't. Just, you know, don't. Unless it's a funny story about him being silly or doing something funny. I don't think about how he died, I don't think about what that meant, what I had to do because of it. How it changed me. Whatever. We've been over this before.

I don't think about my dad. Same as above. We've been over it before.

I don't think about my mom. I only talk to her in the morning when she's sober, and even then, I don't let her in. I keep her at arms length. I don't deal with her, with the past, whatever. I went down that road while we were planning the wedding and it resulted in T nearly taking me to the hospital.

But there's one thing that's been really waltzing to the front of my mind lately. Over, and over again. Because it really, truly shaped me in ways I don't like. It's changed every relationship I've had since then, and probably every relationship I will have forever.

I trust 2 people. Two. I know that doesn't sound so bad, and it really doesn't, you know? I have my husband and one friend. That's better than a lot of people. I'm lucky to have them, lucky to be able to know in my heart of hearts that they will always be there, without judgement, without reservation, loving me for who I am, never selling me out, throwing me under the bus, playing me. They don't have ulterior motives, aren't cataloging my words to use against me later.

Fuck, it was like, 6 years ago? We've been over this. Over the day I woke up and all my friends and lovers weren't. They hated me, stole my stuff, took my money, tried to turn people against me, put my cat to sleep and sent me the bill after I was gone, tried to trash my credit. Used my words against me and made me the scapegoat. Part of me can see why they would be mad, why they would want me out of their lives. But. I also know things that make me realize that I didn't deserve that, no one does.

But it's made me suspicious. Of everyone. Just because you're my friend today doesn't mean that you won't be tomorrow and for reasons I don't understand. Kindness means nothing. There is no such thing as loyalty when it comes to me. I know that I am being genuine, that I'm being kind a loyal and caring because I want to be, but I don't think anyone else is.

And so when I hear things being said about me, cruel things, untrue things, things that were taken out of context, things that could easily be resolved were people willing to just talk to me about it--it brings it all back. It reminds me that anyone is capable of anything. Just because you've been kind to me in the past doesn't mean you give a fucking shit about me or ever did. Doesn't mean that you wouldn't turn your back on me in a moment.

It stresses me out. I'm really trying to work on it. I need to quiet my mind and not over analyze things. Good fucking luck.

So I don't understand. I don't understand why people do what they do. I don't really care. It basically boils down to the idea that I pretty much believe that just about everyone in my life would be willing to sell me down the river without so much as a second thought.

So, you know? It's not a great way to live, with these walls, these razor wire fences up, but it has been shown to be time and time again that if you open that fence, pull a brick out of the wall--the tanks roll in, the barrels of the guns are thrust in your face.

I'm tired. Exhausted, even. Just, you know? Exhausted, but I can't sleep. Haven't slept. Won't.

Diet Pepsi and Yarn

I have a lot of yarn. Like, a lot a lot. (That's a term of measurement that T and I use often.)

I have a huge rubbermaid container FILLED. 3 cloth shopping bags FILLED. A huge bowl on the coffee table FILLED. And yet...I need more. Duh!

T took me (he had just started to get sick and I was very nearly on the cusp of it) down to the resort where I used to work because a very big deal yarn company and the Yarn Harlot were there. And, you know, I need yarn. And like Canadians.

So while T and I milled around and said hi to my old coworkers (the ones we don't hate, anyway) there was much yarn dyeing and knitting class teaching going on around me.

And as we left the commercial kitchen, I ran into the Harlot. She was supposed to be teaching a class but was on her way to....take a break. So I did get to see the knitting celebrity. That's something. I even managed to refrain from yelling "Thank you for teaching me to knit socks!" at her. Being a stranger and all.

So we went and got yarn and I was happy.

And then we both got horribly sick. Fever. Aches. Chills. Snot. T says that we made SnotTron together.

I haven't exercised for a week. Ugh. That whole not being able to breathe thing, combined with the fact that for a few days walking to the bathroom was not something I could really do alone, and once I was on the mend the exertion of putting sheets in the washing machine was too much for me and I had to go lie down.

Sigh.

So. Thanksgiving. It's on its merry little way. There's a lot of cooking and baking in my future.

Phone bloggers 'r' us

Blogging from my phone again. I have lots to say, really, but I don't know that I'm going to be able to muster the thumb strength to get it all out.

I don't know. I mean, really. I'm really trying to work on some parts of myself that I don't agree with. Like, sometimes it's better to just keep your mouth shut when you're pissed off. Say nothing, move on. So long as you're as to move on and not brood. (that's the hangup. The brooding.) seriously tho? I wish people were nicer and thought more before making rash judgements.

I lost 12 pounds.

They closed the bakery and fired everyone with no notice. Yesterday.

I had awesome knitting time this weekend before the horrible illness fell on me and T.

We are sick

T and I both. Great fun. Blogging from my phone on the couch. I even have good blog fodder for once. Not today, I guess.

Just as I thought

I run. I exercise. I eat correctly and less.

I lose no weight. NONE.

Hooray motivation! Hooray! Hooray for hard work paying off! Story of my damn life.

I'm not asking to weigh 117 pounds again. Seriously. I'm not asking THAT MUCH. Discouraged, I has it.

And

I'm in a really bad mood. Just, like, really, really unhappy with a whole lot.

Panic. Stupid.

So when I get depressed and/or stressed (usually both. Anxiety based depression FTW!) I become like, a worst case scenario expert. I become convinced that horrible things are going to befall me, T, my mom, etc. Like when T booked a trip to Vegas with his best friend for a dudes weekend and I FREAKED OUT. I was really happy for him, I really wanted him to go and have fun, but I was convinced that the plane was going to crash, that something horrible would happen and he wouldn't be coming home and I freaked. Like, hysterical sobbing freaked. (Stupid. He was fine. Granted, the Monte Carlo caught on fire while he was there, but he wasn't in it so whatever.) It's dumb. I get mad at myself for acting like that and that makes it worse.

Lately, I've become convinced that: 1)I have lung cancer/any other serious medical condition ranging from cancer to heart disease to whatever 2)T is going to be killed at work or somewhere 3)Our house is going to burn down 4)My mother is going to die and no one will find her.....And on, and on, and on, and on.....

It's so stupid. SO stupid. I had someone tell me that worrying about shit like this is like praying for stuff you don't want. All that did was make it worse. Seriously. More panic. More freaking out. The idea that something like that would happen and it would be MY fault.

AAARgh. I'm so done with it. With everything. I'm tired of feeling like a fucking freak, like a failure, like, well, yeah.

Warmth

It's cold, windy and nasty here. Which isn't any big deal since it's November, and this is totally normal. But I want to go outside, I want to go running (I really have lost my mind), I want to feel the sun on my shoulders.

Instead, when I went outside this morning to take the trash to the curb (barefoot, in my pajamas! Someone forgot to take it out last night/early this morning before they went to work, so I was in something of a hurry to get it out there as it was about time for the truck to arrive) I was nearly blown away. Yesterday when I went to get the mail I was literally soaked to the skin by the time I got back to the house. And it's not like I had to walk 5 miles to the mail box.

I'm watching the travel channel, and they're in Cuba, in Costa Rica, in Hawaii. To say I'm jealous is an understatement.

I'm tired. I'm irritated. I feel really good, physically. But I'm tired and pissed off otherwise.

Whatever. I need to learn to 'stay present', to not stress about shit that isn't within my control. Good luck with that, me.

Tea Bread

I was the tea bread expert at the bakery. For real. See, it wasn't as awe inspiring as being the cake expert or the cookie expert or anything--but still, it was something.

Now that we're on this diet, I'm trying to convert some of the more deeply loved recipes to a higher fiber/lower fat version.

And it sucks.

So, as far as the BS I was talking about yesterday, the health care thing? Sigh. I'm just so not ok with my government telling me what I can and can't do with my body. I'm also very not ok with it determining who can and can't get married. It's just not ok.

T has grown the goatee back, and I love it more than I can really articulate. I'm not really sure why--I love my husband, find him wildly attractive all the time (even when he's sick and grumpy) but the goatee just puts it over the top.

We went to my inlaws last night to give them jam, egg cartons and cake. We wound up staying for dinner (because T's mom really got her feelings hurt the last time that we didn't stay) and I feel like (you guessed it!) crap again today. Not to say that T's mom isn't a good cook--but when you have finally purged yourself of sugar, white flour and all butter like fats and finally sit down to a nice dinner that starts with cake--you're going to feel like crap the next day.

So I do.

ok

Today I woke up happy. Excited to be alive--thrilled that there was a day ahead and all the possibilities it held.

Then I came out of the sleepy fog I was in and wondered if I was dead or had lost my mind.

Neither were true.

I felt really great all day! Physically--no headache! No joint pain! I was in a great mood, laughing, motivated!

I read up about the BS that's going down with the health care reform--was angry. Am angry. However, I maintained a level of cheer that I can't think I've been close to since toddlerhood.

I'm wondering what's wrong. I mean, it's great. I normally feel like shit all the time. Every day. All day. Today was the first time that I haven't, in like, 10 years? For real. It's weird.

I suppose I shouldn't over analyse in case it goes away. But it was a nice respite. Even if it does make me feel guilty. (I know. Stupid. But there you are.)

List

My to-do list is so long. And I don't want to do any of it.

When did I become despondent and lazy? I mean, I don't remember always being this way. I don't know. I'm just....pissy.

I'm having a hard time seeing the point in a lot of stuff. I mean, why clean the house if it's just going to be trashed again in 4 minutes and no one will help you?

All the boys do is play video games. And sleep. And make messes. Well, if left to their own devices, anyway.

I'm just tired.

Tired of feeling like a piece of shit.

On Weight, and Wait, and....

So. I've lost 6 pounds. Meh. I wish that attempting to lose weight wasn't so time consuming. I'm sure most of that is coming off the easterly trip--we ate so much salt, so much crap--it balloons you and then when you quit it deflates. Plus I finished my period (Welcome, TMI seekers!) and that always makes me lose like, 4 pounds. So I've actually lost 2. Ish.

Idk. Like, you'd think that if you could drop like, 10 pounds right off it would be good motivation to stick with it. Instead, you lose a pound here, a pound there, feel like total ass, tired, angry about having to drink so much water, your ass hurts from working out, you want to sit down and eat ice cream (or whatever) but you get to have--whee!--a banana or something. I know that losing too much weight too fast will pretty much guarantee you'll gain it back, but really? Really.

I'm not trying to deprive myself, I'm eating when I'm hungry and all that, I'm just watching portions and what goes inside my mouth. And getting exercise. I don't love it.

On more exciting news, I totally kicked T's ass while working out last night. That made me feel a little better about progress--being that we were on an even out-of-shape keel a week ago. It's something.

I need to go for a run, now. I hate it, hate it, hate it. HATE IT. But it works, so, well, there you go.

I'm over it. I looked at the wedding pictures again and it's just....shameful. Shameful, how I couldn't find it inside myself to try and look decent for one goddamn day. I'm so embarrassed that for the rest of my life I get to look at the pictures from one of the best days, most momentous days of my life and see me, as a whale. Awesome.

I suppose that's motivation. Seeing what I really look like, what a walking disaster I am, stop deluding myself into thinking I look like anything close to decent.

Bowie

I love David Bowie. Like, it's almost not ok. I want him to come to my house and talk to me while I mop the floors or something. We can go yarn shopping together. He could record my answering machine message and I would make him dinner. He could help T winterize the garden. Work on the Jeep.

Ok, enough weird fantasies for one blog entry.

You know what's funny? Forcing people to back pedal. It's awesome.

I need to work out again today. Yesterday was 'light duty' day, so we only went running and did an assload of crunches. It's super windy right now, so I don't know if I'm going running today. Maybe I'll run the vacuum with extra gusto.

T hung shelves in our guest room, and they're super awesome. As soon as he was done, I went in and covered them in photos and stuff, took a step back, and disappeared into our bedroom. Came out, put the 'finishing touch' on the shelf, and was happy. What was the finishing touch? A stuffed zombie. He's a plush toy--His body comes apart, he has a brain in his hand, it's SO COOL. (We sort of collect zombie stuff. Ask me about my new stand mixer sometime.) Hey, I gotta keep it real, right? Can't have too much class in one spot--it's our house we're talking about here. Maybe I'll take pics and post them. Hell, maybe I'll do that now.





So those are totally in backwards order. Whatever.

Losing Faith

Maine? Really? REALLY?

More often than I would like to admit, I feel ignorant. No, for real. The situation in Maine? I honestly didn't think that it would go down like that. I was seriously all, like, "We've come so far as a nation, things are changing now, this won't be a problem!" and then I look at the results and I'm totally fucking shocked. SERIOUSLY?? I feel totally ignorant for not even giving failure a second thought.

When I hear about shit like this, it makes me lose faith in the human race.

Look at what happened in WA. Washington is a BLUE STATE. (Well, mostly because Seattle and Western WA are blue, and more densely populated than Eastern WA--whatever.) Washington is a blue state, (always, pretty much) and 71 only passed by 1.9% or something amazing like that.

It sickens me. Seriously. Sickens me that we are still in a place where it can be 'wrong' to love someone.

I just wrote a fucking book about this. I read back over it--I'm being too emotional. You can't make good, well thought out, eloquent points when you're screaming inside. Maybe more later.

Fish

We're having fish tacos for dinner.

I'm ready for my head to stop hurting. I'm dealing with angry back muscles which is causing me to have the tension headaches. Bangin.

Whatever. I'm sleepy. Lazy. I've been working out and it makes my body mad. I know that I should be cleaning or something, but I just want to lay in bed and make T keep me warm with his nuclear heated body. (He hates that.)

Our carpet needs to be vacuumed. It looks like a Jackson Pollack painting.

Annnnyway. Nap time.

Ugh

I have a lot of chores to do today. I don't want to.

Going for a run actually sounds more appealing. That should tell you something.

My throat feels weird. Like, my ear is clicking for no reason like there's fluid involved, and that tonsil feels like there's a hard something stuck in it. This is also the ear that has the super thick eardrum, since I exploded my ear drums as a baby when my mom took me on a flight to Tennessee. I water-pik-ed it, now it just feels coated and weird. Whaaaatever.

So I'm working out. And I didn't die. Like, the last time I did this particular work out, T had a super amazing asthma attack and I nearly vomited. No near vomiting this time.

Good side effect--I don't want to smoke. I had forgotten! Exercise=My body says "fuck that shit!" to smoking. WHY DIDN'T I REMEMBER THIS SOONER! I got in the shower with T (save water!) and had the super awesome "sense of smell from when I quit smoking", which is to say, normal, everyday smells that wouldn't bother me at all become totally caustic. T's soap seriously made me like, gag and my eyes water and I literally shoved T out of the way, doused my hair, leapt from the shower, flinging doors and windows open to try and air out the joint.

T stood there in the shower, water running, curtain akimbo, shivering in the new found arctic breeze I had created. "Honey? You're not....Pregnant, are you?"

"NO! It's your soap! It smells like chemicals!"

Thus ensued a long talk about smell and smoking and how there is really no way I'm pregnant right now, thanks.

So I suppose now I'll do my dishes or something. Sigh.

The 1st

It's the first of November. Huzzah, or something.

T and I have decided to go head to head in a "Biggest Loser" competition that I am doomed to lose, but I'm doing it anyway. After our trip eastward, we came back and our pants didn't fit. We weighed ourselves. There was some swearing.

So I came up with the idea--Whoever loses the most weight between now and the first of the year (awesome timing. Holidays, etc) gets to pick what we do for our birthday. He wants to go to Vegas, I want to do...something. Idk, go to Vegas too. But whatever, whoever wins calls the shots on the trip.

T can lose weight like nobodys business. I, however, can pack it on like no tomorrow. Seriously. He changes 1 thing in his diet, and whammo--he's 2 pants sizes smaller. Meanwhile, I'm working out, eating no sugar, drinking gallons of water, watching carb intake etc, and I lose 2 pounds and am angry all the time. The only time I have had success losing weight was when I stopped eating. Like, seriously. When I was working night shift pastry, I didn't eat, really. Slept through the eating hours, would eat one small thing, and then go bust my ass at work. Weight just fell off me (like, 30 pounds) and it was easy! I wasn't hungry! Hooray!

But then I went back to being a human and the weight piled on like the Griswolds into a station wagon.

Whatever. We need to eat better anyway. I'm sure that part of the reason we got porky out east is all the freaking crap we ate while we were there--the salt, the processed food, the sweets, the SALT.

Mostly, I'm just tired of hating myself. Hating my body. I have seriously tried EVERYTHING (diets, exercise, cardio, weights, on and on and on) with reasonably small success. It's discouraging. I'm not asking to weigh 110 pounds again, but I would like to not be embarrassed for my husband to see me naked.

Whatever.

Also: Time to quit smoking. Time to quit smoking! I may as well punish myself on all fronts. The last time I quit I gained a shitload of weight, so I may as well do it while I'm on the super awesome diet/exercise regimen. And lose no weight. (But at least not gain any.)

Yeah. Done smoking, I think. (I think. I've said this before.) Please don't preach at me, kids, I know that it's disgusting and will kill me and all that. So is being a fat ass.

I guess now that I don't have a job to worry about, I have the time to dedicate to not slowly killing myself in 9 different ways. Not like I have anything better to do.

I mean, if I'm not contributing to society in any way, I may as well look ok doing it.

(I played the bass clarinet, Brian.)