Awkwardly Social

I started the 30 Day Shred (again) last night in an effort to get a jump start on my February goal of exercising more.  I have never been able to do any work out for more than probably 7 days straight and I’m pretty sure it’s not good for your body to not give it a rest day, but I have made the silly goal of actually doing the 30 Day Shred for 30 days.  I will probably fail, but, you can’t win if you don’t play.  “Pain is fear leaving the body.”  (God, I hate Jillian so much.)

So, because I wanted to have an idea of my starting point, I took my measurements and some “before” photos that are for my eyes only.  I took them on my iPhone and because I often whip out my phone to show people my darling son (the modern version of, “Here, look at my vacation slide show.”) I wanted to get them off my phone and into a place where people won’t immediately see them (and recoil in horror at my cellulited ass).  My phone does not currently sync with my computer, so I decided to e-mail them to myself.  I VERY carefully entered my e-mail address as I was mailing them to myself and hit send after checking and re-checking to see if I had entered the proper address.  As soon as the final picture whooshed out of my inbox an e-mail came in from my father.  Subject line: These came through.  Body of message: “I will check them out in the morning.  I’m hitting the rack.”

I think you can probably imagine the feeling I had.  That feeling of all of your blood draining from the top half of your body into the bottom half.

I immediately went into a flop sweat and checked my sent mail.  It appeared I had only sent the photos to myself, but what if I SENT THEM TO MY ENTIRE CONTACTS LIST?  What if there was some terrible glitch?  I felt like I might actually die.

I frantically dialed my father and the phone rang and rang.

“Please don’t be in bed, PLEASE DON’T BE IN BED.”

He finally picked up.

“Dad, um, what was that e-mail about?”

“What e-mail?”

“The one that said, ‘These came through.’”

LONG TERRIBLE PAUSE.

“WHAT CAME THROUGH, DAD?”

“Oh, that went to you?  It was supposed to go to your sister, she sent me some real estate listings.”

Jesus.  Fucking. Christ. ON A CRACKER.

I explained the story to him and he had a good laugh.  Then I forwarded the e-mail he sent to my sister and told her what had happened.

She responded:  You would have totally had a rom-com night tonight breaking into everyone’s houses and deleting their emails before they had a chance to see your underwear. There - now you have a script to start writing!

Moral to the story:  Never, ever, take before photos.  EVER.

I have a baby doctor appointment this week and to distract myself from the possibility that everything won’t be 100% ready for another try at impregnation, I’ve been doing a lot of reading, a lot of “lalalalalalala”ing when people talk about how easy it was for them to get pregnant (and when they talk about all of their many miscarriages, etc.), a lot of vitamin taking and a lot of working out.

I’ve been trying new exercise videos via Netflix instant, so many that I feel like at any moment 1980 will call and tell me Jane Fonda wants her moves back.  My favorites are usually the kick boxey ones, but last night I did one called “Self: Slim and Sleek… Fast.”  Which, is such a dumb title, but forgive them, their marketing team can only do so much.  I liked it because the first section was all plies.  I felt like a little kid in ballet class, and even though all I was doing was holding my arms out to the side or over my head, I thought they were going to fall the eff off after doing that for 10 minutes.  INTENSE.  I was dripping sweat.

I’ve found that the 30 Day Shred, while it was really my first foray into exercise videos, is still a favorite because of its ability to completely bust my ass, time after time, but I do get bored of Jillian’s bad “motivational” small talk.  Also, what is it with exercise videos and their bad music.  Can’t they give me a feature where it’s the cueing only and then I can turn on music I like to work out to?  Because that seems like an obvious solution, but nope, never have I once seen that on an exercise video.  I know the Jillian one well enough to be able to just blast my own stuff over hers, but how am I supposed to do that when I’m watching a video for the 1st or 2nd time?  Someone, please, tell me why do they want me to listen to their bad library music?

The side effects to all this working out?  I’m sleeping better, I’m feeling less depressed and anxious, and I’m watching less TV.  (Although, someone please explain to my why I still feel compelled to watch The Killing.  The show is terrible, and yet, every week, I turn it on and hope for the best.)

All working, working out and no play has me dreaming about foreign vacations for when my job ends in September.  Coincidentally my job ends on the anniversary of our little wedding.  So, visions of Belize, Tulum, Prague, Paris, New York, Greece, Turkey, and Italy are all dancing in my head.  I check airfares every day.  I plan hotel stays and massages and restaurants I want to drink wine in.  I think of all the pennies I’ll have to save and I put my nose back to the grindstone, hoping a mysterious benefactor will slyly put thousands in my saving account for a rainy day.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing.

I continue to gain weight. This is slightly perplexing because I’ve been working out quite a bit, but might be due to the constant call of the office kitchen.  Carbs, come to me.

Maybe it is a ghost baby.  How weird would that be?  Or how awesome a movie would it be!  Ghost Baby - your worst nightmare unleashed.  It cries and you can’t hold it!  It makes you look crazy when you try to breast feed it.  It never sleeps at night - but not because it’s like a real baby - because it’s busy HAUNTING you.  Someone steal this idea.  I want to see “Katherine Heigl in GHOST BABY”  by 2013.

I think I’ve mentioned here a trillion times that I work late, but Monday, I got home at 7:30 (early for me!) and went on a 2.5 mile run, then got home and cooked dinner.  From no recipe.  I just threw a nice filet of salmon with some dill, garlic, sea salt, lemon and olive oil into the oven, boiled some quinoa pasta and imagined a salad…. I would have made a salad, but uh, we had no lettuce.  It would have been a very ghostly salad.  (THEME DAY AT AWKWARDLY SOCIAL!)  And you guys, it was so easy.  I feel like this small victory in relaxing in the kitchen and not being uptight about cooking something “right” will go a long way toward finding a way to relax in other areas.  So I didn’t have a salad.  OH WELL.  So, we ate at 9:45PM.  DOUBLE OH WELL.

I’ve also managed to meet with my writing partner this week and wrote a joke too blue for a certain cable network.  You guys, I love writing blue jokes.  It’s my favorite thing.  The fact that they’ll never see the light of day, is fine to me as long as the writing room validates me and tells me they’re funny.  SMALL VICTORY.

Now, on to looking longingly at the Reduced Fat Wheat Thin box.  I will imagine they taste like Failure, and my fat pants will sigh in relief.

I had to go to the doctor today for my pre-op check-up.  This is standard procedure for planned surgeries.  I guess if you end up in the ER with some kind of urgent need for surgical intervention they don’t really worry about your cholesterol level and whether or not your eyes, nose and throat are good upon saying ah.

The nurse politely asked me if I remembered my recent weight, and I told her that I probably should get on the scale, that there had been some weight gain recently.  She moved the embarrassing weight block of doom around slowly, and I whispered, “Stay there,” at it as the meter floated up and down.  She announced my weight and I said, “Yep.  That’s some weight gain alright.”

I sat back down on the crinkly paper of the exam table and she looked at me and said with a smile, “You are the PERFECT weight for your height.  You don’t want to be too skinny.  You could be a stick, but it wouldn’t be good for you.”  I almost started to cry.  She said, “People who are too skinny get sick too easily and you want to have some curves.  Besides you look good.”  I asked her to marry me.

I had dreaded that weigh in for two days.  I was really worried about what nurses have said to me before, offhand but seemingly judgemental comments like, “You’ve put on some weight?”  and, “Oh, you’ve lost weight, that’s good.”  Stuff that if you hear from a medical professional you put in your mental file of good and bad and add it all up to everything else you pressure yourself about.  But not Margaret.  Bless her to the moon.

I have been cleared for surgery.

I know I just said I wouldn’t be talking about this anymore, but seriously, how awesome would it be to get pregnant this month.  I would totally be one of those 11/11/11 people who would force the baby to come on that day, at 11:11am. And then I would name her Eleven.  Or Lucky.  Like the Britney song!

I’m supposed to have my ear surgery this month, and I’m not really sure I want to do another round of IUI because of that.  I’d rather take my pain pills without worrying about retarding my special 11/11/11 baby.  I still have to talk to my doctors about it, so we might do it, we might not.  Suspense!

The other thing that I’ve been oh-ho-ho-ing about is my weight.  I thought, hey, why don’t I just eat what I want, exercise when I feel like it and see how it all turns out.  My body was like, “Sure, do that.  I’ll go ahead and gain enough weight so that your nice pants no longer fit.”  I have two choices, go buy pants that fit (RAGE, HATE, MURDER) or stop eating everything I feel like eating (which tends to make me stop eating.  like at all.  I have an on and and an off switch, there isn’t a moderation lever).  So we’ll see how that shakes down.  I’m guessing there’s a new pants situation in my near future.  I will say that my Bollywood class with Tara once a week is hilarious and a fun workout. Man, I love watching my instructor make faces at himself in the mirror.  We do these moves that are half embarrassing club moves, half meaningful Indian dance moves, and it is awesome.  It’s so worth the ear splitting music being pounded into my deaf ear at way too high decibels.

I’m happy February is a short month sometimes, but man, sometimes I wish it could be normal like the rest of the months so I wouldn’t feel like March is barreling up the street at me screaming, “SPRING!  IS! COMING!  GET PREGNANT!”

So, in an effort to, ugh, I hate even typing these words because it seems so dorky, prepare my body for pregnancy, I’ve stopped dieting, and um, that has caused a bit of weight gain.  It appears that, to me, not dieting means eating everything in sight, which includes booze, which isn’t exactly preparing my body for pregnancy, now is it?

I have a few confessions, now.  Maybe they’re more like excuses.  Maybe you’ll judge me and think I’m a crazy anorexic who needs to go back to therapy, maybe you’ll think I’m over-reacting, maybe you’ll nod your head in recognition, maybe you won’t understand, I have to get it out so I can figure out why I am so unhappy with my body most of the time.

I am twelve pounds heavier than I was last year at this time.  I know this because I write my weight down every day in a little moleskin notebook.  Seriously.  I’ve been doing it for years.  Last year at this time I was the lightest I’ve been since high school.  If you haven’t been reading me for very long, you don’t know this, but in high school, I was using meth.  So, last year, I was as skinny as I was when I was using meth.  How did I get so skinny?  I was working out like a crazy person, eating next to nothing, using Adderall (and other various and sundry prescription drugs that weren’t prescribed to me) to help starve myself, having major mid-cycle bleeding, taking way too much xanax, trying to get a prescription for pain pills because I was in agony all the time, crying a lot, and not sleeping.  I was generally not good.

Why?  Because I have a disease.  It might not be as bad as you’d see in an episode of Intervention, but I do have an eating disorder.  I also have an anxiety disorder.  I also have depression.  Also, I’m OK right now.  In remission.

I feel better now.  I’d rather it not be 12 pounds that did that, but hey, not being a drug user and an insomniac have their price.  I think I’m at the top of the weight range that feels good to me, the low end would be five pounds less than this, after that, I need to take drugs, exercise too much and not eat.  Who needs it?

My mom told me I looked “healthy” over the holidays, I was too scared to ask her if that meant I looked fat or thin.  Then my sister’s mother-in-law told me my face looked very round in my Christmas photo, but in real life it looked narrower, or vice versa, her English isn’t perfect.

Over Christmas, I started to feel my pants getting tighter and my shirts didn’t fall gracefully over my flat stomach.  There appeared to be a new bulge here and there and instead of freaking out about it and not eating anything but salads with low fat dressing (gag, I never want to eat another salad with low fat dressing again in my life, ever) I named my new belly the toad.  The toad is a small sized thing, but she is there.

You might think this is negative body talk, and it would be if you don’t like toads.  I happen to have a frog tattooed on my ankle.  I used to catch toads in my back yard when I was a kid.  Frog and Toad are Friends was one of my favorite books as a kid.  I like amphibians.  They’re part of my spirit menagerie.  Some people have a spirit animal, I have a menagerie.

I am taking it easy on the strenuous exercise because of the connection I see with my mid-cycle bleeding.  I’m also taking it easy on the chocolate and wine.  I am not dieting.  I am eating normal portions and drinking lots of water.  The toad seems happy where she is, she doesn’t have anywhere to be at the moment so she’s sticking around.   The toad and I knew each other before, but back then she was the enemy, and I was ashamed of her.  I covered her with baggy flannels (ah, the 90s!) and high waisted jeans.  Now I’m just wearing what I usually do and hoping my circulation isn’t too terribly cut off.  I’m fine.  The toad seems fine.

I figure if I get pregnant (IUI this cycle, my expectations are not high, just hoping for the best, not expecting too much, the usual) the toad will fill out and carry a tadpole, but for now, I’m just trying to get enough movement in my day so the toad stays at her relative size.  Mostly I don’t want to have to go jeans shopping.  It is hell, and I don’t want to do it.  I don’t care if that makes me “a Cathy.” Ack, I say.  ACK, ACK, ACK!

So anyway, this might very well be the year of the toad.  You will see me and notice I’m not as skinny as I was last year.  Maybe you’ll think I’m slipping.  Maybe you’ll think I look better.  Maybe you won’t notice because we’ll just hang out and laugh and sing karaoke.  Maybe I’ll stay in remission.  Maybe I won’t.  Maybe I’ll get pregnant.  Maybe I won’t.  There are no guarantees.  Let’s just take it one day at a time, shall we?

Also, do me a favor, if you comment, let’s all try to be gentle with me.  Remember, I have brain chemical problems that aren’t being medicated with anything but love right now.  Love and the occasional cookie.

If you read my twitter page, you already know that I am on a ‘cleanse.’  Long time readers also know that I am an obsessive personality and that I have (boring!) body image issues.  I’ve been trying to be easier on myself recently and I managed to be so forgiving that I gained 10 (cough15cough) pounds back that I had lost through extreme diet and exercise around this time last year.  The way I lost that weight was pretty unhealthy and (clearly!) impossible to maintain on a daily basis. Add to that, I was probably too thin for my body type but of course I loved it.  My body likes to be curvier, I know because when I don’t obsessively monitor what I eat and intensively exercise 6 days a week, I gain weight slowly but surely right back where my body likes it - my butt, my boobs, my thighs.  (Look for my rap album to drop under the same title next fall!) My body was complaining when I was too thin, I couldn’t sleep, I was anxious all the time, xanax wasn’t working, it was - except for my fucked up love of seeing all my bones - not good.  So, I relaxed, gained some weight, then I REALLY relaxed and gained some more.  Ah, happiness, why do you have to be so plump?

All of this is made worse by living in the capital of self-absorbed women who like to talk about what they are doing to make themselves less.  Less is more in the city of angels.  And I’m trying to get to a place where what I eat, and what I weigh isn’t the thing that I think about obsessively all day long.  Because really?  It’s boring.  No one really cares to hear about why you can’t eat the damned cupcake.  Just politely decline and move on.  Or eat it.  Whatever.  Just stop talking about the cupcake and how you wish you could eat it.

Anyway, I heard from a  friend about this cleanse and I told her I wasn’t interested.  I do not juice.  I do not drink maple syrup and lemon juice.  I do not fast.  But she convinced me that I should check it out, because Gwyneth Paltrow recommended it.  So I did a little research and was like, weight loss?  Sign me up!  (I am a work in progress.)

I am on day 4 of a 21 day cleanse.  Plus I did a pre-cleanse for 4 days.  I’ve lost 3-5 pounds, depending on which pre-cleanse weight you want to say was THE pre-cleanse weight.  But it’s not just the weight, reading the book has made me kind of a cult member.  I totally am buying into the idea that if I do this cleanse, I’ll be healthier.  The new me will be less anxious, less focused on what I “should” and “shouldn’t” eat.  The end of the cleanse will make me into a non-anorexic, non-overeating, non-obsessive thinking human.  Which is what I want to be.  Life List #22!

So far, I find the diet restrictions difficult but not undoable.  I’ve basically cut out all chemicals, caffeine, processed food, sugar, wheat, dairy and other foods that many people are allergic to, added a shit-ton of fiber to my diet (pun intended), and for 21 days will be drinking two of my meals (and not in the good way where I used to drink my dinner of 2 vodka martinis and a couple of olives). I’m trying a new meditation technique, and I’m drastically reducing my television watching (thank god the baseball season is over).  The only side effect is I feel a little tired, and I’m not sure how to get through 2 days at Disneyland with all of those Mickey pretzels and Main Street ice cream calling to me.  Other than that, I feel good.

The biggest problem with getting brainwashed by one of these “programs” is now I find myself wanting to convert everyone.  I want everyone to get off their prescribed meds!  I want everyone to poop 3 times a day!  I want everyone to eat Clean.  If nothing else, check out the book.  It was a best seller, maybe you already own it.

Wow, black really is slimming! And boob minimizing! Also, who is that lady? She kind of looks like an east-sider. All she needs is an exciting arm tattoo and some kind of alternative form of transportation and she’s set! Bonus points if she makes her own clothing. Hipster ahoy!

Over the summer I went through a bit of a phase. There was a lot of drinking and a lot of smoking, a lot of exercise and not a lot of eating. I lost about 5 pounds on top of the 7 or so I had already lost from the break-up. One day I went to Catherine’s house for our walk and she told me I was looking awful and sunken and that I needed to eat. I took that as a compliment. Los Angeles can do that to a person.

Then Mr. F came home and we would go out to dinner. I would order a glass of wine or a martini and he would order a Scotch, his meal and an appetizer. Every night he would ask me if I was eating that night and every night I would say I was drinking my dinner. He quickly figured out (smart!) that if he ordered certain things I wouldn’t be able to control myself and I’d have a bite. Or seven. Hello, asparagus drenched in butter! Come to mama, mashed potatoes! So, the 5 pounds I lost from not eating turned into 0. And I was back to only 7 pounds lost.

Then I quit smoking. And kept drinking. And started eating again. Smokers lose their taste buds, but once smokers stop smoking things start smelling and tasting delicious. So, the 7 pounds I lost from the break-up were almost back, and that would have bothered me if I wasn’t getting laid so often. Yay, sex endorphins!

But a couple of weeks ago, I started getting a little sad around the edges. The one tried and true method I have of getting rid of the ’sad around the edges’ feeling is exercise and whole grains and veggies. So now, as a non-smoker, non-drinker, every night exerciser, whole grain and veggie eater, I’m back down 6 pounds.

Lesson? Never quit smoking.

Ha! Just kidding. The lesson is, wear black until it makes you sad enough to get your ass in gear. Bonus, it’s slimming!

OK, fine. The real lesson is (After School Special Alert!) - Not eating is only a temporary fix, it only works while you’re not eating. Also, it makes you dizzy and kind of grumpy and people say you look sallow and bad. The best way to lose weight and keep it off sensibly avoid most meat and dairy (but not to the detriment of getting enough protein, hello, Wild Boar Bacon!), eat whole grains and colorful veggies, and most of all have lots and lots of sex, er… exercise every night.