Caterwauling

New Year’s has always been “my” holiday. In years past, you could usually count on me to host the party or plan the outing. That all sort of screeched to a halt four years ago when I found myself unemployed and just not feelin’ the season. And after that, I was just too busy to really do much of anything but show up if I was invited to go out, or just chill if not.

So as I sit here, waiting to go out to what has turned into Plan C (since I said no to Plan A, and Plan B got borked because I SWEAR these men are moodier than I ever was during my period, not that I’ve seen one of those in two months but I’m thinking it’s my stress level causing my engine to misfire), I was very moved while reading Swirlspice’s “Obligatory Look Back at 2008″ that I thought perhaps I should count my blessings, too, before figuring out what should make it to this year’s to-do list.

So, as I sit here listening to Winger’s cover of “Happy Christmas (War is Over)” (it’s really good!), here goes my 2008:

1. I lost (and kept off) about 45 pounds. Of course, truth be told, I lost about 70 but I keep gaining it back because of lack of willpower, stress and walking by the fucking candy corner at work 7 million times a day. Because they put me upstairs. I know not why other than to help me ruin my diet.

2. I started moving. No, not moving out, although I do have a “hope chest” filled with new bedding that’s just WAITING for a new apartment, in whatever city it will be in. If I don’t leave metro D.C. completely, I do think it’s time to vacate D.C. proper. Yes, that means registering the car in another state. (Sigh.) Good times.

2.a. What I meant by “moving” was getting up out of my damn chair and exercising. Taking the stairs at every possible opportunity. Dancing around the house during the five minutes every nine months that I get it to myself. I recently blew the cobwebs off my 5 lb. weights and also bought some ankle weights, a resistance band and a balance ball. I’m not claiming I’ve done much in the way of using them, but I have to pick them up to move ‘em out of my way. So, hey, that counts as exercise, yes?

3. I got out of town without taking the Guilt Trip Express. Don’t get me wrong, Kathie Lee of the Carnival Guilt Trip Cruises is all up in mah hizzy daily with what a miserable person she thinks I am. I think Cleopatra books a first-class ticket to Egypt every time I say things like “get out of my bedroom; for the 75th time, I mean it.” I’m not sure why this living situation had to happen this way. I don’t know why it was ordained that I have to be the caregiver now. And I don’t know how to get out from under it. But do not THINK I accept “deserving” this mess.

4. I fell in love. A few times. OK, really only once, since my heart was somewhere it shouldn’t have been and was never really present when it needed to be accounted for elsewhere. As everyone probably recalls, it didn’t happen. I still don’t know why I felt what I felt, or why it failed to launch. I mean, there are always reasons, but nothing I’ve managed to find acceptable. In any case, it was good to see that the heart could expand to let someone else in, even if they didn’t choose to enter the threshold. And to prove my resilience is still intact, the heartbreak ran its course and I’ve healed. Someday, I just hope I can once again feel the way I did when I had that rush of expectation.

5. I made time for me. This was huge. For the last four years, I never made it out of work before 9 p.m. and especially not before or even DURING a holiday. But I committed to weekly Weight Watcher’s meetings and other social outings, and managed to get to 90% of them in the past couple of months. I made it late, oftentimes, but that still counts. And my mental health is all the better for it — I finally, finally have some control.

So, now that I’ve looked back in order to look forward, here’s the resolution list for 2009:

1. Continue trimming the fat, both physically AND metaphorically.

I’m approaching this over/under number that, while I’m sad to be entering the new year above said milestone, it’s really not that far away.

2. Keep on moving.

I tend to blame my lack of gym joinage on those who drain my financial resources. But by blaming others for my own failures, I’m giving away my power. And I’m taking it back NOW. My success so far has been all my own doing; any future success will be the same.

3. Travel more.

The friends and I are either going to go to a Caribbean island for a week or take a cruise to several. (Is it sad that I want to take the cruise?)

Or maybe I’ll venture somewhere else on my own. Who knows?

My real goal is to get to Paris, but that doesn’t mean I have to sit here stewing until that day comes. I am also looking at branching out more locally.

4. To not lament the fact that I’m turning 35 and am nowhere near where women are expected to be at this age, insofar as marriage/family “goals.”

Those were never my goals and I don’t see why I should be made (even if only by myself) to feel pressured to catch up to someone else’s ideals. I mean, I’ve spent the better part of my life being pudgy; it’s only now that I feel like I’m really, truly living it up. This is a hard goal because I know I’ll torture myself now and again. But when it comes down to it, I want to see the world and while I’d LOVE to have someone at my side while I do it, I’d better not hold myself back if I DON’T.

5. Find more adventure in D.C.

More friends, more men, more classes/workshops, more everything.

See ya on the other side. Happy New Year, and may it be a prosperous one for all of us!

Since I know a lot of you like to read this page to learn from my mistakes (since I make so damn MANY of them), please take this advice to heart:

When you go see a three-hour movie like “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” please do yourself a BIG FAT FUCKING FAVOR and don’t park in an hourly lot.

See, genius here decided she would catch a matinee at Regal Cinemas, since those bastards at the AMC don’t see fit to discount prices ever.

Besides, I always get free offers at Regal for popcorn, and since my real motivation in going to the movies today was to hide my day off from my roommate nom on real popcorn (OMG, CHOMP), it seemed like the right thing to do.

Hah.

OK, first of all, my movie ticket cost $8. My parking? COST $9.

(Did I mention that the AMC has free parking? *thunk*)

Oh, and the popcorn wasn’t free. I received two coupons — one for a free small popcorn and one for a small popcorn for $1. I breezed past the ticket-taker, who had fallen asleep in her chair at the entrance (classy) and rolled over to the concession stand to meet the other employee of the year.

There, I presented the “free” coupon, but the guy still charged me a buck. Whatever — $18 plus $5 for a trough-sized drink and I could have adopted a child in a foreign country and fed them for a month with this expenditure extravaganza.

Regal must make it their duty to hire neither the best nor the brightest. Failure, they has it!

Also, note to self before attending a three-hour-long flick: Get the small Diet Coke. Really. Somewhere past hour two, your “dear God if I pee this much while not knocked up, I will need a catheter when I AM” bladder will not forgive you.

I kept crossing and uncrossing my legs to try to keep from spraying the people in the next row with piss-flavored Diet Coke. And I was so jittery from the caffeine that my phone — which I’d been using to carry on a couple of text/e-mail conversations with people at work — flew off my damn lap and landed, well, somewhere. I crawled around but couldn’t find it in the dark but eventually it did turn up.

And yeah, being nervous about the whereabouts of your $600 phone also adds to your captivity joy. Really! I was just glad no calamities arose when the phone was under someone else’s seat.

Anyway, the movie was lovely. Seriously, utterly lovely. It dragged in some parts, but it was magnificent how absolutely everything came full circle. Even the most-flippant mentions of the tiniest details in the beginning, came around to be poignant later on.

I wasn’t sure I was in the mood for a love story today, since I’m convinced (today anyway) that boys are stinky and stupid and also have cooties. But yeah, I needed this. Love may be imperfect and people don’t always realize it when it comes around. But sometimes you’ve just got to make your own miracles. But you can only really make them if the magic exists in the first place.

Which explains why I seem to have this harem that comes around, again and again. Always seems like someone had feelings when the other didn’t, then it reverses, then who only knows. You can’t tax your brain with it too much — you just have to focus on what’s in front of you and assume that you’re where you’re supposed to be — and that you’re not where you’re not supposed to be.

And I guess I’m not supposed to be in Times Square tomorrow night. But I’m not quite finding the point of why I’m still in D.C., either.

Anyway, I found a Barnes & Noble tonight that’s going out of business. I was on my way to my de-pudgification meeting but fuck that noise — I always have to buy my own Christmas gift, and I hadn’t found anything yet that I could afford. So, I headed straight to the self-help, metaphysical studies and DVD sections and loaded up on 40%-off delights.

Hey, if I have to ring in another new year with this bullshit excuse of a life, at least I’ll be doing so, armed with all the tools I need to make sure that when 2010 comes my way, everything that CAN be different, WILL be. …

O HAI vagina on my plate

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

My neighbors think I’m under the illusion that it is Halloween and, not, in fact Christmas … as I stepped on a scale tonight and my screaming would outdo any cartoon in which a woman jumps on a chair and shrieks at the sight of a mouse.

OK, so I’ve basically spent the last three days eating my body weight in, well, everything. It started with a lasagna (albeit veggie) lunch at work on Wednesday (preceded by about four Christmas parties and one special one-on-one lunch) and slid into the Feast of the Indeterminate Number of Fishes^TM / Prime Rib Cage Match^TM at Casa Bridge on Christmas Eve.

(Aside: NOM.)

The feasting continued the next day when I dragged my still-full self to my Christmas brunch reservation at Phillips Seafood. But as I sat there and read the menu, I found it lacking in something.

What was missing? Um, yeah. SEAFOOD.

I figured it’d either be a limited or prix-fixe menu. Um, sure. Yeah. You could get an omelet, French toast or eggs benedict. And while I am quite the fan of “make your own” omelets, do you know what I like to add to them? Say it with me — “SEAFOOD.”

So without ordering, I left a tip on the table and walked out … knowing full well that not a goddamned thing was open at that time.

I was surfing Open Table on my phone, which had given me the bright idea to make reservations on the holiday. I learned the hard way that some places were open early in the day, and some were open for dinner. (Corduroy was in the latter category, which I REALLY wanted to try. But I didn’t feel like killing six hours.)

And the only other available reservation in the area I was in, at that time, was at Legal Sea Foods.

Which, as I’m SURE you’ve picked up by now, piqued my interest since I was hungry for … ah, you know.

It was my first time there, and my server was absolutely amazing. And the food wasn’t too shabby either. Mussels for a starter, woodgrilled scallops for an entree, Shandong dipping sauce (spicy ginger/shittake), jalapeno polenta, snap peas in oyster sauce, and woodgrilled calamari gleaned from someone else’s plate. OM NOM NOM.

OK, so again I’m eating all my points (and everyone else’s) in one sitting, but it’s not so bad if you’re eating one gigantic meal a day and not eating the rest of the day, right?

Well, then when you find out you have another $300 phone bill (second month in a row!), well, you might as well just go eat the four dozen cookies that the phone perpetrator baked and left in your “how long have I been dieting and do you KNOW how weak my willpower is?” line of sight, and in one sitting.

*burp*

Oh well. Maybe Santa will come next year, since his jolly ass seems to have gotten stuck in the furnace once again. And maybe he’ll bring me a damn present instead of more bills.

The good news is, I’ve been mad enough to express my angst. Quite clearly. And repeatedly. And vehemently. I’ve been simmering for far too long. So while my ass may look like two stuffed pork chops, my mind is pretty much empty at as much peace as it can be.

And it was still a calmer holiday than I had as a young lass. I just miss being able to get in the car and go back to my own world. While I don’t miss the drive, I do miss the distance.

Oh well. Maybe next year. No, definitely next year.

The new year will find me back to eating tofu and soy and veggies and all things organic and bland. But it will also find me, well, finding myself. Whoever that is.

Anyway, happy birthday, Jesus (and many more!) and thanks for all the fish.

I have to say it — I had a GREAT day. (My apologies if you’re looking for sarcasm … not a drip or a drop here. Savor it while it lasts.)

One of my boys took me out for lunch today. Say it with me: Out. For Lunch. My third lunch hour of the year, my friends. Forgive me if I do a happy dance that resembles a polka.

And what I found was that I was energized all day. I had to bust a move to get a project (nearly) finished by noon. I was full and happy and worked through the afternoon with no need for complaint.

And I left ON TIME.

Of course, I felt guilty for the “leaving on time” part. But for all the Mondays that didn’t wrap up till past 10 p.m. (that’d be an hour or two past 10), I earned it.

In my amazingly awesome free time, I went to my happy place — Old Navy. Where I bought two pairs of jeans that are two sizes smaller than the ones I wore to work today since everything fits me like Hammer pants. (O HAI crotches at the knee — not the season to get a breeze up there ’cause they don’t make Chapstick for tender bits.)

Anyway, the jeans fit in the dressing room, despite all attempts this week to reverse my entire weight loss. They’re in the dryer right now so I MAY have some muffin-top issues in the morning. (Yeah, guess who’s skipping weigh-in tomorrow. Guess!)

But in trying to look at it positively, tomorrow’s breakfast surprise will hopefully be less of a muffin top than a Vita Top.

Yesterday was, by all standards, routine. Vanilla. Ordinary. Blah.

And, yet, it brought several of those moments of “Whose Life Is it Anyway?”

Started off the day with yelling, as usual. Eased into the new comfort-disappointment cocktail. Slid into the boringly familiar. Flirted with the mildly annoying. Ended with “WTF just happened to me here?”

And I wondered exactly when I am going to be able to leave it all behind and write my trashy novels like I always said I would.

It’s all about perspective (mine) and between a home situation that disintegrates at the rate Brad Pitt gets younger in “Benjamin Button” and external situations that are great if you’re into routine (and that routine spans the spectrum between warm fuzzies and homicidal rage), well, I can see why I shove my head up my ass regularly. La la la, if I can’t see it, it’s not there. La la la.

Of course, a cold splash of reality hit me square in the face over a plastic cup of Oak Grove pinot grigio, as I inadvertently crashed my old department’s Christmas party (*sniffle*) and I realized, where they’ve shoved me now, is into just another cubicle at just another company. And even though I was welcomed as an ex-officio member of the team, I realized again how awesome, caring, nurturing, loving and generous my old team was. And how my move upstairs is a total downgrade.

I wondered, when I worked for the awesome team, if everyone knew how good we had it. We knew. We loved it. Outsiders treated us like three-headed martians most of the time. I don’t know if they were jealous or, more likely, they just figured we were all a bunch of weirdos who spoke “twin language” among a dozen of our own people.

I’ve been either kidding or comforting myself that this reorganization would blow up in everyone’s faces and we’d go back to the way we were.

Then I look around at home, which is just never going to get better, in its present state. I was thinking about last New Year’s Day, how I made reservations at a moderately upscale place. How the roomie declared she wasn’t going, but that I could go by myself. How I canceled and sat around hungry all day.

How did I ring in the new year? By wishing I was dead. How did I spend the year? Dying.

I made reservations for Christmas Day. And I don’t give a fuck if I’m eating by myself, I’m getting dressed up and going out.

I think what I’ve avoided doing in these and one other area of my life, is put my little foot down and provide my list of demands. Sure, I’ve tried. Usually through thinly veiled sarcasm or the grapevine or in a very loud tone of voice. But I’ve gotten next to nowhere with any of it.

And I’ve done the best I could for me, which is to live my life. To lose weight (minus these damn Christmasy temptations!) — down 43 pounds so far that I haven’t sabotaged! (Let’s not talk about what I HAVE sabotaged. …) To give my very best to every work project. To go out with friends at least twice a month. To actually do that “dating” thing again. (And to let people settle for what they’ve, well, settled for and not take it personally.)

But it’s not enough. It’s a running start, yes, but not enough.

I’ve got to wonder about that new Jim Carrey movie, “Yes Man.” I think we all learn to say no to opportunity because so many people and entities are altogether too happy to say that word to us. (”Move out.” “No.” “Can has moar monay?” “No!”)

Anyway, there’s a new year waiting to be rung in. This one was probably one of my personal best, although any of you who’ve been with me through it probably think my standards are waaaay low.

But if I can match my current weight loss and also gain back a bedroom, and maybe find something interesting to do with my life (any part of it. Or all parts of it. Whichev), then THAT will be a victorious year.

So, bring it, 2009. Odd-numbered years are always the kindest to me. Show me what you’re made of, and I’ll do the same.