Caterwauling

Weight loss efforts are shot. Shot, I tell you. 

I worked by the beach and even if I didn’t see it, I could smell it. I walked 10K steps a day. I wasn’t forbidden from leaving when I was hungry or thirsty. I could work from home or Starbucks as needed as long as it wasn’t excessive. I got taken out to lunch and didn’t have to keep an arsenal of snacks in my desk for when I couldn’t recaps at all. Because I always could. 

In any event, not here for a pity party but rather to say it out loud. 

My portion sizes have not shrunk as my activity diminished/evaporated. And nothing fucking fits right now because of it. 

I read a good insight that I need to let sink in. We WW types have trained ourselves to find the lowest-point option for every food. And we use that to totally overdo it with portions. 

I know this to be true. I practically gorge on salads. How do you get fatter by eating salads with no dressing, no cheese and no points except for starchy veggies like beans and corn and beets? 

  Well, yeah. 

Went out with friends and they asked how I lost all the weight I did. I joked that I eat vegetarian so I can have wine and cake. 

But that is no joke. I eat wine and cake and vegetables. It’s what I love. And Halo Top ice cream, which isn’t sweet and packs a lot of protein. 

Halo Top is also my enemy because I can eat a pint for 11-12 points. Which I’m fine with after an egg for breakfast (2 points), lentil chip snack (3-4) and salad (6). 

Oh and lentil chips. 12 points for the whole bag. Why not demolish it in one sitting, then?

Maybe I need to stop buying them. Although I did try to give up lentil chips for Lent. That didn’t go so well. I have too much rage. 

Mom begged me to eat them again because it calms me down. (Hence why I take a massive bag to work every day.) and finish it while the other 10 people on the team take their hour and I have to ba babysit the inbox. 

Anyway. It’s not the food’s fault. Or mine. I just need to make better choices. All around, really. 

If anyone isn’t getting the reference, it’s how the Internet imagines cats counting their days of being with their hoomins. I’m not actually captive unless you’re looking at it through the Stockholm syndrome lens. 

In any event, today I drove my happy ass up to my captor. (It’s Sunday.)  The building is locked. No security badge can help you today. I went to every door. Nothing. Damn it. 

Heck. I made it two months without having to work a weekend. I still win. Got my momma some cake from our favorite Italian market and a burger from her favorite place. 

Only took three hours round-trip, and now I’m working at home like I should have done in the first damn place. 

But yeah. Someone should have great fun reviewing the security footage with all my choice words shouted at the building. 

I was at my favorite office yesterday to pick up the mail. They have paid for it to stand empty for three months now. And all one needs is a key to get in and out. If only there were still internet, a PC and a desk there for me, I wouldn’t be measuring my days. 

I call them the IMs of Doom. The ones that prompt an in-person phone call or meeting.

Why these people insist on using IM to CIRCUMVENT the technology remains beyond me.

I especially abhor the ones that fetch me. Like a friggin’ puppy summoned for the anti-treat. You, peasant, get on your busted foot and come for your lashing.

I guess it beats the “Can I call ya?” Ya doesn’t like the phone, either. Excuse me while I go hobble to the coffee pot and pretend I didn’t see it.

Probably everyone knows when I’m asked if I have a moment to chat. I don’t even muffle the reflexive “Jesus Christ!” anymore. Maybe I never did. Ask me whatever you want to ask me and save me the trip, please.

In any event, I got one late yesterday and had my quick mental meltdown. Stomped my way to wherever I needed to be … and actually had a pleasant time.

Weird.

Maybe there’s hope yet for this unnecessary experiment after all.

I was counting my blessings today and saying them to my friends. 

It sounds like romper room. “I’m grateful for J and R and G and S and M. Oh and the Publix salad bar.”

R laughed. 

My friend J pointed in a direction and said “You forgot one.”

I said nope. No, I definitely did not forget. In fact, I’d rank the Italian market, the breakfast place and the Honeybaked Ham higher. And I hate spending money!

“Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.”

— Virgil Thomson, American composer and critic

Pretty sure I know how I feel going into Day 60. But hey, a virgin gave birth and a Keebler elf left his oak tree and his cookie-baking-over-fiery-crosses business to become attorney general of Russia. So, anything can happen.

Changed my password yesterday to “ILoveMyJob.” 

Just typed it in and the system says “What you entered is incorrect.” 

Its burn game is on fleek today.

Otherwise known as Day 57 of my captivity.

I was through by 8:37 a.m. And it was just a bareback burro ride through the Mojave Desert without so much as a cup of coffee from there.

Normally I can leave the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad stuff at the halfway point of my trip home. My rule is no b.s. south of exit 70.

Which is fine … any other day. But today, I passed 70 … and was in such a snit that I drove some 20 exits south instead of 10.

And found myself at my old work building.

Yep, by freaking instinct, I ended up there.

I miss it so much, I could just die sometimes.

Ended up going to the cupcake shop I discovered two weeks before I got evicted and thrust into THNGVBD world. Got Momma three cupcakes. And we ate them ALL.

Now that I’m home (and frosting-filled), I went online to look for a new favorite wine. The winery in California doesn’t even sell it. And Total Wine is out of it across the country.

However, there is ONE STORE on the East Coast with my wine.

And you fucking guessed it — it’s at the goddamn wine store that was two blocks from the office I inadvertently DROVE TO today.

I’m not sure I can do this anymore. There are people I absolutely love … and there is everybody else. And the balance is never close to being, well, balanced.

I miss happiness.

Man. Between hearing someone pass off my idea as their own in a meeting … and it got approval coming from their mouth … and getting an edited doc with that mistake made in it … and more, I really don’t know what else to say about today. 

Finally got to my favorite town … and my favorite restaurant in it … with some of my favorite people. 

Friends since ninth grade!

Da. Da. Damage. 

Gemini goddesses. 

Yummy Indian vegan entree with Boneshaker wine for me. Love anything Lodi. And chickpeas. 

Great fun!

Every now and again, I get the opportunity to hang out with people far more evolved than I’ll ever be. And it’s nice to see that I still have plenty of growing to do, rather than regressing to please certain others.

One of those friends is getting divorced. But it’s far from an ending. It’s opening up a whole new world to her.

I don’t have to feel like shit every day anymore, she tells me. I can smile again and not have to apologize for it. I don’t have to contain my own light so as not to outshine anyone else who happily asserts their power to snuff it out.

That message felt a little pointed. But only in the best way.

We — collective we, as there were five Gemini goddesses present at my favorite restaurant last night for a collective birthday celebration — spoke of raising our vibrations and how we (me specifically) need to attract better neighbors … people who appreciate our ideas and experience … and better leadership as high as the national and international level.

I’m calling upon the universe for help. It’s time. It’s beyond time.

Later she asked me what “my type” is. And I thought, hmm, do I have one? Do I dare aspire to define what I might want, like I could actually get it?

So I told her. And the list went on. I have a look I like, and I said “financially smart, too.”

She’s like slow down, girl. Men don’t have that much to offer. Start small.

Hard to raise your vibration to get what you want when you have to keep your expectations so low. I excel in not expecting anything at all. But look where that’s gotten me.

It may not be time to dream big, but to start dreaming again at all, I guess.