Caterwauling

I haven’t been to a Weight Watchers meeting in more than a month. Mostly because I’ve developed a love affair with Bell Plantation PB Thins cookies and YOU CANNOT TEAR US APART.

Ahem.

Last meeting I attended, we had a guest leader whom I love. Grace was speaking of our “Extra” 49 points we get in a week, and she said she doesn’t spend them. Plain and simple.

She lost 110 pounds at age 70, so believe me, I’m listening.

She told us her husband will nudge her to eat a bite of his dessert, or friends will encourage her to have a cocktail or eat something they cooked because they made it for her.

And that’s all well and good when she has the points to spare, but she said, “I jealously guard my 49 points. I want them to be there if and when I need them. I do not spend them just because I can.”

Lately I haven’t been jealously guarding my points. I still keep track even when I don’t go to meetings, but I have been kind of going off the rails on the weekends. So, no points to spare midweek when I REALLY NEED SOME WINE.

Something I’ve been guarding jealously however has been my time. Last week I “only” gave 60 hours to my full-time job.

And … the world didn’t end.

What did I do with my “free” time, you ask?

Took care of my health. Physical and metaphysical.

Now if only I could get consistent in guarding my time the way Grace guards her points (oh, yeah, and to learn from her and do THAT too), this would actually be another awesome week.

I live for Saturday mornings.

I generally hit a Weight Watchers meeting, then run a couple of errands on my own, then go home and pick up Mom and have a good late lunch somewhere.

Today I was frustrated by the scale. I already lost five pounds this month so I shouldn’t be annoyed that I saw a slight gain this morning.

But I practically live on vegetables and coffee, and I walk around the office like a damn nomad — anything to increase the number of steps I’ve taken in a day.

I dance down grocery-store aisles and have been caught chair-dancing myriad times at the final stoplight before the office (like 11 miles from it).

Anyway, I don’t get it. But I will keep at it. I just squoze my pudgy butt into a skirt that’s down a size from what I’ve been wearing, so hooray for that. (We call those NSVs, or Non-Scale Victories.)

And that wasn’t the only NSV this morning.

I say all of this to say I parked my pudgy butt at Starbucks for about 15 minutes and played on my phone while I ate the banana I selected for breakfast.

And I realized just how easy it is to meet people when you’re not trapped in the house or in a cube farm out on a prairie somewhere.

I had my sunglasses on because they are “readers” and I can’t read a damn thing without magnification. So I didn’t notice the guy who was watching me right away.

And it wasn’t “Creepy” watching like most who have no goddamned clue how to be subtle. He seemed like he was trying to catch my eye as he went about fixing his coffee.

I of course am Oblivious so I didn’t actually realize that this good-looking thing was looking at ME till he was walking out the door. We did make eye contact finally. I smiled and he did too.

And I was thinking, damn, I should have had the glasses off. And maybe should have been less into renewing my car registration on my phone.

But it literally is that easy to make a connection. Even if only for a moment.

So, screw the scale. I’m awesome regardless of whether or not I’m up 0.2 pounds. Thank you, universe for validating that. Twice.

When you try to throw yourself in front of an oncoming shopping-mall train, you know it’s Christmas. And you’re at a mall. And you’re depressed.

My life isn’t bad. It’s just a colossal disappointment compared to what I had dreamed it would be.

I’m tired of saying, “At least it isn’t worse.” Nay, I want to say, “It’s so good, it couldn’t possibly get any better.”

I found myself starting the downward spiral in my meeting this morning. Which, weight loss yay but I haven’t parked my pudgy butt on a scale since before Thanksgiving, so hell yeah I should have had a nice loss.

I was bummed though because somebody’s been baking all week here. And somebody’s been consuming it without concern. And said someone who can’t stop eating could have had not only a nicer loss but also could have hit her 10% goal. But lo, brownies prevailed.

My leader always says try not to binge-eat because it’s a holiDAY. It’s not holiWEEK or holiMONTH. You’ll live to see another holiday. It’s OK. Put the pie down, Tubbo Wubbo.

OK so I paraphrased. 😉

What I wanted to say but didn’t, was that you spend the whole year being good. And come Christmas, you loosen up your death grip on your cash and go to places like malls that you avoid the other 11 months of the year.

You see people and go places and eat things that don’t cross your path normally. You see LIMITED EDITION everything and, lo, you must eat ALL THE LIMITED EDITION THINGS.

Because, you’ve been good all year. You deserve it. And no, Meeting Leader, you might not see your next holiday. Well, you personally probably will, but for the rest of us in a multiyear crisis of faith it’s hard to think past the next credit card billing cycle, for various reasons.

I’ve got my mind on my money and my money on my mind. That, and my freedom. Which, again, I have to be happy for what I have, right?

So maybe I want to enjoy these days. And all the sights and sounds and tastes they offer. Because if we’re sentenced to a lifetime of avoiding the little things that make us happy, especially in absence of bigger things to make us happy, well who the hell wants to live THAT life, anyway?

No weight loss this week. Small gain. I was surprised. Like, I ate less this week than I normally do. The hell, man?

I noticed on two days that I didn’t drive all the way out to hell’s gate that I didn’t drink my usual ocean of water. I wonder if that made the difference.

I tried not to get too down about it — after all, I’m finding more things in my closet that fit so yay non-scale victory. But then I went to Kohl’s and found OMG THE PERFECT DRESS. And it FIT.

But I didn’t buy it.

Problem was, something ain’t right about me. And that’s been worrisome.

I guess when you’re a pudgy pork roast ass overall, you don’t zero in on your flaws because you’ve got so many of them. Like, when I was younger, I’d sit in the mirror for HOURS and obsess over earlobes and eyebrows and other silly things. But once you get fluffy, nobody’s looking at the fact that you have one green eye and one hazel eye. Or anything else.

So this dress was in my favorite color combination of cobalt blue and black. and it was a wrap dress. Also my favorite style.

But apparently fat rolls really aren’t like the rings of Saturn or else they’d dissipate evenly. I have a waist on one side of my body and a fat roll on the other side. I don’t get it at all. My spine seems to be straight and my hipbones feel like they’re in the right place.

So, terrific. Hello weird fat roll on my right-hand side. Maybe you could go reinflate the right boob a bit since it seems to have deflated quicker than the left one in this particular weight-loss odyssey?

The small gain didn’t bug me. But feeling kind of freakish totally is.

I remember Roseanne Barr (Arnold?) complaining two decades ago about losing weight. She said you have to gain weight again to pound out all the stretch marks. Me, I have to have even fat rolls instead of one swimming wing and one normal side of my waist!

Someone posed the question at my meeting yesterday: “Why do we immediately reach for food to feel happy? Why can’t we, I dunno, fill the void with bird-watching or something?”

An older lady in the back said, “I grew up in an Italian family, where food is love. When people are feeding you, and in turn when you are feeding others, it is an Event, where love is shared.”

And another lady said, “Feeding my kids was the only time we had the family together. I looked forward to every meal, every single day. I miss those times. But I have them back when I have food.”

I could have contributed, but I kind of make it a point not to talk during these meetings. Because I want to soak up everything I can from these people.

I grew up in a poor family. Two-bedroom rowhouse in the projects just outside Pittsburgh. Great-grandmother, grandmother, grandfather, mom and usually a wayward cousin with a kid. And whatever friend of my mom’s was in need of a hot meal. And my great-aunt and her daughter, too, were frequent guests.

All on my grandfather’s meager military pension. And my grandfather happily did without everything he ever needed to make sure his girls ate well and had a roof over our heads.

My grandmother is Italian and while I used to make fun of her cooking, I miss it. She could feed seven of us for pennies. Her “gravy” (red sauce, for those of you non-Italians) was the best in the country. Mom makes an incredible version herself and keeps the Italian side of our family alive. (It will die with her — I have no interest in cooking, unfortunately.)

Gram used to do roasts and “shit on the shingles” and other things that would make us all feel full. As I got older and saw how rich my friends were, I turned up my nose at pretty much everything. I hated being poor and I hated feeling poor. That my friends’ parents would spend $20 on a pizza (back in the ’80s) boggled my mind.

To this day, my mom cooks on a shoestring budget. It helps. We do big dinners out though, so it’s nice to have the balance between the cheap and the — well, I wouldn’t say lavish, but I’ll say the “full dining experience.”

And I will tell you, Mom does it better than any restaurant. Cheaper, healthier and I think more creatively, too.

We always joked that she makes my food with love. It is always the No. 1 ingredient. Even when she thinks dinner is a flop, she tried her best to make it special.

We get on each other’s nerves a lot. She’s very sickly and getting worse and frankly weakness frustrates me. Because I have to be the strong one. I have to keep the job or we’re out on the streets. I have to buy all the groceries and fix all the things and carry everything, physically and mentally.

Basically I can’t wear out. And when I do, the edges start to fray and guess who gets the brunt of it. Yes, poor mom.

But then, food. We get a nice dinner in front of us and everything changes in an instant. No tension, no scrapping, no anything but savoring every bite, every moment.

Food transforms.

So it’s only natural to want extra portions, or extra courses, or to eat more frequently. Food becomes the most-important thing, not the petty crap that can be put on hold and eventually forgotten.

So naturally it’s easy to get fat when we seek love and food is the fastest way to get it.

I hit a little milestone this week on the scale, getting below a point that’s been a bit of resistance for me. Mostly because that’s the area when I go down a bra size (sigh). But I figure I can get plastic surgery to fix that problem right up so down we go.

I still have about 20 pounds to go to hit my all-time low weight. Which for many is still too much, but this isn’t their journey. I gave up there for various reasons, not the least of which that I have a wonderful wardrobe that fits me at that weight.

That, and the way I got there was by giving up love of every kind, food and otherwise. This time, I’m hoping more love in my diet, food and otherwise, will be what gets me back there.

I just hope I can continue being gentle and forgiving with myself in the meantime, and continuing to find love in lower-calorie places.

Down 2 pounds this week. If I can just take off another three, I’ll be at my 10% goal.

I was due for my “good” week on the scale, so I’m glad for the loss. I’ve been in such a weird mood all week that it was going to be a toss-up.

Like, I always stay within my points. But my stress level always determines the weight outcome. When I’m stressed, I gain. But apparently now when I’m apathetic and out-of-it, I lose. Go, me.

One of my friends at work came over on Thursday to give me a hug and to say congratulations on my anniversary. And she said the swear word: vacation. As in, whatever happened with it.

I said our colleague who told me I’m not special really put a dent in my morale. And that my boss promises to make it up to me somehow.

This week I haven’t done anything special. I worked at a normal capacity. And I’m so far behind, it isn’t funny. This company counts on me to bust my ass. When I don’t, sure I’m the only one who suffers. But I’m going to be suffering next week because I was too sad this week to know that I’m not special there.

She said she understands, that she busts her butt and there is no special dispensation or acknowledgment of it.

And it occurred to me.

EVERYBODY THINKS THEY’RE SPECIAL.

That’s why you can’t treat the special as actually being special. Because everyone else is either sacrificing as much as they can, or they think they are.

So when you put somebody truly extraordinary next to them, they don’t even realize it.

WHAT A REVELATION.

Makes me think of my 12th-grade A.P. literature teacher who told us all point-blank, “You’re not special.”

Words to live by. Especially when everyone has their own definition of it. Maybe there are truly extraordinary people who look at me like, pfft, who do you think you are?

At least I’ll always be goddess of my own world.

Bad day on the scale, great day at Total Wine. I’m a girl who knows how to turn a frown upside-down!

My meeting leader always says that, when you go off the reservation, to basically get right back on it. Her way to phrase it is, “If you break one dish, you don’t smash all the dishes in the house, do you?”

She noted my hangover-induced absence from last week and asked how it’s going. I said I smashed a couple dishes but I got the glue I needed at today’s meeting.

I stayed within my points; it’s just that I substituted wine for food with nutritional value. And a half-pound gain in my world is just as good as maintaining.

This week’s theme is emotion — whether it causes you to eat, or it depresses you when you see a lousy number on the scale. And I am nothing if not emotional. Half the time, anyway. One might think I had a dead, cold heart the other half of the time. Which, if that’s what I was able to convey, go me.

I got an interesting string of texts in the last 48 hours from various people in my life. And I realize I don’t need Halloween because I’m in costume a lot more than once a year.

When I get (I think “too”) close to people, they get it all. Every weird thought or feeling or mood. Laughter, tears and everything in-between. And truth. All of it. If they want it. And sometimes if they don’t.

Other people, I hold at a distance. This is the bulk of the category. I become aloof so they run away. This is my default status.

(This doesn’t work, by the way. It’s like a signal to come hither. My friend said at a happy hour last week to my work friends that I have a bunch of guys who stalk me. That is an understatement.)

Most, I wish would run away. Some, I admit, I hope will rise to the challenge. But I am not terribly disappointed if they don’t.

The “Queen of Mixed Signals, am I,” says Yoda.

So the texts. One, from someone I think I need to protect by throwing the force field around myself. I’m not saying they deserve better. I’m saying I see where this isn’t going and I’m going to save us all the effort and time. Being the daughter of a psychic has its perks. If I feel it (or don’t feel it) and Mom confirms it without me ever saying a word, so be it.

One, from someone who makes my heart leap out of my chest the second I see his name … and then I read it and feel like shit under someone’s shoe. Like, he knows when I’ve strayed too far away and he wants to make sure there’s still a lifeline there.

I often feel like I drove him away (evidence A: THIS BLOG). And I thought, hey, when you sign up for “All This,” that means you get a starring role on this page.

But then I got a text from someone else, someone I’ll love the rest of my life as an amazing, incredible friend.

I don’t talk about him at all. There are sacred people in my world. I talk about myself to death. But some others? You can waterboard me all you want; I ain’t sayin’ a word about them.

All my friends (that’s what I call them all) are writers. And this last one, I had given him permission to use me for material in what he’s unleashing to the world. Because, let’s face it, I have provided some chapters in his autobiography, and I own that.

He said no, I am sacred territory. I love that he said that and I’ve always felt the same. We continue to honor it, and always will.

That doesn’t mean all sacred cows aren’t slaughtered on this page. Some I just can’t give the “press coverage” to. It’s as simple as that. Sometimes I read through these posts and wonder who the fuck I was talking about. Other times I see a mention of someone who didn’t deserve to be immortalized. So now, I just don’t.

In any event, he’s one of the few who KNOWS me. I can tell him something I said or did and he’ll have the immediate and accurate interpretation.

If I ever say I am being a bitch to someone, he’ll remind me what they did to drive me to batshit-world and fuck them if they can’t stand seeing themselves on the blog.

If I say I’m aloof he’ll say I’m loving and that’s gotten me next to nowhere in life so of course I’m not going to get fully invested until they’ve given me a few good reasons to lower the chain bridge across the moat.

I said in a past entry that I need a guy who can give me Europe and mind-blowing sex. Which, Mom says is impossible. And so far she’s right. But I need to add that I do break dishes and I do push people away and I do pretend that I’m tougher than I am because too many people have treated my heart like their own disposable dish.

But let me add this to my list: I can glue my own heart back together. But I need the guy who love it for all its imperfections. Not to look past them but to understand why they became that way. Most people don’t hang around that long. But as you can see, I’m loyal for life to those who do.

I decided last Saturday that I want to lose 10 pounds by the time I take a vacation in December. So today’s 1.8-pound loss is a Good Thing.

Of course, the lady I sat next to at the meeting today has lost 20 pounds in two months, compared to my 17 pounds in four months. And she says to me, “What are you doing wrong?”

Huh?

She wasn’t being annoying on purpose. I realize she has a good 40 pounds on me and frankly it’s easier to lose weight when you have more to lose. And she’s old. So she gets a pass. 😉

I said I don’t feel I’m doing anything wrong. I explained that when I did WW in D.C., I lived on Fiber One bars, salads and Smart Ones entrees. I had NO ENJOYMENT.

I also had NO IDEA I would leave town. I never DREAMED I wouldn’t get to eat at all my favorite restaurants again. And now here I am in pretty much the world’s worst place for food choices. (Our specialty is the fact that you can eat outdoors. What you eat is usually a disappointment.)

So yeah, I eat what I want, when I want and frankly as much or as little as I want. Whenever I go overboard, I schedule a “vegetarian-only day” to cleanse myself.

It may be slow, but it’s how I’m doing it.

I’m glad I had a good week. I usually have one good week a month so hooray, this was it. My anxiety has been over-the-top lately and that usually fucks with my weight loss.

I was actually PANTING yesterday; I was working so hard and so long. Add two messed-up cars to the mix (I was so busy, I couldn’t even make it to my appointment yesterday for Samantha) and the only thing that stresses me out more than work itself is GETTING THERE.

Alas, the deep-breathing exercises worked. As has getting up once an hour as WW recommended. Four pounds till I get to my 10% weight-loss goal. If the 70-year-old who sat behind me can do it, so can I …

I forgot how exciting it is to have cute boys checking me out in public.

Mom says they do all the time, but I noticed it twice this weekend. She caught it a third time that I missed.

Never considered blonds before, but hey, it’s Florida. Maybe I need to stop limiting myself to the dark-haired boys, with early hints of silver, these days.

I never settled when it comes to men. I’ve had a few feed me lines and outright lie to me. Mostly they were bosses. But still. The guard is never down and even for as pudgy-wudgy as I’ve been throughout most of my life, I NEVER took that as a reason to settle in the man department.

Anyway, I’ve been disgusted with an online dating site that promises guaranteed results. OMG. The hell, man. They all want people under a certain weight, and I can’t say I’ve seen anything attractive about any of them.

I wised up and put income restrictions on my respondents. And I’m not getting any respondents. Mostly because they all want some young, Skinny Minnie looking for a sugar daddy who is probably 10 years older than his lone photo (of himself — plenty of boat photos) conveys.

Such a shame that I’ve always been confident in myself but it takes melting off 15 pounds for others to see it. Of course, the shorts I wore today that haven’t fit in two years really DID look damn cute!

I haven’t talked about my pudgy pork roast ass in two weeks since I lost 3.5 pounds (which, rock), but I’m still plodding along the journey.

Maintained last week and dropped 1.6 today. Again, rock.

Today the leader decided to have a conversation with me while I jumped on the scale. Which, eek. Because, I barely tracked my food this week and I knew a surprise to the upside could very well be in store.

Oh, sweet Jesus, hallelujah.

I took a minute and welcomed a brand-new member today. Something I wish anyone would have taken the time to do for me. I also thanked my leader for taking time to have a real conversation with me about my journey so far.

I do different things every week. I eat whatever I want. I eat whenever I want. I never abide by my daily points and I stop eating whenever I decide I am done.

Back in the day your points value changed every time you dropped to a new “decade” in weight. If you went from 190 to 180, you lost a point. The new system is different, and even though I am certainly between numbers, I lost a daily point.

Again, not that I adhere to them because I have “bonus” points, if you will. So I presume I won’t even notice. Although, perhaps maybe I should.

My tweaks to my life have been small. For instance:

• Powdered coffee creamer 100% of the time. And no skim milk or my fake milk if there isn’t any — go for the half-and-half and enjoy it. Otherwise skim milk means it will suck and need two packets of asparteme, and asparteme gives me headaches and possibly causes cancer.
• Whole wheat is just as bad as white bread. And if my local bagel joint’s nutritional page is to believed, it’s actually worse. So, multigrain whenever possible, when it comes to starches.
• Egg whites are terrible. Says she who has consumed gallons of them. Real eggs only now. With yolks. Fuck you nutritional studies that say they’re good, then bad, then good again. Done listening.
• Light beer sucks. Give me a Magic Hat, a Purple Haze, a Guinness. I will drink less and enjoy it more.

And that’s the key — when you eat or drink something that doesn’t fulfill you emotionally or physiologically, you won’t stop till you find what might … no matter how many points you’ve already consumed.

We all just want to go to bed happy, I think. If I “cheat” per se but DAMN IT WAS WORTH IT, those are the weeks I lose weight. And more of it than just three-tenths of a pound.

My boss gave me a book on how to “Choose Yourself” and I have been reading it. Funny to get that from a workplace that I give 60-65 hours of work, eight hours/300 miles of commute, five Advils, three nightmares, two tanks of gas and one night of lost sleep every week, and it’s still not enough. But, you know, I appreciate the thought.

But really, choosing to get healthier IS me choosing myself. Because as the book says, you can’t have success if you don’t have your health. Just look at my mom, whose health has declined so much that I can’t even look at her anymore. (And yes I hate myself for it.)

So fuck you GOP for blocking Obamacare and fuck you Michele Bachmann for “earning” an $80,000/year pension for life for contributing NOTHING to this word and fuck you everyone who sees us decreasing humanitarian aid overseas and worrying WHAT ABOUT THE OIL TANKER STOCKS because there’s less caaaarrrrrgoooooooooo. And everyone like them who would rather let us die on the inside and the outside when it wouldn’t exactly kill them to throw us a lifeline. Ted Cruz and your goddamned Goldman Sachs healthcare plan. Fuck you most of all.

Anyway.

Down a pound and a half. This week in my life counted for something. Hooray.