Friday, November 30, 2007

Moving is not hot.

My moving is going to be a good idea in practice, when all is said and done, but the process is causing me to be decidedly unhot. Jesus, I didn't even realize I could go in reverse from where I started!

Having lived at the Howard Street apartment for almost seven years, I have come to realize a few things about choosing one's living arrangement for optimal hotness. First, have a parking space. This is essential to getting your beauty sleep and reducing stress. Don't believe me? Fact: when I recently threw out my back, I had to sit in my car for four hours waiting for a parking space within four blocks of my apartment. Have you ever thrown your back out? That was my first time. It was deeply unpleasant and unfamiliar and truly stressful (especially considering I had to evacuate a hotel for a fire during the worst of it). Stress, as we know, is not good for one's skin. Ergo, no parking? Pimpleface, puckermouthed sourpuss. SO NOT HOT!

Location, location, location. I solemnly swear to never, ever have a bedroom that is right next to someone's kitchen and a few short feet from a laundry room. Nothing like waking up to Filipino barbecue wafting into your window and realizing that you might actually be getting some fat deposited on your face. Then there's the thick layer of fuzz on virtually EVERYTHING in the room. Dusting is shitty enough. But as I have been unburying my things from the layers of dust AND lint, I find myself wondering how much of this stuff I've swallowed and conversely, how much of it was sitting on my skin all night, baking in while I slept in the unbearable summer heat. I wonder if lint and dust are fattening. Hmmmm.

Air conditioning is essential. I think that might help dust from baking into my skin. Just a hunch. Also not sleeping due to heat sucks hard. Having to sleep in one's car when the power goes out and it's so hot you cannot breathe, then being eaten alive by bugs is not exactly a recipe for being a penacle of beauty the next day.

Now it's three in the morning, I've spent several hours trying desperately to make sense of all my stuff. I want Niecy Nash (from Clean House) to come in and rescue me from my mayhem and foolishness, but she's nowhere to be found. I also need to shower and I can't because I've not yet purchased a shower curtain for my new place and cleverly removed all the towels from the old one. Not hot.

I think the next time I'm going to move, I won't put off packing until the last effing moment. I feel certain that would make me more attractive. Maybe not to anyone else but me, but hey... that's okay.

Monday, November 26, 2007

The Journey Begins

I've been fat pretty much my whole life now. Even when I wasn't fat, I was being convinced that I was. I've been through varying degrees of "screw it, I'm tired of trying", to "this is someone else's fault not mine" and finally to, "if I don't do something soon, I'm going to fucking die... literally" and everywhere in between. I'm sure there have been times when I even invented places to take my mental state about my body that I shouldn't mention on the Internet. Whatever. The point is that my body started to shut down on me this year (after 50 plus hours nailed to a desk sending people on overpriced vacations) and I panicked. I couldn't walk. I could barely breathe walking from the car to the office. It was bad. Really, really bad.

The closer I am getting to forty, which is wicked fucking quick, the harder I find change to be. That will shock people who know me because I've always been one to make changes pretty easily. Of course, my weight situation has always been one that's changed and changed back a thousand and a half times. But for some reason, in virtually all other areas of my life, if I wanted to make a change, BAM!!!! I made the change. Now? Not so much. If I don't put some serious focus on this, I'm going to never know what it would be like to be me entirely. Not just in personality but in physicality. Because friends I am here to tell you, that in my mind, I run. I run like the wind. I hike. I go for walks instead of sitting down to watch yet more television. I am limber and healthy and bouncy and fun. In my mind, that is.

My body doesn't match my mind and heart as it once did. The lumbering mass I became was a fitting visage to the carefully cultivated self doubt and well placed blame that permeated my life. Yeah, I have a few people who helped build this monster, but admittedly, I became the zombie-esque tubby butt that the frightened villagers chased after with the pitchforks and never looked back.

The funny thing is, I wanted to be this way. I had lost over seventy pounds when I was with my ex. When it was over, I wanted nothing to do with romance, sex and therefore men and I made a conscious decision to pack it back on. I never knew it would careen out of control. I never knew I would end up getting on a scale at a doctor's office and not have the scale register my weight. It never occured to me that my back might go out, and I would have to sit like a blob in a scooter to get around Disneyland (where I normally power through like a coked up camp counselor) and endure the looks of disgust and disapproval from practically everyone I encountered, including the cast members. When I took the job I took last February, I was in desperate need of an opportunity. What that potential opportunity did to my body is absolutely, bar none, the worst thing I have ever done to myself. By the end of my time there, I was hollowed out, exhausted and most likely forty to fifty pounds heavier than when I went in.

I believe in myself. I believe in what I can accomplish. I also believe that I have convinced myself that I cannot lose the weight. It was stuck in my mind that I would never get this done and I kept listening... kept believing. But I have tested out some of the methods I plan to use and know they work. Now is the time of believing in what I can achieve when I put my mind to it.

What exactly am I trying to achieve? It's not a number. It's not a dress size. It's a feeling. It's a state of mind. I want to look in the mirror and say to myself, "That bitch is fucking HOT!" There. I said it. No, I know it's not a noble pursuit. I know it's probably not even really the healthiest. But there it is. I know that all the important stuff will fall into line with that goal like stamina, healthier lifestyle, etc. But I'm tired of being surrounded by women who have what I've only dreamt of in the way of physiques and looks, and being angry with them for doing nothing with it. The only reason I feel that way is that I can't just do it myself. That sucks all the way around.

If you choose to go on this journey with me, all I ask is that you just go along for the ride. Don't try to take the reigns. I want to share this with you, but if there's one thing that shuts me down it's too many people trying to direct the journey. I know what to do. I'll do it or not do it. I know what works. If I need help, I promise I'll ask. So just sit back, relax and come with me. Enjoy the ride. It ought to be an interesting one.