Went to the office Christmas holiday party tonight.  I go almost every year and it always makes me feel alienated and lonely; I don’t think I’ll go anymore.

First off, I don’t have a lot of friends at work.  People like me, as far as I can tell, but only as a sort of quirky office mascot.  “What crazy thing is she up to now?” they say to themselves, or: “Did she change her hair colour again?”  Most of the time I’m totally fine with this dynamic; I have no burning desire to be all enmeshed with these people, anyway.  But the holiday party starts with dinner, and I know from harsh, awkward experience that I don’t have a four-course-meal’s worth of mindless pleasantries in me.   Therefore, each year I try to railroad one of the two or three coworkers who are more than just acquaintances into coming to this thing so I have someone to hang with.  But they can’t just meet me there, we have to go together since I’m afflicted with phobias that make me basically go blind with panic when I go to a crowded place.  Other people seem to be able to stroll into a packed-to-capacity banquet hall and seek out the people they want to spend the evening with;  I can’t.  So yeah, I’m friendless and lame.  Thanks for the reminder, Work Shindig.

And then there’s the clothing issue.  To a large extent I hide my life and personality when I’m at work (no, I wouldn’t make more friends there if I made myself more accessible; those people are just not on my wavelength.  At all.),  and this privacy extends to my choice of clothes:  I wear the most boring, neutral crap possible at work and save what I think of as my “real” clothes for the weekend.   When a fancy work event comes up, I can’t bear to “mix the worlds” by wearing something that makes me feel like myself,  so I pick out an outfit appropriate for my muted-down work persona.  Pretty much every other woman at this event (which is a big event with around a thousand attendees) wears – and seems perfectly at ease with – long, flowing hair, ridiculous stiletto heels, huge earrings, and other typical trappings of femininity.  When I stumble into the room in my unaccustomed heels (which are nowhere near as high and pointy as everyone else’s, but weird to walk in all the same) and my mostly-shaved head and my conservative black dress that nonetheless shows all my tattoos, I feel that everyone’s looking at me with pity, like they believe I’m trying desperately to be the archetypal girly-girl but I’m just not pulling it off.  I kind of wish I’d come waltzing in wearing some fabulous retro-style cocktail dress with fishnets and motorcycle boots, but that would constitute KILLING INDEPENDENT GEORGE*.

Aw, hell, I’d probably  have felt awkward and left-out regardless.

*Seinfeld reference

I decided something that will change my life as you and I know it. I know the tradition is to wait until New Years’ Eve until we make resolutions to change our life but today really opened my eyes. I have decided to make my resolutions a month or so early. I could bore you with all of them but I have decided to spare you and just write my most important ones.

1) I will do all my homework the day it is assigned and attempt to even do it early. I will finish essays on time and earlier.
2) I will watch much less TV and spend less time on the computer.
3) I will read at least 1-3 chapters of a book per night, and attempt to finish a book every two weeks, if not every week.
4) If I tell someone I will make or do something for them by a specific time, I will do it.
5) I will keep up with this blog and post at least once every two days.
6) I will take shorter showers and eat healthier. (less meat, more vegetables)

That is all that I am gonna post. If you really need to see more, you can e-mail me or something. I do definitely have more. I am just too lazy to post them, which is something that I am gonna be working on.

To move on, today I felt fairly isolated and ignored. I was shut out by at least ten people while I was talking. My teacher is a really cool guy to most every one. He even shares music and talks with a ton of students. But not me. He pretty much ignores me and moves to every other kid. He doesn’t care about me along with a ton of people.

I basically feel like a big tool and that a lot of people don’t really care. I know there are a few people that do, family and friends, but I think that 95-98% of my acquaintances could care less about my well-being and don’t really even realize they don’t care.

I’m going to bed. I’m getting upset again. Night.

I’m in Social Justice. We are talking about how we feel validated and what validates us. We also talked about how people are validated through complements. I had a sudden realization. I decided to be rude enough to annouce it while in class.

My full validation is specifically focused on companionship. I feel that, to be happy, I need to be around someone or something familiar. The reason I was so depressed was because I though that, to an extent, seperation would make me happier. But now I know that is causing all of my depressions. I’m really glad that I figured that out now.

Today was a very strange day. I don’t remember much of school except that JP took me, Elan, Joseph, and a girl, whose name escapes me, out of class for a photography class. Basically, JP told us the basics of camera settings and we went out and took pictures for an hour or so. I didn’t talk much, mostly because I wouldn’t know what to say. So I kept to myself. But that was only the beginning of my loneliness.

I haven’t felt lonely in a week or so, since I have been with Rochelle. After school, I took pictures of the LCC Battle Of The Bands try-outs. I hung out with Sadie for a while, well, until the Mulligans played. She left and chilled with her sister and the band. I was alone in a crowded room. I barely knew anyone and couldn’t really leave my spot because I was shooting. I started to droop into loneliness more and more as bands played their one song and moved on. By the end, I caught myself literally frowning at my isolation. I pulled my lips into a straight line of indifference to seem “professional” and not alone. The try-outs ended and I solitarily walked out.

Update: I deleted the last part of this update because I felt it was not necessary anymore. If you are really dying to know about it, leave a comment with your e-mail and I’ll tell you.

To conclude my post, my day was very lonely and depressing. I hope to have a better one tomorrow. Night.

In Cleveland Texas Police placed several calls to a rural Texas home to check on a family.  Police say Oliver Bills Jr., 43 shot and killed Shara Torres, his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter Sara Whitemire and also Gloria Bills, 71, his adopted mother then turning the gun on himself.

It was reported to police that Oliver Bills had stopped taking his Medication. Bills was having hallucinations and getting more and more violent.

Capt. Carl Jones said non-emergency calls had been placed but indicated Bills was sick but had no history of prior violence.  A car wasn’t sent out until 8 p.m. Jones said his office had four squad cars Saturday, that a major vehicle wreck was also being responded to.

Information from Yahoo News: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091110/ap_on_re_us/us_texas_family_slain

A new breed of homeless individuals is prevalent in these economic times. You may know one of them personally or indirectly be aware of someone on the verge of being homeless. It’s the neighbor, a friend or a relative. Normal hard working individuals that now find themselves face to face with an economic crisis that is testing their fortitude and wits. A day to day challenge not to succumb to a mental state of homelessness, when the physical reality is so real.

The term “homeless” as used by society has negative connotations. A variety of socially deviant categories is associated with this term: Derelict, drug addict, alcoholic, mental health patient, pan handler, etc. All of which carry a stigma that is detrimental.
 
Homelessness unfortunately can not be summed up that neatly. Public service agencies are currently not set up or equipped to handle the sudden influx of citizens in need of help. They have limited resources and do not handle the community at large. Single men and women in specific that due to unfortunate circumstances, can’t even afford to rent a room. So if you are one of those that fall into this category, you are in for a rude awakening.
 
The system is neither equipped nor willing to help people like me. As I was told in October of 2008…” You know Mr. Colon the problem with you and why we can’t help you is that you don’t have a drug problem or mental issues, or have been released from prison” basically a derelict with no hope. …Unfortunately I am just a professional with no job.

After exhausting my unemployment benefits along with my savings, my journey began in October 1, 2008 when I walked out of my apartment of 7 years and onto the streets. Nobody had to evict me which actually made things easier because I prepared for that moment, mentally and physically. It was mostly a moral decision at the time. Unable to pay the rent and after three months of this additional stress a moral dilemma settled in. The right thing at the time was not to burden my roommate any further. Otherwise there would have been two homeless people instead of one, which in my humble opinion is one too many.

As my readers and intimate friends well know, I suffer greatly from an identity crisis.  Half the time I do not know what I am or what I am supposed to be.  Are we to be as we are born?  Or has some mistake been made?  No, I should never question God and I do not now, but perhaps somewhere along the line in my raising up I got things twisted.  Why else would men have operations to be women, and vice versa?

Of course, it isn’t my sexuality that I question.

I am here, a simple square peg trying to fit into a round hole and failing miserably.  I don’t identify with my black sisters and brothers.  Most of the time I’m left bewildered.  They understand me even less.  Despite the confusion I feel at having been born black, I have no desire to become white.  I do not think any one race is better than the other.  Becoming white will not solve the distress I feel at being black.  The white race is cursed with its own fair share of problems, and I daresay that I would still suffer some crisis, even if I were white.

Perhaps I should have been Chinese.

At any rate, I have a strong objection towards black people in general, and it’s a funny thing especially when I am black and very obviously black.  I’m not light skinned and thus, I could not pass well.  Am I a racist?  Can you be racist against your own kind?  I don’t know the answers to these questions.  I just know that I have serious issues.  I get worried when there are large groups of black teenagers near me.  I don’t go into neighbourhoods that are largely black.  I don’t patronise black businesses.  I would never consider a black doctor.  I’m concerned if someone links me to a group of black people.

I worry about looking too ethnic… too black.  Not in skin colour, mind you, but I wouldn’t come out wearing Mother Africa colours.  I don’t like to be called African-American.  I wouldn’t wear cornrows because I think it looks too prison like and prison is where a lot of black people hang out.  I want to loc my  hair but then I’m concerned that I might look too “Fight the Power.”  It’s like I want everybody to know I’m not one of them.

See how stupid I am?

Some days I have a good reason, and some days I’m just stupid on principle.

Today, I went to Safeway to pick up a few things for supper.  I always rear park my car because it’s easier, and I go inside, get my little items and when I come out I find that a black family is loading their groceries in the soccer mom van next to mine.  Nothing wrong with that except for the fact that they had their cart propped up against my car.

Now, I don’t drive a Mercedes or BMW, or even a Honda.  I drive up a beat-up five year old Hyundai that hasn’t been washed in three or four years.  It’s been banged up.  The side fender is hanging off.  There’s bird shit all over it.  I’m not one for the outward appearance of the car; as long as the engine is running properly I could give a shit less what the car looks like.  I was just never into that sort of thing, but don’t you think it’s appallingly rude to have your cart on someone else’s car?

As I approached my vehicle, one woman was shouting down her cell phone in that typical fashion of most black people.  Why do you have to scream into the phone?  Is your other party deaf?  Are all black people talking to deaf people on the other end?  The woman and I lock eyes.  I look at my car.  I look back at her.

She does nothing.

I have an exceptionally rude mouth and I can say some of the most horrid things imaginable, but I didn’t do that.  Well, I was rude but I didn’t make a comment about her wide spreading ass.  I simply said, “Could you get your cart off my car?”  It’s not just the fact that the cart is on the car, it’s also that I can’t pull off because the cart is IN FRONT OF the car.

The woman’s gargantuan mother was in a store-provided Hoveround and she was looking at me like I’m the one doing something wrong.  I was headed towards my driver door and the woman still made no move to get the cart off the goddamn car.  So I said a little louder, “Do you think you could stop screaming into your phone a moment and move your goddamn cart?  K, thanks.”

Yeah, I’m sure there’s way of doing things and if I were a weaker willed woman I might have been polite and ingratiating, saying please and thank you.  But why should I?  Her cart is on my car?

There is another fat woman inside the car and now all three fat black women are staring at me as if I’m the rude one.  When she still makes no move to the cart, I went back around, moved the cart off my car and pushed it into the street.  While she was screaming, I got in my car and drove off.

Yeah, I know, this could have been anybody.  These people could have been Portuguese.  They could have been Australian aborigines.  I’m sure.  Whatever.  They weren’t.  They were black, and I’m always have altercations with black people.  Maybe I bring it on myself because I have such a huge chip on my shoulder.  It’s possible.  Maybe my sour disposition attracts negative things.  Who even knows?

Every time I try a little bit, something happens to shove me right back down.

I don’t want to be white.  I’ll settle for plaid or stripey, something interesting.  Then I would not have to fit into anybody’s neat ideals of what a [insert any race here] person should be.  I can be anything I want and nobody would know the difference because they’d never met a plaid person before.

Le sigh.

I make life so difficult.

I just stretched my ears from a 12 gauge to a 10 gauge.  14 to 12 barely felt like anything, but this one smarted.

The stretching process is thrilling because (as with my tattoos, as with dyeing my hair blue) I’m customizing my body to my own specifications.  It’s also kind of scary to me because it’s pushing my boundaries a bit.

I never used to like the look of stretched ears, but I’ve slowly changed my mind on that (provided the stretch is zero gauge or smaller) so here I am, doing something I once swore I’d never do.  And every time I push my own envelope this way I get a bit of a panicky feeling, a lost-at-sea feeling, because what if everything I believe is totally fluid?! What if I get addicted to the stretching process and end up with earlobes I could shove my fist through?  God, in five years I might look entirely different from the way I do now.  Who will I be?  Who am I now? What if there is no fundamental me?  AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

But deciding that I kinda like stretched earlobes doesn’t mean I’m going to eventually accept everything I currently say no to (murder, child abuse, sandwiches with mustard on them, etc.), right?  So I should try to calm down.

The other thing that freaks me out about stretching is that my OCD mostly takes the form of wanting to tear things the rest of the way off that are hanging by a thread.  I heard you can get that stringy thing under your tongue pierced; even if I liked the look of this and didn’t mind the pain factor, I could not get this piercing because all I’d be able to think about, 24/7, is how easy it would be to tear out.  How I could just grab the barbell between thumb and forefinger and – well you see where I’m going with this.  I rarely wore earrings in my unstretched ears – especially dangly ones – because of my all-consuming paranoia that they’d get caught on something and ripped out of my head.  You can probably see why people with their ears stretched huge, like where their earlobe is this tiny thin strip hugging the outside of a pair of flesh tunnels, wig me out.

I’m gonna stretch to a 6 gauge, maximum.  That’s still too small to get a finger through (so I won’t obsess on what would happen if someone hooked my ear as a joke and started pulling).  And flesh tunnels are pretty safe; they’d probably be less likely to catch on stuff than “regular”  non-gauged earrings would.  Plus I could wear certain kinds of rings and danglies through the flesh tunnels and feel that the tunnels were reinforcing my holes against tearing.

I’ve also heard it’s possible for ears up to 6 gauge to shrink back to normal again if you let them, which is reassuring.  I really don’t think I’ll want to go back to “normal” ungauged ears anyway, since as I said I never wore earrings in them anyway so what’s the point, but the idea that this is reversible makes me less worried/paranoid than I would be otherwise.

My winter depression is starting to come on and it’s sapping my energy and making it hard to do anything but mope and surf the ‘net. As a result, my apartment has fallen into a state of serious disarray.

How serious, you ask?

I just found a dirty fork under my pillow.

This morning I drove by a dead mouse. That was streched out by the side of the road with its arms up in the air, the same way a human that had been ran over by a car would lay. Yet, I felt no pity for the mouse. I felt disgusted and drove by happy that there was one less in this world.

Then it dawned on me. I completely discriminate against mice. Why did I feel no pity and instead felt disgust? I asked myself, is that why people who discriminate against others feel no remorse for doing harm to them? They feel no pity for others if they are not of their kind. Is that what discrimination is about. But why is it like that?

I searched the tape in my head, rewinding it back to my memory of the first time I saw a mouse. “Kill the rat!” “Disgusting creatures!”  “Un Raton, matalo!” (a mouse, kill it) “Dont go near them”! were some of the expressions I recalled.

I realized that I’ve been conditioned; trained to discriminate against those creatures that are considered less significant than us in this world. I cannot help getting goose bumps when I see them. I just can’t help it.

And I wondered…Is that how the folks that discriminate against others feel? Is that why they can’t help themselves? They can’t help discriminating against some people because, like me, we were mentally conditioned.

 While it might be too late to re-condition  this generation, it is not too late to start conditioning the next.

Let’s condition our young  kids to be kind and  feel pity for all people. Condition them to love, respect and that all men are created equal. Instead of insulting people and calling them names because you think they are not your equal, in front of your kids, think about the future. Will your kids’ instinct be to kill, feel no pity or disgust against others because of your conditioning? 

Maritza Salvado

Soooo turns out I have a baby inside of me.  Either that or I have a soccer ball size tumor in my stomach, and if so I really really hope it’s the creepy kind that grows teeth and hair and stuff… word is still out on that.

Anyhow -I know I was all I’m not ready for kids and my house is a den of un-kid-friendly things like booze and sex and Evil Dead at 3 am when I was talking about it Here, but I’ve changed folks, I really have!  Sometimes I cook things, that are not even from a box and I’m taking a 9 month hiatus from the booze, so umm… that’s gotta be worth something.  And I work with kids.  Like for a living.  So I’m getting really good at translating into child-friendly.  Which is not so easy when you are a “mad scientist” and all you want to say is “Hey kids, lets blow shit up!!”   So anyways, I’m all, well let’s try because it could take months, it could take years!  And then we will have to look into fertility treatments or adoption or stealing babies from ladies at supermarkets… Two weeks later, BAM! I’m knocked up.  Rousing applause for Patrick’s sperm, who are apparently not all dead!

This is me at 8 weeks pregnant, pretty much when I found out.  Look at that naive smile, that somewhat flat tummy, those pert and perky breasts (read small).

me at 8 weeks pregnant

8 weeks pregnant belly

Being the older sister to 4 brothers, 3 of whom were born while I was in high school, I thought I had a pretty good handle on what this whole being pregnant thing was about.  I remember my mom complaining about aches and pains, but I was all Bring it on bitches, aches and pains I can handle! …

HOWEVER turns out there is a whole list of things that nobody tells you will happen to you except then it does and it sucks.  I think it is a secret pact amongst mothers to shush the bad parts so more unsuspecting young women will join their ranks.  SO here it is.  Pact broken.  All the things I didn’t know, I present for your consideration:

1.) FOOD – First, who knew there is this list of like a million things you are not allowed to eat.  I mean here I was bemoaning that I can’t have a good beer or five and turns out giving up alcohol, just scratching the surface!  And it just so happens that the things you are not allowed to eat are some of my favorite things:  coffee (caffeine blocks absorption of vitamins), hot dogs (portillos anyone? Only if you want to give your baby AIDS and be the Worst. Mother. Ever.), sushi, lunch meat, blue cheese (which rules out cobb salad, AND buffalo wings), Caesar dressing (raw eggs), also, so long to the days of sinking your teeth into a bloody steak or burger, everything now has to be charred to a crisp.  you know, for the baby. And while we’re at it, no sunny side up eggs, or over easy eggs, your eggs have to be over hard.  Is that even a thing? Eggs over hard?  I don’t even know because that is something I would never order.  So I know it’s just food and you are all, get over it, but I really, really like food.  Really.  Like food might be the father of my child… and I like all of those things I’m not allowed to have.  Being not allowed to have them makes me want them more.  Pregnancy is not all ice cream and pickles like some people (MEN) always seem to think.  NOW, I know some women continue to eat all those things and their babies are just fine. They are born without flippers or a unicorn horn, but I can’t.  I get nervous.  I was thinking about cheating but then I picked up a friends food safety book and read that the bacteria in blue cheese can cause, (and i am not even exaggerating here) “FORCEFUL EJECTION OF THE FETUS”  WTF?!?  That mental image is straight out of a horror movie.  So yeah, if you like food, and don’t want to be stuck eating mac and cheese for the next nine months… you know, keep it in your pants… or have him.. or you know what I mean.

2.) MONEY – You will become obsessed with money.  Even if you didn’t worry before.  All of a sudden, it’s “do I really need this Cinnabon or should I save the money for the baby?”  side note, the answer to the first part of that question is yes.  always yes.  But it’s never too early to start worrying about whether you can feed and clothe this child and buy him the latest video game so he will love me more than Patrick, and not have to scar him for life by taking him to the free public pool where he might see some guy crack another guy over the head with a bottle and then they have to empty the pool and you have to wait in the locker rooms for what seems like hours while the ambulance comes… anyone with me on this? Maybe that was just me.  Moving on, yeah, money has always been a bitch, but now it’s worse.  Like “I can’t buy these shoes or my child won’t be able to go to college and it will ruin his life” kind of worse.  So I know you are all, take a pill, woman, but I can’t because that sounds like it would cost money, and why do you hate my kid so much anyways?

3.) YOUR BODY – Ok, so I could go on and on about all the gross things that happen to your body, but why would you want to read that? I mean there’s the digestion issues… which I will just leave at that (look at me, showing restraint!).  But I do need to share one thing.  Whenever I wake up in the morning I look about 5 months pregnant.  By the end of the day I look like this baby is going to pop out of me at any moment.  No one but me has figured this out yet, so I will let you in on a little secret…  the reason I am huge (like really really huge) by the end of the day is a fun little game known as bloating.  If you’ve ever wondered why pregnant women get so crabby when you try to touch their belly, it might be because it is a hot air balloon in there and they are worried (legitimately) that if you keep poking it, they might pop and expel a giant gust of wind.  poke. fart. poke. fart.  We are trying to be ladylike here so if you could just refrain from the poking, that would be ever so appreciated.

4.) THE PEEING – so you already know pregnant women have to pee.  a lot.  but no one ever told me that although the frequency of your peeing is going to increase, and oh boy, will it, the amount doesn’t actually change all that much.  So imagine how much you pee now, and then break that up into about 12 potty breaks during the day.  This means you feel like your bladder is going to explode, pee your pants kind of urgency only to sit down to a trickle.  Is it just me or is that a major let down?

5.) OH MY GOD the LEG CRAMPS – as I talk to other people who have been pregnant, everyone is like, oh yeah, I got those, they were a bitch.  But no one thought it might be nice to give a little heads up to a future sufferer of said leg cramps.  This is how it goes:  I fall asleep crabbily laying on my left side because supposedly otherwise my uterus will crush the vena cava and kill the baby, and I finally start to drift in and out of sleep.  3am rolls around only to find me clutching for my leg screaming “HOLY SHIT GOD DAMN MOTHERFUCKING BITCH WHORE” and Pat is all, “oh is it monday again already?”  No but seriously, it’s the most painful thing ever, I fall asleep in terror of waking up to one.  and no one thought I might want to know.  Seriously, people? Seriously?

So next time you want to get knocked up, don’t say I didn’t warn you.  Oh, and if your baby has a unicorn horn, can I please please meet him because that is awesome!

Men and Mental Health

by Dr. John Nickens

Popular wisdom holds that men are more stoic, or perhaps less in touch with their feelings, then are women.  Now a recent study done in Great Britain reveals that the popular wisdom is true.  For you the popular wisdom may not have needed validation, but the numbers are still interesting, and also concerning.

Researchers found that 37% of men surveyed report feeling of anxiety and depression.  The primary factors causing distress in their lives were job security, work and money.  This appears to be a direct result of the global economic free-fall, and so can be presumed to be valid in most countries that trade beyond their borders.

The study continues to provide illuminating statistics.  At least 31% of the men surveyed  report they would feel embarrassed to seek mental health help, and only 14% would seek any kind of medical attention for symptoms of anxiety or depression, compared with 37% of women who would do so.   Just as concerning, only 29% of men would talk to friends about their inner struggle, compared to 53% of women who would do so.

With more and more job loss in our community, and the overwhelming feelings of loss and fears that happen when one faces the collapse of a hard-earned lifestyle, we can expect that we ourselves and many people around us will experience increased stress and anxiety.   This is an appeal to the men, and those who love and care about them, to seek the support and guidance of a qualified mental health professional when occasional worry turns into more persistent anxiety, or more.  Encourage the men that you think may be suffering in silence, or not so silently with alcohol or drugs,  to make an appointment.   Doing so is a sign of courage and strength.

Are you feeling anxious, sad or worrying more than usual?  Beat the odds the researchers report… reach out for support today.

source: dr. j’s therapy blog

Hi there doll,

Ya, the schedule, it’s not working. We’ll cal that complete and write once a week. That I can do. If I feel like doing more, then I’ll write then as well.

I am for putting exercise in the diary. However, since there is nothing in my diary (feel the “I’m unemployed and depressed” saga coming on) I don’t ever feel like it. I feel like eating a pizza (which I did), sleeping on the couch (two nights in a row) smoking too much (cigarettes in NC are CHEAP and I bought a carton) and watching Law and Order. So the exercise can wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow, i love ya, tomorrow.

Aggh.

So my job was posted as an internship, I am getting phone calls and facebook requests from former colleagues that have had to take on some of my responsibilities. Part of me wants to go “pay me, and I’ll help you” and the other part wants to just let it go and be helpful. Being helpful has always gotten me into trouble.

I am super duper helpful. I rearrange my life to help people out. I slack on bills to help out friends and family, I bail on things I really want to do to be available for movers, childcare, potential parties. My whole social register is about helping out people.

Interestingly, and kind of obviously, I stopped helping people out just after surgery. I asked for help. I said I am powerless and started a whole new life. I guess I am gearing up for the terrible twos– I’ll be 2 years out in August. I have gone back to old habits. And it feels like ick.

So, back to helping people out. I don’t have to be everything to everyone, just everything to me. If I really really want to be at 190 for the remainder of my days, I have 76 pounds to lose and keep off. But really, I want to be healthy, start a marriage, have a family, be gainfully employed with a career I love at a company I love even more, write all the time and have a little house, possibly upstate, that has a room I can write in that has a little window I look out over beautiful scenery that inspires me creatively. To make all that happen, I have to put me first me first.

Putting me first has always been a bit of a bitch. I don’t know how to feel good about being a priority. I never asked for raises, I always went for the funny character part instead of the lead, I wanted people to like me more than respect me. However, it’s a total life change.

So here’s the labotomy. I am first. And to be first, things gotta change around here. I will not consider myself a failure if someone calls me selfish. This is the bypass on the brain.

Okay, and all of that said, the sun came out and stopped the 7 days of rain in NYC. At least for now. Law and Order is over, and the ashtray is empty. Hey, it’s gonna rain again, but this time, not on my fucking parade.

Watch out world. I’m coming after you and going to suck the juice of life right outta ya.

Thanks for keeping me accountable. You can count on me to write once a week. Warts and navel gazing and victories abound.

much love–

Kim

This kid is amazing.

He turned my attention to him after his 2nd and 3rd starts which increased his scoreless streak over 30 games and had an amazing ERA, WHIP and K’s.

Now, he sits 6 starts in, at 6-0, 54 k’s, 0.4 ERA, .84 WHIP, and 6 hits per 9 innings.

Everyone knows how important wins, era, and k’s are.

But WHIP is actually an underrated stat along with h/9.

WHIP is walks and hits per inning pitched.

So basically, Zack lets less than one person on per inning pitched.

He’s had 3 complete games, with 2 shutouts, one of which came last night against a powerful Chicago white sox team.

He’a number one in baseball, including hitters and pitchers according to yahoo’s fantasy stats.

45 innings pitched, 2 earned runs.

Unheard of.

But the amazing thing is the backstory of Zack.

He had an article written about him in SI not too long ago, after he turned mine and the rest of the world’s heads towards him.

He came into the game as skilled as a young player can be, and dominated in his rookie season.

He became the royals pitcher of the year as a rookie.

It’s not really saying much, because its the royals, but a rookie doing that is still awesome.

Then he became unamused with the game.

It was boring to him, dominating at such a young age.

He even didn’t like pitching as much as hitting.

He felt like he was forced to become a pitcher.

He one time promised he’d throw a 50-mph curveball in the next inning he pitched.

50 mph is amazingly slow, kids in 5th grade can get that high with a fastball.

He threw it to Dmitri Young (what a perfect person to throw it to), and it looped in there slow as possible.

The mph reading?

50 on the dot.

He eventually had problems mentally and took a year or two off of baseball.

He had severe depression issues and finally sorted them out after a while.

He came back about 3 years later and continued his domination.

Now he puts the royals on his back, and is capable of making his own baseball league.

Like a blitz, but baseball.

He’d be the only one that didn’t cheat, and i’m sure he’d still dom the whole league.

He and nelson cruz should go together into the ZNBL.

Zack-Nelson Baseball League.

Where Fun Happens.

I can see it now.

What a stud.

This is actually the exact pitch where zack threw the 50-mph curveball.

But wait!?! Isn’t Dmitri’s bat broken?

Yes, it is. But Dmitri is so cocky he heard the comment from zacky and assumed he could hit that pitch with a broken bat so he tried.

And failed miserably.

"hey next time i'm gonna throw a 100 mph change-up." "Is that possible?" "Don't question me stupid catcher"

What a rough guy.

Don’t mess with Zacky, or as he shall now be called, the Royal(e) with Cheese.

Pronounced roy-al.

This is a graph.

It’s basically the red and pink dots versus the blue and green.

I hope the blue and green ones win, that’d be cool.

Actually this is some odd pitch chart that shows the break of all his pitches.

It’s good to have a graph like this, just in case you uneducated fools didn’t know.

See what i did there??????????????^________^

just in case.

as if he were named Justin Case.

Or Just Incase.

how ironic.

Hey there Melinda–

Sorry about going dark for a couple days. I was in a dark mood. But taking care of myself in gentle ways– going for walks, smelling the fresh air, continuing to search for the elusive perfect position……

I was so happy to hear that you are taking care of yourself and not starting off with golden Mcnugget happiness and ending up with serious stomach distress.  You (we) deserve good food. Good fresh food. And to take care of our bodies, our skin, our joints, our hair. I realize I spend way too much time in my pj’s these days and now have a guideline that jammies have to be off by 11am, and showers taken. I know this would be a serious luxury for you and the job and school and husband and napping kitties, but trust me, after 6 weeks of it, you too would be a directionless sloth in fuzzy jammie pants. Potentially with either hearts or clouds covering your ass (depending on what mood you were in).

I am inspired about your Cooking Light and will seek a new recipe this week to attack. I did make tortilla soup over the weekend (not the good clear broth kind with floating fresh avocado– no, the black bean and corn kind that I like to refer to as Poop Soup– because, well yes it helps and two, well yes it kind of looks the same in our coming out) and will attempt to have that for lunch or dinner 3 times this week. It will have me get all my protein and fiber in one sitting. No pun intended.

Since the layoff, depression ebbs and flows. Sometimes I am really mad at my former boss and have visions of going back and being bigger/bolder/better than ever. And then I realize that I got eliminated, I am just grieving. I didn’t do anything wrong. But it still feels a lot like “Why me?” so until I can get out of that phase, I stand stuck.  To jolt this along, I am walking and exercising more. And up until yesterday smoking more.  But then we did the bills…..

Early last week, the boyfriend and I started having those hard conversations– budget, money, debt, career, move in-conversations.  He brought all his financial stuff over, and we went through it. And he, like every American, is in debt. We figured what it would cost him to live here vs. at home with his folks and he loses money by living here. Splitting rent/food/utilities plus the additional money on gas for work…. it’s not pretty. The first thing he says,

“We can’t afford to smoke. No really, it’s like $9.75 a pack and I just don’t have the money.”

So we quit. Again. We celebrated that decision by heading to the diner for dinner with the rest of our packs and realizing we didn’t have $10 for the burger and fries– so I got cottage cheese, he got soup, and we split fries. And I finished my last cigarette and wondered aloud if I needed one more. And I chose to be a non-smoker, right then.

I’m going to have to keep choosing it everyday, but I have faith that I can do this. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again.

So we had the hard conversations. And I didn’t overeat, overprepare, or overanxiety-out on him. We just talked and it was normal and mellow. And we figured that there is work for both of us to do to have the kind of life we want. Maybe two jobs for him, maybe taking a step down for me to get something faster.

He left Sunday and  I didn’t overeat. I did eat, graze, snack….. and noticed that I was doing it. And stopped it when it got to be too much. Sometimes I let myself be consoled by food. See, I don’t eat that much while he is here- I have 3-4 meals and 1-2 snacks on the weekend. Yesterday I let myself be consoled by food. And I woke up this morning with a food hangover, being a non-smoker, and sipping my coffee about ready to take off my jammies and head to the gym….

I can’t be perfect. That’s the hardest conversation I am having with myself.  I can just be gentle with myself when I need to be.

Kim

Dear Kimmie Poo-

Am I being gentle with myself?

Finally, for once, I can say yes. This weekend was amazingly, decadently full of self-care. It was, as usual, incredibly busy but it was chock-full of things that I wanted to do. Breakfast and shopping with friends. Two hours of massage and facial action. Naps and birthday parties and grocery shopping and kitty snuggling.

It was during the facial that I had this…moment, for lack of a better word. You know that osteoporosis commercial where Sally Field declares that she “only has this one body and this one life?” For some reason, Sally’s voice popped into my head, repeating that over and over as I had my face exfoliated and massaged by my aesthetician. And I realized that man, she’s right.

One body. One life. And I could choose to take care of those two things or I could keep on imploding and self-destructing. And I decided, right there on that table with my eyes closed and some chanty music wafting around me while my pores were steamed within an inch of being that I’m going to start taking care of myself again.

The thing is, when my therapist asked me what I do for self-care, the only thing I could come up with was my weekly workout on Saturday mornings. And that is just unacceptable. I deserve to have fresh, wholesome food available at home; I deserve to get a massage every month; I deserve to have a body that’s as fit as it can be. And I am the only one who can make sure all of that happens, so I spent the rest of the weekend making it work. I scoured my Cooking Light magazines for recipes, I made grocery lists and weekly menus and plotted out exactly what I’m going to eat every day.

Don’t get me wrong; I did not write out precise directions with calorie counts and fat gram calculations. I just finally gave some thought to what I was putting into my body, instead of giving in to the “whatever I can grab” theory I’ve been living by lately. I love lists, I love checking things off, and having my food listed out for the week has helped me make it through today without feeling that willpower struggle. I’m not dieting, truly; I’m just having a plan and I’m just following my list! It’s a to-do list to make me feel healthy again instead of sluggish and gross and disappointed in myself.

I discussed this whole thing with my therapist tonight and she actually said it seems like a good coping mechanism for me, so I’m going to go with it. Bonus: saving money by eating in! And husband eats some healthy food too!

Now I just need to get back on track with the gym once my ankle finishes healing. One step at a time though, right?

L, M.

Dearest M,

I’m happy to have received your update. Interesting that both of us “set a schedule” and then can’t follow through.  I know I have tons to write about, but managing writing is something I don’t like to do.  Just doing it makes the difference for me.

When I begin a letter or a post, I usually have no idea what I am going to say. This holds true for this post. I know I want to talk about de-cluttering– it’s an offshoot of getting off the procrastination wagon, coming clean with myself, and discovering what sobriety is.

So first– WW. The first week, I lost nothing. I however, actually went to the meeting and weighed in, knowing that I could have gained. The second week, a three pound drop– and immediately I went to “it’s not enough, you’ll gain it back, it’s nothing”.  A wise leader once told me that it would be “useful to be a novice in the conversation of yourself”.  After pondering that, hearing what I am saying to myself after a three pound drop, and feeling all the fear of never being normal– I am becoming a novice in the conversation of myself.

I totally understand the WW point thing, and how it can lead to the obsessive behavior that then triggers compulsive overeating. I have been right there with you, writing down everything, tracking every mouthful, tracking things I think about eating– and then (at least for me) blowing it all in the evening.  Wake up and new day to do it again, so that the cycle becomes faster and more vicious, until the Saturday morning I don’t get out of bed and weigh in, and call it off. The difference for me this time is I am using it like a tool, a guideline. I am not tracking, but making different choices. The weight isn’t peeling off me as it has in the past. And it’s a choice.

I wonder what it would take for me to commit to the whole program.  Right now, I am a bystander– still drinking, still enjoying a cookie every now and again, tracking in my head. I’ll keep you clued in on the process, and I think you are right, it does have that AA quality to it– being in the room and hearing others stories does impact me in some way.

And on to drinking– girl, I feel you. I wonder why we do these things to ourselves?  Last night I consumed a bottle of wine and attacked the boyfriend and didn’t sober up until the morning. I don’t get the hangover like I used to, but I still feel crappy (I mean poopy) in the AM and kick myself.  All those points. It’s like my head turns off when “I want to have fun” and I don’t have the ability to be the vigilant perfect WLS patient I once was. I have to admit, that person was a little boring, but I liked her results.

I’d like to strike the balance between the two.

And now, on to de-cluttering– the boyfriend moves in in about a month. The first time he’s moved away from home, the first time for me living with a loved one and partner. I had to clear out space in my life to create this relationship, and now I am clearing out space in my apartment to have him be here and welcomed into something we are creating together. Which means I have to do tons of filing and paperwork and sorting and shifting and tossing and boxing up.

This is where it gets hard. For us to have a life together, I need to clean up mine. And it’s not only the physical space, but the emotional space. I realize I am putting a lot of un-necessary pressure on him to step it up. And I am not stepping up at all. Actually, not stepping. Haven’t been to the gym in over a month, haven’t set foot on the wii since January, and barely leave the confines of my couch. Yesterday I just let myself be sad/angry/mad/weepy/disjointed when I found my former job posted as a 15 hour a week intership. At first I was mad, then I thought I should apply for it out of vengeance, then I was really mad, then I calmed down and let myself mourn my old job. See, I don’t want the job I just had– I want the one from June. Before the new person was hired, division changed, the market crashed. I want the one that was sunshine and roses and overtime. And it’s gone.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK. WAAAAAA. POOR POOR PITIFUL ME!!!!!!

And after the crying, I took a shower and felt tons better. Did my hair and drank a bottle of wine with good friends over dinner, and the boyfriend surprised me with a mid-week visit.  YAY ME!

So, the job hunt, well, it’s not terrible. Not a lot of bites, but I’m not worried.  I can’t be. I can only focus on what I can control.  So today, I will focus on doing some de-cluttering– cleaning out the old to create the new.

I guess that’s what I am doing all along, cleaning out the old habits, the old patterns, and creating something new. With this body, with this energy, with this job search, with the boyfriend moving in, with this relationship. I have always wanted to be the person I am right now– excited about the future, ready to tackle big projects, and off my couch.

Spring cleaning, per se. Hmmm.

So, any patterns you see for yourself that you might want to shift?

Love always–

K

Dear Melinda,

I guess I should have prefaced my last post with– it’s mostly snark, with a tint of real in it.  Absolutely, guilt and shame have helped me along the way to almost 400 pounds,  I’d feel guilty for being heavy, then eat something to forget it, and then feel ashamed. I only ate large quantities with others who were going through the same thing, or found groups of friends that otherwise alternatively pushed emotions away with alternatives that are in the same way addictive.   Just when I think I have healed the guilt of one thing/ issue/ lesson– another surfaces. And then it’s the same cycle again.

What WLS is teaching my head is that ever day is a day to be present. To my emotions, my body, my life. Last night, I was not so present– I drank a bottle and half of red wine, consumed loads of chocolate, and at one point thought I was going to puke. The redeeming factor is that I did it with two of my best friends– and had a fabulous time. But oh boy, am I paying for it today.

Have I told you that recently I am obsessed with addiction shows? Intervention, Sober House, Till Debt do Us Part, and anything that is about drugs and alcohol. I realize more and more, when folks talk about their sobriety, they mean so many different things. It got me thinking, what is my sobriety? Sobriety, according to some online dictionaries, is refraining from excess.  I look around my life, and it is full of excess. Joy, laughter, pain, heartache, love, wishes, dreams. Those are the good ones. (Again, that good and bad thing). Then the not so good ones– the actual things, not emotions: Debt, smoking, sleep, food, alcohol (at times), gossip.

So what would sobriety look like for me? A routine. Convenant with myself that aligns who I want to be with who I am. I want to be a loving, open, accessible woman who is free to express herself emotionally. In some relationships I have this. In others, not so much. Sober for me would be an eating plan, mapping out calories, not the “I don’t know what I want”. It would be saving for things, not spending on whims.  Going to bed and rising at about the same time every day. Refraining from TV when I am bored. Refraining from smoking, eating when I am bored. Starting and finishing projects. Paying bills on time and on schedule.

And making amends. I realize I can’t do this on my own. I need people in my life that support me and that I have a relationship based on love and trust, not because I can help them. And that I love and trust myself to treat myself in a way that honors who I am and what I am to accomplish.

The first step: I joined WW. I figure I am 70 pounds from goal weight. And that an accountability would make a difference for me. This first week, I alternately binged and wrote most everything down. Almost a “this is where I am at week”. And tracked what I was feeling at the time. Like right now, I want a chocolately covered yodel and to wash it down with a huge glass of milk. But I also know I am full from lunch and for once do not have that garbage in my house. So, I just have to keep telling myself it’s nice to want things. I don’t have to have them immediately. I can wait.  I’ll find out tomorrow what a difference of a few small changes has made on the scale. But this was more than “I need to lose weight”.  This is about I need the accountability.

I do feel cleaner inside. And my bills are paid, and my resume is updated, and I am interesting in gaining a life free of excess.

A little deep. But what do you expect. It’s Saturday evening of a terrible hangover.

Have I told you that writing my guts out makes a difference for me?  It does. Thanks to you, I now have a schedule. So jump on board– you too!

Much love–

Kim

Yes, as strange as it might sound, I enjoyed my brief stay in the crazy place. Before I get into the actual stay, let me give a little background information.

About three years ago I was a complete mess, waaay more than I am right now. At the time I was semi-homeless, with no stable place to live. The places I was staying at were white trash disasters; animal waste in the house, broken windows, teen-age drinking and drugging, all while the mother stayed in her bed all day high on valium, pills and anything else she could get. These places included straight up unsanitary dumps, unlivable gutted trailers, and a camper in the middle of winter. It was pretty bad.

I also have had a history of depression. I had been on medication for about five years, but because of my instability I didn’t keep up with even the basic things a person does for themselves, never mind therapy or medication. Things were going from bad to worse to completely unmanageable rapidly. There were plenty of other things that contributed to my mental demise, but I don’t really feel like getting into the whole thing right now. Reliving my disaster of a situation really brings me down and I’m just not in the right frame of mind to deal with it. I’m sure I will write about everything at some point but right now I just want to talk about the days prior to admitting myself.

I don’t quite remember exactly what happened, but at some point in January of ‘05 I realized I needed help. I set up an appointment at the mental health clinic I used to go to. I got back in and saw an amazing nurse psychiatrist I’ll just call AN(amazing nurse). AN was new at the clinic and also worked at the regular hospital in the nearest small city (about 45 minutes away), so she was plugged into the private psychiatric hospital in that area. AN put me on the medication I was taking prior to my absence which was effexor but she also told me that I had the option of going to the hospital if I needed to because I was somewhat in crisis mode.

This sort of thing happened to me in 1999 when I lived on the west coast when I realized  for the first time in my life  I was in need of help. I was suicidal and felt if I didn’t get help I was in danger of hurting myself. I had tried to find a doctor to see me but I couldn’t find one that took people without insurance and I was in such distress I could barely figure out how to write my name, never mind deal with the bureaucratic healthcare system. I ended up calling a crisis line for suggestions and broke down while on the phone with the worker. I was seen in an emergency appointment, put on prozac and given the option of being admitted but declined. The prozac made me even more loopy and I blew the whole thing off. I had just turned 21 and I thought drinking was a more effective way to medicate myself, it was a way to distract me from my problems.

This time, however was different. At a visit with AN soon after I first saw her I said “I think I need to go to the hospital”. I just wasn’t handling anything well and I was afraid of myself. I was in serious depression and out of control.

Dear Kim-

Let me ask you something.

Are guilt and shame and remorse really the way we want to go here? Are those the emotional tools we want to use to keep ourselves healthy?

I have to admit, I didn’t have much shame about my body before this whole surgery shindiggity. I didn’t have much love for it either though; in fact, I think I was totally disconnected from it. It was simply what I was housed in, and I never, ever had a realistic view of just how big I was because I just didn’t think about it.

But the guilt. Oh, the guilt. I’m a binge eater and a compulsive overeater, and that meant I spent my whole life eating and then hiding the fact that I was eating, because it doesn’t count if no one sees you inhale a pint of ice cream, right? And dieting just made it worse for me, because then food was either Good or Bad, Evil or Saintly. But I got so tired of thinking about food that way. Why can’t food just be food? Why can’t Good Food be something really decadent and drool worthy? Why does it only have to be low in calories and fat and taste?

Getting rid of the guilt was actually a big part of why I had the surgery. I was tired of thinking about every bite I out in my mouth, of weighing its relative badness against the diet I was on. (The irony here, of course, is the fact that I have never thought about the food I was eating as much as I did for the first 6 months after my surgery.) So as much as it scares me to not have the guilt around to keep me in check, I’m going to learn to let it go.

Maybe instead of guilt and shame and remorse, we can learn to use love and compassion and enjoyment to keep ourselves in line. And by that I mean love ourselves enough to feed our bodies correctly, have compassion for ourselves and those times when chocolate is the only thing that will soothe us, and enjoy the food we choose to eat.
That first one is kind of easier than it sounds, because I don’t know about you but man, my body reacts quickly to bad nutrition. Too many carbs or too much sugar or not enough protein and I’m all out of whack….tired or bloated or naseous or all three. I am very, very thankful that it only takes a day or so of bad nutrition to wake me up to things, rather than a month or two like it used to.

The compassion is harder though, perhaps the hardest of all. I’m still learning this, with the help of a very patient therapist. We have been so hard on ourselves for so long. We beat ourselves up for being fat, and now we beat ourselves up for not being perfect patients. Fuck that noise. It’s that age old situation….we wouldn’t say these things to a friend, so why do we say them to ourselves? I refuse to feel bad about needing to wolf down some dark chocolate when I am PMSing or sharing a bottle of wine with friends on a Friday night, because that is what I need in that moment.

And the enjoyment factor. Food should be something we can linger over, something we can get enjoyment from and make memories around. We have such a small amount of room for food that really, we should fill our stomachs with the very best of things, things that are real food with real nutrition and real taste that we can savor. I made enchiladas this weekend, stuffed full of chicken and black beans and homecooked goodness. Eating them feeds my soul and my body, and that’s what all of our eating should do.

(Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten the exercise question!)

Do you think you can let go of the guilt? or do you think that’s what you’re always going to use?

L, M.