Sweet Surrender

The place where I’m currently contracting “transformed” itself recently from the staid, conservative, no-fun corporation that defines nearly all of American business into a staid, conservative, no-fun corporation with a zippy slogan. It’s the same place, but with a different address and a bumper-sticker slogan designed to distract the associates from the drudgery of their days. It’s as if the executives figured that they could deceive the employees by adding three exclamation points after the company logo.

In keeping with this new ‘theme’, the company has staged several All Hands meetings in the atrium of their new building, gathering all the ‘family’ together to make announcements that make neither sense nor difference to those standing beneath the stage. Yet they stand there as proper drones, getting jostled by the Event Staff, who wear ear pieces and scowls, in direct conflict to their slammer-happy CompanyWear.

The last such extravaganza happened today, Halloween, the great pagan New Year turned into a gluttony-laden festival of bad taste and faux food. The Event Staff spent all day yesterday decorating the atrium, blocking both exterior entrances in the process. Visitors and candidates sidled through the curtains and past executive dressed as cowboys, surgeons and ballerinas (all 3 were men), and into the fray of flashing cameras and jumbo screens projecting the costume contest on center stage.

And then, at 3pm, the floors buzzed anew, this time with little tykes dressed in costumes and angling for chocolate. Participating employees hung up ‘Trick or Treat Zone’ sheets on their cube walls and the kids walked around, digging into plastic pumpkins for candied treasures while their parents shoved them from row to row, repeating, 'say thank you, say thank you'.

Since my boss is awesome, even though I'm a temp, I get invited to all the shindigs, and I was appropriately enthusiastic about participating in the Gut-Rot For Kids Parade in the afternoon. I bought my candy, careful to keep it sealed until this afternoon, and when the first tyke arrived, I snapped the bags open, dumped them all on to the edge of my desk and went back to work.

I did all right until some 9-year-old plucked a snack-sized bar from my stash and unwrapped it on the spot. He proclaimed to his horrified parents that he was hungry and that this particular choco-bauble was his favorite. He slapped it down, not bothering to chew, took a 2^nd treat ‘for the road’ and wandered off, garbling a ‘thanks’ as he passed. When he did, the chocolate fumes smacked me square in the face.

I left at 4:30, deciding that I’d rather lose an hour’s wages than gain back any of the 54.50 pounds I’ve dumped from my frame. Don’t think I couldn’t do it; I’ve put away an entire bag of Nutter Butters in one sitting, not even bothering to get up for water until the peanut butter cemented my teeth together.

I just don’t get this. I’ve been on a regimented, disciplined weight loss program for almost 5 months. I’ve surmounted the Devil’s Plateau, and I’ve not had a single lapse since Day 2 of my diet, unless I count the time that pompous waiter snuck cheese into my steamed vegetable wrap. I shop in regular grocery stores, I’m in pharmacies several times a week, and there’s a vending machine right beside the coffee stand where I work. There is sugar aplenty in all these places, and I am indifferent to it. I’m aware that these sugared atrocities exist, but I thought my vulnerability to them existed only in the hypothetical. I thought I'd reached a point where I didn’t like sweets anymore. I used to like them, but no longer. They were part of my past: wanting them and eating them were things I used to do, like roller skate or wear bikinis.

Not so.

Sweets are my only food weakness. I don’t care for most other fat-making foodstuffs. I don’t like red meat, sauces of any kind, butter/margarine, anything fried, any form of potatoes, white rice, or pasta. Give me the grilled whitefish and the steamed vegetables, hold the glaze. Put the breadbasket wherever you like; I’m not interested. Water is fine; no need for wine or beer, and don’t even bother with the soda. But be sure to stop the dessert cart at meal’s end, and pass the sugar, please. If it weren’t for sugar, I’d be one of those wispy WaifGirls who dance about as if carried by smoke, choosing carrot sticks over dunking sticks and shunning all form of edible debauchery because, “I just don’t like it.”

Sugar caramelizes the world, and today, it caramelized my desk. I’d had over 100 days of temptation free, confidence-building, give-me-vegetables-or I’ll-pass-on-dinner moments, and then, when the Snack Size Butterfinger stared back at me, I blinked first. Ironic, that. Butterfinger. I don’t even like Butterfingers. Even in my heyday, when I’d eat anything labeled with sugar or its dozens of derivatives, I skipped the Butterfinger. It was one of those candy bars that I’d eat only if I were in my PMS Hungry Day, I was out of money and it was the only thing in the vending machine. Even then, I’d have to think about the benefits of getting in my car, driving to an ATM, driving further to some place that sold another, less objectionable delicacy, purchase it, along with something I didn’t need, like envelopes or ballpoint pens, because as a Fat Girl you can’t just buy candy, and then consume in on the drive back, losing at least half an hour’s billing time in the process. Caveat: I did not have to buy pens for 14 years at one point, because they were my staple ‘get it with the food so it looks like you came in for something other than the goody’ purchase. That’s how much I don’t like Butterfingers. But today, I could not turn my eyes away.

So I left at 4:30, bought a pack of cigarettes on the way home to get the idea of the taste of that chocolate out of my mouth. No, I do not smoke, and no, I do not intend to pick up the habit. But that’s how much I suffered today, and that’s the length I needed to reach in order to stop myself from swallowing the stash whole.

I can take next Halloween off from work, stay in my house exercising or cleaning or doing anything other than rolling around in my addiction and poking it like a novice snake charmer with an angry cobra. I can (and will) chuck the balance of the stash in the garbage-on another floor and far away from me, and I will sit at my desk and think of other things tomorrow. I’m sure there’ll be lingering Trick or Treat detritus around the office, but so long as it’s not sitting with me, I’ll be fine.

In the mean time, I think we should outlaw sugar.

I wanted to outlaw Halloween, but I’m not interested in defending myself against thousands of angry crazies who prefer to ignore the holiday’s actual meaning in favor of dousing their kids with sucrose-coated poisons. I’d be right, but it’d be exhausting, and I’d rather spend my time blogging to you and denouncing the radicals than going 10 rounds over whether little Johnny should be able to dress up in a smothering costume and take his brightly-colored begging bowl around to the neighbors. So I'm going after the last legal drug. Take alcohol, even take cigarettes. But get thee hence, sugar.

Refined sugar is a drug. It attacks your heart like cocaine on the front side and drops you into the pits like quaaludes on the back end. Then you get the munchies, just like with smoke. Ever notice that? Even with the good stuff, you eat something sweet, and you want something more. Sugar is its own breeder reactor: buy now and eat forever.

Sugar attacks your body: apart from the pancreas dump and the blood sugar rollercoaster with Sybil at the wheel, it eats your teeth. Teeth are bones, just as fingernails, claws, and that weird horn on the rhino, are bones. Nothing that eats away at your skeleton should be legal. It certainly shouldn’t be given to children.

Oh, that’s much better. And now Halloween is almost over.

Stay tuned for my November food post, “The Dieter's Guide to Attention Deficit Disorder and....Hey, There's Pie!”

A the S(ugar Free)

Stretching the Truth

This morning I weighed in at 196.50 pounds, down 54 pounds, or, for the metric in the crowd, approximtely 25 kilos. Twenty five or fifty four. As of this writing, I am 78.28% of my original body weight and so comfortably in size 14 jeans that I bought a new pair today and slipped them right on, with nary a tug nor a grunt to be heard. The next time I buy jeans, I'm going to skip the 'stretch' section and go straight for the suck-it-in-and-suck-it-up, old fasioned no-stretch denim. I'm through with spandex, except perhaps in lingerie, and I'm through with denim s-t-r-e-t-c-h.

Stretch is a lie. It's one of those marketing gimmicks designed to lull us into complacency. See, madame customer? You're not a size up. You're older; your mature body isn't shaped the way it used to be. You're the same size, you just need a little room in a few places. Try the same size in a stretch. You know what happens when you stretch something? It gets bigger.

So it goes when you switch from size X regular to size X stretch. That's a size larger, folks. I've seen it all the way down the scales. When I was a size 20W, I could fit into a size 18W stretch. Same thing here. I'm a 14 stretch, and a 16 regular. If you really just want more room or fewer seam marks on your thighs, go ahead and get the lycra-supported pants. I did it for 5 years and 6 sizes. I'm coming down the ladder now, and it tempts me sorely to get the size 12 stretch. Size 12. That's pre-pregnancy, Me in My 30s, I Wear What I Want Rather Than What Fits clothes. Except a size 12 stretch is a size 14.

So I'm making the leap. I'm switching to size 14. It's enough for me that clothes are cut larger than they used to be, and that my size 9 junior pants are probably size 7 now, or maybe even size 5. I'm not heading toward those clothes; in fact, I think I'd be laughed out of everywhere with my Jordache or my Gitanos, or (gasp!) my Bill Blass jeans on my 2-dimensional butt--and rightly so. What I'm saying is, I'm already a little deluded, in aiming for my size 8 pants when they're really an old size 10. I don't want to delude any further and make them an 8 stretch, which is really a 10, which is really a 12. Sigh. Sometimes I wish women's clothes had numbers that meant something, like the men's clothing. But then we'd have to start spitting and scratching ourselves. It's not worth it. Guess I'll just stick to the delusion-but in its proper size. No stretching allowed.

Apart from all this denim dilation, the big news is that I'm off that frigging plateau from last week, when my body pitched a tent on a 0.60 pound loss and declared, "good enough!" Well guess again, bucko. I ate too little this week, and of course I have had no exercise other than the ahem cardio activities with my WW buddy, but I'm down 2.5 pounds from last Saturday. And, thanks to said 'buddy', I now have a treadmill in the house. Good thing, too, since it is about 50 degrees below normal around here, and it's hard enough to get up at 5:30am without facing the prospect of Walking While Freezing in the dark. The treadmill is in a spare room, and wish me luck that I use it more for cardio than for hanging up my new size L blouses.

AND even though Howard warned me that the flat/light weight loss could last for weeks (WHAT?!), it didn't, and so since I am still below 200 pounds and I'm off the Devil's Tower plateau, I went ahead and rewarded myself with a 1.7 oz bottle of Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle eau de parfum spray. I'd really wanted Chanel No. 5, but it didn't work on my skin, since I am not Dorothy, and Chicago is nowhere near that poppy field on the outskirts of the Emerald City. I will go to work tomorrow wearing my new parfum and sporting my newest pair of jeans. The're size 14 stretch, since Kohl's apparently does not sell Standard Denim in the Misses section--that place is a Devil's Tower all it's own, a topic I will discuss at some length in the next post. But for now, and until I can find a place that sells standard-issue dungarees, I'm dancing with the one that brung me.

A the S(tretch--for now)

From Mrs to Misses

I'm divorced!

At approximately 9:30am on Wednesday, after 6.5 years of marriage, 12 months of separation, a transition relationship, a 53.75 pound weight loss (197.25 lbs this morning!), and 2 attempts at the court house with my brain-damaged lawyer in tow, I am a single woman again. I'm a divorcée, or for the Old Testamenters, a Fallen Woman. I've fallen and I can't get up! Except that I haven't fallen. I had fallen, and tripped myself up besides. I'm sure eventually I'll reveal all the stuff around that, but suffice to say I was on the floor for a while. I might have stayed there forever, but one evening I asked my husband to move out, and then I began the process of getting back up.

I'm glad to be divorced, since the relationship is over, but I still have some lingering sadness over The End, as it were. We made a person together, after all. But things end, and that's rarely a reason to dance or declare triumph. I won't betray confidences by divulging details, so suffice to say that we had problems we could not surmout, and eventually, I just gave up.

We've managed the transition from romantic couple to People No Longer Involved But Who Have A Child Together. The issues I have with him are no longer my business, and that keeps it easier to remain civil and even pleasant with one another. But no matter the state of that relationship. I am single now, without legal attachments except for my son. I can claim Single or Head of Household on my taxes next year, but not Married Filing Jointly or Married Filing Separate because I am married no longer. I am 41 years old, divorced from my son's father, and single. Sing-L. Like that old Sesame Street song, "Sing."

Sing.
Single Song.
Single Loud, Single Strong.

That's me: single loud, and single strong. Big Bird must be spinning in his nest. Well good, because I never liked that whiney clucker. I've always been more aligned with the Cookie Monster. C is for Cookie, and Sing is for Single; that's good enough for me. I am a Mrs. no more.

So, just as he and I got married and then went back to work, we got divorced and headed off in our separate directions. I am forever grateful that he came with me to witness the Judgment of Dissolution, because if he hadn't, I'd be writing this post next week (or the week after, since my attorney is such a colossal dumkof). So, thank you, "(e)X", for being there for me one last time.

My only other experience face to face with a judge was in Cook County, downtown, and the judge, a woman (and this really irritates me since I so loathe down-talking a sister) was so incredibly cranky that I hated her before I even stood up. Then, of course, we spoke. I still get the Mean Reds sometimes when I think about her. So I have a little baggage when it comes to county courthouses.

Because of that, I'd worn some semblance of Court Clothing in the morning, since I didn't want the judge to yell at me for disrespecting the bench, or some other horrifying and humiliating event. I was comfortable, of course, since everything in my closet hangs on me, but I wanted to change before I went back to work. Since my weight loss became visible, I never wear loose clothes. I want to show my figure, even in its 197-pound imperfection, and I can scarcely do that in my 'hey, everyone, look at my buttless profile!' trousers. I dashed home, chucked my "dress clothes" and yanked the nearest pair of jeans off the hanger.

I own 3 pair of jeans right now, one a 16 M, one a 14 M, and the last a faded blue denim in 14W. I've kept this last pair because they were my 'skinny' jeans when I was fat; I couldn't get them up on to my hips, let alone closed or zipped. And these were the pants I mentioned in my first post, when, at 225 pounds, I gave up on the Regular Sizes, swallowed my hefty pride and bought an item of clothing with a "W" attached to the number. So, these jeans mean something to me. Admittedly, they mean something dark and heinous, but it's something important all the same.

I'd noticed that they were getting a bit baggy in the thigh, and that I had this weird clump of jean on the sides of my legs when I stood up. But they have a long rise and they sit at my natural waist-a talent that currently-manufactured jeans cannot summon. I look good in jeans that fit and follow my natural shape. I'm a curvy girl, even when I'm thin. If I wear men's clothes, or anything shapeless, that is exactly how I look. Gunny Sax dresses from the 70s? Had to pass. Flashdance baggy crap in the 80s? Not for me. All that pants-resting-on-butt-crack or the I-can't-find-my-breasts-with-both-hands-and-a-mammogram sweatshirt made "sassy" by people who think that Ace of Base belongs on the oldies station....I can't do it. Let's not even get into the Youngin's wear that passes more for what I threw out a year ago and was then summarily destroyed by the raccoons than anything resembling 'fashionable'. It just isn't me.

Even when I'm sick or alone in the house, my clothes must fit. I can't wear things that hide my figure, and now, So even though these 14W jeans were starting to look (gasp!) unflattering, I kept them. These were the jeans I pulled off the hanger Wednesday morning. I slid them on, zipped and buttoned them close, cinched my belt around my waist and then took a look in the mirror. Sag. They sagged on me. They don't fit anymore. My last pair of Women's jeans is too big. I yanked them off, dropped them into the 'put these into the back of the van and get those things to the resale shop already, ya stupid bitch!' pile, and slithered into my 14 L. That is, my 14 L M. Long Misses. I am a W no more. I am now and completely a Misses.

Judgment for Dissolution granted.

Signed,

A the M

Something Chicken This Way Comes

While in line for lunch today, awaiting the rapid-fire sandwich artist to look up long enough to recognize me and toss my wrap into the warmer, I realized that just as this particular sandwich chain supports me in my loss, it also conspired in my downfall.

I’ve been a customer of this franchise for years, switching over time from the seafood & crab to the tuna to the BMT, tinkering until I found the Perfect Sub. After much experimentation, I landed finally on the meatball marinara, whereupon I ate lunch there so often that the owners stopped giving me their ‘buy 6 get 1 free’ punch cards.

I'm rather neutral on meatball subs in general, largely because they come on crusty bread, which I dislike. This particular meatball sub comes on soft bread, and that is only the beginning. This sub is evil: evil in that must-eat-until-I-faint kind of way. I adore everything about it: the smell of the bread, the softness of the meat, the goo of the cheese, and all of it mixed up with banana peppers and extra sauce. The combination of smell and texture lull me into a dizzy, drooling mess not too far removed from the insides of the hoagie roll.

I never bothered to look up the nutrition information, and I blipped over the obvious problems of the sandwich, preferring to enjoy my food rather than dissect it. But here are some of the most glaring issues with the Meatball Bliss: it is made of cow, or really, some cow-like substitute, so the fat runs rampant in every marinara-laden bite. Even though the bread is marketed as wheat or whole wheat, I just know it’s some white bread derivative, and every time I chomped down, my old schoolteacher’s voice rang in my head, ‘the whiter the bread, the sooner you’re dead.’ I wasn't eating a meatball sub, but rather this pile of red sauce mush that had more fat grams in a foot long than most adults should have all day (48). But I didn’t care. It’s tasty softness lured me in, and though I entered the line each time with intent to choose something less like the poster child for “On Top of Spaghetti”, I would walk past the counter, see the red sauce and order the meatball sub.

At the end, right before I began my weight loss, I’d order a full foot long and eat half of it on the way home, not daring to alert anyone in my household that I could toss back twelve inches of Meatball Porn with barely more than a burp. That proved interesting in its own way, since the nature of the sandwich dictates that it spray itself all over me as proof of my gluttony. I took to wearing dark clothes whenever I ‘volunteered’ to go out for sandwiches. Even then, I had my share of pulling off to the side of the road to clean the sauce ejaculation from my shirt.

Really, though, the meatball sub was just the figurehead to a whole host of eating disorders, including an inability to eat any meal without dessert, including breakfast. I gave it all up to lose this weight, and, after that 2 week window where I was constantly hungry and continually jonesing for anything bad for me, I stopped missing it. I see the meatballs still, whenever I go in to order my lean meat wrap. I’m no longer tempted. It’s juicy tendrils can’t reach me: I’ve exchanged my tomato-stained face for a bland, shapeless poultry boob.

Where once there was pork, or beef, or the much-discussed meatball extravaganza, there is now turkey or, most often, chicken. I’m not crazy about it, to be honest. Chicken is the animal-meat equivalent of tofu. It has no real taste on its own, though it does a fair job of absorbing whatever flavors cook alongside it. The reason so many things taste like chicken is that chicken has no taste. And it’s not just the hormone-infested, dead-cow-parts-fed, 6-birds-to-a-cage produced by the name brands. I’ve had grain fed, free range chickens who were scratching around in the organic dirt just a few hours before I’ve ingested them, and while their taste is less manufactured than their conveyor-belt counterparts, they're just not that tasty. I’m fine with it, because I don’t eat chicken for its taste. I eat it for its low fat and its versatility. After all, something that tastes like nothing can go with anything.

Howard and I stir fry often, and we’ve tossed a lot of poultry in with the shallots and the ‘shrooms. I prefer turkey, but turkey connotes cold weather and food coma and something family-centric that I can only stomach about once a week. Chicken reigns supreme at the wok and in the fridge. It's now a staple in my diet; the kind of thing I will always have in the house, because I will always need it for the next meal. So long, my dear bovine friend. Something chicken this way comes.

I weighed in this morning at 198.0 pounds. It seems that Howard and his Mama were right: my body sometimes conspires to make a fool of me. I am all right with being my physiology’s witless dupe. Especially when I am down 53.0 pounds and I may have, just possibly, passed the halfway mark on my journey downward. Now if only I could get my hands on my wallet and reward myself for all this success. I actually walked away from a $95 perfume purchase, refusing to get it for myself because it was too expensive. This, after spending $400 extra on school clothes for my son, because I just couldn’t stop buying those adorable rugby shirts. I need help. But that’s a post for another time.

A the Cheep

Point Six of One

Confession: I have no Zen.

I discovered this on Saturday morning, when, after a typical week of Amy-style Weight Watchers eating and the Flat-Bottomed Girl exercise program (see previous post for details), a week in which I could ordinarily expect a 2.5 loss, my scale showed a mere 0.60 pound drop from the previous Saturday morning.

Excuse me? I would have looked to clear the quarters from my pockets, except that I was naked.

No, there was no shoe-weight, no PMS water to justify, no chocolate cake fiesta on Friday evening. I did not spend the week substituting peanut butter for turkey in my stir fry, and I did not substitute ice cream for skim milk in my coffee. Nope. I had a week so utterly devoid of food drama that I was not once tempted to eye the fried monstrosities in the cafeteria, nor lick my lips at the gingerbread biscotti display at the coffee house. In my delight to save room in the weekly weigh-in post for this weekend, I blipped completely over my stuttered daily losses. Aw, it's nothing, I comforted myself. It's often that I'm flat on loss until Thursday, or sometimes even Friday. I'd do a thin meal on Friday night and weigh in down 2-ish in the morning. No sweat.

No chance.

Point-six pounds. Barely more than half a single, slithering, 3,500 calories slug. Point Six Pounds. I sneeze more than that sometimes. I wish I had sneezed that morning. I wish I would have coughed up the snickering lump that truncated my typical 2.6 pound weight loss to the atypical and noisome 0.60. I should have stayed in bed. It would have been more fun, and maybe I could have burned off another 0.40 and made it to a full pound. I’m 0.20 pounds from breaking 200 at WW, since I do not weigh in naked at the meeting, a fact that everyone is grateful for.

On top of getting cheated at the weigh-in, I endured this barely-a-loss at the Cranky-Pants meeting; the one at an hour so foul, it infects the group spirits. I heard grumbles where I normally hear laughter, snorts where there are giggles, and huffs instead of praise. It’s this weird reverse-telethon gathering where Maria the Leader, ordinarily chipper and cheery to the point where I expect bluebirds to tie ribbons in her hair, can barely keep her smile intact for a second before some Screwed by Food complaint crushes her. I'll tell you what: even if I'm up at 4am, I'm never going to that meeting again. I'd rather miss a weigh-in than endure that crowd even once more.

But it wasn't the crowd and it wasn't the hour, and it wasn't even that I was sick (strep throat again!) or the fact that I was about to see Howard’s parents for the first time in 20 years (OMG!), or that I had tried to get divorced earlier in the week, and my brain-forsaken attorney had forgotten a tiny, yet important and obvious detail, and so the judge told us to skedaddle, and, if we wanted to give it another go, we could try, try again next week.

No, it wasn’t any of those things. As Howard and Howard’s mother commented, it was just my body being goofy--holding out and refusing for no good reason to display my loss. I should just shrug it off, take the long view, realize that I’m doing all the right things, and keep plugging along. Consider it a little hiccup, and figure I’ll probably have a big loss next week. It’s no big deal. Even crazy-obsessed WWers like me have light-loss weeks. It happens to everybody. Keep on truckin’ Relax. Find your Zen.

Yeah. Not so much.

I rallied eventually, and even managed to have something of a normal dinner, despite my body screaming to forsake all things solid until the scale tipped lighter. I ground down the enamel on all my back molars, but I made it through. I lived through the Day of Barely-Worth-Recording-It loss, and I accepted it. There’s always next week.

Today I’m down an additional 0.75 pounds.

It lasted a day. This morning, I weighed in at 198.25 pounds, and I have only 7.25 pounds to go before I hit my pre-pregnancy weight. I ate a regular program for me yesterday, and I dropped 3/4 of a pound. I'm glad for the additional loss, but I see now that I do have to take the long road. It’s not a race. I learned that today, and I'm glad I did.

I’m still lower for the week than I’d prefer, but 1.35 pounds is more than double point-six. With respect to the Universe and all things good in it, starting with Grandpa and Nana Marvelous, the light loss is nothing. I’m still down for the week, and my life is so good, I’ve nearly forgotten how little I lost this week.

0.60 pounds.

Okay, so I remembered. Like I said, no Zen.

A the Z(enless)

Flat-Bottomed Girl

I’ve had my best weight loss successes with the me-diet-exercise ménage a trois. Time and enthusiasm often intervene, however, and I’m forced to choose between good eating and good movement. When I must decide, I always choose exercise. I’d rather pump my way through a StairMaster session (which for me, means leaning over the machine while sucking air and cursing my life) than give up dessert. The way I figured it, my heart got an extra "challenge" by walking a faux incline while carrying my extra heft. I burn a lot more calories in 30 minutes (okay, 20 minutes) on the LifeStep at 230 pounds than at 199. Besides, if I exercise, then fewer of my daily calories ‘count’ and that’s a little bit like dieting. There is nothing about dieting that feels like exercise, unless I count the burning in my stomach between meals, which I do not.

I like to exercise. I like the beads of sweat that form on the backs of my hands while I’m grinding out the miles (okay, mile) on the treadmill. I adore the ‘my lungs are bleeding!’ sensation when a walk turns to a jog, and then to a run. I’ve fenced, pitched, elbowed folks under the basketball hoop, cycled, run, played a version of tennis that was just this side of hockey, earned a black belt, sweated bullets in a racquetball room and chased a toddler, all for the sheer endorphin-laden pleasure. Even when I was at my heaviest and had to wear men’s size Large sweat pants, I still schlepped myself to the gym once or twice a week. If nothing else, it gave me a chance to catch up on all the weekly rags that piled up on my kitchen table between workouts. I would be hopelessly behind on current events, were it not for The Nation and the cardio room at the Glen Ellyn YMCA.

My favorite gym activity is weightlifting. A friend introduced me to Nautilus in college, and about a year later, I switched to free weights. I enjoyed Nautilus and machine lifting in general, but free weights transformed my enjoyment level from interested to obsessed. I held that first barbell in my hand and when I pressed it off my chest, I was hooked. Almost at once, I abandoned the whole body, 1 day on & 1 day rest model that Nautilus touts and switched to a 3-day split, spending 2 hours a day in the gym, loading weights on to barbells, crawling under cages, hissing my way through each set in a dimly lit, poorly ventilated room with no sound other than the grunts of my fellow gym rats. When I lift, I levitate. I spend an hour in the gym under the benches, and when I leave, my feet glide off the floor. My body tightens, my muscles sing, and everything heightens.

Of course, the next day, singing turns to screaming, and I’m shuffling around my house wondering if I qualify for handicapped parking. Not that I think I could make it to my car, or, having managed that, slide into the driver's seat. Still, I know that after that hellish day of lactic acid build-up and muscle burn, I’ll be stronger, I’ll burn more calories at rest (muscle burns more calories just sitting on your body than does fat), and I’ll feel better. Whatever time I have to spend gritting my teeth, it’s worth it.

The great thing about lifting is that it’s the only exercise I’ve found where you can actually reshape your body. I am a mesomorph with a small frame, so I get strong and hard-bodied when I lift, but I don’t get bigger. In fact, at my peak when I was bench-pressing 150 pounds and squatting 225, I was the smallest and tightest body that I’ve ever been. I just don’t bulk up. However, I can accentuate my assets and eliminate my issues through weight training. My smallish waist looks positively waspish when my shoulders blossom. My decent legs shape and curve, shimmering under my well-watered skin when I add toe raises to my routine. Even my breasts appear to stand up better when given the benefit of some solid benching. My complaints about getting my boobs ‘shortened’….well, they’re still there. After all, gravity plays havoc on a woman’s "sweater topography" the way genetics taunt a man’s hairline. But I complain less and beam more when there’s muscle beneath my fat.

So here’s the thing. This time around, I just can’t seem to make it to the gym. I can’t say exactly what’s keeping me out of the Y, except that I have a regular, out-of-the-house job, and a nanny who is the greatest childcare provider alive, but who earns so much that one full week of my monthly wages go straight to her. So between my commute and my wallet, I cannot bring myself to ask her to put in more hours. Not to mention that I miss my son when I’m at work, and I can’t bear the idea of cutting into the scant 2.5 hours we have at night between his arrival home and his bedtime.

I’ve tried working out at home, and that is heavenly for him and disaster for me. My darling son wants to ‘help’’ me work out, and so gets on to the treadmill with me. Or, he’ll help me ‘superset’ my bench press by dropping plates on my face. Let me tell you, this child is strong. It’s nothing for him to heft a 25-pound weight up to his chest. What he possesses in 'sprint' strength, though, he lacks in stamina, so as soon as he's lifted this disk, he realizes that it's heavy, and so he does what any panicked child does, and chucks it at Mommy. So home gym is out.

I’ve managed to sneak in a couple of brisk walks every week, racing home early and forsaking the much-needed grocery store trip so I can puff my way around the neighborhood. It isn't nearly the same as lifting, but it does help, and on the days I do it, my breathing eases and my body glows. I do it, and I want to do more.

Up until now, the gym/lifting issue has only been one of guilt for me. I want to work out, I know my body needs it, and so I vow that I will figure out a way to do it. But recently it reached a crisis point. The other day, as I was slithering into my size 14 jeans (!!), I noticed that I have lost my butt. I’ve never been a big-bottomed gal, but I did always have a respectable curve back there. No more. You know how you’ve heard that spending too many years glued to an office chair will yield a backside that resembles office furniture? Well, that’s me. My behind is flat, shapeless, and completely non-existent. I am a flat-bottomed girl.

I miss my arse, and I want it back. I’d concede to doing butt clenches at my desk, but I’m already doing the kegels, so adding another pelvic challenge spills right over into the obscene. Scratch that.

The fact is, I cannot get a good tushy workout at my desk. I must get to the gym. I must find my hiney.

Get on my bike and ride…

A the B(uttless)

I Want To Be A Known

When Greta Garbo died, obituaries sprouted across U.S. newspapers, each lacing their farewells with Garbo’s most famous line, “I want to be alone.” Many of the biographies included photos of the once-famous beauty meandering around her NYC neighborhood on one of her frequent walks. She walked, as she lived, alone. "I want to be alone.” The Great Reclusive Garbo got her wish, the press wrote, and look what happened. Garbo shunned the spotlight, and then fame had shunned her, reclaiming the beauty it had ‘given’ her, scouring her face until she was just another old woman in an unremarkable block of the Big Apple, living a recluse’s life on a street too ugly to name.

Amidst all the Garbo upchuck, I found a magazine retrospective who reminded the world that the Swede had uttered, “I vant to be alone”, not as a daily mantra while she beat back the paparazzi with her handbag, but as a line from one of her films. Further, Garbo had clarified her ‘wish’, which was to be left alone, an altogether different request. Still, her refusal to marry, her long vacations to Sweden, and her insistence to live life on her terms labeled her a ‘rebel’, insofar as women of that era could rebel, and the quote became the legend, and the legend became a loner.

I'm not famous, of course, and I’ve never had problems with maintaining my anonymity. I’ve never aspired to fame, except during the occasional fantasies where I discover the fiction writer’s voice that nets me an 8-figure advance and a 30-city, publisher-paid tour where I travel First Class and can bring my son along without his ever missing a day of school or loathing me for making him an expert in airport bathrooms. Even if that were to happen, though, writers are recognized so rarely, relative to television and film stars at least, that I could still live a life of invisibility, and the Writer Persona could remain separate from the Intimate Life I’d created at home.

Apart from my pending catapult to BestSeller #1, I'm not well known, nor have I ever been, not even to those close to me. This unknown-ness began in my teens when a series of events, beginning with a whirlwind marriage and ending with a restraining order, with a whole bunch of .38 caliber bullets thrown in, created a world where I dared not tell anyone what was happening in my life. There was simply too much to risk, and even the smallest reveal could open the whole of the situation to questions and scrutiny. Why was I in that situation? How long had it gone on? Why was I moving again? How many schools had I attended? Why did I move to Florida and then move back 3 months later?

College came and went. I lost the man I loved, I married a wan substitute in response, I battled through a year of misery and then I rebounded with a debacle so epic that people who knew me then refer to that whole period as the CheeseHead Years. Nothing to share there, no anecdotes to dilute the colossal failure of reason and accountability, nothing to do but wait for the pain to subside and the time to distance me from the whole of it. With every year and every further mistake, real or otherwise, my quiet grew until it was my single most defining characteristic. At some point, I realized that I’d smothered so much of my history and so much of my self that even I did not know who I was. My image, self- and otherwise, distorted before the mirrors of my fear. That exacerbated the whole of it, and I shrunk further in, until I clammed up completely. I barely spoke to anyone, and when I did, it was terse, short, and uninviting. I was visible, but I was gone. Hidden.

It wasn’t the obvious type of hiding, where I retreated to the woods and scrubbed myself from society. I wanted people around me, and I wanted them to like me. But to know me? No, not ready for that. Not yet…My mantra for 2 decades was, ‘not yet’. Can I tell him/her/them this? No, not yet. Can I let this go and forgive myself so I can get on with things? Not yet. Is there anything about myself that I know to be real? Not yet. Not quite yet.

This desire to remain unknown, and to be left alone, went to the heart of Me as Human Being, and who I knew myself to be, and to my great and historical dislike of that person. I cut myself off from everyone. I lived with people, committed to people, even married and had a child with someone, and yet, I never showed who I was. I never shared what mattered to me, never opened my heart. Hiding ingrained itself so deeply in me that its etchings appeared on my face. I’m almost 42 years old, and apart from a few feathers at the corners of my eyes, I only have one wrinkle on my face. That crease, a pronounced divot between my eyebrows, is a permanent bend in my flesh, birthed by years of closing my face off whenever someone got too close.

So what about the wisdom that if someone really loves you, then they'll accept you? But how could someone really love me if they didn't really know me? I’d considered it, in the long hours of an evening when I had no date and no friends calling to ease the burn of a loneliness I’d worked so hard to create. I wanted it, and wanted to try, but I refused to risk it. People are human, and humans judge-themselves and each other. Those judgments crease lines into faces, and sometimes, they crush love. Whose fault was that? Mine, of course, since I judged myself first and most harshly, and never gave anyone the chance to judge me. I was no dummy. I’d reject myself first, and then nobody would get to reject me.

I switched gears and touted my soul'd lock-down. I talked openly about how I was hard to get to know, and how nobody knew the Real Me. I asked people all the time, ‘do you know me? Do you think I’m hard to get to know?’ Yes, they answered, dutifully playing their part in my object lesson. Yes, you’re hard to know. No, I don’t know you. No, I can’t figure out how to crack the code. Then I asked a girlfriend, an instructor whose opinion I valued. "No," she said simply. "You're pretty easy to get to know." When I commented on how I kept things to myself and how I kept people at bay. She agreed, noting, "But that doesn't make you hard to know. That makes you unlikable."

Oh.

Was I unlikable because I was hard to know, or was I hard to know and therefore, unlikable? I didn’t know, and there was no way to tell. Who could I ask? Nobody. I was, at long last, completely and utterly alone.

My weight problem stemmed at least in part from this dungeon of loathing, which in turn fed my weight problem. It’s easier to keep people distant when you’re unappealing, and when you have the bi-fecta of soft body and hard heart, you’re the Brink’s Truck of security against heartache. Then again, you’re the worm hole of warmth and love: you might send something out, or perhaps something gets shipped in. But somewhere, things take a dogleg left and the relief never reaches its destination.

So, where am I now? Wishing for fame…? Yes, sometimes, but only so I can spend all day writing and communicating, and sharing me. That’s my goal, and the one with the greatest and most real rewards. My desire to be known, and to be understood, supercedes all fear I have of being discovered or linked to the dark of my past. Those memories still live in me, but they are not me. I’ve battled the demons, and now, with hope on the horizon, my reluctance sheds with every pound.

As a teenager, I wrote a book of poetry in response to the tumult that began my hiatus from human touch. I entitled it, “Whoever Has Time to Listen”. I chose the title completely tongue-in-cheek, figuring none would have time, or, having the time, would read and not hear. I have that volume still, and perhaps some day I’ll open those pages and read them. When I do, I hope I’ll see only the frightened girl who, having seen the shadows, can at last turn away from those darkened figures and walk toward the light that created them.

I’m through hiding. I’m ready to be seen now.

I want to be a known.

A the C(onfessor)

Down to One

Well, well, well.

199.75

One hundred ninety-nine and three-quarters of a pound. ONE hundred and change. Okay, a lot of change, but it's still one dollar. One buck, One British-thingy Sterling, one last time I had to slide the big bar on the balance scale to '200', and that was yesterday. Yesterday, I weighed 200 pounds. Today, I do not.

I made it, folks. As of 6 o'clock this morning, I weight 199.75 pounds, down 51.25 pounds from the peak of my being, carrying a scant 80% of my original body weight, and, Ya-Freaking-Hoo, the first digit in my weight is a 1. One! One, the loneliest number, has taken place in the Hundreds spot, and it is a welcomed, wonderful sight. Just look at that sleek, lovely digit. "1" It's so slim, so slender-so sexy. Yeah, sexy. I wish sexy had a 1 in it. In fact, let's fix that. Se1xy. Say it with me. Se1xy. The "1" is silent.

I spent the rest of my morning in a state-mandated class for the Maritally Challenged, proving that one can, in fact, be bored all the way to tears. If I hadn't been so completely fascinated by my discovery, I would have realized at last why divorce embitters the once-idealistic. If you don't hate your spouse going into mediation, you will most assuredly loathe every penny-thieving cell in their putrid body once you finish with DuPage County's "Caring, Coping, and Children: A Divorced Parent's Guide to Transition, Adjustment and Knocking the Crap Out of Each Other Before the Custody Hearing."

And since when is divorce a surprise? This isn't a 6-year old's birthday party here-it's 2 people who once loved each other (theoretically, anyway), and who procreated together, and who, through myriad, complicated reasons, now find it more satisfying to have someone sleep in the bathroom that ever speak to one another again. Yes, people cheat, and yes, sometimes spouses withhold emotions so well that their partner has no idea that everybody's unhappy. But all the way until the shoe drops? Back off the Kool-Aid, folks, and pay attention. This morning's class sounded less like Divorce for Dummies than Cryogenics in Crisis. It was as if 20 people woke up after a decade of sleep, discovered their mates moved out and shacked up with the trophy bride, and wondered how it all happened. I must have heard, "I didn't want this-I still don't," a dozen times.

Okay, maybe you didn't want the divorce. Maybe you think that marriage equals commitment in the form of 'I don't give a rat's ass if I hate you and you hate me back. You're going to stay in this house and I'm going to stay in this house until we're worm food, and if you even think of filing for divorce it'll be over your dead body.' That's absolutely your prerogative. Maybe you really do still love your spouse, even though you can't remember anymore what they look like naked. Maybe so. I'm not in those unions, so I can't say. But....you still don't want it? How is that possible?

I heard things that curled my caustic soul today; things that made my divorce proceedings sound like the Cleaver Honeymoon. Your mate dumped you in front of the kids and now tells your own children that he's going to take them away from you because you're stupid and didn't finish college? Your wife threatens to sell the house and spirit the kids to Arizona every time you ask to keep them an hour later on Sunday? And you still don't want the divorce? I don't get that.

We attended the class at a county building in downtown Wheaton, a location that requires a buzz-in to the offices in a neighborhood where the big 'crime' reported in the papers is someone stealing a recycle trash bin valued at $25. You must show a photo id, be confirmed that you're due to be at that location at that time of that day, and then you must wait for the Rent-A-Cop to look you over before you're buzzed in. Know why? Because this building is a NEST-a Neutral Exchange SiTe.

A NEST is a place where parents who can no longer speak nor even see one another without throwing things, meet, through the county, to exchange custody on weekends. One parent comes in a buzzed door at the front, the other enters through security's check point in the back. One parent kisses a child good-bye and hands him over to a guard, watching the pair disappear behind bullet-proof glass, and then, 15 minutes (no less!) later, the other parent passes the metal detector and gets escorted to their child. Cops are everywhere, cries and shouts tumble over the facilitator's soothing words, and, when we need to use the potty, we have to make sure there's not an exchange in progress. I can't even bring myself to tell you what happens when the receiving parent doesn't arrive. It breaks and offends my parent's heart.

I’m thinking of finding a different Walgreen's so I don't have to drive near that place. Too much bad karma, too much heart break, and too many tears shed in bitterness and rage. Then again, maybe I’ll make a point to drive over there, to remind myself that despite my attorney’s complete incompetence and the array of asininity (that’s my created word: asinine made into a noun) surrounding my journey from Married Woman to Single Mother, that my life is pretty dang good.

And I weigh under 200 pounds today. Every day. Forevermore.

Hug your children tonight. Kiss your mate, even if you don’t feel like it. Make it pleasant all the way, even if it ends in bitterness. Save yourself and your loved ones from the NEST.

A the 1

A Little Lift

This morning I weighed in at 201.25 pounds. I now weigh 50 pounds less than I did when I began my weight loss. Glory be and pass the…..kohlrabi!

I went lingerie shopping this weekend. I last purchased a bra for myself about a year ago, when I had decided at long last that I could not bear my bras cutting off the circulation to my torso. When said garment arrived, a hulking behemoth of a structure with 6 (six!) hooks in the back and cups the size of those baskets that hold chips at Mexican restaurants (you know the ones), I cried. I thank my last favor on earth that the bra was far too big on me. I returned it and vowed, once again, that I would not buy another boulder-holder until I was closer to a normal body weight.

Keep in mind here that I’ve never owned a sexy bra. I ‘blossomed’ and required a training bra in the 2nd grade, and by the time I was a junior high-schooler, I was in a C cup. By the time I reached my full height and weight (5’10”, 140 lbs), I was a DD. Let’s add to this that I’m rather small around my rib cage, relative to the rest of my body (read: my gazongas), so I’ve always had a tough time purchasing bras in commercial establishments. When was the last time you saw a 30 DD? Never, right? After a decade of rubbing the underwire marks off of my body at day's end, I found Cameo bras, designed for freaks like me with teeny torsos and big hooters. I slid beautifully into a 32H (yep, “H”) and was happy for most of the rest of my 30s.

Then I got fat and the 32 became a 34, and the H became HH and then an I. Then I got pregnant and became a 36 and then a 38. At my peak, with a 9-pound baby jutting from my midsection, I was a 38J. Yep, “J’ as in “Jygantic”. I managed to ditch the 38 after my son was born, and eventually the 36 simply fell apart and I had to trash that as well. I’d spent the last 2 years in a 34HH that was far too small, both in band and cup size, and I just decided to suffer through until I got smaller.

Enter Weight Watchers and now 50 pounds down (!!) and I’m ready to reward myself with something new and pretty. I tried the department stores, and then I tried Victoria’s Secret, and I even tried Lane Bryant, but I couldn’t find anything. When the cup sizes were big enough, I couldn’t get anything in small enough band, and when I found my band size (34), I couldn’t find anything over a D. I’m still 44 inches at the bust, which means, in theory, that I’m a J (my God, there it is again).

So off I went to Frederick’s of Hollywood, figuring, why not? I brushed past the crotchless panties and stepped over the boobless teddy collection and found my way to the back, where I discovered something that just might work. I pulled out a couple of styles and hit the dressing room.

A little caveat here for the large-busted among my readership: never, ever let a sales clerk convince you that something called the Maximum Cleavage Bra is a good idea. That contraption nearly knocked me unconscious when my breasts got pressed so far up on my chest that they created a vacuum right over my nose, cutting off the oxygen to my brain. So, off came Maximum Cleavage and on came Scarlett Sensuality.

It fit! Glory be, I’m in a regular bra! And it has flowers on it, and 4 hooks. Only 4! I wanted to dance around, but it doesn’t have the Nobody Move! support of the nursing bras I’ve worn the last 5 years, so I had to keep things down, as it were. I bought 2, removed the padding (seriously, what is wrong with these people?) and carted my new lingerie home.

Today I wore one of them to work. I noticed at once that I have a jiggle factor that I did not have before, and that any time I lean over, all eyes dart downward, toward the “v” in my blouse that is now sporting something lavender and lovely, rather than beige and Industrial-Baggage looking. The bra, while fairly normal, does have a little Push-Me-Up action to it, so I have to be careful not to walk with too much spring or I risk 'fallout', as it were.

I’m also out of practice with under wires, so I’ve been digging at it since about 2pm. Definitely going to work on that. But I’m in a regular bra, and I feel good. I’ve gotten more smiles today than I’ve gotten since the 90s. Nobody’s talking to me while staring at my ‘twins’, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

Size? Okay, well, I told you all the Big Bertha Booby sizes, so I guess it's all right to tell you this one, too. 34F. Thirty-four, as in 5 inches gone from my torso, and F as in Fantastic.

Jump around with me some.

A the F (!!)

Something to Chew On

Once Upon A Time, I worked for a company that did lots of "intra-taining". Intra-taining is a phenomenon where the Bald White Guys (BWG) in the corner offices use sugar-coated feasts to lure out the underpaid minions in the hope that, once drugged by the Cater-Fare, they’ll market the BWG’s new message to the client/marketplace/sods underneath them. These edict-driven events usually occur at a meta-meal time, like 10am or 4pm, when employees had just enough time to get the whole of their daily caffeine intake through their digestive system and into their bladder, yet not enough time to race to the can after their first (or last) meeting of the day before reporting for the 'town hall' or the 'team meeting' or whatever the executive admin dubbed the gathering when she bolted it to the Outlook calendar. They're meta-meal times, but somehow, food always got invited.

Enlightened managers first scheduled these herald-songs at day's end, serving liquid treats (alcohol) as compensation to those forced to stay past quitting time. This happened until the aforementioned baldies realized that the enthusiastic applause resulted from the gin fizzies and not the marketing materials dancing their way across the overhead projector. Seriously, who thinks it's a good idea to deliver corporate-speak drivel to the Drained and Oppressed masses, who, having realized they've just missed the last express train, now unites in a single purpose to drain the open bar of all things Top Shelf before the last Guy in a Tie takes to the podium? So, away went the booze, and out came the hors d'oeuvres.

Food as Entertainment. Journalists posing as pop-therapists, or “doctors” waltz the American Overweight through a maze of Sociability Regulations, convincing all but the most militant that eating is not only acceptable to do when you meet or mingle with others, it’s rude not to.

We are social creatures, and we desire human contact, so we concoct rituals around excuses to throw ourselves together. We meet, we greet, we dance, and Crash! Sometimes we make a connection. Why is it, though, that it's imperative to meet only when food is the chaperone? I see no value-add to laying out a cheese tray or a fruit sculpture when people come together. I know, it's sacrilegious to suggest that we meet only as ourselves, but it’s just the culture talking. It’s just what we’re used to. We don’t need it. Or do we?

Yes, meal time and eating together creates a bond. We break bread with one another, and we connect. I have to tell you, though, that for me, food and socializiation create a vivid image of the Last Supper. Everybody’s sitting around talking, wearing their finest and united in their common purpose. Yet, somehow, everybody forgot the dude in the center holding his glass aloft and contemplating the crap-tacular evening that lay ahead of him.

I understand the concept of social spaces, and that we can only dance so close before we get to know each other better. I’ve had my space violated, as I’m sure I’ve violated other’s space, and it’s discomforting, to say the least. Maybe that’s where food comes in. We balance plates in front of our bodies, “shielding” ourselves from our conversation partners. As we get comfortable, the plates drop to our sides or, if it’s going really well, the garbage can. We discard the barriers and we get closer. Or we don’t, and the food keeps us safe. Let me tell you, though: as a recovering fat person, Food as Security Officer signals danger.

Humans are attracted to the attractive. If someone feels good, and feels beautiful, even if they aren’t then others are drawn to them. When I was heavy and I felt big and fat and ugly, I exuded a ‘don’t touch me’ attitude, and I got my wish. It’s self-perpetuating, too, since the worse I felt, the less I risked someone getting close and rejecting me, and so the more noxious the fumes I put off. That made me feel worse, and so on it went.

Now that I’m thinner and feeling more attractive, I want all that missed touch back. I want people closer to me. I want the touch, and I want those that I need to touch, to want to touch me. My favorite social space is that for lovers, which is 4 inches or less. When you are interacting with your lover (let’s just keep this generic for the parents out there), your most comfortable space with them is 4 inches or less from your face/body/whatever. I love that space, and I love when I’m comfortable enough to be that close to someone.

My family is not one for hugs or kisses or any kind of contact. As a result of that, I’ve become a Non-Hugger. As we tend to attract those who are similar to us, particularly those similar in phobias and neurosis, I’ve generally chosen friends and lovers who were also Non-Huggers. I get the corollaries to that too, where I/they are non-PDA, non-contact except as needed (read: for sex). Random touch is for the Getting To Know You phase, the Lovers phase, the Beginning, to be discarded as soon as the chase is won.

No more.

I want to hug. Bring me closer, and bring you closer. Dare to chisel at the space between yourselves. Dare to enjoy, and dare to love. And then let me know how it goes.

202.0 pounds today. Confusing that I’ve not lost anything since Saturday, considering I started my cycle 4 days ago. So goes the tide, I suppose.

A the C(ome closer)

Shedding More Than Pounds

In preparation for the post about to follow, just in case somebody out there reads it and wonders if I traded my happy-meds for a trip into Sylvia Plath-land, I’ll report that as of this morning I’m 202.0 pounds, down 49 in total. I’m 1.2 pounds from losing 20% of my original body weight, and today, somebody I don’t know checked me out at Trader Joe’s. Life is good. Life is so very, very good.

So the other morning I’m driving to work, wondering if I’m brave enough to order the chicken and baby spinach salad from Subway, or if I’m going to remain Conspiracy Theorist about the Spinach Lobby pressuring Congress to lift the ban on Popeye’s Greens before all the e-coli’s been swabbed off the offending plants, when the morning DJ interrupts me to announce the new 3 Doors Down single.

I like 3DD well enough, though I only really know their single Kryptonite, and even though I admit to enjoying that catchy tune, I acknowledge that the released single likely has little to do with the sounds on the rest of the CD (witness Uncle Kracker for anyone who doubts me. Does anyone else remember that barf-fest of an album that lured in teens and adults alike with that charming lilt of a tune, “Follow Me”?), I do still like the band. Well, the new single features a guest appearance by Bob Seger, Mr. Like a Rock himself, the old fella Down on Main Street, the guy who encouraged me to work on my Night Moves, Bob Seger, who must be pushing his walker toward 70 now, is singing with 3 Doors Down. Suddenly, I’m glad that Rachel Maddow isn’t the morning Drive Time host on Air America, because otherwise I would have missed this song completely.

The new song’s a ballad-a sad, stark tune about loss and loneliness. The lyrics sear me at once, and the tide of the melody sinks all interest in food, traffic or the waning warmth in the wind. This is no Dire Straits “Money for Nothing”, where you can hear Sting all over the song, but it’s still Mark Knopfler’s show, or Santana’s “Smooth”, where Rob Thomas sings, but all is brass and bass and you get the idea that Thomas, while an artist in his own right, is drowned completely by the mastery around him.

No, not this time. This is Afro Celt and Peter Gabriel, or Joan Osborne, doing that Bob Dylan cover from her 2^nd album; it’s both artists, both voices, every smidgen of talent mixed and blended until it’s something completely it’s own. Seger is in there: you hear him, both in the verses and throughout the song. And 3DD is there-it’s all them, vintage sound and instrumentation and recognizable at once as theirs, but with this golden thread of the Wise Man running through each rolling melisma and every angst-y riff. The song is Landing in London. I chucked my planned gold bracelet reward (for dropping into BMI ‘overweight’ from ‘obese’) for this CD, and bought it the very next day.

So I wonder now, tonight when the room is quiet, but the swirls of the 17 Days CD dance through my head, what it is about ballads and songs of deliverance that draws me to them? Is it their tragedy? Do I have karma that needs bathing in externally-generated tears before it’ll wash out of my psyche and downriver forever? I don’t know. What I do know is that I love them all-every one I’ve heard, and I love them even when I loathe every other song that band records. They festoon their lyrics to my brain, serenading me until I can recite every nuance of the singer’s voice, and the tears spring as soon as the opening chord plays. I played the Dixie Chicks Travelin’ Soldier tonight, and though it’s been 2 years since I heard it last, and I still don’t know anyone personally who has been wounded or killed in conflict (a fact I am exceedingly grateful to report), I misted up completely. I know further that if I play it again any time in the next few days, I will cry. I’ll stand in my kitchen or drive between errands and weep, the words wrenching me until my breathing shallows to gasps.

Eventually, though all of These Songs grip me, I find a way to appreciate them as the storytelling art that they are, and to honor the artist for writing something that’s simultaneously released for public consumption and gripped tight to the wounded, broken heart. Every song releases me to a degree, and I view them as Great Works, or Fabulous Stories, or simply, A Song That Makes Me Cry.

Every song, that is, except for one. Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill. That song is less ballad than it is Talisman. It played during some of the most intimate pinnacles of my life, and then, later, it appeared at the absolute nadirs. It materialized in abject moments, assuring me that all I had to do was wait for the apparition to come and I could go home, and reminding me, gently, that no one was coming, and that home did not exist. This song haunts me, even now when my life has turned in a direction where the deliverance message of the tune at last holds hope again. It should, and it does, and it will. I know, beyond the heartache and the history and all the fuck-ups that eventually, the eagle will come and he will release me.

Maybe that’s why I cry when ballads play: because I betrayed the first ballad I loved, the best ballad I’ve ever heard. I betrayed it, and it turned on me, the way a mystic muse abandons its vessel. I’ve been alone these years, waiting to call for it again, to hear that song when my heart is light and my mind is clear, to know that when I hear it next, that every memory it conjures and every meaning it invokes will be erased in a moment, replaced with the promise of a Delivered Life. Perhaps when that happens, when I can hear Gabriel’s words and smile instead of sob, then I will know that I am Home. In the mean time, I’m prey to any song that hints at heartache.

The thing is, in its own way, it’s over already. It’s over, and the words mean what they once meant. They mean them, and I know it, and yet, I can’t play it. I can’t hear him, not even a little, not even other works, though he is one of my favorite artists. I tried to listen to some of him this week, and I had to shut it down. He means too much, this means too much. I can’t come home until I’m ready, and I’m just not ready yet. I’ve planned my trip, but I’m not yet packed, and the journey has yet to begin. I see my home, and it’s more beautiful than I imagined it. I long for it, but I can’t walk toward it yet. I’m comforted that now, at least, my suffering has meaning and merit: its song is almost over, and this last hill, the longest, but also the highest and best, will lead me again to Solsbury.

Thanks for listening.

A the W(ithout Gabriel)

The Shape of Things to Come

This morning, I weighed in at 203.75 pounds, down .75 pounds from my lowest, and off 47.25 pounds in total. I’m encouraged by this, since I am still carrying my PMS water weight. While it is no longer the 3-pound guaranteed loss that it once was, I also don’t gain that 3 right before my cycle ends, and that pleases me. I’m trying to keep myself in This Moment, but I can’t help looking down the scale just a little bit, when I can move the big bar on the balance scale to 150 instead of 200. It’s just a 1 pound difference from 200 to 199, but the psychological gap spans the greater piece of my current consciousness. If I lose my PMS 3, I still have .75 pounds to go. I need to keep it slow and steady, and I will, insofar as I can do anything slow and steady. Stay tuned.

Things are better on the home front re: my son and his diagnosis. I’m in a waiting period right now, as the psychiatrist's letter makes its way via USPS from Hoffman Estates to Naperville, gets lost in the files, gets sent again, and then lodges in our family records. Once that’s completed, I begin the try-to-reach-the-doctor-live dance, and I can already tell that the HMO Bastard Pieces of Crap will convince my doctor that he must physically see my son again before he can send me the referral for the speech therapist. Can’t do anything without that juicy $15 co-pay. You know, I think the Democrats might get their wish after all, and America will get its single-payer, Universal Health Care system, only the 'single-payer' will be the American consumer.

I had a tough time for a couple of days following my son’s diagnosis re: my diet and corresponding loss. I didn’t cheat, but I was sorely tempted, and I had no recourse, other than to suffer through it. I don't believe in the 2-point bars as a substitute for candy or comfort. For me, I'd rather simply state that I don't eat anything I don't classify as food (and an overprocessed, oversugared bar is definitely not food). Eventually I had to remove my son’s emergency stash of goldfish crackers from the car, since every time I got behind the wheel, I could scarcely do anything other than stare at the bag and drool. Most unpleasant. I’m barely eating carbs as it is, and I’m certainly not eating simple carbs or anything white flour-based, but there they were anyway, and there I was, craving them.

I wasn’t craving them necessarily, you understand, although goldfish crackers are the child-equivalent of potato chips or chocolate kisses. Having tasted a single cracker, my brain compels me to unhinge my jaw and slide the contents of the package into my stomach. This occurs regardless of hunger, circumstance, location, and size of box, this last piece being most unsettling, since I usually buy goldfish crackers in the ‘never run out’ 33 oz size. This ‘box’, that actually looks like a steroid-abusing half-gallon milk jug, has a spout the size of a 6-foot catfish mouth and the pouring density somewhere just short of Niagara Falls.

Plus, though the spout is too large for mouth-to-mouth consumption (I know this because I have tried it), the opening is too small for an adult hand. So, whenever I try to nab a handful, I become victom to the Raccoon-in-a-Trap scenario, where the only way to free my “paw” is to let go of the treats. Goldfish cracker acquisition is humiliating stuff. I know all this, I knew it during my Carb Crisis, and still, it was 2 full days of torture before I finally just dropped the (nearly full) bags into the trash.

It surprised me that I had such a tough time, given how well I’ve done with the loss so far. But really, this was my first test. I haven’t had a Major Stressor since I started, unless you count my crazy ex-housemate, my pending divorce, my teetering job stability, the single-mom thing, or my fledgling elsker sak. They are real, certainly, but it’s nothing I’m not accustomed to carrying. I’m working to lower my stress tolerance, but for now, it looks like I’ll have to keep things high and flying.

I’ve logged hours on the web, digging through all the Spectrum sites, reading as fast as I can, and absorbing everything that’s relevant to my son's condition. I did find a support group that meets Friday. I have to find out if it’s child-friendly; if it isn’t, I’m going to have a tough decision to make regarding how much “live” support I need. After all, I see my son so little during the week, so cutting out 2 hours on a Friday night, which is usually our Unwind From the Week evening, takes some thought. I mean, Iif taking care of him pulls me away from him for a big chunk of the slim hours I have to be with him, then…what? Is this the trade? It hardly seems fair. But then again, life isn’t. Best to remind myself of that daily. And to keep my WW POINTS down. I’m running on par with my buddy’s weight loss so far this week, and he’s had Burger King and sushi with white rice already. Sometimes it really stinks to have a man as a buddy. They do everything faster.

On the up side, I got to chuck my ‘new size down’ clothes into the DONATIONS pile this morning, because they’re so big on me, it’s embarrassing. I’m basically relegated to my jeans and a few blouses where the shoulders actually lay somewhere other than the sides of my arms. I’m cinching my belt tight, and my waist, long my best feature, appears at last. I’m curvy again, and I’m happy to report that while I’ve lost 7 or 8 inches off my hips and my waist, I’ve only lost 4 off my bust, and while I can see that my rack is smaller, no one else has remarked about my ‘shrinking assets’ as it were.

My apologies to the parents and parent-like readers out there. I’m sure you don’t want to be thinking about me in a body parts way. Such is the life in the Full Disclosure blog. Anyway, I don’t have my shape back, but I can see it returning. My legs are starting to slim down, I can feel my ribs when I’m prone, and my feet are actually smaller. Plus, and this is awesome-my hands are returning. I like my hands, particularly my fingers. I have long, thin, tapered fingers that look great with sparkly decorations. I haven’t been able to wear anything on my hands for several years, since everything was much too small. There at the end, I couldn’t even wear my ring-finger jewelry on my pinky. But now, I can get some of the larger-sized rings on both hands, and I’d say I’m not much more than 10 or 15 pounds from wearing all but the smallest fare. Very exciting! I didn’t really realize how much I missed having pretties on my hand until I started sporting them again.


A the Sparkling

PDD-NOS

Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) is a 'subthreshold' condition in which some - but not all - features of autism…are identified. PDD-NOS encompasses cases where there is marked impairment of social interaction, communication, and/or stereotyped behavior patterns or interest, but when full features for autism or another explicitly defined PDD are not met.

My son has PDD-NOS. The ‘thing’ that has concerned me for the last 2 years at last has a name. The reason that he can’t quite interact properly with his peers, and the problem that kept him speechless until he was 27 months old, those concerns, aptly identified by the letters that will likely define him forever, now have a face: a smoky, soft-edged face that defies specificity or gravity, other than to offer, “well, clearly something’s wrong”.

I didn’t want it to be true, but I knew that he wasn’t developing normally, that there was something more than ‘kids can’t read calendars’ going on. And then today, I got confirmation of what I’d known and feared. My son has a developmental disorder. At 1 o’clock, I was a woman with a concern. At 2:30, I became a mother with a Special Needs child.

Let me go ahead and detail all the “good” news embedded in this before I descend into the torpor beckoning me. PDD-NOS, while lying on the ruler of Autistic Spectrum Disorders, is just barely over the one-inch mark. I heard once that Asperger Syndrome, also on The Spectrum, is sometimes referenced as “autism light”. If Asperger is Autism Lite, then PDD-NOS is Asperger Lite.

If The Spectrum were a shelf of beers, then Asperger is Miller Lite and PDD-NOS is Grolsch or Corona. Really, though, it’s more like Ny-Quil. It’s not a beer, and you probably wouldn’t get thrown into the Big House if you got caught with an open bottle of it in your car. There’s no 12-step program for Ny-Quil addicts, except on the AA-spectrum of alcoholism illnesses. You’re not diseased in the traditional, everyone-recognizes-it way, but you’re definitely not normal, and you’re not functioning at 100% in anything. Judgment is impaired. Processing slows. The world looks different, and since your brain is coated, you can’t say how: you only know that it’s so. You’re not drunk, but you are tipsy, and that still counts. Buzzed driving is drunk driving, and PDD-NOS is autism.

So it is with my son. Look at him, he’s normal. Talk to him, something’s off. Watch him from across the park, he’s a typical 4-year old. Sit beside him as he plays trains, and it’s not quite right. Observe him in his “special needs” preschool class, and you wonder if he’s in the wrong place. Drop him into the ‘normal’ preschool class, and you’ll see that he isn’t. His disorder isn’t glaringly obvious, and in some ways that makes it harder. A full-on autistic child who stares at the wall or shrieks instead of speaks gets the benefit of all the Special Forces racing into the room, bearing studies and specialists and help. Someone like my boy, whose ailments are subtle and shifting, gets shrugs and sighs and toss-out comments such as ‘don’t be such a worry-wart. He’s normal. Just look at him. He’ll grow out of it.’

Except he won’t. PDD-NOS, like any of its brothers on The Spectrum, is a pervasive, chronic disorder. It affects his brain, and the way he thinks. He processes things differently, and there is no way to fix it. I can teach him how to change his behavior, and he’s a smart boy (luckily the disorder does not affect learning or intellect in the traditional sense), so he’ll learn things like social space and eye contact and taking turns, just as a normal child would learn a foreign language. It'll be just like that, too, since PDD-NOS kids don't process the subtleties of non-verbal communication. They don't see it, because their brain doesn't see it. He might some day pass for ordinary, and I hope some day he will, but still, he’ll always have this problem. This is who he is. Forever.

My son, who I conceived on the day I wanted to, and who went full term without so much as a hiccup; who I birthed without drugs or cuts or anything strapped to my abdomen, the boy I nursed for 4 years and kept clear of immunizations and who had at least 1 parent at home full-time for over 3 years, this child, my son, bears a lifelong problem for which there is no cure. Nobody knows what causes this, and nobody knows how to fix it. You can't even get a definitive diagnosis-there are no physical symptoms: it's all in observation and professional opinion. The diagnostic criteria are as shadowy as the disease they report on.

I don’t pray, and I’m not about to start, but I did think about who my child would be once he grew up. I discarded any temptation to wish for a virtuoso or a world-class athlete. I didn’t care about any of that. I wanted a healthy child. I asked for healthy, and I got healthy. He’s barely had 2 colds his whole life. He’s not allergic to anything, he sleeps without difficulty, and he hasn’t had a drop of antibiotic in his life. He’s ill so rarely that the children’s Tylenol in my medicine cabinet expires before I can break the seal on the bottle.

He’s right on top of every chart-height/weight ratios, intelligence, athleticism, and early childhood ‘smarts’. He taught himself to write at age 2, even before he could say the letters aloud. He can recite a book after hearing it only a few times. He knows all the words to every song I’ve sung him, including ones he hasn’t heard since he was an infant. When he smiles, his eyes sparkle, and the only sign of issue is in his teeth, where a virus attacked 8 of his tiny molars, requiring outpatient surgery at 15 months. He’s healthy. He’s strong, and he’s agile and he’s alert and happy every day. He’s awesome, and he’s healthy beyond my best dreams. But he’s not normal.

I’ll never get to choose whether to apply for the premiere private school or the Montessori, because neither has the facilities to accommodate him. It’s public school or nothing, since I can’t afford to home school him, and, anyway, it’s the social pieces of public school life that he needs most. I can only enroll him in swimming lessons or summer camps if I announce his condition ahead of time, and even then he won’t get to participate unless the host agrees to supply a ‘special needs’ aide for his individual attention and care. Yes, individual, because he won’t be allowed to participate fully, as all the ‘normal’ kids are permitted to do. I have to fight to look at the joys he has and the talents he brings-both of which are many. I’ll have to do that in the face of all the battles to come, where everyone, including me, will have to focus on what’s wrong with him, rather than what’s right.

I will figure this out, and I know that the journey and the outcome will be much brighter than I feel right now. In one way, I’m relieved and happy. I don’t have to wait any longer, and I don’t have to wonder if I’m crazy, because I seem to be the only one who thinks there's a problem. I’ll work it all out. I will, and this will, and he will. Struggle is nature’s way of building strength. Okay, then, strengthen me. Give me strength. Please, please, give me strength.

205.5 pounds this morning. Up a little, and caring not a bit. It’s not real, and it will go away. Time to focus on what’s important Right Now.

Living Large

I went out shopping for new clothes today. I'm to a point now where I can't 'pass' in any of my old clothes and I'm not yet thin enough to wear my old things from my skinny years. I didn't want to go crazy-after all, I plan to be this size-whatever size 'this' turns out to be, for only a short while. But, in the interest of wearing something other than my bath robe to work, I figured I'd go spend a little money. So I bought a paper last night, scoured all the ads, and mapped out my plan. Kohl's first, then Target, and then SteinMart if I had the energy/motivation/sufficient funds in my checking account.

I've been a 'tweener' in the pants area for a while now, though every week I sneak closer and closer to being a true Misses. I didn't know where I was in blouses or shirts, since I had a decent array of things in several sizes already, and it's not as awful when a shirt hangs on the shoulders as it is when pants hang on the hips. But I was ready to abandon the 'is she or isn't she a dyke' look of men's polo shirts and oxford cloth button-downs; clothes that I convinced myself I wanted, since I was nobody's 'girly-girl', but in fact I had to buy since there was nothing in the women's section that I would be caught dead wearing, except perhaps if it were donated to me by the Red Cross and I was living in a shelter.

Daring myself to be disappointed, I breezed past the Kohl's Women's section and went straight to Misses. Let me point out at this juncture that I don't know when Kohl's decided to chuck everything in their previously 'tasteful business casual' collection and replace it with a combination of Terrifying Granny-Bozo and Junior Miss Slut-Be-Mine. The junior stuff frightened me particularly, as it appears Kohl's has decided not only that any junior weighing more than 80 pounds should be institutionalized for having breasts and hips, but that the girls who shop in their store are actually so brain-damaged from the tight clothes they wear, that they actually think they look good in the Flashdance Goes Gidget "sportswear". Clearly, I am getting old.

I sprinted past the Daisy Fuentes gear with nary a second look. While we're talking about the 2nd generation Mistress Duke here, did anybody else see that article that touted Daisy Fuentes as groundbreaking? My God, is that the definition of a hero? A 2nd-rate VJ who touts miserable sweatshop-produced ZexyWear and whose largest asset is prominently displayed every time she bends over toward the camera for a photo-op? Seriously, I am getting old. And I'm PMSing. Lethal combination.

I sauntered on beyond the fur-collared, corset tightlacing wannabe sweaters, got lost briefly in Levi-land and finally found myself among labels I recognized. I found something remotely resembling appropriate work Ready-T0-Wear and scanned the horizon for a dressing room.

No such luck. Kohl's is in the middle of one of their Last Chance Biweekly MegaSales, and every dressing room overflowed with the sounds of clacking hangers, jerking zippers and the dissatisfied sighs of women holding court in front of 3-way mirrors. Figuring I would lose my momentum and my drive if I had to wait in line for a cubicle in ClackerLand, I simply threw the blouse on over my t-shirt and took a look.

I checked my reflection and then checked in with Howard, who was dutifully pushing the cart and doing a fine job of appearing interested in the proceedings. He frowned, reached over and plucked at the fabric. "It's too big in the shoulders," he mused. Then he frowned. "It's too big, Ames. What size is that?" I confessed an XL, the size I figured I was and he shook his head. "It's not right. It's hanging all wrong, and you'll be swimming in it in 5 pounds."

I wondered briefly when my WW buddy became a shoe-in for the next host on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, but then dashed off the thought in favor of finding the black number in a smaller size. Alas, said black number didn't have a size L counterpart, so off we went, digging through cable-knit henleys and Flower Power knits, whistling for anything Large. At last we found a royal blue blouse-a true business casual option with a button-down front, a wide collar that would not show too much decollette, and cuffs at the sleeves. I slipped it on, and before I could even ask, Howard smiled, and then he grinned. "It's perfect," he said. "Go take a look."

I looked. I checked the shoulders, I flexed my chest to see if the buttons would pull, and I shot the cuffs. It fit. Size L, and it fits. I'm a Misses blouse, and not even the largest size. I'm not XL anymore-in fact, I kinda missed that whole era. I'm an L. No more "extra" for me. I'm livin' large, and proud of it. It won't be long before I'm Proud Mary Medium.

204.75 pounds this morning, and all is well. And thank you, Howard, for being there, for helping me, and for every large smile.

A the L (!!!)