Insurance

I know a woman who has loads of pep, is truly hysterical--gifted in funny--who lost three of her four children: one to fire, one to murder, and the third to cancer. Inbetween the loss of the first child and the second was the death of her beloved husband--just a month after, as a matter of fact. And I realize that there is no "insurance" on life. Like someone close to me lost a child... what are the odds, I think, that I will too? This haunts me more than most parents, I think, because my best friend's child died a year ago this past 18th, in an ATV accident with another 11-year-old. Now she spends a lot of time with the other parents, drinking. And I don't think these people are good for her but I have no way to prove it. It is a sorrow without yield, an immovable object. Nothing I say makes any difference. As I watch her marriage finally crumble into dust, I grow weary of wondering about her future. The mess of the now is enough to discourage any speculation.

I say this because I realized today that the drink is the key to their time together. This other poisoned ruined couple both in marriages with a cheating spouse isn't a fix, and neither am I.

I say this because I have nowhere else to place these thoughts but outside of myself, and look at them. It feels better to somewhere, somehow, some way, have someone else read them. I feel like a 19th century poet dashing off his lines, watching the ink dry and handing to a friend in the candlelight.

This has nothing to do with weight loss, does it? It does, in a way. This Sisyphean burden, the unbelievable grief of a parent, is not easy to assess. I have spent the better part of thirteen months sweeping up after my friend, and I don't think she can be helped.

I have seen pictures from the past, and said to my daughter, "Gosh, was I fat!" only to look at her and say, 'You're going to tell me I'm still that fat, aren't you?" And she just giggles. Well, it was funny, and if you can't embrace your children seeing through your delusions, then you are missing a treat.

I say all of this this because I realized--since my last post--that the whole of myself needs fixing, not just my weight. Diagnosed with hypersleeping, I realize now that I was eating to stay awake, and I was eating to cope, and I was eating to eat. And now, after visiting the doctor and a sleep expert, I had an epiphany.

I am not okay.

It came when I had finished talking to the psychiatrist my medical doctor sent me to because he is a sleep expert. I filled out the questionnaire, ten pages long. I had been dealing with depression so crippling that I could not function some days. I lost interest in everything. The balding man with the quiet voice assessed all this and said, "You are not okay."

I lost track of everything he said after that until we addressed my sleep medication and the necessity to change it.

Oh. I said. What a liberation to know that I had been carrying on all this time thinking that I was okay, at least on some level. That things were alright. But how can they be when my body is so out of whack? When I don't like what I see for years yet cannot seem to change it?

So for now, I know, I am not okay. And the pressure is off. I decided that for now, it is good enough to just get a bit over a half-hour of exercise in daily, and leave it at that. Once I realized why I was eating, the obsessive need to eat all day trailed off.

Here's hoping--and I can say with some confidence--that I will find my way. But for right now, it's enough just not to be okay.

Broke

Today, I left school--I only have one French class on Wednesday--I took off for my favorite comfort food spot, a local Pho. As I was sitting there over my steaming bowl, I sure did appreciate my decision to come. But about a third of the bowl later, I realized I was full, yet I kept eating. It was just a thought that passed on by, with almost no notice at all. I wasn't even hungry when I started. It was a sad realization. I sat there, wondering--when did this break in me? When did I start ignoring the fact that I was full? When did it start not mattering? Cause here I am, a third of the way through the semester, and I have nothing to show for it physically. The size 16 jeans are too tight still, the pile of 14 I need to be wearing (if you recall, the husband gave away all my long jeans and now all I have left is a bunch of 16 capris) are still sitting on the shelf, inanimate. And my trainer at the gym--I missed my appointment with him, it's been days, and I haven't called back.

On the upside, I worked out six times last week, really pounding away at the Wii. I'm hoping for a payoff. But I'm also faced with the fact that as long as I have all this extra weight hanging on me, I will have a feeling of incompletion. Why? Because how can I say I have succeeded in this world without having first succeeded with myself?

Fat Forever

So let's chuck the insightful introspection, shall we? Tensed out over my upcoming French test, I have been grumpy and feeling rather bumpy. I feel like I shall be fat forever. Worried about it. And the verbes to conjugate? Grandi et migir. Get fat, get skinny.

Where did I put that copy of French Women Don't Get Fat?

Ugh

It's real simple. Sometimes I just want to lay my head down and give up. I'm in college, I have a big piece I need to write professionally, I have sick kids, I have a husband that has two jobs, and today, I was so frustrated by my inability to "get" the passe compose in French that I just sat in my car and cried.

And then I remembered the two things on my dry board in my office. In big letters, I have one saying: 1) PICK and 2) keep calm and carry on.

And that's what we have to do. When we are people who's self worth has been tossed about by the very people who are supposed to assure it, (i.e., family) sometimes we have to remember that our minds have been muddled for a long, long time. When you argue and are filled with self-doubt in every single encounter with your family, how are you to trust your own judgement? I like to think this is why I never got anything done in the past twelve years, or never completed college. Partly it was because of sleep deprevation (I microslept for years. I called it "getting the blinks". Sleep medication helped, see entry about Ambien) but partly it was because I was just so busy emotionally bailing water. I had one parent that protected me from the violent parent, and went out and tried to fix every damn little thing in my life. So was I, am I, equipped to be an adult? No. I like to think that the chainsaw makes your ears ring for a while, even after you've dropped it in the water. Now it is time to--one day at a time--let the ringing subside. You can't make it let you panic, that's for sure. Keep calm. Carry On.

I am reading William Goldman right now, or at least, I'm reading William Goldman when I should be studying French which would free up time for my writing the script I need to get done. But he's so damn encouraging, I can't help myself. He said that he takes six months to do an adaptation. One month for the actual writing, and the other six for working it out by reading and re-reading, and then he said something that probably saved my fledgling career even before it got started: I need a couple of months to screw up my courage and convince myself that I can do it.

Now here is the single most respected scriptwriter in the world, along with Cottrell Boyce (on the English front) and Charlie Kaufman (on the metafictional front) and oh, of course Aaron Sorkind (on the I-Am-A-Diety-of-Dialog front). And he has to screw up his courage.

I feel much better now. Such things help dim the ringing. Because one thing is for sure about post-chainsaw living: the reality that you are not a bad person and that what your feeling is normal is the most liberating thing of all. It brings the calm. Thanks, William.

On the dieting front. Sheesh. I can barely think about it today. I will say that Hershey's chocolate (only a little!) I had on the way home from French class sure was good.

Skyscraping

I know a woman who takes every tiny offense life offers her--real or imagined--and trust me, if you keep the real offenses the imagined ones will start poppin' up like zits after a junk food bender--and whittles them down into little tiny toothpicks that she keeps. She could, most likely, build the Empire State Building out of them. It doesn't make for a very solid structure. Know what you had to watch out for the most on wooden ships? Not the cannonballs, but the splinters they made. Same with offenses. Keep them, rehearse them, and you just whittle them down to something that's only useful to get under your skin.

I talked to this woman this week for all of three seconds. Her frostiness was palatable and I couldn't help but recoil and lord, regret even picking up the phone. But she's family, and there's been a death she was never told about, and I was really nice on the phone although she didn't in the least deserve it. She's one of those people who you really, really wonder, "Why did I even try???" She leaves a taste in the mouth of hatred and bitterness that's not too far off from sticking your tongue to a nine-volt battery to see if it's alive.

On the fat front, I bought a pair of jeans from the Goodwill this week, and got a glimpse of them in the mirror at Lowe's. Wow, howdy, look at that! I got two sets of hips from the rear! What was I thinking! I tell you what I was thinking, I was steeped in denial that "this won't hurt." I "didn't hurt" all the way into sixty pounds. A good long look in the mirror that night confirmed my suspicion that I wasn't looking as well as I'd like.

So here's the short-term goal. I would like to lose ten pounds by Halloween. Any helpers? I start working out tomorrow (wanted to two weeks ago, but found the schedule impossible to manage first week and second week--an infection kept me out) and hopefully I can get ten pounds off. I want them off because when we moved, Larry accidentally gave all my good pants to the Goodwill. Now I only have the skinny stack--and it's a big stack--so I can't justify going out and spending the money on new pants when I am a) miserable with my figure and b) able to work out in a brilliant gym for free. And we have a Wii Fit, or as Aslan sooooooo appropriately calls it, the Wee Fat. He told me last week--while munching on McDonald's french fries--that he was skinny because he had the Wii Fit. I pointed out that maybe it was because he was five and ran around a lot like a crazy person, but he said, "Nah. It's the Wii Fit." (shrug)

I have to get moving. Someone poke me with a stick, huh?

Ambien Eating

I have got to stop the Ambien eating. Every other night, after I take my sleeping medication (it helps the ADD tremendously) I get up and go into the kitchen where I get something I would normally never eat: a grilled cheese sandwhich, a couple of Oreos, or--and here's my favorite--a bottomless bowl of granola. I got up this morning to find a small, plastic bowl on the counter full of soggy granola.

And an empty box.

Oh dear God. I wish I could remember it. It was Kashi Cocoa Beach and that's good stuff.

On the emotional front, feeling kind of odd without any family left. Mom's out of the picture, the brother has been off since I was twelve, and my father is always talking about shooting me whenever he gets the slightest bit of irritation, like my saying, "No, dad, mom is not a slut, she's a pentecostal, and she didn't cheat on you. You held a gun to her head and she left because she saw the bullets." Then he threatens to shoot me. Some people say that it's just talk, but not anymore.

Did I ever tell you about my dad? Congestive heart failure, 300 lbs, lives alone in a trailer with a chihuhua in the middle of nowhere Southern Mississippi, has his legs bound twice a week, can't see, has no feeling in his arms or legs for years, and cannot stand more than five minutes from chronic back pain. He's seventy. Until last year, his own mother was out mowing her lawn. She was 89. Same year she shot a coon out of the roof of her chicken coop. And daddy? He won't even let his sisters come clean for him. He lives in filth. All, I think, for food.

I have a friend who's father died of alcoholism. I told him our fathers are no different, mine just isn't dead yet. A broken man, in body, a bit in mind, and lonely, for sure. He says he still looks for my mother in the mornings, and has dreams about her. But why wouldn't he listen? Why would he--after being diagnosed a diabetic eat candybars and ice cream? He would eat a half gallon of Blue Bell every two days. Two days. And now, he sits in his recliner and can't even get up to pee. He uses a gallon jug.

I love my daddy. But I don't want to end up broken like him. No more munchies. I think I'm just going to lay down when I take it. Yeah, it's funny, and its not, isn't it?

What's that Sound?

There's an old joke that goes like this--and my apologize in advance to anyone within the vacinity of Iowa, any Iowans, and any Iowans on the admissions committee to Iowa State Writer's Workshop--Iowan walks into a hardware store. Goes up to the proprieter, and asks: "I want the biggest, baddest, fastest chainsaw you have. Money is no object. I got some trees to cut and want them down hasta pronto."

"Okay," says the guy, happy to make a sale. And after ten-fifteen mintues of introducing the guy to different models, the Iowan buys one. He goes away, happy. Comes back the next day with the chainsaw. Says to the proprieter, "This stupid thing doesn't work! Took me four hours to cut down one two-inch tree!" The proprieter, being a good man and a pretty handy guy, is aghast. He takes the chainsaw, goes outside, and starts it up. Iowan says, "What's that sound?"

So it's a cheap dig at a noble race of people. That's not the point. The point is what are you hearing? Is it a chainsaw, or is it you going at the the wrong way? If everything's deafening, too busy, too much, maybe it's you who hasn't got things going on the right way. Are you the hurricane, or the levee? The sound, or the fury? Is it you? I realized that in my life, I was going around being the fury, pushing life to follow me, instead of just doing what was required for smooth sailing.

Here's what I further learned, mainly because I seem to have a thing for chainsaws in philosophy lately: the sailing is smoother once you chuck the chainsaws overboard. Got a noisy bit in your life you've been trying and trying and trying to solve, a raucus machine of havoc that you can't seem to turn off? Are waiting perhaps, until it runs out of gas? What if it won't?

Chuck it overboard.

That dysfunctional friend that for years has been abused by the husband but will not seek help for it or get out of the situation. That parent/sibling/relative that won't, for the life of them, make your life any more peaceful. The person that does not seem to comprehend that you need both distance and respect, and that will not acknowlege that in your life (or your children's lives--we have all known of pushy grandparent who know better than you, even if their own kids are messed up) what you say goes. Chuck them overboard (watch it sink to the bottom if you want to hear something interesting) pick up the oars and move on. You'll find that once they are out of sight, they aren't able to run things as well. They just gurgle, and come to a halt.

An Empty Store

Last night, the husband and I had a talk. The struggle--so we call it--of being thin or eating more than we need--has become overbearing. We decided to do something about it, for the millionth time. Today it stuck. I made it through the day breaking some bad habits that have dominated my eating landscape way too long.

It stuck partially because of an old chicken box. My mother used to live with us (don't go there) and when she took a new job on the coast, her things trickled down with her, bit by bit. One thing she left in our care was a box of pictures.

My mother and I are estranged. To say that the relationship had been difficult would be an understatement that would hurt God's own head.

A Sense of Falseness

In 2002, I left the country to meet my half-sister in Scotland. When I left the country, I developed a keen interest in the language. I met with a woman--for a while--that was from Scotland but had settled in my town. She told me something once that always stuck with me. She said that when one parent shelters a child from another, it lends to that child a sense of unreality, like there isn't much connection between what they do and what becomes of it.

Coming home yesterday, I realized that as far as My Sixty Pounds go, I had fallen off the wagon. I had sat that afternoon and ate a large piece of pizza from Whole Foods. There were tons of better choices, and granted, if you're going to eat a piece of pizza, Whole Foods is the joint to visit. But I went on for the rest of the day to eat much more than I needed. This past week with the beginning of school, not only did I not work out (like I had promised myself all the end of the summer--"When I get back in school, I'll get on the eliptical and hit the weights" as I had an injured ankle from the end of the summer) but I ate totally disconnected from what I wanted as a whole. This is a theme in my life--to act in such a manner--time management, promises to my children, eating--where what I do bears no connection to the outcome. I realized I was becoming like my mother, who has spoken for years on end--at least 25--about weight loss and never really managing it. How does she do it--year after year, not make the connection to No being the answer? And how do I manage to avoid it? I remember with horror my father piling up his plate higher than you can imagine, and eating it all. But now, tonight, as I piled on the steamed green beans, I remembered that image of him piling up food was collard greens.

Last week I was talking with my boss, who is by far the most outstandingly inshape person I know--touching him is like feeling steel bands, and I have never seen anyone quite like him, not even amongst the athletes I tutored. He told me that when he stopped working on a project the other night, he ate a bunch of berries way past when he was full. It bothered his conscience. I thought, "Berries? You're worried about berries?" I'm worried about giving in to those yogurt pretzles at the coffee shop between classes.

Next day I exchanged an email with him. "I'm fasting." He wrote back, "Me too!"

This is not a bad idea. If food proves to be a huge temptation and I cannot listen to my body, then why not fast? Why not say, for now, I don't need anything? To connect with what I do and do not need. The disconnect with what I do and what results has permeated everything I know. Perhaps the absence of tool of disconnect will help. And I'm talking short hours, folk. I don't need to eat between every class. I don't need to eat between nine and three, maybe? What do you think? I think it will work, at least for me, to connect with the reality that the anxiety I feel in returning to school, learning the classes the expectations and the schedule and dealing with the horror I feel at getting my own artistic work done will not be alievated or helped by food is a good thing.

On the upside, signed up for a program at school for 4 free training sessions and it was only $20. Did petal the latest trike (last one got stolen. Who in hell steals a trike???) around campus. Forgot that that little bit of transportation is manual labor.

Unpacking

By my estimate, I have moved exactly forty different times in forty different years. Some good, some bad, some seemingly a reversal of the evolution of man. One didn't have a stove, and I found myself cooking canned biscuits on a smoker. (They turned out okay). Last one had a landlord that decided to sell it because we were $100 short on the rent. (What part of "economic downturn" and "layoff" did he not understand???) The fortieth move, to our new home, was a new start, but into an extraordinary house were Nothing Was Wrong. The move--which was around the corner--was pretty easy as moves go... no moving van required, just loaded it up in what the children call "The Beast", our monsterous ozone-eating 1987 Chevy Suburban, faded yellow.

Into said suburban went a box with a scale. A scale that was in my mother's things stored in our garage. She had culled through the stuff she had left there for several years, and most of it we had hauled to the Goodwill. The scale, was a, "Hmmm, let's keep this." item. The scale was a Weight Watchers scale with a digital readout. I got it to the new house, in our lovely new bathroom, and laid it on the floor.

196.

196! What the hell!??? I had told myself that I would never, ever be above 190 again! I had been a whopping 211 when I gave birth to my son, five years ago. 196! Sixty pounds heavier than when I had met my husband.

Back last year, I had decided to Loose the Weight. I looked to be clever, and all Julie Powell like, and make it Into a Blog! Every combination of forty by forty was taken. 40x40. Fortyx40. 40by40. But here's the thing. Every single one of those blogs were abandoned. Mine would have been, too.

But now, as I enter my last two semesters in school (schlepping it through a Creative Non-Fiction degree, which does not help me in my job as a script reader in the LEAST although, strangely, responsible for me having the job in a strange way, more later) I think it's bloody time I wasn't so damn fat! Did you read the part where I said SIXTY pounds??? I so cursed (and I do curse, forgive me) Oral Roberts Uni-frickin-versity when I had to attened to my physical fitness, but I was thin. I realized much too late that that whole get-off-your-fat-butt and stay-in-shape-or-else thing was pretty darn handy. Running flat out always late to class all the time in a pair of pumps didn't hurt, either, although I wound up with some serious heel pain two years later.

I should have stayed thin. I was a size eight at 136 pounds, the lightest I had weighed since the eigth grade. But I ate my way up. I had babies. I am not happy. It needs to go. I was 38-26-38. I was so hot, you could have fried an egg on me. But now I look more like an omlet. What was I thinking??? Truth was, I wasn't. Any little upset, we'd open the gob and stuff in stuff to make us feel better.

The University of Memphis has a program called Tigers Get Fit. For two semesters, (I only had to take four for my degree) I blew it off. Now I want it. I want sixty pounds off by 41. Larry (the husband, aka The Bald Bobby DeNiro) said that it's called Tigers Get Fit because Fat Cats wouldn't have many takers. I want to walk up to the counter at the fitness center and say, "I am a fat cat and I want to join your program and be a skinny kitty." I tried walking starting two months ago (when my ridiculously fit boss came for a visit) and pretty soon, my left ankle made it clear that I was putting too much weight on it. It hurt so bad I had to give it up.

So here's the plan I came up with. Since I probably put on some of those pounds watching the BBCA between How Clean is Your House and You Are What You Eat, we decided to go with You Are What You Eat. More on that later. I also want to lift weights and switch to an eliptical, hoping that it will not hurt my ankle. Also must necessitate trip to the podiatrist for some arch supports, which are sort of like the opposites of bras. They hold up what's not there.

I wish I could wax poetic about fitness, and weight loss, and make this all noble and strong and smart and wise. But the truth of the matter is I don't like what I see, and I don't like having a gushy stomach that's starting to jiggle when I walk. Or maybe it's been jiggly this whole time and I was too stubborn to notice. I thought I was doing well. I wasn't. I'm not.