crazy scattered

obviously, things have been hectic. crazy, even. last night i realized that we are two weeks from christmas. that wouldn't really bother me except we HOST christmas dinner and... oh, MAN am i ever not ready.

i haven't started my baking. i picked up the 20 pounds of flour and some other ingredients last night, but it needs ANOTHER store for eggs and butter and ANOTHER store for nuts and chocolate and... i didn't have the energy. last night, i think we were asleep by 10.

there is not heat in my apartment yet. last year, the super (or whatever) had to come out on christmas eve day because that was the first day our heat dropped under the high sixties. i guess this winter is colder? or cold sooner?

(this is basically a bulleted list without the bullets, no?)

166. 166. 166. no matter what i do. dear god, body, JUST GIVE ME 165!

by virtue of being all... apartmenty with whitish walls and poo-brown carpet, out apartment looks dirty and dreary unless it's PERFECTLY clean and intentionally spruced up. that's a lot of work.

oh, i don't know. my brain is scattered. i would probably give an arm to be 165 on tuesday. actually... i think that would work...

oh hai

i took yesterday off. from everything. sort of.

i took the day off from work and baked buche de noel with my mom and a girlfriend of hers. they used to bake every wednesday, with two other friends, while their ten million kids (okay, maybe... 10 or 11) ran around playing with tupperware and beating each other up. and every year they made a dozen or so of julia child's gorgeous yule logs with marzipan woodland creatures and spun sugar moss and meringue mushrooms. they haven't made them in something like 20 years. it was a TOTAL TRIP.

i went over my calories (with two glasses of wine) but had a great time and it was totally worth it. my baking starts kind of tonight and goes until next saturday. YIKES.

saturday we have a holiday party, which is scary foodwise and with all the baking... god, i would like to lose 5 or 6 pounds by christmas. i'm overwhelmed.

wrong with this picture

i was 90% on plan yesterday. the 10% was working out. oops. today? i've already eaten chocolate. it's not even nine am. it all started because i ran out without my larabar this morning...

in any case. 167.2 means a loss of like half a pound, which isn't awful considering last week.

depression

yesterday, we allowed ourselves to sleep as late as we wanted. the mister slept until 11. i did, too. but then i stayed in bed until nearly three. and i thought a thought i don't think i've ever thought before: i'm depressed.

i mean, i KNOW i'm depressed. i suffer from depression. i'm in treatment for depression. i can identify times in my life when i have been depressed. but i've never, like, identified it when it was happening before.

i'm working now on identifying the stresses. so far i've got:

• i have officially done everything i can to get into grad school and now it's waiting.
• my husband's grad school application process came upon us rather suddenly and is just beginning.
• my body is a pill-free cycling rockstar! which means that i wake up feeling just fine every fourth saturday and by noon i'm feeling fat and gross and sore and tummy-achey. and by one i'm on the rag. yes, that saturday was two days ago.
• as anticipated, we are now broke as shit until thursday.
• as could have (SHOULD have) been anticipated, the weekend, beginning thursday night, became a food free-for-all, including a trip to dave & buster's for the husband's office holiday party.

know how many of those things i can control? ONE. i can control what i eat, what i drink and what i DO. that's how i can get out of this.

you guys, this is just wrong

in my funeral outfit? i look... pretty hot.

don't worry, there's no merry widowish boob action or anything, but i look damn good. i ended up ONLY going to macy's and, frankly, our local one is the CRUMMIEST macy's ever. which is sad because it used to be a super nice strawbridge's before the buy-out.

i managed, through dumb luck, to stumble upon a lone size 12 pencil skirt on a rack of... cheetah print dresses? with... faux fur trim? and... i dunno. i averted my eyes. it was right outside the fitting room where clearly someone stashed it when they decided they didn't want it and didn't want to carry it the eighteen inches to the return rack. wth?

then i settled on a pretty plain, silk-cotton (i think?), 3/4 sleeve, cowl-neck sweater in charcoal.

i picked up some tights (HUE! unrippable!) in not the biggest size-- one pair irresistible argyle and one solid black, both super control-- and a cami in case the cowl was even remotely low, and was off.

to the shoe department, that is, where i snagged a pair of kenneth cole reaction wedge-heel, knee-high boots. for seventy five dollars. which my grandma gave me. HOT. DAMN.

seriously, this post isn't ENTIRELY about my funeral outfit. i mean, it is, but for a fat-related reason:

• skirt: 12
• sweater: m
• cami: m
• tights: one size 2 and one size 3 (out. of. FIVE.)
• knee-high boots? size 8.5 because i needed the extra quarter inch in the shaft. c'est la vie. and c'est la my fat calves.

and, a note on control-top.

for a loooooong time, i thought control top was bs. because, dude, it's all well and good if you're a statue, but the minute you sit or talk or breath, that shit is rolling down your tummy, digging into you and cutting off your circulation.

ah, but NOW! i am floppy! and smooshy! and i'll be damned if the control top didn't CONTROL. i'm looking all sleek and smooth. and i'm pretty comfortable! this, my friends, is love.

(yes, the shopping sucked monkey balls. i felt like i was teetering on the edge of 240 again, sweaty and lumpy and miserable. but it was so worth it.)

(yes, i also bought a three dollar packet of choco-covered almonds.)

awful

we all know the agony of having to buy new clothes-- fancy clothes, even, that need fitting and tailoring and stuff-- when we're not EXACTLY comfortable with our bodies, right? a bridesmaid dress, a wedding dress, a suit.

a suit.

i will admit that i protect my husband from things that will force him to acknowledge his weight. we have no full-length mirrors, even though i'm getting to where i'd like one. he doesn't tuck in shirts. we don't go for hikes together or the beach. i buy his clothes a size bigger when i see it needs to be done. frankly, he's gained a good deal of weight since we met, mostly while i was gaining my 75ish pounds, but a bit more since. i suspect he's gained about 125 pounds. and i'd like him to lose 100 or more.

but i believe that, as i did, he will make the change when he is ready.

and i think he's ready.

my poor husband went through a terrible ordeal last night: he bought a suit. this of course involved measuring tapes and numbers and trying on, trying on, trying on. and then they brought out the five hundred year old blind italian tailor (ALL tailors are 500 years old blind italian men, i SWEAR TO GOD) and stood in the gentle embrace of a three-way mirror, under fluorescent lights, while they poked, prodded, pinned and generally discussed him like he wasn't there.

(we managed the whole thing-- pants, jacket and tailoring-- for less than $200 bucks and it will be ready tonight, thanks to the ANGEL of a salesman at the men's wearhouse.) (who i may or may not have had an inappropriate dream about last night.) (in a xanax sleep!)

on the way home, he said, "um, we are going to workout together, right?"

i felt just... awful.

tonight i have to go through the same, but i don't wear the biggest size anymore. i'm going to try three stores: target (hoping their limited edition holiday collection is nicer, not just more expensive, than their usual fare), macy's (with a 25% off card!) and the old standby ann taylor loft (oh, MAN, do i ever not want to spend that much). it's going to be easier for me.

grief

my uncle passed away last night. NOT the guy i call my uncle who is really my dad's cousin. my actual uncle. my dad's mentally retarded younger brother.

i don't know how i would deal with this grief if i cared. it's nothing personal, it's just... it's as if a stranger died. i haven't seen him in three years, and that's IF he came to my wedding (i don't recall). if not, it's four. before that... funerals. when we were children, he favored the boys, buying them hess trucks and letting them watch (but never touch!) his train set. the girls were useless to him. but the really weird part is that the death of this stranger has deeply affected my father, and for that i am sorry, just like when my grandfather died four years ago.

i was up all night after the call woke me. i was thinking about how callous i must be to be worry about the inconvenience. i bought LOTS of christmas presents yesterday, and now money's tight to be buying a suit jacket (husband's are too small) and a black dress or whatever (mine are... i don't know. gone? too big? awol? i have nothing to wear.)-- what kind of asshole thinks of that?

since i'm not really part of the family, i'm not concerned that people will be piling food on my counters or worrying about whether i eat. so, that's good. but i don't know when i'll workout.

in any case: 167.8 is the official start weight.