I was somehow talked into doing this "Biggest Loser" kind of challenge at work. We all throw in $25, and whoever loses the most weight by the end of the challenge (a little over 2 months) gets to keep the loot. I'm a sucker for money, so I said what the hell.
What the hell, indeed! I haven't been a saint when it comes to eating, but I've totally changed my ways. I'm not longer a regular drive-thru customer (I miss you, McDonald's #2), and I stay away from the candy machine at work. I haven't been writing down all of my calories, but I'm very conscious of what I eat and how healthy it is.
And the gym! I've been going to the gym! Like, on a regular basis. Three to four times a week, taking a nice mix of cardio/weight classes, with the occasional pilates and yoga thrown in.
And do you know what I've lost? About 2 pounds. After 5 weeks. TWO POUNDS. I'm ready to start stealing candy from babies to eat while I lounge on the couch watching trashy reality TV. Two pounds. Are you freakin' kidding me?
I know that I'm fighting my own DNA. This body (mine, over here) was not designed to be a size 2. Not a size 2 from 1950, not a size 2 from today. I'm thick and curvy and stout and lift heavier weights than a girl my size should be able to lift. But dammit, I wanna be skinny. (Yeah, that was meant to sound whiney.)
I want to walk into a store and grab the nearest size 2 and have it slip on smooth like buttah. Without hearing any seems rip or buttons pop. I want to be svelte. And truly petite.
I also want to be able to eat Ben & Jerry's, or to have a shake at lunch, along with my actual food. Alas, that's not meant to happen. And it makes me bitter. So damn bitter. I find myself glaring at skinny girls who eat food that's got more calories than mine. "How dare she have a full sugar soda?! That skinny bitch!" Yes, it's a great attitude, I know.
No one ever said life was going to be fair, but seriously, this is just cruel. I want a cookie like nobody's business. Instead, I'm going to finish my Coke Zero, have my 90 calorie South Beach Bar snack, and go workout. Where I'll get red-faced and sweaty and out of breath, trying to beat the chubby gene. Good luck to me on that one.
I'm 29 today. I can no longer kid myself that I'm deeply entrenched in my 20s, because at this point, I'm so close to 30 I can smell it. And ya know what? It smells like mothballs.
Fine, I'm being dramatic. But turning 29 hasn't been full of joy. If anything, I feel like I'm already mourning my 20's and the lost opportunities. (Yes, more dramatics.) And sadly, I don't even know why.
Could be because when you're young, 29 sounds SO OLD. So far away. People who are 29 go to bed early and never eat ice cream or cereal for dinner, because they've got their middle-management job and 2.5 kids to think about. In reality, I still stay up too late every single night. Even though I'm trying to be healthier and shed a few pounds, it's not uncommon for me to have something ridiculous like ice cream (Sugar free! Low fat!) for dinner. And I'm still at the bottom of the totem pole at work, in a manner of speaking. I worked my ass off to get here, and it's a dream come true, but I still have so much farther to go. And the kids! Ha! I've got 2 dogs, 2 cats, and a Beta fish. Oh, and a boyfriend. Can't forget about him. ;)
Worse even still? I don't *really* want kids yet. Yes, I've got the baby fever. But when I start to think about what having kids means and what you have to give up (hi, everything?), I know I'm just not ready to be that unselfish. And aren't 29-year-olds supposed to be unselfish? And aren't they supposed to have a mortgage?
I'm still longingly eying pictures of New York City, wondering when and how I'll manage to move there, what kind of job I can find, how I can support myself. I feel like I've got so many goals and aspirations, and I had planned to take care of so many of those things while I was in my 20's. Granted, I did scratch quite a bit off my list. Degree? Check. Live in the city? Check. Buy own car? Check. See, it wasn't a total loss.
It just went by so fast. Some of the times I had were shittastic, so that might have been for the best, though. Here's hoping 29 turns out to be the superior year of my decade.
I've had one of those days! The kind where you wake up feeling like, OK, I can do this. And at some point, your day tells you that your shoe is untied and taps you under the chin, then giggles. Next thing you know, you're getting backhanded across the face. Before it's all said and done, you're laying on the floor tapping three times, hoping to make it all stop.
On the up side, at least it didn't try to bite my ear off, a la Mike Tyson.
I've got a short list of things I want to do in 2010. Not resolutions, just things to do. I don't know if naming them something other than resolutions will make a difference, but I'm hoping it will, because something like 80+% of all resolutions fail. By February. That's just sad.
1. Get a passport. I've been out of the country, to Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas. At the time, no passport was required. I want to eventually travel to Europe, and having a passport would be a good first step.
2. (This one was all Foster's idea.) Find a book on how to worry less/have less anxiety. Or just take more Xanax.
3. Read more adult books. (No, not that kind.) (Well, maybe ... ) Seriously though, I tend to read a ton of YA books because I like the covers. I'm going to try to delve more into books that are about people who are no longer in high school and who no longer have a curfew. I'm sure it can be done.
4. I'm not officially putting "lose weight" on the list, because I don't want any failure to be, like, an official failure. If I never said I was going to try to lose weight, then it won't matter if it doesn't happen, right? Right. So I'll just say that in 2010, I plan to work on cutting sugar (my blessed sugar) out of my diet once again. Perhaps I'll throw in more vegetables. Or even work out more. (I could very well be the only person alive who joined a gym and proceeded to gain 20 pounds. And no, it's not muscle.)
5. I'd like to be more like Julia Sugarbaker. More outspoken and less passive. (See clip below.)
"And that, Marjorie, is the night the lights went out in Georgia!" I love it.
I got one of those chain e-mails saying that "we" have to take back Christmas! Because all of this "Happy Holidays" business is breaking little 8 pound 6 oz. baby Jesus! Seriously, the e-mail urged it's recipients to send Christmas cards to the ACLU (the people who deliver doom and destruction) in order to backlog their mail room. I'm still not sure what the actual logic was there, but hey, I'm all for wishing the ACLU Happy Holidays. Er, Merry Christmas, I mean.
Dear people who are angry that they are sometimes told to have Happy Holidays when they check out at the local Wal-Mart ... it's not that us non-Christians are trying to keep you down. (Yes, I know that as a majority, it's hard for you.) Instead, you were probably wished Happy Holidays because there's a chance that Christmas isn't the holiday you celebrate. Unless you're wearing a red sweater with Rudolph on it accompanied by a Merry Christmas! broach, it's hard to tell. You could celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or nothing at all. It's a broad way of saying, "Hey, whatever your winter thing, I hope it's a good one." It's not a disrespect to you or Jesus. It's an attempt to be inclusive.
If you don't like it, try giving the neon sign above your head that reads "Christian" a wack, because maybe we can't see it.
I went to sleep last night after checking up on the election coverage. My main interest? Maine's Prop 1. Maine, a place I've never been and never really felt the need to visit. I imagine it being full of tall trees, fisherman, and small towns. In all of the reading I did yesterday, I learned that it's also the home of one of the largest populations of LGBT individuals per capita on the East Coast. So ... teh gayz? They haz em. Which is partially why it blows my mind that Prop 1 passed, striking down a law that gave same-sex couples the right to marry, just like opposite-sex couples (thank you, Carrie Prejean for that ridiculous phrase) can.
This is one of the ads that was run asking people to vote "Yes on 1".
Ah, the fear factor. They'll teach it to the kids! THE KIDS!
Truth? According the to Maine Attorney General, that wouldn't happen. (Read THIS article if you don't believe me.) I don't recall the class in school where the teacher sat us down and taught us all about marriage and divorce and adultery and everything that goes with it. Who knows, maybe I slept through that bit. But even if kids were taught about gay marriage, well, I don't quite see the problem. No one is going to tell your son or daughter that they HAVE to marry someone of the same sex. I mean, that is the concern, right? That little Johnny or Susie will grow up to be gay? I have my doubts about them "learning" to be gay in school.
And then, we've got my favorite argument ... the Bible. Ah, the Bible. Here are some of the favorites of the homophobic, er, I mean ... same-sex marriage proponents:
Leviticus 18:22 - Thou shalt not lie with a man as one lies with a female. It is an abomination.
Leviticus 20:13 - "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
Those are the quotes that so many Christians use from The Torah. I would write out all of the quotes that Christians believe are no longer valid from The Torah, but I don't think Blogspot allows posts that long.
There's also a verse from (ta-da!) Christian Bible.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."
Drunkards and slanderers, eh? Shouldn't there be more people out there protesting to bring back prohibition? I mean, it's tainting the moral fibers of our country!
Ok, fine, I'll hand it to them. The Bible, take your pick, does make mention of homosexuality. But, there are also these gems, all from the Christian Bible:
John 13:34 - (Jesus) A new commandment that I give unto you. That you love one another.
John 8:7 - (Jesus) He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone. Matthew 5:7 - (Jesus) Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Matthew 5:10 - (Jesus) Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness sake. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
(Thanks to the writers of Grey's Anatomy for that.)
So, for those who are faithful believers in the Bible, whichever one they choose, there are options. Spelled out right there. They can be all judgey like Paul suggests in Corinthians, or, they can do as their Lord and Savior suggests and not judge others. Not cast the first stone. You know, basically, not be an ass. Not deny legal rights to people because you decided to go ahead and cast that stone, even though Jesus himself (as you believe, faithful Bible believer) told you NOT to do that. Like I tried to explain to someone tonight ... there are people who think that eating shellfish is wrong. Because it's in The Bible. (Yeah, it's in there. Also, stay away from pork and don't mix your meat and milk. And don't you dare touch a woman while she's on her period!) But if those people walk by and see someone eating crab? Or lobster? I seriously doubt they're going to walk by and start shouting Bible verses at you and telling you that you're going to hell. In fact, there weren't even any votes happening on it this year! That travesty, that no one is standing up to preserve the sanctity of the Kosher food rules. Seriously.
My opinion? People are just judgey. The same way that people didn't want integration in the 1960's. The same way men didn't want women to have the right to vote. The same way white people didn't want black people to be free. The same way the Europeans thought the Native Americans were savage. The same way the British wanted the Puritans the hell out of their country. See what I'm getting at here?
The worst part is that people hide behind the Bible and use it as their excuse for homophobia and hatred. Even though the argument doesn't hold water. Because if you want to take everything the Bible says and make it law, then women will have to throw out their pants. Any man missing a testicle won't be allowed into a church/mosque/synagogue. Children who misbehave will be stoned. Rape victims will have to marry their rapists. And my personal favorite, anyone who works on the Sabbath will be put to death. So don't even think of flipping on that light switch, sir, because it's after sundown on Friday evening.
My request to people who are anti-gay marriage? Man (or woman) up. Just say it. "I'm a homophobe!" I'll still think that you're ignorant and disrespectful, but I'll have more respect for you that people who filter their fear of the unknown through the Bible.
I think that my quarter-life crisis has (thankfully) come and gone. At 28, I feel secure in the decisions I've made for my life. But that doesn't mean I don't sometimes get a bit wishful about the things I could have or should have done.
I was watching one of those wedding shows last week. The ones where, of course, a well-off couple is planning a lavish to-do. Because, let's be honest, it's just not that much fun to watch a lower or middle class couple plan something on a shoestring budget. The planner enters a fabulous building in Manhattan to meet with the bride. Turns out, this is where the bride works. In an office bigger than the first floor of my house, with a fabulous view of the park. The bride can't be more than five years older than me, if that. She's rich and seemingly successful. What exactly does she do? It seems to be something creative. Whatever it is, every now and then I fancy myself with that level of success and wealth.
I could have been a writer. If discipline is something you could purchase and it had been something I could afford, I could have done it. That seems to be the thing that stands in my way. I imagine myself getting up at the crack of dawn (I'm a morning person in this fantasy) and opening my laptop at my dining room table while a fresh pot of coffee brews. (I also imaging living in a climate cool enough to allow for year round coffee drinking.) I could see myself having moderate success as a writer. A novelist? A blogger for one of my favorite liberal feminist sites? It could have been.
Sometimes, I wish I could have been a dancer. I was decent when I was younger and taking dance classes. Ballet was a favorite of mine, and if I could go back to being a child, I would likely demand a more strenuous ballet class. Year round. Maybe today I'd be living in a tiny closet of an apartment somewhere in New York, auditioning and making a livable but meager living dancing. Soon, I would plan to teach dancing full-time. After all, 28 is ancient in that world.
And in the most far-fetched of my fantasies, I imagine myself as a doctor. After all, there was that one week my freshman year of college when I considered going pre-med. Then I remembered how much I hated biology class when I was in high school, so I moved on. But still ... having the title "Doctor" before my name? Would be so very bad ass.
