Last Days + Border-Crossing Fat

These really are the last days, folks.

First, the link to the article and short movie that I posted before. Rather disturbing, yes? Honey, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

1. From the Stranger: "First up is a ridiculous tragedy from Oklahoma, where a 63-year-old man in the town of Hominy is facing murder charges after allegedly gunning down 26-year-old waitress in a local diner in broad daylight. According to the Editor & Publisher report, the motive for the alleged murder is believed to be a letter written by the waitress to the Hominy News Progress, suggesting the man was responsible for some local vandalism. Surreal fact: The Hominy News Progress had recently honored the alleged murderer as Citizen of the Year. Tragic fact: The waitness was 11 weeks pregnant."

2. Then there's the Yahoo news report about the Florida dad who allegedly beat his toddler son to death to "prevent him from being gay."

3. Think that's disturbing? What would you think if you knew that The Onion had already done this story? Is it even more disturbing that The Onion showed more restraint than real life did?

4. Bombings in Egypt, the lead singer of Bad Beat Revue falls on his head during a leap from stage and dies, hatred of Muslims, more hatred of Muslims, oh yeah, and a dastardly plot involving cocaine. Half of the Seattle music scene would be dead.

5. Also politics is all over the place, no one is safe, and the world keeps getting worse and worse, and am I crazy that I link this feeling of Last Days to the possibility of dementors breeding?

But in a happier time, there's also talk about fat. See, T has this habit of, when eating, saying, "That'll go right to the thighs," or "Hello, spare tire." BestFriend asked her today, 'Do you have discussions with these different foods so that you know where they will end up? Like an immigration officer: "Are you going to stay near the stomach (the love handles is a nice area) or were you thinking of settling down closer to the thighs? Or maybe down in the ass?" Are there ethnic districts? Does Thai food always congregate in the spare tire area?'

And T's excellent reply:

"Yes, it is similar to crossing the border at Mexico. Fish generally swims as far upstream as possible (finally settling down around the thighs), ethnic foods go straight for the spare tire (as it is a transitional area, almost like a tent city that has just shown up without any sort of authority or jurisdiction, but is growing at an alarming rate), then there are the illegal border crossers such as maple bars that immigration won't let through, but for some reason seem to find themselves inside anyway - those, my friends, generally begin the downward spiral toward a double chin, settling right along the border, and soon you start to see signs along the freeway depicting mommy and child maple bars running to the freedom that is Southern California (my double chin), and worst of all is the grease pit burger with extra cheese, bacon, french fries, and fat (for good measure)...those babies head for the homeland, you know what I'm talking about, that thing that follows you around catching the eyes of black men of all ages spurring nicknames such as shelf-booty - the ass."

Could it be better? I don't think so.

This is sort of shocking

The Stranger has really angry editors.

Also, I'm going completely insane

I picked up my cell phone last night and dialed nine to get an outside line. I couldn't figure out why my call didn't work. I did it again, carefully dialing 9 first to get that outside line.

When I picked up my office phone this morning to listen to my messages, I tapped a key on the computer keyboard to choose 1 for the menu. I was surprised when the menu kept reciting options. I hit the keyboard "1" again, then realized what I was doing and almost ran screaming out of the office.

Also this morning I was driving to work, got off at Federal Way to get gas because I had had no time to get some the night before, and after I got gas I pulled back on the freeway again. It wasn't until I saw that road sign by the Port of Tacoma that says "University of Washington, Take Exit 133" that I realized I had GONE THE WRONG WAY for about 5 miles. That's right. I pulled out of the gas station and got on the freeway going SOUTH, back towards HOME, as opposed to continuing to go NORTH, where MY JOB IS.

UPDATE: Also, I have worn the same pair of pants three days this week. And it's not like they're black; they're light gray, folks. Easily recognizeable, curse them. But they're the only clean pair I have! (Note: Victoria's Secret clothes shipment is in the mail. WOO!)

It is not my day

1. This morning about 1 am, I'm jolted awake in a panic by a loud, metallic, CRASH somewhere in my house. My first thought is, of course, OHmygod someone's trying to break in! I spring out of bed, completely nude. (Hey, I went to bed with a head full of wine, okay?) I can't see anything, but the moon is out and after a second my eyes adjust. I creep out of my room, thinking, Why aren't the pets going crazy? Then I see it, or rather, him, poor guy. Titan is standing in front of me with something large and vaguely rectangular HANGING from his collar! I get up close and I discover that the poor dog fell asleep on top of the vent, as usual, but the licenses and things on his collar chose this night to slip through the actual vents and then turn sideways, locking the vent to his collar, so that when he went to stand up, he took the whole vent with him!

Once I discover this, I have a very hard time not laughing, especially because Titan is so adorable and confused, and clearly very sleepy--he tries to focus on me as I work to untangle his licenses from the vent, but it's hard work for him. After just a few seconds I got him untangled, set the vent on the floor, and crashed back into bed.

2. This morning, partly as a result of my night-time adventures and partly as a result of wine, also partly as a result of having no clean pants, I had a hard time waking up. I made the train with a minute to spare. (But hey, I made it.)

3. Also, there was no food in the house so all I had was a piece of bread with butter. This is not enough food, as people who know me in RL know.

4. My stomach was growling all the way through web-ex meeting I hosted this morning, both the teleconference AND the webex people had their heads up their asses and didn't have a record of either meeting I had scheduled a week ago--literally, I have the confirmation email RIGHT HERE, BITCHES, DON'T TELL ME YOU DON'T HAVE A RECORD OF IT!--so we started late...NOT THAT I'M STILL BITTER OR ANYTHING.

5. So after an hour and a half of minutae, I'm watching the clock tick by, because the cafeteria closes at 9:30, and they take away the oatmeal, and I've only had a piece of bread this morning, as I think I've mentioned.

6. Finally free after pointless babbling! I run to the cafeteria at 9:31 to see that I already missed the oatmeal for the morning, and lady yelled at me and said, "After 9:30, it's time for soup!" (It was 9:32). I almost yelled, "It's not like the fate of the free world depends on it, lady! Give me my fucking oatmeal!" But then I thought perhaps I should just really eat something instead, so I took the greasy absolute piece of crap omelet that was the only thing they had still available and choked it down.

7. To add injury to insult, I had run the whole way there in stilettos, very tall ones. GIVE ME MY OATMEAL NEXT TIME OR I WILL PUNCH YOU. And you too, B----- telephone operators.

Also, in case anyone was wondering, I will probably not be posting the pictures of the house, since my ex-roommate is moving out and these pictures won't be indicative of the space as it will be in a couple of months. If there's any that are salvagable, I'll see what I can do. Don't hold your breath.

So, last night, the bomb dropped

And the result is this Craigslist ad.

Argh, argh, argh

It's awful how much I'm focused on my own weight, now that I'm trying to change it. A sample of my mental dialogue this morning:

I got to see my niece this weekend! That was great!

I've gained two pounds.

I got to read Harry Potter! That was great!

But I've gained two pounds.

I got to watch movies with my boyfriend and drink wine and go to a "couples" barbeque!

And thanks to that, I've GAINED TWO POUNDS.

Man, I'm hungry!

DON'T EAT NOW, BITCH, YOU'VE GAINED TWO POUNDS!

See what I mean? Not healthy. Margaret Cho said it best: "When you diet, the first thing you lose is brain mass." Although she, too, is much skinnier than she used to be. Traitor.

Coffee always helps. Get your free sample of Doubleshot here! Many, many thanks to The World Against Me for making my day.

I can't summarize

So, I haven't posted in several days, so I have a lot of events to catch everyone (all two people who read my blog) up on, I have news that should seem really important to me but that I can't seem to get excited about, AND I have PICTURES OF MY DECORATED HOUSE!

How do I put all this in one post without being boring? Will being currently over-caffeinated and underfed help or hinder? Film at eleven. And it might be eleven before this post is over. Everyone (all two of you) all comfy? Got some coffee? Got some Jameson's in that coffee? Got nachos? Here we go:

Possibly Important News First

After months and months (no exaggeration, at least six months, or most of our relationship) of uncertainty, TheBoy has his Peace Corps assignment. What? You didn't know TheBoy was leaving for the Peace Corps? The story is too long and boring to tell, so here's a synopsis (Update: This is totally not a synopsis. Skip down to the bottom for the pithy statement.). TheBoy and I were friends for years, he made several efforts to date me, I refused, about a year ago he tried again and I went for it, knowing that he was Leaving For The Peace Corps *soon* and even if it went badly, I wouldn't have to deal with the aftermath for long. Not to mention I'm a commitphobe in the first place, so the idea of a relationship with a time limit was very attractive. Yes, I'm insane.

Still with me? We started dating seriously in November, and in February I moved to Seattle. I thought about breaking up then--we barely saw each other, and surely I should start dating guys in Seattle, right? As is obvious now, I decided to stay with TheBoy, because, gee, I really liked him. Then I became completely isolated and depressed in Seattle, and soon went from thinking about breaking up to depending on TheBoy for oxygen. I was obsessed. I was short on cash, short on friends, and completely isolated. No longer did I want TheBoy to leave for the Peace Corps. In fact, I wanted him to stay, and if he wouldn't, I wanted to go with him. I had been at B----- for about one month at this time, and I was ready to cut and run.

It was at about this time that the Peace Corps gave him a choice of assignments: he could leave in September, or he could leave in January 06. It seemed more likely that he would leave in January 06. I breathed easier. Then on Easter, in front of his entire family, whom I was meeting for the first time, he dropped the bomb: he had decided to leave in September.

I was devestated. I thought he was running away from the relationship and from me, and it wasn't helped by the fact that I had been so clingy and dependent on him recently that he would have had every right to do so.

Fast forward to a month ago. We worked through that okay, especially after he missed a few deadlines (whoops!) and I backed off a great deal from the relationship. It seemed like we were fine and now he would leave in January, like he had originally planned. Okay. At this point, I was starting to get antsy--I couldn't see him much, I had moved back here to Tacoma, but now I was at the gym a lot and enjoying my new house and going out with a ton of bachelors from B----- every weekend, and I was seriously thinking about breaking up again. I broached this to him and he put his foot down--he loved me, the best part of his life was being with me, and he was not going to let that go lightly. After a night of thinking, I agreed that I still, after everything, enjoyed being with him more than anyone else, but in my head I was still thinking, Will I still feel that way through January? Can I really go through the entire holiday season with him, knowing he's about to leave?

Those questions were decided for me. Yesterday, TheBoy got his Peace Corps assignment: he's being sent to Ghana, and he leaves 9/23--two months from yesterday.

Although it's hard to put into a pithy statement, examining our history like this has made me better understand why I didn't immediately burst into tears when I heard the news, which surprised him--he'd been expecting major waterworks and screaming, and possibly being dumped. Of course, it's clear from reading the above that I have come to terms with everything already--it's not like I haven't had time. He's leaving, it's something he has to do, we're breaking up then, (possibly before) which is something I have to do, and we were both blessed by our time together. May he forever be blessed for pursuing me until I gave in, because my life has been incredibly enriched by his love. And no, we're not breaking up right away; if I had my way, we wouldn't even talk about it--we'd say goodbye at the airport and go our separate ways. The point is, nothing needs to be said. And that's a wonderful feeling.

Whoops, that was supposed to be a synopsis. Guess I got carried away. And in case that's too long, here's my best attempt at a pithy statement: We were great friends for 8 years and great lovers for almost a year. And you don't want to give that up lightly.

I've changed my mind: the picture post will be separate, but equal. (Ha.) On a side note, TheBoy and I watched Sideways last night and drank Pinot Noir, and it was fantastic, both the movie and the wine. Everyone, go see it!

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Argh.

So, not only has my weight stablized, but it's crept back UP. Well, not really--it's now just a pound lighter than the post where I said I'd lost eight pounds. Humph. I should have taken BestFriend's advice--she said, "Your roommate may have healthier advice, but if I were you I'd just take the money and run." But I didn't. Thinking I was in the clear and that nothing could stop me, I indulged in pizza and iced vanilla lattes, and before I knew it (i.e., in one day), I was back up to where I was. I'm trying to convince myself that I'm building muscle, not putting on pounds of pizza and vanilla fat, but I think we all know that's ridiculous.

On that note, though, I have three questions:

1) Should I have some oatmeal to tide me over this morning, and then have a late lunch, as I'm used to?

2) Why doesn't Starbucks include the nutritional information of their plain crossaints? (Yes, I had one today. I was in a huge hurry. So sue me.)

3) How did I entirely miss the appointment of Attorney General Gonzalez?

Baffling, I tell you.

Stressed Out and Banged Up

So, I'm not losing weight too fast--me weighing 140 pounds yesterday morning was just a fluke of a long weekend. I weighed 142 this morning and that's pretty healthy. I repeat, I am not losing weight "too fast"--I do not need to be shot.

Also I am very tired of taking care of Monica's pets, and it's only been one day. Monica is an elementary school music teacher. She is, possibly, the least dominant person I know. Her pets run roughshod over her--although I don't think cats can possibly be dominated anyway, because they're too ignorant or too apathetic to learn cause and effect. (If I do this, she'll yell at me--therefore I won't do this anymore. Right.) Dogs, at least, react when you yell. But her dog doesn't even react much--except to hunker down and look as small as possible, and lose all brain functions. This is okay, although I'd prefer less of a "fear turns me to jelly" attitude, but what's worse it that I am entirely unused to the idea of a dog that doesn't come when you call it! At the very LEAST this dog should come when I call her in the house. Titan comes running when I call in the house because he's hoping he might get fed. Katie won't even come in the house, and she hates to go outside, which also frustrates me because Titan ALWAYS wants to go out, and I'm annoyed having to spend my time coaxing Katie to go OUTSIDE, as in, a place that dogs should naturally want to go. It seems to me like she's too stupid to act on her natural bodily functions, which really makes me surprised that she remembers to breathe.

Wow, I'm in a really, really, bitchy mood. This is partly because yesterday, when I was coaxing Katie to go outside, and I was bending down to pet her, Titan tried to stick his head in to get petted, only he was running a little too fast to stop and...
WHAM. Head butted me in my eye so hard that I fell down and saw stars, and immediately started to bawl, much like I can imagine Kristy did when she ran full-tilt into the wall. Picture this for a second: I've just come home and changed into a little denim skirt, but I'm still in my work clothes on top. I'm laying out full on my back on my dirty concrete patio and howling to beat the band. Katie is standing there, still stubborn, and taking every opportunity she can to sneak back into the house without peeing, so I'm alternating bawling and yelling at her, which sounds sort of like this:

"BOO-HOO HOO, OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH THIS HURTS--KATIE, COME BACK HERE! COME, YOU STUPID DOG! COME!" (Katie doesn't respond to "come", of course, so I have to run up and drag her back into the yard.) "BOO HOO HOO, OW, BOO HOO," (softer, trying a different approach,) "Katie, come on, girl! Who's a good girl?" Titan, who had originally skedaddled when I started yelling, is attracted by my soft tones and comes running over, so then I have to go back to shouting, "NO, TITAN! LIE DOWN!" "BOO HOO, I'M IN SO MUCH PAIN!" "It's okay, Katie, who's a good girl?" "NO, TITAN, NOT YOU! LIE DOWN!" "BOO-HOO-HOO!"

And so forth. I swear to you I almost beat them all into a bloody pulp and then opened the back gate, hoping that they'd take off for parts unknown and I'd never have to see any pets again ever. I refrained, called my mother (always a good choice) who tried to calm me down over the phone, and eventually I fed the dogs outside and shut them out there for a few minutes, let Figaro out to run around the house (the cat, who's a nonstop yowler, often making it difficult for me to hear my mother over me crying and Figaro yowling), weighed myself about 5 times, opened the refrigerator door 14 times, paced around the house 11 times, and chugged a glass of wine with three aspirin, and then hung up with my mother, left the dogs outside, left Figaro loose in the house, and ran out to my car to make my tutoring appointment, because everything above happened in the space of fifteen minutes. And my life went on--I had to be somewhere.

Side note: the wine and aspirin kicked in and I had just been hit hard in the head, and unsurprisingly enough, it was very hard to tutor--I didn't have a single neuron firing in the right order, and I don't think the Diet Red Bull I was drinking helped at all.

But on the plus side, it did make it VERY hard to go to sleep later. Going to sleep at midnight and waking up at 4:30 is just not healthy.

Please don't shoot me!

So, the last post? In which I said I lost weight? July 12th.

Since then, I have lost an additional 5 pounds. Yes. Five Pounds. In six days.

According to my roommate, The Running Coach, that's too fast.

Really, I'm almost done posting...

My new hero: Opinionista.

And her post today is, of course, about not being judgmental, which I have a VERY hard time doing myself--Girls of the Blogosphere, it is really hard for me to not rant and rave about why girls sell themselves short. To all of you, separately. And now I'm happy that I didn't do so, because it would have been a waste of my time. Opinionista puts it best.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

INTROducing...MY VERY BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD!

Okay, I have a couple of those. But it sounds ridiculous to say, "Introducing...one of my very best friends in the whole damn world", because it sounds wussy, like I can't make up my mind.

So! She's HERE! She's smart! She's funny! She's witty! She wears stilettos! She'll knock your socks off! (She'd better, after all this.)

And her blog is just over there to the right, in my "Blogs I Love" Column, right under Crazy Aunt Purl. Because that's how important this girl is to me. Blog: One of THOSE People. And we all know who those people are. Read it.

We're just a couple of T-Town girls, y'all. (Pssst: if you want to see more tales involving her, look for anything involving BestFriend on my blog, and that's her!)

Jehovah's Witnesses, or How I Learned to Stop Judging and Love My Neighbor

So, I went to bed at 11:30 last night, got woken up by a phone call at 2:30 am, and finally dragged my sorry ass out of bed at 6:00 am. As in, the time that I have to actually BE AT THE TRAIN STATION. Okay, so I'm not making my usual train today. I have a brief discussion with myself over whether I should take the later train and take the bus between the train station and the office, or drive. If I take the later train, I can avoid driving, always a plus. And since I took that goddamned ecology quiz yesterday, I'm suddenly very aware of how much I consume. Then I can either take the first train home, which would make a short day (but no one would notice) or the SECOND train home, which would include riding with Young Tacoma Engineer, who's funny and cute. (Yes, he has a live-in girlfriend, but he's still on the Potential Interest List.) However, after losing my phone (I had already put it in my bag, where it was supposed to be) and putting on my jeans before underwear, TWICE, not to mention losing my keys (in my pocket), I decide I don't even have enough time to make the latest train to work. And I need coffee very badly.

I get coffee. (Plain. No cheating here, no sirree!) Starbucks has this going for it, at least: they seem to hire a diverse group of people. Surly, cheerful, sullen, quiet, talkative, freaky, funny, cute, ugly, fat, thin, miserable, happy, disabled, perfectly abled, male, female, transsexual, you're never sure what your barista is going to look like. But it's unlikely that you'll be hit full in the face with a gaggle of cheerful, blindingly-clear-skinned, super-thin, hyped up young girls with perfect hair, like what happens at many early-morning independent coffee chains. (Where do they find those girls, anyway? Are they beamed directly down from the mothership? Why can they all afford adorable cars on a barista's salary? Why do they all have rich boyfriends?) But I digress...I'm at the UW Tacoma Starbucks, right. It's sunny. I'm really short on sleep. A shiny black late-model Nissan Maxima turns to park right before I do. Two ladies get out. They're wearing nametags, and they say Goody Obedience on them. Great. Jehovah's witnesses. Of course, they're here for the 3-day Tacoma Dome conference. I vow to myself that they will NOT get ahead of me in line.

I'm not fast enough. One lady gets ahead of me, one doesn't. My mama has raised me right, goddammit, and before I can stop myself, I hear myself turning around to the lady behind me and saying, "Would you two like to stand together?" My brain says: WTF, Mouth? What are you doing? Fortunately the lady behind me is very nice and says, "Oh no, we're not attached at the hip." The lady in front of me turns around and says, "In fact, we've already discovered we have so much in common that a little space is nice!" I'm thinking, "You're both members of the same weird cult, you live in the same part of the country, you're roughly the same age, and you're both married--of COURSE you have a lot in common, idiots," but I don't say anything, watching to see how much I'm going to hate the lady in front of me. She orders two coffees, both pretty complicated, including one with 8 SHOTS of Butternut Toffee syrup (but nonfat!) but so far, she seems nice. She's extremely polite to the baristas, she was nice to me but not overly so, she hasn't tried to convert me yet, OR the barista, and although she gets two pastries, too, she doesn't take up a long time at the counter, she doesn't hover directly in the middle of the counter so you can't be helped by the barista on either side, (I HATE it when people do that) she hands over her cash quickly, and tips the barista well. She jokes with me about the pastries. She's funny! She moves out of the way when she's done! I get my tall coffee. As I'm leaving, I say to the lady behind me, "I want to thank you for improving my opinion of Jehovah's Witnesses this morning." She's surprised, but she smiles, and says, "Well, thank you!" I move on into the bright sunlight.

The drive to work was very, very smooth.

This is a brag

Today is a day that shall live in infamy, for several reasons:

1) I finally remembered my lunch, as in, the lunch that I packed on Tuesday morning. And then forgot. I emailed my roommate, because I had forgotten my phone, too, and she said she'd put it in the fridge. She did. Tuesday evening: I eat some of the lunch. Wednesday morning: I added to the lunch to make up for the food I took out and set it by the door. I forget it again. I call my roommate (remembered my phone, this time!) and she puts it back in the fridge. Wednesday evening: I eat more of The Lunch. Thursday morning: I add to The Lunch to make up for the food I ate yesterday and actually bring it to work. Go me.

2) It's my six-month anniversary at B-----! Today! Today is my six-month anniversary! In a few more weeks, B----- will beat out The Melting Pot as the longest job I've ever held.

3) Although I mentioned fact number two very CASUALLY two days ago, and didn't even talk to TheBoy last night, I got this email this morning:

hey beautiful,

Congratulations on 6 glorious months at b-----.

Isn't that CUTE???

Join Me in Asking President Bush to Fire Karl Rove

This is really important. For all of you who haven't heard about the Karl Rove scandal, you can certainly google it, but the jist is that Karl Rove allegedly leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative to a reporter to pay that operative's agent back for daring to oppose the war. Karl Rove must be stopped. Ask the President to do the right thing.

On another note entirely, the luncheon went fine and I got really good free food, and they made us wait for an hour so by the time I got there I had two kinds of rice AND a roll AND a huge berry tart, all to myself. What? I've lost eight pounds? No longer...

...but on the other hand, I walked for an hour last night--AFTER kickboxing--(see last post) and am walking quite a bit tonight, AFTER hip-hop class. As long as I don't regress, I'll be fine. This losing-weight busines is some tough shit! On a side note, it's really weird to see the numbers drop on my scale--I've never tried to lose weight before, ever, in my entire life. Weird, I tell you.

Last night, I found a dog

She was wandering down South 12th, occasionally meandering into traffic, and I was concerned enough that I pulled over as soon as I could and called to her--I thought she was male for quite some time, not feeling the need to find out for certain, but eventually she peed on someone's lawn and I knew her gender. I called out to her and she came galloping up to me like I was her best friend, and I lost a little bit of my heart. I walked up and down South 12th for an hour, deliberating on what I should do, all the while thinking that I have my own German Shepherd at home (although the friendly bitch by my side looked purebred) who hadn't had a walk from me yet that day and wouldn't get one because here I was, focusing all my attention on this stray, when my own dog at home would have killed for an hour-long walk on that nice night. I knocked on a few doors and accosted a few people walking along the street, not that there were many, and I got nothing. I called my best friend, who also has a dog, and she suggested letting the dog roam--she had a collar and a bandanna and a flea collar on, and was obviously loved, but she didn't have a license or a tag of any kind, and the pound would be forced to assume she was a stray and put her up for adoption. I couldn't take her from her summer evening stroll and lock her up in a cage in the hopes that someone would take her home before they put her down. I thought taking her to the pound would be the "correct" thing to do, but that letting her roam might be the right thing. She clearly had a home to go to, and after following her around for an hour (as it got more and more past my bedtime, which is 10:00 pm, and it was getting close to eleven) and walking her past TheBoy's house--he thought I was crazy, by the way, but he was very supportive, and advised letting her roam--I turned and left her, walking fast. She eventually turned my way and followed me, but then went off to find her own path, and I drove home, saying a prayer.

And now I'm CRYING AT MY DESK when I have to go to a LUNCHEON in an hour, less than, and I have NO MAKEUP ON OR WITH ME, because I took my damn makeup bag out of my damn laptop bag this morning because it took up too much damn room, when I KNOW better. I KNOW that any time you don't bring your makeup, you'll automatically need it. I know this. Fuck me. I'm crying over the joy of finding Sweetie, which is what I named her because I kept calling her that for lack of name, and the sadness of losing her (She was such a nice dog! You should have seen her!) and the guilt and feeling of hopelessness that I couldn't do more for her and the sadness of all lost dogs and unloved animals and anger against Darwin, that survival of the fittest even exists, because clearly it's all due to him that there's not enough love and resources to go around in this world, and how amazing animals are in their unconditional love for you and how wonderful dogs are and how I feel so sad because I couldn't live up to the love and hope in Sweetie's eyes. I couldn't make her world better. I couldn't be her hero, and I wanted to be. I'm sad for her family, imagining how lucky they are to have such a wondeful dog and how much they must miss her when she's away, and even sadder over the possibility that they may not love her the way she deserves, and, yes, I'm crying over guilt that I spent more time on her than I did on my own ignored dog that beautiful summer night, and that getting a drink with Jessica seemed to be more important than walking my dog until I found Sweetie, and, oh, all sorts of other things. Including the fact that I'm clearly on the rag. :)

Ways to make myself feel better: well, I have spoons chilling (ha!) in the freezer for just this purpose, and I can put them against my eyes and splash cold water on my face and walk around purposefully outside, thus preparing for the luncheon, and I do at least have lip gloss, and after going home today I can walk Titan both before hip-hop and after getting a drink with BestFriend and HellaCool, and enjoy what promises to be a beautiful night with him. And Titan did ride around with me in the car last night for an hour as I ran errands, which he loves. And I threw the ball for him a few times in the backyard. And YESTERDAY, Monica (Roommate) and I played Frisbee in the nearby park and took Titan with us, and we threw tennis balls for him and he frolicked and generally had a wonderful time. So THERE.

Also, I really have given up fancy coffee

Well, almost. But still! It's a HUGE improvement!

And in an effort to stay with the improvement, I bought myself a Starbucks card for $30 (because I got a free half-pound of coffee with it) and am using it for as long as I can, goddammit. And I made a pact with my friend two weeks ago to only drink fancy coffee on the weekends, which so far I'm...SORT of sticking to. As in, my coffee drink every morning is very definitely plain black coffee, but sometimes in the afternoons...when the traffic is heavy, and it's warm, and I'm falling asleep at the wheel when I drive home...I get myself a Frap. And it is good. (And no, the coffee card didn't affect the overdraft any. I had to get it with my Visa card. Before you ask.)

But I tell my friend every time I cheat on her, so I get exercise from groveling! In fact, I'm SO hard core about this week-day ban that yesterday, while at Starbucks and buying my plain coffee, my friend J was working there, and he passed to me a fresh-made frap that was a mistake, and I took it home and gave it to my roommate! So THERE! I turned down FREE fancy coffee!!

Ahem. I think instead of Fraps on the drives home, I'm switching to Diet Red Bull. (God, I've become the kind of person who drinks diet! I swore I'd NEVER be that kind of person!) And not only that--for those all-in-one needs, I've even switched to Sparks LIGHT. (Click on the blue Sparks Light can.) For those of you who don't know what Sparks is, what the hell is wrong with you?

And the end result of all this--plus the portion-watching, although I have no limits when it comes to Indian Food--I have lost eight pounds, ladies and gentlemen.

Eight pounds. Less than the size of a cat. But not too shabby, all the same. It might be more like ten pounds. Or more like six pounds. But I'm going for eight; it's the average, and it's about 5% of the weight I started with. I want to lose another ten pounds, making the total weight loss just a hair over 10% of my original body weight, and I think that's healthy. Although if I ended up losing 15 pounds I wouldn't say no. :)

Your Attention, Everyone

I am wearing deodorant! Yes! Me! Deodorant!

No, you don't understand: I hardly EVER wear deodorant, because I don't smell that bad (really, I've lived with two separate very honest people) and I have a gigantic phobia of deodorant. Not that build-ups of aluminum chloride or whatever will cause me to get cancer, (right, and Gates will send me a million dollars) but that deodorant will stick to my clothes and gum up my razor and, worse, stick to my fingers if I accidentally touch my underarms, and then I can't even wash the deodorant off with soap because it's DEODORANT, and it sticks to my fingers and makes touching things weird. Yes. It Makes Touching Things Weird.

But temperatures have gotten warmer here, folks, and Dove has this fantastic deodorant ad campaign out, and I've been very active lately (moving, throwing parties, dancing, walking the dog in the sunshine--although it's cold and gray here today) and I've been sweating, and when you can smell yourself, y'all, it's not a good thing. So I bought deodorant--while ON THE WAY TO CLUBBING IN SEATTLE. AT A GAS STATION. But it was Dove! And so far, it's fulfilling all my needs. Go deodorant! I can't believe I don't use this stuff more!

Also, in the Quest For The Perfect Hair Goop, I bought hair goop from Garnier Fructis, more specifically their XXL gel, which I will try as soon as I decide to actually spend time on my hair. Which hasn't happened yet. But everyone should go to their site because it's a great time waster: they have a soundtrack AND a hair quiz!

Also I just discovered I have an overdraft of 43 dollars, which for me is tragedy--MOST of that is the damn fee! There's no space in Crazy Aunt Purl's budget for that! ARGH!

The most annoying thing is that I specifically went to two different banks yesterday just so I could transfer money from one account to the next. And I didn't transfer enough. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In other news...

Blogger Images sucks. And I've added two new blogs, extremely worthwhile, to my Blogs I Love list--check them out! Pictures are coming--really.

Independent Thought

First, a snippet thought from before the house party that I just discovered in my old, forgotten, drafts:

I came home yesterday to discover that an army of musicians had moved into my house.

No, really, it was only Monica (yes, we scheduled the house party for two days after her move-in date...so?) but I was so overwhelmed I walked in circles around our house like a sick animal. In my head, I'm thinking, Call your Mom. Call Rachel. Call a priest. Call your roommate. Call off the party!

Y'all know now that I didn't do ANY of those things, and that Monica and I moved our household of furniture in, basically, a 48 hour period. ROAR!

And more scattered thoughts:

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be single, soon, or at least less committed. I like TheBoy a lot--but I'm itching to be single. Yes, there's boys on the list I want to date...but that's not the reason. It's just so summery and warm and nice out, and TheBoy is leaving for the Peace Corps in January, and after months of heartache and emotional wrangling, I've pretty much written off the relationship, so now it's just a waiting game--and if you know it's going to end, why wait? I know he's not the right person for me, and in six months he'll be leaving for two and a half years. I'd like to stay with him in some capacity, though...so I'd like to just step the commitment back. But if he doesn't want that (likely) then I'll say goodbye.

I have internet at my house! WOOOOOO!

I need a chair for my computer, or at least a stool. Or maybe a kneepad. I spend a lot of time on my knees, typing, in lieu of sitting. Feel free to make jokes about this.

Monica and I continue to make our house adorable. Pictures are coming. IKEA rules my school.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY, EVERYBODY!