progress is progress

I weighed myself this morning for the first time since I got serious about writing The Prospectus. 230. So down 2.5 pounds from the last weigh-in in January. Not a lot, but also not a gain, which is good considering the strange stress that has been this semester.

The snow is finally gone now, and I went out for a walk on Monday with no fear of slipping and sliding along. The Husband and I are actually working together on making some changes in our eating habits. I’m surprised (although I shouldn't be) at how much difference it makes to feel like you're working with someone on a project like this instead of dealing with all the baggage alone.

on A Fat Rant

All the diet blogs are talking about A Fat Rant. On the one hand, I think it’s fabulous: of course we should love ourselves. Of course we shouldn’t put off living our lives because we weigh more. It’s been years since I bought anything — shoes, accessories, anything — from a store that doesn’t carry clothes that will fit me. I look at Joy Nash, who weighs very close to what I weigh and wears a size that I wore until just a few months ago, and I think she looks good. I wonder if I look that good and just don’t know it? Maybe. I know several people who would say so.

But when does acceptance cross over into complacency? Is it helpful to remind everyone that 98% of all diets fail? (Where does that statistic come from, anyway? And how does it account for folks like YP and Shauny?) We should be kind to ourselves and understand that we are beautiful, but at the same time not use these things as an excuse not to exercise, or to eat unhealthily because we think trying won’t make any difference. As I’ve been reading the stories of people who have maintained significant losses, it seems that trying again and again is part of what makes it work, much like with smoking cessation. If you keep trying, your chances of succeeding increase.

note to self:

The corner of 7th and Arcade: tacos al pastor, tacos asada, tacos lingua.

the pleasures of being a n00b

I’ve only lately discovered coffee after several years of tea snobbiness. (Coinneseurship, snobbiness, whatever.) My parents sent over some Costa Rican coffee in November, and I figured I’d try a cup just to see what was what. Then I started having a cup or two each Saturday, and that’s pretty much where it’s stood. Sometimes one in the middle of the week, but generally not. I’ve been drinking them pretty much the way The Husband takes his: iced, with steamed milk and sweetener.

I finally got to the end of the Costa Rican, which was good because it was getting stale stale stale. (Ground coffee, four months old? Quel horror!) I decided I wanted to buy different coffees in small amounts so I can try more kinds more quickly. My best friend recently went to Africa, and fell in love with Ethiopian coffee. She's asked me to keep an eye out for it in my city, since she can’t get it in my hometown. I’d been looking for the past month or so, but only found Kenyan, and that’s what I shipped to her last week.

So Mister Husband and I were out and about last night, and we stopped by White Rock Coffee. They had not one but two kinds of Ethiopian coffees: organic, free-trade yirgacheffe and regular harrar. I bought a quarter-pound of yirgacheffe beans and looked them up on the Internet after we got home. Apparently, my instincts are unerringly hoity-toity: yirgacheffe is hand-picked, wet-fermented, and then meticulously dried and roasted. I ground some this morning and brewed it up in a French press. I am surprised at how different it is from the Costa Rican I’ve been drinking. Thinner, and delicate. It doesn’t need milk or much sweetening; I added a scant spoon of raw sugar and left it at that. Amazing.

I suspect I am launched on a coffee odyssey.

things I still don't understand, and can't forget

I was an only child. An only grandchild on one side of the family, and the first-born, only girl grandchild on the other side. And I nearly died from illness when I was two. I was, accordingly, spoiled. Good girl, nice kid, but spoiled.

***

I am 10. My parents have just announced their pending adoption of three second cousins I never knew I had. My mother and I are driving home from my piano lesson. “There’s this emptiness,” she said. “Part of our family isn’t here. I feel so incomplete.”
“But what about me? You’ve got me.”
“No. They’re not here, and they’re part of us now.”

***

A year later, it was clear that the new arrangement wasn’t working out. There were lots of reasons, and it was everyone’s fault. Mom wanted to interrupt the adoption, but Dad insisted that we not because it was clearly not God’s will. About once a year thereafter, the topic of interruption would come up and be squelched on religious grounds.

***

I am twelve or so, and all six of us are sitting around the breakfast table. “Your father and I were talking about killing ourselves“ she says. “It would just be so much easier. But we won’t, because it wouldn’t work.”
“It’s not God’s will,” Dad says. “And if it’s not God’s will, he won’t let you die. You could blow your own face off and still be alive because it’s not your time.”
The four of us kids sit there speechless, staring into our bacon.

***

Another couple of years pass. Mom and I are driving somewhere on a weekend. We are rarely in the car alone together, so I’m enjoying the one-on-one time. She looks over at me and asks “What would happen if I drove into that concrete piling over there?”

***

I haven’t thought about all this in years, but lately it’s been running through my head. And in the past few days it occurred to me that as all this was happening, I was becoming more and more depressed myself. My mother couldn’t image why and refused to let me find counseling, because if the family insurance paid for it then my grandmother would see it on the company insurance reports and think my mother was a bad mother.

I’m a little bitter about this lately.