My February has been, in a word, shit.
A series of things happened that took me all over the place emotionally, and the fact that so many of them happened all at once was just breathtaking.
What grounded me? We all have our health still. Nobody died. I have a couple of people who just, well, get me.
My number-one salvation, though, was music. When a day had completely sucker-punched me, or, as was the case, several days in a row, and I would sit back and think, what the HELL was that?, it was music that brought things into perspective.
And thanks to a couple of like-minded friends, I discovered a lot of new music. Music for sadness. Music for inspiration. Music for kicking mental ass.
It made me think, why can't life be a more or less nonstop music montage? I say "more or less" because I know that the danger of having something around all the time can make you tune it out. Familiarity breeds contempt, you know?
In the movies, when a music montage is played, what happens? A LOT of shit gets done. The first time I really understood this, I was nine and watching Revenge of the Nerds. I think the song went something like, "You put one foot in front of the other foot, and the other foot down, down, down." By the time that was over, guess what happened? THE WHOLE DAMN HOUSE WAS RENOVATED. And it was a seriously dilapidated house, folks. It should probably have been condemned. But they had completely restored it, on a college student budget, within one song!
How can you not love that concept?
There were many music montages in my life from that point forth. Rocky in training. Assorted people undergoing some sort of life-altering transformation. All good stuff.
That is the backbone of my long-term practice to keep music playing in my life as often as possible. I have it loaded on my computer. On my phone. XM Radio fills the void in my car. Or my backup CD collection. I even have some cassettes stashed around here somewhere. No more records, sadly.
I miss records.
Music playing reminds me that, no matter what, there is beauty in the world. I see it in nature, and I appreciate it. But with that current of music added, it's like Life 2.0. It takes me a little further. It makes me a little better.
Even if it doesn't, it feels like it does, and really, don't we make our own reality?
The songs that have made me happy this month include:
1. All My Days, Alexi Murdoch
2. The Loneliness and the Scream, Frightened Rabbit
3. F@$$ Was I, Jenny Owen Youngs
4. Stubborn Love, The Lumineers (whole album is pretty good)
5. San Francisco, The Mowgli's
6. L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N, Noah and the Whale
7. Past Lives, Langhorne Slim and the Law
8. Cut it Out, Kitten
9. Don't Say Oh Well, Grouplove
10. I Can't Cry No More, Heartpunch
Really great. That doesn't even count the dozens of others I listen to on a daily basis, but they're some recent favorites.
Find your own montage. Make your own happiness.
You may not get that house renovated in two minutes, but you'll feel like you can take on the world.
Or at least like the world won't eat you.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Freedom of Choice
Remember those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books that got really popular in the Eighties? For the kids reading them, life could be easily fixed just by flipping back a few pages. Oh, I got eaten by the tiger and the story is finished? I don’t think so, buddy. Do-over! And parents would shake their heads and chuckle bemusedly, because real life wasn’t quite that simple, but kids will be kids and there would be plenty of time for them to learn what real life was like later.
Fast-forward to present day, and things still aren’t quite that simple, but we’re working on it. In the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure days, the news was pretty straightforward. You turned on the television, maybe the radio, and you were told something, along with the rest of the nation, and that was what everyone was told. There were different networks, but the news was essentially the same news.
The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure kids are all grown up now, though, and guess what happened? We’re living in a society in which you get to decide what you want your news to be. As networks like CNN and Fox branched off and started to market their own versions of what was going on in the world, people learned that, hey! I like it when the guy talks to me on this station. Or, hey! I don’t like that guy. I don’t like the way he’s saying what he’s saying. This other guy is saying something different, so I’ll go to him.
In short, news isn’t really news. It’s a packaged program designed to draw in like-minded viewers, and it’s very scientific. The more people, the more advertising dollars. The more advertising dollars, the more money. The more money, the more power. The more power, the better the PLAN TO ACHIEVE WORLD DOMINANCE!
And the beauty of it all? The best part? You don’t have to listen if you don’t want to listen. We are truly living in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure world.
My news intake is very selective. In the old days, news depressed me, so I would change the channel when it came on. In present day, I feel the same way. But sometimes I use the news in the way a junkie uses a needle – for instant gratification. I want to believe that there are more people like me than there are people unlike me.
I can browse Reddit and feel good about the world and my place in it, and why wouldn’t I want to do that? It’s human nature. Even social media knows what’s up, and has adjusted accordingly. Facebook, for example, has a great feature when somebody’s views are particularly annoying…you can take them out of your news feed. It’s for those people like me who like to avoid conflict, but can’t quite bring themselves to unfriend a person with opposing views.
I use it a lot. And by doing that, I am deciding what news I get in my daily life.
Does it make reality different? Maybe not, but it makes MY reality different.
And I’m not the only one. All over the world, people are choosing what they want to believe, which means choosing what they want to view, and that, in turn, is changing the way the media reports.
Sensationalism sells, as always. People are always looking for the next big story to share on their Facebook wall. But aside from that, birds of a feather flock together. News has very little to do with news nowadays, and everything to do with marketing. Target audiences. Shares. Profit. Cold, hard cash.
Welcome to the new world, folks. Choose your own news adventure. As for myself, I’ll be gleaning my information from Reddit. From my people-like-me news feeds. From the people I like. And pretty much nobody else. You can’t trust them, after all. They’re liars.
Fast-forward to present day, and things still aren’t quite that simple, but we’re working on it. In the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure days, the news was pretty straightforward. You turned on the television, maybe the radio, and you were told something, along with the rest of the nation, and that was what everyone was told. There were different networks, but the news was essentially the same news.
The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure kids are all grown up now, though, and guess what happened? We’re living in a society in which you get to decide what you want your news to be. As networks like CNN and Fox branched off and started to market their own versions of what was going on in the world, people learned that, hey! I like it when the guy talks to me on this station. Or, hey! I don’t like that guy. I don’t like the way he’s saying what he’s saying. This other guy is saying something different, so I’ll go to him.
In short, news isn’t really news. It’s a packaged program designed to draw in like-minded viewers, and it’s very scientific. The more people, the more advertising dollars. The more advertising dollars, the more money. The more money, the more power. The more power, the better the PLAN TO ACHIEVE WORLD DOMINANCE!
And the beauty of it all? The best part? You don’t have to listen if you don’t want to listen. We are truly living in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure world.
My news intake is very selective. In the old days, news depressed me, so I would change the channel when it came on. In present day, I feel the same way. But sometimes I use the news in the way a junkie uses a needle – for instant gratification. I want to believe that there are more people like me than there are people unlike me.
I can browse Reddit and feel good about the world and my place in it, and why wouldn’t I want to do that? It’s human nature. Even social media knows what’s up, and has adjusted accordingly. Facebook, for example, has a great feature when somebody’s views are particularly annoying…you can take them out of your news feed. It’s for those people like me who like to avoid conflict, but can’t quite bring themselves to unfriend a person with opposing views.
I use it a lot. And by doing that, I am deciding what news I get in my daily life.
Does it make reality different? Maybe not, but it makes MY reality different.
And I’m not the only one. All over the world, people are choosing what they want to believe, which means choosing what they want to view, and that, in turn, is changing the way the media reports.
Sensationalism sells, as always. People are always looking for the next big story to share on their Facebook wall. But aside from that, birds of a feather flock together. News has very little to do with news nowadays, and everything to do with marketing. Target audiences. Shares. Profit. Cold, hard cash.
Welcome to the new world, folks. Choose your own news adventure. As for myself, I’ll be gleaning my information from Reddit. From my people-like-me news feeds. From the people I like. And pretty much nobody else. You can’t trust them, after all. They’re liars.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Jury Time!
Have you ever read John Grisham? Specifically in the 90's, when he was big and there was a general lull in amazing writing and it was easy to get drawn in, because what else was there in life, really, particularly when you lived in the middle of nowhere?
I think it was that leftover, somewhat fuzzy nostalgia that filled me with excitement when I got called up to the Big Show on Sunday.
The Big Show, in this case, meant advancing beyond the calling-in portion of my four-week District Court jury rotation and making it to tryouts.
I have this fondness for new experiences sometimes, and even though this was a huge pain in the ass in general (how often is getting called 100 miles away to a courtroom for an indefinite period of time when you have two jobs and children anything BUT a pain in the ass? That's a rhetorical question), I have this intense curiosity about the trial process. Add to that a current enrollment in a seminar class focusing on Freedom of Speech cases, and it was excitement, more than dread, that filled me when I arrived at the courthouse in Springfield.
After they wrestled my phone and Kindle away from me, I dejectedly wandered in the wrong direction until a marshal? uniform guy? pointed me in the right one.
I found myself in a roomful of people, doughnuts, and general air of mediocrity. They had coffee, though, and it was free, and that's all that mattered. I gulped it while we were instructed, first by a live person, then by a video featuring Sandra Day O'Connor and Samuel Alito, about the jury selection process and how seriously we should take it. Being a huge American history nerd, I got goosebump-y on the outside and patriotic-y on the inside, and generally melted into a big puddle of determination that I would do my country right, by God.
The next step was going up another flight of stairs and filing in the courtroom one by one as our names were called. I was Juror 14, the last one to get a big comfy chair in the jury box. The next 14 jurors had to sit on hard pews.
My inner jury selector failed during the next step, when, one at a time, we rose and answered the questions printed on the back of our numbered jury cards (name, where we lived, how long we had lived there, highest level of education, current employment, how long we had worked there, what our job duties were, marital status, spouse's occupation if there was one, number of children, and their ages). There was one woman who very clearly wasn't going to make the cut. She started in the next round, when the questions were general ones to which we held up our numbers if they applied.
The question was, "Have you served on a jury before?"
She held up her card. The judge asked her what kind of trial. She didn't remember. He asked what it was about. She didn't remember, only that it was "really bad." He asked how they, the jury, had decided. She answered that she didn't know.
"I wasn't on the jury."
The next question was if any of us had some general objection, maybe on the basis of religion or personal preference, that would keep us from serving on the jury effectively. She raised her card. He asked for details.
She raised her eyebrows. "I'll tell ya later."
Recess, in which we went back to the doughnuts and (now empty) coffee pot. We had 40 minutes to kill while the lawyers decided our fate. I hadn't said anything particularly enlightening or intelligent, and this jury would only have eight members, not 12, so I had a pretty solid feeling I would be going home soon.
The feeling became more solid when we filed back in and the jurors began to be called. Juror number two was also named Jennifer. There was no way they would have two Jennifers on the jury! Especially not a jury of eight! Then, three out of the first four jurors were women. They wouldn't want a jury full of women!
I was Juror Six. There would be two Jennifers on a jury, after all, perhaps for the first time in history.
Several of the people who had caught my eye in the general pool were on the jury, too, so I consoled myself about missing the signs that I would be chosen by telling myself that the other chosen ones had clearly caught my eye for a reason.
We were given a break for lunch, and the trial started at one. Fast, you say? Definitely. Boring? You bet.
I fell asleep in opening arguments, but woke violently due to the force my head fell forward, snapping me awake. After that, it was easier to stay awake.
The topic was more boring than anything I could have made up in my mind, and it didn't improve. The second witness sounded just like Zach Galifinakis when he did the southern-drawl characters in his repertoire, and that fascination kept my attention sharply-focused through the rest of the afternoon.
The snacks in the jury room were pretty good, and there was more coffee.
Day One was all right.
Day Two brought with it the threat of inclement weather and the promise of a really draggy trial, as the second witness testified for over two more hours.
Mercifully, we braked for lunch again, and I was filled with a bad feeling when the judge, a really likable guy, told us to take a break and "try to come back by one." That meant, in my mind, that we wouldn't be back in the jury room until at least 1:30.
I was a little off. We continued to wait, and I joked that probably they would settle if we just told them to. "Call Steve [court deputy] in here, and tell him we decided they should settle without ever discussing the case amongst ourselves!" I said.
Funny story. That's exactly what they were doing. Steve did come in, along with the judge and his clerky guy, about 15 minutes later, to tell us that very thing. We were not allowed to take our notes with us (a shame, as my predominant note had said "bullshit reasoning" with about six arrows pointing to it).
I took a granola bar for the road, bid my two-day family adieu, and left with my stamped certificate verifying that, for a short time, I had fulfilled my civic duty.
And I don't have to call in for my fourth and final week of rotation. Is it weird that part of me was sad about it?
I think it was that leftover, somewhat fuzzy nostalgia that filled me with excitement when I got called up to the Big Show on Sunday.
The Big Show, in this case, meant advancing beyond the calling-in portion of my four-week District Court jury rotation and making it to tryouts.
I have this fondness for new experiences sometimes, and even though this was a huge pain in the ass in general (how often is getting called 100 miles away to a courtroom for an indefinite period of time when you have two jobs and children anything BUT a pain in the ass? That's a rhetorical question), I have this intense curiosity about the trial process. Add to that a current enrollment in a seminar class focusing on Freedom of Speech cases, and it was excitement, more than dread, that filled me when I arrived at the courthouse in Springfield.
After they wrestled my phone and Kindle away from me, I dejectedly wandered in the wrong direction until a marshal? uniform guy? pointed me in the right one.
I found myself in a roomful of people, doughnuts, and general air of mediocrity. They had coffee, though, and it was free, and that's all that mattered. I gulped it while we were instructed, first by a live person, then by a video featuring Sandra Day O'Connor and Samuel Alito, about the jury selection process and how seriously we should take it. Being a huge American history nerd, I got goosebump-y on the outside and patriotic-y on the inside, and generally melted into a big puddle of determination that I would do my country right, by God.
The next step was going up another flight of stairs and filing in the courtroom one by one as our names were called. I was Juror 14, the last one to get a big comfy chair in the jury box. The next 14 jurors had to sit on hard pews.
My inner jury selector failed during the next step, when, one at a time, we rose and answered the questions printed on the back of our numbered jury cards (name, where we lived, how long we had lived there, highest level of education, current employment, how long we had worked there, what our job duties were, marital status, spouse's occupation if there was one, number of children, and their ages). There was one woman who very clearly wasn't going to make the cut. She started in the next round, when the questions were general ones to which we held up our numbers if they applied.
The question was, "Have you served on a jury before?"
She held up her card. The judge asked her what kind of trial. She didn't remember. He asked what it was about. She didn't remember, only that it was "really bad." He asked how they, the jury, had decided. She answered that she didn't know.
"I wasn't on the jury."
The next question was if any of us had some general objection, maybe on the basis of religion or personal preference, that would keep us from serving on the jury effectively. She raised her card. He asked for details.
She raised her eyebrows. "I'll tell ya later."
Recess, in which we went back to the doughnuts and (now empty) coffee pot. We had 40 minutes to kill while the lawyers decided our fate. I hadn't said anything particularly enlightening or intelligent, and this jury would only have eight members, not 12, so I had a pretty solid feeling I would be going home soon.
The feeling became more solid when we filed back in and the jurors began to be called. Juror number two was also named Jennifer. There was no way they would have two Jennifers on the jury! Especially not a jury of eight! Then, three out of the first four jurors were women. They wouldn't want a jury full of women!
I was Juror Six. There would be two Jennifers on a jury, after all, perhaps for the first time in history.
Several of the people who had caught my eye in the general pool were on the jury, too, so I consoled myself about missing the signs that I would be chosen by telling myself that the other chosen ones had clearly caught my eye for a reason.
We were given a break for lunch, and the trial started at one. Fast, you say? Definitely. Boring? You bet.
I fell asleep in opening arguments, but woke violently due to the force my head fell forward, snapping me awake. After that, it was easier to stay awake.
The topic was more boring than anything I could have made up in my mind, and it didn't improve. The second witness sounded just like Zach Galifinakis when he did the southern-drawl characters in his repertoire, and that fascination kept my attention sharply-focused through the rest of the afternoon.
The snacks in the jury room were pretty good, and there was more coffee.
Day One was all right.
Day Two brought with it the threat of inclement weather and the promise of a really draggy trial, as the second witness testified for over two more hours.
Mercifully, we braked for lunch again, and I was filled with a bad feeling when the judge, a really likable guy, told us to take a break and "try to come back by one." That meant, in my mind, that we wouldn't be back in the jury room until at least 1:30.
I was a little off. We continued to wait, and I joked that probably they would settle if we just told them to. "Call Steve [court deputy] in here, and tell him we decided they should settle without ever discussing the case amongst ourselves!" I said.
Funny story. That's exactly what they were doing. Steve did come in, along with the judge and his clerky guy, about 15 minutes later, to tell us that very thing. We were not allowed to take our notes with us (a shame, as my predominant note had said "bullshit reasoning" with about six arrows pointing to it).
I took a granola bar for the road, bid my two-day family adieu, and left with my stamped certificate verifying that, for a short time, I had fulfilled my civic duty.
And I don't have to call in for my fourth and final week of rotation. Is it weird that part of me was sad about it?
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Techno, Yo.
Technology is nowhere near Jetsons-level in 2013 (I really wanted that kitchen in which I could punch the button of the menu I wanted and it would be instantly delivered), but it’s still pretty amazing.
Everyone is connected, all the time. Phones are permanently affixed to hands. Everything seems to require a swipe or a click for easy access. Liars and plagiarists can be exposed instantly with a quick trip to Googleland.
I’m as guilty as anyone. I panic if I fall out of Wi-Fi access and am in an area that even my 4G can’t keep up with. We bought a picturesque 26-acre farm piece of property with a pond, but our internet access is horrible, so instead of admiring the sweeping view that looks hand painted by Bob Ross and God combined, I gripe that there is no signal while ignoring the beauty.
There has been so much new technology in the last five years that I couldn’t even begin to tell you all of it. Even looking it up would take more time than I have (because who has time anymore, really?). What I do know is that my life is much more tech-savvy today than it was in 2008, and there is one advance in the last five years that changed my life significantly.
In 2008, my husband and I made our debut as a couple. He is a union boilermaker, and his job keeps him on the road four to five months each year. His busy seasons are in the spring and in the fall. Guess when we started dating?
With him working 12 to 16 hour shifts, in very loud conditions, there weren’t a lot of potentially tender moments for us as a new couple. I knew that I really liked him, but why would I want to date someone I could never see or talk to? I didn’t hate myself THAT much. Plus, I hated talking on the phone. After more than five minutes, my ear would get sweaty and I would start doing other things, rendering my conversation little more than occasional grunts to prove I was still participating.
Then, the technological advance that saved my new relationship: texting. We each bought a 200-per-month text package, knowing that there was no way we could use up that many texts, and within five days, when we had surpassed that number, we upgraded to unlimited.
Suddenly, we could “talk” all we wanted. When he was at work, waiting for the machines to get his area ready for welding, he now had something to do to fill the hours. We could text, and boy, did we text. I got to know him better through text than I could have in countless dinner-and-movie dates.
The more we texted, the more I liked him. Every time we had even the most random thought, we could communicate it in spite of the miles and job. When he did get back home, it seemed like we had known each other forever – in a good way. There were no obstacles.
When I got a new outfit, he wanted to see it. BAM – I sent it to him via picture text. This text-nology was fantastic! I was aware of the internet, and I was aware of this new thing called the iPhone (my sister had one), but I didn’t need any of that. I had everything I needed in my world with this unlimited texting. I thought everyone should have it. I told people how my life had changed since I started texting. I started sneaking my phone with me to work.
I wouldn’t recommend doing that.
Now, in an ironic twist, the very thing that helped catapult my relationship from dating to marriage is probably the same thing that will cause my divorce. Every time my husband is home between jobs, he’s telling me to “put that damn phone down.”
So it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. But even now, five years after I purchased my first text package, it is my preferred way to communicate. I still hate talking on the phone. But give me the ability to type and a device to send my words with, and I’ll be your most available friend.
As long as we don’t have to see each other, that is. I simply don’t have the time.
Everyone is connected, all the time. Phones are permanently affixed to hands. Everything seems to require a swipe or a click for easy access. Liars and plagiarists can be exposed instantly with a quick trip to Googleland.
I’m as guilty as anyone. I panic if I fall out of Wi-Fi access and am in an area that even my 4G can’t keep up with. We bought a picturesque 26-acre farm piece of property with a pond, but our internet access is horrible, so instead of admiring the sweeping view that looks hand painted by Bob Ross and God combined, I gripe that there is no signal while ignoring the beauty.
There has been so much new technology in the last five years that I couldn’t even begin to tell you all of it. Even looking it up would take more time than I have (because who has time anymore, really?). What I do know is that my life is much more tech-savvy today than it was in 2008, and there is one advance in the last five years that changed my life significantly.
In 2008, my husband and I made our debut as a couple. He is a union boilermaker, and his job keeps him on the road four to five months each year. His busy seasons are in the spring and in the fall. Guess when we started dating?
With him working 12 to 16 hour shifts, in very loud conditions, there weren’t a lot of potentially tender moments for us as a new couple. I knew that I really liked him, but why would I want to date someone I could never see or talk to? I didn’t hate myself THAT much. Plus, I hated talking on the phone. After more than five minutes, my ear would get sweaty and I would start doing other things, rendering my conversation little more than occasional grunts to prove I was still participating.
Then, the technological advance that saved my new relationship: texting. We each bought a 200-per-month text package, knowing that there was no way we could use up that many texts, and within five days, when we had surpassed that number, we upgraded to unlimited.
Suddenly, we could “talk” all we wanted. When he was at work, waiting for the machines to get his area ready for welding, he now had something to do to fill the hours. We could text, and boy, did we text. I got to know him better through text than I could have in countless dinner-and-movie dates.
The more we texted, the more I liked him. Every time we had even the most random thought, we could communicate it in spite of the miles and job. When he did get back home, it seemed like we had known each other forever – in a good way. There were no obstacles.
When I got a new outfit, he wanted to see it. BAM – I sent it to him via picture text. This text-nology was fantastic! I was aware of the internet, and I was aware of this new thing called the iPhone (my sister had one), but I didn’t need any of that. I had everything I needed in my world with this unlimited texting. I thought everyone should have it. I told people how my life had changed since I started texting. I started sneaking my phone with me to work.
I wouldn’t recommend doing that.
Now, in an ironic twist, the very thing that helped catapult my relationship from dating to marriage is probably the same thing that will cause my divorce. Every time my husband is home between jobs, he’s telling me to “put that damn phone down.”
So it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. But even now, five years after I purchased my first text package, it is my preferred way to communicate. I still hate talking on the phone. But give me the ability to type and a device to send my words with, and I’ll be your most available friend.
As long as we don’t have to see each other, that is. I simply don’t have the time.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Where's the Romance?
You ever been in a relationship in which there were big, romantic gestures?
I really haven't.
I don't think about it much, but I'm watching How I Met Your Mother, and it's about the Dobler/Dahmer Effect, and that there's a fine line between being romantic and being creepy. It made me think that, as a married chick, there aren't a lot of romantic gestures in my relationship.
I mean the kind like this:
Remember it, ladies? I worshiped at the altar of Lloyd Dobler.
Is it any wonder that, being raised with those kind of fairy tales, women are let down so often in real relationships? How could actual men actually measure up to that kind of standard?
I still wish my husband was into that stuff. Once, before we were really dating, he sent me a giant balloon and roses at work, and I thought, oh yeah, that's right. He's into me.
I was actually wrong. Not about the part in which he was into me, but the part in which I thought that this kind of thing would start happening more often.
About a year later, we were sitting on the couch watching something scintillating like SportsCenter, and he was fiddling with some wire. When he was done with it, he handed it to me, telling me that he had made me a ring for when we got married.
I still have that ring. That's how much of a sap I am.
Fast-forward another year, and we were at Padre Island, sneaking along the shoreline after hours. Right before we got spotlighted and ordered back, he proposed to me.
Ok, never mind. I'm starting to realize that he actually is capable of romantic gestures. I might not have it so bad after all.
Then there was the first time he had to leave after we got married, and left me love notes all over the house in the places I would be sure to find them, such as the dog food canister and the bathroom drawers.
He hasn't done it since, but there are lots of other things.
He watches Parenthood with me because he knows that the cancer story line is hard for me to watch, but that there's no way I'm not going to watch it.
He sends me texts telling me how much he loves me and how lucky he is to have me in his life, and I keep them and read them until he drives me crazy, usually the next day or two, and then I delete them and curse him, but the point is that he sent them.
So, no, he's not this.
But he is this.
And that's totally ok.
I am Defined by my Weight.
I mean, I must be, because I live and die by that scale every day. I consider myself passable or horribly unattractive based on that number. I think about it more than almost anything, including my own kid. I wish that it wasn't true, but it is.
Then, for the last holiday season, my old boss, Tami, got me this great Christmas present. It's a scale that doesn't show your weight! You get on it once, and it records your weight internally. After that, every time you get on the scale, it shows you only the number of what you've gained or lost. It's pretty cool, really. Check it out:
The day I got it, I went home, ate a substantial lunch, left my shoes and heavy watch and coat on, and weighed. I wanted it to record me at the heaviest I could possibly be that day, because I wanted to feel skinnier thereafter. Pretty messed up, huh? And to that end, it's worked. There was only one occasion since that it put me in the plus column, and wow, was that a bad day.
If I would just leave my other scale alone, we might be fine. But no, I'm such a slave to the scale that I have another one in my bathroom. The old-school kind, that shows you what you actually weigh. And when I don't think one is right, I refer to the other. Then I choose the one that was kinder to me that day. My husband always tells me he's throwing the scales away. He tells me that I will probably always weigh in the same 10-12 pound range and that I will always want to lose five pounds. He's right, of course. I don't dispute his logic. It doesn't mean I'm going to change.
I also religiously record what I eat to hold myself accountable. And as rigid as I am, as unyielding with weighing every single day and recording what I eat all the time, I still have a weight that is maintaining at five to seven pounds more than what I weighed two years ago. For some reason, I think that what I weighed two years ago should be what I weigh for the rest of my life. That was the weight I was at for a really long time. I can't think that aging and possibly slowing metabolism and not exercising as much as I should could possibly be causes of this weight gain. It's important to have goals, you know? And mine is to weigh that magic number. Yet week after week, I fail.
I could blame my thirteen or so boards on Pinterest that are devoted to food. I could blame the subreddits I subscribe to on Reddit (foodporn, baking, food) or the fact that I follow FoodPorn religiously on Twitter. I could blame the box in my closet full of Reese's peanut butter cups from Christmas.
But really what it comes down to is that I'm a creature of habit. I've been weight-obsessed since I was 13. I don't see it changing anytime soon.
Seriously, though, you should really check out Pinterest if you love food. It's a moderate addiction of mine. Occasionally, I'll even make some of the stuff, but for the most part I just stare at it while my husband is in the background telling me that he's going to throw that damn phone away and what am I always doing on it, anyway? *sigh* I just love food. And my scale.
Then, for the last holiday season, my old boss, Tami, got me this great Christmas present. It's a scale that doesn't show your weight! You get on it once, and it records your weight internally. After that, every time you get on the scale, it shows you only the number of what you've gained or lost. It's pretty cool, really. Check it out:
If I would just leave my other scale alone, we might be fine. But no, I'm such a slave to the scale that I have another one in my bathroom. The old-school kind, that shows you what you actually weigh. And when I don't think one is right, I refer to the other. Then I choose the one that was kinder to me that day. My husband always tells me he's throwing the scales away. He tells me that I will probably always weigh in the same 10-12 pound range and that I will always want to lose five pounds. He's right, of course. I don't dispute his logic. It doesn't mean I'm going to change.
I also religiously record what I eat to hold myself accountable. And as rigid as I am, as unyielding with weighing every single day and recording what I eat all the time, I still have a weight that is maintaining at five to seven pounds more than what I weighed two years ago. For some reason, I think that what I weighed two years ago should be what I weigh for the rest of my life. That was the weight I was at for a really long time. I can't think that aging and possibly slowing metabolism and not exercising as much as I should could possibly be causes of this weight gain. It's important to have goals, you know? And mine is to weigh that magic number. Yet week after week, I fail.
I could blame my thirteen or so boards on Pinterest that are devoted to food. I could blame the subreddits I subscribe to on Reddit (foodporn, baking, food) or the fact that I follow FoodPorn religiously on Twitter. I could blame the box in my closet full of Reese's peanut butter cups from Christmas.
Seriously, though, you should really check out Pinterest if you love food. It's a moderate addiction of mine. Occasionally, I'll even make some of the stuff, but for the most part I just stare at it while my husband is in the background telling me that he's going to throw that damn phone away and what am I always doing on it, anyway? *sigh* I just love food. And my scale.
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