On Beauty and Worth

This is a post I've thought about for many months. Actually, for well over a year, really. I think it may even be one of the reasons why it's taken me so long to write something on this blog. I've been mulling it over in my head, trying to figure out exactly what I feel about this, and how I can best articulate those feelings.

Let me start with an experience I had a bit over a year ago.

Women in our area of Utah County were asked last year to provide a choir for the General Relief Society Broadcast in September. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. For one thing, I got to sing with my sister (of whom I could write the most superlative things, and they would all be true), who also lives in this area. For another, the director of the choir was a woman who was possibly one of the most engaging personalities I've come in contact with. She managed to make every member of the choir feel as though best-friendship were an absolute possibility, if only there were enough time to spend with everyone individually. She was funny and wry and really, really loved us. Or, at least, loved us inasmuch as it was possible to love a room full of people that you didn't really know, but sort of knew because you were all Mormons involved in a really cool musical experience together.

Yep. It was awesome.

There was one event that troubled me though, just a bit. And it wasn't so much that I was troubled about the motivations of our director, more just what it told me about what we believe as a society in general.

Towards the end of our rehearsals, we were, naturally, doing pretty well, but still nervous that we would get up to the Conference Center and forget our notes, come in at the wrong time, or scratch our noses just right when the camera zoomed in on our faces. So, our director gave us a pep talk. It was, like her, funny and spiritually uplifting, and heartfelt and touching.

And she, like many people who are trying to help women to feel better, said to us something like, "You are all beautiful. You are all beautiful daughters of your Heavenly Father." (And you'll forgive me if my memory sort of...doesn't remember the exact wording. But that was the gist of it.)

Many women around me cried, and smiled through their tears, and I...felt troubled.

I so appreciated her effort to make us feel good about ourselves. I could feel that she did love us, and I felt that she was, really, connected to divine love, hooked into it and transmitting real charity. (Which is the only way you can, in my opinion, feel a deep and genuine love for a bunch of people to whom you have never actually spoken one-on-one.) I believe she expressed that love in a way that she felt would make us feel good. And I think it did work for most people.

But here is what troubled me: why should we need to feel beautiful in order to feel loved? Why does being acknowledged as attractive (and, really, isn't that what 'beauty' means?) make us feel valuable and valued?

I'm reminded of the many times (and I actually haven't heard it a lot in my current ward, which is kind of awesome, I think) when I've heard men get up during fast & testimony meeting and, during the course of their testimony, express their gratitude for their beautiful wives.

It's great, and we all feel good, and I'm sure the wives are aglow with the warmth of their husbands' regard, but...

But wouldn't it seem kind of strange if a woman got up to bear her testimony and said, during the course of it, "I'm so grateful for my handsome husband," or if women were instructed in the General Relief Society broadcast to be sure to tell their husbands that they are handsome? Because every man needs to be told that?

Not that I'm actually trying to argue from a feminism angle (although that wouldn't be a bad thing, just not the angle I'm choosing at the moment). It's more that I feel uncomfortable with this idea that feeling beautiful equates with feeling worthwhile.

There have been times when I've expressed to friends or family members that I don't really feel particularly beautiful. And, truth be told, I'm really not. I'm overweight, I have an oddly upturned nose (with pores the size of potholes), and my lips are kinda pale and weird (and let's not even talk about my ankles). These friends and family members have reassured me that no, I really am beautiful, and it's not external beauty that is important, it's inner beauty, right? And I do appreciate what they say, and the love with which it is offered.

And I believe what they say for a half hour, or maybe less. But, then, the belief fades, and I recognize the reality that I'm really not beautiful. Not that way.

Because guys, not everyone is beautiful. And I feel like that should be okay. A woman who has scars from years of horrible acne may not be considered all that beautiful. A man who's been burned, or is missing an arm, or teeth, may not be considered attractive.

(And I feel tremendously guilty having written the above examples, as though I'm denigrating the worth of these individuals, when in reality, I'm trying to free them from feeling as though they need to be beautiful in order to be loved. Or maybe, I'm trying to free myself.)

'But wait,' you may say. 'These people are beautiful on the inside. They're still beautiful. Everyone can be beautiful.'

That is very true. But I wish we wouldn't use the language of physical attractiveness to describe the goodness of a spirit.

Beauty draws us in. It is engaging. There's a reason why we call beautiful people 'attractive.' They pull us to them; we want to be near them. And I think it's wonderful if people are beautiful. It's fun to watch beautiful people on TV and in movies. It's fun when folks get dolled up and look all lovely for a dance or a date or a night on the town. I don't want to suggest that beauty is bad. I don't even want to suggest that men and women stop telling each other they think they're good looking.

I just want it not to be connected to our sense of worth. I want women to say, when they are reassuring other women, "You are all good and kind and worthwhile daughters of our Heavenly Father." I want men (and similarly women!) to stand up and express thanks for their spouses with phrases like, "I'm so grateful for my loving wife, for her dedication to the gospel, for her service."

And I'm trying to do my part, too.

But most of all, when I don't feel particularly beautiful, when I feel like the ugly duckling who grew up to be an ugly duck, I want to still feel of value. And worthy to be loved.

There has been a slight change.

You know those times when you've been growing your hair out for awhile? So that now it reaches about to your lower back? And undulates in sort of half-fraying curls? And you decide, sort of on a whim, but not really, that you're going to get your hair cut? Really, really short? In fact, shorter than any previous cut that you can remember? Except for maybe that time when you were five and your sister was playing with your Mom's scissors and basically cut your bangs completely off? And you go to get your hair cut with your Mom and find a style that's pretty short, and is pretty much what you're looking for, but you're not quite sure if it'll work with your decidedly less sculpted face? And you get the cut anyway?

And it all turns out to be one big horrible mistake, and you cry all the way home and for the rest of the day?

Yeah. Today is SO NOT one of those days. (Well, everything up to the 'horrible mistake' part is pretty much 100% true. But not after.)

I have a new haircut. And it's short. And I likes it. Sorry I couldn't seem to get a decent picture of it, but the above at least shows you that it's short. Which is what I wanted. Because, for some reason, the hippie look just wasn't working for me anymore. Time to get with the 21st century. And time to start looking my age.

And time, frankly, to feel just a little bit more awesome.

Multihairticulture

I had a dream last night that I had multicolored hair. And I'm not just talking about the kind that's peroxide-blond at the tips and mahogany and/or steel gray at the roots.

No. I'm talking about the kind that's Bubblicious pink on the left, lemon yogurt yellow in the middle, and ICEE blue raspberry on the right.

And you know what? I looked fabulous with bright blue hair. Seriously. I thought to myself in my dream (in italics, as thoughts go), I should get my hair colored blue all over. That would look awfully nice.

So, I'm pretty sure I'll do that. I wonder if it would finally make my primary kids think I'm cool.

A little hefty bit

Let me be frank: this semester has been dang hard. It's been hard scholastic-wise, social-wise, personal-state-of-self-wise, hair-wise, glasses-wise, pretty much every conceivable -wise possible.

Well, actually, that isn't true. I've had no difficulties with, say, species identity. I'm pretty sure I'm Homo sapiens. Also, my fingers have given me little trouble over the past few months. And hey, my continual acquisition of books has gone swimmingly.

But other things have been hard. When I say that the semester has been difficult scholastic-wise, I don't want to imply that I haven't enjoyed it; it's been one of the most enjoyable semesters I've had here. In fact, I feel that during this semester I finally got into the meat of what I hope to do as a professional librarian: reference work with children, preferably ages birth (yes, we do provide library services to babies) through 8th grade or so. I learned about programming for children, during which time I got to both construct a box of resources for a themed story time and later use someone else's box to perform a story time in class. It was, frankly, extremely awesome. Particularly the whole reading-picture-books-and-singing-songs in graduate school thing. I learned about children's literature, including how to write reviews and analyze the library's current collection to better meet the needs of the community. I spent hours and hours and even more hours getting familiar with reference source after reference source. It was intense, but oh-so-informative.

I guess that's the point: this semester's schoolwork was pretty heavy, but I feel like I learned more, or at least more valuable, pertinent-to-me information than I'd learned in any previous semester.

So, school was actually pretty good. Stressful, HECK YES, but good.

Let me just breeze through a few of these others before I get to the real meat of this: my hair is currently way too long and frazzled at the end. I needs a trim. This equals hardship for my poor self. My poor straggly-haired self.

Glasses: lost a screw. One of the lens frames is now held together with a fashionable piece of copper wire. I dare you to try to spot it without knowing about it beforehand. (And now you know about it! So you lose! Automatically! Dang, I'm sly.)

Personal-state-of-self. Dude. I consumed a ton of cookies tonight. I ordered Chinese food and pizza and I'm down to one pair of jeans that fits properly. Which makes me feel that I stink as a human being.

Which kind of leads me to the point of this whole post, the subject that I'm kind of reluctant to discuss, mostly because it reveals my really real deep inner flaws in a way that makes me intensely uncomfortable.

You see, this last semester, I also withdrew a lot from human contact.

It's not as bad at the moment, so I know have to write about this in a looking-back sort of way, rather than an I'm-in-this-right-now sort of way, so I don't know if I can fully recapture all the things that've been going on in my internal parts these past few months. Frankly, I could probably recapture it best at about 3:00 in the morning, with the occasional murmur of a single car passing outside my window making me feel, somehow, not less alone, but more so.

But, my roommates are home, and in and out of the room, being friendly (which is great) so let's see if I can grasp on to this slippery feeling that settled on me like a film of soap this past semester...

I have a feeling that my withdrawal from human contact has stemmed, to a large degree, from my growing dissatisfaction with myself. It's manifested itself in different ways: I can recall, for instance, sitting in church and feeling so unable to deal with people and the crowds and the press and the noise and the pressure that I had to escape outside in a near panic. I think I couldn't stand being around other people because, in part, I couldn't stand myself, or rather, I couldn't stand how I was sure other people viewed me.

So, I got out. And I kept getting out. And I kept not connecting with people, and I kept shutting the door to my room when I got home and I kept not really talking to people in class and.

And I just drew myself in and encrusted myself with as much armor-thick I-don't-care-ness as I could muster.

So, I had only myself to deal with. And, reluctantly, rarely, other people. When they absolutely refused not to be admitted. Which some did refuse, thank goodness.

And yeah, my relationship with God suffered too, mostly because I didn't take time for anyone besides my own brain. And, as crazy and entertaining as my brain can be, it can't provide insight into tremendously difficult life problems or answers to questions about the nature of the universe and our place in it (although it can come up with hecka-awesome dreams).

And. Good grief. NONE OF THIS explains really what I've been feeling or thinking or anything. And it's already too long by about 458%.

I guess, suffice it to say, I've had the door to my room closed far too often and for far too long. And I'm starting to reemerge back into the world, but it's hard. And I feel vulnerable and shaky, particularly because I'm still not entirely happy with myself, and because I'm afraid that other people can see the flaws in me that I can see in myself and that they scorn me for it.

But, you know, I'll still get up tomorrow morning. I'll still put on my skirt and those ugly brown shoes that are nonetheless comfortable and I'll wrap that blue scarf around my neck and button my slightly-too-tight coat over my bulgy self and I'll sit in church and listen to people talk and maybe even make a comment or two. If I'm feeling particularly daring. And it's even possible I'll feel the spirit. I hope so, because that's why I keep doing it.

And maybe, this week, and this next semester, maybe I can work on some of the things that have lately made me so unhappy about myself.

Maybe I can start to leave the door to my room open. Just a little bit more.

So this is what it's like when the world is alive.

Just an observation, before I get down to the nitty gritty of creating an awesome fictional account of what exciting things have been going on in my life for the past several months (hint: I believe it involves finding out that I'm the heiress to a vast estate in England, and that's only the boring part):

Despite my occasional (or, more or less constant) self-image issues, I've discovered something very important. It's impossible to feel anything less than beautiful while walking beneath a long line of trees that are raining white petals down on you.

Seriously. It's like frolicking through the fields in a white dress, or facing the sunset while the wind whips your hair behind you.

It's just one of those things.

And I love, love, LOVE that the world is coming alive again. I always forget over winter just how beautiful it all is, how vibrant everything is. It amazes me every time I step outside. And it makes me feel vibrant and alive as well.

That is all.

Now I must continue working on my fictional account.

(What do you think about unicorns?)

So, while we're on the subject of controversial topics...

Today in library school we talked a lot about intellectual freedom.

Which, basically says that censorship is never a good thing. And also that, as librarians, we should not restrict anyone's access to any information, whatever we happen to feel about that information personally.

I find this topic very interesting, and the discussion in class was wonderfully enlightening and very stimulating.

However.

That is not the topic I'm going to address in this blog post. (Although, I suppose you could argue I've already addressed it.)

The topic I'd like to discuss is much more controversial and much deeper and much more important and stuff. It is this:

Why do I feel I am a woman who can not pull off pink? Or even that I am a woman who does not want to be able to pull off pink? Who would, if she could, pull off pretty much any other color including dark browns and olive greens and rusty reds along with pale blues and teals and bright dandelion yellows, but who is unfortunately unable to do so due to her being an 'autumn' and thus not really looking all that hot in blue-toned stuff. Apparently. (As if she looks hot in 'autumnal' colors, but whatever.)

But seriously--what do I have against pink? I mean, pink is fine.

I sometimes think of it as a bit frou-frou, a little too much a blond feminine cutesy sort of girly girly thing, but then, I'm a female. I'm a girl. Why should I object to girls being, well, especially girlish?

I guess I've never really been into the whole girly thing, even when I was a kid. You see, as children, my siblings and I loved play-acting, and because we had no brothers (then) the four oldest siblings (all girls) would play together and I would usually play the boys. Because they got to do the cool things like rescue people and swing swords and go dashing over hillocks and stuff. (Lucky boys. With their lucky hillocks.)

I rather scorned the girl toys. While I still played with dolls, I preferred the toy monsters our next-door neighbor (a boy) got to play with, or the He-Man action figure said neighbor also posessed, or the cool transformer toys and...the toy my cousin had: some big machine type thing made up of little cat machine type things that all fit together...something. Anyway--that was cool too.

And not pink.

Or. Well, I think maybe one of the cat machine things was pink because it was operated by a female character, but STILL. That's my POINT. Right?

Or maybe it's not. Because if this female character was hooking up in her little pink machine with all the other machines to form one big machine (part of which, necessarily, was pink) then that shows that pink, and thus a pink-loving female, has power, even if it's a power that's part of a larger male-dominated entity.

Yep.

So, the reason why I'm even writing about this is that I have a pink coat. It was left by the gal who lived in my room before I moved in. And it's a very nice coat. It's warm, and it fits pretty much perfectly (which--hey--a FREE coat that fits PERFECTLY is not anything to shake a stick-sword at) and it's pretty much winter here in Boston now, with its icy sidewalks and its skin-slicing winds. Aaaaand...

The coat is pink. It is pink. It is pink it is pink and...wearing it...I just feel like a pink girl. And I've never really been a pink girl. So...

I just need to wrap my mind around it. And appreciate the pinkness. And find joy and power in being pink-coat-wearing-girl.

That's nothing to be ashamed of.

Right?

P.S. I also read banned books. And they rock.

And two generous servings of diet-breakers later...

I was invited to dinner today. I was a little nervous about the whole thing, which felt a little like a first date when you don't really know the person who's taking you out. Fortunately, all persons involved were female which lessened the tension potential considerably.

There were three girls at the dinner and we all kind of pitched in with the prep work. Hesitant to discuss my dietary restrictions (I guess because they're self-imposed, and I didn't want to cause any kind of inconvenience) I failed to mention that the potato dish I was assigned to prepare was something I really shouldn't be eating. And those two cartons of ice cream bought specifically for the dinner were not things I should be eating either. Nor the M&Ms there for snacking.

So, because of my failure to mention said minor details, and in an effort to appear relatively normal, and to, like, not be rude, I decided to eat the smallest possible portion of both the potato dish and the ice cream. (Yah. Real sacrifice, I know.)

The problem is, both were really, really, really delicious. I had forgotten how...just...you swallow potato and it kind of sits there pleasantly in your throat before moving its solid way down your esophagus and.

And.

Oh. My.

Ice cream? I mean, the real kind with real sugar and, like, these brownie bits and fudge swirls? So delectable I nearly went into a dead faint there on the kitchen floor. I had really forgotten, I mean really forgotten how wonderfully deliciousgoodnessly it sat there on your tongue while it sang sweet songs to your taste buds of love and flowers and that it was the only thing you had ever wanted and it wanted you and you were united now and everything was beautiful...

I.

Oh.

So.

Tomorrow I will return to my diet. I'm seriously not about to give this all up, particularly since I'm so near the 100lb loss mark. But is it wrong to feel that there was something nice about being able to take a break, however brief, from the rigors of said diet? Was I wrong to feast upon a few bits of potato? To relish my two little scoops of ice cream?

Well, yes. Yes, I was wrong.

But I don't regret it. No, not even a little.

On a happier note,

My collarbones always surprise me. I'll look in the mirror to check that my necklace is on straight and they'll just jump out at me, flashing for attention, almost making me believe I've arrvied at last.

Going Green

I'm a little concerned.

You see, my weightloss is kind of stalling. I'm not sure if this is because I'm building muscle mass, in which case I'll see the actual poundage come off later, or if it's because I'm not eating as many vegetables as I should, or some other unknown cause, such as the planets being out of alignment or something.

For some reason, I can't seem to quite get to that 80lb loss mark, although I'm pretty close. (Right now I'm hovering around 76, which is pretty good, but it means that I'm still more than 50 lbs away from my goal. Bleh.)

What I'm really hoping is that all this will change once I get to Boston and start walking everywhere and using public transportation and such.

Because, as you know, not only is public transportation good for the environment, it also helps you lose weight!

And makes you more attractive to the opposite gender!

It's just like that line from that one movie, where the male lead says, "I just love a girl who uses public transportation."

Well.

Okay.

I made that up.

But I'm sure the sentiment exists somewhere with someone. So I'll get all pretty and stuff and that someone will say, "Wow! You're all public transportation savvy and you've obviously lost a great deal of weight within the past 8 or 9 months. So. You wanna get hitched?"

And then, of course, I'll have to turn him down because at that point I'll be all career-oriented and won't want to have anything to do with men for at least the next twenty or so years.

But it'll be nice even still.

What's startling is how easy it would be.

Today was our penultimate day at work. This means that tomorrow is our last day. (Or, er, we're pretty sure it's our last day, at least. We think.)

Anyway--so in recognition of said penultimateness of said day, our office supervisor brought in homemade fudge.

It's really amazing how the smell of fudge can fill a middling largeish room like that.

As I passed by said fudge frequently on my way to doing other stuff, I realized just how easy it would be to reach over and cut myself a little (or not so little) square. I thought then what a simple thing it would be to put said square into my mouth and for said mouth to curl round the fudge in delighted ecstacy for a few moments as said fudge melted in said mouth.

And I dunno--I always thought that things like breaking your diet would feel significant, that there would be considerable guilt afterwards, but also considerable hesitation and going-back-and-forthness before.

(I didn't eat the fudge, in case you were wondering.)

I guess it's like many things in life. Things that you expect to feel significant (like a penultimate day at a job you've worked for nearly three years, or the last family reunion you'll have with your sibs & parents before you head eastward) aren't always. They're just moments and minutes that tally up to the sum of our lives.

I wish I could hang onto them a little bit more, make them all a little more significant.

Polished

I realized last night that I'm not a fancy chic. (And I wish I were.) I normally do absolutely nothing with my fingernails and toenails. It's only recently that I've started applying a tame sort of iridescent mauve to said toenails in hopes that it will make my feet look less ugly. (Hey--when I talked about most feet looking good, I didn't necessarily include my own, okay?)

And also I did it because my niece rather persistently asks me to paint her fingernails and toenails whenever she stays at my parents' house, which is about once a week. So I do. Sometimes.

And recently that toenail/fingernail painting has extended, yea, even to mine own digits.

Of course, the problem with this is that I have no clue how one properly cares for one's nails. My idea of proper nail-care is to let them grow out long enough to be useful in such activities as tightening the screws in one's glasses, or opening those *cussword* CD cases. And then, when they break or tear or when I have a particularly bad hangnail, I go after those suckers & cut 'em down to the quick.

Yes'm, I do.

But now, with that same iridescent sort of mauve covering the tips of my fingers as well as my toes, I'm suddenly feeling both a little more girly and a little more insecure. You see, while I see nail polish on numerous other females' fingers, I really don't know how one is supposed to apply it. For instance, how many coats does one use? And if there's more than one coat, is the bottom coat supposed to be the color and the top coat clear? Or should both coats be applied with the same polish? And also, what's up with all that cuticle pushing? How do you do it? And with what?

I think...

I think I may just go back to pure ol' naked fingernails. Heck, I'll feel less polished (hahaha!) and less feminine, but I'll feel...maybe a little more in control? Maybe?

The Power of Resistance

I saw something highly disturbing (and also elating) today.

I saw pictures of myself from several months to a year ago. And let me tell you, they were not pretty. Really.

Despite my frustration with how slowly the whole weight-loss thing is going, I can't deny that I've come a long, long way in 6 months. Actually, looking at myself in the mirror after looking at my past self (via the amazing invention of pixels, not time-travel, sillies), I couldn't help but wonder where on earth all that...all that Me has gone. For it hath. Several poundages of it.

Frankly, I feel amazed that the little things I do every day (i.e. the resisting of delicious-looking English goodies, donuts, cookies, chocolate cake, White Bread, not to mention the three to five days a week I manage to get roughly an hour of exercising) have made a great deal of what made up my body disappear.

I mean, it is gone. (Well, not all of it, of course. I'm still not halfway to my goal (I had a LOT to lose) but I hope to reach the halfway point this Monday.)

Anyway--my point is ('Is there ever a point in my meanderings,' she thought desparingly to herself) how really powerful resistance is.

Yes, the exercise has been important. It's half of the equation, or so I believe. (You nutritional scientists out there would be able to give me a better idea of the actual ratio.) But I believe that a huge amount of the weight I've lost is due simply to the consistent resistance of foods I knew would make me want to eat more (sweet stuff, mainly) and by so doing either stall or reverse this weight loss.

So I just haven't eaten anything like that. Since late last year (October, I think). I mean, nothing. I haven't cheated on this diet except for one day a few weeks after I started where...well, the situation would have been difficult if I hadn't participated in eating the foods prepared for me.

People around me (particularly at work) keep saying to me that they're stunned at my self-control. Truth be told, I'm actually stunned myself. I didn't think I had it in me, which brings me to my real honest-to-goodness point:

We're all capable of doing things like this. Those same co-workers who express amazement at my food-resisiting ability say that they're just not capable of doing the same. But they are!

Previous to my experience these past 6 months, I thought that I would never be able to handle something like this for this long. Heck, the exercise part again was nigh-to-impossible, as I have a serious love affair going on with my bed and I am loathe to leave it. Ever.

But, I give up both sweet foods & my precious, precious sleeps. Why? Because this goal of getting down to a normal weight is something I've made more important than either of those things I genuinely loved.

It actually makes me wonder what else I'd be capable of doing (really, what anybody would be capable of doing) if I were more willing to just say to myself, "Self, I am doing this and there just simply is no way that I am not doing it. Not doing it is just not an option."

I've discovered I'm capable of getting halfway to a normal BMI in 6 months. I'm also capable of making the seemingly impossible (for me) leap to applying for grad school. I've also learned I'm capable of being pretty good at name indexing. And heck, even if I never finished that darn novel, at least I wrote 50,000+ words of it. Even if it was no good. I still did it.

Now, if I can just overcome the whole pride thing, I think I'll be sitting pretty. Er. But not prettier than anybody else. Really.

New Motivations

I hate not exercising when I'm sick.

Of course, this is a new discovery, since I've never been a person who thought exercise was at all desirable in any form ever.

But now I am.

So.

Today, despite that cough that just WON'T go away, I got up early, laced on my tattered sneakers and exercised for the first time since getting sick on Saturday. And, I've kind of half regretted it, because the coughing has been worse today, and I've felt utterly junky tired, like an 'Oh, I think I'm getting sick' type of tired, except it turns into 'Wait, I've suddenly realized that I just was sick, therefore this must be me recovering from being sick' type of tired.

Unfortunately, going without exercising tomorrow is simply not an option, because I've been feeling blehFATblah again, and the only cure for that (over a period of months and months) is to jam as much as I can to excellent Coldplay tunes and climb up the hills in my hometown while trying not to pass out because the air is so thin. (Great fun, that, actually.)

Oh, and also I avoid sweet things as if they're snake venom, which is really difficult to do when someone brings delectable and delightful English treats to our Middlemarch book club (Oh, fie, fie! Why dost thou tempt me thus?) which I force myself to refrain from eating and yet cannot resist numerous backwards longing glances.

I will now comfort myself with yet another sugar-free cough drop.

Mmm! Black Cherry!

Fifty down, baby!

Every Monday morning at approximately 8am, I weigh myself to see exactly how this whole weightloss thing is going. (i.e. if the weight is still being lost. Waaaaay lost.)

And this morning, to mine joy, I discovered that I have hit the 50lb weight-loss mark. I am now exactly 50lbs lighter than I was when I started this whole rigamarolle, about four and a half months ago.

And lemme tell you; that is a LOT of months without any chocolate cake.

But it's worth it.

And I don't even miss the other chin.

Today was weigh-in day. I approached the scale with trepidation but left it with...er...jollity.

For behold, I have at last reached MY FIRST MINI GOAL! And I won't tell you what the goal was (because it's too embarrassing) but I will tell you that this morning I was 5 lbs UNDER it.

And I didst rejoiceth greatly much. And lots of it, too. Tied up with ribbons. With complimentary pink bunny slippers. And... (what on earth am I talking about???) This makes 37.5 lbs in total, and I find that I'm definitely liking the feel of my now-baggy jeans.

To illustrate my (slightly less large-o) self, here's a pic I took on Saturday. It's blurry, but I think it captures, um, the green of my shirt pretty well. Oh, and did I mention that I finally got that haircut? This past summer?

And here's another pic. Because I think it's funny.

See how wrinkled and studious-looking my forehead is? Yeah. We're talking serious thought processes going on here, including but not limited to: ponderings upon cheese, why "House Hunters" on HGTV is good television even though it seems completely boring, and also thinking that what I had for lunch might actually be an interesting blog post after all.

It was chicken. Mmm.

Ripping ABBA and The Redeemer and avoiding novel-writing

Hello, all.

I just wanted to tell you that you are all cool. And that sitting here on my bed typing in my blog in the half-dark (because it's cloudy today here in Utah) I kind of miss you all. Because you are cool. And because I currently feel...a little separated from you all. I guess.

Um.

And also, I'm currently transferring more of my (rather eclectic) CD collection onto my laptop so I can more easily listen to music while I type up nonsense for my NaNoWriMo novel. I've just finished ABBA and The Redeemer (an oratorio written by former Mormon Tabernacle organist and LDS composer extraordinare Robert Cundick) and now I'm moving on to the MoTab CD Consider the Lilies and then I'll do Elgar's Enigma Variations. (Mmm. Delicious Elgar... Oh. Er...wait...)

Novel-writing is actually going swimmingly so far, and I've surprised myself by being exactly on schedule. Apparently if you write 1667 words per day you'll just make the 50,000 word mark by the end of the month. So far, I've got 5412, which is just about right on for the first three days of the month. (Of course, I haven't written anything today, but I'm sure I'll get up where I should be. After all, it takes 3 days of doing something to form a habit, right? Right???)

Speaking of habits, I've also surprised myself recently for the last two months by getting up early enough in the morning to give myself roughly an hour of exercise time. (In case you were wondering, I DID exercise that day I slept in--I just exercised rather late in the day.) As a consequence of that (and other little changes like eating NO sugary stuff & consuming more veggies (veggies now quiver in fear at the sight of me, the great veggie predator)) I've now gone down one pant size (hooray!) and only have (mumble mumble) more to go until I'm...there. You know. THERE. Where the beguilingly beautiful women hang out. (I think it's some sort of nightclub, with a blue neon sign above the door that says "The Lovely Lounge," or maybe it's "The Lovely Lozenge." Yes, that's it. In fact, I'm quite sure of it.)

I guess I didn't really need to tell you all that, because it's not really all that important, (except that it's nice to snuggle into pants that aren't quite as large as they used to be, and it's nice to be using holes in my belt that have never been used before), but I thought that since I recently spent a post ranting about how miserably dumb I can be, I ought to post a minor accomplishment as well.

So, I guess I ought to get down to business & actually accomplish something today besides posting to my blog & ripping CDs and making Primary phone calls and reading a third of Princess Academy for the book-club meeting on Tuesday and...HOLY COW! Missing a very important message from Cathy!

Sorry folks--gotta go!

(P.S. It's a GOOD message, so no worries!)

***Edit: Okay! Just got off the phone with Cathy, and she authorized me to tell you that they have a new baby daughter who was born yesterday at about 3pm-ish! Her name is Gwyneth Schaller, although I forgot to check the spelling, and I also forgot to check & see if she has a middle name, so I'll have to adjust this info later. Also, you might be interested to know that she weighs 8lbs, 4oz and that she's 21 and 3/4 inches long. For more info, I'm sure you could call the Schallers sometime, and they likely wouldn't mind. Not even a bit.***

Does this hymn make me look hot?

Just as I was wrapping up my singing this evening for the folks at that one retirment home, (you know--the one where I thought I saw Donny Osmond), some folks from the next group arrived, just a bit early. In fact, I was just starting the introductory measures of "Be Still My Soul" when about 5 of them walked in and surreptitiously took seats in the back of the room to listen to my warbling.

While I was a little distracted (I always find it easier to just sing to the old folks rather than younger people) I still felt like the last hymn went off pretty well, which was fortunate since my voice, by that point in the evening, was pretty much shot.

I finished singing, gathered my various books from the piano & floor & started to make my way down the aisle to shake hands with the afore-mentioned (and very, very nice) old folks and thank them for taking the time to come & listen to my poor renditions of old familiar hymns. As the five members of the second group came forward to claim the piano, several of the people in the group (all males, I noted) nodded at, smiled or complimented me on my singing. One of the guys even grinned at me & said, "Great job!" (And he weren't bad lookin' neither.)

So, I have to inquire: does singing hymns make you seem hot? Does singing hymns well to old folks make you appealing to the opposite gender? Did those smiles and nods and little teeny itsy bitsy compliments mean that these young men somehow found me attractive???

Well, no.

Does it mean it gave me something to write about on my blog this evening? (And a super-duper post title?)

Heck, yes.

I want it! No, I don't!

Okay. There is a huge ol' half-consumed chocolate cake sitting on the counter, and I want it. I want it bad.

So, you have to help me to convince myself how much I do NOT want this chocolate cake, because seriously I have been working hard the last two weeks and I don't want to blow it on a delicious slice of melt-in-your-mouth gooey crumbly chocolatey (did I mention delicious)...cake...

Okay. So, I don't really want this cake, except I do, but I really don't. Instead, I will content myself with some cauliflower. Or some sauteed peppers. Or some...er....celery. Yeah. Yum.

Aaaaaahhhhhh..... (Erm, that's supposed to be a long sigh...)

Oh, help.

Ugh. I'm a freaking DUMP TRUCK.

**Note: Okay, guys--I have changed my mind numerous times about whether or not I should post this. (I actually wrote this back on June 19th, but I've never actually put it up on the blog.) But, I feel like the writing t'aint bad, and the sentiments I express herein are valid, so I think it's time to get this up where the public can see it. I know this is bitter. I was in a bitter mood when my brain conceived this. BUT, read it anyway. I'm not bitter at the moment, so this post isn't currently painful--just interesting.**

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I've realized that I'll never be one of those "Lady in Red" type of girls. I'll never dance to a slow Frank Sinatra song and bedazzle my partner with my womanly wiles and charm. I'll never stun a man with my beauty as I stand in a meadow with my face turned slightly away from him, watching the sun go down.

No, no. I never will.

No man will ever write a song about me, explaining how he pined for years, and had his poor little heart torn in two when he watched me walk away beside another guy. I'll never have two men fight it out to the death over my honor. And, if I ever have the chance to try to slip my foot into a glass slipper, the only way I'm going to stick the sucker in there is by chopping off something. (Thank you, grisly Grimm brothers.)

You know, it's funny. Girls are funny, specifically. We watch romantic movies and read romantic novels and chat with each other exuberantly about how romantic our lives really should be...but aren't.

Even so, I have the vague suspicion that some girls out there really do play the romantic leads in their very own chick flicks. Luckies. They're the mustangs of the girl-world, the corvettes, the one thing a man desires above anything else in the world--the one thing he would give his whole heart to.

And me? I'm a dump truck. Useful in my own way, but hardly the thing to get someone's heart-rate up.

Of Haircuts and Happy Birthdays

I had a good day today.

Without going into too much detail, let's just say that I got a good haircut (my opinion of which is, of course, subject to my attempts to style it tomorrow morning...) and I got to buy books (two novels by Ursula LeGuin, plus Bleak House and Middlemarch) and eat LOTS of Italian-style food (mmm...delicious Italian-style food...) in which marinara sauce figured a prominent role.

However, there is one thing that would have made my birthday perfect: if my nephew had been born today. Now, he's got only a little over two hours to make the date, and I have a feeling he...well...he just won't make it. My poor younger sister has been longing for this baby to pop out for many days now and my nephew is just being stubborn. (Methinks he likes the womb.)

So, while it would have been cool to share a birthday with my sister's kid, still it'll be fun to just share August as a birthday month with him. You know, it's kind of funny--I arrived rather early into the world (I was actually born 19 days early, which means I was due on September...lemme think here...*counts days on her calendar*...September 12th) and this baby seems determined to stick it out in his mother's abdomen for as long as possible.

Okay--I'm exaggerating. The kid's actually not due until August 31st, but we're all still anxious to see him anyway, and find out whether he resembles my sister or her husband more and whether or not he'll be bald for the first year or so of his life, and whether he'll be a towhead like his parents. (Genetically speaking, it's pretty likely.)

Anyway--huh. Kind of diverged on my topic here. So, long & short of it: Good Birthday. Good Haircut. Gooooooood cake. Good night.

(Oh--and about Boston...I want to get out there more than ever, but I'm still uncertain about how I'd do it all, and I'm uncertain about the timing, and I'm REALLY uncertain about my own ability to handle a move like that. So. We'll see. Oh, and I just found out that some MSN study has found Boston to be one of the top 5 drunkest cities in the US. Go figure. But then, maybe I'd help even it out a little. You know--with my absolute non-drunkenness?)