tuesday, the twenty-eighth of august, two thousand one
time flies
The sidebar knew all along that Elizabeth couldn't live without it. What was she thinking?

Reading: Fiona Range, by Mary McGarry Morris. I'm enjoying this one, which I purchased for no other reason except I like the name 'Fiona.'

Listening: To the crap I keep downloading from Aimster. I'll think of a song I'd really like to hear again, spend twenty minutes or more downloading it, listen to it once, remember that it's crap, and start all over.

Celebrating: The triumphant return of Kate to this wacky world of journaling. It's called Reinventing Dorothy Parker and it is absolutely divine. Besides, I was tired of being the only one around with a somewhat unusual celebrity crush-bordering-on-obsession. Miss Izzy is glad you're back, Miss Belzy.

Wasting: A whole lot of time that would be much better devoted to sleep. As those who are on the notify list already know, I fell victim to the narcotic that is The Sims.

Seriously, I don't want to completely rip off mo pie here, but I might be compelled to update you from time to time on the goings-on of my Sims.

For example, I might want to tell you how my first family -- consisting of Mulder, Scully, and their kid, William -- is quite the disaster. Scully made Mulder sleep on the couch for a while, probably because he was stupid and bought the really small house so he spent all their money adding a bedroom, bathroom, and family room. Then Scully burned down the stove and they can't afford to buy a new one, so they've been eating beans for a week. Not surprisingly, William is quite maladjusted. He cries all the time and claims he is too depressed to do his homework. He won't even take a shower unless Mulder yells at him a lot.

So I moved Skinner into the bachelor pad next door and I'm going to work on him for a while, see if I can't make him a bit successful, then get him to fall in love with Scully so he can move in with the Mulder family and buy them a stove.

So, six days ago was my three-year journalversary.

I honestly thought it was the 28th; it wasn't until I went looking for the link to my first entry that I discovered it was actually the 22nd.

The devil's in the details. But I'll tell you one thing: On August 22, 1998, I never in a million years thought that I would still be doing this three years down the line.

And all evidence to the contrary, I am still doing this. Like any habit, it will take me a while to get back into it. But with the new Moo Computer and some new-found resolve, it shouldn't take that long.

As the notify list also already knows, as of yesterday, I have lost forty pounds. In some ways, this surprises me. It has happened awfully fast, faster than it should, faster than anyone says it ever should, which makes me a little bit nervous. And I haven't lost this much weight before, ever. But it sounds like a lot more than it looks like or feels like to me, and I still have quite a long way to go.

However, I won't be making a habit of writing about it here. Not that I have anything against weight-loss journals. Some of the stories to be found out there -- particularly of Robyn and her husband, Fred, who have collectively lost over 275 pounds -- are incredibly inspiring.

But for various reasons, this journey must remain a personal one. My weight has informed every single aspect of my adult personality, which means there is a lot to figure out as I go along. Robyn's entry for yesterday is all true, but I have yet to come to terms with most of it, and I'm not sure it would be possible if I spent part of my journaling time hyperfocusing on my weight loss.

Besides which, for the first time in my life, I'm actually not obsessed with food. I can't tell you what it means for me to look at the container of powdered sugar doughnut holes on the counter in the coffee station/copy room and have it register as though I were looking at so many cotton balls. They might as well be cotton balls for all the interest I have in eating them, and that is the most bizarre feeling in the world. I never even knew it was possible for me to simply not eat them, much less glance at them once while I make my copies and then walk out of the copy station and forget that they're there. And that is what is happening these days.

So one of the traits I am trying to develop in my limited time of medicated weight loss is how not to obsess about food. The drug has eliminated my appetite almost entirely, but eventually I'll develop a tolerance to it and I'll have to quit taking it. The idea is by that time, I'll be used to not obsessing about food. Which means I won't be writing about it all the time.

It's already being done, anyway, and with much more flair and style and unbefuckinglievable humor:

On Sunday I saw Robert, my Weight Watchers leader, at the supermarket. It was sort of weird because this is a big city, and the WW meeting I go to isn't even remotely around here; it's in the suburbs. So when Robert passed me in Aisle 5 of the Jewel I couldn't quite place him. He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and cut-offs and when I saw his face was familiar I thought hey, girlfriend! only to realize, oops, wait, it's the Weight Watchers guy, followed by the thought that it doesn't seem quite right to hail or interpellate one's male Weight Watchers leader as "girlfriend" or "sister" or "fabulous diva sweetie darling give-me-a-kiss mmmwah!" I mean I don't like to assume things. Robert's usually the only guy at the meetings, and somehow he manages to project a certain authority that says, "Ladies, I am not your gay sidekick," and I respect that... I kind of like how Robert stays in Weight Watchers® Land, where everyone in the brochures is cheery as they toss colorful salad at their multi-ethnic dinner parties and wear medium-size chinos to their office jobs and power-walk purposefully to all the other parts of their lives. There's something to be said for that.

That's Wendy, of Pound, and she is utterly fabulous. (I also don't think she reads me, so please don't anyone tell her that I quoted her quite so shamelessly.) She has that incredible ability to use laugh-out-loud humor to make heart-attack-serious points, and sometimes the subtext of her musings stays with you for days.

So even if you hate weight-loss journals, you really ought to read hers.

And yes, it appears that I've basically spent the entire entry writing about what I'm not going to write about anymore.

I know. You missed me.