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Random Life Stuff

Whew! My new recipe website is launched. There's nothing there now except one recipe on the front page, but I'll be getting others up soon.

I put on some Google ads, partly to help pay for the site and partly because it's mostly still empty and the ads take up some space- and since they're mostly for recipe sites hopefully people won't find them obnoxious.

I really love all these summer storms we've been having, as long as I don't have to walk in them.

I went to the gym yesterday, the first time since last Friday. It's like the Fates conspired to keep me away for the last two weeks- first that weird thing with the tendons in my left foot hurting, and as that healed my Achilles tendon started acting up, and then my knee. Finally I seem to be back to normal, last night's workout felt really good. I was going to go today but I was so close to getting the website done-- hopefully I can go tomorrow, and if not I will definitely go three days between Thursday and Sunday.

I've got an interview for the job I've been temping at for almost a year. The problem is that interviews make me nervous! It would actually be less awkward if it were a normal interview with strangers who I'd never see again if I don't get it, but I have to interview with my boss, her boss, and the office staff (I'm hoping they don't make me do that one- it's usually so everyone can meet the person and give their two cents about whether they like them and could get along with them). Then, if I don't get it, I not only have to see everyone every day, but I have to work with the person who got the job instead of me! I need to find a way to make this fun, but so far I can't think of anything. It might be tomorrow, and if it's not then it's next Thursday or Friday. I'm not sure whether I want more time to prepare or just to get it over with.

I need some tricks to get traffic to the new website quickly. It usually takes about three months for Google to pick something up. Hmm, have to do some research. Too bad work gets in the way of all these things I want to do! Life would be so much more fun if I didn't have to have  a JOB!

I'm most of the way though Season 2 of The 4400. I'm so totally hooked. This is better than Lost.

The Fat Female Experience

Found this on Big Fat Blog. A woman is writing a book on being female and fat-- self-accepting, not self-accepting, midsize, supersize, every size. She's looking for women to interview and they seem to be coming out in droves, which I think is interesting-- how much we want to share our stories (by the way she says she's interested in everyone, whether or not you think you have a "story" to tell or not).  But we all do, don't we? Has anyone ever grown up with a perceived "difference" and not been wounded by it? Some of those wounds heal well and quickly and the evidence is barely visible, for others the road is long and the scab torn off many time, eventually leaving a large swathe of tough scar tissue, disfigured and without feeling.

Our stories are like prayers. We seek comfort and validation in repeating them, confessing our sins and those perpetrated against us. "I lied to get out of gym class." "I haven't worn shorts since I was nine." "I only have sex with people I'll never see again." "The waiter raised his eyebrows when I ordered dessert." "My mom said nobody'd ever love me."

The irony is that body hatred is so ingrained in us that we'd have to look like Callista Flockhart not to have it. I take that back. The slimmest, most beautiful women have it- not always about their weight, but about something. The size of their hands or the shape of their lips, their slightly crooked front tooth or the way their breasts refuse to stand up quite as straight as they did at sixteen.  Surgery will fix noses, breasts, saggy bellies, and those little pouches of roundness on hips and thighs. Meanwhile there's botox for the forehead and injections for facial creases betraying our age, paint for the face and the fingernails, and dye for the hair. Even if we've done all that, are our teeth white enough? Is our breath fresh enough? Skin soft enough? Do I need feminine odor protection??

As long as we believe that our value lies in our appearance- and even those of us who don't believe that on the surface have been infected with the idea, I think it's impossible to live in this society and be immune to it- we'll always have that "lesser-than" feeling. And as long as women think we have to work on our appearance to maintain or increase our value as a human being, our focus will be on that, instead of on what we ought to be doing, which is taking over the world- and that is the way they like it.

I watch The Apprentice, and it's really driven it home to me that to get ready to appear in the world of business a man has to shower, shave, put on a suit and comb his hair. Meanwhile, the women have to deal with all kinds of elaborate "fixing" of their face, their hair, their jewelry. Just the fact that a woman who appears at a meeting without makeup would stand out like a sore thumb as "unfinished" looking and inappropriate-- it makes me truly crazy to think about it. It's made me realize that I've been taken less seriously in business because I don't wear makeup or the "right" clothes or "do" my hair. It's hurt me professionally, financially, yet I don't know which would be more painful- living with that knowledge or betraying myself by doing what's expected. 

Just how much acceptance?

I'm in a pickle.

The only fat I can't completely accept seems to be my own.

I've been okay with myself for a number of years now. I weighed 170 or thereabouts for most of my adult life, and it felt like "me". Clothing and trying to attract the romantic partners I wanted occasionally led me to grumble about wanting to be just a size or two smaller, but I've never in my life tried to be - or even really wanted to be- a "normal" size. In 1998 I met my soulmate, and after that only my steadily-ballooning boobs and the near-impossibility of walking into a store and buying pretty, comfortable, well-fitting bras would regularly bring me to tears wishing I had the willpower to diet myself down to some prior size-- invariably a size that had seemed huge at the time but would now be more than acceptable.

Then I turned 40. A lot of things happened that year, not the least of which was opening a store with my husband and getting an office job I go to during the day. For the last 15 months I've been working in an office that has a big, irresistible box full of candy from which we refill the hospitality candy dish, as well as a number of women who love to bake and bring treats for others, and where conferences and meetings are typically over-catered and the leftovers delivered to our office for consumption. To top it off, the hours we work at the store have created a "Super Size Me Diet" for my husband and me, where dinner every night is some kind of takeout, and breakfast/lunch on the weekends as well. We simply have no time to cook, we're only home long enough to sleep, and there are only so many damn Lean Cuisines a person can eat.

To make a long story short? I've gained 35 pounds in a year- and I'm horrified. That's 20% of my previous weight, and I'm only 5' tall. I hate the way I look, I hate the way it feels. My body doesn't know what to do with this much extra baggage piled on so quickly, and it's rebelling in the form of swollen ankles and pain in my knees. I'm not feeling judgemental about it, or depressed, or unattractive (ok, I hate the new jutting belly and the big round double chin, but still!) but I also don't feel like me.

The solution? I'm breaking my several-years-long resolution never to diet again (we all know most diets fail- and of the ones that "succeed" something like 95% of the people regain the weight plus more within 5 years) and drastically cutting back on sugar and thinking hard about what to get when we get food evenings and weekends. I can feel justified in that because all that refined sugar is terrible for anyone, and so is the fast-food junk food. So it's not really a DIET diet, like Atkins or something. I'm just eating healthier. I know the BFB folks would totally vilify me for this because weight loss is the intention, but fuck it I want to feel like ME again! We also joined a gym that's only 5 doors down from our store so going is easy- just hop over, change clothes, work out and back to work! Hopefully that will help, and can't help but be good for me. If you look up the word "sedentary" in the dictionary, my picture is there. We're working so much that taking the dog for a mile walk is a big event. I mean really big, like we've done it about twice. So stay tuned-- I've lost my Feistyness and turned into a dieting sheep, but maybe I can make you laugh once in a while along the way. That would make it worth it.