I'm watching Scrubs, eating dill cheese and triscuits, and I must now go to sleep. I am more tired than nighttime and it feels bad. I'm like a tired bug. I have been operating at full speed on incredibly little sleep for too many days and I'm fucking wiped out.

Why am I still writing this. Good night. See you on Friday. (Friday!!!!)

This is my mom's cat:

Today, September 27, is the exact day, four years ago, when I started losing weight. Over the last four years, I've lost 113.8 pounds.

This is not a particularly easy post for me to write. There are certainly a great number of people in my life who know about my weight loss, as I'm still quite close to many of the people who were in my life four years ago, but there are also a great number of people who know nothing about it whatsoever. I've met a lot of new people in the last four years and I don't really walk around wearing a tshirt that says "Former Lardass." (Although that would be an awesome tshirt.) (Hmmmm....)

It's not a pleasant memory, it was not a pleasant time, and for as little as I invest in a belief in a higher power, I feel nothing short of blessed for having gotten to the other side of it. So it's not necessarily enjoyable to broadcast, especially to people outside of my safe little bubble of close friends and weight loss supporters. More frightening for me, though, than discussing it, is showing people the before photo. No matter how thin a formerly fat person gets, she still feels ashamed of what once was. So this is not an easy post for me to write. Yes, and. Follow the fear, right?

I sat at a diner late last night with a group of improvisor friends and classmates, none of whom knew me when I was heavy, none of whom know I've lost a lot of weight, which is definitely not something you can tell just by looking at me. We were playing a game at the diner called "two truths and a lie" where you share two true things about yourself, you tell one lie, and everyone guesses which are which. Once the game really got going, some people were sharing some really vulnerable stuff...stuff about death or surgery or other painful experiences in their lives. So I jumped in feet first and chose as one of my "truths" to share that I've lost over 100 pounds. It wasn't a terrible thing to share; people don't run away or cower in fear or turn their heads in disgust when you share something like this. But it still isn't a comfortable discussion for me, so watching myself make an active choice to share this information was interesting to me. For some reason, I felt compelled to share with this table full of new friends this piece of my history. (Does anyone want me to use the word "share" again? I'd be happy to.) Perhaps some of the shame of that which "once was" is dissipating. I'm so far away from that fat person now, and today, four years later, I'm going to honor that.

I will never forget the sensation of being heavy. It's a terrible, painful, lonely, constant struggle. It is one of the most crippling diseases a person can live through, especially a young woman, because it impacts literally every aspect of her entire life. Being fat is a filter through which she experiences the world, the same way being blind might be, except that being fat is not a condition that society has much patience or compassion for. Being fat alters her sense of her friends, her job, her family, her education, the men in her life. It impacts her understanding of communication and need and want and desire and love. It's like some kind of drug that skews her perception of the whole world around her until she can no longer see where normal problems end and fat problems begin and, like substance addiction, the longer she tolerates this condition, the more mired she finds herself in a spiral of confusing, murky, cuttingly difficult feelings and experiences that never seem to improve.

I would never go back to that time for anything in the world, but I suppose I do feel a little lucky to have a very intimate relationship with such a different world view from the one most healthy, thin people experience. It's a unique perspective on life to have seen it from two completely different windows, almost like I've lived two separate lives. It has, if anything, provided me with a wisdom and depth of which I'm not afraid to be quite proud. (Who's gay? Me.)

It's incredibly strange to be so far away from being fat that it's only a vague memory. In this case, though, incredibly strange = really fuckin cool.

Here's to Four Years.

(I love how I'm making the same face in these two photos. It's the "Fine. How's this smile?" face.)

Okay. Enough with the serious topics. Back to hilarity and guffawing....

There's a girl at my work who's my age and married. Lovely girl. She's not a New Yorker, having just moved up here from Virginia earlier this year. There are a lot of things that are very different about our personalities, but we seem to get along quite well. Probably mostly because I'm a delight. Alright, fine, she's a delight too.

The point is, she's married. And it's fascinating to me. I'm not entirely sure why her being married is that much more interesting to me than anyone else in the office being married. I'm sure it's partially because she's my age and very few people I know who're my age are married, so I'm captivated by her commitment level. It's also probably because I work pretty closely with her, so I'm privvy to more of the mundane little details of her marriage...like how often he calls...and what cutsie names she calls him...and little anecdotes about married life, all of which add up to give me a (likely quite warped) outsider's perspective on the whole deal.

Please note that the following is most certainly not a judgment on this lovely young woman at all: I can safely say that hearing her talk about being married, and "her husband," and "we" sometimes makes me want to become a "we" even less than I already do.

It's not that I don't want to get married. I do. (No pun.) It's that, at this point in my constantly developing sense of conscious, adult reality, getting married makes me want to barf on your face. And not in a good way.

Whenever she says "we" it makes me shiver a little. Perhaps I'm about to alienate all potential suitors with this statement, but the idea of being a "we" forever and always from age twenty-something onward is possibly one of the more depressing ideas I can imagine. I'm not even sure why that is. I guess it's because I'm pretty sure that that stuff doesn't last nowadays, so why jump into the inevitable end of my own happiness?

All of you reading this who're married, about to get married, or currently dating the person you imagine you'll marry are shaking your head at my naive, unfortunate, loveless perspective on the world, aren't you?

Well that's just FINE. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go take an improv class.

I had about eight seconds to get from 14th Street to West 4th Street this morning, but the R/W train was nowhere to be seen. So I went upstairs and got a cab.

The cabbie had a giant Santa beard, he was wearing an army hat with pins and medals on it and some kind of army style jacket, he was wearing one glove on his left hand, the other hand was bare, and in his gloved left hand, while driving, he held a giant silver cross.....

"Where are you going?"
"Just West 4th Street and Broadway."
"HUH?"
"Just West 4th Street and Broadway."
"I had to ask you to repeat it cuz I'm deaf."
"Okay."
"You don't have to say 'just.' You can just tell me the address, you don't have to say 'just West 4th Street and Broadway.' You don't have to feel guilty about where you're going. I don't care where you're going."
"I'll remember that for next time."
(To someone invisible:) "She knows."

Stories:

The yogurt plus cereal I'm eating right now is not cuttin it. And it makes my jaw hurt to eat it. So, coffee. Mmmmm....

HST went to Chris' parents' house on Long Island yesterday to shoot sketches all day long. There were many, many highlights to this day, including the wonderful nap I took on the leather couch in the den AND his gratious mother and father feeding us the most delicious foods all day long. They're always so hospitable, despite our taking over their home like a band of giggling apes. She made lasagna. Do you understand? Lasagna. Plus, lots of other FOOOOD.

It seems that the people I spend the majority of my time with can still make me fall to my knees in hysterical laughter and evidently that's not gonna change. Also, etched into my brain is the image of Chris falling off the back of the couch and subsequently knocking the lamp out about eight times in a row.

On Saturday night, we had a show in the city, which was awesome. I received a few special surprise treats that night, including, but not limited to, Clayton randomly singing the lyrics, "Raphael is cool but rude!" (from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoon theme song) during the Go Go Go sketch. Since I'm sure that sounds incredibly out of context, especially to those of you who've never seen the Harvard Sailing Team, let me assure you that nothing has been lost in this translation. It was completely out of context and I spit-laughed on Rebecca when he sang it. Lesson 1: The audience loves when the players laugh when they aren't supposed to. Lesson 2: Your friends will screw you over onstage. Lesson 3: Clayton's a punk.

My cat has been without his mother all weekend long. I was home, not. I feel a little guilty. But he made up for it by scratching up my arms and legs and chewing on my hair while I was asleep this morning. Thanks, Floyd. You're tops.

I got a manicure on Saturday that's already chipping a little.

I wanna buy an S.U.V.

So get a load of this!

I went to sleep last night at a really nice time. Midnight. I got nice and tired while hanging out with my roomie, Daniel, watching Law & Order (Uncle Mark didn't do it, it was the captain of the lacrosse team!) and eating egg whites, and I decided to excuse myself to my precious little bedness. I laid down, I closed my eyes, I was asleep within moments. Bliss. Plus, I have this adorable black cat, whom I've mentioned, who's happy to sleep with his mommy. Bliss.

I was resting so nicely, so enjoying my nutritious sleep, that when I opened my eyes at 7am, I literally thought that the universe had accidentally inserted another hour of time into the day. Of course, this was a half-awake/half-asleep theory, but I fully believed it in every respect. I thought, Daniel's gonna be so surprised! I wonder what everyone thinks of this! I thought, how can they do this! Just give us another hour? Did I miss the end of daylight savings time or something? Did we set the clocks forward and I just forgot? No, that's in October. We just got another hour! Oh, universe, THANK you. So thoughtful.

I woke up this morning fully believing that god or love or humanity or infinity had added another hour into Time. And it was pretty frickin cool. Oh, Time, you rascal.

It's like this: Sit around and feel grumpy and bitch about shit and say nasty things about yourself in your own head OR get over it. Turn that frown upside down!

Somewhere around age ... I dunno what age actually, but somewhere along the way I got the idea in my head that letting yourself feel really good stuff, without pooing on it, was a mistake. I was wrong. Letting yourself feel good stuff is the best. Do it always.

I'm a lucky girl with lots of loving and caring people in my life. And I can think of about eight of them who would blow chunks all over themselves if they read that sentence. Which is precisely why I adore them all to begin with.

That said: Love.

Damn you, UPS!!! DAMN YOU.

I don't know what I need. A nap? A hug? To lay around and watch The Princess Bride?

Yesterday when I was running at the gym I actually happened upon the last tenish minutes of The Princess Bride, which is my favorite movie of all time. The last tenish minutes are excellence, as are all the other minutes, but the last tenish are bliss. Everything happens! When Inigo finally kills The Count, when Westley and Buttercup reunite, when Westley threatens Prince Humperdinck with his "to the pain" speech. Gold.

I've realized that a great deal of my concepts about true love, romance, friendship, and fighting people with swords come from that movie. When I was a kid I watched it on repeat for probably about six months straight. So, like Saved by the Bell and ALF, it really molded a lot of my values and ideals. What that mostly means is that I'm going to expect my future husband to almost-die and then come back to life and rescue me by storming a huge medieval castle. With a giant.

p.s. I love every dress Buttercup wears in this movie. Every single one. Shutup.

I had a difficult commute to work this morning, complete with "troubled train" and "idiot girl who wouldn't move out of the way" and "deli guy who refuses to turn around and acknowledge that I'd like to place an order even though we're both perfectly aware that he knows I'm standing there." Oof.

Perhaps those who know me best will find the following concept amusing, but I tend to think of myself as a pretty laid back person, at least when it comes to stuff like this. Unless I'm running seriously late for something, living in New York for eight years has forced me to refine my ability to breathe, relax, and be compassionate toward my fellow city-dweller - cuz, ya know, we all gotta get where we're going.

I was not running late this morning, but I was all stressed about getting here on time because my boss breathed fire into my soul last week and now I'm afraid of her and the things she writes down on her dumb note pad. I think it's time: I'm gonna look for a new job. Because, I mean, nobody likes themselves when they're hatin on the deli guy. Who needs that. He's really nice most of the time.

Who wants burgers?

I'm hungry. God knows why. I had a fiberous salad from Chipotle at lunch and something with eggs for breakfast. Roar.

Today, I had lunch with two of my closest friends. I live with one, I used to live with the other. Well now all work for the same institution. We've all three known one another since we were wee freshman at NYU, so it's cute how we're still best friends and stuff. They're awesome boys. We sat at lunch today, though, with little to say. After you've known people for a long time, after you've spent hours and hours talking and talking...while sober, while on all sortsa drugs, during class, on the subway, waiting for fireworks to start, waiting to board a plane, in the hospital, from adjoining jail cells...you wind up running out of things to talk about. Rather, you wind up running out of things you feel compelled to talk about. Because you've said it all. And what you haven't said, can wait until you're less sleepy. Of course, we can always count on each other for the occasional politically incorrect, racially inappropriate remark, or the (more-popular) snarky, rude, and belittling remark regarding one anothers' personal existence, sometimes from a religious or racial perspective. I get off easy, though, because one's a gay jew, the other's half black and I'm the white girl. So instead they just tease me about the fact that I used to be fat and have been in therapy for four years. It's really the perfect system.

I can't sleep. Not that it's really late or anything, but I was hoping to fall asleep early tonight so as to ensure a timely arrival at the workstead tomorrow. Blech.

So I have the details on my mind: laundry, groceries, exercise, I should probably consider changing departments at work, improv and sketch comedy are both getting busy, I need to clean my dumb room, I'd like to paint this room too, some day, it's fall. You know. The details.

The conversation I had with my boss on Friday was a little eye opening. I don't think I'm gonna be happiest trying to satisfy this woman's expectations; they feel a little unreasonable. That might just be me, but regardless, putting effort into impressing her and changing her opinion of my "recent performance" seems like a futile, uphill kinda battle. I'm not sure I can win with her and I'm not sure I want to try. I wonder if I might just cut my losses and move departments. It's an open option, one that I might be wise to explore. Ugh, these grownup decisions. I don't even clean my room.

Clean my room. Anybody.

Oh and HST had a kickA$$ show last night. It was so fun, lotsa people came out, and aside from the tipsy fellow in the front row burping in my ear during the marionette sketch, nothing but excellent awesome stuff happened -- and who are we kidding, the burp was a welcome surprise all the same. (But, the picture above is from last year.)

Drinks afterwards. Drunk. Lovely, cherished friends. Lucky, lucky girl. Nice lazy day today. Back to it tomorrow morning.

Sleep, grace me with your presence, eh?

Oh yes I will do it on the weekends. Oh yes I will.

In 2002 this man asked me to marry him so he could stay in the country. I said no. Then I wrote a sketch about it. I shoulda said yes because I would have gotten a lot more hilarious sketches outta the marriage deal.

I woke up at 10:30am this morning for a job I'm supposed to be at by 9:00am. When I got in, I got a real talking-to from my boss. I feel kinda blue about. I kinda need a hug. Good thing I own a really adorable cat.

Oooof, I'm sleepy. After a night of delicious, magical improv performed by some of my very favorites, I stayed out way too late.

I did get to have a nice chat with a drunk Irishman who was visiting New York on business with his twenty-something drunker Asian butt buddy in tow. This Irishman said some very interesting things to me, including, "You should go by Jenifer, not Jen. You're selling yourself short. You have a very intense mouth." Call me crazy, but BANG. Dead Irish guy.

It's gonna be a busy weekend full of performance watching and performance doing and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have it any other way. It's hard being a constantly sought after super star.

In Case You Don't Know

I do this:

We do stuff like this:

Some of us look like this:

Go here:

www.harvardsailingteam.com

And now, a list of mini-dotes, which are like anecdotes, but mini ones:

I spent the entire morning under the assumption that today is Thursday. It's not.

My roommate has pneumonia. He's been bed ridden for ten days in a row. One of the tvs in our house has therefore been playing a great deal of Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: Criminal Intent (woot!), Extreme Makeover, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and The View.

My cat, Floyd, has recently lost weight due to a new diet we've put him on. (The less food diet.) Since the weight loss, he looks like a goddammed super model. I'm not kidding. He's gorgeous. He's sleek. It's agonizingly adorable.

I exercise. Regularly. It's nice. But tell that to my right-ass-cheek-meets-upper-thigh-perhaps-hamstring. He has this to say about exercise: "It's not all it's cracked up to be."

Two of my friends who are slightly older than I am have no idea who Jem is. Two of my friends who are my exact age know exactly who she is. Who dropped what ball?

Eggs. Regularly eaten here.

I wondered to myself just now, "If I've quit talking to an old boyfriend, eliminated him from my life, complete with an email to him explaining why I'm not interested in carrying on any sort of platonic relationship, is it creepy if I still look at his myspace page at least once every two days?" And by creepy, I mean unnatural and contradictory and completely pathetic.

I'm over him. TRUST me. I'm over him. I'll have a fist fight with you over how over him I promise I am. But something compels me to look at his stupid myspace page. (I mean, I do have this pesky boredom issue I'm constantly trying to quell while at the workplace so I've probably seen every myspace ever created, even yours.) It's like the one window into what's going on in his life that I'll still allow myself. As much as I sometimes wish I hadn't had to institute the ol' Never Speak Again clause, as much as I still have some nostalgia in my wee heart for the poor chump, as much as I sometimes hope I bump into him on the street some day so I can say "Hi!" and smile at him so he doesn't feel unloved in life, I know that it would just be like baiting a fish hook with a cancer worm and catching a cancer fish if I were to reach out to him in any way. So instead I look at the poor kid's poor myspace page. And then I write my very first blog entry about it.

If only I had a digital camera. I'd take a picture of myself reading his myspace page. Because photo blogs are cool.