I wrote a whole big long entry last night that got promptly DELETED due to a blogger error. ROAR.

Meanwhile, my cubicle mate is presently eating a huge cupcake for breakfast. Red velvet. (She's...um...not thin?...so...I don't feel SO jealous.)

I'll try to write later today. All is well. Looking forward to the weekend. Blah blah blah.

Stupid computers.

Comedy.

I can't figure out how to post a video directly to my blog, so this link with have to suffice.

My sketch comedy group was featured on a TV show called "Attack of the Show."

It's a nice segment and it makes me feel proud. :)

Nope, a brownie.

I ended up having such a nice night last night.

I left work, fully intending to go to a pilates class with my night off from rehearsal. Then I realized that the days that I get to go directly home from work are so few and far between that I can only remember having done it one other time since I moved into Kevin's apartment in July. JULY! So I decided, eff it, I already worked out once today, I'll do pilates on my own when I get home, I'm skipping the class.

I'm glad I did because about 8 seconds after making this decision, my period started. Ah, yes. Wonderful. I had to stop at a store and buy advil immediately - there was no way I could wait the 40 minutes until I got home to calm the cramps. Thank god for advil. It works every time for me.

I'd already decided earlier in the day that I'd stop at the store to get some kind of special sweet treat. I popped into a gourmet market on my way to the subway and picked up a most delicious (and surprisingly low-calorie even though it was regular full fat) organic coffee flavored ice cream and a small package of all-natural caramel pecan brownies. I was so excited to make a decadent treat for after supper. And it was not my intention to self-soothe with the sweets or anything like that, I just knew I wanted a yummy reward for a good OP day. But as I stood in the check out line with advil, ice cream, and brownies, it did not escape me that I was clearly a girl who just started her period. It made me laugh.

I tucked my precious brownies into a safe place in my gym bag so they wouldn't get smushed, downed my advil, and headed to the subway. I kept hoping I'd find something to read on the way home, like a newspaper or magazine just laying around, but I didn't see anything as I walked down the street. But when I got on the train there was a Page Six magazine sitting right on the seat I was going to sit in. Sweet! So I read trashy gossip the whole train ride home.

My cramps had subsided when I got home so I changed into clean workout clothes, having already done a solid 30 minutes of hard cardio at the gym over my lunch break, and did some pilates in front of the TV. It was nice and felt good, probably did about 25-30 minutes worth.

Kevin was out with a friend for the evening so I was on my own for dinner. I was so excited to broil up my tilapia, to have along with some brown rice and a salad. But when I got the tilapia out of the package and onto the broiling pan, I knew I just couldn't eat it. I know, I know, it's not that fishy. And I totally believe you, Jess, when you tell me you like it and that I will too. I am definitely willing to try it again. And I plan to. But last night it just wasn't happening. Maybe it was hormonal, but the smell of the raw fish made me gag and I could barely stand to handle it to put it in the oven, let alone eat it. What a baby, right? I cooked it anyway, thinking maybe I'd taste it once it was done and like it. But I knew it wasn't happening. I made an egg and bacon sandwich while the fish cooked. :) I'm such a wuss.

I cooked it through, though, and saved it for Kevin who said he might reheat it today for lunch. It looked tasty when it was done cooking but I was already so over it, mentally, that there was no hope for me.

I still had a spinach salad, which was delicious and filling. And then my 1 egg, low-sodium bacon, half a piece of cheese sandwich on spelt bread. It was very delicious and I enjoyed my dinner very much. (Probably mostly because it meant I was one step closer to dessert.)

I puttered around a bit after that, doing some dishes, playing with the cats, organizing some paperwork, and watching TV. When I finally couldn't distract myself any longer, I prepared my dessert.

Let me just tell you that it was one of the most enjoyable flavor explosions I've experienced in a while. It was a delicious, decadent dessert that tasted heavenly, was all-natural, all made with ingredients I could pronounce, and took a while to eat. Also, I had the points to spare from my two workouts of the day. And it was a wonderful reward.

Here it is, on my lap on the couch, looking unfortunately unappealing due to being semi-eaten and the pic being from a low-quality camera:



I know it looks a little weird, but I still had to show you. It was about 3/4 of a cup of organic coffee ice cream (this was so good and made the dish), sprinkled with cappucino flavored wafers that I received in a package from my dad, along with half of a caramel pecan brownie that was rich and to die for. And then! To top it off! I made some gourmet hot cocoa that my dad also sent. Just a tiny cup of it for about 1 point. But it tasted like a chocolate dream. Perhaps I'm gushing now, but I was in heaven. Just to reitterate. Heaven.

ANYWAY. After that, I did a little emailing, had a small handful of nuts, then snuggled onto the couch (decided to fall asleep watching TV until Kevin came home - makes the house feel less scary), and drifted off.

He woke me up when he got home around 2 and brought me into the bedroom. I woke up again at 5:55am to more bad cramps (I'd forgotten to take advil before going to sleep), so I got up to take some meds, feed the cats, and then Kevin woke up too. We ended up laying there chatting for a good 35 minutes around 6am. We were both feeling restless and not super sleepy. He rubbed my lower back for a while, which was so soothing and wonderful because my insides felt really sore. I finally fell asleep and got another hour and a half before waking up for good.

It's CHILLY today! I woke up a bit late and had to rush around but I still made it to work on time with my gym clothes, lunch, and afternoon snack all in tow. I had a yummy filling breakfast and just now finished part 1 of my lunch, a spinach salad with feta and cranberries. I feel pretty satisifed from it so I think I'll head to the gym shortly for a light lifting session before I eat part 2, which is beef chili with light sour cream and organic multigrain tortilla chips. This afternoon's snack will be a carrot, some hummus, and a small truffle for a sweet treat.

Wednesdays are one of my long cardio days, usually, so I'm going to go back to the gym after work tonight to get in a good 60 minutes of whatever kind of cardio I'm feeling up to. I've already planned out my dinner, since I have an improv show tonight at 9:30 and I anticipate it being a late night. I'm going to have a slice of pizza after my workout, maybe an apple or a banana, and I plan to have a couple beers at the bar tonight. I rarely go out with my friends after these Wednesday night shows, since it's a school night, but I think I might do so tonight. And I've also alotted points to eat the other half of my decadent brownie when I get home tonight. We'll see how it all plays out, but that's the idea for now.

It's so exciting to me that I get to have pizza, beer, and maybe a small brownie tonight and that that's STILL within my "diet." I will have done the exercise to earn it, I will have eaten plenty of other healthy things during the day to counteract it, and it's not even going to cost me too much in the calorie department. This is the life.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. I think it will include a little bit of everything: a party, maybe two parties (one that I'm really excited about), some alone time (Kevin's taking a class on Saturday), some outdoor exercise (I WILL do a long run outside this weekend. Can't wait.), perhaps some cooking, and also, the best part: my cutie boyfriend has arranged for us to rent a car and drive upstate to see the fall foilage! We use a service called zip car, which makes it super super easy to rent a car; you literally just reserve the car online, go to a parking garage or street location near your house, swipe your membership card over a thing on the inside of the car which unlocks the car, and then you get in and go! That's the ENTIRE rental process. No joke. You can rent it for an hour, for a day, however long you want. And it's cheap. And they pay for the fucking gas. Crazy. We've used it a lot since the service came out a year or so ago. Anyway, I told him I really wanted to drive out of the city to look at the trees before they changed too much or it got too cold but I was hemming and hawing about spending the money and when to go, etc., so he just decided - he booked us for this Sunday and said we can drive up, look around, maybe find an apple orchard, stop at the big mall, and find a place to have dinner. Adorable and fun. Can't wait. I love him for arranging it and I LOVE the fall.

Off to the gym!

Maybe a cupcake.

The scale was down for weigh-in this morning another half pound. I was surprised by this because I thought last week's overeating due to my little cousin being in town and this week's overeating due to several family parties was sure to catch up to me and cause a gain. Plus I think I'm in PMS stages right now. But I was surprised to see a welcome loss and I'm glad for it.

I have had consistent losses for the last 7 weeks, except for last week's maintain. It's a good streak. I would certainly attribute it to being more serious and diligent with my exercise lately (been preplanning my weekly workout schedule, doing an average of 6 days per week, varied types and lengths of cardio, light strength training, yoga, and pilates).

I'd also attribute it to being as honest as possible with myself when I write down what I've eaten in a day. The week my little cousin was here, I went over my points for the week by 95 points! I'm allowed 22 points a day and I ate beyond that by 95 points. Now 35 of those are the allotted flex points (for anyone non-WW, flex points are extra points you're given in a week to spend as you choose: all in one day, spread out over the course of the week, not at all, etc.). The other 60 points I ate were beyond what's 'allowed.' Now that's quite a bit of food - nothing to sneeze at and I certainly certainly work each week to keep that number low. (95 is an all-time high for me in recent months. That's not an average week or anything.) And I'd say the healthy majority of those points are consumed as lean proteins, whole grains, fruits and veggies, and nuts and beans. Mostly organic, whole stuff. But regardless of what I'm eating, I'd rather be totally open and honest about all the little BLT's (bites, licks, and tastes) than fudge the numbers and wonder why the hell I'm not losing at a more rapid pace.

I realize sometimes all this talk about food and exercise might sound a little over the top - that the details about what I've lost over 7 weeks, how I conduct my exercise lifestyle, what I eat, how I write everything down might sound like a mildy insane person's life. And maybe it is. But as I said yesterday, being "Fit From Within" (the name of a book I just ordered) is something that has always eluded me. So until I miraculously grow the piece of my brain chemistry that's able to simply wake up each day and automatically make the best possible choices without having to think twice about it ever, I'm probably gonna have to be someone who writes down what she eats, gives a little forethought to her workout schedule, and is accountable for it all to a scale, her pants, and a blogging community. It is what it is.

And today, what it is, is a pleased feeling that the scale was down. I actually didn't think it was gonna happen. I ate less this week than the 95-points-over week, but it was still a high number - I think maybe 85 points over? Something nuts like that? I usually do about 65 points over (that includes the 35 allowed) so I'm lucky that whatever I'm doing is working well enough that I'm still having success. Of course my goal for this upcoming week is to get that number back down to a more reasonable place, like 65 points over. I know I can't keep up with the amount of calories I've consumed in the last two weeks and still show losses. So we'll head it off at the pass and rein it in this week.

I made a workout plan for the week yesterday, as I have been doing a lot lately. I'm excited to inact it this week. There's this brand new weird contraption at the gym that is sort of a cross between a stair master, an ellipitical, and a treadmill. I can't explain it. But it doesn't have a name on it. It's got all these gears and levers and it's kinda hard to use at first but I tried it last week, finally got the hang of it, and holy SHIT. That thing - whatever it is - is a killer. My heart rate is at a steady 180 whenever I'm on it. Wild.

I'll also take a couple classes this week, pilates and yoga, and I'm looking forward to those too. It's been a couple weeks since I went to a gym class.

I have another type of goal this week which is to be very frugal financially speaking. I'm on a cash diet right now, which means my goal is to only spend a certain amount (or less, of course) each day. I'm already a little behind and have to make up for it by not spending much at all in the next few days. This means I'm eating breakfasts and lunches that I bring into work from home AND preparing dinner at home each night - another bonus for the healthy living effort, because I can control what I'm consuming. So it's a nice hand-in-hand scenario with the cash and the food.

I have a few days off in the next two weeks that are not usually my own. I have HST rehearsals every Tuesday night but we are off for the next two Tuesdays (for a handful of reasons) and I have an HST show every Saturday night but I will not have one this Saturday. So I am looking at a few days of freetime that I'm not used to. And it is definitely welcome. Of course the days are filling up fast and I already have plans on a couple of the open nights, but I don't mind since they'll be deviations from the normal routine. Tonight, my first Tuesday off, I'll take a pilates class. And the other two nights, Saturday and next Tuesday, I have parties to attend! Yay! Parties!

My 28th birthday is swiftly approaching. Friday, November 7. I'm looking forward to it, as I do every birthday, but in a moment of weakness and vulnerable PMSing last night, I cried in bed to Kevin for an hour, sobbed actually, about how I'm almost 30. Completely and utterly ridiculous, I'm beyond aware. Not necessary, not REAL (since I'm almost 28, not almost 30), and not worth my time or emotion since what exactly is 30 but a number and what exactly is "almost" but a descriptive word that means nothing tangible in my life day to day. Not to mention, it is all completely without warrant because if I'm going to waste my time focusing on numbers, 30 is a number that I know I will be proud to say is my age when the time comes. WHATEVER. Regardless, I sobbed to him last night. About that and about other stuff. And I'm allowed to because apparently I needed to. And it felt good. He was very patient and kind with me and listened carefully and asked all the right questions and offered some solutions and new perspectives and also just let me cry. He's very sweet.

I'm still in a bit of a funk about what exactly to do for my birthday. But I'll figure it out and I need to get the fuck over myself, also. PMS for sure. (I think it will be over in a matter of hours though. Then it will move to MS, remove the P.)

I'm gonna go get in some light cardio on my lunch break. I just ate a delicious turkey, cheese, spinach wrap for lunch, which I made in my kitchen this morning, and I'm already @#)%(* hungry. PMS. So I'm going to have a find a substantial snack to have after my lunchtime workout if I expect to make it to pilates class tonight.

Oh the trials and tribulations of being alive. Woe is me. Right? PuhhhLEEEZE.

I'm excited to have some quiet time to myself tonight. Kevin's going out with a friend and I think I'm gonna go home after pilates, possibly have a glass of wine, and watch my political programs. :) I might make fish for dinner! Whaaat! I'm NOT a fish eater for the most part. I am pretty finicky when it comes to fish. But I've heard tilapia is not fishy at all and they had a nice looking garlic chipotle tilapia at TJ's so I swiped it. Might try it tonight with some pilaf or brown rice and salad. We'll see.

I think I shall also find myself some kind of special sweet treat for dessert. Maybe a fancy cupcake? Maybe. :) :)

A sampling.

First of all, I am really getting excited for the election. I'm so excited by the prospect that Obama might win this thing; I'm remaining only cautiously optimistic. I know these things can change overnight, for no discernable reason. My hope is that exactly what Colin Powell said in his controversial endorsement will come true - that we need a transitional figure, and a new generation, in the White House.

Lately it seems like all Kev and I watch on TV are political shows. I love Countdown with Keith Olberman which is, admittedly, very left-biased. But I think the guy is funny and I love hearing his spin. Then, of course, are the comedy central shows - The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I recently caught "Sarah Palin: Revealed," which is on MSNBC - it's a program they've done for all four of the nominees, just about their lives. It's a documentary, so of course it's meant to be neutral. But regardless, it's hard for me to watch the program because I dislike the woman so much. Learning about her as a young woman is even more off-putting.

Anyway, I hope he wins and I'm eager to find out what will happen.

We had a nice weekend - Friday night was just quiet time at home together. Kevin and I went to the grocery store after I was done with work and he was done with some meetings - had a nice time shopping and hangin out together. And then we went home and made the most delicious comfort-food, fall-weather supper.

We sampled an organic tomato-pepper soup at Trader Joe's and it was so delicious, we decided to buy it and make grilled cheese on rye bread (oh god yum), organic tomato soup, and a big spinach salad. It was seriously SUCH a yummy meal, I was obsessed with it. The flavors all mixed together so delightfully and the tastes stayed in my mouth for a good 30 minutes after I was done eating, reminding me of how flavorful and delicious it all was. I wanted to get up after the first bite to take a photo of my plate, but it was so delicious that I couldn't stop eating it!

Anyway, I think I found a new favorite-of-the-moment meal that I'm definitely going to have to make again. Seriously. YUM. The grilled cheese cost me about 10 points by itself. I didn't skimp on the butter. I used an organic vegan spread, but there's no calorie difference from regular butter or margarine. And I used two full pieces of rye bread so it was costly. But I smartly gave the BF a big tear off my sandwich because he gobbled his up so fast and I felt bad for him. (Plus I didn't want to eat the whole thing myself.;)

I had a glass of wine as we cooked, and he a beer. And we basically puttered around cutting up veggies for the week, doing dishes, tending to the cats, and making dinner. It was a really nice night. After eating, we caught up on some tivo and then turned in relatively early because we were going to see his family early the following morning.

I did, however, snack well beyond necessity before going to sleep. Not sure if it was the wine or the intense workout I'd had earlier in the day that left me feeling like I was "allowed," but I ended up eating handfuls of almost everything in our pantry. We bought a bunch of snacky stuff at the store and of course I had to sample every single thing.

It's just about self control, of course. And I decided to let mine go out the window on Friday night. Eh. No big deal.

Saturday morning we got up early to go see Kevin's family. We saw his sister for her birthday and then we all (sister Lisa, her hub, their baby, and Kevin's parents) went to New Jersey to go to his Lisa's in-law's house for an engagement party for their daughter. Kevin and I couldn't stay long because we had to catch a train back to the city for the HST show.

I definitely overate that day too. It was tough because I had two parties to attend and we were up early and out and about, surrounded by food, all day long. I did the best I could to keep it on the modest side, but it was tough. I was never stuffed but I still felt like I ate a lot that day.

Sunday was another lovely day. I had to get up early and go into the city for an HST meeting. I skipped breakfast (something I NEVER do), just had coffee and a bite of someone's eggs. Then Kevin and I met for lunch in Brooklyn where I had a mexican egg brunch dish, which was very filling and yummy and kept me satisifed for a good 6-7 hours! Seriously.

After that, we went shopping for fall jackets because we were both without them, then went home, cleaned the apartment, and prepared for our friends Faryn and David to come over for a casual dinner together.

The four of us whipped up a chicken sausage whole wheat pasta with peppers dish, a yummy salad, and garlic bread - it was so delicious and we all helped prepare it, which was cool. And then we had some nice conversation, a little beer (I had 1.5 beers), and a cookie for dessert.

Kevin and I stayed up for a while longer after they left, watching tv and chatting, and went to bed pretty late. I was exhausted when I woke up this morning.

One thing I did not do on Saturday or Sunday was exercise! Gah! I knew I was taking Saturday off and had intentionally exercised every other day during the week because I planned to take Saturday off, since we were going to be running around with family all day. I had big plans to go for a nice long run with my man on Sunday but we got to shopping, which is always tiring, and by the time we got home it was dark, and we got to cleaning, which is also tiring, and then it was way too late and Faryn and David were on their way over. I kept thinking - "I'll just put on my running clothes and GO!" I really wanted to. But it didn't workout. Alas. I'm sure I burned some calories with the shopping, walking, trying on a million fall jackets, and cleaning/vacuuming the apartment.

I am purposefully eating light today to offset another week of a little more food than I wanted to consume. I ordered a book today called "Fit from Within" which I read about on this blog. This is a blog that my friend Jess turned me onto, and I LOVE it. Anyway, I ordered this book because I really want to consciously transition from being someone who feels they have certain benchmarks to reach each day with food and exercise to someone who naturally behaves in that way without having to think about it.

I have a sense that I'm leaning more toward the latter than I give myself credit for, but there are certainly still times when I think a lot about food, obsess over what I should eat, and focus more on the details than on the big picture. So I'm eager to read this book.

I had a nice 30 minute hard cardio session at the gym today during my lunch break. Weigh-in is tomorrow morning and I will only have a small snack or a cookie when I get home tonight, but beyond that, I'm done eating for the day. I had lots of satisfying and delicious things to eat today, including a turkey, cheddar wrap, prepared lovingly by my boyfriend. So I think I should be fine to metaphorically close down the kitchen for the night.

I have improv practice and then I'm going to see a friend's show. I probably won't be home until closer to midnight when I will surely fall right into bed.

Mondays are always tough for me.

Separately - I love Trader Joe's more and more the longer I shop there.

Just had to note that. Thank you. Good night.

Build a bridge and get over it? Or not?

I spilled a whole container of delicious organic (expensive) blueberries all over our kitchen floor last night. I thought the blue dots all over the orange tile looked kind of funny so I took a picture, but it doesn't look as funny on film. :) New blackberry. Hence all the pictures as of late.

Soooooooooo. I still don't feel like blogging today but I have a good hour to kill this evening before I leave work for the day so I thought this might waste some time. ;) That's a really inviting way to entice you read this post, right? "I don't really wanna write but I'm bored so here, read this drivel."

Har.

Work has been a little mentally difficult for me lately. I feel like I'm being asked to do more than other people are asked to do - and without a raise - and it's sort of getting to me. Granted, I still have freetime available to me. So it's not as if I'm up against the wire and don't have a free moment to myself (as is evidenced by this kill-time blog entry). And part of me does wonder if maybe I should just grow up, shut up, and do what's being asked of me without complaint.

The problem is that the person who's asking me to do stuff is on my same level, not above me. And she, we'll call her B, point-blank told me a couple weeks ago that she had too much to do, and assisting one of the people she assists, who we'll call D, is becoming too much for her, so her solution, she said, was to just start doing a bad job for D so that the management would get the hint that she is too busy and would give D's work to someone else. Odd solution.

The management is mostly this one ditzy lady who barely works 30 hours a week and is too busy answering her friends' phone calls to notice or care. So when B's plan to get rid of her D workload wasn't working she finally made a grand plea to this manager woman about her workload for D.The manager didn't want to deal with it as a larger issue I guess because she just assigned his work to me - but just for that day. I was annoyed because I have plenty to do myself but I got over it, realizing it's probably better just to help out when asked rather than pout and stomp about it. That action will look good come review time.

But that was last week. And since then B has asked me on no fewer than 5 occasions to do MORE of D's work. First it was because she was out sick, then it was because she was back in the office but still not feeling well, and today it was because she was busy, yet again, with other work.

Now, as I've mentioned, I recently took on another attorney of my own to assist, which means I'm now assisting three people. Most of the other assistants work for two attorneys or just one. So why can't one of THOSE people do B's extra work? Why is it me?

NOT TO MENTION, beyond assisting all three of my people, I'm ALSO the only designated person in the office to take over for the head assistant, C, who assists the big head honcho guy, whenever C is at lunch, in the bathroom, taking a day off, running an errand. (And let me tell you, this bitch is ALWAYS doing one of those things.) Because he's a big music exec and the big head honcho here, his phones are always ringing off the hook, every call must be answered or else, and he always needs something. So I do that every day at least twice a day, sometimes for whole weeks even, in addition to all my other stuff.

So basically, B asked me again today to do something for D that she didn't want to/didn't have time to do. She didn't ask management to ask me, she just asked me herself. And I didn't think it was right or fair. But I agreed to do it because I figured helping out looked better than causing a scene by saying "No," and then logging back onto Perez Hilton.(My other work was done.)

It could certainly be argued that B saw me not working and saw an opportunity to ask me to do her the favor. But shortly after that she was not-working herself.

Now, my actual suspicion is that B, who is actually a paralegal/assistant, DOES have time, but would RATHER work on the legal stuff she's assigned as opposed to the administrative stuff she's assigned. She feels above the tasks of a typical assistant. Perhaps, in her mind, she'll eventually get to quit doing all assistant tasks at all. The only problem is, in addition to her roll as a paralegal, her JOB is to ASSIST two attorneys. That's part of her job. And right now she's delegating one of them to me, and the other one - get this - is on maternity leave! For three months! So B's phones are quiet, her workload has lessened, yet she's giving me the extra stuff she "doesn't have time" to do. She has time. I promise you. Mentally, it might be difficult for her to have more than one piece of her job to focus on, but time-wise, she has time.

So I'm feeling disgruntled, obviously. Things have gotten busier than ever for me at work, my phones are constantly ringing, I answer 3 (usually 4 when C is off running errands) phone lines, assist 3.5 people (including D) and I feel like there are other people in the office who are always playing computer games or emailing with their friends.

Don't get me wrong - I have free time, as I said. But I feel as though there's a misconception about the amount of work I do, that somehow I'm viewed as someone who could use a little more work to do, so to complain about it or question it when I'm asked to help out might be viewed poorly. I'm also the newest assistant, having only been here a year. So maybe that's part of it. I'm not sure where my own insecurities about being perceived a slacker end the reality of the situation begins. The reality is, however, that I do my work, don't generally screw things up, and never leave for a day without having done what needs to be done that day. I'm on time every single day (B is, without fail, 15-30 minutes late every day), and I'm always helpful. I am online or doing personal stuff just as often as other people. And I feel I actually have more responsibility than some other people.

I guess my irritation is less about having more work to do for B, which is really not that big of a deal at all and usually only takes me a few minutes to complete, but is more about the power-play of her asking me to do it just because she doesn't really feel like it, the assumption that what she has to get done in a day is more important than what I have to get done, and that I can easily take a few minutes and just do her work for her. That's why we have interns, to do work we don't want to/can't do. And that's why we have a manager, to delegate work when things become unbalanced.

Basically, I'm not sure WHAT to do. There is the option of talking to my new boss, who is a great guy, and who would be understanding and maybe be irritated with the situation if I explained it to him, and who has some leverage around here. But I also feel like I don't want to act like a bratty kid and just bitch about having to do a couple extra things a day. It's more the principle of it really. It's more that B told me she was going to do a bad job so she didn't have to keep working for D. And the manager woman has her head too far up her ass to check in on the situation. Part of me feels like maybe I should just wait until my review, which should be any week now, and explain how much my work load is increased. Leverage. And part of me feels that I should express my frustrations.

Any advice that any of you may have, you who have experience in the working world, or you who have a much less child-like disposition when asked to do extra work than I, would be greatly appreciated. I need some direction here. Otherwise I'm going to bottle it up and get real bitchy and the whole thing is gonna seem a lot bigger in my head than it actually is.

I guess I did have stuff to write about...

In OTHER less ridiculous news, I had a nice quick lunch workout yesterday, which felt good. I'll go back to the gym tonight (skipped the lunch workout today in favor of a slow, meandering walk around midtown) for a lifting session and a long cardio session. I'm looking forward to it, I need the stress relief. (My sketch group is driving me a little nuts right now too, so add that to the pile of stressful things to be relieved.) I've got my improv show tonight and then I'll head home to catch the debate on the tivo.

When I got home last night Kevin had a couple slices of pizza waiting for me. (I ate one and shared the other with him.) It was so delicious and such a welcome treat. He set out all the toppings I like (parm. cheese, garlic, etc.) and lined the toaster oven tray with aluminum foil so we could heat them right up away and eat them. It was so sweet of him. He really is such a good guy. I'm not sure how I found him, but I'm keeping him.

We split a small cupcake that I brought home from a bakery for dessert. Not amazing but yummy enough.

Not exactly a salad and lean protein, but it was a good supper.

I made myself a delicious egg sandwich for breakfast this morning, had a mexican themed veggie thing for lunch, and will have who-knows-what for dinner.

The next few days will be fun - Girls movie night tomorrow night with some friends (seeing "The Dutchess"), massages with Kev on Friday, his sister's birthday and her sis-in-law's engagement party both on Saturday, and hopefully some niiiice relaxation on Sunday (after a quick biz meeting in the morning). I don't care what we do on Sunday but my vote is that it's something mostly horizontal and involving the television and a delicious filling dinner.

I'm so excited for the election. I think Obama's gonna win and I'm stoked! We're having a few people over that night, just close friends who didn't have other plans. We'll have snacks and drinks and hopefully be celebrating before midnight. You kinda gotta believe your guy is gonna win in order to have an election party or it could turn out to be a very anti-climactic party. But I have a good feeling. McCain has made a mess of things in his campaign, especially lately with all the negative attacks and his supporters yelling things like "Kill him!" about Obama at rallys. I think that scares even rightwing people, and rightfully so.

Anyway, I didn't mean to get political but I'm not afraid of my position. So there it is.

That's it! Good evening! (Still have 30 minutes to go! Grrr.)

Despite larger-than-normal quantities of food consumed this week, this morning's weigh-in presented me with a MAINTAIN! Phew. That was a nice surprise and it reminded me that I have been working really hard lately. It felt good and I feel slim today.

Don't really feel like writing. Feeling kinda down. Gonna try to improve that by going to workout on my lunch break.

Veggie Lasagna

In response to your requests :) here's the veggie lasagna recipe I made yesterday. I liked it because it called for more veggies than just spinach, but it did not call for mushrooms, which I do not care for. A friend who's a talented cook was over last night and he said "Veggie lasagna will take almost any vegetable you put into it." So I figure you can use whatever you want, including mushrooms, if that's your thing.

It's yummy.

A few caveats:

I did not make the tomato-basil-sauce that they give you a recipe for, I just used regular chunky tomato sauce from a jar.

And I cut my lasagna into 12 portions, not the 8 servings it suggests here. It just depends on how big you want the pieces, of course.

Also, I thought maybe a little less than the suggested 1/2 a cup of water poured along the edges at the end would have sufficed.

And lastly, I stuck mine in the broiler for about two minutes after it was done baking to get the cheese nice and brown on top.

working for the weekend

Holy cow - what a weekend.

I'm completely exhausted. And a little overfed, for sure. I also am in desperate need of a good 12 hours of complete alone-time.

Let's back track.

First of all, as you know, I had plenty to eat at that Yom Kippur dinner on Thursday night. Marina served delicious food and I drank (more than plenty of) wine and had a really nice time. As you can see:




Friday was a tough day at work as I was completely exhausted. I did get in a nice workout on my lunch break, just a quick 30 minutes, but it was hard cardio and I felt nice and relaxed afterwards.

Then, that evening, my cousin Kalan arrived! We ended up having a really lovely weekend together. Kevin, being the great guy that he is, picked her up at the airport so she wasn't overwhelmed traveling into Manhattan for the first time by herself. They had a nice cab ride and then walked around 5th Avenue (my office is there), looking at some of the silly designer shops and fancy rich people. We did dinner in Brooklyn that night because all the Manhattan places just seemed like they were going to be packed. The place we LOVE in Park Slope, Brooklyn (Santa Fe Grill - amazing tex mex) was really busy too. We had to wait about 15 minutes for a table which absolutely never happens there. Weird. I was beyond starving by the time we sat down and ate many more free chips than I should have. I didn't have anything to drink but water because I was still pretty sore from the Yom Kippur drinking. I ordered chicken/guacamole tacos, didn't finish them, but had a few bites of Kevin and Kalan's meals. I was full when we left.

The next day, Saturday, was a beautiful day. The weather was perfect, even a little too warm at points, which I don't really mind. We woke up early, Kevin made eggs for us girls, and we all got ready to go do some sightseeing. We headed to Ellis Island, which I haven't been to since I was probably 10 years old. The ferry that takes you to Ellis Island stops at the Statue of Liberty for those who want to get off (we didn't), but we did sail by her so Kalan could see her and we also got to see some beautiful views of the city.



Ellis Island was cool and it didn't take us too long to move through the museum. We were all starving, sick of standing, and feeling really low-energy by the time we were ready to go. Luckily a ferry was about to pull away to head back to New York right when we exited the building, so we hopped on and were back on land in no time. I love transportation luck like that. ;)

We walked around a bit more in the Wall Street area, walked by the ground zero site, did lunch on the Lower East Side, and went home to Brooklyn to take quick naps and showers before a big night of rehearsals, two shows, and drinks with friends.

We headed back into the city around 5:00pm and I had two back-to-back shows with a little bit of downtime (for Chipotle salads) in between. Both shows went really well and I think (I hope) it was really cool for Kalan to see this part of my life/New York City culture. She had a good time.

We were completely drained by the time all was said and done, around 11pm. But we sat with friends at an outside table at a bar (weather still amazing) for a beer and some nice conversation with friends before grabbing a cab home. It was late and I was zonked.

We got up the next morning and took a (longer-than-I-thought-it-was-gonna-be) walk through Prospect Park to a little diner in another neighborhood in Brooklyn to meet up with Randy and Daniel for brunch. We had yummy breakfasts with all kinds of interesting dishes and then we all took another nice long walk to a nearby subway.

Kalan, Kevin and I headed uptown to see Central Park and the Upper West Side. More walking. I'm usually not very conscious of how much walking one does in this city but because I was with someone who lives in a place where driving in the primary mode of transportation, I was more aware of how much we were walking (dragging) her around. My mom, who is probably the fittest person I know (works out constantly, eats incredibly well, and has an amazing body) and lives in the suburban midwest, is always complaining about how her feet, legs, and hips ache when she comes to New York and spends whole days walking around for hours. I guess if you don't do it every day as your main way to get around, you would be in a bit of pain after a while. But even Kevin and I were hurting after all the walking we did with Kalan this weekend. Sunday afternoon, when we saw Central Park, Lincoln Center, Carnagie Hall, Columbus Circle, we were all so sore we kept stopping to stretch out our backs and legs every ten minutes. But it was still a very nice day. The weather was, again, perfect, and I was glad we were able to show Kalan more of the city. I think that girl saw almost all the neighborhoods we offer around here. ;)

After our afternoon of sightseeing, we headed to Trader Joe's to pick up groceries for our little dinner party. (It was the first one I've thrown at mine and Kevin's apartment - and maybe the first one I've thrown ever? Just seven people total. But a dinner party nonetheless.) I was planning veggie lasagna, my friend Faryn was going to bring a salad (thank god), and I was doing some appetizers and a big loaf of bread too.

We headed home with lots of groceries in tow. (TJ's was packed and the three of us took turns waiting on line while the other two people shopped. Kalan was overwhelmed, understandably. I warned her it might be chaotic in there - and it was.) We relaxed a little bit when we got home - Kalan had her first slice of New York pizza (she loved) - and then we decided to do an hour-long yoga podcast together before starting on dinner! (Kevin didn't join us. He did chores instead, the cutie.) It was so fun. I think Kalan, who is very physically active and ran a marathon at age 18 (she's now 22), had a hard time with the class because she wasn't used to the kind of yoga this teacher was doing, so I'm not sure she liked it as much as I did. I had a hard time too with some of the stuff, but it was still good to be active like that.

I hadn't done any yoga in over a week and it felt awesome on my body. I am sore today and my legs and arms definitely felt tingly when the "class" was over, but it was the perfect way to spend an hour before starting on dinner prep. Also helped to alleviate some of the guilt I was feeling for not having gotten in the exercise I'd hoped to earlier in the weekend.

Kevin chopped veggies like a PRO, and did lots of other odds and ends tasks to get the place ready for guests, Kalan prepared and arranged all the appetizers, helped Kevin with odds and ends things, and washed some dishes for me, all while I cooked and arranged the veggie lasagna. It turned out really well for my first ever batch. It. Was. YUMMY.



I will absolutely be making this recipe again and I was shocked to notice later on that each piece was only around 180 calories, or 4 ww points. And I didn't even use lowfat cheese or anything! The pieces were substantial with plenty of veggies (zucchini, carrots, and spinach - SO good), gooey cheese, and lots of sauce and flavor. I loved it. I already know a few alterations I'll make to the recipe to make it more my own next time around. The only regret I have is that there wasn't a whole other pan of it so we could have it for leftovers. (There was one leftover piece which I immediately snatched up, stored away, and just now ate for lunch! Yum!)

The guests arrived right on time and we had appetizers and drinks while the lasagna baked, then sat down to a most delicious dinner, complete with Faryn's incredibly tasty salad, which complemented the lasagna perfectly. It had all kinds of really delicious ingredients and she made a great dressing from scratch and the whole meal was just really lovely. We chatted about the economy over dinner, which is always fun.

Dessert was this INCREDIBLE cake - I only had a small amount of it so everyone only got a tiny piece, along with yummy sea-salt brownie bites from Trader Joe's and some organic vanilla soy cream. Everyone agreed that this cake was the best they'd ever tasted (long story about the cake, but basically, it's from an amazing delicatessen in Tampa, FL, and it's to die for) and we drank more wine, mourned our empty dessert plates, and chatted for a while longer until BOTH Faryn and her boyfriend fell asleep (!) and everyone finally made their way home.

It was a really nice night. I was completely full when it was over, although I don't think I overate on any one thing. I certainly could have had fewer pieces of cheese at the beginning of the night, but alas, what can you do.

The scale was up this morning, as I knew it would be, and will probably show a gain for my official weigh-in tomorrow. This will be the first time I've had a gain in 5 weigh-in's so I'm comfortable with it. I tried to make good choices this weekend and certainly succeeded often, but I was also hungry more often than not, after doing so much sight-seeing and generally exerting of energy, and I went over points every day. This past week will be the most I've gone over points in quite some time, combined with the least amount of exercise I've achieved in a week in quite some time (4 official sessions, so not too bad, plus all the walking, but still), but I'm not gonna sweat it. I'll get right back on track this upcoming week, workout often (already loosely planned out my workouts for the week), eat well, and spend some time with myself.

Things will ramp up again on Thursday night with a girls movie night with some friends and then an engagement/birthday gathering on Saturday, but I'm not worried. I'll take that gain tomorrow morning in stride and focus forward.

I had a great weekend with my cousin. I'm so glad she got to meet so many of my friends, see so much of my life, and I'm so glad I got to spend some time talking to her and listening to her articulate herself about her life and her career. She just started her first year teaching special-needs 8th graders (she's a saint) and she is such a smart, interesting, funny, opinionated young woman. My extended family is really close and we always have been so it's really cool to get to know her better as an adult and to get to spend time learning about who she has become and is still becoming. I also loved the chance to show her around the city, even though it was pretty tiring at points.

That said, I'm excited to have my life back tonight. I'm going to get in some post-lots-of-food cardio at lunch today, but I told Kevin I'm coming straight home after improv practice (of course I have improv practice tonight - I wish I could skip it but I can't - I'm going to fall asleep standing up), then I'm going to lay on the couch and stare at the television for an hour, and then I'm going straight to bed. I need some serious downtime. ZZZZZzzzz.

p.s. 28th birthday is coming up in 3.5 weeks!

p.p.s There's a very loud Columbus Day parade going on right outside my office right now on 5th Ave. We've been listening to brassy parade music for 4 hours straight!

Results

Last night's dinner party was a great time.

And I totally ate and drank a lot.

That was not my plan, naturally. It never is. But as I've said before in these situations and will probably say a thousand times again - it could have been a lot worse.

The food was really delicious. There were lots of different things to choose from, most of which I'd never had before (had dates for the first time!) and PLENTEEEE of wine. I was with a crowd who is more than happy to refill their glasses every ten minutes. And I did not hold back. In fact, since Marina, the woman hosting the dinner (and she did an amazing job) did all the cooking/purchasing of food, all the guests brought wine. And we had a shit load of it. White, red, dessert wines, everything. Every time a bottle was finished, we cracked open a new one. I was basically wasted by the end of the night and around 11:30 I insisted that we head home (I came straight from work, which I left early, so we'd been there all night). I was pretty stuffed - mostly with wine, water, and the gourmet toffee that I was inhaling at the end of the night. It was all really delicious though. And I realized that when one is in that kind of youthful, debaucherous setting, one cannot be expected to have the preplanned two glasses of wine. Nuh-uh.

I think there were only about 10 or 12 of us there and some of the people I'd never met before but a handful of the group were some of my dearest, most favorite friends. These are the people I feel understood by, who I understand, the people I spend a good amount of my freetime with, and people I love to party with.

Kevin, who is 34, and me at almost 28 were easily the oldest people there. This was a young crowd of 22-25 year olds. And it was fun to just not give a fuck and drink and smoke (I had a few drags off a cigarette - it's been years? maybe?) and just sit around and eat good food and laugh. It was a really fun night.

I had a few moments of "Oh god! But the scale!" and then I thought, shut up, you've been working your ass off. Enjoy yourself. So I did.

I didn't get to workout yesterday, after all. I actually packed up my little workout bag, left the office on my lunch break, fully intending to walk to the gym. I actually got halfway there. And then I thought about how I would be forcing some kind of exercise (probably stairmaster, because it would have been all I had time for) into 20 minutes. My lunch breaks are an hour and it takes 30 minutes to travel there, back, and to dress and undress. So I only ever get the other 30 minutes for exercise on a lunch break workout. And yesterday I didn't bring a lunch from home which meant I would have had to spend some of that hour to find some lunch while I was out there walking around. And I wasn't sure if it was worth it to get all sweaty and hungry just for 20 minutes.

It would have made me feel good, that's for sure. But I already had enough guilt about coming in late/leaving early that to add another hour-plus-a-few-extra-minutes of a lunch break into the day would have made me really self-conscious. I also thought, if I get really hungry from this workout and end up going to this dinner starving, I'm going to eat everything in site because I'll think I'm justified in doing so. Maybe if I don't workout I'll be more aware of keeping myself in line.

Not sure if that plan worked or not, but the point is, I did not workout. I'm getting over it. Instead, I went and picked up some adorable birthday cards for some friends who have birthdays coming up and got a light lunch of soup and fruit.

So that's that.

In keeping with my new plan to follow a high point day with a low point day, today is going to have to be a nice intense workout and light on the food. I had egg, bacon, and cheese on an english muffin for breakfast because I was starving and a little hungover, and that will have to be my big meal for the day. I'm thinking veggie-filled salad for lunch and something light where ever we go to dinner tonight. I know I can make it happen. I absolutely can. It's one day. And my body will thank me since I'll be giving it space to burn off the mess I made last night.

I got in bed around 12:45 last night, not terrible. I was worried that I was going to be so hungover today but I actually feel okay. I downed tons of water before bed and had more this morning and am having more now. And the coffee I'm finishing right now and the egg sandwich I ate in an instant this morning both helped.

The workout will have to be on the lunchbreak. There's a chance I can go for a bit longer than the hour today and can get in a nice hard 40 minutes of cardio. Probably stairmaster and fast ellipitical? We'll see. I need it though. I'm going to try to workout while my cousin is here too. I don't think she'll mind.

She comes in tonight! Kevin's picking her up from the airport. I'm excited to show her the city. I asked him if he'd bring her to my office first, which I think she'll think is really cool. I work at a music law firm and we have lots of platinum records hanging on the walls of huge artists posing for their hit albums. It's nothing to a New Yorker, but I think she'll think it's really cool.

Talk to you Monday!

p.s. For myself: This weekend = Lots of walking around being a tourist, a couple workouts when I can squeeze them in, and awareness and attention at every single meal to avoid overeating. Last night was my overeating for the week. Now it's time to pull it in.

Where I discuss proper posture at length.

This was the most-delicious breakfast I had this morning. The photo's a bit blurry but you get the gist.

I'm a huge fan of an egg-white western omelette with a single slice of american cheese. And if you put that shit on a toasted bagel (a scooped-out bagel so I'm consuming a bit less white bread), I'm in heaven.

I haven't eaten one of these puppies in ages since they are rather high in calories. The bagel alone is a pretty substantial intake of food, but I decided this morning was the morning. I had a craving for one yesterday and the day before, and after not having time to grab breakfast at home today, then venturing to several different breakfast places in the city when I got near the office (it was an indecisive food-morning for me), I finally said eff-it and went to a place where I could order one of these sandwiches. And it was delicious. The bagel was so chewy and yummy and the cheese was so melty and gooey. Mmmph!

Anyway. Next up: more food! ;) It's getting close to lunch time and I cannot decide what to have. So I made myself a second cup of coffee to tide me over while I weigh my options. I'm so indecisive about food today!

I ended up having a great day, food and exercise-wise, yesterday. The lunchtime gym workout and the afterwork gym workout, totaling about 1 hour, 20 minutes of exercise, was time well spent. I got in a nice long run after work and felt really good when it was over. The whole left side of my body has been feeling tight and tense and not fluid, so I had a nice stretch session afterwards and then got my act together to head downtown to my improv show. I grabbed myself (and Kevin) a slice of cheese pizza to fuel us through our improv show and that ended up being all the food I needed for the rest of the day. I had a small handful of nuts when I got home around midnight and a glass of water and called it a night. Felt really good about all my choices yesterday. Plenty of fruits and veggies, plenty of indulgence (pizza!), and came in right on target in terms of calories-consumed. Love it. The scale rewarded me this morning. (My week of trying-not-to-scale-hop ended. I'm back to scale hopping. It's fun to know, either way. I used to like getting graded tests back in school too, no matter what grade I got. I was always intrigued by the results.)

Today is very quiet at work. It's Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of Atonement, and a majority of the people in my office are Jewish so they're attending services and fasting today. In fact, the city itself is quieter overall today. The train wasn't as packed this morning, etc. etc. It's nice. I thought I would have a big expanse of a day to surf the web all day long but it looks as though I'll be able to keep myself busy with work tasks for most of the afternoon. I've had to pick up some of the slack for people who are out today and I feel obligated to get caught up on other stuff I've shoved aside on busier days. So. Blah blah, right?

I came in late today because the train was moving at a snail's pace, because I knew it was going to be dead in the office, and because I could not make a fucking breakfast decision. I ended up being about 30 minutes late. Gah! Not exactly professional, but I'm usually on time, so. And I'm also leaving early tonight because we're going to a Yom Kippur break-fast (even though we haven't been fasting) that our friend's girlfriend is throwing. It's gonna be a great time, I think. I'm really looking forward to it. I even wore a dress for it! (With jeans under it, though, because I could not find any tights this morning - I think I threw them all out when I moved - and my legs are - ahem - unsightly right now.)

The POINT is that due to the big pending feast tonight, I'd love to go get in a workout today on my lunchbreak. But I came in late and am leaving early so I'm not sure if that's exactly wise. It IS dead here and nobody would mind if I was gone so I will probably try to go to some yoga (I desperately need to just do some poses by myself for 20 minutes, I'm so stiff and tight right now) and maybe 10 minutes on my BFF the stairmaster.

A goal of mine this week is to purposefully follow a high-point day with a low-point day and vise-versa. I ate a good amount on Tuesday, yesterday was very light, and tonight will be heavier. Gotta keep the body guessing.

Remember that massage I had last Friday with Kevin? Well, it was to die for and I felt like a new human when I walked out of there. If I could afford to go once a week I would. I felt great all weekend, despite hard exercise and plenty of moving around. Then Monday hit, I sat down at this damn desk, typed and answered phones all day long, constantly shifting around to try to get comfortable, and within a matter of hours of being here I started to feel cramped, tight, sore, and in pain. Like clockwork. It's almost infuriating to me. I tried to focus on sitting up straight and relaxing my neck and shoulders but the pain still comes.

As some of you may or may not know, I went to acting school. And a huge focus of training to be an actor is body work. So we learned (were force-fed) a lot about having good posture, good alignment, and keeping your back and neck long and tall so that you can avoid back pain and the rest of your body (arms, legs, shoulders, etc.) doesn't begin to compensate for your tense body. A ridiculous amount of people's bodily injuries, chronic pain, and even overall (and seemingly unrelated) health problems come from not knowing how to sit/stand properly or how to release tension in your shoulders and lower back or how to align your spine and hold your head on top of your neck in a natural way.

I realize as I'm typing it that I might sound like some kind of weird hippie. But it's a huge part of my life, my alignment. Come to think of it, almost all my friends who went to school to study theater have great posture and always look tall, thin, and confident in their bodies, no matter what their size. Holding yourself up in the way that is actually natural for your spine makes you LOOK thinner, younger, and more confident.

You can tell it's something I think a lot about.

Sometimes I will see another runner, either at the gym or on the path at the park, jogging away looking so hunched over it hurts me to look at them. People crane their necks or pinch their necks back, round their shoulders forward, have tension in their hands and faces when they exercise and it's just the worst thing ever for your body. It's that yoga-type concept of everything needing to be in proper alignment for your body to get the full positive affect of all the hard work you're doing. If you're running, for example, without a long spine, relaxed shoulders and neck, you're almost undoing a lot of the good work you set out to do by going for a run in the first place.

And what I'm basically trying to say is that sitting at this desk, no matter how I arrange myself or my seat/keyboard, is killing me softly and makes me feel like a twisted pretzel at the end of every day. I spend huge chunks of time every day just stretching and realigning my body because BECAUSE OF THIS TORTUROUS PRISON CALLED A DESK.

Thank you.

A weekend challenge.

I'm tired right now. It's 5:15, I have another hour and 45 minutes at work, and I'm fading fast. I don't think I've been getting quite enough sleep lately. Not intentionally - and it's not like I'm staying out late or anything. But I really require 9 hours a night and lately I'm getting more like 7. Eh, I suppose it could be a lot worse.

Regardless, I'm presently exhausted for some reason. All I want to do is curl up and take a nap. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I might have to have a small cup of coffee before hitting the gym this evening, or my planned 60 minutes of cardio is going to be a big fat mess.

God! Why am I so tired! Seriously, this is ridiculous.

ANYWAY. It's been a busy day at work today - this whole week actually - so I'm just now getting a free moment to relax. I went to the gym on my lunch break to do some light lifting - I've been doing a new lifting routine from Shape magazine just to try something different and keep my workouts mixed up. It's been fun and it's not easy, so I feel good when I'm done. Definitely a different kind of workout than I'm used to doing. I haven't taken a yoga class in over a week so that's something I'd like to get back on asap. It's hard to find the time though.

I'll go back tonight after work, before my improv show, to get in a "long cardio" day. Twice at the gym in one day might seem a little crazy, but it's not out of a desire to be some kind of workout fiend. If I have time in the city to kill (like I will tonight after work/before improv) or if I have a lunch break available and the energy to squeeze in a workout, I'm going to take advantage of it. I did the same thing last Friday - got in a quick workout on my lunch break, ended up with some time to kill after work/before date night with Kev, so I went to the gym again. And it felt great. It's certainly not something I'm forcing myself to do, nor is it something that nets in more than an hour or an hour and a half of actual exercise. It's just something I'm finding myself inspired to do.

Last week I worked out 6 days of the week. It felt incredible. That's something I haven't done in quite a long time - 6 days out of 7. But it's bringing me such a sense of peace and satisfaction lately. It clears my head, my body feels fantastic, and it's time to myself. I've been focusing on doing a lot of cardio, because it just feels so good lately. I've been mixing it up as much as possible as to avoid getting bored. I've been doing the stairmaster (which I actually think has been KEY in shedding some quick inches lately - I have slimmed down bigtime in the last couple weeks and I just know that that machine is part of it) just for 10-20 minutes at a time (because it's a bitch), the elliptical when I want a don't-have-to-think-about-it easy workout, and running outside or on the treadmill for my "long cardio" days. The lovely thing is that when I go running, even if I haven't been running in almost a week, I'm able to go faster and farther than I was able to do the week before. All the cross training is making me stronger. Plus I'm totally ready for that nice long exhausting run when I do run. I realize, of course, that the perfect days of running outside around the park are numbered so I'm really soaking them up. Kevin and I went for two jogs this weekend, one long and one short, and they were both just awesome. Perfect weather, body felt great, pushed it a little bit, and got to run side by side with that sweet guy I live with.

And when I'm not doing the cardio mix-up, I'm doing some very light lifting (nothing like I was doing before I threw my back out), and yoga. I haven't done pilates in a dogs age, but hopefully I'll get around to that soon. It would be a nice surprise for the muscles for sure.

And as I've already mentioned (and am apparently going to mention again), I can notice a huge difference because of this extra effort. I'm feeling slimmer, tighter, and more toned than I have in a long time. When I catch my reflection I look narrow, my clothes are all fitting really well, and I'm getting regular compliments from people saying I look like I've lost weight. So, it's all positive of course.

I'm doing my best with eating, as usual. Lots of whole grains, fresh fruits and veggies, lean proteins, and trying to avoid too much dessert. It doesn't always go as planned, but it seems to be working itself out just fine. I lost another pound this week, more than enough for me, and I'm seeing lower numbers on the scale than I have in a good year and a half. It's thrilling to me that I am able to eat basically what I want at any given meal, within reason of course, and still drop weight and inches. I'm in a good groove and my body is too. I feel victorious over the 15 pounds I put on last year.

I'm going to eat a roasted veggie enchilada (a frozen thingy) from TJ's in a little while - just some fuel before I go get on the treadmill. And I'll probably grab a slice of pizza (yum!) before my show. I had a big spinach salad for lunch and low-sugar cereal with fruit for breakfast. I'll probably have some kind of sweet snack when I get home tonight too.

The next few days are going to be very busy. I'll get home late tonight and will hopefully go straight to bed. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur and a good friend's girlfriend is throwing a little gathering and Kevin and I were invited. So we're gonna go to that - I'm looking forward to it. Apparently she's making amazing food and there will probably be a lot of stuff I've never tasted before so I'm excited. It could be a potential death trap in terms of caloric consumption but I plan to eat lightly today, eat lightly tomorrow, get a workout in, and go to the party having just had a handful of nuts or something else that will take the edge off. I think I can ALSO get away with just having tastes of everything she's prepared instead of eating huge portions. There will be wine, that much I know, but my plan is to only have two glasses and sip them throughout the evening. Yikes, a challenge for sure.

Due to this Yom Kippur invite, though, I'm not sure when we're gonna get a chance to clean the apartment! My cousin is coming to visit on Friday and I'd love to do the bathroom, the floors, and make sure things look relatively neat. I want her to feel comfy and at home. PLUS I want to get to the grocery store so we can have a few meals at the house, which means I'll need to restock on some stuff. Unfortunately for poor Kevin, I might have to ask him to do this stuff tomorrow. He has been so awesome lately, cleaning, doing the laundry, dishes, and cat boxes. He calls himself Mr. Mom, which is hilarious. (He doesn't have a typical 9-5 job - he left his 12 year formal career as a producer last June and has been freelancing, doing voiceover and acting work, and working on his own projects since then. So he basically works from home.)

I'm really looking forward to seeing my cousin, Kalan. Kevin and I will take her out to dinner on Friday night and maybe to walk around the city a little bit - maybe Times Square so she can see it at night. Not sure what we'll do for dinner, but it will be another challenging meal, most likely. We'll want to enjoy an interesting New York meal with her which could easily result in high calorie stuff. I doubt she does sushi. So we'll see.

Saturday is going to be an active day - we'll do some touristy stuff with Kalan (we have tickets for the Ellis Island Ferry since she specifically asked to see Ellis Island) and probably walk around the city a bit more. I have two shows that night (!) so the walking around during the day will have to be my workout on Saturday. Then Sunday will be another day of seeing some other sites and different parts of the city. Sunday night I'm having a very small dinner party with just a handful of good friends. I think we're doing veggie lasagna (one of the guests is a vegetarian) and maybe some other kind of dish in the crock pot. I'm hoping to get in some cardio on Sunday - maybe my cousin will want to go for a run in the park too.

So tomorrow through Sunday will probably present a few food challenges, but now that I've mentally prepared myself for that reality I can probably navigate them without it all falling apart. The goal is not to get completely stuffed to the point of feeling ill at any one meal. That in and of itself will be a victory.

Now the real victory will be if I'm able to fit in the grocery store and a once-over of the apartment before Friday. I'm gonna have to call in sick to get this shit done. ;) Kidding. There's not enough time in the damn day.

Quickie

About to head out to my improv practice but I thought I'd do a quickly quick update.

Great weekend.

Got in a little bit of everything.

Plenty of cardio - went on two awesome runs with Kevin. We had fun and it felt great. I love running with him. He's my pace rabbit.

We got massages and had Thai food on Friday night. (Amazing massage. Changed my life.)

Some family time - his parents came in for dinner on Saturday night (they live in a suburb about 40 minutes outside the city) and to see my HST show. We had a nice time and it was good to see them.

Hung out with the friends a little bit.



Here I am, at a bar on Saturday night with one of my oldest friends, Randy. He and Daniel, my old roommate from before I moved in with Kev this past July, showed up on Saturday night to say hello. A bunch of us were out at the bar after the show. Randy, Daniel, and I don't go out to bars together much so to commemorate the occasion we did a shot of expensive tequila. Oof. But it was a fun night and I only woke up slightly hungover on Sunday.

Sunday night we went to a screening of a TV pilot that a group of our friends made. It was nice to see everyone. After that, HST had a late evening business meeting, which was also nice.

Beyond that, Kev and I bummed around the house a little, had a few meals out, had a few meals in, and enjoyed the newly crisp weather. Good weekend.

Here are our cats hanging out in our apartment:

First of all, I got a new phone! It's fancy and really lovely and I'm excited about it. I'm messing around with taking photos on it, it takes pretty nice ones. Here's one of me lookin like a big dork in the kitchen at work. ;)



Beyond that, I don't necessarily feel like posting right now but it's been a few days so I might as well.

I'm tired today. We had friends over for debate-watching last night. Did a simple spread of baguette chunks, cheese, fruit, veggies, hummus, spinach dip, tortilla chips and salsa. Nothing special, but it was yummy. We had wine too, and then some raspberries and brownie bites as dessert. Very delicious. I ate WAY too much. I was pretty disappointed at the end of the night when I tallied up everything I'd eaten. It was my dinner and it certainly could have been a lot worse and I wasn't stuffed to the gills by any means but I did have PLENTY of bread, cheese, wine, and chips. Shame shame. Oh well.

I haven't gotten on the scale since Tuesday's weigh-in because I've decided I'm going to try to stop scale-hopping for a week. (Scale-hopping, for those of you who don't know the WW lingo, means getting on the scale every day, or almost every day, instead of just weighing yourself once a week.) I don't think that the scale-hopping has a particularly negative impact on me either way, necessarily. Sometimes I see a high number, sometimes I see a low number, but I haven't noticed a direct correlation between those numbers and how I behave in a day. I'm not less likely to workout if I see a low number (I might even be more likely to workout, to further encourage the number downward.), I'm not more likely eat more if I think I have some leeway, or the converse, which would be to eat more because I saw a high number and I'm bummed about it. After doing this for 6 solid years, I've become relatively immune to the scale fluctuations. It all evens out in the end, this is not a race, I do what I am capable of each day to be healthy, etc, etc.

But I thought perhaps I might just quit getting on that damn thing every morning and see how it makes me feel. It's nice so far because I'm not thinking about what it says at all, one less set of numbers to have running through my mind during the day. So we'll see how I feel. It's been a habit I've had at times during these 6 years and a habit I've avoided at times, never with any noticable effect either way, so whatever. Blah blah.

So I have a bit of a challenge ahead of me, which is that I'd like to try to stay within my points from now until Tuesday's weigh-in. This will be a bit tough because I go over my points every day. I use my AP's and my flex points and then I often will, in a week's time, consume points beyond that as well. I still lose weight, just at a snail's pace, and I'm okay with that.

But I've been working out a lot lately and I'm feeling really good and slim right now - getting compliments from people for the first time in ages ("You look like you've lost a little weight!") which is very nice. I haven't numerically lost much at all, but I know I'm a lot slimmer than I was in January. So I want to keep my momentum on that and I was really counting on this week to be a good one. And then last night struck and I ate my weight in baguette and now I have to do some cleanup. It won't be impossible and it might even be a nice jolt to my metabolism to eat less than I usually do for a few days. So I'm gonna do my best to avoid extra stuff during the days and allow myself a sweet or a treat in the evenings, but beyond that, I'm gonna spend lightly points-wise and keep the exercise comin' and see if I can keep it together this week.

We're entering challenging terrority season-wise too. The fall, which naturally makes one want to cuddle up with thick soups, hunks of bread, and hot cocoa, without a veggie or piece of lean protein to be seen. And also, October, which, at least in my world, is the month of birthdays. A lot of people I know have October and birthdays so there's celebrating to be done. Then it's Halloween, my own birthday a week later, Thanksgiving three weeks after that, Christmas a month later, and then January 1/my and Kevin's two-year anniversary. So. It's obviously nothing I haven't done before, but that doesn't mean it gets any easier to navigate the amazing sweets, the pies, the huge meals, the warm calorie-laden drinks, the celebrations-with-food.

My goal this year, as it has been for the last several, is to simply maintain my weight during this time. If October 31-January 1 can come and go and I can see the same number on the scale at the end as I did in the beginning, I will have conquered all. So it would be nice if I could slither out of another couple pounds BEFORE October 31 so I'm maintaining a weight that feels really good. We'll see!

The good news is that this year, probably more than ever before, my exercise and organic/whole food eating is completely incorporated into my lifestyle. I can't go a day skipping a workout without starting to feel really itchy and desperate to get moving in some capacity. And in terms of eating, nights like last night are the worst damage I'm capable of doing lately (unless I get really drunk ;)). I'm also making better choices at every meal than ever before since I'm more knowledgable than I've ever been about what kinds of foods to what to your body. So I know those are habits I'm going to be able to hang onto to help me navigate the Season.

But ooo! I'm excited it's fall! And my birthday soon! :)

I didn't get to workout yesterday because we had a fire at work! They evacuated the building (the fire was on the 8th floor, we're on the 5th) and we couldn't come back in for an hour and a half. So by the time I got back to my desk, ate some lunch, and got to work on the huge stack of stuff I needed to get done, the day was just slipping by so quickly, there was no sneaking out for a workout. And after work I went straight to TJ's to pick up debate munchies, went home to prep them, and then the debate began.

I was going to take today off but now I'll go on my lunch break and get some cardio done and I might go after work and either take a yoga class or do some other kind of lifting.

Kevin and I are getting massages tonight! Wahooo! The cheap/awesome place I went to on my WW anniversary on Saturday is calling my name. We planned to have a date night tonight but we didn't want to splurge (financially or calorically) on a huge meal and a movie out. So we thought we'd just spend half that and go get massages and make dinner at home. I cannot WAIT. My body is desperate. I have this ridiculous shoulder problem, an old weight-lifting injury, that I know is going to end up causing more trouble down the line. It's basically causing me constant pain lately, especially when I'm at work sitting at my torture chamber, I mean desk, which seriously makes my whole body ache and hurt. I get up and stretch multiple times each day but I think I've determined that nothing short of quitting the office-worker lifestyle is going to aleviate my pain. And the people who've worked here for a while (and, just to note, don't exercise or think about their posture or alignment the way I (obsessively) do) HAVE HUMP BACKS. Okay, not really. But YES! KINDA REALLY! And I can't stand it. They all have terrible posture and are constantly in pain. I gotta get out.

ANYWAY. We're getting massages tonight. Yesssssssss. And then maybe making tacos. We'll see.

Tomorrow: I'll do a long run in the early part of the day, probably some laundry and relaxing at home in the afternoon. Then I've got to go to rehearsal t 6pm, which I will then leave early from to meet up with Kevin and his parents for dinner (his dad's bday is on Monday, which is also my Mom's bday!). THEN we'll do the show at 9:30pm.

Sunday is NOTHING all day wahooooo! I'll do another long run, most likely, or some yoga, depending on how the ol' bod is feeling. And then I'm going to a 6pm screening of a tv show pilot that I have a small part in. A friend created/directed/produced it and we're all gonna get together and watch it on Sunday. I'll be leaving that event early to go to an HST business meeting from 8:30-10pm and then that's that. Should be a busy but enjoyable weekend.

Next weekend my cousin is coming to visit and I'm really excited about it.

Okay. There's the update. Gonna go workout and then eat some LUNCH.

What the hell am I going to have for lunch today?

First of all, thanks a lot to everyone who commented below; I really appreciate your taking the time to read that long post and respond to me. Obviously it's an experience that I hold very close to me in terms of defining who I am and how I operate in the world. It's something I'm very proud of but certainly also something I wish didn't have to happen the way it did. No regrets, of course, but I would be lying if I didn't say that it gives me pause to remember that time and reflect on the pain.

Kevin and I sat at our kitchen table on the night of my WW anniversary and talked more in depth about pieces of the story from that summer that he didn't know or had forgotten. And I realized during that chat that I cannot actually connect to that pain anymore, the way I felt it as it was happening. I think that my body, weight difference aside, was actually physiologically different at the time. Because the pain from the depression and anxiety, not just the psychological but the spirtitual and physical pain, is something I really don't have access to anymore.

You know how sometimes, if you're quiet and close your eyes and focus, you can remember what it *felt* like to be fatter? Or you can remember what it felt like when you had an injury or you were recovering from a surgery or you were in a place of great emotional pain? And you can almost access that place for a split second even though you're better now? It's like I can't do that with this anymore. It's almost like my cells have changed. I can't feel what I felt then, even for a split second. There's something lovely about that of course because I wouldn't want to feel it again. It was a dark place. But there is also, oddly, something to mourn there for me. Because this did happen to me, through me, because of me.

So I guess that's why I needed to write about it and talk about it. I wanted to remind myself exactly what happened, that it did happen, that it was real. Not just for who I am today, but for the sad, lonely girl I was then. I want to remember for her. To do her the justice and the honor of living openly now about how I got through what I did then.

Blah blah, right? Enough of all that! Gah! ;)

So. I'm well, thanks. All's well. The anniversary was a really good day. I don't mean to dramatize it, but it was a meaningful day for me.

I woke up and finished my blog entry while the darling BF made me a lovely breakfast which I consumed, digested, and then worked off with a nice long run. At first he was going to join me on the run but then he said, "I think I'll let you go alone." Slacker. ;) Nah, I know he wanted me to have the experience of running by myself on that day. And I'm glad he did. It was a really good, albeit hard run. It was drizzling the whole time, which was kinda refreshing. And I ran my ASS off - once around the park, completing it about 4 minutes faster than I was doing over the summer. Awesome.

At one point, going down a subtle hill, I felt gravity take over and I just let my legs GO. I was running so fucking fast I thought my hips were going to pop out of their sockets, but I couldn't stop. It was like another force was moving me forward. It felt incredible. The wind in my face, my muscles burning, my heart pounding, I threw my head back and I couldn't help but grin. I probably looked like a huge huge dork. But who cares. It was great. Then later on I sprinted the last 90 seconds of the run, pretending I was running some race and had like a personal record to beat or something. That about did me in, that sprint. I was winded to the point of yikes. But it felt amazing about 3 minutes later. I wanted to go back and do it again.

I was tight on time so I had to skip the yoga class. :( Too bad. I did get to take a quick shower, smooch the boy for a minute, and then get my act together to get into the city for my rehearsal. I knew I was going to be walking right by a massage place that will do anywhere from 10 minutes to 90 minutes. So I hopped on the subway and hopped off right near the place and beelined straight up there for the most incredibly to-die-for 20 minute massage everrrrr. This woman worked it OUT. She worked fast, hard, and thoroughly and I was in heaven. I think I almost cried. It was so good. I'm definitely going back.

The rest of the day was busy. Rehearsal for a good four hours, a quick dinner, a good performance of our show, and then home to go to bed because the following morning was to be an early one.

The next day, Sunday, a bunch of us from HST and other friends of ours were working this event in Union Square called Pilates for Pink. It was basically a big pilates event sponsored by Shape magazine to raise money for breast cancer research. Our friend, Sonia, works for the company that was staffing and running the event and she contracted us to work for the day. Yes, we got paid. We had to be there at 730am and we had to work until 5pm. The day was okay - there were pilates classes all day long in a huge tent. My job was to check people in for their class and hand out the free tote bags they got as part of their donation. Let me just tell you something I re-discovered on Sunday - people get CRAZY for free shit.

It was a long RAINY day and we got plenty wet but we also got some free stuff out of the deal (fun!) and I met Mari Windsor of Windsor Pilates! So that was cool. (She was kind of a bitch! Eek!) And it was also really neat to see all these women of different shapes and sizes coming out to a.) do pilates and get their workout on and b.) support breast cancer research.

When I got home that evening, I was a zombie. I showered the yucky rainy mess off me, got into PJ's at 630pm and couched it out for the rest of the night. Kev was adorable, doting on me and keeping me company all night. We ordered japanese food, watched tv, watched the season premiere of Dexter (I was totally disappointed with the episode) and I got into bed at 10:30pm to read a magazine. I was asleep by 11:15. Got a great night's sleep.

Last night, I took a yoga class - I had the night off from improv practice, which is what I'm usually doing on Mondays. The class, which was at my gym, was a good one! Finally! It was hard, but not too hard, fast, but not too fast, and she definitely challenged us. I would like to go back to her class some time. She was a good teacher.

I felt, unfortunately, a little clunky and big during this class. I was standing right in front of a mirror and usually that doesn't bother me because you just gotta let it go about that stuff sometimes. But last night I felt like I wasn't able to do the poses I usually do without a problem, like I wasn't as "good" (ugh - that word should never be used to describe how you do your yoga practice) as the other girls, like I was SUCH a newbie. I guess those experiences are exactly why yoga practice is so important - because it's all about letting go of that judgement and being able to just Be with exactly where you are today. I wish I hadn't let it creep into my psyche but it did. I did a quick 15 mins on the elliptical after that, decided I was starving, and headed home.

I made a veggie omelette and toast for dinner and it was yum. Went to bed soon after the boyfriend got home from his rehearsal and from doing lights and sound for someone's show.

The scale was down a teeny bit this morning for weigh-in. Nothing spectacular. My goal for this upcoming week is to get in a bit more cardio. I also want to start varying my workouts a smidge more than I have been. Always good to mix it up. I plan to go at lunch today and get in some circuit type training. I envision some bar/resistance band work with 5 minutes stints on the stairmaster in between sets. Should be fun, if anything.

I LOVE October!! I am excited for this month. It feels more fall-ish every day.

I'm sad about what's happening with the economy and already planning to spend significantly less than usual this holiday season. It might finally be the year to really plan ahead and MAKE all my presents. (Macaroni necklace, anyone?) I also hope to volunteer somewhere this year around the holidays. Which reminds me, I need to write myself a note to look into that.

I'm getting hungry. I'm gonna have to get some lunch soon. I think I'll order in today. :) Special treat.

And, finally, to wrap up the anniversary celebration....

...BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS! I meant to post these on Saturday along with the novella below (sorry it's so long, there was a lot to tell), but I didn't get a chance. So here they are. Back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow!

Before. About 4 months before I started WW.




After. A couple months ago - new headshots.

I'll see if I can get some full-body comparisons up at some point. But you get the basic idea...

My Story So Far

Today, September 27, 2008, it has been 6 years since I started losing weight.

Six years ago, in September of 2002, at 21 years old, my life looked very little like it does today. Some things were the same - I was a funny girl, who could always make a room full of people crack up. I enjoyed myself with friends, choosing some of the smartest, funniest people in New York City as my company. I liked to go out for dinner or stay in and party. I didn’t like the bar scene or the nightclub scene, having spent enough time in both to know so. I was always up for a get together with friends, loved a beautiful day, wrote voraciously, read regularly, liked to see theater and watch movies, and adored tucking myself away in some unique corner of the city with a notebook and pen, to people watch and philosophize.

I was also very lonely, very sad, and very afraid. I weighed 265 pounds, a lot for anyone, but an incredible load for my relatively small frame. I shot up like a weed in the 5th grade, but never grew much more after that. Now, at almost 5’5 and more than 100 pounds overweight, a category that doctors describe as ‘morbidly obese’, I was indeed obese.

I was in therapy at the time. I’d been seeing her twice a week for only a couple of months, so things weren’t exactly getting better yet. I was actively struggling with depression; it had squeezed its choke-hold on me for longer than I consciously knew. I was susceptible to emotional highs and lows throughout each day - not the way a person with bi-polar disorder might experience them - but I still felt either very tragic painful lows, or just okay. I don’t think I ever felt truly, genuinely happy.

I was irresponsible whenever I could get away with it, not good with my money or my time, not good about staying in touch with people or making positive social connections when they presented themselves. I was bitter and fearful and furious and absolutely paralyzed by a running list of worries and a history of devastating mistakes, missteps, and messes.

The summer before this September in 2002 was, without question, the hardest season of my life. I’d already been through a great deal for a young woman, but the summer of 2002 met me without mercy and what was bad became hopeless. I have never felt and will never feel again the kind of panic, terror, grief, and absolute confusion I knew in those months. The dangerous path I’d been traveling down for so long culminated in chaos that summer. But I’d spent years creating the reality that would make it all possible.

When I was 17, I moved to New York to go to college. I’d traveled all over the world as a kid. We weren’t wealthy by any means but my mom was young and energetic and insisted that I experience cultures and worlds outside the narrow ones offered in the suburban Midwest. So I was excited, not nervous, to move to New York. I was leaving behind a huge family of overly-involved aunts, uncles, and grandparents who had all helped to raise me, since my dad wasn’t around. My family didn’t want me to move to New York. Or to study theater. Or to pursue my goals and ambitions. I didn’t care. I did it anyway.

But one’s need to run away from something does not always mean one is better off running toward something else. I arrived in the city, disconnected from my emotional reality the way most 17 year olds are. I was eager to begin my schooling and meet new friends and most eager to be away from my overbearing family. Except that within the first few days of being away at college, I sunk so swiftly into a crippling depression that I did not recognize myself. I didn’t know what was wrong, what hit me, how to help myself – I didn’t even really know that I was depressed. And I didn’t tell anyone.

I would sob for hours for no reason, skip class, avoid homework assignments, stay up late, binge-eat with friends or alone, beg my boyfriend at the time to shower me with attention, shop and spend constantly, sometimes taking hundreds of dollars out of the ATM in a day’s time, only to wake up the next day with nothing in my wallet. And nobody really knew that I was in so much pain. In retrospect, I’m not sure I even knew. But it never got any better.

That first year away at school was The Beginning. And the summer of 2002, the worst summer of my life, was The Beginning of the End.

So I spent those 5 years between age 17 and 22 making mistake after mistake, enduring grief after grief. I gained a ton of weight, lost some weight, gained some, lost some, gained a lot more. In high school I got straight A’s and B’s without trying. In college I failed out of at least 1/3 of my college classes and lied to my mother about my grades. I skipped whole days of class each week; one semester I enrolled for a class that I attended twice and never returned to again except to take the final exam. I would sleep until 5pm some days, stay awake until 9am the following day, and go back to sleep until 6 or 7pm. I ate constantly, eventually started smoking pot daily, drank whenever it was available to me, experimented regularly and joyfully with acid, ecstasy, cocaine, and, one time only, heroin. I was constantly broke, spending more money than I ever had, wracking up small debts here and there, some debts that my mother had to pay off because the bank threatened to freeze her assets, some debts I only finished paying off a few months ago. I screwed over employer after employer, lied about being sick, about family members dying, stole from cash registers, stole from the piggybanks of kids I’d babysit. I ‘completed’ every task to an eighteenth of my ability. At two different points during visits home to Chicago in those years, I suffered through two unrelentingly painful breast reduction surgeries, the second surgery due to complications during the first, because my large breasts were affecting my health. I endured massive irreparable scaring, excruciating pain, and long recovery processes both times. The bad surgery experiences just compounded my misery. I maintained only the friendships I could tolerate and hated almost all other people. I had a total of 9 possible outfits to wear because I was too heavy to wear most of my clothes and so broke that I couldn’t afford to buy new ones. When my mother finally called the school one afternoon junior year and discovered that I’d been lying to her about my grades, she confronted me and said she would not pay for any more schooling. I dropped out of college and moved home to Chicago.

Then, only a few months later, I moved back to New York because I needed to escape from reality again. I fell co-dependently in love with a gay man who knew he was gay but was “in love” with me too. He disrespected and used me as a woman and a friend. I read his private diaries and tried to manipulate his life. I burned bridge after bridge, shocked friend after friend, closed door after door, hurt my family, lost my mother’s trust, and ended up 21 years old, a jobless, penniless, college dropout who’s main goal each day was to smoke weed and not break down into hysterical sobs.

I came from a happy, healthy, well-adjusted family in suburbia. I left for college a bright, eager, albeit chubby young woman. I was kind, thoughtful, generous, interested, curious, and talented. But something inside me melted somewhere along the way and I’d taken to giving up. And no matter who pleaded with me or how worried my mother was, I only ever tried to change my situation in half-assed fits and starts, if at all. I never admitted to anyone that I was in way over my head, didn’t recognize myself anymore and was in a lot of pain.

I wasn’t a bad person. If you’d met me at the time, you wouldn’t think, Who is this horrible girl? I was still funny and fun, smart and curious. Although, Kevin has told me before that when he met me at this point in my life he was intimidated by me; I was brash and abrasive and confrontational. All that aside, I know I didn’t appear to be insane or unwell. I still had a lot of friends who respected my opinion and enjoyed my company. I’m sure I did appear to be really pissed off, unhappy, and uninterested in changing. And I was those things. I was also failing at life.

Which brings us to the fateful summer of 2002. I’d just moved back to New York that June against my family’s wishes. The gay guy and I were sleeping on the floor of a friend’s apartment. We were fighting constantly, both out of work, broke but for the few hundred dollars we’d collected when he cashed in some stock. I spent each day weeping, writing, smoking, “updating my resume,” walking down the street in pain because I was so heavy that it physically hurt me to move, stealing food from local grocery stores, and hoping the gay guy would want to have sex that night - the closeness I felt when we laid down to go to sleep at night, the only closeness in my world. Everything seemed bleak, I didn’t know what to do next, but I knew that things were not good and it couldn’t go on for ever. At the time, I thought I was at my rock bottom. I was dead wrong.

We got into a fight so awful one night, tears, screaming, packing of suitcases, that I punched the gay guy in the mouth. And then he beat me up for a good 45 minutes.

It was a terrible night. I finally fell asleep as the sun came up. I woke up early the next morning and left my friend’s apartment in my car. My friend, S, was my first college roommate, my dearest friend, a girl who I’d supported unconditionally while she’d been crippled with depression herself. She was my confidant, my only ally. She assured me we’d get through this together, that I’d made a mistake in punching him, but that this mess was now going to come to an end, that I would be able to turn my life around, that she would help me, that I would live with her, that he would have to move out of her apartment, that she just needed a day to sort things out. That night I went to stay at another friend’s place.

The next day, S called me and said I should come over for coffee. When I got to her apartment building she was waiting in the lobby - with all my belongings packed in plastic bags and boxes. She told me I was crazy and needed to be in a home, she told me she couldn’t know me anymore, couldn’t help me anymore, didn’t want anything to do with me. She told me that the gay guy, (who, for the record, was as equally depressed and irresponsible as I was and who she’d never met before this summer) would be living at her apartment. Then she called all our mutual friends and told them to watch out for me because I was dangerous.

I found out later that while she talked to me in the lobby, while I took in these words she was saying, looking around the room for some sense that this was a dream or that I was on a hidden camera show, while I tried to decipher the things she was telling me, the gay guy was waiting in the stairwell with a portable phone at the ready in case I tried to hurt her.

Now. These were people I’d known for years, people I knew very very well, people who knew me very very well. They knew I wasn’t in a great place in my personal life but they also knew that these swift actions on their part were completely unnecessary. It was almost as if they were getting off on the drama of it all, on watching someone else hit rock bottom as they hovered above their very own.

You see, I may have been clinically depressed. I may have been lost, confused, fat, misguided and I may have made some questionable choices in my life, choices guided by fear and pain. I may have been used and demeaned, pushed to the absolute brink in an abusive relationship where I did not have a voice, a relationship that was mutually destructive and chaotic. I may have lashed out at him in the only show of physical violence I have ever been compelled to display. But by no means did I deserve to be punished. And by absolutely no means was I crazy.

I was still myself. I was still the kind, loving thoughtful person I’d always been. I was still S’s friend. I was still the girl she’d held two nights before and said “I totally understand. We’re gonna get through this.”

Let me be clear: I do not blame her for wanting to protect her emotional wellness. I do not blame her for needing space from the drama I’d created. I think she was right to want the dysfunction out of her home. But I was not crazy. Nor was I a danger. I was just very lost. And to tell me white lies to get me to come over and collect my things, to sit me down in the very public lobby, while tenants and their families shuffled in and out of the building, picking up take-out dinner or doing their laundry, glancing our way as they did, to use words like “crazy” and “mental home”, to calmly explain to me how my life would be further dismantled and without mercy, and to act without empathy as if I was a danger to anyone was not only humiliating, but also excruciatingly painful. I wanted to cry out “You’re wrong! You have it all wrong!” But I wasn’t going to fight her for the right to be treated like her equal. If she didn’t want to give me that, I wasn’t going to demand it. I remember taking a deep breath, chuckling slightly to myself that it had all come to this, and deciding to let it be. I looked into the eyes of a person who was my best friend hours earlier and now felt like an alien.

I left her there in the lobby. I packed all my things into my car all alone. She did not offer to help me as I made the six or seven trips back and forth between the building and the street. I slammed the trunk shut. I climbed into the car and pulled the door closed. I stared at the dashboard. I cried harder than I had in my whole life.

I was completely alone. The co-dependent relationship that toxically fueled me for years had been dissolved in a matter of hours. The best friendship that I counted on had been removed amidst lies, manipulation, and betrayal. I had made a mistake two nights prior that I knew was bad, but that I thought was forgivable. But I’d made graver mistakes for five years prior from which I could not walk away. I had $12 to my name. I did not have a bank account or a credit card. I did not have a place to live or even a place to sleep. I was over 100 pounds overweight and I didn’t have a college degree. I had just lost the two people I counted on the most and as I sat there and wept they were systematically placing phone calls to our mutual friends to warn them about me.

My mind seemed to be working simultaneously in slow motion and on high-speed overdrive. I could either drive home to Illinois, without enough gas in the car to get there, to face my mother and the dead-end life that I believed awaited me there.

Or I could take my pain, my hurt, their betrayal, my huge huge mess of a pathetic excuse for a life and find a way to move through it and fix it on my own. I could use this excruciating paralysis as a rock bottom. Too much had occurred to be ignored. Too many people were raising their eyebrows at my questionable judgment. Too much had been ruined to do anything other than work to repair it.

Luckily all of our mutual friends who received those phone calls laughed them off. They knew I was in a bad place, but they also knew I wasn’t a threat or a danger. And that I was still myself. They shook their head at what had taken place and agreed to help me out. And after a good week of not eating or sleeping, of weeping and staring off into space, of calling friends to ask if I could sleep on their couches, I was unable to sleep yet again one night. The futon mattress of the hot, sticky, roach infested apartment I was staying in was too lumpy to be comfortable. I sobbed myself to sleep for the last time that night, realizing as I cried that the crying wouldn’t get me very far. And I woke up the following morning and made a list:

Lose weight
Get out of debt
Get a job
Get an apartment
Graduate college

It seemed like a massive undertaking. And after what felt like a lifetime of failed attempts at becoming more stable, a list like this one was almost laughable. But I knew it had to be done or the alternative was true darkness.

I could have gone home to Chicago. When my grandfather heard from my mother what happened he got into his car and tried to drive the 15 hours to collect me. She forced him not to. It was my choice, she said, to stay in New York or go home. I had called her several days after the drama took place, never having been good at telling her when I was hurt or needed help. I tentatively told her the whole story. The messy relationship with the gay guy had spiraled out of control, I did not have a handle on myself, we’d gotten into a fight and I punched him hard in the mouth, S tricked me into picking my things up from her apartment and then told me I was crazy, I was now completely destitute, I had my car and a few possessions, I needed a job and a place to live. When I finished the very long story, I held my breath, waiting for a harsh monologue about how I’d yet again made a series of bad decisions that had let to even worse consequences, how I needed to come home immediately, get a job, and clean this mess up, how I needed to figure out my priorities.

Instead, and I will never forget this, there was a moment of silence and then she said “Jenifer. You’re not crazy. You’re absolutely not crazy and you never have been. You might have a lot to figure out and a ways to go before you feel better, but you’re not crazy. And you most certainly do not need to be in a home. I’m so sorry your friends hurt you like that. You know your grandfather has always said that the number of true friends we will have in our lives are fewer than we would sometimes like to believe, that people you were sure you could trust will betray you and lie to you. That’s what’s happened here and I’m so sorry. You’ve made some big mistakes too, but this will all be okay someday.”

I cried. It was like music to hear her compassion. “You’re not crazy,” she said. And instantly the whole terrible mess had been reduced to a nasty scrap on the playground. She laughed at the roughness my friends displayed and reminded me that they weren’t really my friends after all. She also reminded me that I had a lot of work to do.

She told me she’d support me emotionally however I needed her to, but that she would not give me a single dollar unless it was for therapy and even that she would send directly to the therapist. She urged me to think long and hard about what I wanted and how I intended to get it. I now know that my mother saw this as my rock bottom and as a last opportunity for me to wake up. It was.

I spent the rest of the summer sleeping at friends’ apartments and other places, sometimes sleeping in places I should not have been sleeping. I was, for all intents and purposes, homeless.

A dear friend who was one of the most influential at that time helped me get a part time job at the theater company where I’d studied during college.

I met with someone at my old college to get a referral to a clinic of therapists and, after a series of phone calls and questions, I made an appointment with a woman named Karen. I began seeing her that June, shortly after the night of The Punch.

I landed two more part time jobs and I saved up enough money to be able to rent a room in someone’s apartment. The day I moved in there was one of the best days of my life. I finally had my own space, albeit small and odd, but that didn’t matter. I began to carve out more and more of a life for myself. Having a job, being in therapy, and having a certain place to sleep each night felt like winning the lottery. I was a very far cry from leading the kind of life I someday hoped to have where I would be free from my weight, my depression, where I would have a college degree and a direction, but I had begun. And in contrast to the darkness I’d known earlier that summer, I was in heaven.

A friend who’d always had a weight problem started Weight Watchers that summer. I watched him drop 30 pounds in a blink. That September, I began to think that maybe it was time for me to do something about my weight problem. My therapist had suggested Weight Watchers time and again – she’d say that whenever I was ready, it was an option to consider.

On September 27, 2002, I was finally ready. I weighed in on a Friday afternoon. The scale said 264.4 pounds. If I’d stepped on it a few months earlier it probably would have said something closer to 280. I’d lost weight during my difficult summer. I knew that for sure.

My true journey began that day in September. Within the first month I’d lost 20 pounds. I was beyond thrilled.

Six years have passed since then. And I am incredibly proud of how I’ve spent them. I never gave up my effort to lose weight after that day in September of 2002. I have faltered occasionally, maybe even regularly, and succeeded from time to time as well. But I have continued to work at it. And I’ve lost 100 pounds.

I eventually got better jobs and more opportunities and then I got my very own apartment, instead of just renting a room in someone else’s. I remained in therapy, working constantly not only on the present and how to improve mine, but on the past and what led me to this place. Karen and I worked together for five years. She saved my life.

Also, after a lot of meetings, interviews, research, loan requests, and soul searching, I returned to college about a year after that difficult summer. I had to pay for it all myself and I had to work four jobs to afford it, but I finished my degree. I graduated only two years later than my original graduating class, with a BFA in Acting, having received only A’s and B’s the second time around. I exercised constantly, ate well as often as I could, worked all the time, saved money, paid off my debts, repaired friendships and slowly repaired myself.

I reconciled, in some respect, with the gay guy, who is now someone I’m able to have a distant friendship with, but not someone I’ll ever be able to be close to again. Interestingly, S and I have never reconnected. I’ve seen her from time to time, avoiding her when I do, and we still know some of the same people so I get occasional updates on her life. I’m not sure I’m ready, still, to forgive her for the lack of compassion she showed me that night in the lobby. She knows I’ve lost the weight, turned my life around, and have a full, happy world now and it does not escape me that her mishandling of my situation that night spurred me into action, but it’s hard for me to forget the misleading conversations we’d had in the day prior, the cruel look in her eye that night and the lack of compassion and understanding she exhibited. I think she regrets some of her actions as well and is too fearful to come to me with an apology. I owe her an apology too. But that part of the story has yet to unfold.

Six years ago, my life was very different than it is today. This morning, I woke up my to my loving boyfriend kissing and hugging me. He knew me then and knows me now and respects and admires me for the transformation he’s witnessed. He made me breakfast this morning while I finished writing this, our two adorable cats playing on the living room rug. In a few minutes I’ll go for a run and then take a yoga class. It will be a busy weekend for us, with shows to perform in and rehearsals to attend and friends with whom to spend time. And I’ll go to work on Monday morning at my salaried job, complete with health insurance benefits and paid vacation days, and smile to myself about how little anyone in my current life really knows about what my world looked like six years ago.