Somewhere over the rainbow
Blue birds fly
And the dreams that you dreamed of
Dreams really do come true
Writing about tofu and the blisters I’ve gotten from walking feels silly today. I want to be able to write some magical phrase that will make society realize THINGS HAVE GOT TO CHANGE.
But more eloquent people than I have spoken, and it just keeps happening. People keep dying at the hands of some angry dude with a gun. And I can’t just blame the guns. I wish I could. I hate guns. But it’s not just the guns.
It’s something bigger, more widespread. Something that probably lives in all of us. And I worry society is losing its filter. The filter that keeps you from acting on every crazy thought you have.
We all get angry. We all feel our needs are ignored at some point. We all feel alone sometimes. We all feel there are people in the world making choices we don’t agree with.
But see, right there.
WE ALL…
When you get down to it, we all have so much more in common than we think. And I guess I just really especially hate that this latest tragedy happened in a gay club. Because I’ve always thought the commonality among all humans was sex. And here are people embracing their sexuality against some pretty difficult societal crap at times.
WE ALL…
Just drive down the road and instead of judging the bad driving of another soul, just think about how they have probably wanted to get laid at some point in their life. Not so angry at them now, are you?
Everyone needs love.
Everyone needs affection.
And these people were out at a club, looking for fun. Maybe looking for love. And that should have ended much, much differently than it did.
I’m so scared that our world is so focused on our individual needs, we don’t take the time to recognize, rejoice in, and defend our common humanity.
And if you don’t like my sex POV, think about anything else.
Think about tripping. Everyone has probably tripped. And felt embarrassed. Maybe turned a little red.
Think about rejection. Everyone has been rejected–for a job, for a date. And it sucks and is disappointing. But we have all felt it.
So why do we try to hide it? The embarrassing stuff? The personal stuff?
Because that’s being human.
And we desperately need to see that we are all human.
My blog yesterday got me kinda down, so I decided to shove my face into some pancakes for dinner last night.
But this morning I decided to walk the kid and dog to daycare. It’s about 2.5 miles round trip, so yay me.
When I got home, I thought, “perhaps I’ll try some situps and pushups”.
I’m pretty sure I haven’t done much of this since before I was pregnant–so it’s been more than four years now.
I seriously lay on the floor for like 15 seconds trying to remember how a situp works. Like, my body was in disbelief that I wanted it to contract my stomach muscles.
And ah…
There’s the problem.
I have no stomach muscles.
So it was not pretty. But I did do some. Poor form and flopping arms and all.
I was up at 4am and read the letter. And got so pissed I couldn’t get back to sleep. Partly because our society pisses me off, and this judge and this twit of a boy especially. But also because it left me rehashing my own story.
My story is NOT the same and is NOT as bad. But it hits upon the same things- violence against women, the perceived right some men seem to think they have to a woman’s body, the lasting effects “20 minutes” can have on your life.
There was a period in my life where getting drunk inevitably led to me going swimming in my bra and panties. I blame the Texas heat. Now, many people have explained to me why this is bad, but I am 36 and sober right now and I have to admit… I still don’t see what’s so bad about it. I’m covering my junk. It’s like a bikini. In fact, based on my lingerie stylings, it’s way more covering than a bikini. In fact, probably the opposite of sexy–granny panties and a full-support bra just don’t look hot. So I don’t see a problem. I mean, I’m being loud and obnoxious and probably breaking pool curfews, which is a problem. But as far as showing off my body? Please.
One person who disagreed with my intoxicated aquatic choices was my then boyfriend. After a night of drinking heavily at a party, we stumbled home with a couple of his friends. I decided to take a swim in my apartment pool. So did he.
But he chose to dive in to punish me. Or to avenge his manhood. Or put claim to his ‘property’. Whatever.
He jumped in to start yelling at me that I was showing off my body to his friends. That I must want to fuck them.
And then he started pushing my head underwater. Holding it under. Like, get under there and die, bitch.
It was scary.
And I was drunk. And coordinating breathing while being drowned was difficult.
And ya know what? One of the times I managed to get away from him, I see his friends walking away with that “oh shit, we don’t know them” look on their faces.
Thanks guys.
I somehow get out of the pool and head up to my apartment. Boyfriend is on my tail screaming at me. Inside, the attack continues.
I am thrown to the floor, pinned down. He is slapping my face, I think asking me if I wanted to fuck his friends. The word ‘whore’ is thrown around alot.
And then he rips of my panties. Like rips them in half.
Violent, no?
So, I don’t know about you, but sometimes I have these fantasies that I could SO take care of myself if I was ever attacked. I have a lot of rage. I could direct that shit at someone’s balls or nose.
But ya know what? When you are stupid drunk, it’s hard to aim. And when you are pinned down, it’s hard to find someone’s balls.
I don’t think I went for his nose–he was my boyfriend after all.
Now here’s the part we will never know–how far would this have gone?
Because the cops showed up at my door. And boyfriend is suddenly outside.
I put on a shirt. One of boyfriend’s shirts, cuz that was appropriate.
The cops come in and ask if I’ve been drinking. Yes. No sense even pretending.
They ask if I want to put on some pants.
Even drunk, that’s embarrassing.
They tell me they are taking boyfriend in because he has a warrant out for an unpaid ticket (expired registration). Do I want to press charges?
No.
And away they go. And I am alone in my apartment. This is when the knocked over chair and the ripped panties start sinking in.
WTF just happened?
Now, I feel it cheapens this story somehow by admitting I kept dating this guy. But ya know what? That’s a domestic abuse scenario we see again and again. And that is a whole other rant.
This rant is about these guys who think they have a right to a woman’s body. Who somehow think violence being tied up with sex is normal.
It’s not.
Or at least it sure as fuck shouldn’t be.
I wonder if my ex-boyfriend ever thinks about that moment. When he lost control and attacked someone he loved. Out of jealousy? Out of possessiveness?
Whatever.
I was his girlfriend and I chose to share my body with him, but that didn’t make my body his.
I am now married to a really great guy who teasingly will grab me up in a bear hug and say “mine”. But he knows and I know, that though I’ve promised this body to him, it is still my body. I am still in charge of it. And even as a husband, he would never assume he has any right to it without my consent.
So what’s up young men of America? Why do we see women’s sexuality as something you should control? Whether it’s physically with assault, or by shaming a woman for what she wears, why do you get to be boss?
And no, not every man is a rapist, but I will say our society has a HUGE problem with women and their sexuality. A HUGE problem of expecting women to be responsible for someone else’s actions. Our clothing, our actions, our sexuality, does not mean we want to have sex with YOU. Unless I’m like, “hey, let’s make out” you should see yourself as having zero chance of putting any part of your body inside any part of mine. And even if we are making out, do not assume I want to fuck you. I might discover your terrible back hair and change my mind. I might just like kissing and not much else. TOUGH SHIT. Be a big boy, pack it up, and move on.
We, as a society, need to deal with it–women have sex. They like sex. It does not make them whores. It does not make them there for the taking.
How can we say this enough, in so many different ways, that society will finally get it? We own our bodies. We are not in charge of controlling your sexual urges by changing the way we dress or the way we dance. If you can’t control yourself, if you are that ‘animal’ in nature, go lock yourself in a cage.
This girl, who was attacked by the swimmer twit, she shows compassion in her letter. She acknowledges it will affect them both for the rest of their lives.
Good for her. She’s a better human than me.
At least I was awake for my experience. At least I could fight back. She’s had to rely on piecing her story together from news clippings and courtroom testimony. It makes me want to hurl.
So no commentary on what the twit deserves for punishment. Or his dad’s letter that seems to focus more on steak than what actually happened.
But I will comment the FUCK out of how we need to start treating women.
Yeah. That’s what our discourse should be looking more like. Not harassing victims about what they were wearing, if they left sexy voicemails for their boyfriends, or how much they drank.
Like any of the possible answers to these questions would make fingering an unconscious woman ok?
I guess I really see women’s oppressed sexuality as part of the problem. If we were more ok with the idea of seeing women as sexual beings with their own sexual appetites, maybe we wouldn’t be so ok with ignoring their rights to their body.
If my boyfriend had been able to see that I felt frisky and carefree after a night of drinking, and had not been so scandalized that I would show my body to others, perhaps he would have seen my jumping in the pool as an opportunity to have some fun. Come splash around. Maybe rub wet bodies together. And maybe his friends would have been leaving with a totally different look on their faces: “oh shit, they’re about to do it”.
My body and my sexuality aren’t a threat. They don’t need to be controlled. Or hidden. I can do a damn fine job taking care of my own body. I was comfortable (and still am) with some after drinking underwear swimming. Maybe it made his friends uncomfortable. Apologies. Leave. You did anyway. Even the boyfriend could have left. Or said, hey, no one wants to see you in your underwear, get out or I’m leaving.
But the violence. The possession. The idea of reclaiming what was his through force.
This needs to stop.
And our society needs to stop excusing it, hiding from it behind alcohol. The alcohol definitely contributes to some bad decision making, but guess what…
There’s a reason I jumped in with my bra and panties instead of totally nude. I still had some restraint. I still had my own definitions about what was ok and what was crossing the line. Drunk and all, I still knew there were limits.
So after a rough morning with the kiddo, a distressing phone call with my mother, and dealing with airline BULLSHIT, my blood is boiling.
But I actually tried to do something healthy with it. I walked the dog.
In shorts that are too tight on my butt and a shirt that is too tight on my…everything.
And guess how many fucks I gave?
0
Well, maybe one. But I was trying really hard to ignore it.
I looked ridiculous, I know. And to top off my look I was wearing this weird sport belt thing my mom gave me that carries poop bags, keys, etc.
And yes. I was also picking up dog shit while rocking this look.
Don’t be jealous.
But it felt really good to be outside. Walking. Not being too hot because I’d insisted on wearing pants to cover my thunder thighs. Oh no, it was all hanging out and it was quite refreshing.
So FUCK THEM.
Whoever is making you doubt yourself or judge yourself.
Fuck them.
Articles that tell you it’s impossible to lose weight because your metabolism will slow down.
Fuck them.
Just eat more veggies and do it anyway.
We all get to fight for what we want.
Even if we have to get stinky with the dog shit to do it.
And guess what. Everyone does. Except for people who never try.
Don’t be that person (talking to myself here).
Now I’m going to go clean my fucking house.
Ke$ha is clearly going to go have some angry hate sex. Or at least she was before her issues with her producer.
So a friend passed this on my way. Another one shared it on Facebook. And it’s a fucking bummer man…
I guess like most things regarding health and science, it’s hard to make any strong conclusions from just a few studies, but this article presents some pretty discouraging data about weight loss.
It tracks the weight gain and metabolism of contestants of The Biggest Loser. Now, this already makes me want to discount it because I think we can all agree that losing hundreds of pounds in a matter of weeks IS NOT a healthy way to go about things. But…
The studies found that the contestants not only lost weight, but also lost their metabolisms. Meaning, they burn calories way more slowly. So it becomes increasingly hard to keep the weight off.
They are also double and triple fucked because of their hormones. Hormones that regulate the feeling of satiety or hunger also get all out of whack. Basically, your body stops feeling full and just feels hungry all the time. So then you want to eat, and then your slow-ass metabolism can’t deal with it.
Conclusion? The body WANTS you to be fat, damnit. If you try to lose that weight, your body will freak out and do everything it can to get that fat back.
So…. FUCK.
I guess. I mean, this raises a lot of questions/thoughts for me before I decide to give up and just be heavy.
Like…
If I lose weight at a more normal (slow) pace, will my body adapt better and not freak out?
And this kinda makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. We haven’t always lived in the land of plenty. Our bodies are programmed to pack it on when we can in case we end up facing famine conditions. Famine’s just not the problem any more (in this country).
How do you keep your metabolism up? Exercise? Meth?
And I used to think that my body was really happy at 170. Like it just wanted to be that weight. But now that I weigh more, does that mean my body is greedy and wants me to keep all 225 pounds? Does that mean that once you gain the weight, you’re fucked?
And what is a girl supposed to do?
I don’t think I can just resign myself to the weight I’m at. It hurts my legs. I can’t jump in the dodgy trampoline park. And I’m just tired so easily.
So it’s got to change.
But I wanna know what the best course of action is. What will science discover to help us MAINTAIN weight loss?
I haven’t written in forever and a day. We’ve been busy with a couple of big things.
1. We went to New Orleans for a family vacation. Which was super fun, but resulted in five days of eating like this.
Not the place to hang out when you are trying to eat healthy and lose weight. But I did walk a ton. So that’s something… right?
2.We have been madly debating buying this land.
It’s 1.5 acres southwest of town. Out of town. Away from breakfast tacos, public swimming pools, libraries, and our awesome friends on the East Side. What the fuck are we thinking?
It’s been a lot of ups and downs–and basically just majorly stressful. It’s a big decision and a big financial commitment.
But I guess we are officially moving forward. And will eventually get to design our own home. Which will be awesome–yet again with the stressful.
So this past weekend things were finally calming down. I took the kiddo to the trampoline park for some rain-free fun. We’ve gone a few times before and it always surprises me how easy it is on my body. You’d think the bouncing would be jolting and hard on the joints. But as long as I wear the right bra and pin those puppies down, it’s all good.
This time, not so much.
This time, my ankles/achilles were like FUCK YOU. I kept stopping to stretch, but nothing helped.
Finally at the end, I moved to a different trampoline and it had way better resistance or something and didn’t bother my legs at all. I’m no trampoline technician, but I’m going to guess I was partially struggling on the first one because the springs needed to be tightened or something.
And because of my weight.
Which, oh yeah. There was some new signage at our jump park.
And it’s funny because 1) it took me a while to notice it and 2) my first reaction upon reading it was like “Duh. Makes sense.”
Until I quickly realized I WEIGH MORE THAN THAT. My 225 makes me illegit to jump.
And then the shame. Rolling waves of shame.
And wondering if I was breaking the trampoline with my fat ass (saggy springs, remember?) and if I should jump again, or somehow trick my clingy 3 year old into jumping without me.
Right.
He’s totally great about playing by himself without me participating.
Ha.
I just wanted to leave. Run away and cry in the car.
Which I didn’t. I just got really short-tempered with my child. Cuz that’s fair.
I did do a little jumping, but basically felt really self-conscious and fat the whole time. The only thing that made me feel better is all the times we’d come before and that sign WASN’T hanging.
So back to this healthy at every weight thing.
Great for you if you can dance or do Ironmans at a heavier than average weight. I still wonder what you are doing to your knees, but whatever.
And I have tried to embrace not focusing on weight, but on healthy habits.
But I like to fucking jump around with my kid. And I can’t fucking legit do that now. Or at least not comfortably–because what my self-esteem doesn’t need is breaking a fucking trampoline in half.
I actually really need to acknowledge the weight. I mean, I acknowledge I’m overweight, but my goals actually need to specifically include losing weight. I think they always have in the back of my mind, but I was trying to be more “healthy” in my mentality. Which I still think is true. I don’t want to go on some crash diet. I want to build healthy habits. But damn, those habits have to actually lead to losing some weight.
I want to jump.
I want to be able to chase my kid. Because that is one of his favorite things to do. Anywhere, but especially at the trampoline park where we have these long slippery straightaways to run down.
And then we fall and my hair does this.
static
And then my kiddo cracks up and his laugh is worth dying for.
Sometimes I wake up and it’s a blank slate; I have no idea how I passed my hours of slumber. Sometimes I am rattled awake by the most vivid, intense dreams.
Lately they have involved my grandma. Yeah, the one that just died.
And somehow I’ve managed to tie in my house issues with my dead grandma issues.
For example, I dreamed I was taking my dog to board and it was at my grandma’s old house. They had changed the property a lot, so it took me a while to recognize it. But when I went inside, I could tell it was her house. Now, funny dreams, it wasn’t anything like her REAL house. But I seemed to really connect to these restaurant style booths and glass candle holders–like those were the leftover signs of grandma.
It made me cry.
The one last night was even weirder.
I was at her apartment with… her? My other grandma? I don’t know. But we were there to clean up because someone had died and we needed to empty out the space. I don’t know if it was her who had died (because in a dream you can go back to your own apartment even if you are dead), or my grandpa, but either way I was very worried about how upset she would be going into the apartment. She kept reassuring me it would be fine.
We went in and started vacuuming the floor. But not with the floor attachment, just the hose. How inefficient. She started trying to help me with a second hose (go figure) and I got all upset that she shouldn’t be having to do that.
So is this about my grandma, or about my struggles to clean and organize my own house? Is Grandma speaking to me from beyond the grave? Telling me to get off my ass and clean?
She never would have been so rude in real life. But she would have made it clear that sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.
And I think that is part of what I will miss about her. She came from a time when you just did what you had to do. Life was hard, but you sucked it up and lived it.
She lived on a farm where you just gave birth, at home, whether the doctor had made it there or not. She watched her husband and two of her children die before her.
She just kept living.
And when it was near the end, and she was in a nursing home, and she was in a ton of pain from her physical therapy, she just kept trying. Cuz the only way out, was through. It was the task at hand, so that is what she did.
And I need that in my life. To push through the hard times (though they will never, ever be as hard as her life).
I need to just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.
If a 96-year-old woman could fight the good fight, so can I.
All I ever wanted was right here
But I had to reach way down inside
I had to have faith I’d find
No Fear
I haven’t written in a while. And I’m scared to try again.
I’m scared I’ve lost the spark, the creativity. My dazzling wit.
But as my mom keeps telling the kiddo, “Feel the fear, and do it anyway.”
Why I haven’t been writing is a whole other story–I lost my grandma last week. She was 96, had been ill, so it wasn’t a total shock. But it has hurt more than I thought. Not sure I’m ready to write much more than that…
But in honor of the family matriarch, who sure as hell didn’t have time for FEAR, I’m going to stick with that idea for today.
In the middle of all of this, I started seeing a therapist. And I like her. She’s full of so many ideas and insights I can barely keep up. Like a college lecture, I feel like I should be recording it and going back to listen again later. Pick up as much wisdom as I can.
The big insight from yesterday was that I am obsessing and stressing about wild daydreams, like owning a farm, so I don’t have to deal with my actual anxiety over what needs to be done NOW.
If I’m researching land, I don’t actually have to clean the house. Or workout. Or cook apparently.
Or even sleep.
Yep. I was up until 1 AM stressing the idea of buying a piece of land outside of town.
It’s insane.
And I can’t seem to break the train of thought.
So goal today… do something for today, don’t just dream about tomorrow.
And I realize when I try to think about today, what it means to be productive today, I do feel a HUGE wave of anxiety wash over me.
There is so much to do I don’t even know where to start. And so much of what is “productive” as a stay-at-home-whatever-I-am, just doesn’t really make a noticeable dent. If I do laundry, no one really knows. It doesn’t change the look of this cluttered house.
Mess in the hallway. All the shit I brought home from school 3 months ago and STILL haven’t put away.Disaster of a closet. WTF is all that?
So if I start thinking about making this house cleaner, neater, I start to panic because it is a completely daunting task to me. I don’t know where to start, and I know there will be a million moments of not knowing where to put things, where things go, what to get rid of or keep.
And I’d rather just sit here stagnant. It seems safer.
So feel the fear, and do it anyway.
Start somewhere. Pick one tiny task, and do it. Like this guest bed I’m staring at as I write that is covered in clothes. I could hang those up or put them in the laundry.
It’s just cleaning the fucking house, it’s not planning battle.
At least it probably isn’t for most people.
But for me, it is. Battle against myself and my fears and my feeling of being overwhelmed. Battle against anxiety.
Am I alone here? Is anybody else intimidated by an out-of-control house?
But big picture, I don’t want to live my life in fear. Fear of messing up. Fear of being judged. Fear of seeming stupid. Fear of failing–or even just being less than perfect.
Because I see it in my kid. He doesn’t want to do things unless he knows exactly what’s up and what’ll be going on. He wants to be successful and he shuts down when he messes up in public.
I want more than that for him. I want him to feel the fear, and do it anyway.
Oh my next thirty years, I’m gonna watch my weight
Eat a few more salads and not stay up so late
So those that know me might find it funny to find out that I see Easter as a way better time to set resolutions for yourself.
It just seems to fit–rising from death, new life, saviour.
But perhaps that’s just me being overly dramatic. I can’t be content to just make a goal for the year, I have to feel like I’m saving myself from some disastrous path I’m on.
Or it’s because I did get saved from a disastrous path one Easter.
This year marks 15 years since the Easter when I was at the lowest I’ve ever, ever been. I’ll just say depression and leave it at that. But I hit bottom on a Good Friday back when I was 21. So yes, alcohol was involved.
It was terrible and scared the shit out of my family, my boyfriend. It scared the shit out of me. I guess in some ways it’s good. It was a wake up call that I needed to stop letting my depression get the best of me.
And I never have again. Not like that, or anywhere close to that.
But this Easter I again feel an urgency to change my life.
And it’s my health. It’s the same path I started out on two months ago, but it’s time for a recommitment. Traveling, depression, family illness, have all thrown me off track. I’ve allowed them to throw me off track.
So time to recommit. Time to rise and start a new life.
Find a counselor. I actually have taken the first step and have a call into one. Let’s see if she and I can ever stop playing phone tag.
Cook at home. Enough is enough with the eating out. Jeez, stop being so lazy.
Walk. Just walk. Start there. Build up.
Get back to tracking my metrics. You don’t know if you are making progress if you don’t track it.
That’s it for now. Start simple. One foot in front of the other, one choice at a time.
But it is Spring, it’s beautiful. Time to enjoy life and stop beating myself up for my fat rolls and lack of fitness. Time to move in the right direction.
I’ve been locked away with a sick kiddo for the last three days. Yeah, the same kiddo I had been wanting to put up for sale. Luckily, we’d made up. And I guess nothing brings out the motherly instincts like a sick, snotty, diarrhea-having child.
But any-hoot.
I finally got out of the house today to run some errands. First stop, Target. You know, Satan’s shopping hole that sucks you in and doesn’t let you free until you’ve added at least five things to your basket you weren’t intending on buying.
I stupidly tried on some clothes.
And maybe it’s good that I did because I made a horrifying discovery.
I have a mirror issue in my house. I have no full length mirror. Well, I did finally buy one but it hangs so high on our oddly tall closet door that it doesn’t do me any fucking good. So I leave the house looking like god knows what everyday.
Which makes me realize I made TWO horrifying discoveries.
1.Carrying my tiny wallet and stupidly large cell phone (I hate you Apple) in my jean pockets results in weird, unattractive bulging. Must start using purse.
2.I have back rolls. Like rolls of fat down my back. You’re probably thinking, well duh EJ, you weigh 225 pounds. But I have never seen them (see above mirror issue). But even if I had mirrors, who has the back to back mirrors you find in dressing rooms in their house? You can’t actually ever see your back, unless you twist, which just distorts everything.
So, I should have guessed, but I just didn’t know. I have these huge rolls. You know that horrible female outline thing one might do with their hands? Add an extra hump in there for my rolls.
Check out Geraldo be super creepy with it at :35.
Jeez.
So thanks Target. Thanks for not only luring me into spending too much money, but for the brutal wake up call and blow to my self-esteem.
