It is almost 3:30 p.m., and I have never wanted to leave my office so badly. Wait, I take that back, I probably have. But this evening is going to be especially busy for me, because I have to pick that guy up at the airport and everything, so I feel like I need to hurry up and get in some "me" time at home before the craziness begins. Yep. I'd leave now, but the thing is, my boss left and said he didn't know if he'd be back today. Hmm. So I could leave on the off chance that he just isn't returning. But what if he did? Then my light would be off and my car would be gone, like a slacker. What a conundrum.
I think I'll leave around 4:20...if he's not back by then I'm pretty sure he won't be till Monday.
Still working on that story for the Morning News, though the guy that was supposed to be the main push of the story - well, his parents have decided that he doesn't need to be bothered by a reporter. I guess that's cool - the issue I'm writing about IS particularly sensitive, and from what I've heard he's a foster kid too, so his life is doubly hard. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to go with my second-choice angle. Sucks.
Yoga with the "easy" instructor was last night. There were a million people there. Before Christmas, our Thursday night classes had like 5 people, max. Sometimes on Wednesday nights, I was the only one there. But there were about 15-20, and that's a lot for such a small room. I was stuck way down at the end, and I'm used to being right there in front of the teacher, to better see what's she's doing. To make matters worse, I had a beginner right beside me and she was watching ME instead of the instructor. So I felt like I had to do the poses letter-perfect or else she would injure herself.
I hate how competitive some of the students were last night. I've found this happens more often in the larger classes. When you're doing yoga, you're supposed to be intensely focused on YOURSELF and concentrating on pushing your own limits. Last night, everyone was looking at everyone else, seeing who could do the best shoulder stand and who could hold their tree pose the steadiest. Not cool. I knew this was going to happen the minute I walked in the door; I was halfway to the women's locker room (to put away my purse, yoga mat and jacket; I was there early and wanted to do some cardio first) when I passed this girl standing on the stairs. She gave me a look that seemed to say "What are you doing holding that yoga mat?", with wide eyes and everything. And then she kinda furrowed her brow and stuck her nose in the air, as if to say "I'm a serious yoga student." We didn't exchange words, but I somehow knew I'd be seeing her in class. And I was right. Whatever. I don't watch other people when I'm practicing. The only thing I watch is the instructor and myself in the mirror, and most of the time I don't even do that.
I had a weird dream last night. I dreamed that I was friends with the personal assistants to Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. My sister Stephanie and I were invited to the house they shared with Michael and Catherine. We hung around with the assistants while they stayed on the set of the celebrities' newest movie. I'm sure there was other stuff I can't remember, but I do recall at one point I was sitting in a car when Michael walks up to me. Apparently, his assistant was somewhere else, and he needed me to drive him to his weekend house in Mexico. So he was standing outside the car talking to me when my mom comes up. So I had to introduce her, "Mom, this is Michael; Michael, this is my mom." And my mom was shocked. It was totally weird. I do remember that I did drive Michael and Catherine to their house in Mexico, but after that it's just a blur.
How strange is that? I wonder what it means. I've always thought Michael Douglas was sexy, but I don't remember especially liking him. I think it might have something to do with the fact that I was flipping channels last night and saw CZJ on Letterman or Leno.
Forgot to mention that I recently set up another blog for my non-diet, creative stuff. Nothing of substance is up there yet, but you can find it here. I'll let everyone know when the first post goes up. It won't be updated daily - just a sporadic, when-I-feel-like-it kind of thing. I'm hoping that some creative writing will help me to do my work writing better. I've had such writer's block lately.
In the fitness realm: I've been watching my diet somewhat since Monday. I haven't eaten any fast food and I've been trying to stay away from junk. I hope it's reflected on the scale pretty soon because right now it's holding steady at 129. Again. And I've been keeping up the exercise. Yesterday I did 45 minutes on the treadmill/bike, though I didn't work as hard as I should have because I was starving. If I ran any more, I might have passed out. Tonight is yoga with the "easy" instructor. I will try to get there 30 minutes early to do some cardio beforehand. I don't know what it is, but I can never seem to fit in more than 10-15 minutes before the woman shows up and starts class.
Yeah, I'm late posting today, so what? Today was The Big Assignment Day, where my boss marches into my office and gives me assignments for the next magazine. Fun stuff.
Anyway, Lori posted a quiz on her site today, so I thought I'd be a copycat and fill it out too, partially anyway. Don't want anyone to get bored. It's courtesy of Little Bub.
BODY:
What do you most like about your body?: My eyes (blue) and my wrists (tiny)
Do you think you're good looking?: Yes, somewhat
Do other people often tell you that you're good looking?: Yes
Do you look like any celebrities?: I have been compared to Chelsea Clinton and Ally McBeal (when I was about 110 pounds and stick thin).
FASHION:
Do you wear a watch?: Nope. My mom gave me a beautiful silver Citizen watch a few years ago but I quit wearing it because the little safety chain always gets pulled off somehow.
How many coats and jackets do you own?: Hmm...I have a big puffy thing for when it's really cold, a regular long green jacket, a velvet magenta blazer, a black duster, an Adidas windbreaker thing, and probably other stuff that I can't name.
Favorite pants/skirt color?: Black. My favorite color in almost everything.
Most expensive item of clothing: My new Kenneth Cole sky blue cords.
What kind of shoes do you wear?: I wear pointy high high heels and black loafers to work, usually, and then I have a great pair of New Balance sneakers I wear when I want to be casual. I also have some brown leather ankle boots that I wear when I know I won't be walking around a lot.
YOUR FRIENDS
Do your friends 'know' you?: The few really good friends that I have do know me well.
What do they tend to be like?: They tend to be male, easygoing and smart. But there are some girls too. Too bad most of them live back in Alabama. I need to make new friends here.
Are there traits in you that are universally liked?: Yes, my good attitude and my tendency not to let anything "get" to me, at least not in public.
How many people do you tell everything to?: Used to be my best friend Garrett. But since he moved to New York and I moved to Texas, we've drifted apart a bit. I tell MOST things to my mom and my fiance, Mark.
MUSIC
Favorite band ever? Simon and Garfunkel.
Most listened to bands: Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Allman Brothers Band
Do you find any musicians good-looking?: That guy from Bush. Gavin I think his name is.
Can you play an instrument?: I can play piano, albeit badly.
Type of music never listened to?: That rave stuff.
CLOTHING
Do you own any plaid clothing?: A pair of lounge pants that I used to love but now have a big hole in the butt.
Do you own converse shoes?: Nope.
Do you own old school Nikes?: Nope.
Do you wear tight pants?: Sometimes.
Is there more than one zipper in your pants?: None that I can think of.
Do you know what a squatter flap is? No. What is it? (Just looked it up...apparently it is the butt flap on long jammies. Hmm.)
Added a few new links to some of my favorite blogs to the right. I think I am addicted to web journals. I especially encourage you to read Weetabix, who writes some of the funniest stuff I've read since David Sedaris. I really wish I had the time and creativity to produce stuff like hers. Instead, you get my whining.
Last night I did NOT go to the gym. Before you ridicule me, hear me out - I think I am getting sick. I've had a medium-grade sore throat since yesterday morning, and the sore muscles I acquired during Monday night's yoga class did not enhance my enthusiasm for working out. Hell, the gym was probably where I picked up the bug. You can't tell me germs don't get passed around in a place where everyone is sweating all over machines that everyone else uses. It's really gross when you think about it, but I can't say anything to Mark because he's Mr. Ultra-Sanitary, and he'd probably stop going with me if he heard that.
Fixed the "poseurs" problem with Enetation. I originally couldn't log into my account and fix it, but the Internet gods were benevolent today and I got it repaired. Go me. I also started getting cell phone notifications on new e-mail messages, which I find incredibly cool. See, Hotmail has this feature where you can direct the service to send you a text message when certain people send you e-mails. This will help me eliminate my bad habit of checking my e-mail every six minutes. My phone does this little beep whenever I'm messaged, so it's very convenient.
This weekend our local SPJ chapter is hosting some bigwigs from national headquarters in Indiana. This would normally not be a problem, but this guy that has a crush on me just happens to be one of those bigwigs. I met him at a seminar in Indianapolis, and ever since then he's been calling and e-mailing frequently, telling me "how talented" I am and how I'm "going to go far" in journalism. Whatever. His intentions are obvious. Mark picked up on it too. So he sent me a Christmas card a couple of weeks ago asking me if I could pick him up from the airport Friday night. Fine, I thought, I'll do it, if only to be a good host to the SPJ board members. So I have to be all bothered with that on Friday, running across town to pick him up at ABIA and then rushing back to the little SPJ get-together downtown, then carting him back to his hotel. Whew.
(Brief aside: I was just texted by Hotmail. Turned out to be a seven-word reply from my friend, but exciting nevertheless.)
I'd love to leave right now, sneak out of this office. But with my boss' boss sitting right outside my door in a meeting, it's really not feasible. Guess this means another late night at the gym. Again.
Damn it. The editor I wrote to yesterday about that long-ago job interview - that never produced any results or even a phone call - hasn't written back. Just sent an e-mail to a college acquaintance who works there. Maybe she can clue me in on what's happening there.
I'm getting into that mood again. That mood that always catches on right after the holidays, when I feel like I have too much stuff and start thinking I need to get rid of whatever's superfluous. Last night I began by tossing an old CK Calvin Klein shirt with bleach stains and some 27-inch-waist black short shorts in the Goodwill box in the HEB parking lot. I envision there will be much more to come.
But it's been hard to say goodbye to my old clothes, especially since my weight gain. I was going through my drawer of shorts the other day, and I should have gotten rid of most, if not all, of them. Most of them were size 6's and 8's, remnants from my skinny past, when my high-school English teacher told me she was worried about me because I looked anorexic. (I wasn't.) I ended up throwing out just the one black pair. I keep swearing to myself that one day, I will wear them again.
But at the same time I'm thinking that, I know that it's not to be. My body has changed since high school, and I don't mean just in terms of pounds. I've lost that boyish stick figure and become curvier in my lower half. Instead of being straight up-and-down, I've got visible hips. My butt fills out a pair of jeans pretty nicely. Even if I did get down to 115, my goal weight, those 6's would still probably be out of my league.
Case in point: My current size. Right now, I'm a comfortable size 10 in most skirts and pants (upper body, I'm anywhere from a small to a medium). I can also wear this pair of size 12 pants that I have. So let's say anywhere from size 10-12. This is the size I wore before I started exercising, though admittedly the size 10s were beginning to squeeze. Since beginning my exercise routine, I've been to the gym at least 5 days a week for the past four months. These days, I go six days a week, doing 45 minutes of cardio each time, and throwing in a couple of hour-long yoga classes each week for good measure. Yet my pants size remains the same. What gives? My weight is pretty respectable; some would even characterize it as "thin." My mother and all my friends say I look 100 percent better since losing those 10 pounds that I've gotten off so far. But the clothing sizes refuse to budge.
I read other people's diet journals. You can see a few of my favorites listed to the right. Many of them are clocking significant weight losses. They're beginning to squeeze into those "thin" clothes they always hoped they'd wear. But not me. No, no, I'm still stuck in the double-digit sizes, even though I weigh less than many other journallers. Lori, for example, weighs a few pounds more than me and she's recently been able to do the size 8 thing. This frustrates me to no end. Don't get me wrong, I am happy for all of them, but I can't help but compare myself and feel like a bit of a failure.
Anyway, on to happier subjects. I went to yoga last night, at a new gym location. I think I've been to like 5 Gold's locations around town, and this one was great - it's actually closer to my house than my regular gym. The yoga class was pretty killer. I'd never taken any classes with this guy before, but boy is he tough. It was only supposed to be a Level 1 class, but I thought I was going to die. Really. Now I know why I like my usual instructor - she's easy! But my legs have that pleasant muscle ache today that lets me know I worked hard last night, and that's always cool.
I discovered Foxfire while I was going through my uncle's DVD and laserdisc collection this weekend. The man has so many movies. Hundreds upon hundreds. He has some that he's never even watched. He buys them when they're deeply discounted, and as a result many of them suck. Such was the case with this movie, unfortunately. However, it was good for a laugh.
Foxfire was made back in 1996 and is set in 1994 - a time when the combat boot-granny skirt look was in, and bands like L7 were hot. The story begins when a group of girls, led by mysterious stranger Legs (Angelina Jolie), beat up the high-school science teacher that has been molesting them. They get suspended and the teacher is disciplined as well, but this act of defiance spurs on the normally outcast girls to look at themselves in a different way - they have more confidence, they're not as shy around boys, hallelujah, what an awakening. Or something like that. The girls become friends quickly, camping out in an old abandoned house to hide their suspensions from their parents. Meanwhile, a group of tough-talking jocks is threatening to "make them pay" for getting good old Coach in trouble. But no letterman-jacketed quarterback can sever the bonds of friendship among women!
A few gratuitous nude scenes follow, as well as some hints of lesbianism and a lot of "girl talk" about hopes and dreams. They even break into the school and do a little ass-kicking. But as the days progress and their stunts get crazier, the girls realize that hey, maybe we shouldn't be committing arson and kidnapping people. Maybe this Legs chick is a little wacko. Kind of like Angelina Jolie in real life. I won't reveal what else happens, but suffice it to say I won't be watching this movie again. The film tries to be some kind of teenage-female-friendship tale, but I just didn't get it, maybe because I'm not 15 anymore.
And there are a lot of plot holes. For example, we are introduced to Legs when she walks into a high-school science lab and frees a live frog that timid Rita was afraid to cut open. WTF is she, a teenage drifter who wandered into town, doing in a high school? Of all the places to go - park, restaurant, truck stop - why would she pick a school? And then there's the part about them hiding out in an old abandoned house. They're really lucky that no dangerous homeless guys or druggies tried to appropriate that house for themselves. Plus, somehow their parents never come looking for them, even at night, except for once. Sorry, but I find it hard to believe that only one of these kids' parents cares enough to go looking for their daughter, who hasn't shown up for several days.
Anyway, the cheesy dialogue and outrageous situations will keep you laughing, even though they're not supposed to.
Just dropped an e-mail to the editor of the 'Bama paper that I interviewed at last month. Told me they would call within 2 weeks either way - never heard anything from them. I assume I didn't get the job, but it would have been nice for them to let me know.
Also sent a message to my old college prof. I love him so much. He's so cool. I know it broke his heart when I decided not to enter grad school fulltime. I wanted to, but I was so burned out on college that I had to get away. For my mental health.
Now that my initial bragging is over, I thought I'd take a few minutes to reflect on what this whole thing really means to me. It's a lot more than getting a few hundred bucks to write a story for a large newspaper. In a way, it's about achieving a dream I've had since, oh, freshman year of college.
When I was a journalism student at UA, I wanted a summer internship with The Dallas Morning News. Badly. It's such a great paper and I knew that working for them would be a great way to start my career. But it wasn't meant to be. I was a freshman with absolutely NO journalism experience, and my dad wasn't the publisher of the paper. So I got turned down. I think I still have the rejection letter somewhere. (I've kept all my rejection letters, from the Chicago Trib to the St. Pete Times.)
Sophomore and junior years weren't any better, even though I had some more work experience - a summer working for a chamber of commerce's newsletter and three months with a rinky-dink weekly paper in east Alabama. Year after year, I got that same rejection letter. And then I became a senior and it was time to go find a job. I ended up working right there at the paper in Tuscaloosa, where I stayed till my move to Austin. My dream of working in Dallas was dead.
And now I am working for them, I guess, though I'm not on the payroll. They pay me to write stuff. My aunt swears they're going to offer me a job if I keep it up. Maybe she's right. Could a move to the Plains be in the future?
Okay, now that you know my name, you won't stalk me, right? I'm unlisted anyway.
Oh yeah, you have to register to see the story, if you haven't already. If you don't feel like registering (they don't send spam, by the way), just e-mail me or comment and I can send it to you. Not that you'd really care, though.
Today I did something I haven't done in a long time. I went to the gym and clocked 50 minutes of cardio on the treadmill and bike. That's 30 walking/running and 20 biking. The sweat was pouring off of me and my t-shirt was drenched by the time I left, but I felt really good. Better than I normally do. I guess it's that extra 5 minutes that makes all the difference. I think before, when I was doing 45 minutes, I was quitting just before I was getting into my zone...so I'm glad I took the extra time today.
However, I am never, under any circumstances, going to do more than 60 minutes of cardio, ever. No matter how much I ate the night before or how much weight I want to lose. An hour is my absolute threshold, and even then I think I might be pushing it. My calves kind of hurt when I was working out today, so I'm thinking that any longer than that might damage my joints and ligaments. And that's never any fun.
Oh yes, and I'm going to start doing a food journal again. Only this time it's going to be on paper, in a notebook, instead of on this site. It's just so much easier to grab some paper and write it down than log onto the Internet and go to blogger to do it. I'm not going to bother trying to count the calories in each thing either - it's too much trouble and I'll know if I've eaten something high-calorie. If that happens, and it will, I'm just going to cut back on food for the rest of the day, or the following day. That will even things out and eliminate a lot of figuring. It's hard to approximate calorie counts on some foods anyway, especially restaurant meals. I've asked for nutrition facts at some big-name chain restaurants, and I was told they don't give them out. Sounds like they're afraid of scaring people off.
I think last night was the last episode of the eating-out marathon I've been subjected to this week. Thursday I went to Z Tejas and The Brick Oven. Friday it was PF Chang's with my coworkers for my birthday and then Chili's with Mark's friends that night. Last night we went to the Pizza Garden with my aunt and ate some cake and coffee afterwards. Will it never end?
However, I am happy to say that I have exercised every single day since my off day on Thursday. On Friday I did about 45 minutes of cardio. On Saturday it was the same, maybe less since Mark was trying to get me to leave early. Today I plan to go and maybe crank up the intensity a little bit - instead of 30 minutes of fast walking on the treadmill, maybe I can add some more sprints to turn up the calorie-burning factor and increase my cardio capacity. I'd like to be able to run more than 4 minutes without keeling over. I was going to do yoga at 11 a.m. after Mass but we slept in instead, so no go there. I really need to be burning fat more than increasing flexibility, anyway, what with all this eating.
When I'm not at restaurants, I've been trying to cut down on eating, though. Breakfast yesterday was only four graham-cracker squares with a smear of peanut butter, and skim milk.
Yesterday I dropped a load of money shopping. Seriously, y'all, I spent more money than I intended to when I walked in those mall doors. I bought a pair of grayish-blue cords by Kenneth Cole from Dillard's. This is the only "designer" thing that I own, unless you count Ann Taylor and the Limited as designer (I don't). I also bought a velour sweatsuit similar to Lori's at the Gap. I got it all on sale anyway, for like $30 with tax, so that was cool. Then I bought Mark a shirt at JCPenney and some yoga pants from Academy for me. It was a good day.
Name: Jen Location: DFW, TX Occupation: Journalist WHY this stupid blog?: To lose the 20 pounds I've packed on since high school and to entertain you with stories about my fabulous life. Current Weight: 138 My Goal Weight: 115 Pounds to Go: 23
