New Vistas

The sun came out today. If you are not local, I should clarify that that's kind of a big deal here. Last night we had yet another freakish snow shower. Today it's something like 70 degrees.

As griped about when I lived there, the sun in Phoenix is obnoxious. It's like wanting to take a nice warm shower and having boiling water come out of the tap. People there are like "Yeah, it's great! I love boiling water!" and that's all very nice, but I prefer the more gentle experience of a spring day in the Northwest.

No, I have not been abducted by aliens. I really am extolling the virtues of sunny spring days.

I'm tired of my usual walks, especially the uphill one I sometimes do on my lunch hour. The slope is obnoxiously steep which of course makes it a good workout, but it's not a pretty walk and I sometimes end up near Crazy Angry Man. Crazy Angry Man spends his days roaming Tacoma's streets, shouting obscenities. He has the loudest voice I've ever heard. When you're on the same street as him it's like there's a concert-sized speaker transmitting a broadcast from hell.

On the other side of the spectrum, University Place is one of the nicest areas in Tacoma. Nice as in beautiful views, happy suburban children and no Crazy Angry Man. It was a great place for a long walk today.

I wouldn't mind living in this neighborhood:

2.8

I went back. I knew if I didn't go back exactly one week later I'd never go again. I lost 2.8 pounds. Whee, I'm an Olsen twin!

The lecturer asked how Weight Watchers helped me last week. I told her I wasn't going to lie- I didn't write a thing down. What helped was just developing more awareness. Not calculating every point and recording it (which I don't have the patience for), but keeping a running tab in my head and making decisions: I can have either this or that but not both. The night before I'd been at Bahama Breeze, the type of cheezy theme restaurant I'll admit to loving. My coworker and I ordered two appetizers: hot spinach & artichoke dip with tortilla chips and a chicken quesadilla. I decided that since I was having that- in moderation of course- I couldn't also have the sugary ice-creamy pina colada I usually order there. So I'm not only tiny, I'm a paragon of virtue.

I'm trying to learn how 'normal' people eat. A thin former coworker and I often went to lunch at the nearby Thai or Mexican restaurants. I, and any other diet-attempting types at the table would carefully eat only half of the large portion and get a box for the rest. The 120 pounder would routinely demolish her entire platter of food. One day I asked her, as we were heading back from lunch at 2:00 pm, what she would eat that evening. She shrugged and said "Nothing. I'm done for the day."

Here's what that sounded like to me: "I can stay underwater for seven minutes." or "I jumped over the Grand Canyon on my motorcycle." or "I learned Portugese in three days."

To just stop eating for the day at 2 pm seems like a super-human feat to me. I can't do it. I don't want to do it Please may I never have to do it.

My mother lost about 30 pounds in her early 40s and has kept it off ever since. Her afternoon snack is ten almonds. Not nine, not twelve, but ten. Always ten. Once a week she has a cinnamon raisin bagel for breakfast. Just once a week. Never twice.

I don't think I'm ever going to be her either.

What I think is going to work for me on a long-term basis is not having the mentality of "I'm going to have this fattening thing today, because tomorrow I'm starting a diet and will never be able to have it again...". 'Fattening' things are no longer forbidden fruit and are somewhat less seductive as a result.

In other news, I'm going to a career counselor on Tuesday. Figuring out what I'm going to do next is both daunting and exciting. Mostly daunting. And pleeeeeeze don't give me the "No one is hiring in this economy" spiel. The unemployment rate is significantly lower for college graduates. My having a masters may improve my odds a little more. And the attitude I'm taking is that if I can't get through a door I'll break a window.

Now I just need to find a rock.

WW and Q

I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting when I was ten. Here's what I remember: "Good evening Weight Watchers! Today we're going to learn to make chocolate cake!" There was cautious excitment on the women's faces. The big 'treat' back then was the Weight Watchers milkshake: one cup of milk, three ice cubes and the extract of your choice. Blend until frothy. So yeah, you can understand why these women were nervous.

What the lecturer had to say next was cruel: "To make chocolate cake start with one pound of crookneck squash..."

Appropriately enough, the response was "Ugh!!!" and / or a chagrined "Oh...."

Zucchini in chocolate cake can be delicious when shrouded with butter and sugar, but crookneck squash with chocolate extract? Not so much. Weight Watchers was pretty rigid back then. Your sweet tooth was allowed only sacchrine and extract. Foods were grouped into 'legal' and 'illegal'. To make matters worse, the only diet soft drink back then was Tab which tasted like rat poison.

Over the years as I've struggled with my weight, people have suggested Weight Watchers. I tried to be receptive, but my subconscious mind could not let go visions of foamy milk with that stupid, **cking extract. Instead I tried Jenny Craig where, as previously shared, I ate my week's supply of miniature candy bars in ten minutes. I also tried Atkins, which I lost a lot of weight on when I was 15. But then you eat a piece of toast and gain back 30 pounds.

At times I've managed to keep my weight down. I really liked how I looked three years ago. Now? Well, you don't see many pictures of me here do you? I don't have X's in my clothing size (although I was perilously close a year ago). I'm not morbidly obese. But our society is disdainful of anything other than thin. Thinner than nature intended. Thinner, for many of us, than our genetics dictate. When men have told me "I love your body. You look great just the way you are" I beleive them (well, I try to beleive them), but the last time I heard that was 15 - 20 pounds ago. Ok, once since then but I'm writing it off as a fluke. Fluke being, appropriately enough, a whale-related word.

I went to a Weight Watchers meeting yesterday morning. The format is better now. Less rigid, no extract, yay. I liked the meeting's topic: Feeding your Soul. Each person was given an index card with a letter on it. The objective was to think of something beginning with that letter (other than food) that 'feeds your soul'.

The letter I got was Q. My response of "Go on a Quest for things that excite you." was well received.

Not so well received: Another activity consisted of listing reasons why we eat. After the lecturer wrote all the yesh, duh, haven't we been through this before? responses (boredom, stress, etc)on the board she started to put the cap back on her dry erase marker. I raised my hand: "I think all of those things can be secondary to the fear of being thin."

Silence. Crickets. The bubbly lecturer composed herself, wrote it down, and informed me that actually that wasn't anything new. I shrugged to myself. I wasn't trying to be creative; I was being honest. In her levity! We're all about levity! manner she asked if anyone else could relate to 'fear of being thin'. Nothing. Finally one woman raised her hand, but she didn't speak. "I can relate!" said the lecturer. "Most of us have lost weight before and when we're thin we're scared we're going to gain it back."

Wrong, but thanks for playing. I nodded politely.

The new system involves points. It kind of amounts to "Don't spend it all in one place." Fattening foods are no longer illegal, but you have to budget for them. The system emulates reality pretty well. I like that its a permanent reconditioning approach.

I'll go again next Saturday. We'll see what happens.

Backtracking

A few posts back I mentioned hot chocolate, the Sorrento Hotel, Tromso, and one other thing I can't remember at the moment, and one I can but don't want to follow up on.

Let's start with the easy: Hot chocolate.




Last Saturday was not a good diet day. The too-rich-and-sugary-even-for-me peppermint hot chocolate was preceded by lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Pacific Place. Said lunch included a pomegranate margarita. Some people do the red meat disclaimer when ordering: "I never eat red meat..." Yep, we care. I choose to bore you with a different disclaimer: "I never drink, especially during the day..."

I accept your apathy.

Non-caloric activities in my Seattle day with Dee included Nordstroms, little funky stores in Pike Place market, and lots of walking.

After that I met with a wonderful new friend, who gave me a tour of Seattle nightspots. My favorite was the Sorrento Hotel, which is 100 years old. I normally dislike old buildings. I know this is freakish and wrong and you're going 'I looooooove old buildings...", but I tend to gravitate to modern, contemporary, futuristic, zen, whatever. In fact, my aversion to the opposite is typically so strong that if you want to see me shudder mention some combination of 'quaint', 'old' and 'bed-and-breakfast' in a sentence. Ugh! . This hotel though is gorgeous. It was weird, as we walked up to it I fell in love with it. It was almost a feeling of Deja Vu. Here's a link if you want to see what I'm talking about http://www.hotelsorrento.com/.

Ok, Tromso, Norway. The last letter of Tromso is supposed to have a strike through it...ok, yes, I can Google that, hold on: Tromsø. A 'Random Article' Wikipedia search had dictated I set my next story in Sweden. Been there and done that, so I migrated it to Norway. Tromso. Whoops, Tromsø. Tromsø is the northern-most college town in the world. It's well within the Arctic Circle. Factor in that it's one of the best places to see the northern lights, and it makes perfect sense that I want to write about it. While I'm generously providing links, here's one to Tromsø: http://www2.uit.no/www/inenglish. My story's setting is mainly at the university, so that's why that particular link.

The story I'm writing is a happy one. Yes, happy. In graphology (handwriting analysis) there is a practice called Graphotherapeutics. If you lack self esteem and / or ambition it's likely that when you cross the letter t, the bar is low across the stem. If you want to increase your self esteem and / or ambition, according to graphotherapeutics, cross your t's higher. I'm writing a happy story in order to similarly reprogram my subconscious. I'm also writing it simply because it came to me and I'm having fun with it. I'm not quitting my day job, so fun is what it's all about, right?

Because this is Minneapolis, Right?

Snowflakes the size of small cookies are falling...

New Title

Wendy's Continuing Adventures needs to be retitled. My first blog was titled Wendy's Adventures in Sweden. No award-winning creativity there either, but I was all excited about my upcoming journey to Sweden and I didn't put much thought into the name. What can I say, I'm careless that way.

Wendy's Continuing Adventures has got to go. It makes me sound like I'm either a 22 year old hipster dashing around the world in size two jeans screwing rock stars or like I'm a middle-aged woman with posts titled "My Trip to the Grand Canyon". Ouch. I think I just hurt my feelings.

A while back I dabbled with the idea of renaming the blog Wendy's Pathetically Futile Quest for Happiness but that's a bit of a bummer, no? Ok, how about Neurosis Can be Fun or Neurosis Can be Fun! Old Maid Isn't Just a Card Game? I'd Kill Myself But You Might Miss Me? I could go ironic- Sunshine and Kittens - with corresponding smarmy clip art...

I'll keep working on it.

Choose Your Mood