Long Bones

2009 is closing here in a few hours. Later for me than for most of the rest of you, I imagine.

2009 reminds me of that nursery rhyme that starts “There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead,” because when the year was good it was very very good, but when it was bad it was horrid.

I lost 50 lbs in 2009. Actually, if you really think about it, I lost 60 lbs in 2009 because I gained back some of the weight I lost in 2008. Apparently I’m rhyming tonight. Go with it. That is huge. So so so huge. I am crazy ridiculously amazingly proud of myself. I have wanted to lose weight ever since I was eight or nine years old and realized that I was bigger than everyone else.

This was my first year in my house. I’m still a little stunned that I have a house. Of my own. That when I touch a wall it is my wall. I have the word “gullible” written on my ceiling in permanent marker and nobody cares because it is my house and I can do little things like that to make myself laugh. And running water? Still the best thing in the world. I think everyone should live in a cabin in Alaska at least once, just so that eventually you will not live in a cabin and you appreciate modern life so much more.

I have made some really incredible friends this year. I’ve been going to the Unitarian Universalist church here in Fairbanks for about a year and the people there are amazing. I met J there – a new friend but a true one – he’s smart, fun and funny and we can talk on the phone for hours. But most of all J inspires me to be a better person. I’ve made other friends too this year and I’ve become closer to my old friends like Flickerbrain, Ecker and Shondar. (I may have called Ecker something else at some point on here but from this moment forth, he’s Ecker).

I faced my phobia of falling head on at the Deltana fair with Ecker and C.Y. Somehow I decided it was a good idea to go on the egg roll ride. It wasn’t a good idea, it was horrible and terrifying and I swear the operator let it go longer because he could hear how freaked out I was by my screaming. But I did it. Booyah!!!

There were bad things. I hurt my back in January and my foot in June. There was a horrible horrible family fracturing fight. I almost lost my job. And then there was this crazy horrible period in time from November 10 to December 10 where the following happened:

Childhood friend’s baby died. (I consider the uncle of the baby my brother)
The guy I really liked rejected me. And I didn’t even want anything from him.
My boiler died.
My boiler died again.
My car died.
My work computer died. It had my last email from my father on it.
We lost the case I’d been working on for three years. Okay that didn’t technically happen until the Monday after the horrid time, but it counts since most of the trial happened before December 10.
My back went out. Again.
My lovely wonderful cat Percy died suddenly.

Horrible month. But it’s over, my usual good luck is back and I’m letting it go so I can look forward to 2010.

This is my year.

So it has been a month since I have posted here. One full page of the calendar gone. And what a month it was — you saw/read all the bitching and moaning that proceeded my mysterious dissapearance.  November 2009 will go down in infamy as one of the worst months of my life. Serious top three. It threw a lot of things off for me. The beginning of December sucked as well – really the bad month started November 10 and lasted through December 10. Holy heck. I completely hadn’t realized that all the bad that happened happened literally in one month.  But it is over, my crazy random wonderful luck is back. And I’ve made a really good friend, who stuck with me through all the amazingly bad crap that happened.

So the diet didn’t fare too well through all of this. But as I haven’t posted in a month, I don’t know if I’m up or down from where I left off here. I’ll do an official weigh in on Monday January 4, 2010 (wow).

Speaking of the New Year, I have been thinking a lot about resolutions lately. I have a laundry list of things that I want to do in 2010 and it feels to me like the universe has shifted and I will finally be able to accomplish them. Maybe it’s all that I accomplished in 2009, or maybe its the fact of a full moon at New Year’s (a blue moon at that!). But a “New Year’s Resolution” is such a loaded phrase. Something along the lines of 92% of New Year’s resolutions fail.

I can’t help it. I love the words: resolution, resolve, resolute. Resolute especially rings a bell with me.

I must be resolute in continuing this weight loss journey because the easy part is over. And frankly, the easy part was not particularly easy. 

I must be resolute in stopping with the freaking dermatillomania because I have already damaged so much of my skin beyond repair. I will be literally scarred for life. But I want to be confident enough to have a physical relationship with a man again,  and if I have kids (and one way or another I want to adopt children, the only real question for me is if I have biological kids) I am not going to pass this habit on to them.

I must be resolute in being kind to myself, honest and loving to the people I’m close to. 

I must be resolute in working two jobs and saving money so that I can do the things I love and live the life I dream of. 

And I must be resolute now that I have taken on the responsibilities at my church that I stick to them and continue writing my essays and hopefully soon give my services.  I have a strong spiritual voice, one that questions and I hope asks others to question. I think this is my path, so I must be resolute to walk it.

I haven’t been around much lately. At all. In fact, haven’t even looked in at the blog in almost a week.

There was a tragedy in my life – I found out on Tuesday. I’m still trying to figure out how to cope – the horrible things that happen on the news to strangers are now horrible things that happen to people I care about. I’m thinking about going back to grief councelling. I don’t know, I don’t want to miss the work…

And then I got rejected by the cool guy who I was hanging out with a couple weeks ago. He apparently mistook something I said and thought I wanted a relationship or something. I don’t. Never did. So being rejected by him should really not matter at all. But somehow it does.

And my boiler went out this weekend – the very first cold weekend here in the banks. And because it was a weekend, even though I called the tech at 1:00 in the afternoon its still considered after hours. Far too much money later he discovered that I need a major fix beyond the major fix I already knew I needed.

So……..

…

When all things suck, what do you do other than endure?

Top Searches has got my real name on it, which I thought I hadn’t actually posted on here. But apparently I have. Huh.

Later…I haven’t, but it seems that Google knows me anyway. So if you know me this blog apparently pre-empts (and here are some big hints) my Alaska Broadcasters Association award, my work in the UAF student literary magazine, Facebook obviously, but Twitter and Livestrong too, and even my degree. Man, I am hot on google!! But I’m kind of surprised, it’s been a while since I googled myself and something’s missing – oh there it is, on the third page. I’m referred to on Japanese Amazon.com. And I’m not even kidding, it isn’t someone with the same name as I have, it’s me. My name is in the “Acknowledgments” section of a book that I helped the writer research several years ago. And it turns up on Japanese Amazon.

And I’ve got a pretty good guess who googled me actually. Maybe.

Not my official weigh in day but I don’t give a damn. 200!!!!!!!!!

80 lbs lost!!

First thing first:

Weekly Weigh In – Monday, October 19, 2009

Starting Weight: 280
Current Weight: 201.4
Total Loss: 78.6

This totally rocks by the way. It would have been a little more but I tend to eat a little over budget on the weekend so I get a tiny uptick. Still, so so so close to 199. I have no idea how long its been since I was under 200 lbs.

Second things second:

Sorry I’ve been neglecting the blog for the past couple of days. I have had a busy busy three day weekend. Happy Alaska Day everyone! I spent my Alaska day weekend winterizing my house and doing a nice thorough autumn cleaning. I’m kinda sorta a complete slob but oddly enough I like having my house clean. Its a cruel dichotomy.

Third things third:

It’s definitely winter here in the interior but still an incredibly mild one. It’s been getting down into the teens at night and barely over freezing during the day. Still no snow. Though it is supposed to snow a bit during the night tonight. I hope so. After the leaves are gone Fairbanks is ugerly until the snow falls.

So there is this other thing: I have dermatillomania, aka chronic skin picking disorder. You’ve probably heard of the condition some people have where they can’t help but pull their own hair out, right? This is the same thing except that I pinch, scratch and pick at my skin. I can’t help it, I need it. I can’t adequately describe the force of the compulsion, I’ve tried…it is this pressure on my mind when I feel the desire, and a tension in the spot that I must pick at.

The longest I have ever gone without picking was 21 days. Three weeks. It was the second hardest thing I have ever done in my life, eclipsed only by surviving the death of my father.

It comes and goes though. I probably pick everyday a bit, but sometimes there will be a day, or week, or irregular span of time when the need is acute, undeniable, and constant. Then I bleed.

Part of CSPD is the picking trance…I’m not exactly aware of the passage of time during a bout of CSPD. In fact I’m not exactly aware of much. This is a huge problem in the real world. I can’t exactly tell my boss that I didn’t finish a project because I couldn’t stop messing with my arms and suddenly it’s five. It takes an incredible push of will to pull my mind out of a picking trance – I can’t always do it – I have to first notice that I’m in one and then wrench my consciousness out of the hole. I manage sometimes, like today thank goodness, but not often enough.

The crappy thing (the? As if there was only one) is that there really isn’t any treatment or therapy for it. So I’m pretty much stuck. Let me amend that – they’ve had some success with OCD meds and cognative behavioral therapy but not much.

My mission, should I choose to accept it:

Tonight I am updating the blog roll.

I really liked this interview with Crystal Renn from the Frisky. http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-frisky-qa-crystal-renn-interview/ I really really want to read her book but between the onset of winter and a cat with health problems (poor guy is probably going to need eye surgery!) and the fact that my dividend is going to be late (do not look gift horse in the mouth, most states don’t pay people to live there at all) I am really really broke. Good thing I stored tons of food for the winter. Sometimes I wonder if I’m part squirrel. Still, Crystal Renn is beautiful and damn inspiring, at least to me. I have kinda wanted to be a plus sized model in the past but my plus size was always beyond their plus size and I have dermatillomania and my face while very pretty isn’t shaped the way most model’s faces are (that is a weird way to describe it – I’ll post pictures one of these days soon) and now I’m 28 and live in Alaska…so probably no modelling career for me.

I also ran across an author on the Atlantic named Jim Fallows who has done a lot of writing on obesity…but I haven’t yet read any of his articles so I can’t say whether I recommend him to you or not. I promise to do the reading though and let you know.

The big news today – the big big big omg!! awesome news of awesome awesomeness that has me wanting to go out dancing in the streets (and it’s awful pretty outside today…) is that on this beautiful lovely late fall day I have officially lost 75lbs and I am wearing size 12 jeans for the first time…ever? Certainly since high school. Easily since I started paying attention. Maybe sophmore year of high school? Nelly, do you have any idea? Granted, these are hand-me-down jeans and stretched out from the previous owner and the brand new pair of size 12’s I accidentally bought when I was buying size 16s that I decided to keep because I knew I’d hit it eventually don’t quite fit yet. But these jeans fit perfectly and look sooooooo good on me. So I’m happy. Maybe I can have Shondar take a picture of my butt later for you.

I rock so hard sometimes.

Dang it, I didn’t start the braise early enough so now I’m stuck sitting around into the night waiting for tomorrow’s dinner to cook.

I had a really good work out today after work (the reason the braise is so late…) I managed to push myself harder than I ever have before and I’m pretty proud of myself. Still haven’t experienced anything akin to an exercise high though.