Feeling guilty about all the new clothes sitting, unworn, in my closet I am trying to put together a new outfit for each day this week. Trying to rotate some of those babies into the regular flow. Unfortunately, the new jeans I bought last Wednesday no longer fit. AGAIN. What the hell?!
I am so in between sizes that I think I might have to get fatter because I am not making any progress into getting skinnier and its driving me insane that I keep having to hitch up my pants every time I stand up. (I'm going to try to buy a belt after work but you know what? That's actually really hard to do because I think they assume that when you get to my size that the belt just isn't necessary because your clothes are probably plastered on). ARGH.
Dear lady at Whole Foods with possible eating disorder:
Putting foods from the various take-out sections into a little take-out container but then eating it before you get to the check out where the container gets weighed is, in fact, stealing. And at Whole Foods prices, what you ate while I got my salad might quality for grand theft. Perhaps they should weigh you up on their little scanner thing, hrm?
Also: those shoes are ugly.
Thank you and kindest regards,
Mary-Lynn
I've been feeling a bit scatterbrained over the last few days. Two examples:
1. Yesterday I decided to roast a chicken for dinner. All went well until I removed it from the oven and went to cut it up. Gosh, I thought, there isn't much of a breast on this thing. Oh well, I chalked it up to it being a free range, organic type of bird that hadn't been 'roided up for extra large boobies.
No. It turns out I just cooked it upside down.
2. This morning when I went to dish out my crockpot oatmeal, deserved and desired after bootcamp, I discovered I'd failed to plug the crockpot in.
Guess what I'm having for dinner?
Though I suppose I could chalk it up to having done seven loads of laundry yesterday. Yes, SEVEN.
Also this weekend I picked up my new glasses - you can see them on the right, along with my horrible helmet bangs. They're growing out but not fast enough. And I went to the movies to see Death at a Funeral with V and Alison. The movie was very funny, hysterically so at parts.
Holy cow. I have so many things to write about and, as is always the case when that happens, no time to actually get them down. So let's try it in digest form...
KIVA
I have now been fully repaid for the very first loan I made to Kiva back in February - $100 to a woman named Bessy in Honduras who used it to buy sodas to sell along with the lunches she sells in her store. So that's a full return on my investment in 7 months.
Today I turned that around and loaned it out to a woman named Stella who plans to do something very similar (selling drinks) in Nigeria. I was swayed by the photo of Stella in front of a stack of Guinness boxes. Clearly a smart business plan.
BOOTCAMP
I start up a new bootcamp session on Monday morning. Yes, I signed up to do it all over again. I must be insane.
As I mentioned before (I think...), I haven't lost any weight doing bootcamp which is sort of annoying, frankly. That's a lot of sweating and working hard and to not see the most obvious of possible results was really disheartening. But I knew something was happening as none of my clothes fit anymore. That isn't to say they were all baggy - not at all really - but more like nothing really sat in the same place in the same way as it had before. My overall shape changed. This makes it hard to go shopping with the same confidence and vigour that I would approach it before.
Yesterday morning I went in for my post-camp evaluation where they re-measure and re-pinch you to see if you've lost inches. And I have. Lots of them, especially on my upper body (not my boobs though - god forbid those things should get any smaller). And overall I've lost about 3.5% body fat. The weight has stayed the same but about 9 pounds of fat has been replaced by an equal amount of muscle.
I'm also looking to add a yoga class to my routine to work on some stretching and flexibility. Alas, my perfect class (a no nonsense Iyengar 90 minute session on Fridays starting at 6pm) doesn't actually seem to exist so I'm still hunting around for a reasonable alternative. No chanting please!
VACATION
I'm still trying to recover from my recent vacation. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that my photopost of the poutine I was eating at the Eaton's Centre last Wednesday made it through to my blog so I include the photo below. Poutine was a highlight, to be sure, but there were many - hanging out with my cousins (one of whom lives in a sty but has a really amazing view of downtown Toronto from his balcony - he could totally get more chicks if he'd just CLEAN THE PLACE once in a while. Shudder); hanging out with the gang at the cottage including beating those suckers in Euchre (why I don't play more when I'm so obviously good at it (i.e. I cheat really well) I don't know); getting a massive sunburn; doing some shopping, etc etc etc. You know: NONSTOP GOOD TIMES. It was the most relaxed I've been in months, which probably explains why I'm having such a bitch of a time getting back to any sort of civilized routine.
CASA
On Wednesday night, with Denise and Vanessa (and Vanessa's camera) in tow, I graduated from CASA training, took my oath and am now official. I still have a few requirements to check off before I get my first case but in the next two or three weeks I'll probably have a my very own case of the vomiting nerves as I prepare to meet my advocate child for the first time.
I learned a lot in the training that I think will be useful to me and it seems clear that there is support available to you by the organization and your fellow advocates but it still feels sort of .. big and sort of daunting. Still, whatever nerves or fears I might have have got to pale in comparison to what these kids are going through so in the end I can just suck it up and get on with the work I signed up to do.
WRITING
I feel like I've abandoned FBitchslap lately. Um, probably because I have, right? I sort of burned out on the topic when I was doing my essay but maybe I have a few more things to say. Maybe.
Registration for the next semester at Stanford Continuing Studies is coming up and I'm wondering what, if anything, I should take. Here are my top contenders:
The Short-Short Story
This very hands-on writing course will focus on the short-short story (also referred to as “sudden fiction”), which is a hybrid of short stories and prose poems. In this four-week course, students will develop a substantial portfolio of work—generated by spontaneous in-class exercises as well as take-home assignments— that can either stand alone or be used to develop longer pieces of fiction.
The main appeal here is the fact that it's cheap $255 relative to the other classes and short - 4 Saturday mornings. Plus, I've never done fiction and this seems less intimidating than the longer, more expensive, beginning fiction writing. The downside is that I'd miss the lass class when I'm in Thunder Bay in October.
The next option is:
Truth and Friction: Memoirs and Personal Essays
Asked how it felt to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Saul Bellow is reported to have replied, “I won’t know until I go home and write about it.” This course is designed to help us write our way into the truths and true stories of our lives. We will investigate the ways nonfiction writers shape personal experience into fascinating, lyrical prose by reading contemporary writers such as Dennis Johnson and Joan Didion; we will unlock our creative potential by doing exercises designed to help us expand our technical range and master new skills; and most importantly we will write our own life stories and share them with one another, offering helpful suggestions, with an eye to fashioning precisely rendered memoirs and personal essays alive with drama and richly drawn true-to-life characters. This course will be equal parts literary discovery and self-discovery.
This is one of those more expensive 10 week deals. Personal essays are what I like to write and I could definitely use more practice but its also starting to feel a little bit like work.
The final option is this:
Getting It Down On Paper: How to Generate and Shape Material
Have you begun a writing project, only to find yourself blocked or stuck? Or is there a project you’re excited about but not sure how to begin? In this two-weekend intensive workshop, we will talk about ways to generate ideas, or turn the ideas you already have into writing that is compelling and vibrant. Through in-class exercises and take-home assignments, you will produce new work and practice different approaches to writing. We will also read short selections from published fiction writers and memoirists in order to study how they have come up with fresh ideas and crafted vital, engaging work. On day two, we will begin to shape and organize the raw material we have set down, exploring how we can develop it into longer narratives. This workshop is appropriate for any writer of fiction or memoir who wants to find new ways to stimulate the imagination and get ideas down on the page.
This is just two full Saturdays in November (the only month that thus far contains no travel plans) and is only $230. I figure if wracked by indecision I'll sign up for this. I do have lots of ideas sitting around and I could use some help in my work in moving them along. I tend to abandon ideas that aren't immediately useful and then complain about having nothing to write about.
Anyone have any votes?
OTHER
* I am feeling an intense desire to move all the furniture in my apartment completely around.
* I have some friends I haven't seen in ages and I miss them. Must rectify that.
* I want to cook some more - it's starting to feel like that time of year. Maybe I'll at least roast a chicken on Sunday.
* I need to learn about football. And go to a game, or 10. Yeah.
* In case you're wondering, still do not have a boyfriend, still sort of think they must be a pain in the ass.
Holy crap it is so hot here in Toronto
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh soooooooooooo goooooooooooooooood.
I went to see The Bourne Ultimatum this afternoon with Whitney. Now that I've stopped feeling queasy I can really only revert to using terms like "AWESOME" and "KICK ASS" and "MATT DAMON YUUUUUUUUUMMMMM". That's probably all you need to know anyway.
Also, it is really cold here this afternoon. I've put on some flannel pyjamas and fuzzy slippers. Cozy.
Alas, I do not have room. And I probably need to take out some of those pants. And shoes. And shirts. And books. OH THE BOOKS. It's totally bogus that Canada is counted as "domestic" for purposes of baggage allowances by the way. BOGUS.
I'm not sure why, exactly, I'm over-packing. I'm spending most of my vacation at V's family's cottage, as I have done for the past three years. I should know by now that no one is going to look askance if you wear the same pair of pants for 3 days straight. In a pinch you could even borrow some from her mom! But still, you never know - perhaps this is the year where I actually change my clothes more than once a day. Could be.
Plus, before I go up to the cottage I'm spending some time in Toronto proper with the bride. And according to the WUnderground, the temperature is somewhere north of UGLY. Ugh. And humid!
Well, I don't leave until Tuesday (very early) morning so I have time for one more shot at unloading something... anything. I have to leave a little bit of room for both a bridesmaid dress as well as for any shopping I might do while I'm there. Unfortunately the exchange rate isn't nearly as much in my favour as it once was so I'll have to reign some of the Eaton's Center abandon in.
Oh my god I can't wait to go on vacation. Everything has been so busy lately that I feel I actually, finally, deserve.
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Previous cottage trips:
Photos from 2006 with a short write-up, 2005 was completely undocumented (weird as that may have been the most hilarious one I've been part of thus far - perhaps we were having too much fun to write anything down!), 2004 write-up with photos.
