I'm really starting to believe that Canada's a better person than I am.

Excellent work, Calgary. Truly excellent.

XOXO

A series of unexpected events.

You guys, it isn’t even Tuesday and I am already done with this week.

1. I can’t stop eating. I don’t know what the hell’s going on with my appetite, but every moment I’m not shoveling food in my face feels like a moment lost. If I don’t slow my roll I am going to undo every bit of good work I’ve done since December.
   
   I’m also having a hard time getting back into the gym. I’m trying to tell myself that I really just need to get through the first two weeks of eating well and exercising and then it’ll be routine, but it’s like I’m back to square one where every minute is a struggle. And I’m craving the weirdest shit – like, Gatorade and Sour Patch Kids and Entenmann’s baked goods – that is miles outside of what usually interests me, and what’s worse is that I want them all by the bucketful (the Entenmann’s stuff in particular… dear god, the things I’d do to a box of their choc-chip cookies does not bear description).
   
   
   
2. We got snow. Again. I really can’t with this. I beg of you, Boston, no màs.
   
   
   
3. In the last 24 hours, I have been dumped by not one, but two people I wasn’t formally dating. Well, I’m exaggerating slightly, but only slightly: as of now things are off with both The Chef and The Lawyer. The Chef had a big snotty cry all over me yesterday because her ex wants her back and she doesn’t know what to do. They were together for 5+ years and split more than a year ago; I’ve never got a clear picture of the details but I do know that the break-up was seriously bad, and I have the distinct impression that the ex dicked her over something fierce. I don’t know how long they’ve been back in touch, but I think at least the please-come-back is very recent, because The Chef is not very good at keeping things under wraps and would not have been able to go on very long without telling me.
   
   I reacted much as you might expect: I gave my opinion (essentially ‘don’t be a moron, moron’), let her sob, and then told her to leave my house and only call me when she’s sorted her shit out but don’t expect me to be waiting around in the meantime – and by the way, next time she wants to drop something like this, she shouldn’t let me pay for brunch immediately beforehand. Fucker.
   
   I don’t know. If she turns the ex down and wants to give it another go with me, I’m not sure what I’ll say: to my list of major concerns we can now add ‘still not really over her last relationship, apparently’, and that’s not small potatoes. But to her credit she was honest to an extent she didn’t necessarily have to be, given the nebulousness of our relationship, and I also really feel for the girl. She’s hurting bad and really doesn’t know what to do – I suspect she’s desperate to trust the ex again and give it another shot but also really doesn’t trust her at all, so doesn’t know what to make of it. (I also suspect that the ex has managed to run some guilt-inducing ‘but don’t you believe people can change?’ line on her, which is gross, and no, for the record, I don’t.)
   
   And in case any of you is wondering, yes, this was as sudden as it seems, and no, no one saw it coming.
   
   As to The Lawyer, she has merely had an attack of the guilts, exacerbated by having received some fairly head-fucking news from her own ex this morning. It’s fair enough and probably for the best but coming on the heels of yesterday has me feeling even more kicked around. That will pass and we’ll recalibrate, and I knew it would only be a short-lived thing anyway, but I just didn’t want to give it up at this particular moment. On the other hand, the risk of using her as a prop to make myself feel better and ending up hurt in the process is huge, I recognise that, so it really is the best thing. She’s the emotional equivalent of a box of Entenmann’s choc-chip cookies: utterly delicious and addictive, but once the sugar high wears off there’s nothing but regret and bloating to show for it. Whereas The Chef was more like a fresh, healthy tomato salad that turned out to be laced with salmonella. Fuck, even the sane ones I pick are a mess.
   

Anyway. I’m sure this will all pass quickly enough. In the meantime, I have a week to get through. Back to it, I guess.

XOXO

A short play about the nature of modern relationships, and some other things

My boss, noticing that I'm about to change clothes before leaving work: Oh, do you have a date tonight?

Me: No... no.

My boss: So... what, then?

Me: I'm making dinner for The Lawyer.

My boss: Oh no. You're not back with her again, are you?

Me: No. She has a girlfriend now.

My boss: But... wait, what? I'm confused!

Me: Yeah, that makes six of us.

My boss: Six? Who's six? You, your girlfriend, her, her girlfriend....

Me: ...My flatmate, and you.

My boss: Wow. [beat] So, that's how you guys roll, huh?

Me: Apparently.

My boss: Well, bring me some leftovers if there are any.

*****

So yes, apparently that is how we roll. I don't know what else to say. I have bruises. These Things Are Not Easy.

Filed under 'Other Things Involving My Boss', I'm happy to say that the potentially nasty situation at work got ironed out without a problem on Monday. It turned out that there was so much confusion around what I was and was not allowed to do that not only did my boss and I not get in trouble for it, but she was actually able to make a case for bumping me up a pay grade and changing me to a salaried (rather than hourly-rate) position in the next budget. I wasn't in the room when she attempted this, but I wish to god I had been because that is some kind of spectacular maneuver. She is exceptional.

And I'm happy to say that apart from a small amount of lingering jet lag, I'm feeling pretty good about things. I was an anxiety-ridden disaster until Monday arvo, but once the work stuff got sorted out I found that I was... fine. Really, fine. I had expected my return to Boston to be much more tumultuous, especially given how great a visit I'd had, but instead I feel pretty resolved and calm about things. I don't know that this will last - I remember that early on after my move last year I felt way more settled than I'd expected, before crashing hard a few months later - but for now I'm trying to enjoy it.

It also helps that I've returned to a much warmer and more welcoming city than I left a month ago. The snow's all gone, we turned the clocks forward on Sunday so it's light well into the evening, and the weather's substantially better - it's not warm by any stretch, but it's warm enough that I can leave the house in only a warm jacket over a long-sleeved shirt and a singlet, rather than needing a long wool coat, a jumper, a hat, a scarf, and gloves as well. To me, that counts as progress.

All in all, things are... yes.

Nano-no-NO.

My beautiful third-gen iPod Nano carked it on Wednesday, thanks to a passing S.U.V. with High-Powered Splashing Action! (Make your own at home: all you need is a mile-long slush puddle six inches deep, some rock salt, and one asshole driver with no fucking sense. Mix well.)

After four years of good service I really can't complain too much. I am entirely iPod dependent, though, so I had to replace it immediately. Off I went to the Apple store on Thursday, to pick up a shiny new 6th-gen Nano. I was a bit concerned about the lack of click-wheel but I figured I'd get used to it, and everything else seemed to be in order, so I forked out my spend and was on my way.

This was a mistake. Don't get one, you guys. It sucks.

I was right to be wary: the touchscreen is a right royal pain in the ass, especially when you're in cold-weather land and are wearing gloves all the time. And yes, I could certainly find ways around that if that were the only problem, but it's not: the battery sucks. I mean, SUCKS. It's meant to hold charge for 24 hours, but I used it for maybe 4 hours today and the battery had drained almost to halfway. That is not a viable option for someone who uses her iPod as much as I do, and certainly not for someone who's looking down the barrel of a 24-hour flight.

Turns out that this is a chronic problem with this model. I should have read up, because forums are ablaze with complaints about this and I could find no fixes from Apple. It's been out here for several months, so if they were going to sort it they should have by now. This makes me sad. I'm not used to being cranky about my iPod.

So I've ordered a refurbished 5th-gen from Apple, since people still seem to be happy with those. Tomorrow I'll borrow my Dad's iPod, which he still hasn't loaded with anything after six months (it was a gift, bless him), to get me through until my 5th-gen arrives; and I'll return the 6th-gen as soon as possible so that I don't accidentally bust it up in some bizarre Entropy Girl way. Because you know I will.

Incidentally, where do iPods fall on Maslow's pyramid?


XOXO

XKCD comments on my last post.

Well said.

All about MEEEEEE!

Not like every post isn't anyway, but this one's even a bit more so than usual. I have been Getting Fit, you guys.

Kind of. What had happened was, moving back to the US wreaked havoc on my body. The ready availability of massive quantities of delicious fatty foods combined with living with my parents for nine months meant that I put on a size and a half. It was Not Good.

It was an interesting study of how much impact food has on my body, I will say that. From when I started at my current job in July, I have had free access to a gym and have been going 2-4 times a week since then. I also saw a trainer at another gym for three months, but gave that up when I moved for reasons of cash deprivation. But nothing I was doing was making much of a difference; or rather, it wasn't helping me lose any weight - god knows how much more I'd have put on if I hadn't been making those efforts. The weight gain was entirely down to the change in my diet.

Before leaving Sydney, I wouldn't have said that I eat especially healthily. I do cook a lot, mostly from scratch, and I'm pretty good about cooking with veggies or having salad; but I traditionally eat a lot of starchy, carby goodness as well: pasta, bread, noodles, dumplings, oh my god I'm going to cry. And while my sweet tooth isn't my biggest problem, I will snack on whatever's in the house. Basically, with food as with everything, I have no impulse control.

Moving back Stateside has made me reevaluate. Yeah, I eat a lot of stuff I shouldn't, but my day-to-day cooking and eating habits are streaks ahead of how people tend to be here. I don't want to get all 'Supersize Me' on you; it's not new territory. I'll say only that it is *amazing* to me how hard it is to get my hands on good-quality fresh food. I live in the middle of a populous residential area in the city, and it just... like, fruit and veg shops don't exist, and small markets don't waste space or money on perishables, so supermarkets are the ONLY place to get fruit and veg right now. In the spring, the weekly farmers' markets will start up again and there are a couple within reach, but for now it's so limited. And people here have become used to living like that, and a lot of times don't want to - or aren't able to - put the work in to accessing fresh food, let alone preparing it. Why would you when you can get two huge pizzas to feed your family of four for the same or less than it would cost you to buy and prepare real food for them? I'm not being facetious; if I were a working parent, the temptation to save myself the time and energy involved in shopping and cooking would be strong. Hell, I only have myself to look after and it's still hard to beat back most nights.

I realised pretty quickly after I moved to Dorchester that I was starting to lose weight, and this was clearly due to the change back to my preferred eating habits: oatmeal with fruit for brekkie; homemade food for lunch; few prepared/packaged foods; more vegetables, etc. I also found that I wasn't buying bread or pasta in the amounts I usually would, which meant that a huge component of my starch overintake was cut out. I've barely touched butter or cheese, and I've had no sweets around. I've had ice cream once since Christmas.

And the thing is, I don't really miss those things. Much. There was a day a couple of weeks ago when I'd have pushed my own mother into a snowbank and left her there for a whopper with onion rings, and the last few days I've had to tell myself out loud to keep walking past the pizza places. And having just mentioned butter, all I want now is a huge pile of hot, crunchy toast. Of course. But apart from those very intense moments, it's actually fine. It's good. I've been lunching on Sophie's Magic Veggie Soup for the last few weeks, and loving it; I'm cooking a lot of casseroles and stews in my amazing Colombian clay dish (and speaking of magic, this thing... I swear, I could throw a pile of old newspaper in it, simmer for three hours, and end up with a dream of a meal); I'm playing with food again and loving it.

This has spurred me to rededicate myself to the gym. I'm going 4-6 days a week now, and have been since before Christmas. I've actually fixed my work schedule for this semester so that I can take a 2-hour lunch break every day (except Thursday) and go to the gym then, because the gym doesn't open early enough for me to go before work and if I leave it to after I just won't bother. It's not what I'd call fun, but I'm hitting the awesome point where I'm really starting to see a difference and that's encouraging me to keep at it. Today, for example, I noticed that my ass is moving back up my body and I'm starting to be able to see muscles under the mess that is my thighs, and that was all I needed to go a bit harder. I'm now into jeans that are two sizes smaller than what I had been wearing, and while they're still not *quite* as comfy as I'd like, the size up has become unflatteringly baggy so the smaller ones it is, and in a few more weeks I expect that they'll be fitting perfectly. Ideally I'd like to come down another size before US summer, and I think that's achievable if I keep this up. Mind you, Sydney's likely to bump me back up - you can't eat laksa and pies every day for three weeks without feeling some effects - but I'm okay with that. I'll fix it.

Of course, all this having been said, you-all might not notice any difference in me when I get there because as I said, the bulk of what I've got rid of so far is what I put on since I moved. But that shouldn't stop you telling me I look great. :)


XOXO

Things I can't.

1) The Patriots. My gridiron team bombed out of the playoffs in the most... augh. It's more than a week later and I still feel like I died inside. I had to get whiskey drunk, y'all. (Actually, in a text from that night I described myself as 'whiskety drunk', which I think is probably more accurate.)


2) The weather. You lot might be besieged with floods and locusts and rains of blood or whatever, but it is fucking cold here. And that's not just my unacclimatised ass complaining: in the last 24 hours we have hit temperatures lower than Boston has seen in about a decade. Like, in the negative Fahrenheits. This morning the five-minute walk from the train to work reduced me to tears. I was wearing a big wool coat with a hood, a wool scarf, a warm sweater with a huge cowl neck, a thermal shirt, a singlet, heavy jeans, huge thick socks, sneakers, and gloves. But halfway there my legs were burning - burning - from the cold. When I went back out a few minutes later to walk another five minutes to the gym, I put my yoga pants on under my jeans; and while I took them off once I was settled back in my office, I will be putting them back on when I go home. One of the major local channels described today's weather on their website as 'ridiculous cold'. I swear I'm not making that up.


3) The weather, some more. We have also been getting record snowfalls. I've had one snow day a week at work for the last three weeks, and am likely to have at least one more this week thanks to the rain/snow/ice storm scheduled to hit us Tuesday-Thursday. (By which I mean all of those days. Not sometime between Tuesday and Thursday. All three days. Really.)

Now, I know that some of you will look at that and say it should be exciting and fun. And you know what? Yes, snow can be really pretty when it's fresh and you're watching from somewhere warm. But at the risk of shattering some illusions, let me tell you that that is not the whole picture.

Snow is messy. It gets everywhere and is hard to clear away completely to make safe paths for walking or driving. What's left behind turns to nasty wet slush that gets into your shoes and socks and pants, or more dangerously freezes and tries to kill you. The sand that the city and residents put down to melt the snow gets all over the snowbanks, which adds a texture effect to piles already discoloured by pollution and dogs. Snow is heavy to shovel and hard to to walk through, until it gets packed-down and becomes impossible to shovel and hard to walk over. And while getting snow days is exciting and fun when it happens, what are you meant to do when the Mayor and the Governor are telling people it's too dangerous to be on the roads, but your work is open anyway? Because that happened to me last week too, and you know what? It's a shit decision to have to make, and one that people here have to make far too often. I'm lucky that I work at a college and as
such am more likely to have classes (and therefore work) canceled, but most people don't have that luxury and it's fucking dangerous. And don't even get me started on the mess that happens when schools get the day off but their parents have to work.

It's not that nice. It's really, really not.

*****

Lest I sound overly grim, though, I will add that I've had a lovely 24 hours courtesy of A Certain Chef who took me out for fancy drinks and fancy food at fancy places last night. Still can't quite shake the feeling that something's missing, but I'm putting the time in to work it out. I'm well aware that what's missing might just end up being 'the crazy', and while I will say it's kind of boring without the crazy, it's also kind of nice. We'll see how sensible I end up being.