I have so much to write about. But this is what my life has been like since getting back from vacation.
This is my life right now
9:00 PM - I think I'll take a NyQuil and go to sleep
9:30 PM - Or maybe I'll just lay here and cough
10:00 PM - Still coughing
10:30 PM - I wish I had some PTO left
11:00 PM - Maybe I could just take leave without pay.
11:15 PM - No, I can't do that. I'll just work from home
11:30 PM - Except my computer's at the office
11:45 PM - Fuck Everything
6:00 AM - No
6:10 AM - No
6:20 AM - No
6:30 AM - FINE
6:45 AM - I wish Kevin were here
7:30 AM - Sudafed! Oh, thank God
1:00 PM - Why the hell did I buy 6-hour sudafed instead of 12-hour?
4:00 PM - All I want to do is go home and lay on the couch
5:30 PM - Do you really need to be walked twice a day, Kina?
7:00 PM - If I go to bed now, maybe I'll fall asleep by 10
I've been running on empty, and it's amazing to me that I've been able to do such basic things as walk the dog and feed myself. Not to mention getting a load of laundry done and running to the store. On top of all the actual work stuff I've had to do because I used up all my PTO to go on vacation where I got sick.
The good news is that I finally got a solid 8 hours of sleep last night (going to bed at 7 totally worked) and am feeling halfway human. So maybe Kevin won't come home to a pile of dirty dishes and an overflowing trash can (yeah, I totally forgot about trash day).
Mostly I just want it to be the weekend so I can lay on the couch for several hours and reset and tackle next week like a person. This one feels like a wash.
It's frustrating when the progress you're making doesn't quite match up with the progress you want to be making. It's even more frustrating when it feels like there's nothing you can do about it.
I still have yet to lose any weight. Whatever I do that scale remains stubbornly at the same level. I signed up for this slow and steady method because I know it would be healthier and more sustainable than trying to lose a bunch of weight quickly. But I really hoped and expected to have seen that number go down by now.
On the other hand, I am getting a lot stronger. I can lift more weight. I can do more repetitions. I have more energy both at the gym and after I finish working out. And with my new trainer, I'm typically sore for days after my hardest workout of the week.
Since I'm building muscles, I am getting smaller. I may not be losing pounds, but fat is certainly being converted to muscle, which is denser. And I can sort of tell that I'm getting smaller. My clothes are fitting a bit better, getting a bit looser.
Mostly.
The problem is that you don't get smaller all over in a uniform way. My breasts and hips are getting smaller, but my stomach is, so far, staying the same size. The result is that when I look into a mirror or try on new clothes, I look fatter than I did before. My proportions are shifting, and they aren't shifting in the way I was hoping for. When I do push-ups now, my stomach touches the floor before my breasts do. And never mind the fact that I can do a bunch of really awesome push-ups, the act of doing them makes me feel bad. It makes me feel fat.
It doesn't help that everything has felt off for the past couple of weeks. I haven't been getting to the gym as much as I want to. Part of it is my body feeling funky. Part of it is that work things have been coming up. But the biggest part has probably just been apathy.
There's a bunch of other life stuff that's piling up and distracting me. We keep getting these hints of Spring, but it's cold again before I can properly enjoy it which sends me back into hibernation mode (I've read almost twice as many books as normal so far this year). I'm stressed about work because my performance review keeps getting shifted back, and I'd like to just get it over with. I'm stressed about the wedding in the most frustrating way possible. Everything's under control, but I keep having these awful dreams where everything completely falls apart.
Basically it's just been a rough couple of weeks, and getting to the gym is both my biggest priority and the last thing I want to do. I feel like I'm right on the cusp of actually losing some weight, but I've also felt like that since July.
All I can really do at this point is keep on going. I need to get to the gym four times a week, twice for weight lifting and twice for cardio. And I need to figure out a way to intensify my cardio workouts without hurting myself. Maybe it's time to trade out the treadmill for the elliptical.
Wish me luck. Wish me the ability to look awesome in my wedding dress and still fit in it. Wish me time and motivation to put this plan into action. I can relax on the honeymoon. That's what it's for.
On the way home from work last night I decided to stop at Target. When I came back out to my car, it wouldn't start. It wasn't even trying. Turning the key had no effect - no sounds or lights or anything. I called Kevin to come give me a jump and went back inside to buy some jumper cables. So now I finally own jumper cables.
Kevin arrived and we attempted to jump my car. Once again nothing happened. So now we at least knew that the problem wasn't with my relatively new battery. Which is actually kind of a shame, since that battery is still under warranty. We called a tow truck and went to grab dinner while we waited. There was a decent taqueria in the same parking lot as the Target, which was nice.
The car was towed to the shop by our house, which was thankfully still open. While I was figuring out how I would get my car back so I could get to physical therapy on Wednesday, I realized that it sure was lucky I stopped at the Target. If this had happened Wednesday morning, I would have been more or less stranded - able to get to work but not physical therapy. This way I don't have to miss or cancel an appointment.
I also realized that my car is just about due for it's annual safety inspection. Since it's now in the shop anyway, I get to kill two birds with one stone. I likely would have forgotten about this otherwise, with Christmas coming and all. The next time I get a car I need to schedule this inspection for some month other than December. But now I won't get a ticket, so that's good too.
This morning we woke up to learn that nearly every car in our lot had been broken into. It doesn't look like anything was stolen - just teenagers pulling pranks. They dumped all of Kevin's gatorades into the snow. They cut the cord on our neighbor's phone charger but left her crock pot alone. Since my car is in the shop, I managed to dodge that bullet completely, which is something.
Now if only this wasn't costing me the portion of my Christmas bonus I had allocated to new boots. But that's a pretty minor thing to complain about in the long run. All in all this seems to be working out.
Someone remind to just not go to the gym when I'm feeling under the weather.
The thing is, I'm not even that sick. I've got the remnants of a mild cold - some slight congestion and an occasional cough. Mostly I've just been tired, which could actually be more related to the lack of sunlight. At any rate, by the time I finish work I'm exhausted. So I've mostly been skipping the gym.
But I'm also paying a trainer to meet with me every week. I'm doing this so that I don't just stop going to the gym entirely in late Fall, like I have the past two years. Since I wasn't actually that sick, and since I don't want to stop working out entirely, I've been keeping these appointments.
Last week was okay. I told my trainer I was feeling a bit sick and we went slow. We did easier exercises and I was careful to stop when I felt myself approaching limits, which was happening quickly.
The biggest thing I noticed was a lack of balance. I don't have the greatest core muscles yet, so I usually expend a lot of brainpower making sure I stay upright. As fatigued as I was, I wasn't able to concentrate on this quite so much. So I had to go slow, use less weight, take more breaks.
I made it through last week without any injuries, though I was so exhausted I could barely stand by the end of it. This week I was feeling better, so I decided to go for a full workout. It turns out this was a bad idea.
About 15 minutes in, while I was doing my second set of squats, something went wrong. The next squat hurt in a way it wasn't supposed to. I quickly realized that I couldn't bend my left knee or put any weight on it. I'm not even sure what I did, except that I distinctly remember my knee hurting in exactly the same way a few times over the last decade or so.
We concentrated on arms and abs for the rest of the work out. I managed to hobble home, where I wrapped and iced my knee. Now I'm just hoping that it doesn't take too long to heal. I'd like to get to the gym this weekend, since I'll actually have time. But if I can't walk it'll be a moot point.
In the past few weeks I have become painfully aware of how integrated my internet experience is. As soon as Kevin and I posted our engagement to Facebook, my news feed became nothing but wedding ads. Ads for dresses and shoes. Ads for engagement rings and wedding bands. Ads for venues and caterers and photographers. Ads for planning services.
This soon leaked out to other websites. No matter where I went, the majority of the advertisements I saw were wedding related. The algorithms knew I was getting married soon, and they seemed to believe that I ceased to have an interest in anything else. Gone was the daily Buffy quote that I so looked forward to on Facebook. In it's place was an announcement about some sale at David's Bridal.
Then something really strange happened. I had been poking around some department store websites to see if it would even be possible to find a reasonable wedding dress in the $200 - $400 range. I'm a long way from trying anything on, but I have some ideas about what I want, and I wanted to see how close those matched up to reality. To my surprise, I found a dress for less than $200 that I really liked. I sent a link to it to Sarah.
And then I started seeing it everywhere. Every time I logged on to Facebook, that dress was in one of the ads on the side. When I went to other sites, blogs I frequent or even news sites, there was a good chance that it would be there as well. This dress started following me around the internet, begging me to buy it.
It's been a couple of weeks, and that has mostly tapered off. I still see it once a day or so, but that's nothing compared to the days after I shared it with Sarah. In its place I'm beginning to get weight loss ads. "Tricks" for losing that extra inch before the big day or whatever. Which is possibly more disturbing.
It's a little frightening to realize the extent to which my online activity is being monitored. All it takes is one IM and suddenly Google knows exactly what wedding dress I'm considering and is trying to shove it down my throat. I'm a little surprised I hadn't noticed before just how pervasive this is. Then again, focusing all of the ads around a single topic makes these things more obvious.
I'm looking forward to the day when I'll have a bit more variety in my online ads again. I doubt I'll ever look at them the same way again, though.
Dove recently released a video called "Real Beauty Sketches" that a lot of people are talking about. It's been all over my Facebook feed. So many of my friends are inspired and believe that every woman needs to see this video. It's great if you feel like that, but this video has really been getting under my skin. I'm going to try and gather my thoughts in a coherent way. Just in case you haven't seen it, here's the video in question:
I have a lot of issues with this video. I think the best place to start is my problem with Dove as a company. Over the past few years, they've been striking me as a bit hypocritical. They release videos like this every so often to remind girls that they're more beautiful than they think they are. This one came out in college, and it made a real impression on me.
I knew models were heavily made-up before this. I suspected they were airbrushed. I hadn't realized just how extreme the photoshopping is. Now one of my hobbies is to spot this on magazine covers in the checkout lane at the grocery store. Sometimes the photoshopper didn't do a great job and you can see where the background doesn't quite match up. Other times it's a bit more subtle. Women appear skinnier than they do on TV. Their limbs don't look quite right. They're always a little whiter, especially if they aren't Caucasian.
Dove followed up that video with this one.
Again, I like the message. The beauty industry (and society in general) is trying to sell us on the idea that we need their help to be more attractive. It's great that Dove is pointing a finger at this.
The problem is that Dove is in the same business. They want you to feel bad about yourself so that you'll spend more money on their products. That hasn't changed in the past seven years, and I'd be really surprised if it changed now. As much as Dove wants me to understand that I'm prettier than I think, they also want me to buy an antiperspirant that gives me softer skin when all I actually need is something that will prevent me from sweating.
Maybe I'm jaded, but the entire thing feels like one more marketing scheme. Dove cares more about your self-esteem than all those other beauty companies, so you should give them your money. They actually have you best interests at heart when they're making your skin smoother, your hair bouncier, your armpits prettier (I have serious issues with that campaign).
But the other, deeper, issue I have with all of this is that it continues to play into the idea that the most important thing a woman can be is beautiful. This is everywhere in our society and it's reinforced by these videos. The women in the latest video are reassured when they learn that strangers find them more attractive than they find themselves - though I actually thought that some of the initial sketches showed the more attractive women. The second video reassures us that even models aren't that pretty, so it's okay for us to be slightly less than perfect, too. But only slightly. Notice that the "ugly" pictures are still considered less worthy.
Now there's nothing wrong with wanting to be attractive. Especially since our society makes that such a huge priority. I consider myself a fairly confident person, but I still have issues with how I look. I wish I weighed about thirty pounds less. Strapless tops always make me feel fat because I inevitably spill out of them. I despise my chin. I have a hard time looking at photos of myself. No matter how many times I tell myself that other people don't see what I see I can never seem to see anything else.
All this and I'm actually a pretty conventionally attractive person. I mean, I'm not a super-model, but nor am I a hag.
And for all that my female friends are intelligent, passionate, kind, creative, and all around wonderful human beings, for all the time they spend cooking delicious food, traveling to new places, reading interesting books, and engaging in thought-provoking conversations, I have no doubt many of them suffer from the same insecurities.
The problem, of course, is how much time society spends obsessing about how women look. Never mind that I have a degree in physics, that I have a difficult and interesting job that I'm really good at, that I'm well-read, or that I'm actually pretty good at taking care of my home, my pets, and my finances. I still occasionally feel like a complete failure because I can't seem to lose even five pounds.
Hell. For the past two years I've just been happy if I can get through a month without gaining weight. But I'd be a whole lot happier if I could lose some, too.
Except that, of course, I wouldn't be. It wouldn't fundamentally change who I am or anything about my life if I managed to get back down to a size 6. Society would still be there to tell me that I should lose more weight, dress more stylishly, put on some makeup, and take preemptive action against crow's feet and grey hairs. I'd still know, at least intellectually, that I'm a fairly successful person with a pretty excellent life.
Ninety-five percent of the time I'm happy in my own skin. I remember that other things are more important than my appearance and that the opinions of strangers have no real effect on my life. I focus on my career, I paint my nails bright pink, I get lost in a good book, and I don't think about my chin, or my belly or my thighs. Then something like this comes along and, even though it's telling me that I'm prettier than I think I am, it also reminds me how important it is to be pretty.
+First physical training session went well.
+Apparently I have good form, and I didn't fall off the balance ball like most people do.
-I have a really hard time jogging for 5 minutes.
-I'm nowhere near as flexible as I should be (This has been true my whole life. It took ten years of ballet before I was able to do the splits, and I've never done them since)
-Got pulled over on the way home. While sitting at a stop light
-My tags are expired. On a car I bought less than a year ago. I guess the registration got tied to my old car somehow
-My license is suspended. Has been since March. No one told me
-Apparently there was some mix up with my insurance. I've been paying them $120/month every month, but my car hasn't been insured all that time. This is why they suspended my license.
+The cop couldn't prove I'd been notified of my suspended license, so I'm not getting a ticket for driving with it
-However, he did confiscate it
-I can't drive until I get my license back
-I also can't buy alcohol until I get my license back (unless I can find a place that doesn't card)
-I have to drive to the DMV to get my license back. Not sure how that's going to work.
-Boyfriend had to come pick me up because the cop wouldn't let me drive
+I have the best boyfriend
+I just got a $100 pair of sunglasses for free because MyEyeDr was running a special for people buying contact lenses
I don't even know what to feel right now. And the day is only half over.
