friday blues

I'm drained.

Work has been crazy yet I haven't been motivated enough to keep up with the pace.
The weather's been either freezing cold or snowy all week and it's wearing on me.
MB moved today so we had the good-bye dinner last night. I had been anxious all day about it and that wore me down. It went much better than I had anticipated, and I left with more excitement for her than sadness for myself.
Bingeing has been on and off this week. I need to cancel cable - I know that tuning out to the TV is aiding me in my binge routines.

The positive: I have been working out, getting a decent amount of sleep and FINALLY finished The Namesake. No idea what took me so long but it was great. I started Mademoiselle Boelyn last night.

We're getting more snow this weekend and I'm actually looking forward to the excuse to stay home, live in my pajamas, watch movies and bake bread. I haven't had a decent weekend at home to myself in a while. The thought of it is actually thrilling! Does that make me pathetic?

it's war, binge monster

Today my crazy lady and I declared war on my binge monster. Am going to take this one day at a time and see what I can do to make myself healthier and stronger. I get too caught up sometimes fearing failure, so when I'm feeling good and eating well, there's a nagging doubt at the back of my mind that it can't last forever.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure HOW to take things one day at a time, but it's something I'd like to learn. It seems to go against the way so many of us function. So I will focus on the present and make decisions for now. Right this moment. Get through today.

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Three things from my weekend:

1. Booked flights to FL with the bf (i know, I know). Six weeks until beach time!! {inevitable bathing suit panic ensues}

2. Drinking champagne out of a Solo cup with a straw leads to very big headaches the next day

3. I made an apple cranberry tart this weekend and I think that's my new dessert. I hate making pies but tarts seem so much easier!

Also, feel free to leave me a comment to let me know you're stopping by. Would love to know who's visiting and reading this blog.

Today I'm grateful for: I'm really lucky to have the kinds of friends that I do. They're fun, they're supportive, they're funny, they're smart, they're wonderful

Bittersweet blogs

My best friend is moving to Atlanta in 8 days.... To lessen the 1,150 mile distance, we started a blog together to keep in touch, to contrast the areas of the country we live in, as a creative exercise. Each week we'll choose a theme and then take corresponding pictures. It seems like it will be a lot of fun. I won the coin toss so we're hosting it on blogger.

See us here: Two Tin Cans and a Photograph String

looking back

Something struck me when I found this photo today. The picture was taken about 4 years ago on my friends' annual camping trip to Crawford Notch. Something about me seems so young, so unencumbered...it made me smile to realize that those days aren't so far behind me, they're still here. I'm still surrounded by a great group of friends, I still lead a fun life and I'm happy. It's nice to take a step back once in a while and realize how special that is.

Today I'm Grateful For (a whole list of things that make me smile)

Ani DiFranco
Being barefoot
Before Sunset
Blueberries
Bunnies
Champagne
Cheese
Down comforters
Driving
Forest paths
Full moon
Girlfriends
Iced coffee
Kissing
Lyrics
Movies
Naps
Parties
Pasta
Poetry
Plane tickets
Radiohead
Sex
Shoes
Singing
Sunroof
Tents
The beach
Wine

it is not enough to wonder

Carrying around the weight of past loves has started to exhaust me lately. One love in particular. Perhaps still not entirely in the past. Or at least not forgotten. Remembering him almost daily, memories of us will pop into my head while I'm driving past a pond, listening to a story about lawnmowers, shopping for cake mix. After many years together, and many more still plans for what lay ahead, he inhabited so much of my heartspace that I'm still finding rooms that have yet to be boxed up and moved to the storage at Past Relationship Depot.

I've gotten past the point of trying to rush it along by simply pretending I'm entirely over him (or more likely, over us), but I would like an idea of how long this goes on. A friend reminded me today that it's not about forgetting them though, that will never truly happen. It's more about simply moving on.

I wrote today after months of not writing a single poem and it felt amazing. I had painted earlier in the day and I think that got the creativity flowing enough to unblock the literary energy.

I found a fantastic message board for poets to share their work with one another. It seems to be a great community of writers there who offer thoughtful critiques of pieces submitted and also support and encouragement for aspiring writers and poets.

So I registered with my pen name and posted a poem today. I've shared only two poems with two people in the 10 or so years I've been writing so the anonymity of the message board was helpful. The title of the poem is the title of this post....that's about as far as I could get with sharing today's writing on this blog. Baby steps!

Today I'm grateful for: indranthrone blue paint, Jane Austen, James McAvoy (just watched Becoming Jane!)

and what if there are no damsels in distress

A little update on some of the things I'm supposed to be blogging about:

Dating: Things are going well with the I-suppose-I-should-call-him-my-boyfriend-guy. I had a conversation with a 6-year old about him the other day. He wanted to know what his name is and if we are getting married. Without going into all the reasons why I don't want to get married in general, I just told him, "I don't know." I think that still kept him hopeful. And in return, I got to hear him tell me about his girlfriend too. More than a fair deal.

Quitting smoking: I've decided against the Wellbutrin. I was hesitant about it as it was, and in speaking to my crazy lady about it realized it's just not right for me now. Am going to work on the cognitive behavioral change effort and invest in some more Nicorette gum. But this time I'm going to buy the name-brand stuff that actually feels like gum and tastes minty instead of the generic stuff that is hard as rubber, tastes like burning erasers and make me want a cigarette instead.

Eating too much chocolate: Check. Oh, those Lindt truffles. Especially those Lindt truffles that can be bought in bulk so cheaply at the outlet store. They got me good today.

Hot actors: I'm crushing on Matt Damon currently. That Sarah Silverman video brought him back to mind. Those dimples...

And waking up and finally starting to be OK with being my most fabulous self: Will work on actually just waking up on time tomorrow. I'm supposed to be there early and we're having a snow storm. I'm trying to implement a bedtime for myself to get into a more regular sleep routine. My goal is to be in bed by 11:30 and shut the light off and go to sleep by 12:15. It's 12:03 right now. Oops.

Today I'm grateful for: fostering my creativity

Creative buzz

Last night after another very long day at work, I went out and bought myself some art supplies.

Watercolors
Acrylics
Oil Pastels
Brushes
Canvas
Watercolor paper
Acrylic paper
Pallette








I am so sick of coming home from work exhausted and not being able to do much more than lay on the couch and zone out while watching horrendously bad TV. And some nights I'm not even really watching....more like just staring. But the nights I'm actually paying attention to the shows aren't much better. I mean, come on....I'm getting hooked on shows like MTV's The Hills.

Yes, I admit it. I'm on Team Lauren. I'm a 29 year old, down-to-earth, professional woman who actually found herself sucked into a fake reality show about a spoiled socialite running around Los Angeles creating drama with her obnoxious, overly tanned friends (who are getting paid boatloads of money to hypnotize me into watching - $10K - $25K per episode!) I think they should pay ME to watch this drivel!

So last night I got home, made dinner, and busted out the pastels. And I have to say, while what I created may have been as pathetic looking as the programming that MTV is producing, at least it felt damn good to make!Today I'm grateful for: MB and being able to talk to her about anything, driving in the early morning sun, getting butterflies in my stomach when I talk to someone

Little purple pill of strength

I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor yesterday to see how I was doing with my attempts to quit smoking. How lovely to admit to her that after a brief month of unsmokiness, I was back on the butts. We talked about different options for quitting after the many attempts I've had with no success. I believe a big part of the problem for me is either not being ready or not having a proper plan for long-term success.

I went in there thinking there was no way I wanted to take pills. I have a tendency to think I'm superwoman and that I should be able to accomplish anything with willpower. As we've all discovered, sheer willpower is really just a load of crap and sometimes a girl needs a little help and support to make it through the rough times. Willpower is being looking at myself and assuming if I can't do it all with just hope and elbow grease, then I am a failure, too weak, not good enough. Yes, ridiculous, but it's the stuff I tell myself.

My doctor (well, nurse practitioner to be more precise) is a lady that talks about chakras and yogic energy and emotional pits and healing energy. She's a lady that suggests acupuncture before prescriptions, who suggests meditation groups before medicine. She is focused on holistic healing and that's one of the things I really like about her. I was thinking she'd be my ally in this resistance of pill-taking. So I asked her what method she's seen the most success with.

"Pills, actually. Wellbutrin specifically."

Antidepressants? She wanted me to take antidepressants? The pills I've avoided taking all the times I thought I might need them just because I wanted to prove to myself that my will was greater than whatever I was trying to overcome?

She mentioned that with my eating disorder and with my compulsive behavioral tendencies (bingeing, shopping, drinking, etc.), the Wellbutrin could help balance my biochemistry to actually make it easier for me to be successful quitting. It would help me to deal with the absense of nicotine without replacing the cigarettes with another compulsion so I'm not bingeing more, for example.

I have the small square of paper sitting on my desk still with her scribbled prescription..... I know it's ridiculous and would completely encourage any of my friends to take the pills and get the help. But for me it truly feels like I'm giving up a little on some hope of myself being perfect enough just to quit on my own. Rationally I understand that I can't and it's not about weakness or willpower or failure or any of that, it's just getting some help with something I can't do alone.

But unfortunately, the rational isn't what's making me stall on this. The emotions are a whole different can of worms. And try as we might, we can't really change where those emotional reactions come from, we can just try to understand them and hopefully shift them to help us along.

And we can always take the little purple pill of happiness when we need a little strength.Today I'm grateful for: finding a crazy lady I can talk to, taking a chance and emailing about the job in the UK, learning my strengths and my boundaries

I just love Sarah Silverman