5/8 Weekend Recap

Things that happened this weekend in the country (without the influence of alcohol):

• I left my phone charger at home and thus had no technology access. I spent a lot of time reading O magazine and watching the discovery channel while jumping on his mom's miniature trampoline. If anyone tells you you need to drink to be cool, don't believe them.
  

• Brutus came along and Chris' brother's puppy Ellie freaked out at the prospect of having another dog to play with. She followed Brutus around the house incessantly play-bowing and sniffing at his genitals. Brutus does not play, he lounges. So each approach of the puppy was met with a Gollum-esque growl followed by an effeminate leap at Ellie's neck.
  

• He would then look at me with pleading eyes that asked "why would you bring me here?" I'm sure she'll grow on him. She just has to learn to respect her elders.

• I rode a bike that was too big for me and was winded within 60 seconds. Perhaps I should add some semblance of exercise to this new "healthy lifestyle"

• I slept a lot.

• Chris made chicken saag from scratch and it was delicious. For mother's day he made mussels and crab legs. I've never met a shellfish that I trusted. So I eagerly finished the bread and potatoes and then shuffled the mussel shells around with my fork, trying to avoid getting glimpses of the insides. Have you ever seen a mussel? It resembles a--well I won't say what I think it resembles as many of you probably love them. But I don't care how much butter you drench one of them in, you're still eating this:

• I respect my stomach far too much to ingest such a grotesque creature. And then there is also that pesky possibility of getting POISONED. At the table, Chris announced that he wanted to see me try one. I shot him a look of pure venom and that was the end of that. The crab legs were also hard to navigate but that's just because I don't like DIY food. When I sit down to eat, I want to eat. I don't want to crack, scour, plunge, poke or prod, to get my food. Despite their suave demeanor and flawless style, I am not a caveman.

• Chris' father made me 3 homemade milkshakes over the course of two days and I happily lapped them all up.

• After consuming each milk shake I would lift my shirt to reveal my stomach and ask Chris if I'd gotten fat again. Charming, really. It's so easy to eat in moderation during the week but as soon as the weekend rolls around my inner (for now) fat kid rears her ugly fat head and starts begging to be fed. Have you ever tried to say no to a fat kid? That's how you lose limbs*.

• We randomly ran into one of Chris' friends from Philly who happened to be house hunting in the area. I had only met him once, at Chris' private room karaoke birthday party, during which I got extremely drunk, pranced around barefoot, hogging the microphone and screaming the wrong lyrics to Usher songs. I recognized the gleam in his eye that said "you were WASTED last time I saw you." It was a little awkward. Nice to see you again too, buddy.

• And lastly, the pickup truck we were driving in broke down 30 minutes from our destination. In order to get to the safety of the rest stop we were forced to drive 2 miles without headlights going 70mph in a GIANT FREAKIN' TRUCK.

• Thankfully, we survived and a friend came to pick us up so we didn't have to sleep in the truck. It may not be clear but I'm not big on roughing it. Well, that's about it. Another action-packed weekend for the books! What excitement will next weekend hold? Eating? Sleeping? Sobriety? TBD my friend!

*disclaimer: overweight children do not actually consume humans, typically

Radio silence

It's been a week since I posted last and I know you've been wandering around lost and helpless without this blog as your beacon. I do apologize but honestly, I just haven't had anything new to say. But since I know you're desperate for a new blog post, I will concede. Plus, if I go too long without writing, this will become one of the 10 other blogs I've started then unceremoniously abandoned. You might say I have some commitment issues. Thus, I'm determined to make this one stick.

So here we go...

Life updates:

I'm still not drinking beer. It's been almost a month and no one is more surprised than me that I've made it this far. Well maybe this lil guy is.

I'm still using the lose-it app to track my calories. However my cell phone died this weekend and without my moral compass I had a junk food relapse. I don't care if you're Richard Simmons, you don't turn down a homemade milk shake. Okay 3.

Once I get back to New York City I think I'll be back on track.

Oh also, Jill is back. She returned to our lives casually as if no time had passed by sending a mass email linking to one of Tyra Banks' countless moments of lunacy.

She followed this up with a text message inquiring about our trip timeline. Yes, OUR trip timeline. So apparently she's still going. I'm glad to know she wasn't made into pâté by her cats. However, she is now on probation. Any further disappearances would make her subject to dismissal from any and all life plans. This would make the trip substantially less interesting so I will be stalking the bejesus out of her. I do these things for you, beloved reader.

Well that's about it for me. I'll be sure to keep you posted on the nugatory* details of our quest out west.

*I would be nothing without thesaurus.com

Bar None

By the time I left work yesterday I'd chalked it up to be a bad day. One of those days that just goes all wrong. I woke up exhausted. It rained so the trains were slow. The trains were slow so I was late to work. I was late to work so I was irritable. I was irritable so everything anyone did just further irritated me. All I wanted to do was go home and be enveloped by silence. Of course, when I arrived home I realized I'd forgotten my house key and my roommates wouldn't be home for 3 more hours.

Arghhh

I wanted to drink beer. Lots and lots of beer. Instead I wandered off in search of sustenance and landed at a cheap Mexican restaurant inhaling a tostada. Sitting alone in silence at the counter can only last so long however before it becomes awkward for the eater and the hipster waiter. So I began to contemplate my next move.

For the last two weeks I've wondered what exactly to do without drinking. Museums? Boring. Galleries? No thank you. Plays? Musicals? I'd rather watch beer dry. I enjoy drinking because it's a social activity. Alcohol is a unifying agent for people of every age, race, sexual preference, fetish etc. Where else would I have met a dwarf former child star?

So off I went in search of a bar-like refuge for the sober. It was then I discovered the wonders of the coffee shop. You can just sit there. For hours. No awkwardness, no judgment, they just keep stopping by every now and then to ask if you'd like a refill of your green tea. Granted, it's not all that social. People mostly keep to themselves and their shiny Macbook Pros. Computerless, I read a Men's Health magazine from cover to cover. I'm now well-versed in how to get "monster forearms" by lifting an empty keg. It's knowledge I'll carry with me forever.

My overall assessment is that coffee shops are a decent bar substitute. I'll most likely go back soon. Except I always felt comfortable going to my local bar a few times a week. There are only so many times you can hang out at a coffee shop in one week before you just start seeming pretentious.

The quest continues...

Use it and Lose it.

I spent the winter months eating and drinking everything within reach of my shivering body. As a result, my weight skyrocketed. Ok, I gained like 7 lbs. But now that I'm preparing to live somewhere warm and beachy, I've begun taking the necessary steps to lose the lard. The whole no-drinking-for-a-month thing has already shown results. My stomach is flatter, I have more energy, I'm eating less.

Another thing I'm doing is using this iphone (and possibly other smartphones) app called Loseit.

It's like a food diary but much more effective. You input your current weight and goal weight and it gives you a daily calorie limit. Then you input the food you eat at each meal and it adds up the calories. You also input the exercise (or, if you're like me, the 5 min walking to and from the subway) you've done that day.

So say you, like I did yesterday, eat a Five Guys cheeseburger and fries for lunch. Okay, approximately 900 calories spent, so I knew I would have to walk back and forth from the subway for 7 hours or eat a small dinner (ie. a pudding cup). It seems simple but for someone who is visual like me, (and someone who thinks all of this looks delicious) seeing it all plotted out is immensely helpful.

You can also follow your friends' weight loss progress. Fear not, they don't tell you anyone else's weight. It's another way to stay motivated and on track.

The app is free at the app store.

So long for now old friend: UPDATE

It's been a week since I woke up hungover and bloated and decided to make a change. No beer for a month. The first week was hard. There was free beers at work, farewell happy hours, and my ever compulsive need to drink when it's warm out. But I resisted. And by the time the weekend rolled around, it was like second nature to just say no. My brain began to form negative associations with beer:

Beer = extra calories = fat = unflattering beachwear

Now I can't say that I've been completely alcohol free. I did have a glass of red wine (which I hate) at dinner. And a half a cup of cranberry vodka on Saturday night. But other than that, I've been a walking Prohibition. And I'm already feeling the effects. On Sunday I woke up hangover-free for the first time in months. I feel less bloated, less sluggish, my liver and I are on speaking terms again, I know where all my credit cards are, my room is clean. It's great. I have a feeling that this week won't be hard either. It's supposed to be cold and rainy: the kind of weather that even my intense alcohol cravings could never compete with. As soon as I leave work I want to be immediately in bed, dry and warm, and eating my weight in Mexican food.

Chris has also been doing well. I was more of an 8-beers-at-happy-hour type whereas he was the type to have a beer with every meal. I'd imagine it's even tougher for him. But so far, so good.
Let's just hope we don't lose so much weight that we get a Buddy Love situation.**


**Neither of us are anywhere morbid obesity nor do we (hopefully) have the potential to become spandex jumpsuited douchebags , however this was the only analogy that my Monday-addled brain could come up with. But seriously, how ridiculous were 90s movies? I've seen this terrible movie a minimum of 20 times. I bet Eddie is so mad the 90s are over.

4/23 Weekend Recap

I thought I'd update you on the happenings of this weekend so you can feel better about how exciting your life is. Let's start from the top.

I told my boss (who is awesome) that I'd be working from home on Friday. So, Thursday night I took the bus in to Philly. Chris picked me up and we set off for his parents' house in the country.

We arrived late, and immediately passed out. I arose the next morning, ready to tackle the work day. I booted up my computer while these (barely) functional alcoholics chattered in the background about frozen wine:

(If you've never watched, take a sick day tomorrow. You won't regret it)

I connected to his parents' wifi and seconds later my computer responded with this:

A virus that opened inappropriate websites and prompted me to purchase anti-virus software? Not good, especially considering it was my work laptop. So, that was the end of work for the day. I checked e-mail every few hours on my phone but there was nothing pressing.

I spent the rest of the day bonding with the local wildlife:


And avoiding this:

(successfully!)

Chris spent the day building things

He was really in his element. He even took pictures of the finished products and kept scrolling through them adoringly throughout the weekend. At one point, he asked if I wanted to help. We shared a good laugh over that.

As we were getting ready to leave on Saturday night, a neighborhood boy dropped by selling his wares:

GAHHHH! AMISH! Ever since college, I have been terrified of the Amish. They would come to my door selling baked goods and I would hide in the bathroom. (This is where I went to school and met Chris). It's just so jarring to see people who are a part of the world, yet so unchanged by it. But despite the abject terror they inspire in me, I do admire them. To be able to maintain their way of life for so long, without bowing to the influences of modern technology and internet porn. It's truly remarkable. But they still make me uncomfortable. So, I took a deep breath, faced my fears and purchased an oatmeal cream pie. He was polite and smart and it was delicious.

After my heroism, we headed back to Philadelphia so Chris could attend the rollerskating party. I'd considered attending but Jen backed out so I just couldn't do it.

I'll leave it up to him to describe the party but clearly he felt no shame:


The rest of the weekend we spent hanging out with friends and sleeping until it was time for me to return home to this:


All in all a restful, completely unproductive weekend. Just the way I like em. Only one week left in April then the 3 month countdown begins!