The Masked Priest: Part I

On Saturday, I went to two Halloween parties dressed as this femme fatale with a bunch of my friends. I had a nurse's outfit, a cap, a wig of platinum blond 2-ft long hair, red patent leather high heels, bright red lipstick, and a hatori hanzo sword strapped to my back. It was awesome. Technically, I should have had an eye-patch but it turns out that those things are super uncomfortable, so I scratched it. My friends were dressed as a pirate wench, a mammary gland, a pirate captain, a boxer, and Gogo (the psycho-Japanese girl from Kill Bill). I loved dressing up, loved walking around the streets looking at the other crazies, and had a total blast at the parties.

At the second party, I bumped into a very tall (I'm thinking 6'4" to 6'6"), broad-shouldered man wearing a priest outfit with a mask. We chit-chatted in the hall about our costumes and I couldn't help noticing that even in my 3-inch heels (which put me at roughly 6-ft), I had to tilt my head to look up at him. Nice. The party went on, Gogo and I hit the dance floor, had some cupcakes, filled up our champagne glasses, and continued dancing. The apartment where the party was held has this really cool set up with a DJ-booth in the living room, and the guys who live there all take turns DJ-ing for parties. The Masked Priest DJ-ed for about an hour while Gogo and I danced, occasionally catching my eye. When he finished, he joined Gogo and I on the dance floor and he and I started dancing and talking. At one point, he took off the mask and put it on my face, and pictures were taken. It happened so fast and it was dark on the dance floor, so I didn't get a clear picture of the top of his face. Or, if I did, the alcohol has since obliterated it from my memory.

Around 2:30 am, when Gogo was ready to go, I told the Masked Priest that I was leaving. He said that we should hang out some time, and I, looking up at him, said sure. I gave him my number and left with my friends, thinking that the evening had been fantastic, mildly flattered by the attentions of the Masked Priest, but not holding my breath for anything more. It had been fun for what it was, and I didn't expect nor need anything else.

On Sunday, I mostly recovered, more so from lack of sleep than from dehydration. After coming home at 3:20 in the morning on Saturday night, I had made the somewhat poor decision to watch the latest episode of "Gossip Girls" until 4 am. Upon waking around 9:30 am, I lazed around, cleaned, organized, and then did a little shopping later in the day. That night, I saw "Rendition," a very good and disturbing movie that I recommend seeing.

Monday, I worked and went to Swedish class - one of my new favorite things. Tuesday, I worked and went to therapy and talked about eating, emotions, and this new book I've become fascinated by, "Feeding the Hungry Heart." It's in the self-help genre and all about the emotional reasons people (women mainly) overeat and/or binge. I picked it up for research/exploratory purposes, and became totally hooked. When I finish it, I think I'm going to pick up another book about binging, anorexia, or bulimia. Maybe not anorexia - I don't think I'm ready for that yet. Reading it, I feel a little like "Fight Club" when Marla and Tyler participate in a cycle of self-help groups as a way to deal with their own emotional issues. Of course, unlike Marla and Tyler, I'm not a totally disconnected observer - I have my own issues with eating and emotions and it's so interesting to be exploring them and learning about other people's stories and perspectives.

Getting back to the main thread of this post... I came out of therapy and was in the midst of checking my messages when I got a call from an unidentified number. Looking at it quickly, I thought it was a Utah number and assumed it was Bean calling so I clicked over. Guess who it was?

The Masked Priest! My, my, my. Not only did he call, he actually called to converse. What unexpected behavior for a man. Rather intriguing. We chatted for about half hour about all the basics - where do you live, what do you do, what did you do on Sunday, I liked your Halloween costume, etc. It was so pleasant because he was clearly interested in me and the conversation - quite a difference from the leagues of self-involved men I've encountered during the last year who can only talk about themselves in between trying to take off my clothes. After talking for a while - having a perfectly nice conversation - he asked me to do something next week. After we had agreed, tentatively on the day (pending me checking my schedule), he ended the conversation by saying he would call me around Sunday to touch base and wishing me a nice week.

Me thinks the Masked Priest might be kind of cool.

Here's the funny thing. I don't exactly know what his face looks like. I know what the bottom part of his face looks like, but I have no recollection whatsoever of his eyes or nose. When I meet him, I'm going to have to cover his eyes and nose with my palm to see if I can recognize him. Thank god he's significantly taller than most men in the city. And what about me? The last time he saw me, I had 2 feet of blond hair framing my face. If we recognize each other, and like what we see, it will be nothing short of amazing.

Even so, I'm looking forward to it. I love Halloween.

Halloween Costume

Here's what I think I'm being for Halloween (or, more accurately, for the Halloween parties this weekend):
I think it might just be the perfect mix of evil, slutty, fierce and creative. I might ever go so far as to get a blond wig which I think could come in handy for the future.

What are you all going to be?

Lady Waiting (Revisited)

On July 13, 2006, four months before EXBF and I broke up, I wrote the following post and then promptly deleted it after he freaked out at me for sharing "our issues." He felt that me writing about our problems was a violation of his privacy, and even though I felt like it was productive for me to express my feelings through writing about them, I acquiesced to his request, pulled the post, and refrained - for the most part - from writing about things that made me upset while I was with him.

One of the many things he never understood that what I was writing about was not just him. When I wrote this post I was writing about my feelings. I was working them out and I was also imagining that other women had probably had similar experiences, where the actions of their partners fell short of their expectations. I wasn't blaming him totally for this incident, or even for my feelings of hurt. I was exploring the situation and how it had made me feel and I was working out what I thoughts about it.

Reading it now, almost a year and a half later, I think I was far too kind to him - as I was many times. I was there; he wasn't. That was the problem. Not my sensitivity, but his lack thereof. And, beneath that, his lack of love. If you truly and honestly love someone, you treat them with care. You think about their feelings and happiness. You consider them. During most of our relationship, he consistently considered one thing, and it wasn't me. When he said he "didn't think," he didn't mean he didn't think. He meant he didn't think of me. I didn't get it then, but I do now. And, now, when I read this, I want to run back to that apartment, grab that girl that I used to be and help her start packing.

He never deserved her, and she always deserved a lot more. I just wish she had figured that out sooner...

Art found here.

It wasn't just twenty minutes.

It's that we didn't have any alone time together during the family vacation, and that I've worked like a dog for the last six days since coming back.

It's that during that time you went out with your friends, relaxed, and had fun while I sat at my desk and came home exhausted with no time for anything except crawling into bed and going to sleep.

It's that on Tuesday night at 9:30 pm you called me and asked if I minded if you went out for a late dinner with friends, which was thoughtful and sweet, and I had to tell you that I didn't because I was still sitting at my desk and could not have done anything with you, or anyone, even though I wanted to.

It's that when I asked you what time you would be home after your late dinner on Tuesday night, you said "twelve thirty or one," which made me angry because I thought to myself, is it really necessary go to a three-hour dinner?, and doesn't he realize that if he doesn't come home until 1 am, there's not even a chance that we'll see each other while we're both awake?

It's that I swallowed those feelings and got over them, and instead started looking forward to Wednesday night, a night that we have decided is supposed to be "our" night to enjoy one another, and to put each other first, above all other distractions.

It's that I told you how much I was looking forward to seeing you Wednesday night, and you told me the same, and that we agreed to be home at 8 pm sharp.

It's that we flirted and I told you in no uncertain terms that I was going to have two glasses of champagne after work and race home to be with you so that you could take advantage of me, and that we joked about the window of opportunity and our mutual excitement.

It's that during our flirting and joking, I said, "You're not going to make me wait, right?," and I was dead serious, and you said, "of course not."

It's that I was having fun talking with my work colleagues for once, while drinking my two glasses of champagne, but was keeping track of the time, and that I dropped everything, rushed out the door, and hopped into a cab, the moment I glanced down at my watch and saw that it was 7:45 pm.

It's that I called you from the cab feeling frisky and happy, missing you, and looking forward to seeing you in a few minutes but that you didn't pick up.

It's that three messages later, feeling disappointed, I walked into our apartment, which was quiet and dark, and you weren't there with candles and a bottle of wine waiting for me.

It's that it would have been okay if you were there, even without the candles and wine, because what I really wanted was you, but I couldn't even have that.

It's that when you called a little after 8 and told me that you were at the gym, it didn't seem like you realized that you should have been home when you said you were going to be home.

It's that when you finally came home at 8:25, you were sweaty from the gym and you sat down to eat a Cuban sandwich, neither of which made it appear as if the most important thing that night to you was me or getting close to me.

It's that I've seen you be on time for work, firm events, going to the gym, meeting your friends, and going to the movies, so know that you are capable of being on time when you want to be.

It's that I really, really wanted to be with you, and that I wanted you to want to be with me as much I wanted to be with you.

Emotional Purging (aka: My EXBF Was A Dick)

I'm reaching the one-year mark free from my EXBF and all of the selfish crap he used to do that made me completely miserable while I was with him. The official anniversary of him coming into the living room, sitting down on the chair and saying, "I just can't try anymore," is just around the corner, on November 9, 2007. Pretty exciting, right? I've decided to get all my girl friends together for wonderful weekend of drinking, dancing, manicures, and purging to celebrate. There may be some making out with random boys. Or not. New York is our oyster.

I've also decided to give myself permission to write about my feelings about him on this blog, or to talk about him - to the extent I want to - until November 9. After that, once the year is up, he's officially, 100% (in the words of JT) G-O-N-E. Finito forever. Now doesn't that have a nice ring to it?

For most of this year, when I thought about him (which thankfully has not been that often - Yay Me!), I haven't done all that much writing about him, mainly because he used to check the blog and it irked me that he could be reading my thoughts, thinking that he knew what was going on inside my head after reading just a smidgen. He never understood anything when we were together, and he most certainly wouldn't understand anything now. I knew that whatever I wrote about him, the only thing he would take from it was something along the lines of: She's not over me yet; I'm the greatest. Of course that's completely wrong. I was over him the second those words left his lips, and he most certainly is not the greatest. It's just taken me longer to sort out and move past my feelings for and about him, and how he treated me. It's also taken me a while to sort out how I feel about me for staying with someone who was such a dick (you may be hearing a fair amount of that during the next couple of weeks, only for therapeutic purposes).

I also haven't wanted to want to write because soon after breaking up, I felt like I should be totally over everything relating to that relationship. He was a dick, he made me sad, he broke up with me, I'm 10,000 times better off now than I was with him, so why would I be spending any energy on him reliving old feelings of sadness, hurt, tenderness, or anger? My friends all told me, He's irrelevant, Don't let him upset you, He's nothing, Move on. All good sentiments, all of which I have followed for the most part.

But, do you know what? There's a part of me that is still very hurt and very angry. It doesn't consume me; it just comes in flashes now and then when I'm forced to remember something. I'm OK with the angry part but I'm not OK with the hurt part of me, because I'm not totally OK with the fact that I let him hurt me. If no one can make you feel anything, then if you stay with them even while they're hurting you, then you must be letting them hurt you, right? I've mostly forgiven myself for that. I know that I was in a very vulnerable place when we got back together again and I know that I cared very deeply for him. Being vulnerable and caring very deeply for someone can both be beautiful things. However, they can also position you to be lacerated and chopped into tiny little pieces, which is what he did to me emotionally. What I'm most angry about is that he met me in a place of vulnerability, I gave him my trust, and he took my trust and buried it in a vat of slow-burning acid. It ate away at me bit by bit, until I had nothing solid left inside.

God, do I sound bitter? I don't think I am. For the last month, I was thinking a lot about this concept of forgiveness, thinking that I probably had to forgive him in order to let any residual negativity related to that relationship go. However, something happened over the weekend - a slut that he slept with while professing his love to me popped up on the edge of my social network - that made me tap in to my anger again. It was like a scab being ripped off, revealing some still tender skin. I'm sure there was pus too. I think that's what forgiveness would do, let the pus drain away.

On the other hand, I've never been a fan of letting pustules go their course naturally. I prefer to attack and pop the hell out of them so that the pus goes flying everywhere, never to return. That's how I started to think about anger this weekend - a force that clears away that pus. To be healing, I think anger has to be a specific type of anger. It can't be turned inward or be all consuming; it has to be energizing and empowering. I'm not consumed with anger. I'm happy and loving and was trying to be all zen about this - trying to focus on forgiveness. But, fuck it.

For the moment, I'm not forgiving him. He was an asshole. He treated my feelings and emotions with complete disregard. He didn't prioritize me or our relationship. He was not there when I needed him to be. He had inappropriately intimate relationships with scores of "female friends." He checked out women in front of me. He didn't make me feel loved or cared for or special. He slept with a pathetic slut while telling me he was still in love with me. He slept with that same pathetic slut a week before we got back together. He was a dick to the pathetic slut and just used her for sex (or so he said, but how knows). He made a mix tape of the worst summer of my life and then played it while we were on vacation. He almost never thought of me or my feelings. He always said things like, "I didn't think." Three weeks after I had moved in to his apartment, he wrote an email to one of the girls he had slept with in between us and told her that he still thought about her often and all the fun they had had together. He also told her that he was "trying to get back together with his ex" - keeping the door open after we had been back together for 5 months. I could go on.

But, I won't. Not right now. I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that I wrote any of that down. Isn't this a sign that I'm not as far along as I "should" be (by whose measure?)? On the other hand, I'm actively focusing on letting go, and I think that in order to let it go, maybe I first just have to allow myself to express this into the ether.

Blogsphere, Friends: My EXBF was an asshole. I loved him, but he was a dick. This scenario has happened to better women than me. There were things about him that were beautiful and times we had that were wonderful, but overall, he was just a selfish person who didn't have a lot to give outside of the bedroom.

Does it hurt me a little to say these things? These mean things about him? A little bit, which then makes me think maybe I shouldn't have said them at all. Maybe I'm calling negative energy to me by expressing these feelings? Whatever, I'm not second guessing it. I have about two weeks to purge my mind of all thoughts of him before he fades away permanently into nothingness.

I will end by saying I am unequivocally grateful that I was not with him during this past year. Being single and on your own has its challenges. It's hard sometimes to feel like you don't have someone special "there for you" (except for yourself, friends, and family - the saving graces). But, I learned from this last relationship that it's much worse to be in a relationship where you don't feel like there's anyone there for you, than to be single. Compared to that destructive emptiness, being single is a cakewalk.

Dill Pickles

What's the deal with Dill Pickles having zero calories? How is it possible that cucumbers and vinegar have ZERO calories? Are they bad for you? Good for you?

On binge eating, I was talking with my friend today and she said that she doesn't keep food in the house in order to not binge eat. I asked her, "No food? None whatsoever?" It seemed somewhat radical to me, but also elegant in its simplicity. It's true that if there was no food in the house, you wouldn't binge eat because it would be impossible to do so.

Maybe I've been looking at this eating issue from the completely wrong perspective. I've been asking myself questions like "Why am I doing this?," and "What can I binge on that is not unhealthy?" I pretty much know the answer to the first question, and asking the second question basically makes me an enabler.

Synchronisity

I've started a few new things recently. One of them is taking Swedish lessons because I'd like to become fluent. The other is going to a progressive (i.e., not part of the Religious Right) Church.

This past Sunday, I saw my Swedish teacher at Church and he ended up sitting next to me. While we were waiting for the service to begin, we proceeded to have a conversation in Swedish. We talked about work, Swedish class, what we had done over the weekend, and then he asked me if I was a Christian. In response, I said that I was not a Christian, but more of an Agnostic. Mind you, this was all in Swedish.

I then asked him what he was. To my surprise and delight, he said, "I'm a Buddhist." My church might just be the coolest church ever.

The next day, I opened up my email and found an email from my Swedish teacher inviting me to a guided meditation that he was going to be doing this week. How awesome is that? I've been talking about wanting to meditate for the last year, but have only had limited success. Then, suddenly, I go to Church, meet a Buddhist, and am now going to meditate tonight.

Divine intervention? Perhaps.

Procrastination Sex Break

Ever since the Black Dress Revelation, I had been doing quite well in terms of feeling balanced. In the last two days there was a slight dip, not in my mood, but in my habits as a result of some work stress. I have a big project due and it's taking a lot of time and instead of working on it throughout the weekend, I procrastinated. Procrastinating is the worst. But, it's almost as bad to force yourself to do something you don't want to do in the middle of the weekend; hence the problem. I've been chewing so much gum that my jaw hurts.

In a break from working, I watched Episode 6 of "Tell Me You Love Me." Dude. I think that's possibly the most blatant sex I've ever seen, short of watching myself in a mirror. I don't even know how they film that without having sex. I'm talking specifically about Jamie and the Hot Guy from Lost (Shannon's Brother). Not only did we see a full frontal semi-open shot of her - which was frankly a little more information than I needed - we saw his ass and what may or may not have been the base of his actual penis between their entwined legs. I'm kind of shocked, but also fascinated.

In addition to sex, "Tell Me You Love Me" has been boob-crazy of late. I've seen so much of the Woman-Who-Can't-Get-Pregnant's boobs that, today, when she made love to Pollack with her sweater on, it felt like a nice change to see her covered up. Her boobs are kind of amazing. So big and mushable. It must feel different to guys (or girls) when they embrace someone with large pillowy boobs versus little boobs. Do they notice? Oddly though, during the sex scenes with Women-Who-Can't-Get-Pregnant, I felt like her boobs looked a bit uncomfortable. They were getting seriously smashed. It made me afraid that they were going to pop.

Finally, there was the 60-year old therapist and her husband getting it on in front of the fire place with a nice bottle of red wine. Those people know how to set the mood apparently, and our Miss-Sixty-Thang looked like she had a fantastic orgasm. It's a little weird to see older people having sex, but I think it's wonderful. We should have more models like that. One more thing to counter our toxic-youth-obsessed culture.

Prayers

In the last month or so, I've started going to church. I'm an agnostic, Buddhist-leaning, atheist with a soft spot for Wicca who believes in some divine pattern and purpose to the universe, so going to church - a Christian church - is a little weird. Sometimes during the service, I feel like an anthropologist, studying the religious people in their natural habitat. But mostly I just have a nice time, and revel in the warm fuzzy feelings of peace and calm that come over me when I go. One of my favorite parts is the coffee and cakes after the service. I just chill down in the cafe, away from the ceaseless hubbub of Manhattan, have interesting conversations, and feel a part of a smaller community for a few hours.

During the service, they sometimes send around a page entitled "Our prayers." The idea is that you can write down the name of someone you have in your prayers, someone who is going through a difficult time and needs the prayers of the community. The lists go up to the Priests helpers and they take turns reading out the names so that the whole church can pray for all of the names. Putting aside the question of whether there is a divine being who can answer prayers, I believe in prayer for the same reason that I believe in the power of positive thinking. Although I'm not necessarily good at it, I believe that our minds and how we see reality can impact the world. Even if it can't help, 30 people beaming positive thoughts to one of my loved ones can't hurt.

The last time I went, I wrote down "my family and friends" on the sheet. Today, I wrote down the name of one of my best friends, and the names of her family. She and her family have experienced a very sad loss. I'm far away, so all I can do from here is think about my friend and send my thoughts out into the ether. I love her and I wish she and her family did not have to go through this.

Too Many Tinis

Oh my good lord, I am so hungover today. I blame all my new work friends, who I absolutely love. We went out in Soho to a bunch of places; four, to be exact. Four bars on a Thursday! My saving grace was that I only had seltzer and lime in the last place and declined the bud light and the tequila shot. Now that could have been ugly.

Today's going to be a busy day, followed by a fun night with the BBC girls - we're trying to plan another yoga infused trip. Speaking of "infused" just made me think of all the cocktails I had last night. There was the "Rhubarbarina," the "Black Crow," and the "Bluetini." Along with wine...

I'm fairly worthless at the moment, but I'm off to work. Happy Friday!

Blogger Loyalty

I was this close to switching my whole blog over to wordpress. I had imported all my posts, set up a new url, and designed a new site. But, I wasn't totally pleased with the options over at wordpress. Their customizable headers are clearly superior, or at least more user-friendly, than the ones at blogger, because, for example, I can't figure out how to make my custom header on blogger go across the entire page. However, what I didn't like about wordpress is that it was more difficult than blogger to change the colors on the rest of the blog.

For all those reasons, including my soft-spot for blogger (it's where Bean and I started this blog as "Buttercup & Bean" - so cute! - way back in 2005), I've decided to stay for now.

It would be super-cool if some kind soul out there could help me fix my header...

Letting Go

I hold on to things, people, emotions. I'm a pack-rat in body and mind. It's hard for me to let go completely. There's always the thought lurking in the back of my mind that someday this or that could be useful. It's the same with clothes, extra pens, memories... men.

I have a photo album that I made a couple of years ago filled with pictures of EXBF and me. After this weekend, it would be more accurate to say I had a photo album filled with pictures of EXBF and me. Now, I still have the album but it's mostly filled with pictures of me.

One of my close girl friends and I went to Philly this weekend because we both happened to have Columbus Day off. We decided to make it into a girl-bonding, purging weekend. She has an ex-husband and things from him that she wanted to let go of; I have left-over emotions regarding my relationship with EXBF.

We had so much fun running around Philly that we didn't get to the purging until the bus-ride home. She went first, then me. I flipped through the album, looking at pictures of our vacation in Belize, remembering snorkeling and getting scraped up on the reef, the perfect bungalow on the edge of the island with the hammock perched perfectly over the water, the night of the storm, and caving among Mayan ruins. There were also pictures of our first year together, pictures of a cake I got him for his birthday, nights out dancing, both of us smiling, and hugging, and close to one another. There were a lot of him looking cute and sweet (quite deceptive actually).

Sitting there on the bus, I hadn't known what I was going to do. I sat there holding one picture in my hand, looking at his big brown eyes, remembering feeling tenderness for him (feeling a tiny bit of tenderness despite everything), and thinking how much I had loved him and how much I had tried to make it work. I drank in the picture, the features of his face, his eyes staring out at mine, and then...

...I slowly and deliberately tore it in half.

It felt delicious so I kept tearing until the picture was reduced to a pile of feathery fragments.

It was so liberating. It was like a rush of elated adrenaline surged through my body. It felt so good that I picked up another one, and then another one. I ended up ripping into tiny pieces almost every single picture with him in it, including most of the ones where we were together. I saved two pictures of us where I looked particularly cute, and then folded the picture so that you could only see me. Much better.

As I methodically ripped up the pictures, periodically saying, "Buh-bye, EXBF!," I felt so happy at the confirmation that I no longer need those pictures. I don't need the weight of the emotions. I want to be rid of them completely. I don't want to feel sad, angry, or bitter. I want to forgive him for not being what I wanted him to be, for his faults, his selfishness, his immaturity, his inability to be by himself, and then I want to wish him the best and wash my hands of these memories.

A lot has changed in the 11 months since we broke up. I don't feel pain anymore, but I do on occasion still feel sadness. I see our relationship differently now, from a much clearer perspective, and I see all the reasons that I am so lucky not to be in it any more. I deserve a lot more than he ever gave me - than he was capable of giving. I am still a little angry. I still feel a sense of injustice - that I was wronged. But, what can I do with those feelings? Nothing. I can let myself feel them and move on. That's all. Those emotions do nothing for me, nor do pictures of him.

If you have something you want to let go, trying ripping up a picture or two and see how it feels. It's symbolic but in the symbolism powerful. The last time I saw his face, my heart was in shreds. This time, it was him who had been ripped to pieces and released.

Poetic justice.

Filing

I just spent the last 14 hours of my life focused on one single goal: To revise and file a brief electronically on the United States electronic filing system. One would think that electronic filing would be simple and user-friendly. It’s not.

Things I did not do today: work out, make my own coffee, overeat, talk to anyone outside of work.

Mood: Quite good but tired, and slightly stressed.

My Black Dress

What do you do when you come home at night after a very long day to relax? When it's just you, you're hungry but you're too tired to eat, and you're totally key-ed up by a day filled with stress?

It's hard for me to relax during the week, and especially at the end of a really long day. Even if I've gone out and had fun, it's still hard to wind down when I come home. Sometimes I knit, which is relaxing. On occasion, when Rumi is gone, I have baths, which I enjoy.

But, lately, for the past couple of months, I've gotten into the terrible habit of munching. Munch, munch, munch on anything and everything. Salt, sweet, creamy, crunchy - nothing is exactly what I want, or everything is what I want, and I hope from one snack to the next completely unsatisfied.

At my worst, I stop when my TV shows are over or I feel sick.

I can't believe I just wrote that, but it's true. I'm way beyond not stopping when I'm full; I only stop when I feel sick. It only happens at night, when I'm stressed and I have been going, going, going.

I've been going back and forth with this issue for a while now - the issue being this thing with food that has become a problem of late (i.e. when I realized I had gained between 7-10 pounds and was definitely not as skinny or fit as I used to be). At first I thought it would just work itself out. Then I tried a diet, started internally rebelling, and messed myself up more. Then I got off the diet, felt better, and was sure that things would work themselves out. But, now I've realized that the late-night munching thing is yet another expression of this same problem.

It hit me forcefully last night when I went to try on this beautiful black satin dress that I had worn once a few years ago to a black-tie event. It's a gorgeous dress and I still remember how the sales girls oooh-ed and aah-ed over me when I tried it on in the dressing room. Well, last night I couldn't even zip the dang thing up. The unforgiving satin showed clearly where I had gained weight on my hips and butt. Just when I was thinking I should start embracing being a bit curvier, seeing how much I've changed from what I used to be made me sad.

The fact is, I don't want to be curvy. I want to be tight, thin, and strong. I know that eating at night and eating unhealthy things is definitely contributing to this food/weight issue. I know it, but I haven't been able to change it.

I haven't wanted to change because it feels like I would be depriving myself of something good - the taste of chocolate, ice cream, etc. But, looking at that dress riding up on my hips, having to suck in my stomach to get the zipper to fasten all the way, it was inescapable that my bad habits are depriving me of something as well.

I guess I have to decide what I value more: sweet things and the food coma that comes with eating too much or feeling good about myself and being able to wear my old clothes with confidence. It seems like the latter would be a no-brainer. It's so clear that it's mind boggling to me why I'm even having this issue.

What, pray tell is my problem? If I'm really eating as a way to self-medicate, I need to figure out the underlying issue and resolve it. If not for me, then for that black dress. It's far too beautiful to never be worn again.

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Britney And Coffee Don't Mix

Britney Spears losing temporary custody of her children is NOT news! I can't believe that the Today Show, which I realize is not the pinnacle of hard-hitting journalism, featured a story about Britney losing custody on their program this morning. I'm used to them bringing me various bits of entertaining fluff as I get ready in the morning, but Britney's custody problems? Come on! She and her situation are sad, but she's one woman with one set of problems - she should not be the focus of our national attention and I don't care about any of it.

This, on the other hand, should be the subject of our national attention. And, this.

I enjoy consuming pop culture with the best of them, and obsessively check Pop Sugar, The Superficial, and Go Fug Yourself - normally, several times a day. I don't check those sites for news. I check them for the same reason I watch America's Next Top Model: Pure entertainment value and stress relief. It's relaxing to focus your attention on something completely lacking in mental stimulation that's entertaining to boot.

I suppose the same could be said of the Today Show, that it's not intended to be the source of daily news. However, certainly it's supposed to be on a slightly higher level than celebrity blogs - higher in terms of not solely focused on pop culture. Lest you think I could alleviate this problem by putting on CNN in the morning, I don't have cable up in my room so to the extent I choose to flip on the tube, I'm a captive audience to the morning network programs.

Shouldn't morning shows have some kind of social responsibility to educate the legions of Americans who take their first sips of coffee each morning with them in the background? There should be some kind of line between pure, meaningless fluff and things of value that networks should bear in mind for their morning line-ups, and Britney's debacle of a life should not make it across the line into "things of value."

See, now look what they did to me. Because of their impact on my morning, I now wrote about Britney on my blog, and I have further perpetuated the national focus on Britney. So much for global warming and world peace.

Sigh.

In another Britney-related note, LC said something quite amusing on The Hills last night (a delicious show that I revel in for its pure fluff entertainment value). While snuggling with the disgusting Brody Jenner (talk about celebrity whore), LC happened to glance up while her friend Lo was acting a little crazy on the couch. Lo was wearing a little dress and she flashed her panties. LC said to Brody, "Oh no, I just saw Lo's Britney."

That's funny.

It's also a testament to exactly why Britney's disastrous life does not deserve to be the focus of our national morning talk shows. The woman who was once a superstar is now so well-known for flashing her nether regions that her name is becoming synonymous with that very same region of female anatomy.

Sad. So sad. She was once so much more.

Tara