A timeline, just for kicks

June 2, 2009

 January 17, 2009 – Uncle dies

February 2, 2009 – Get fired from leadership position in video game

February 12, 2009 – Get fired from job

February 13-15, 2009 – Feel really good about February 12 and insist to friends, honestly, that everything feels “really good” and that it’s all going to be fine. Better than fine!  It was a needed thing and I feel, “free.”

March 1-May 1, 2009 – Crying jags in bed all day

May 2-3, 2009 – Have huge falling out with guy I like. He now thinks I am the anti-christ. A position I am starting to seriously consider filling.

May 2-28, 2009 – More crying

May 29, 2009 – Start feeling a little better. Step on scale. Remain fetal the rest of the day.

Oh, and I can’t afford Blond Trainer anymore.  Had to quit the gym.  It’s been a hard first half of the year. I’ve had Pluto square Pluto AND Saturn square Saturn. Like, three midlife crisis elements in my chart. What, you got something to say about astrology? HEY. It was good enough for the Reagans, it’s good enough for you. Right. So. Point is, I am back up to, hold on lemme go double check again on the scale…. 267.1 pounds. And I actually think it’s more than that but my Weight Watchers scale only goes so high. I would like to blame the lead lined yoga pants I’m wearing and my solid gold tank top. But we both know those could only add around 80 pounds, making me still overweight. So thaaaaat’s right. I am officially heavier now than I was when I started my original diet. I’ll give you a moment for that to soak in.

You okay, buddy?

Well. I have been in a very, very dark night of the soul for about, well, let’s be honest it’s been closer to a year now. The last four months have been brutal. But I think some planets are finally transiting the hell out of my chart and I’m reading a book by an American Buddhist nun and I’m getting up and showering almost every day now so things are looking up.

I feel like shit all the time. ALL. The time. I get winded doing the easiest things. Getting up and down off the ground to paint baseboards and do yardwork is an exercise akin to a turtle on its back trying to right itself. I keep reading a friend’s journal who is working out and she keeps talking about how great she feels. I know I felt that way at one point, but damned if I can remember. All the clothes I bought when I’d lost the weight? So far away from fitting now that I finally just took them out of the drawers to make room for the new size 28s I had to buy.

But tonight, I’m feeling some…. odd sensation. I keep hearing the Rocky themesong in my head. I’ve been listening to Defying Gravity from the Wicked soundtrack over and over. I don’t want to overstep my bounds and call it “motivation,” let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. But, I don’t know, I’d like to see my feet without having to lean forward to a 45 degree angle at the waist.

 So.

 

Here endeth the dark night of the soul.  For the most part.  I’m still in a funk but what am I gonna do? If I kill myself now, I’ll be too fat to carry in a coffin and it would take three weeks to cremate me. I’ma have to slim down a bit before resorting to anything drastic…

I’m uncomfortable

ZOMG my pants are so tight.  Like, fi’teen dollah ho tight.  They didn’t used to be.  BUT THEY WILL BE AGAIN.  *shakes fist*

Did you know that there are doctors in the world who will recommend your fat ass for liposuction even if you haven’t lost much weight?  Like, you don’t even have to be trying to diet.  You can just go have it all sucked out.  Of course, you’d better have the money to follow it up with a skin tuck or you’ll look like a deflated balloon or a basset hound or something, but still.  I just… that really surprises me.  I’m not trying to be all Judgey McJudgenstein up in here but it seems to me that if you have not yet mastered the skill of eating in such a way as to not be overweight, then you are just going to ruin your surgical results by continuing bad habits and getting fat again.

Okay, I’m jealous.  I am, I admit.  I would like to find these doctors.  Quick results would be so awesome that I sometimes contemplate trying to pick up a cold or flu just to kickstart a diet.  But here at Chez Rachel, we do things the old fashioned way.  We blog it.  And…you know… something about eaaaaarning it.  You do remember those commercials, right? I’m old.

I had pizza this weekend.  What?  I should LIE about it?  Would that take the calories away?  No.  But I got some exercise as well so I’m hoping that canceled some of it out at least.  Blond Trainer is giving me a weight training “program” tomorrow since now I’m down to seeing him once a week.  I quite liked the boxing we’ve been doing but I’m pretty sure I can’t do that on my own as it primarily consisted of punching and kicking him.  So.  Bring on the heavy machinery.  It’s fat beatin’ time.  Booyah bitches.

T minus Jeebus I’m Fat and counting

Chunktacular Snackulon

I borrow that title from irene_adler’s blog, which I quite enjoy.

My fellow Americans, remember back in the day, waaaay back like, what was it, four years ago, when I turned 32 and said, “you know what?  Ima lose me some weight?”  Remember that?  And I did!  And you were there for it.  Or at least you can go back and read about it.  And that was all very special.  I lost me 45 pounds.  And I was wearing smaller sizes.  And feeling better.  And lo, it was nice.

And remember also the part about me saying I would never gain it back?

Yeah.

Well.

I have.  All of it.  I’m not going to lie.  Why would I?  I mean, why would I lie?  I would only be lying to myself.  I’m the only one who reads this so it would be like saying, “dear diary, I am thin.  I AM, DAMMIT.”  That’s just pointless, and a little bit scary.  I am a realist, and I realist-ize (master wordsmith, am I not?) that I gained back all that I lost.

Plus 3 pounds.

Did I say that?  I mean did I actually just put that in writing?  On the innernets?  Well, I hear that journaling about things can help you achieve them.  I suspect it’s a load of crap as this journal is never gonna reach out and slap those bread sticks out of my hands.  Although that would be so very helpful.  Because you know a lot of people eat at their computers.

My mother and my aunt have broached the topic of lapband surgery.  As in, suggesting that I should get it.  Lapband.  Surgery.  So it has come to that, has it?  I informed my mom that I wanted no more of this talk.  Family isn’t supposed to realize or care one way or the other how I look or what I weigh, right?  I mean, RIGHT?  But that’s just delusional, isn’t it?  Anyway, the quasi-intervention isn’t what did it.  Not what drove me back to the Diet Chronicles to start again.  Nor was it the number on the scale.  Nor the fact that I don’t sleep well because I can’t breathe properly at night.  Not even the fact that I can’t wear many of the new clothes I bought.  No.  What was it, you ask?

I’ll tell you what did it.  The realization… that I AM NOW BIGGER THAN MY MOTHER.  Y’all.  Y’ALL.

Now, mama is not hugely obese.  Well, not anymore anyway.  But she’s always been bigger than ME.  In the South, we are not bigger than our mamas. Older ladies = frumpy.  Younger women = trim.  <shame>I cannot…  *ahem*… I cannot wea…..  *breathe*  I can do this….. I… cannot wear… my mother’s…. clothes.  They.  Are.  Too.  Small. </sha… actually I’m gonna leave that tag open for now>

People, I wish to Our Lord that I had a chaise lounge upon which I could throw myself, wrist to my forehead, and beat my breast and wait and gnash my teeth and rent my frumpy, old lady, size 28 garments asunder. I do.

Why can’t I do this?  WHY??  Oprah and Dr. Phil told me that there must be some underlying emotional reason.  That I must not be happy with me.  That I need to get in touch with my inner child but that’s not true because OHGODIATEMYINNERCHILDWHATHAVEIDONE?!  Actually though, I feel pretty happy.  I wish someone would just regress me back to whatever former life was the problem, tell me what went wrong, and then I could think on it and then breathe it out through my vagina or whatever the hell you’re supposed to do for that and then I could ZOMG lose some weight.

*sigh*  Okay.  Well.  So.  What am I gonna do about this?  What I always do, America.  Start again.  Somehow.  I am NOT paying another 800 bucks to go back to LA Weight Loss.  Excuse me, I need a moment to take that in here.  I actually spent… 800… of my PARENTS’ mone….. seriously, how can I look myself in the eye?  *station break for self loathing and the beatings*  Aaaand we’re back.

So.  Maybe I’ll write some more in the next week or so.  Or maybe I will decide that a motorized scooter at age 36 is perfectly acceptable and will get me to Lane Bryant in comfort.  Wish me luck.

With the diet.  Not the scooter.

Surprise! I’m back.

Sweet little baby Jesus in a manger with a halo shooting out of the top of his head and eating brownies.  I know that’s a weird exclamation but words really are useless after the photographic carnage I witnessed yesterday.

Have you ever seen a photo of yourself that made you absolutely despair? And I’m not using that word lightly here. I mean a photo that makes you stop and completely reevaluate your life choices and everything you stand for? A photo that makes you a little queasy, frankly?

Y’all, I know you may not believe me here but I really don’t have low self esteem.  Well, okay, I think probably everyone does just a little, about certain things, but overall, I’m not hermiting myself away or hating on myself.  I am, in fact, today being extra gentle with myself and trying to show me the love.  However.  However.

I have just seen 300 pieces of photographic evidence that I look terrible.  Not in comparison with anyone else.  Just in comparison with me.  With what I thought I looked like.  I know.  Why do my looks matter?  Because they do.  You know what I’m talking about.  They just do.  And I can feminist and love-myself and looks-don’t-matter all I want.  But at the end of the day, when I sit down at my computer and open up a CD full of breathtakingly unflattering photos of a face so couched in fat that I can’t recognize myself, it makes my chest pang just a little.  And that’s just the way it is and you can’t help the way you feel about things.  So it hurts.

And it’s also freaky, because that is NOT what I see when I look in the mirror.  You have to know what I’m talking about here.  I can actually see my cheekbones and the shape of my face.  I can!  I know what I’m supposed to look like.  I know how I feel.  And it’s not…  what I saw in those photos.

I’m having a down day.  Clearly.  I know, everybody gets them.  But what sears my heart is looking back over the weight that I lost, represented in this blog over the past few years and knowing that had I stayed with it, I would be down to feeling pretty good right now.  Certainly healthier and I would have moved on to my plastic surgery blog.

Kidding.

And also, not.

Isn’t this the cycle, though?  For most people?  You lose a bunch of weight, and then you don’t, and then you gain a bunch back, and then you get depressed and you start the cycle again.  I guess all anyone can do really is to try.  I have this great aunt who lost like, seriously folks around 150-200 pounds through this chain diet center.  And she was so successful that she was featured in all their local newspaper ads.  She really did look great.  And she turned into this huge snobby bitch about fat people.  And then the karma fairy stuck it boot in her ass (it’s the American way) and she gained it all back.  Allllllll of it, y’all.  If I lose 150 pounds, I will… well I’ll be severely anorexic, but if I get down to my goal weight?  I promise I will never be an asshole about it.  That’s my commitment to you the viewer.

Today at the office we’re having a bake-off.  Dieting was much easier when I worked in an office full of men.  Women like to bring in food.  But I cannot blame them for my chins.  Instead, I will take my character-building lumps, go to the grocery store this weekend, and start fresh tomorrow.

I can do this.  I can.  Right after I have a good cry.

And now, I take my Big Girl Pill and share some of the shame inducing photographs.

Here is how I feel about all of this:

 
I am thiiiiiis wide:

Look at my arm.  Just look at it! 

Here you can almost kind of see the shape of my actual face, sans padding:

And finally, here is what I am going to need to get through this.

Secrets and lies

Is it true what I keep hearing about it being safer to stay at one weight, even if that weight is shall we say, elevated, than it is to be constantly going up and down? Cause if that’s the case, then why not just stay… elevated? I mean, right? Is that just me bullshitting to try to get out of eating the squash and zucchini I bought this weekend for dinner tonight? Speaking of which, let me digress here and talk about my grocery shopping habits if I may. Every two weeks I go to the store. It is my most hated chore, but my only option is to pay a small fortune to have turkey sausage and other questionable hippie food delivered so, off I go. I follow the sage advice given by most diet plans: stick to the outside perimeter, never venture into the hinterlands of the actual aisles wherein lie dangerous boxed carbs and sugary bits with questionable motives. And I come home with diet bread, which molds because I can’t stand to eat it, and vegetables, which go bad because they make me gag, and fruit that I eventually pick up only to find it waaaaay too soft and more often than not sitting in a pool of its own excrement. Although I have a theory that everybody does that with fruit. If it happens enough that Eddie Izzard has a bit about it, then it’s not just me.

Point being, I don’t bring a lot of crap into my home. I have the fridge and cupboards of a thin person. How then, you may reasonably wonder, have I re-gained like, what, I don’t know I haven’t weighed in a while, maybe 20 pounds? Ish? 20-ish pounds? Maybe not that much. My clothes are starting to feel tight, that’s all I know. Well, part of the problem is that I have been rehearsing and performing in a show for five weeks (with another weekend to go) that requires me to eat a lot of junk food. And really, there’s nothing I can do about that. But that alone isn’t enough for this kind of weight gain. And my pantry isn’t the culprit. It must be the eating of lunches and the fact that when I get home at night, instead of eating one meal, I snack off and on. And on. And on and on and on. Until DAMN. “Does this jacket make me look fat?” “No, your face does.” I miss Chris Farley.

So. So, so, so. So. I make the following declarations, before Syd and everybody: A) this shall not stand. B) it’s never too late. C) I have a heinous sinus headache today that is kill. ing. me. D) I will NOT let the egg mcmuffin I had for breakfast throw me for the day. Egg mcmuffins are allowed three times a week on the LAWL plan. Which I am still on. Even though I don’t go weigh in anymore. Or eat their crap-o bars. Suck it, Sandra. E) I swear to you all that I am not going to snack into oblivion tonight. I’m not. Because I’ll feel that you are watching me. Remember that 80s song, by that black guy who had like a british accent, and he was all “I always feel like, somebody’s watchin’ meeeeee, and I have no privacy, whoa oh oh oh.” Remember that? He had a jeri curl. And Michael Jackson sang background vocals on the chorus. That has nothing to do with anything, I just started thinking about it. And I don’t want to think about dieting because it’s hard. So I’m trying to change the subject. And I have a really bad headache and I just want something to make me feel better. Like a whole pan of lasagna. And I know that nobody reads this anymore because I haven’t updated in so long so I can say things like that with no shame. In fact, I could say a whole lot of things that I would never otherwise say if I thought anyone were actually reading this still. Like, oh I don’t know, I’m not a lesbian, but I would still do Salma Hayek. Or Angelina Jolie. Or, one time, my first year out of college, I joined a dating service. Not the online kind because I’m old and they didn’t have those back then. But one of the old fashioned kind where you had to go in and browse through binders of people. And I’m secretly afraid of dogs. And if you ask me if these pants make you look fat, I will always tell you no, even if it’s a hideous lie. Always.

And I not-so-secretly wish I were thin.

Hee, I said “vagina”

I don’t know if anyone who reads this website actually went to see me in The Underpants, but if so, I must send a huge THANK YOU.  You know I mean it because it’s in all caps.  And a very special shout out to my friend and former co-worker Ken, who told me after the show that my face looked “soooo thin.”  A blantant lie to be sure, but I think if he added an “-er” to the end of that, then it would be true.  Anyway, it made me feel good.

Things I ate this weekend include:

eggs

toast

Subway sandwiches

1 McDonald’s “premium” grilled chicken sandwich

1 cookie

1 chocolate vagina on a stick

salad

summer rolls from the sushi bin

soup.  looooooots of soup

diet bars

tea.  looooots of tea

trail mix

carrots

We’ll see what that all adds up to this week.

I am so not following this LAWL diet I can’t even tell you.  Still losing weight, yes, but not the LA Weight Loss way.  But I don’t think it really matters, do you?  I mean, loss is loss.  I even tossed around the idea of just leaving the program altogether.  Why stay, right?  There’s a lot of turnover at the LAWL and there’s a new crop of gals there who, well, frankly don’t appear to love their jobs.  Not that I blame them.  But you know it’s one thing to sit behind a desk and quietly seethe about the turn your life has taken.  It is quite another to do it when your job is to work with innocent, diet-abiding clients.  Especially when said clients are already kind of irritable about having to be there to begin with.  I’m just saying.  They’re getting sloppy.

From the What the Hell is Wrong With These People Department:

I was standing in the lobby last week buying bars and apparently you need some kind of advanced degree to operate their computer system because it always take three or four of them hovering over the thing to get the job done.  So this murder  (clutch?  herd?  wedge?  gaggle?) of couselors was lurking, lurking over my file and the computer, asking each other questions and inputting information while I stood at the counter of the tiny lobby, chin in hand and looked around boredly at the woman and the couple sitting, waiting for their turns.  So one of the couselors said, “okay you need to input her weight, what was it?”  “215.”  Right out loud.  Just like that.  I jerked my head up.  I couldn’t believe it.  And then she did it again.  “What was that?”  “215.”  So I said, “um, please don’t say my weight out loud.”  They both got this look on their faces like, “oh yeah.  Why did I just do that?  I can’t believe we just did that.  That was stupid.”  And they apologized more than once, so I really have to chalk it up to temporary insanity.  Either that or they’ve becomed completely desensitized and they just don’t think about it anymore, or truly don’t care, for which I am tempted to give them snaps, if I can still do that.  Is that too 90s?  I don’t keep up with the kids.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m gonna keep going for now.  If nothing else, they’ve got the only scale I’ve weighed on so I need to keep weighing on it.  Maybe that’s their ploy.  Their racket.  Their hook.  First they get the kids hooked…

T minus 45 pounds and counting…

It’s better to look good…

Kids, never take your bowels for granted. And that’s all I have to say about that.

In the past week as I’ve been ill and looking for comfort reads and pretty things to look at, I have bought In Style, Vogue and today, Vanity Fair. Don’t judge. I rarely break down and read Harper’s Bazaar because while all magazines are Fattist Dillholes, HB comes right out and admits it. And I really prefer my fashion magazines to lie to me, frankly.

Anyway, I bought this month’s Vanity Fair today, the one with Tom Ford on the cover trying to stick his tongue into the ear of a naked Keira Knightly while Scarlett Johanssen lounges nekkid across the bottom of the shot. You can see her butt. Seriously, does this child have parents? Would you ever do that pose knowing your mother would see it? Oh, what, I’m the only one whose parents ever shamed her? Fine. Keira Knightly’s body looks so airbrushed I had to smile. But there’s something about looking at this that made me feel, I don’t know, I guess a little irritable in general. Because all the bras at the website www.figleaves.com, recommended by In Style were all very beautiful, if you’re a 32B. If you’re Keira and Scarlett’s size. Which I believe we have well and truly established that I’m not. Jealous, not because I want to look like them, I honestly don’t, but because these women don’t have to worry about their bodies or their health or the ability to get around or fit comfortably into an airplane seat. They can just wear whatever they want, shop wherever they want, their bodies will not fail them. They are free to concentrate on other things. Free to be judged on their minds and not their packaging. Free to wear cow print without fear! Free to wear purple without having to ask someone if it makes them look like Barney! Free to oh dear god I’m all of a sudden starving. Seriously. How is that? I just ate a freakin’ apple. Isn’t roughage supposed to fill you up? Stupid roughage. Fuck roughage! Supposed to fill you up? Doesn’t. Supposed to make you poop? Doesn’t. Wait, am I sounding like my mother’s mother? No, I’m not. If I were, I’d be chiding you for touching my collection of Avon perfume collectible bottles and coaching the cowboys in the westerns appearing round the clock on my t.v. But do you ever find yourself, those of you in your 30s anyway, sitting around talking to close friends or family about your health and your bowel movements? Telling them “I’ve got this thing…” or “Have you ever had…” or “Does this look bad to you?” Oh shut up! You know you do, too!! Wait, what was I talking about? Look out Hondo! He’s hiding behind that rock! He’s got a gun!!!

Right. Actresses and their perrrrrfect little bodies.

But then, actresses do stress about their bodies, don’t they? Maybe more than any other women, anywhere. Their bodies are their jobs, after all. And as far as their bodies failing them, I read a story in Vogue last night about a model who was diagnosed at 25 with melanoma. Not delighting in that, I’m just saying. It can happen to anyone. And aren’t really beautiful women always complaining that people often don’t give them a chance to be smart or witty because of their looks? Are we all in this body obsessing thing together? I want to say that I truly admire women who genuinely love and fully accept their own bodies. It’s just that I’m not sure I’ve ever met any.

Perhaps dieting is the least of my worries. Maybe I have more important work to do elsewhere. Maybe a lot of people do.

But before I throw it all to the wind, let me give a little shout out to my less-fat ass that lost 3 pounds in the last week. Which gets me back down to my pre-holidays weight of

T minus 43 and counting.

Olympics and Pr0n

Re: my concern as to whether I should accept this part at the Rep despite the fact that I may have been cast as a fat sight gag, apparently I am smoking crack (according to some heretofore very reliable sources) and also, a wise friend confided, delightfully, that he would do a nude scene if it were tastefully done and important to the storyline, if it meant he could show of a rockin’ bod. Although I think he may have meant that in an “if I were you” kind of way. I don’t think he’s an actor so that would make his choice to do a nude scene even more interesting.

For the record, if I had the body of these Olympic figure skaters, people, I would be doing porno. And not the tasteful, plot driven kind. Hard core PORNO. Watch for that “T minus” number to hit around the 130 mark. And then look for me in the back room of your favorite Korean video store.

A brief side note on the Olympics: I didn’t watch most of the opening ceremonies but I did watch the parade of athletes part, which is my favorite. I love the teams that only have one athlete and the African teams. Cause, you know, where the hell do they train? (why, the U.S. of course) My favorite part was the 52 year old lone athlete from the Virgin Islands. She’s competing in luge. Sorry, I don’t think I made that clear enough. She’s fifty-two earth years old. And she’s not one of those hip, Hollywood looking 52 year olds. She looks like my mom. White hair, glasses, a little too heavy for an athlete. It’s her sixth Olympics. She beat cancer. I. Heart. Her.

Dick Buttons got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. He is ripping these pair skaters new holes. The chick commentator keeps giving us the all-important who’s-a-couple-in-real-life info. Which, A) come on. It’s hard enough for women to get commentary jobs in sports, could you step it up with some hard facts? and B) How can you be a pair skater and not be a couple with your skating partner? Anybody whose crotch gets that close to my face owes me at least a drink, if not jewelry.

I digress. It’s a severe sinus headache weekend, and as we all know, I take weight loss any way I can get it. My jeans should be feeling a little looser by Monday…

T minus 40 and counting.

It’s all an act

So I have good news and I have possibly overthinking news. First the good. I have been cast in two small roles in an upcoming show called Dearly Departed at the TN Repertory Theatre. That means I will get paid a niiiiice little chunk of change and get to act on a big stage and nothing on the set will have come from my living room and props and my costume will be someone else’s problem, not mine. Ahhh, the joys of professional theatre. Of course, I haven’t asked for the time off yet to do this (they rehearse during the day) but I think it will work out. My company is in restructure and it needs me.

Now, the possibly overthought bit.

This is a “southern comedy.” Think Greater Tuna, if you’ve ever seen that. Many of the parts are doubled up, so I am playing Nadine and Delightful. Nadine is a very funny part, she has one scene, and should be a lot of fun. And more importantly, easy. And then there’s Delightful. In the play, Delightful’s father, who was a mean, ornery type elderly man, has just died. Delightful deals with her less-than-ideal upbringing by constantly eating junk food. She says three words in the whole show. Not three lines, three words: “Okay,” “beans,” and “bye.” That’s it. The rest of the time, she appears in scenes and eats and, and this may be where I’m overthinking this, basically sets up the fat jokes. Now, the thing is, maybe they aren’t fat jokes. Nobody ever calls her fat. No one ever references her size. It could still be funny if a thin actress were sitting on stage stuffing her face and being mute and looking vapid…. but it’s funnier with a fat girl.

In all my years of acting, I have never been offered a fat girl role. I know, it’s actually amazing, what are the odds? But I really haven’t. And now I’m a little concerned that I may have just accepted the role of the fat sight gag. Maybe it could be played either way. With or without a large actress. But they’re not going with a thin actress. They’re going with me. Over the last week since I was invited to the callback, I have wavered between excitement at the prospect of working again with the Rep (an experience I thoroughly enjoyed a few years ago when I did a few bit parts in Christmas Carol), and righteous indignance at what I was being offered. Are they offering me this because I’m funny? Or because I’m a physical gag? And does it matter? For what they are paying me and the future potential of working with them again, shouldn’t I just suck it up and not even think twice about it? Are my friends and family going to be embarrassed when they see the show because they know, but don’t want to point out, that I got the part because I’m fat? That’s the worst part. Am I simply overthinking this? I do that sometimes.

If I had been offered a part in Metamorphoses at my regular theatre company, I would have taken that part and definitely turned Dearly Departed down. But ironically, I wasn’t eligible for a part in Metamorphoses because I am too fat. Odd how suddenly out of nowhere, my weight it coming into play with regard to performing, even as I am losing it. (yeah, slowly, I know)

Look, I’m gonna do it. Of course I am. I’m just saying, if the role were only Delightful, without Nadine, I’m pretty sure I would have turned it down flat. Even though it would have been the easiest money I had ever made. I don’t need the money. And if I don’t work at the Rep ever again, it wouldn’t really matter, I get plenty of work elsewhere. But I want this funny Nadine scene. And I want the change in schedule from my daily grind. Plus the money will be helpful and let’s be honest. It’s nice to work every once in a while for a fully funded theatre company where all I have to do is show up and act. I’m just wondering. To the point that I have to move the question to the top of my Burning Questions list.

1. Am I selling out?
2. To what extent does my size help me as a character actress and to what extent does it hurt?
3. When you order pasta in a restaurant, why does it always come with a side of bread? Like you aren’t getting enough starch already?
4. Indian food isn’t really all that fattening, is it?
5. Why do restaurants always used white cloth napkins that leave schmutz in your lap? Why don’t they change to black napkins? Who the hell is wearing white pants? Ever?
6. Are all my Burning Questions really food related?
7. How did that happen?
8. At what point did American parents become obsessed with their children?
9. Do these pants make me look fat?
10. Buying some flowers for yourself on valentine’s day: sad or sassy like a Mento’s commercial?
11. Does this look infected?
12. What’s in this year’s Oscar nominee gift baskets?
13. Where’s my Oscar?
14. What the hell is wrong with muslims? People draw unflattering cartoons of God and Jesus all the time and you don’t see us trampling anyone to death. Well, not over that anyway.
15. Is it possible for Sarah Jessica Parker to get on my nerves more?

Yeah, I’ve got me some issues. Don’t act like you’re surprised.

T minus 40 pounds and counting.

God bless the Sagittarius

YES!  Check it out, y’all.  In light of yesterday’s entry, I decided to read up a little on Sagg rising.  Just, you know, for kicks.  I don’t live my life by astrology, but I’m here to tell you that it’s weird how accurately it can describe some people.

Read this part:

You are usually very honest, though it is also true that your too-candid remarks can sometimes be misinterpreted as rudeness. Negative influences associated with Sagittarius rising stimulate a tendency for self-indulgence, which makes you pompous, grossly overweight, dependent on drugs or alcohol, or too opinionated and cynical. On the positive side, Sagittarius gives a love of drama and the theatre, good food and drink, dancing, sports, animals, and, as a rule, you’ll never miss an opportunity to travel. You are likely to be involved with publishing, education, religion, art, or music, either as a profession or hobby.

IT’S NOT MY FAULT!!!  It’s my sign to be grossly overweight!  Is was ordained!  In the stars!  Yes!  This completely absolves me of any personal responsibility for my weight and health!!  I’ll never be thin no matter what because the stars decree it shall not be so.  I can’t fight that.  I can’t fight the universe.  I can’t….  I….  but….. it says…….

<sigh>

Fine.  FINE.  I know.  Yes, I hear you.

I said I know.

Why do you always have to ruin my excuses?