A Letter to the Scale

Dear Scale at 24-Hour Fitness:

As you know, I have been coming to your gym for the last four weeks, five days a week. And you know that I have been working hard: cardio 5 days a week, strength training three days a week. You don't know my eating habits, but I should inform you that I'm making pretty healthy choices. So today, when I got on you and you said that I'd somehow GAINED four pounds this week from last week, I just had to say something to prove to you that I don't give a damn about your opinion. So here's my list of why you can go and suck it. :)

1. As of last week, I had lost seven pounds in three weeks. THREE WEEKS.
2. My co-worker (and essentially my motivation coach) told me yesterday, after not seeing me for a week, that she was sure I'd lost more inches.
3. And she was actually RIGHT. I lost a 1/4" off my waist in one week. ONE.
4. Overall, I've lost nearly four inches off my waist in four weeks.
5. I can now run for seven minutes straight without coming anywhere close to hurting/dying. Four weeks ago I could barely make two without looking at the time. And if you'd told me I could do this four weeks ago, I'd have laughed at you.
6. Five weeks ago, I couldn't wear my favorite double-wrap belt on the last hole (which, by the way, is at the END of the belt). Yesterday I wore it on the third hole, and it wasn't even remotely uncomfortable.
7. Also, all my gym clothes that I just bought are loose. (Except the Calvin Klein ones, but they fit perfectly now without digging in. So there.)
8. And my too-tight shorts? Yep, I'm wearing those today and I look super cute.
9. I feel so confident that on Thursday, I actually told a guy at the bar that I was awesome...and I believed it.
10. And all that healthy food? Yep, I enjoy it. It's worth every penny extra I spend.

So see? I can do this without you. We used to see each other a couple times a week, because I wasn't confident enough to continue without you. Now, this is going to be a once-a-week kind of affair. That is, if I feel like it.

No love,

Me

Ch-ch-changes

Hello readers! Holy hell it's been a little too long for me to admit to. (I have actually actively avoided looking at the date on my last post. Don't tell me, I'm trying to feel better about myself.)

So let's talk change, because let's face it, when one leaves off the blog for this long, life is bound to change.

I, the not-so-anonymous anonymous blogger, admit to something: I don't do change well. Supposedly twenty-somethings are supposed to be good at change. We're supposed to be at our most flexible between twenty and thirty. But I'm not. At all. I tend to run from change like I'm the mail carrier and it's a loose Doberman.

But that's the problem. Not only are twenty-somethings supposed to be amenable to change, but they're also the ones with the most change in their lives. We go to college. We graduate college. We get jobs. We go back to college. We change jobs. We date. We get married. (Some of us) have children. We meet new people and do new things ALL THE TIME. It's enough to make someone go insane.

Take my life, for example. In July I lived alone, had a boss who made me feel uncomfortable going to work who I was convinced would never leave, and hadn't been on a third date since 2008.

My life has done gone nuts since then. The change has been hell, to be honest. I've damn near lost my head over trying to work out the logistics. I've damn near lost my composure and said some ugly things. I've damn near wanted to sneak myself under the covers and not come out for a week.

It's now November. I have a roommate that I adore and couldn't imagine being without, a new boss who supports me and makes me feel like I can actually do my job, and I accomplished a third date (nothing past it, but a third date nonetheless).

I look at these changes. I look at the hell it took to get there. And I realize that a lot of the hell has to do with me not letting go. The changes have been good. Great, actually. But I've made them hell by refusing to enjoy the journey of my life.

I say this. There's the part of me that knows that I should be doing this. That I should let go. But let me be perfectly frank and say that I doubt it's going to happen anytime soon.

I promise though that I will try. After all, there's a new year around the corner.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Life isn't a Match.com Commercial, Part Two: C

Happy Easter, everyone! Just got home from a fantastic trip to see my sister and her little family up in Virginia. I'll be sure to write a blog about my thoughts from that weekend soon.

But first, it's time for more scary boy stories!

I'm kidding, but only by just a little. Because tonight's story...well, tonight's story gets a little bit weirder than the last one.

Let me take you back for a reminder: I joined Plenty of Fish under the threat of a profile being created in my name about two weeks ago. I received a few messages pretty immediately. We've talked about J. Now let's talk about...C.

C messaged me in those first few minutes too. He seemed like a very interesting guy. His profile stated he was 21, from California, and was here in Texas attending aviation school in hopes of eventually becoming a commercial pilot. His favorite band was also the Beatles, which in my book really counts for something because so few REALLY appreciate them anymore. I made a decision to disregard his immediate use of my #1 pet peeve, the letter 'u' in place of the word 'you' and let him give me his phone number.

We sent a few innocent texts, nothing too out of the ordinary, talking about ourselves, the Beatles, and flight school. And then came that text that should always alert someone that something bad is about to happen.

Can I ask you kind of a weird question?

I should know better. When my clients say to me, "I have something to tell you but I've been told that it sounds crazy," I know bad things are coming. I should have understood that this also applies in the dating world.

But I ignored my red flag with a perfectly reasonable reply. Sure.

Then the words that would cause the greatest case of raised eyebrows that I have had in at least six months popped up on the screen of my phone.

Do you think you have cute feet?

I stared at the message. Blinked. Stared again. Made sure I was reading it right. Then replied with something like I have no idea. Because really, I don't spend a whole lot of time staring at my feet. This is not a feature I think about. Ever.

Let me be the judge of that.

Uhhhh....what? Are you asking me on a date or asking for a picture of my feet?

Um, both? I guess it's too late to ask to hang out...Bear in mind that it was about 12:45. At night. Yeah, I'd say that's pretty late, dude. So I responded that it was, he badgered me for about 20 minutes about being Facebook friends, which to be fair I searched his name...and it didn't show up in any search...before bowing out with a 'let's do this later' type text.

The next day passed, I thought nothing of him, other than his weird foot thing. (I spent a lot of time bitching about it on Twitter, which is never a good place but I needed to tell someone.) And then, at 1:15am, while I was up talking to someone else on the site, I received the following text. Just three words, but pure male hormone poetry.

Wanna hook up?

You have GOT to be kidding me. Seriously? Seriously. All the dignity I'm going to give to the rest of that conversation was that it was brief, I told him no, and that he is to never, EVER text me again.

I might be able to get over a foot fetish. Being a stranger's late night booty call? Not so much.

Life isn't a Match.com commercial, Part One: J

Hello again.

I made a promise to a few friends that I would blog about this experience, so here we go. Blog one. (Of many, I have no doubt.)

A little over eight days ago I made a slightly (read: mostly) coerced decision to join a dating site. Mind you, it's not the first time I've done this. I've previously been a member of Christian Mingle and Zoosk, as well as having a brief stint with Plenty of Fish about six months ago. I quit because it was just too annoying and I got too many freaky messages to handle.

Well, my dear best friend pressured me into trying it again with the promise of creating a profile for me if I didn't. If you know anything about my best friend, you'll also know that she would actually do this. If you don't know anything about my best friend, then let me say this: she is Italian. This should offer a reasonable understanding of my predicament.

So last Friday I made the decision to do it. Diet Coke in hand, I took about thirty minutes at somewhere around 11pm to set up a profile and upload some pictures. Pretty much the same thing happened immediately that happened the last time I joined: in fifteen minutes I had four messages and an invitation for a date. But unlike last time, where I was not willing to message back anyone who couldn't actually SPELL, I was nice.

I chose to return a message to the guy who asked me on a date to an Astros game. (For anonymity purposes we'll call him J.) J initially seemed like a very nice guy. He gave me his phone number and I sent an innocent text telling him I'd be willing to take him up on the offer of a baseball game, since no reasonable female passes up the opportunity to go see her favorite losing baseball team for free.

The second I got J's reply I thought it was sweet. Wow really?

Another text asking permission to hold my hand while we were there. Still not bad.

And then, it started to go downhill. A message arrived asking me if I was SURE I wanted to go out with him. I mean, REALLY sure. I said yes. I mean, sometimes everyone needs a little bit of a confidence boost, right?

It only gets worse from there. Seven more of those arrived in my inbox over the next two days. Four others to make me promise that if he bought game tickets I wouldn't cancel. Another pouting because I refused to ride with him on a first date. And then the creme de la creme: Asking me to meet him at the Marq*e Center in Katy, because we should have lunch together, THEN go to a movie, THEN go to a baseball game.

I will say that I am extremely grateful to have a mom that loves me enough to give me permission to use her to get out of dates, because I did.

(And before you ask, I promise I made sure he hadn't bought the tickets yet. I swear.)

J is most definitely history.

04 April 2011: The Poorman Diet

I know. I know. I'm unbelievably sorry.

I should have warned you before I started this blog that I'm really, really awful at updating my blog. I try. I do. I promise. But sometimes my brain turns to mush and the last thing in the universe that I want to write about is me.

But REALLY. I'm going to try to do better.

So tonight's blog is about food. Food is a subject that is incredibly near and dear to my heart. I love food. I love food too much (is this even possible?). So you might wonder how it is that I've lost something like four pounds in a month (too poor to own a scale, so I couldn't tell you for sure)...

Well my friends, this is a phenomenon of twentysomethingdom that I have heard called "The Poorman Diet." (Credit goes to my friends Mary & Nathan, who also know a lot about this subject.) It's pretty much what it sounds like: you don't make enough to purchase groceries on a regular basis, so therefore you eat a lot less. For me, it's been a LOT less.

For example: peanut butter, out of a jar, on a spoon, as a meal.
Or this one: fruit snacks. just fruit snacks. all day.

This is what it means to be on The Poorman Diet. Your body getting just enough food that you can technically live, but not enough that you're, you know, actually full. Oh sure, sometimes I get full meals, thank you Mom. Sometimes I even MAKE full meals, thank you payday. But most of the time, I haven't grocery shopped in at least three weeks, sometimes as many as five, and Mr. Jiff and I have made pretty good friends on the couch in front of a rerun of How I Met Your Mother. I always heard jokes about being a starving artist as a kid; I never really understood what that meant.

Now? Yeah, I think I get it.

So the next time you see a twentysomething staring longingly at a piece of chicken, or hell even a box of Cheez-its, it might not actually be because they're high on some form of illegal drug or severely intoxicated.

They might just be another victim of the Poorman.

07 January 2011: Exotic Friday Nights

You know, I've been a twenty something for, well, four years now, and some days I'm still amazed at how the twenty something life was nothing like I was told it would be by Friends. I mean, honestly? How many of us in the current generation of twenty somethings were conned into believing our lives would be a series of glam/funky apartments, coffee shops, and flings with fun or funny guys?

That was one of the thoughts I had when deciding to start this blog. I want the world to know what it really is to be a twenty something in the year 2011, not what TV or movies try to say it is. Sure, I bet some people lead the Friends-style life, but I can say with confidence that I am not one of them, I haven't met one yet and I don't think I will for a while.

So let's begin with...Friday night.

Fact? It's Friday.

Fact? I'm twenty four years old.

Also fact? I'm currently sitting in my apartment, starting a blog via my trusty laptop Vixen and eating spaghetti while listening to country music. This evening, I have also unloaded my dishwasher, taken out the trash, and scrubbed the drip pans from my electric stove.

Thrilling? Not so much.

There's this expectation that once you move out on your own, graduate college, and claim your independence that you're supposed to spend your Friday nights out on the town. These nights should be spent with your work buddies and/or oh-so-hip girl clique (or ring of awesome buddies, depending on your gender). But the reality is that I spend a majority of Friday nights at home, alone. Call me a loser if you like, but if you're reading this blog right now...well, it's nice to meet you too, kettle. Is that a tinge of soot on your shirt sleeve?

The reason for this solo Friday night is twofold. One, economics. What recent college graduate has the money to go out every Friday night? That's dinner, drinks, maybe a movie or concert. Even in a smaller city, you're talking upwards of $40.00, and that's only having a drink or two. How many of us have that?

I sure as hell don't.

Two, logistics. I don't know if everyone ended up like me, but when I graduated and my friends did too, we all ended up in different places. Pearland. Conroe. Huntsville. Katy. Spring. Wharton. While they're all in distance of Houston (most an hour or less), the idea of getting everyone to one place within reasonable distance of all locations and getting them all BACK to said locations is a nightmare that cannot be handled 98% of the time.

So here I sit, just Vixen, Carrie (Underwood), and me. (Oh, and the "exotic" Bud Light I have leftover from my birthday.)

Hey, there are worse ways to spend a Friday night, right? :)


Currently playing: Wasted, Carrie Underwood