I Buy a Pair of Tight Pants

So- it's been over two weeks since my last post, I believe. Which, to be perfectly honest with you, is a good sign. It means that I've been getting out of my house (room) a bit more. It means that I've been feeling slightly less sorry for myself on a daily basis. It means that I've been dealing with slightly less pent up nervous energy that I need to expel by typing frantically for thirty minutes so I can fall asleep.
BUT-- since I've received some positive feedback from some people reading my blog, and since I am addicted to compliments, I am going to continue to write, if only to feed my ego. *Note: If you ever want me to do ANYTHING, tell me I'm good at it. I will not be able to help myself. I'm very nearly not exaggerating about this.

Anyway-- Since my last post, several eventful things have happened:
- I took a trip back to North Carolina and saw people and places and changing weather that I love. (and ended up crying in a Qdoba on Sunday night because I didn't want to leave.)
- I began picking up clients for college essay coaching, and feeling like that was rolling in the right direction.
- I started class at The Groundlings.
- I started going to a "writing circle" of excellent people who get together every week to discuss...writing. duh.
- I started going to a church, which hooked me by giving me pomegranates to take home the first Sunday I was there.
- I went to San Francisco.
- I started feeling 10% more settled and 20% less lonely.

BUT- instead of elaborating on any of these fascinating milestones, I'd like to reflect on another important event of the last two weeks, something that I feel is not a milestone, but something that I've been thinking about with absolute disproportionate frequency:
I bought a tight pair of pants.

Yes- it's true. After at least years of wearing jeans that drooped or sagged or fit in the store but got really baggy as soon as I wore them out, I decided: "no more. I will buy a pair of pants that is so tight in the story that I'm 90% sure they are too small. But I will buy these pants, regardless of the way they cut me in an unflattering and uncomfortable place in my waist. I will buy a pair of pants that leaves nothing to the imagination, that makes it difficult for me to sit down, and nearly impossible for me to bend my knees to tie my shoe. I will buy a pair of...skinny jeans!"

Oh, and I did. And I have to say, I love them, despite the logistical problems they present. For example, at work, I have to try and sit on the tall stools so I can leave my legs almost straight, so the jeans don't cut off my circulation. I have to wear shirts that are slightly loose around the waist because the jeans cut me directly at muffin top point. I cannot, under any circumstances, put anything in my pockets.

So-- they are not practical, but-- my butt looks really good, I think.

And more than that, I feel like I fit in a little more in SkinnyJeanTown. (Also known as Los Angeles.)
Oh, and since most of my clothes are semi-baggy, it makes me look like I've lost a ton of weight. Which is always a fun mark of accomplishment when you haven't really accomplished anything of note in the recent future.

I should be clear: I haven't lost a ton of weight. And any weight I have lost has been nearly accidental. The non-accidental parts come from running in the morning to stave off anxiety attacks and eating more vegetables because I had been on a pretty strict processedfoodetarian diet for awhile. (I should also be clear. I love fast food. I love fried food. I do not pretend to enjoy almost any vegetable and I do not pretend to hate or be grossed out by french fries, cheeseburgers, or chicken fingers. One thing I love about LA is that it is the birthplace of drive thru windows. I feel like somehow, I was destined to come here only because of that. I have decided to become slightly more health concious because I have recently developed a slightly augmented fear of dying.)

The accidental parts come from never leaving enough time to pack a lunch at work and often eating the following for lunch:
- dry cereal, potato chips, a nectarine, carrots
That usually happens on a day where I eat Cheez-its for breakfast.

So- the moral of the story is that I have lost possibly 2 pounds, seriously, but when I visited North Carolina, everyone seemed to think that I was America's Biggest Loser.
My Grandma, literally, said, verbatim:

"You look so little! You're losing weight! Lose more weight! Five more pounds! Ten more pounds! Look at this picture of you- you're so much thinner now!"

Comments like this make me want to beef up big time as a big "fuck you" to the establishment. They also want me to lose ten more pounds because I get the feeling it might win me a Nobel Prize.

Which is the strange thing that everybody has identified but still lives on-- in LA, in North Carolina, in everwhere-- I'm torn between wanting approval, wanting to go against the grain, and wanting to be happy. The third option falls somewhere between the first two. Oh- right- and I also don't want to have a premature heart attack. So, that precludes me from totally buying into or totally rejecting the bizarrely obsessive health-conscious culture I'm surrounded by.

I feel like I meet versions of myself when I was an obsessively-dieting 17-year-old - a neighbor approached me the other day and told me what she had eaten that morning. My Grandfather asks me what I'm eating and whether I'm excercising when I talk to him on the phone. There is a place across the street from my work that is called "The Cookie Diet." I thought it was an ironic name for a bakery, but I looked more closely, and it's actually a place that will put you on an 8-cookie a day diet.

And...the point is, I guess, completely unoriginal, but it is that I still can't believe that people are spending so much mental energy thinking about food and exercise. I know it takes effort to take good care of yourself, but I wish we could just integrate it into our routines enough to set it on autopilot, to stop talking about it so much, to realize that as long as you're not in a danger zone, it just isn't that big of a deal. Or, at least, I don't care so much about hearing what you ate this morning. I'd rather here you tell me how good I look in my new skinny jeans.

Until Next Time,
Oh, I should just write a tiny op-ed for Marie-Claire,
Madeline