Here I Go Again

I really enjoy crochet. I think I've said that here before, but it's worth saying again. I particularly like projects that allow you to fall into a rhythm. There's something meditative about it, the motion of the hand that uses the hook to create the stitches, the sensation of the yarn pulling between the fingers of the other hand holding the tension just so, counting the stitches off in your head, watching those stitches line up into rows, then the rows stack up into patterns. I made this afghan for my mom, in colors that (I hope) match the living room in my parents' house. My rock bottom - that place I finally hit that brought about my moment of clarity that this has got to stop - came, oddly enough, when I was trying to jump through the necessary hoops to get my insurance to pay for me to have weight loss surgery. I had to get some bloodwork done, and the results made the doctors worry about internal bleeding, and that means probes. Both the -scopies. I already knew...

I want to make something abundantly clear here on this blog: getting out from under food addiction is HARD. I don't, in any way, mean to insinuate that this has been easy and that anyone who is still struggling is weak or a failure or in any way less-than people who are in the process of recovering. Including me. I mean, I once got out of bed in the middle of the night and drove to an all-night McDonald's in the middle of a thunderstorm to buy a large Coke and an ice cream cone because I was having such a bad sugar fit. I might still be doing that kind of nonsense if I hadn't gotten to a point where it was either get myself together or, quite literally, die. So I am in no position to judge anyone. Whew! Now that we have that out of the way, I want to talk about a very encouraging event that transpired today. I am housesitting for a friend who lives in the large metropolitan area that is near my home. This gives me all kinds of options for food delivery that aren't avail...

 The other day, I was going about my usual weekday routine, returning calls to people who'd left messages at the agency where I work with music playing in the background - a perk of working from home. I subscribe to a music service that gives me access to pretty much anything I want to hear. I usually pick an artist for the day, pull them up in the service, hit shuffle, and don't think about it anymore. But on this particular day, I happened to be between calls when the opening notes to one of the songs started. Just like that, I was back in my senior year of high school, hanging out at my friend "M's"  house with the rest of the group that felt like the entire world to me at the time. Left to Right: R, me, K, and M.  And no, there's nothing wrong with your computer screen. We were *that* pale. The fall of my senior year, I had a slumber party for my 17th birthday. This was 1990, before grunge was a thing in our part of the country. The morning after the sleep...

 I am a person who needs projects. I think it's because my paid work doesn't produce tangible results. So it helps me to have something I can look at and touch and know that's what my time and effort yielded . One of my current projects is finding new things to eat from the limited ingredients which I both can eat (per my eating plan) and want to eat.  I find myself eating a lot of eggs on this plan. They're quick and easy and something I really like. I can also have a decent selection of vegetables and a small amount of goat cheese. Put this all together: omelet!  Now I have never been good at making omelets. I can cook the basic components of an omelet, and it tastes good, but it does not have the structural integrity of an omelet. It's just a big, mixed-up mess. What does a person do in 2021 if they want to develop a skill? Turn to YouTube, of course! I found lots of videos, and I may try some more of them in my ongoing quest to master this dish.  Here is the vid...

 I can be a mess of contradictions at times. I mean, we call can, can't we? But mine feels particularly pronounced. I once had a young child look me right in the eye and say, "You're a double-minded girl!" He was, I think, speaking from an evangelical Christian paradigm, and referencing the double-mindedness that Scripture warns against. But there's a truth to it. Case in point: I consider it the very definition of unfair that these cards exist and I don't have someone who would appreciate them as a significant other. This kind of dark sensibility is a big part of who I am as a person. I enjoy books and television shows about serial killers. I once wore out a mix tape that had nothing but "Something I Can Never Have" by Nine Inch Nails repeated over and over on both sides. (Is that really a mix tape? Probably not, huh?) I named my cat Lisbeth Salander, after the antagonistic protagonist of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo . Even my very name means ...

 Do you ever have one of those days where every bad decision you've made in your life just sort of piles up on you and you feel like a miserable excuse for a human being who has wasted your time on the planet and won't ever be happy because how can you deserve to be happy when you're just a giant screw up and also guilty of writing ridiculous run-on sentences? Yeah, I'm in the midst of one of those. It's just the absolute worst. It was brought on by a Netflix re-watch of a favorite show, of all things. I usually do this each year in January, because I find January to be the most depressing month of the year and I really enjoy this show so it kind of counteracts the misery. But I didn't do that this year, I guess because January felt more hopeful than usual, with the end of 2020 finally arriving.  This show debuted in the fall of 2000. I had gotten married that June, and it already wasn't going well. This program aired on the evening my husband had his bowlin...