Here I Go Again

 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 ...

 Today was a gorgeous day in the greater St. Louis area. As I generally do on Sundays, I had lunch with my family at my sister's house. I got takeout from one of my new favorite places, Crushed Red , and headed across the Mississippi, a Karin Slaughter audio book to keep me company. The windows were down and the sun was shining and it was just a wonderful day.  I also received this item, which I had ordered to commemorate 30 days of being on my program, and it just happened to arrive on the day I hit 50 pounds of weight loss. (Not that I'm focusing on that, but it was a fun coincidence.) That's really all I wanted to say, just that it was a particularly nice day. I'll leave you with one of my all-time favorite mood booster songs. And no - it's not "Happy" by Pharrell. 

 One of the things I've gotten the most feedback on since I started this blog has been my "Joy List." I have to give credit for that idea to Your Coach Meg , a life coach I worked with when I first realized my health was starting to decline (again). I told her how I knew what I needed to do to turn things around but just didn't seem to care enough to do any of it. She gave me a homework assignment to make a list of all the things that bring me joy, and thus the list was born. This was my first Joy List, created pre-Covid. I had done something similar to this once before, only that was a list of things I'd do before giving in to a different unhealthy coping mechanism I was trying to stop. (I may be a hot mess now, but I used to be so much worse .) But there's a subtle yet extremely important distinction. The Joy List is a proactive measure, which if used as directed creates a life that you feel less compulsion to escape. The other list, which didn't have a ...

Many years ago, I read an article which I am pretty sure was titled, "Et tu, Camryn?" My memory tells me it was in Bitch  magazine, although I can find no evidence of this online. But I have an almost-eidetic memory, and even though it's declining a bit with age (I'm 47), I still trust it on this point. The article was a condemnation of Ms. Mannheim for losing weight. Granted, she had written an early fat acceptance memoir ( Wake Up, I'm Fat! ). But the article was written as if she had betrayed all the other fat girls and women in the world, and perhaps even feminism itself, by losing weight. Isn't it funny how, apparently, a woman's reproductive choices should be kept private between her and her doctor*, but not her weight? The ad featuring this young woman dancing around in her underwear  while eating ice cream was all over my Hulu for a while.   During previous attempts to get my eating under control (and, OK, lose weight), I've had nightmares wher...

 OK, first, when I typed that title, it was "Fault v. Responsibility." I'm not sure I will ever fully stop thinking like a lawyer.  Today I want to talk about the distance between something being your fault  and it being your responsibility. Here's another song* from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend that is obviously an exaggeration, but which I do think sums up current thinking about people's culpability for their mistakes. (Actually, this only applies to white people. For people of color, even other people's mistakes are deemed to be their fault.) An example from my own recent life: back in February, I had made a rare excursion away from my house to pick up a curbside grocery order. On my way home, someone ran a red light and turned left into my path. I slammed on my brakes but couldn't get stopped in time and we collided. The driver of the other car did not have insurance. So while the wreck was not my fault , if I wanted to be able to continue driving, I was going ...

 Hi, I'm Melanie, and I'm a compulsive overeater/sugar addict. ( Hi, Melanie! ) I don't mean that sarcastically at all. I have participated in Overeaters Anonymous at different times in my life, and its program was tremendously helpful. If we weren't in the midst of a pandemic that has kicked in-person meetings to the curb, I'd be going right now. But alas, we are in the mist of a pandemic, so I've been working on this on my own.  And today, I have achieved 6 weeks of sobriety. That's a tricky term when you're talking about food. How do you know if you've indulged your addiction on a given day? Some fellow addicts choose to set a meal plan for each day, report it to someone - preferably a sponsor (something I don't have right now), and as long as you adhere to the plan you have maintained sobriety. Others use a more amorphous standard of "Did I eat with dignity?" But what I choose to go with is not eating any sugar. At all. And also avo...