Weight Watchers

So we bit the bullet on the weight watchers deal. She has signed up and I'm bootlegging her notes. So far, so good. It seems really daunting, and planning for food during the week at work seems a bit of a pain in the ass, but the system these people have is pretty easy to get your head around. I'm not a huge fan of vegetables, but in the grand scheme of tracking these damn "points" ("points" being a ® and ™ of the Weight Watchers empire) it is simple to see how carrots and cucumber (0 points) beats the pants off of cookies (7 points for 2) or even a granola bar (4 points).

I actually underate today. I've got 10 points to spare. I'm tempted to go snack myself silly but I think I'll just go to sleep instead.

Hmmm. This post is boring and lame. Sorry about that.

The Fat.

Now that the subject has been broached, let's delve in. I'm fat, he's fat. We both would LOVE to be NOT fat. Someday.

It's hard. It's hard to be honest about why you eat. It's hard to control what you eat and it's hard to really make positive changes and stick to them. Recently we've been doing much better in terms of meal planning and portion control, but it still doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere. In fact, I weighed myself last night and I'm 2 or 3 pounds up on what I've been at for the past 2 years. Why am I gaining now?

I know for me stress has been a big detractor from my intentions with weight loss. I've been finding it extremely difficult to focus on anything aside from my state of employment, in fact. I know I eat at times to calm nerves, and I know I eat as a reward. I started my new job this week, but I had all of last week off and I viewed the week as a reward--I'd been struggling for months and things had finally come together for me. I made time for myself, ate what I wanted to eat and enjoyed every minute (and morsel!) of it. And, to be honest, I truly don't see anything wrong with rewarding yourself with food in that way once in a while.

'Once in a while' being the key here. I am very bad for confusing once in a while with whenever I want. Not the same thing.

So, tomorrow I am going with a friend and joining WeightWatchers.

She has been using the points program for close to two months and has found it easy to incorporate into her daily routine and she has found that making a weekly commitment to a meeting has helped to keep her honest. We are hoping that we can keep each other motivated.

Weight has always been an issue for me. But I have never really put forth a serious and commited attempt to lose it. But this is something that must change now. I want to get pregnant in the next year or so and I am scared to death that I will never be able to lose it after I have a baby. I've also heard stories of overweight women having a bitch of a time actually conceiving in the first place. Not to mention how much more difficult it will be for me and my flabby belly to push that baby out. Heart disease runs in my family and I already have very minor indications of heart problems. All of this is very motivating for me, but I know I will struggle with it.

To be honest, this WeightWatchers thing is scaring the hell out of me. I have no idea if I am going to have the will power it takes to beat this.

I hope so.

Hi, I'm Fat. How are you?

One thing that kind of reverberates through everything we do in life is that we are fat people. She is a size 20, and I'm a 42 inch waist. While this doesn't put the fear of god into people we sit next to on airlines, it is inconveniently large for, well, pretty much everything.

We notice that it makes everything in our life less fun, and bedamned those pro-fat folks that say this is just society making us feel shame in a thin world. There are two really big places this hits our lives, if you ask me. She can comment on her own feelings.

First, we can't have sex as long as we'd like to. This is also due to taking up cigarette smoking in the past year, but my endurance sucks balls. She is just fine with her side of thing, but that's mostly because I do all the work. Well, heck, she's just too large to make the female dominant position a workable scenario, so there is an impact, but aside from that position I can only thrust for a certain period of time before I'm just wiped. While I give it all I've got, and it brings her ample orgasms, she could go a hell of a lot longer if I didn't have to throw up the white flag. Now, there is always the tyranny of hydraulics, but I've got a lot of self control in the ejaculation department, I just can't keep the gyrations going.

Second, and an utterly amusing unrelated counterpoint, is theme park rides. We both feel more than a little conspicuous especially on the rides designed around full body restraint. We both fit just fine, but on really dramatic roller coasters its a bit like stuffing a haggis. We're more than confident enough to live with this, but we're damned if we're heading back to Disneyland or functional equivalent without losing 50lbs each.

Also, we look god damned disgusting in wet suits, which we had to wear for the whitewater rafting we did on our honeymoon. Again, we've got more than enough confidence to go ahead and do it anyway, but lets call a spade a spade folks.

But thems that don't have a problem with weight: you have no idea how hard it is to lose the pounds. I mean, really, living is hard enough sometimes without having to fine tune your lifestyle like a god damned Italian car. Now I bet we both have psychological issues with food, but fuck me if I'm talking about that today.

Tattoo

I've been thinking about getting a new tattoo. I have had a certain image in mind for some time now, but have been nervous about making such a bold commitment. The symbol I am interested in is a traditional pagan symbol called the Triple Goddess.

The only other tattoo that I have is of a maple leaf. It makes perfect sense to me. I am proud to be a Canadian and much like the people who backpack across Europe and proudly sew Canadian flags to their backpacks, I believe the image is very widely accepted as a positive thing--the whole world knows that Canadians are cool, right? I will never, ever be ashamed to be marked with this symbol.

I think the reason that I've been waffling with this is that who knows if I will be as comfortable with the image for the rest of my life. That's a scary thought. The image just feels right somehow. You will find, if you follow the above link, that the image generally is thought to represent the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone and is also a powerful symbol representing womankind. I think I can live with that. I'm sure I can live wih that.


This is the version of the symbol I am looking at getting. I'm not sure of colour yet, but you'll get the general idea. I am considering getting this on the outside of my right ankle, which is why I like the vertical representation as opposed to the more traditional horizontal orientation.

Our Last Big Hurrah!

We have been talking about going on a vacation to some exotic location in 2007 for most of 2006. A friend of mine was planning on coming along and it was to be Our Last Big Hurrah -- our last big-deal vacation before we settle down and hopefully get to making some babies.

A month or so ago we decided that we couldn't afford a trip like this right now. Given that my employment situation has been pretty sketchy for most of this year it just wasn't feasible. This meant putting it off until at least the fall of 2007 if not spring 2008. If this trip was to remain Our Last Big Hurrah, this also meant that the baby-making was on hold until after that...

I was disappointed at this realization, but who can argue with the truth? It is what it is.

About the same time we decided we couldn't afford a trip of this nature my parents started talking about going on a cruise. My younger sister is a dancer and her dance company decided to sign up to perform on a cruise in February 2007. Mom and dad want to tag along and started harassing us to join them. We can't really afford a cruise either and I said so, but mom would not relent. Now, three weeks later my mom has offered to pay for our cruise and airfare.

Initially, I held my ground saying that we couldn't go and couldn't allow them to pay our way. (I have BIG issues about this because my other married sister seems to have ALL SORTS OF SHIT bought and paid for by the bank of mom and dad...).

But then I thought to myself "what the fuck am I saying? Am I crazy??"

If this is to be Our Last Big Hurrah, then I guess you know what comes next. ;-)

We sail February 17 out of New Orleans.

All Too Common in our Household

You don't know this yet, but Resident Manservant is a BOARD GAME FREAK! Ask him how many games he owns and how many he's imported from Germany and you will begin to understand my pain....

Relationships

Relationships are complicated. I think we all know that. But I think that we are all equally unaware of just how complicated and messy they can truly get and I think that is precisely why so many relationships are doomed to failure. Every couple eventually reaches that point where all they feel they can do is say "I had no idea" and walk out. Why are we so fucking surprised when we inevitably ram headstrong into this proverbial wall?

I think media and popular entertainment has a lot to do with it--as they do with most things. When was the last time you watched, totally engrossed, a movie depicting someone's realtionship falling to bits and pieces? No one wants to watch that shit, it's too close to real life.

We are afraid of what it means to be in a relationship. And by 'be' in a relationship I don't mean simply to have a partner. I mean to actually participate in the regular upkeep and maintenance of this relationship. Sounds like a car--and it is like a car. You can't take it for granted that your car is just going to work for you day in and day out without proper maintenance. You ignore it often enough and it will inevitibaly blow up in your face.

But mostly we are all bloody afraid. Afraid to bring up issues because you may be risking your happy family life. This issue (whatever this issue might be) might be the straw that broke the camels back. You don't say anything and everything goes on as per normal. Except it isn't normal and it will never be normal again.

Our relationship has been stressed lately. Really stressed. I've been in less than stable work environments for the past 2 years at least and for most of this past year I have been looking for full time work. Resident manservant has hated his job for as long as he's had it. He is desperately unhappy at work and brings it all home. He tries to escape by playing video games or goofing off online, but the net result is that our relationships suffers for it. Add to that a significant amount of conflict over the division of labour in the household, feelings of neglect, financial stress (due to a combination of really poor money management skills, lack of stable income and regular fits of shopping to ease the pain...) and you have a relationship that has blown past the breaking point and is ready to, well, break.

Oh, I know. It isn't as bad as all that. I know it isn't. At least not today. But I'd be lying to you if I suggested that there haven't been days when I've wondered if we are going to make it.

I have finally found some full-time employment and I'm hoping that this bit of stability will finally give us the breathing room that we so desperately need. Allow us to establish a budget that works for us and that we can stick to. Allow us to focus on our home life and our family. Allow us to take care of the things that need taking care of. Maybe even allow us to think about the future (gasp!).

I don't think we know exactly what to do now. But I know that one way or another we will come through this okay. We are committed to making this work and we have to keep focused on the things in life that matter.

Each other.

The Disingenuous Populace

I find it really fucking obnoxious how disingenuine most people are. Every day we completely fail to engage each other on a level that appreciates, respects, and honors our shared humanity. This creates a barrier very few people manage to permeate, like a giant piece of cling-film forever separating our true identities from each other.

Its obnoxious for me because it makes it fucking hard if not impossible for me to be genuine with them out of fear of scaring them out of their fucking minds. I'm constantly holding back and that is what is so obnoxious. However, whatever it is for me, I see it as being destructive for so many other people. I can list a number of men and women I see letting their lives slip away because nobody ever reached out and touched them. Trapped in loveless relationships, surrounded by family built on artificial ceremony, ritual, and the auspices of obligatory congenial feelings they seem to me adrift on the sea of reality utterly unaware what it can truly be like to live.

Has anyone ever found a common salve that can bring people out of their shells? Art can inspire us to reach for it, but most often the best artist is the tortured artist and they indeed have some unique perspective on the isolation that is worse, is even more wretched. I mean, really, what the fuck kind of emotional experience does one need to have to cut ones own fucking ear off? I mean holy shit.

I could drive this opinion piece towards sex and sexuality which is where I think we all really tend to fuck each other metaphorically and the key element that has made every threesome we've done to be haunted with a tinge of vapid abandonment, but I don't want to get into that now. What I do want to discuss is this guy I know. He's kind of intellectually ...well, not slow. He's got a degree and some formal, complicated, scientific training. But he's just totally out of the loop in social skills. Utterly ungraceful in any community setting. He has the occasional amusing observation but typically butchers the fuck out of its delivery. And if he does get a laugh expect to hear it over and over again.

Most people have abandoned him socially. I have not. It drives my wife nuts as she has no tolerance for him - I mean he broke into ancient role playing game anecdotes within 30 seconds of coming over tonight - and she wonders why I put up with him. Nobody else does. And the guy used to leech off me for social interaction. He's since moved away (back to visit his family this weekend, see) and is a whole lot easier to bear these days but she still doesn't think I should bother with keeping the friendship going.

But with him I can be totally genuine and not worry for a second about his reaction. I can be completely honest because he would never, ever reject me. I don't think he sees me doing it, because it comes so naturally and I don't make a spectacle of it, but it is so fucking refreshing to talk to him as it is a totally open field to say whatever the fuck I feel like, share whatever it is I'm thinking, because he would never undermine me, criticize me, or sabotage me.

He also never challenges me which is a little dull, but that's ok. He is a really good friend that nobody understands why I tolerate and this is why. I need to keep him away from my other friends, and that's ok to, because I couldn't be with them the way I am with him.

So if you know any anime nerds with no social skills and no friends try hanging out with them, the relationship can actually be rewarding in ways impossible to find with other people. But...what if I met cool, interesting people who I could be open with? Well I'm starting to believe those fuckers just don't exist.

Thanksgiving, Eh?

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. This evening my mother cooked Thanksgiving dinner for 17 people. My mom is not all that hot in the kitchen. My parents live in an old farmhouse that my grandparents built when they were first married and mom and dad haven't changed a thing in the house since they moved into it 28 years ago.

I hate this house. Even more than I hate the house I hate the kitchen. The appliances are all 35 years old--the fridge is falling apart, the oven door falls off when you open it unless you hold it just right and there are only 2 burners on the stove that actually work. The carpet is also 35 years old. Some of it is even older.

And have I mentioned that the dishwasher doesn't work either? Just imagine how much fun we had washing dishes for 17 people by hand.

Almost 10 years ago one of the toilets started leaking and didn't stop. The result was water damage in the basement that necessitated the removal of all electrical, carpets and wall coverings, rendering the space completely useless. There was also water damage upstairs in the living room and the bathroom where all the trouble started.

Almost 10 years later none of this damage has been repaired. My mom hates the house--she has never felt at home in it because every time she attempted to make any change to it my gramma would pitch a fit and wonder why it needed changing. Every once in a while gramma would come looking for some piece of junk that was left behind and get upset if they had actually gotten rid of it. So they stopped making changes. And they stopped getting rid of the old junk. They had talked of tearing the whole place down and building something new, but they still haven't done it. I think my mom is utterly incapable of making a decision regarding the matter. My dad is utterly terrified of making a decision on her behalf. So they are living in the dive.

Argh!!!! I hate the house. I wish they would do something with it. They have no room for anything and trying to cook a fucking turkey dinner is an absolute nightmare in their kitchen. There is this show on TV called How Clean is Your House and I'm seriously thinking that they should visit my parents and let them know how many bacteria are living in their fridge and on the countertops and in the sink. I am quite literally concerned for my welfare when I eat there. But I still eat the meal that my mother cooks poorly, even though I am worried that it might kill me.

I'm going to go throw up now.

New Addition to the Family

Last night my sister gave birth to her second child - a boy. A boy whose name we all giggled at when we heard it for the first time.

I'm not going to tell you what his name is exactly to avoid inevitable Google name searches but I assure you it is worth a round of giggles. Two of the four names that have been assigned are actually decent names, but one of the other ones is actually a precious metal and the fourth is this ridiculous 'family name' that is traditionally awarded to the first born son. The result is laughable. My gramma is disgusted.

I will tell you though that a girl would have been called Saphiria Golden Rose. After the bottle of wine they were drinking when they conceived or something? I don't know.

I asked where my sister and brother-in-law had been shopping for names. A baby name site intended to be used by crack-pots, or what?

Have You Ever Wanted To Fuck Your iPod?

Because now you can!

Movies The Way I Like 'Em

Sex is good. Porn is kinda bad, because its so fucking exploitative. Exploitation is bad. But I like the idea of watching people have sex, of course I feel that voyeurism should be a participatory act if you ask me. Anyway, there is this movie coming out called Shortbus and it features actual actors (not porn actors) actually fucking. What a concept.

The IFC has released this list of the sad, sorry, pedigree of real movies with real sex which is kind of interesting but also a little depressing.

But I'm totally pumped for Shortbus.

Connection

So the Goddess is upstairs drifting off into post-coital bliss. We just had, frankly, some really amazing sex. I'd be drifting off as well but I feel a compulsion to talk about it.

And by it, I don't really mean the really amazing sex. I mean the lack of amazing sex. We used to have it all the time, but aside from tonight (and, really, the night before that, but don't let that undermine my point here) we've been in a bit of a rut. We are still at our core extraordinarily sexual people but with her being unemployed (rectified today, incidentally) we've had a lot of personal (and financial) stress that has really gotten in the way. We've tried hard not to let it get in the way and have succeeded on a lot of levels, more so than I think many would, but the amazing sex went right out the window.

So it was really nice that we got back to that tonight. And I hope we return to it tomorrow, and the night after that. Ok, maybe some intervals are a little more realistic, but my point is the connectedness that leads to that ability to have it. Its one thing to have found someone with whom that is a possibility, its a totally next level sort of thing to maintain that in times of hardship.

Sucking the Life Force from my Veins...

We live in a city of 80, 000 people that feels like a community of 800. Very religious, very family oriented, very conservative, very gossipy. The kind of place where it really does matter who you know and how much power they have. Which is very convenient if you are one of those people who knows people. We aren't those people.

We work and live and play here every day, but we struggle with making connections with people. We are social creatures, don't get me wrong, we enjoy people and love spending time with them. We just can't find very many people who we actually want to spend time with. There are very few people who know the real us. I spend a good portion of my day wondering if these people are for real? Can it even be possible to have such a narrow world view? The answer, unfortunately for me, is yes on both accounts.