The Weight is Over

A lot can happen in one year. For me, 2012 presented one of the biggest and probably most important changes I have or will ever go through in my life.  Let’s start from the beginning. (I am going to apologize in advance for this being one of my more honest posts…this doesn’t happen often.)

I’m just going to come right out and say it: for as long as I can remember, I have been overweight. For someone who is overweight, saying anything related to weight, or fat, or, dare I say it, obese is awful. It’s almost like if we say any word that would show up in a thesaurus under the listing fat, we would be drawing more attention to us. It’s even worse when you are talking about weight with all your skinny friends. And here you are, the big, fat, pink elephant in the room. Whereas I was never outwardly teased growing up because of my weight, I was definitely treated differently. Outsiders may not have noticed this. My friends and family might not have noticed this. But I definitely noticed. It wasn’t that anyone was mean or ignored me; it almost felt like no one took me seriously…because of my weight. It may not make sense, but that’s how I always felt.

I’m not sure why I never tried to lose weight in the past. For some reason, I guess I always thought that it would happen on its own. Like I would wake up one day and magically be skinny. After 25 years without magic, I apparently wasn’t getting the message that if I wanted to lose weight, I needed to be the one to make it happen. I have always been a person that takes a long time to start something; but once I start, I’m good. So, after a 25-year delay, I started.

Tomorrow, I will have been in Weight Watchers for one year. The very first day after starting the program, my department ordered Chinese food. After figuring out the points for just that one meal, I never thought I would be able to get through the program, not without leaving all of my favorite foods behind. I was known for getting frozen pizza at least two or three times a week and then stopping at McDonalds or another fast-food restaurant on the other days. But now I was expected to drop all of that for fruits and veggies and healthier options? How do people live like that?

Looking back on it, I’m embarrassed by the way I ate. I have come to realize that one of the reasons I hated grocery shopping is that I thought people would judge me based on the contents of my cart. I think I knew it then, but was too afraid to admit it. For some ridiculous reason, I thought that people were overly concerned with what I was eating, when in reality, I should have been the concerned one. I should have been the one judging my cart and telling myself to make better choices, but I didn’t.

At the risk of sounding cheesy, I now know that this sort-of reflection of past me is part of the learning process. I have learned that I can still eat the foods I want as long as I account for them. I have given up soda completely (except for the occasional diet soda mixed drink) and I no longer miss the foods that I used to love.  I don’t drink as much as I used to (not that I was an alcoholic or anything). I can go days, weeks, and even months without a candy bar…and I have and will continue to do so. I can skip that cookie in favor of a banana. I may make jokes about my taste buds living vicariously though other people, but in truth, I’ve gotten used to my current eating habits and I no longer feel the need to go back to the way I used to eat.

Oh, and exercise. I can’t believe I haven’t said anything about exercise. For people who didn’t know me pre-Weight Watchers, I was lazy. I was completely okay waking up late during the weekend, showering, and then sitting on the couch watching movies/TV and eating all day. I would spend a good five minutes trying to figure out how to carry multiple things so that I didn’t have to make more than one trip. I randomly went to the gym every now and then, but not really enough to make it count. Now, I get restless if I sit for long periods of time. Instead of trying to figure out how to carry everything in one trip, I now try to figure out how I can work in some activity. If I have a night off with absolutely nothing to do, I spend it walking around the mall for a few hours instead of watching TV (you wouldn’t think this is true but the weeks where I needed to go shopping a few nights a week for a party or whatever were the weeks I did the best when I weighed in…strange). 

So, after one full year of Weight Watchers, I am down 78 pounds, just 22 pounds short of my original goal of losing 100 pounds and hitting the healthy weight range for my age/height. I started at a size 22 (gah, I can’t believe I’m sharing that) and I am now at a size 14 or 16 depending on what store I am in. There were a bunch of little goals I kept to (mostly) myself because they were somewhat personal to me and I wanted to celebrate them in my own way. I wanted to weigh less than 200 pounds. I honestly cannot remember a time when I have weighed less than 200. When I hit that goal, I almost cried (for anyone who knows me, I never cry so this was a big deal). I wanted to weigh less than what it says on my driver’s license. I am seriously excited to go to the DMV in May 2013 so that I can tell the person working to change my weight to a lower number. I wanted to try on and fit into Express clothing. I love that store but never really had the chance to wear any of the clothing. I ended up buying the first shirt I fit into based on principle alone.

In honor of my one-year anniversary, I decided to put on the one pair of jeans I kept from last year. This is what they look like now (please also note that I bought that shirt a few years ago and was sent the wrong size...too small..and I can now finally fit into it): 

Here are before/after shots to show the difference:

 

It's all in the cards...well, I guess, hands

Yesterday, Brady and I celebrated his birthday. We had dinner at Pizza Amore, went to a psychic to get our palms read, saw The Marvelous Wonderettes at the Muse Theatre, then went downtown and ended up playing cards at the Bodega. Even though the day didn’t go as I originally planned (I wanted to have a larger surprise party but was not able to because nobody could join us), I think it was a very successful day and hopefully he enjoyed it as much as I did.

For me, going to the psychic was the highlight of the day. I have wanted to get my palm read by Gina (the psychic) for the longest time and finally the fates aligned and we were given brief glimpses into our persons and surroundings (as explained to us what a palm reading actually is).

Mine started off by Gina asking my name and birthday. She made a few comments about me being “so young” and then asked that I stay optimistic during the reading and not skeptical. She then looked at my right hand and instantly said I am going to have a long and healthy life. None of these things, other than asking for a name, did she do with Brady.

She then delved right into my work and financial situation. She said she can tell that I am having some struggles when it comes to work, mainly because there is not much room for advancement in my current situation and I am not as happy as I thought I was. She can see that I am a hard worker but said I’m not getting appreciated for my work and that I have been thinking about making some changes to better my situation. She also said that I recently just came into a little money, but that more will be coming (HA). Moral of the story, though, is that I am on the right path and if there are things in my life that I want to change I should (duh).

Then, she moved onto the relationships in my life, which is the more entertaining part of the reading (keep in mind that the gays litter my life and straight men have become mythological creatures to me). Anyway, she began by saying that she can tell I am a true friend: once I consider a person my friend, I will stand by that person no matter what. This friendship, however, is usually one sided as the other person doesn’t always reciprocate those feelings. I have a few close friends that I can really trust but she also sees that there are some two-faced gossipers among them (hence the one-sided friendship). Like my job, I’m not getting the appreciation that I deserve.

When it comes to love, she said that there is a guy in my life and the feelings between us are mutual but there is some sort of block (either I have the block or he has the block) and once the block is gone, everything will work out. She went on to say that there are two men in my life: one sincere and one insincere. She asked me if I knew who the second one is and when I said that I don't she said he is coming. Ultimately, though, I will end up with the sincere one. This is where I get confused. Is the first guy (the one who apparently feels the same way about me as I do him) supposed to be the sincere one? Or is the first guy just someone in my life not romantically attached to me. I don’t know. Also, I don’t even know if I know who the sincere one is (again, if she was speaking romantically).

At the end of the reading, she began to talk about my hair color (which is currently blonde). She asked if it is natural and when I said no, she said it looks natural and suits me because it is very bright and matches my aura. I laughed because I only dyed it a few days ago and was worried that it looked fake. When I mentioned this to her she said she must have picked up on that and that’s why she brought up the subject in the first place (yeah, okay…).

Obviously, the point of a reading like this is to make general statements and hopefully the person (i.e., me) can figure out how those readings fit into their (my) life. I learned this when I tried to study runes (sort of like tarot cards, but with stones instead) for a paper in high school and in college when a friend gave me a set of tarot cards and I tried to learn how to read those. Gina probably said a lot more to me in my reading that I don’t remember because I couldn’t figure out how to relate it to my life. While I really want to believe that there are people out there who can read a person like Gina claims she can and can predict the future a little, I can’t shake the skeptic in me that thinks it is too general to be accurate.

I am seriously tempted to go back in a few weeks to see if she says the same things.

Workout: Day One (sort of)

With only a few days crossed off in the April calendar, I have decided to seriously buckle down on my workout schedule. To tell the truth, I have had this goal for quite some time, but only recently have I really made an effort to follow through with it. I began going to the gym with a coworker a few weeks ago and got in a good rhythm for a bit. Not only were we going pretty much every day, but instead of me quitting after only 15 or 20 minutes, I had been staying for 30 or more because that’s how long she was staying.

But, as always happens when I begin working out, I get distracted by other things in my life and I tell myself I am too busy to go to the gym. The sad part about it, though, is that I actually like to workout and the feeling I get when I leave the gym. Thankfully, I was only on a two-week hiatus from working out this time and have gotten right back into it.

Not only am I going to try and hit the gym more often, but I am going to try to fix some other behaviors in my life too. Here is my list:
• Replace “snacks” with fruits and veggies when possible
• Cut down on fast food
• Drop soda (I have actually eliminated soda from my diet for years before, but started drinking it again when I started working at Kaplan to keep me awake. Which brings me to my next goal…)
• Get more sleep during the week (so that I do not rely on soda/food to keep me awake during the day)
A few of these things I have already started working on. I can usually go a few days without having a soda and really only get fast food once or twice a week. Even today, after I worked out and had the massive urge to stop at McDonalds on the way home, I resisted and ended up eating cereal instead.

Moral of the story: day one: check.

Movie review: The Last Exorcism

WARNING: SPOILERS

I meant to post this weeks ago, but I have not been able to figure out exactly how I wanted to end it. Well, that actually seems sort of fitting for this movie.

The Last Exorcism could have easily been the best horror film since A Haunting in Connecticut if it has not been for the last five minutes of the movie. Because of the “surprise” ending, all of the great elements leading up to it burned in flames faster than the lead character when he decided to charge into a bonfire during these last five minutes.

The movie, shot documentary style, began great. The viewer was introduced to Cotton Marcus, a former priest who performed exorcisms turned non-believer set on exposing the truth: exorcisms are not real. He picks a seemingly random letter from a pile asking for his services and hires a documentary crew to follow him as he performs his “last exorcism.” Marcus uses a series of smoke-and-mirror-type tricks to make his clients believe they are actually getting the exorcism they are paying for. After faking the exorcism of Nell Sweetzer (the random letter picked earlier in the movie), Marcus leaves the Sweetzer farm proud that he has yet again proven that the belief a person has in exorcisms is all that is really needed to expel a demon.

What Marcus doesn’t know is that there is more to the story. The same night that he leaves the farm, Nell shows up in his hotel room in the middle of the night miles away from her home with no clue as to how she got there. Believing that Nell needs psychological help, Marcus and his crew take her to the doctor where her father refuses care to be given to her and takes her home, still believing her to be possessed. The next morning, the crew shows up at the farm right after Nell has cut a large gash in her brother’s face and is then tied to her bed by her father. It is then that Marcus and his crew start to believe that maybe Nell is being abused in the home, this being further evidenced when a message is left on the machine from the doctor attending Nell saying she is pregnant, even though her father claims she is still “innocent.”

What makes this story entertaining and worth watching (if not for the last five minutes), is that even though many of the “scary” plot moments would be expected from a movie about exorcisms (strange twisting of the body, multiple voices from one person, etc.), it keeps the viewer questioning whether or not Nell is actually possessed. The fact that we are watching a move called the Last Exorcism makes us believe that all of these strange events are being caused by Nell’s possession, but they could also be explained by a sheltered girl’s psychotic response to family abuse and getting pregnant.

Forced by Nell’s father, Marcus conducts one more exorcism where he realizes that Nell is NOT actually possessed because she offers to give him a “blowing job” and of course any demon will know that the correct act is called a “blow job.” Caught in the lie, Nell admits she used possession as a way to hide that she had sex numerous times and got pregnant by a boy she met at a church party. After this revelation, and receiving a promise from Nell’s father to get her some help, Marcus and his crew pack up the van and drive out of town.

If Marcus had continued driving along the dirt road leaving the Sweetzer farm, I would have been happy. Yes, it’s still a somewhat unconventional ending to an exorcism movie; but, it seemed to fit the story. But, like every other recent scary movie on the market, this one decided that the “possession by pregnancy” was not a surprise enough ending so they decided to tack on what really should have been an ending for a different movie.

Without giving too much away, Marcus runs into the boy Nell claims is the father of the baby and figures out that he is of the g persuasion and can barely kiss a girl let alone get one pregnant. Figuring out that he must have missed something, they go back to the Sweetzer farm to find that no one is at the house and a bunch of demonic and cult-like symbols have been painted all over the walls and on the ceiling. Out of some weird strength that only people in scary movies have, ya know, the times when normal people would just drive away and never think about what they were driving from again, the crew run into the woods to find Nell and her father and stumble into a clearing where the town priest has gathered the townspeople in some sort of cult ritual where they are all chanting around a bonfire while the priest is helping to deliver Nell’s baby. Well, not so much a baby as a demon that has been growing inside her. Once out of her body, the priest holds up the demon baby and the townspeople begin to worship and chant the name of a demon that was mentioned ONCE earlier in the movie. In a move so unlike his character up until this moment, Marcus runs cross in hand towards the flames in hopes of saving Nell from the townspeople, where he is ultimately caught and killed. The two crew members try to run away but are also caught and killed. The movie ends with the camera on the ground filming only the darkness that is left.

Oops, I guess I gave away the entire ending. Now it won’t be much of a “surprise” for you.

Review (sort of): Paranormal Activity 2

Where have all the genuinely scary movies gone?

I miss the days when scary movies followed a certain pattern. Some unexplainable events would occur, maybe a few murders or strange visions, the main characters would figure out what’s going on and try to stop it, inevitably killing some of them (the non-virgins, of course), the bad guy would die and the hero would win. As always, there would be some helpless, half-naked female victim in a shower or locker room thrown in every now and then to, ya know, help move the story along and whatnot. There is even something comforting about that feeling you get when the main character is alone and hears a crash coming from the basement and decides to go check it out, even though the light switch doesn’t work and the batteries in the flashlight have died. You know they should just turn around and leave the house but you want them to go down there anyway because if anyone gets hurt it will be the character and not you. It’s this pattern that I’ve been missing from scary movies lately.

Case in point: the Paranormal Activity movies.

I had my reservations about seeing Paranormal Activity 2 since the release of the reused, infrared-shot movie trailers graced the presence of any web user. Despite all the buzz for this low-budget sequel, or I guess prequel, the first one didn’t leave me wanting more and I really had no interest in shelling out $10 for something when I can wait for it to show up on Netflix.

What changed my mind about this movie and got me really excited to see it were the reactions from friends on Facebook and word of mouth. “Way much more scarier than the first,” and “If you didn’t like the first, you will love the second and vice versa” were the reviews this movie got from these moviegoers that I trusted. Did I miss something? Did I watch a different movie?

Except for the addition of a dog, a baby, and a teenager, this movie was exactly like the first. The use of silence to build up the scary moment of a door slamming or a pan falling was not only reused in this second one, but was done so in an even longer, drawn-out fashion. Instead of one camera set in one room of the house, this second movie had multiple cameras showing various rooms of the house so you had to wait three or four shots for something to happen (and you knew that something was really only going to happen when the shot was in the baby’s room). One would think that the use of the multiple camera shots would be a good tool to keep audience members on the edge of their seats waiting to figure out what room the activity was going to take place in, but the way in which the movie progressed just made you wait and wait and wait for something that didn’t show, or if it did, was too small to be even worth it. Even the one aspect of the first movie that really did creep me out—when the demon dragged Katie out of bed—was rehashed in this movie, completely losing any scary quality it may have had. Of course, all of this led up to the big “surprise ending” that we have begun to expect from the more recent scary movies.

I actually blame M. Night Shamalamawhatever for this recent drop in good scary movies. Ever since his unexpected ending in the Sixth Sense, the makers of scary movies have had to step up their game and not only scare you throughout the movie, but then offer up some sort of twist at the end. It’s getting to the point where I so expect a twist at the end, that a scary movie with the basic formula (see above) has now become my surprise ending. As much as I hate it, I want my formula-driven scary movie back.

Uh oh, gotta go. I think I heard one of my roommates downstairs trying to move around in the dark. I can’t believe I forgot to change that light bulb. Crap, I forgot to buy batteries too. Oh well…

I want to see my name in...someone else's mouth

I have decided that I want to do something where complete strangers yell my name and cheer.

Let me explain.

A few days ago, I went to a Loggers game. Now, I know that the customary reaction to the idea of me going to a sporting event elicits gasps, questioning looks, and phrases like “jump back,” but let me inform you that I have been trying to win Loggers tickets at work for the longest time. I’ve just gotten really bored doing the same things over and over again so I have been trying to branch out a little (plus the seemingly straight men in tight pants help a little). Anyway, my friend Beth won tickets through work and brought her boyfriend, Brady, and me along to join in the fun. We started at Big Al’s, had some drinks and food (they have a new blue raspberry daiquiri that is super yummy), and then made our way to the court…field…oh, wait, diamond, only being asked for money from a stranger once (it is on the north side). We had really good seats, just left of the home plate.

Even though I personally make fun of myself for not understanding anything about sports, I really do know enough to enjoy a game. I may not be able to list off the various positions in football or explain how one gets an error in baseball, but I still know how the scoring works and will generally know what is going on during a game (despite the fact that I spent most of my time during sporting events in high school walking around and talking to friends). And I have actually been to a Loggers game before, but it started raining and the people I was with decided we needed to go to someplace familiar and inviting so we left halfway through the game and went to Perkins instead. Suffice it to say that I only cheered in the wrong spot once during this game.

As the game progressed and the Loggers started racking up the points (kinda), I noticed more and more that the fans were yelling the names of individual players when they were at the plate.

I remember cheering on a player when I actually paid attention to a game in high school, but I come from a very small town and I knew that person; that person probably sat next to me in a class earlier that day. And I guess it makes sense that fans yell the names of professional athletes because they are famous and as a culture, we like to think that we know famous people. But, I guess I never really thought the Loggers were that well known.

But after hearing “Go [insert player’s name here]” or “Good eye” from a random person in the crowd, I wondered why it’s only okay to do this in sports? Why is it that we only cheer on strangers in sports and why can’t a stranger cheer for me when I am working?

That’s what I want—I want a crowd to sit behind me at work while I edit books and cheer for me every time I use they’re/their/there correctly. I want someone to yell “GO ASHLEY!” when I find a word that is spelled incorrectly. The fans can carry around large, foam, red pens and pendants that say “YOU’RE not number 1 unless your pencil is number 2” or something like that. Instead of a number on the back of a jersey, there will be my last name with a proofreading mark below. There are so many possibilities.

Wow, this is probably the most I have ever written about sports in my entire life. Maybe I should go see a play or something…

On a more serious note...

So, it wouldn't be me if I didn't go weeks without posting, right? Well, this was something I wrote on 1/7 of this year and never got around to posting it. In truth, when I wrote it, I didn't plan on posting it at all because it's not something I would normally share with the threes of people who actually read my blog (threes? okay, so maybe ones). Anyway, here it is.

New year, new journal. That’s how it goes right? Not for me. For some reason, even though I am supposed to be this huge reading/writing nerd, I have never been one to write in journals. My past experiences with journals have been to start one, write for a few days, stop for a few weeks, pick it up again and vow to do better, but in the end, I never do. I doubt it’s a habit that’s going to be hard to break.

Today, I realized I need to break that habit.

My mom called me at work, leaving one of her notorious the world-is-ending voicemails. In my head, I was thinking that it was either another fight with my brother or something was wrong with my grandma. My grandma has been battling—wait, ignoring—her Alzheimer’s for the past few years and lately it has been getting significantly worse. This past Christmas, she did not show up to our family get-together because of what my family called “the incident”. After asking what they meant by “the incident”, they described that my mom had woken up to a phone call from my grandmother at 2 am trying to call 911, but instead she called my house. Eventually, my mom convinced my grandmother to hand the phone off to my grandfather who woke up to find that every window and door had been opened by my grandmother—in December. Thankfully, I’m from a super small town in Iowa where nothing happens. That, and she didn’t try to leave the house.

Christmas is nowhere near the first time my grandmother has done something strange because of her Alzheimer’s. On Thanksgiving, she grabbed my cousin’s belly, who had been pregnant for probably 6-7 months by then, and asked her when that happened. She then turned to a mirror and began rambling about the nice woman who was waving back. My grandma talking to the nice woman in the mirror is something that has been happening ever since.

Pretty much everyone in the family has tried to get my grandma to do something about her illness. They have tried to get her to take meds by being honest and talking to her and have even tried tricking her into taking the meds. Only once have they succeeded in getting her to take her meds, but that lasted only a few days.

Anyway, the reason my mom called me today was to tell me that her, my aunt, my uncle, and my grandpa put my grandma in a nursing home earlier. My grandpa finally realized how serious my grandmother’s condition was when he woke up to her taking a knife to the kitchen floor. They also discovered that when she would lock herself in the bathroom for hours at a time she was doing the same thing to the floor in there. I can’t imagine what it would be like to wake up in the middle of the night to someone you have been married to for so many years cutting up a kitchen floor and that person not having any notion of why this not “normal” behavior. Just seeing that and wanting to do something to help, but not really being able to must have torn my grandpa apart. Maybe that’s why he ultimately decided to put her in a nursing home—that’s really the only way he can help her.

My mom said the hardest part of the entire situation was the look my grandmother gave them when they brought her there—a mixture of hurt, anger, and probably disbelief. Just imagining that look is what almost brings me to tears.

One of the saddest parts about this entire situation is that my grandmother is in perfect physical health for a woman her age. Until recently, when my grandpa had to start monitoring her more often then he used to, she had always been active woman. She walked every day, ate healthy, and took really good care of herself. She was probably in better shape then I am. But now with this illness, it doesn’t really seem to matter how physically fit she is, her mind is what is hurting her.

All of this, and the possibility that I might someday be in the same situation, is what brings me to my computer. I don’t want to live my life forgetting that a family member is pregnant or forgetting what I look like. I can’t live like that. I want to remember as much as possible. If it takes me sitting at my computer for an hour each day to record, that’s what I have to do. And so…here I go.

**Update: Since I wrote this at the beginning of January, my grandmother has been taken out of the nursing home. The nurses that were taking care of her decided that her wandering around was not ideal and gave her this alarm that she had to sit on and every time she would try and get up to move around, it would go off. It got to the point that my grandfather could not see her miserable like this and brought her home.