So, as I have annoyed so many by pointing out, I've been listening to John Tesh at night. His staff culls magazines and health journals for good things that we might have missed because one person can't read everything . I need a job there. Anyway, when it comes to eating habits that pack on the pounds, I have taken some of his recommendations and found that in eight months I am back into a 14/16 from a 22. The greatest weight loss has been in the last 4 that I have been working as a housekeeper.
First, I got rid of all the clothes that were given to me that I accepted becasue I couldn't afford to shop. The clothes were all big and baggy. Two to three sizes larger than what I wore at the time, they were perfect for layering in a cold house I coulddn't afford to heat.
That was suggestion number two: turn off the air conditioner. When your body is cold it eats more to increase its temperature to normal. Oops.
Three, don't eat in front of the tv. 10 seasons of Stargate... YIKES!
11 seasons of Frasier Double YIKES! Good thing I only have one season of Star Trek.
So now I have to shop for some reasonable clothes. I've been, obviously, shopping at Catherines and Fashion Bug. A couple of years ago they resized and reshaped jeans for the plus size gal. I started out in a four that was a little baggy. I bought a three just in case. About three months ago I was able to pull the three off without unbuttoning them. Now I am pulling them up so I have to have a 2/ Guess what... 2 is the last size before I can't wear their clothes anymore. And as tops go, I've always been two sizes bigger on top. I wish I could say it was casue I've got huge mammaries. It isn't, I have a hernia right below my diaphram and bad posture. So it is always a surprise to me what my top size will be.
Catherines ahd a huge clearance sale and I tried on some lacey tank tee shirts... size0/1, 14/16 for you folks on the old system. And guess what... I swim in it! I bought them anyway because they were only 6.00 each and I still need to hide that hernia. But the rally cool thing is that I can see the narrows of the hourglass. I've been a barrel for the last three years. YEAH!!!!!!!!!
I am so happy.
The dimples where the shoulder and neck meet are deeper. I can see my collar bones when I am not trying. And I can feel each of my ribs now. I haven't felt them since I was 12. I'm still gonna have a flat butt... courtesy Gramma Lucy. But everything else is shaping up quite nicely.
And i still think the biggest part of this is realizing that weight makes for bad armour. The best defense is a great offense... what would offend my detractors more than being happy and living well?
Nothing.
Huzzah!!!!!!!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
1000 rainy days
So the e-dating thing is just ridiculously unpredictble like the weather. I can get great gobs of flirts then absolutely nothing. ACG remains a steadfast friend and I am so thankful, cause I think I would be insane right about now. The composer, as I said, quit talking to me because I am a mystic/spiritualist. You all remember no pics guy. He must have been very unimpressed with what he saw because I never heard back after the pic went up. The 60 year old in NY still sends flirts even htough he told me he wasn't interested. Then there is this other guy in Florida who is my secret admirer. I write him to tell him that I am interested in talking but that I can not be so set a person with so little to go on. he never writes back. So then the PhD sends a flirt. HE sounds perfect albeit faked. Nothing still in all these weeks. So then I am talking one night to ACG, having perhaps the worst PMS that I have ever had and I told ACG I was taking down my profiles. We get off the phone and I am in tears tearing through the files to find the link to the site.
Mail alert tells me that I have new mail from the site. I link over. And there is this profile that I had seen a few days before. We'll call him MA. I looked at the time stamp. He'd sent the flirt 45 minutes before I found it. During the middle of my poor me party, MA sends me this very nice flirt, then an e-mail and then another e-mail. I think it is unusual and desperate and I almost deleted them without responding. Now, several weeks later I think that it was definately G'd's hand because while he was sending me the e-mail I was planning to jump from a very tall suspension e-bridge. So I sent an e-mail back.
MA's profile was thorough, which is one of the reasons that I was going to send him a flirt when I first saw his profile. Seeing that he described himself as slim stayed my hand. And when I reread his profile after he contacted me, I still didn't think he meant me. He said things that I could not stand to hear. One of those was that I was gorgeous.
TANGENTIAL ALERT!
I never have felt "gorgeous". I have felt, "pretty", "attractive", "decent looking" and beautiful in an Eastern European Jew sort of way... I see a little of the gypsy in my eyes and through the bridge of my nose. I don't really look exactly right for the social ethnicity I grew up in and finding out that I am Jewish and look so much like Gramma Ada has helped tremedously. It is an aesthetic difference that is hard to put into words when you are an artist let alone a lay person. So all I ever heard from the other kids was that I didn't look quite right for this part of Northern MI. I don't have classic scandanavian looks, I do not have clearly defined English/Welsh/Celtic looks, nor am I exactly what everyone thinks of as German because I don't have the olympic swimmer face. I really am a mutt and that is how I was treated. I was so bland when I was younger I couldn't see that I looked like Dad's or Mom's side. As I hit my late 20's I started to see myself grow into my features. And then my cousins saw me at Dad's funeral and said I looked exactly like Gramma Ada at "that age". So now that I know where I fit in the ethnic realm, I can look at my features and say that I am pretty okay for a blondish Jew whereas before I was a subparr Northern girl.
And it is still hard for me to accept MA's assertion that I am gorgeous. And I have to be honest here. I thought that if I was gorgeous he would have to look like Abe Vigoda. I mean no offense to the Fisch, he has great features that artists like to draw because he is so interesting, and he was a looker in his youth, but I have never been attracted to that type... you know, Nimoy/Anderson/Sting et all. So I was nervous about what the photos would reveal. We talked for a couple of weeks and I was having a hard time really relating to him on the level that he was asking me. I couldn't say he was gorgeous because I didn't know what he looked like. I couldn't tell if there was a spark of attraction because I had no opportunity to read his eyes. And I'm cagey anyway when it comes to stuff like this. So he gets frustrted and its almost over... "You just seem to be shutting me out while I am pouring my heart out to you."
I ask for his patience once more and explain why it is so difficult. He agrees not to give up until I have seen his pictures. And he sent them. In his eyes, I see kindness, gentleness and a passion that needs an outlet. I see no violence, no crazy "Scott Petersen" eyes and in short, I see family. In more than one way.
We have the same apples of our cheeks. They start right at the narrow part of the bridge right below the brow, curve deeply toward the jaw with a smooth fleshy texture. Both of our eyes are set deeper than the Western European norm I see around me all the time. With age they seem to receed into the skull so with 14 years on me his are set deeper than mine. His are set as deep as gramma and grampa's. Gramma, Grampa, cousins Sharon, Kevin and Eddie, me and Pam have very deep crinkles around the outsides of our eyes, have had them at any age... just like MA. MA has the same mouth as the male cousins and he has the height. In one photo he looks completely relaxed, that is where he looks so much like the jewish cousins. In the other photo he looks like Uncle Billy, dad's brother. I panicked. He has a balding spot that runs up the middle of his crown just like all the Crocker boys. But the top is wispy curly thin and looks like it can't decide what it wants to do... stay or leave.
I look at his photo and I think "home". I never thought that with Ethan. I never thought that with He Who. I did think that with someone once. But he didn't really want the same thing I wanted. That guy was right about one thing though; that is the basis for the discussion on how much he looks like my family.
That guy, we'll call him Grey, was also an artist. And he noticed through carefull observation that the couples who resembled each other in some way were more likely to have a long term stabil relationship. We used to go to Borders and match up the people in the stacks, then sit at the cafe and see who sat together. He was always right. Grey explained that when a mismatched couple is together it frequently falls apart because one is outside of their "design specs". A plain guy with a super model girl is either deluding himself with trophy wife Barbie or is paying through the nose to keep her because she needs a sugar daddy. She could also be making someone else jealous. But when there is a dissimilarity to features, there is a heightened level of paranoid mistrust because someone better will come along and steal the more "attractive" partner. The engineer compsosers opening line was "We share common features, I know we are matched well". So Grey isn't the only one who thinks like that. The other thing that makes me think there is something to his theory is my own observations over the years.
MA looks so much like "Us" there will be little animosity among my family when they meet him since they will, hopefully, take the visual cues that say "He is one of us." And I do mean the cousins. I don't care what Bro thinks. As far as what I think...
I think that he is as handsome as he is kind. We have so many interests and similar pursuits. He promises me that if I need space, one of us can go to the house on the Cape. There are horses we can ride, u-pick fruits and veggies we can pick and process, tons of pets and a lot to do in Boston. He doesn't go to the temple I got the bad vibe from and I feel him beside me every minute of the day. It has been a long time since I have felt this kind of a connection: Laban said to Jacob there is no distance because G'd is always between us. Where ever you go we are family.
ACG thinks that I am running away from my issues here as MA wants to marry me and it hasn't even been a month. Kabbalistically there is no such thing as running away because you are always going somewhere even if you have no clue what the destination is. But I did the aleph beit reading and the signs are good. The reading ended with the Chet as in chuppah. Verta told me a long time ago that she saw me eventually living very happily in Virginia as the person I have been struggling to become. A few conversations ago MA told me he wants to retire in Virginia with a veggie garden and our own horses. I don't think I am running away. I think I have been waiting impatiently in this town for several things to happen: one to find a resolution to the HE Who problem [check]; find a maggid to help me mature to the point of self sustainability [check]; build confidence in my art [check]; expand my sphere if influence beyond my brother's boundaries [check]; have the balls to go online and be the adventurer that an Aquarian is born to be [check]; be in a position to recognize a good man when I see him [check check].
I am not running away from anything. I can see the finish line of the marathon I have been running.
You can call me Pollyanna if you like. And at this point everything still is dependent upon that spark of the shekinah glory being there when MA and I meet for the first time. If it isn't then this is a wash anyway. But my gut tells me it will be there. I belong with him. Not to, with. This isn't a possessive thing so much as a cooperative thing.
Mail alert tells me that I have new mail from the site. I link over. And there is this profile that I had seen a few days before. We'll call him MA. I looked at the time stamp. He'd sent the flirt 45 minutes before I found it. During the middle of my poor me party, MA sends me this very nice flirt, then an e-mail and then another e-mail. I think it is unusual and desperate and I almost deleted them without responding. Now, several weeks later I think that it was definately G'd's hand because while he was sending me the e-mail I was planning to jump from a very tall suspension e-bridge. So I sent an e-mail back.
MA's profile was thorough, which is one of the reasons that I was going to send him a flirt when I first saw his profile. Seeing that he described himself as slim stayed my hand. And when I reread his profile after he contacted me, I still didn't think he meant me. He said things that I could not stand to hear. One of those was that I was gorgeous.
TANGENTIAL ALERT!
I never have felt "gorgeous". I have felt, "pretty", "attractive", "decent looking" and beautiful in an Eastern European Jew sort of way... I see a little of the gypsy in my eyes and through the bridge of my nose. I don't really look exactly right for the social ethnicity I grew up in and finding out that I am Jewish and look so much like Gramma Ada has helped tremedously. It is an aesthetic difference that is hard to put into words when you are an artist let alone a lay person. So all I ever heard from the other kids was that I didn't look quite right for this part of Northern MI. I don't have classic scandanavian looks, I do not have clearly defined English/Welsh/Celtic looks, nor am I exactly what everyone thinks of as German because I don't have the olympic swimmer face. I really am a mutt and that is how I was treated. I was so bland when I was younger I couldn't see that I looked like Dad's or Mom's side. As I hit my late 20's I started to see myself grow into my features. And then my cousins saw me at Dad's funeral and said I looked exactly like Gramma Ada at "that age". So now that I know where I fit in the ethnic realm, I can look at my features and say that I am pretty okay for a blondish Jew whereas before I was a subparr Northern girl.
And it is still hard for me to accept MA's assertion that I am gorgeous. And I have to be honest here. I thought that if I was gorgeous he would have to look like Abe Vigoda. I mean no offense to the Fisch, he has great features that artists like to draw because he is so interesting, and he was a looker in his youth, but I have never been attracted to that type... you know, Nimoy/Anderson/Sting et all. So I was nervous about what the photos would reveal. We talked for a couple of weeks and I was having a hard time really relating to him on the level that he was asking me. I couldn't say he was gorgeous because I didn't know what he looked like. I couldn't tell if there was a spark of attraction because I had no opportunity to read his eyes. And I'm cagey anyway when it comes to stuff like this. So he gets frustrted and its almost over... "You just seem to be shutting me out while I am pouring my heart out to you."
I ask for his patience once more and explain why it is so difficult. He agrees not to give up until I have seen his pictures. And he sent them. In his eyes, I see kindness, gentleness and a passion that needs an outlet. I see no violence, no crazy "Scott Petersen" eyes and in short, I see family. In more than one way.
We have the same apples of our cheeks. They start right at the narrow part of the bridge right below the brow, curve deeply toward the jaw with a smooth fleshy texture. Both of our eyes are set deeper than the Western European norm I see around me all the time. With age they seem to receed into the skull so with 14 years on me his are set deeper than mine. His are set as deep as gramma and grampa's. Gramma, Grampa, cousins Sharon, Kevin and Eddie, me and Pam have very deep crinkles around the outsides of our eyes, have had them at any age... just like MA. MA has the same mouth as the male cousins and he has the height. In one photo he looks completely relaxed, that is where he looks so much like the jewish cousins. In the other photo he looks like Uncle Billy, dad's brother. I panicked. He has a balding spot that runs up the middle of his crown just like all the Crocker boys. But the top is wispy curly thin and looks like it can't decide what it wants to do... stay or leave.
I look at his photo and I think "home". I never thought that with Ethan. I never thought that with He Who. I did think that with someone once. But he didn't really want the same thing I wanted. That guy was right about one thing though; that is the basis for the discussion on how much he looks like my family.
That guy, we'll call him Grey, was also an artist. And he noticed through carefull observation that the couples who resembled each other in some way were more likely to have a long term stabil relationship. We used to go to Borders and match up the people in the stacks, then sit at the cafe and see who sat together. He was always right. Grey explained that when a mismatched couple is together it frequently falls apart because one is outside of their "design specs". A plain guy with a super model girl is either deluding himself with trophy wife Barbie or is paying through the nose to keep her because she needs a sugar daddy. She could also be making someone else jealous. But when there is a dissimilarity to features, there is a heightened level of paranoid mistrust because someone better will come along and steal the more "attractive" partner. The engineer compsosers opening line was "We share common features, I know we are matched well". So Grey isn't the only one who thinks like that. The other thing that makes me think there is something to his theory is my own observations over the years.
MA looks so much like "Us" there will be little animosity among my family when they meet him since they will, hopefully, take the visual cues that say "He is one of us." And I do mean the cousins. I don't care what Bro thinks. As far as what I think...
I think that he is as handsome as he is kind. We have so many interests and similar pursuits. He promises me that if I need space, one of us can go to the house on the Cape. There are horses we can ride, u-pick fruits and veggies we can pick and process, tons of pets and a lot to do in Boston. He doesn't go to the temple I got the bad vibe from and I feel him beside me every minute of the day. It has been a long time since I have felt this kind of a connection: Laban said to Jacob there is no distance because G'd is always between us. Where ever you go we are family.
ACG thinks that I am running away from my issues here as MA wants to marry me and it hasn't even been a month. Kabbalistically there is no such thing as running away because you are always going somewhere even if you have no clue what the destination is. But I did the aleph beit reading and the signs are good. The reading ended with the Chet as in chuppah. Verta told me a long time ago that she saw me eventually living very happily in Virginia as the person I have been struggling to become. A few conversations ago MA told me he wants to retire in Virginia with a veggie garden and our own horses. I don't think I am running away. I think I have been waiting impatiently in this town for several things to happen: one to find a resolution to the HE Who problem [check]; find a maggid to help me mature to the point of self sustainability [check]; build confidence in my art [check]; expand my sphere if influence beyond my brother's boundaries [check]; have the balls to go online and be the adventurer that an Aquarian is born to be [check]; be in a position to recognize a good man when I see him [check check].
I am not running away from anything. I can see the finish line of the marathon I have been running.
You can call me Pollyanna if you like. And at this point everything still is dependent upon that spark of the shekinah glory being there when MA and I meet for the first time. If it isn't then this is a wash anyway. But my gut tells me it will be there. I belong with him. Not to, with. This isn't a possessive thing so much as a cooperative thing.
updates updates updates
On the technological front:
I bought a Fujifilm FinePix A500 series digital camera for 40.00. Regular price on such an item in the store runs between 150.00-179.00. I bought it from Dylan just to be able to start learning how these crazy things work.
First lesson is a lesson I should have learned from a regular point and shoot: understanding the fundamentals is well... fundamental to taking a good shot. I always thought that the camera was designed to do the work and one just had to point and shoot. WRONG!
WARNING! DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER!!
Second lesson: it ain't as easy as Pam(sister) makes it look. We both went to Cedar Point for our senior trips. My photos were grainy and nobody was really where in the photo I wanted them. I took a picture of the same Ferris wheel she did. Mine looks like I took the picture. Hers looks like a postcard. I watched it come off the photo processor when it was developed so I know it came from her camera and she took the photo because no one else was allowed to touch it... not even Heather.
And there is a statement on our creativity. I can draw the cows coming home. She can compose a picture of the herd that makes you think you are walking in the field yourself. She says she is not creative. I say she is creative where I am not. It is in the vision. Our depth of field is different. I can tell because it is so dang blasted hard for me to take a good shot!
So the first day I have the camera I start taking pictures of my artwork. I took 15 shots and washed the color out of all of them. So then I read the manual (told ya, tomboy) that meant three things: a. I had to adjust the ISO which sets the sensitivity to light settings; b. consider the ambient lighting to set the white balance; c. suppress the flash [take away his Wheaties, ba da bum]. So erase the photos and start again. The photos that are on the AOG site were taken with the webcam [what a pain!]. The new photos are sooooooo much better but still not what I wanted [see Michelle Ward's site].
This camera has a MACRO setting which is specifically designed for close ups so that I can show detailed embellishments that I am particularly proud of, meaning that they turned out way better than I expected. The reason for this is also so that I can have a record of HOW I did something so that I can get it right without struggle later. This is great for the technical things like wire wraps, jump rings and frogs (two part buckles sans straps).
Just in case you are wondering, yes, I do expect that I can just pick up a camera and instantly know how to do something. Part of that is because that has been true of things I felt no pressure to understand. And in part because I have had so many teachers tell me that I have an amazing talent that way. My art teacher at Baker said she imagined that watching daVinci work would have been like watching me with a new medium... far more successful with the first attempt in a completely new format than the average person would have after weeks of struggle. I think that must have gone to my head. It is TOTALLY unreasonable to expect that everything should be easy to grasp just because so many subjects don't get too far away from me. So believe me when I say I am easy to anger when dealing with myself. With other people I can have the patience of Job... me, not so much.
I bought a Fujifilm FinePix A500 series digital camera for 40.00. Regular price on such an item in the store runs between 150.00-179.00. I bought it from Dylan just to be able to start learning how these crazy things work.
First lesson is a lesson I should have learned from a regular point and shoot: understanding the fundamentals is well... fundamental to taking a good shot. I always thought that the camera was designed to do the work and one just had to point and shoot. WRONG!
WARNING! DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER!!
Second lesson: it ain't as easy as Pam(sister) makes it look. We both went to Cedar Point for our senior trips. My photos were grainy and nobody was really where in the photo I wanted them. I took a picture of the same Ferris wheel she did. Mine looks like I took the picture. Hers looks like a postcard. I watched it come off the photo processor when it was developed so I know it came from her camera and she took the photo because no one else was allowed to touch it... not even Heather.
And there is a statement on our creativity. I can draw the cows coming home. She can compose a picture of the herd that makes you think you are walking in the field yourself. She says she is not creative. I say she is creative where I am not. It is in the vision. Our depth of field is different. I can tell because it is so dang blasted hard for me to take a good shot!
So the first day I have the camera I start taking pictures of my artwork. I took 15 shots and washed the color out of all of them. So then I read the manual (told ya, tomboy) that meant three things: a. I had to adjust the ISO which sets the sensitivity to light settings; b. consider the ambient lighting to set the white balance; c. suppress the flash [take away his Wheaties, ba da bum]. So erase the photos and start again. The photos that are on the AOG site were taken with the webcam [what a pain!]. The new photos are sooooooo much better but still not what I wanted [see Michelle Ward's site].
This camera has a MACRO setting which is specifically designed for close ups so that I can show detailed embellishments that I am particularly proud of, meaning that they turned out way better than I expected. The reason for this is also so that I can have a record of HOW I did something so that I can get it right without struggle later. This is great for the technical things like wire wraps, jump rings and frogs (two part buckles sans straps).
Just in case you are wondering, yes, I do expect that I can just pick up a camera and instantly know how to do something. Part of that is because that has been true of things I felt no pressure to understand. And in part because I have had so many teachers tell me that I have an amazing talent that way. My art teacher at Baker said she imagined that watching daVinci work would have been like watching me with a new medium... far more successful with the first attempt in a completely new format than the average person would have after weeks of struggle. I think that must have gone to my head. It is TOTALLY unreasonable to expect that everything should be easy to grasp just because so many subjects don't get too far away from me. So believe me when I say I am easy to anger when dealing with myself. With other people I can have the patience of Job... me, not so much.
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