Having a Weight Problem

I have a weight problem. I know, I know...lots of people have weight issues - but every time I mention mine I get this response, "I WISH I had your problem!"

Um...no you don't. I'm all of about 99 pounds now. Sure, when you weigh 250, losing a few pounds is great, but not when you are about 115 to start with. And when you can see all the bones in your body without needing x-rays, it's pretty much hell trying to gain back any weight no matter how hard you try. Trust me.

Over the past year or so - I've lost enough weight to easily slide out of my pants and I can fit into all my stuff I had (pre-marriage days) when I had a job, only now I don't have a job...and dressing to the nines just to post Facebook posts or clean every once in a blue moon, is pretty weird. But...I'm worried about it - and, whenever I worry...I either do one of two things...or maybe three. Okay, four...but no more than four.

1. I Google. It's on WebMD or MayoClinic.com - so it's not like I'm going to BobsDiseaseoftheMonth.com - but, within three clicks, I'm usually dead. I've been placed on "Internet Restriction" by so many doctors...it's actually kind of comical...in a sick, morbid sort of way.

2. I cry. I cry and then I post on Facebook or I call a friend and cry. Tonite I cried after a friend called me. That was nice for a change. The fact that someone called me...not that I was crying again.

3. I call up an on-call doctor or make a doctor's appointment the next day. See above two reasons. This is my justification for doing this.

4. I think "Hey, that would make a great blog idea!" Unfortunately, I don't ever write these things down and by the time I think about them again, six months later, they have lost something in the time span...mostly the initial funny and the interesting bits.

For example, here is a partial bit - it was much funnier about a year ago when I first thought of it...so add in all the stuff you think would have made it funnier and more interesting, as that's the way it was meant to be.

Being obsessed with weight has been an issue for millennia. It wasn't just those Roman vomitoriums I'm talking about, either.

You have your fairy tales...like the one where Snow White or Sleeping Beauty falls asleep for 100 years...or at least long enough to drop those 50 extra pounds she had before she was "thin enough" in that vain Prince's eyes for him to finally want to kiss her.

Then there's "The Princess and the Pea". Face it, only a bony chick would feel a tiny lump under 20+ mattresses. And only a really skinny chick could have scampered up all those mattresses to start with...especially since they probably made ladders back then out of twigs and vines.

And then there are Greek myths. Now, I love Greek myths - but the Greeks were obsessed with beauty to start with, after all, they did give us Narcissus, who (undoubtedly) basically starved to death after falling in love with his own reflection in a pool of water.

Oh...they don't tell you the "starved to death" fixation...but I am certain it was a running issue with the Greeks back then.

Take Icarus and Daedalus -- no one (in their right mind) who weighs 300 pounds would envision thinking they could make some wings out of a bunch of feathers and wax and actually fly to the sun. Only a person starving to death has thoughts like that. That's probably the last thing you think of before dying of starvation...or dying, period: going toward the light. Well, in this case, that light was the sun...and Icarus, being delusional from not eating for weeks on end...figured he was light enough to fly up to the sun. Sorry...no one's that thin...and, yes, you CAN be too thin -- so much for that myth.

Then, to round out my point, there's poor Persephone. Persephone was kidnapped and taken to the Underworld by Hades...but, she didn't want anything to do with him...and her mom, who just happened to be the goddess of the harvest, pined away until Zeus finally fessed up that Hades had her. (Zeus was a jerk and liked to screw with people, by the way.) Somewhere in the bargain Persephone is given a pomegranate to eat, and unbeknownst to her, the number of seeds she eats is the number of months she has to live in the Underworld. Let's just say everyone was lucky she could only kick back a few seeds.

Do you have any idea how fattening a pomegranate seed is? No one does. It's like negative calories...like celery. It takes more work to eat it - you expend calories just trying to eat the edible bits. She must have weighed all of 99 pounds...and was probably in her own personal hell just like I am...

...but in more "weighs" than one.



Halloween (Part I)

Yes, I know I said I'd repost a few "old" blogs...but I was inspired to write this just now.


Is it my imagination or are the 'Trick or Treaters' becoming increasingly older and few and far between as each year goes by? Now, I know there are a lot of churches and other places around the area which hold their own events - but, in my opinion, nothing can beat going around, door-to-door, to elicit free candy from people you don't know. And while that's a big part of the fun, it's not THE part I like the most. Wasn't what I liked best back when I was a kid...isn't what I like best now. And with less and less little kids partaking in it...well, Halloween, in general, is kinda losing its original appeal.

What I always liked best was being able to dress up and go off to school wearing my costume. I lived for that. All year long. Second only...maybe...to Christmas. In fact, when I really think about it...I think I liked it more.

My parents never actually BOUGHT me a Halloween costume - we invented things from stuff lying around the house...plus my mother could sew. I remember (in vain) that I "oh so wanted" to be a princess...with all the trappings of a "bona fide" fairy-tale princess: the poofy, scratchy-itchy skirt netting, the sparkly cardboard star on a stick that you'd wave in desperation of something magic-like actually happening...as if magic "magically occurred" once you glued two otherwise innocuous and cheap glittered components together - and...to complete my fantasy ensemble: that hideous 1960s hard plastic princess face mask. You know the one, don't you? The one you can't keep on your face if you tried even tho you knotted off that ridiculously long semi-elastic string in the back with the two metal clasps that would always pop out of their respective hole-holders. The one with the enormous "Little Orphan Annie" eyeholes that, no matter how hard you tried, still ended up lower than your own personal eyes - so the only thing you could do was to look down and hope your parent paid attention to the terrain when they dragged you by the hand down the sidewalk that always seemed to love skinning my knees for some reason (personally I don't think my knees "unscabbed" until I hit my teen years). The one that always had that pasty white complexion with the "yellow" hair...because we all know that only true princesses have alabaster skin and hair the colour of the "fairest" Crayola crayon in the 8-pack...because Disney told us so. And the one your friend let you try on...for a brief shining moment...before she snatched it off your face with a stinging rubber band "thwak" and obligatory "hair pull" to the back of the head.

And "joy of joys", I remember one year winning for "best costume". I went as a Hindu...complete with my makeshift "lipstick-anointed" red bindi - not sure if that is "allowed" or "politically correct" to do nowadays...but it's a moot point anyway as you can't dress up at most schools. Regardless, as a child, I certainly didn't do it with any form of disrespect...I just loved the whole "sari" thing and, so, that is who I went as...as that's the fabric my mother had - and the costume was indeed gorgeous...and worthy of the accolades that only a third-grade teacher can bestow upon a student.

But it seems Halloween gets such a bad rap from the same people who, as kids, loved dressing up...only now they don't allow their kids to dress up and they certainly don't tolerate their schools allowing them to. When I was a child, the furthest thing from my - and my friends' minds - was "the devil worshipping practices and rituals surrounding a pagan holiday"...and don't even get me started on that one - you can just Google for yourselves.

So, it's a letdown to dress up (and yes, I did dress up - I dress up each time...this time I was Medusa as I love Greek myths) and see a handful of kids walking around delighting in being a little "different" than they are the other 364 days a year. Even if you don't trust the "candy givers"...toss out the candy, but let the little ones live a little...and by all means - bring back the costumes at school. Especially now with all the schools regimenting a set uniform...one day a year to buy a wig and let your hair down wouldn't be asking for too much, would it? At least for the elementary grades. Don't deprive them of the joy I once felt...because, for some kids, in the homes they grow up in and the stuff they are subjected to (and I know...I was beaten as a child, with a belt, by my father)...it's seriously the most fun they might have all year...and it's also the stuff good childhood memories are made of.