Abracadabra

How do you make someone disappear from your life? How many contacts and messages and emails and photos must you delete before they are totally erased? With modern technology there is always one more step, one more “saved” addressed that just won’t go away after pressing that huge X in the upper corner. Each time I press it, each time I “confirm deletion” my heart breaks off another piece.

How long does it take for my throat not to tighten when I see that name in my “Most Contacted” or “Recommended Recipients” lists, and will it hurt even more when the name fades away to join the pile of invisible “Unused Contacts”?

There must be a service someplace that can wipe an entire system – a full history of a person’s existence in one’s life so that you can really have a clean slate. But then is that really what I want? If someone approached me this very minute and offered to take all these electronic memories away for five bucks, would I pay them? Or is there something in the back of my head that wants just one little corner of this person to exist , someplace hidden in my phone or my Gmail so that when I trip over it 10 years from now I smile and remember all the perfect beauty and hearty laughs.

Maybe it’s too early to empty my recycle bin….. I’ll do it tomorrow.

Still Remember Me?

Has it really been 8 months since I have blogged – WTF?  I knew my shrinking size would be the demise of my funny – DAMN YOU BODY!! So for all of you that need a refresher in the life of G here is your way overdue update:

Men – NONE. Cookie is getting married on Labor Day and I refuse to attend the shin dig without a date. My only requirements are; looks good in a suit and is very charming not only towards me but to all other guests seated at our table. EXTRA bonus if he can dance, but that is not a deal breaker. He can use that time off the dance floor to ogle me and patiently await my return with a fresh G&T in hand. Because of this looming event on my manless horizon Cookie instructed me to re-up my Match.com paid membership and start chumming the waters. For the past 3 months I did just that – I wrote and responded and even went on some very awful dates with filthy socially awkward clueless men. I did however have ONE – no TWO lovely dates…. but we never made it to three. But I had my FIRST 2^nd date EVER! Yes friends, this 41 year old women has finally popped her 2^nd date cherry, sure took long enough. Anyways the 3 month subscription expired last week and I’m not sure if I am up for it again. It is emotionally challenging and gut wrenching, especially when I sent out over 130 emails and NEVER received a response. The only men I met where ones who contacted me first – beggars can’t be choosers.

Here is a good one:

Health – My Thyroid is doing its thing (thanks to meds) and my year end physical was stellar! My GP is astounded by my weight loss; she said she has never seen anything like it. In the year since I’ve been medicated I’ve dropped 49 lbs. with NO change in lifestyle. If you add that to the amount I lost while in grad school from the overproduction of stress hormone I’m at  - 69lbs. My body is still morphing and it is difficult at times to see my reflection in the mirror and accept this alien person as “ME”.
In addition because of the drop in weight my once TIGHT skin is now saggy and wrinkly. My legs, arms and middle look like I’ve been soaking in the tub too long, so….. yeah…. I am dreading the summer. The winter was fine, in clothes everything looks good, but now I am terrified and embarrassed and a bit grossed out by my body. THANKS NATURE for continuing to screw with my head. ALSO with less fat on my legs my veins became very pronounced so for the past 3 months I’ve been undergoing vascular surgery to make me less blue and more pink. Oh and just for fun I hadTWO cancer scares in the fall – oh boy.

Work – What once was a den of solitude and joyful bliss shared with two brilliant co-workers is now a prison cell overflowing with ineptitude and stupidity.

LONDON 2012! – ahh the shining light in my life, the London Olympics. Thank goodness for the Royals, the spirit of community and humanity and for my old British mate who is loaning my mother and me his London flat for a week. Our event tickets are ordered (we added diving and beach volleyball to our already amazing score of Opening Ceremonies), rain pants and slickers purchased, flights booked and to top it all off I have arranged for a tour of the Downton Abbey Castle! Oh London 2012 how you get me through these trying times.

Who Am I?

I mean, for reals, I look in the mirror and I’m all “Who is this person”? The update on the weight loss/ screw you Hashimoto's I’m doing the work around on you – is that since mid January I’ve dropped 37 pounds – wholly WHAT!? There has been some tweaking of my prescription after Hashimoto kicked it up a notch. You know sometimes a body that’s been broken for 40 years just does not take kindly to changing its ways, but as of last week my blood work was super fine. I’ve gone from looking into the mirror at the gym and thinking, hmmmmm I’m not this round in REAL life to staring in wonder at my square shoulders and shrinking waist and thinking…. Actually not thinking, it’s a total brain fuck.

None of my clothes fit, they are all about 3 sizes too big.  I know that may seem really cool to most of you BUT I have a HUGE wardrobe with tons of really nice things and nothing to wear. Work trousers that I wore just 9 months ago that fit so close to my hips I sewed the pockets shut so they wouldn’t bulge fell OFF last week when I tried them on. I ended up emptying my closet of all pants/ jeans/ skirts and dresses that were purchased any time prior to July. My bras are pathetic, well actually my bras are outstanding, my boobs are underwhelming, and good lord my ass!  What happened back there?  I’ve bought a few new bras and 2 new pairs of paints, but it is kinda stressing me out thinking about the expense of a whole new wardrobe. What I need now is a Sugar Daddy to support my shopping spree.

I still have not felt any physical changes; it’s all psychological and emotional. I am really pissed off at every doctor over the previous 39 years of my life who decided instead of diagnosing a genetic autoimmune disorder to guilt me, instill poor body image and lecture me about my dooming obesity and  pre -  “whatever” condition they decided to fling at me as a medical scare tactic. FYI – there is no such thing as a PRE illness, either you are ill or you or not. I can’t TELL you how many times my old GP told me, “You are PRE diabetic” until one day I asked, “How bad is my sugar level?” her answer, “It’s fine, in the normal range BUT at your weight you are pre-diabetic” THAT MAKES NO SENSE! I guess I could be pre- anything, I’m a woman who grew up on Long Island and lots of women from LI have breast cancer so go ahead, diagnose me with pre-breast cancer, no not that I HAVE cancer but…. you know it’s all the same.  

 My other ‘thing’ that just recently has been screwing with my head is being called…. Beautiful. Like really sincerely labeled beautiful. The other day a friend flung that word at me, out of the blue, totally random with no pretext and I cried (I’m welling up just typing this). It’s so F’ed up cause I can be called a fat piece of shit and walk away with my head held high with sass, but beautiful, it broke me down.

I saw Swason the other day and she was shocked at my appearance, and I have to admit, so am I. She left for tour and made me promise to stop shrinking, I will try. Also another friend informed me that I can really ONLY hold onto my fat girl kick ass personality for 2 more dress sizes then it’s Bye Bye raucous funny girl and hello vapid introverted boring chick, that’s just the rules… crap!

Unbelievable

Unfortunately my contentment does not make for good blogging. Remember my good ol’ days filled with worries and uncertainty? Damn those were some meaty blog posts. Now all seems to be in balance, job is swell, heath is getting on track, and a general sense of bliss has infiltrated my being – and being tan ain’t bad for my gleeful soul either. However even with all this jolly goodness there will always be something stuck in my craw, so go ahead and file this under, “same tune different day”, it’s the issue of my weight/health/weight loss.

After finally being diagnosed with a genetically faulty thyroid and prescribed drugs to engage the metabolic process I have very easily dropped close to 26 lbs in 7 months. People congratulate me, but really I have done NOTHING except take my meds and produce blood samples on a regular basis. I’ve always been active, I’ve never been a junk food addict, food hoarder, binge eater, etc… it’s just I have ALWAYS been heavy.

Now that it has been proven that my weight is NOT a product of what I do but is in fact due to a lack of naturally produced thyroid hormones, acquaintances who float into my life refuse to release their assumptions regarding my weight (or the weight of all fat people I assume). They still believe, even after I explain the genetic auto immune disease that’s been attacking my thyroid for 40 years, that my weight loss MUST be the result of finally living a “healthy lifestyle” – huh what? NO it is because I am on medication that is making my body work like a normal person, and by the way non medical personnel what’s with the assumption that I have not lived a “healthy life style” in the past?

These transient experts in weight gain/ loss refuse to accept the fact that not all fat people are tragic souls to be pitied, humiliated, and harassed for lack of motivation and control. Again and again these commentators retort with, “Are you sure it is the medication, I mean you ARE going to the gym now?” Yes I go to the gym now but I went to the Gym for the past 10 years (when employed) and I haven’t changed my diet at all, but still they refuse these facts and nudge… “No really what ‘plan’ are you on? I’m really trying to lose weight and I want to know your secret.” So again, let me BLOW your minds with this CRAZY truth, I’m a person who is fat because of a disease NOT because of “choices”. So as to this ‘secret plan’…. Ummm it’s the plan where my body works just like yours. Maybe I should ask them why THEY are overweight?

To prove my point further, for 5 – 6 weeks this summer my meds stopped working, I kept working out and eating my usual diet and my weight loss plateaued. Doc. ran two series of blood tests, tweaked my prescription, and within 7 days of new meds I dropped 2.8 lbs. I know this isn’t a real scientific experiment but it seems rather clear that no meds = no weight loss, meds= weight loss.

I’m just happy that my body is chemically balanced and is working like all bodies should. The weight loss is a fun side perk, even though my boobs are now feeling the brunt of this loss, and getting complements on how I look is always appreciated (at any size) but what is pissing me off is this constant commenting by random people who feel the urge to congratulate me for “finally making healthy choices”. It’s like a giant “I Told You So” – how about I told YOU so. I told YOU, collective world of fat shamers and body harshers, that I do the things people should do to have a body that works but mine just didn’t, mine was broken and anything I could do didn’t matter. Now it is fixed, and it’s working, and this is what it looks like. There is no egregious lack of self restraint here, no wealth of bad choices, no sloth like non-activity, there is NOTHING that you have been brainwashed to believe that ALL fat people choose to do/ not do, because as we all know Fat is a choice for every fat person, we are the same anyways. I didn’t chose this body, this was the body that was given to me, and it’s cool, I like this body and now it is changing but ONLY because my motor is humming. One day maybe the motor will cool down and my body will change again, and ya know what, that’s cool too.

Can’t Get Anything Past Me

Don’t ask don’t tell don’t got nothing on, “If I don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist”, however people who adopt this behavior must be constantly bitch slapped by um… I don’t know...REALITY! Yeah cause the power of positive thinking or “negation thinking” will unfortunately not magically repair my broken toilet. - Backing up.

Last Wednesday I was scheduled for new windows, thank god. Tuesday night as I stripped my window dressings, removed hanging photos, rolled up rugs, and moved 4 rooms of furniture to accommodate my early morning work crew I bid a fond farewell to the arctic blasts of winter, the guillotine action of the falling window sashes of summer, and good riddance to the missing screens and uninvited surprise wildlife visits.
Wednesday morning I awoke early to do a last sweep of the apartment, readying all five windows for their removal, then sat patiently in what I can only describe as an apartment in complete disarray. I waited…and waited. For hours I listened to the workmen next door; I thought that was good sign but good lord I was getting antsy. As time passed from Noon to One then onto Two I was quickly losing all faith in this crew. At 2:45pm I could wait no longer so I popped over to my neighbor’s abode to question the workmen about my appointment. The foreman (AKA the guy who spoke English), looked at me all pissed off and said “This job is TOO big for only two men, there is NO WAY that I can do your windows today!”

Did he just explode on ME!? F-U you idiot! But what I did say was, “I took off work today for the window installation. You could have told me at 9am when you arrived and saw the job that you couldn’t do my apartment today that way I could have gone to work”. He looked confused at this line of reasoning, stormed past me and entered my apartment. He circled through the rooms mumbling that he didn’t have enough men and that carrying windows up and down 4 flights of stairs was hard… blah… blah… blah…. Then he said he would do it… but wasn’t sure … complained that my air conditioners were still in the windows (really? Cause I should be sitting here for 8 hours in the heat?) then he stood in the middle of my living room and pretended (?) to make some phone calls…. then walked out. It was all very confusing.

I called the super, he was PISSED that this guy even spoke to me and doubly pissed that the whole schedule for the building was going down the drain on the first day of install. I told the super that I had no clue what was going on since the foreman never actually said whether or not I should keep waiting or go to work or stay home the next day… nothing. This was my first encounter with the foreman’s “If I don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist”, Modus operandi, unfortunately it would not be the last.

Fast forward to this morning and the actual window install. All was going well, or so I thought. They were noisy and messy but whatever, I own a broom and dustpan, it’s a trade off for new windows. The guys flew through the installation and were out by 11:30am – yahoo! They thanked me, I thanked them, I locked the door behind them and as I passed my bathroom I thought hmmmm, lid up on the toilet that’s odd? As I moved closer I noticed a handful of screws IN the toilet – WTF guys REALLY??? Why lift the lid on the toilet and dump screws into the bowl, ughhhhh. So I rolled up my sleeve and fished them out, closed the lid and OH GOOD LORD the back of my toilet was shattered. Welcome to day two of “If I don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist”. Did they think that I wouldn’t notice that they used my commode as a step ladder with that HUGE gray boot print on the lid and the missing porcelain off the rear right corner? Are people like this so delusional to think that NOBODY will notice their stupid crap? What was the thought process… ohhh man I broke the toilet… I should ummm… oh yeh lift the lid to hide it, I’m brilliant. And why do I feel this is the same ridiculous behavior that drives these male celebrities/ politicians to practice uber risky cheating behavior, btw I have NO problem with them cheating, just man up, own it, and stop with the denial.

So now I am without any “facilities” for I discovered to my very damp dismay that the missing corner was not merely cosmetic, as I originally assumed, for when I flushed…. weeeee indoor water feature! Fingers (and legs) crossed that my replacement toilet will magically appear within a few days, otherwise…. ummmm…. not too sure on the otherwise.

Get It Together Body!

Nice going body, after I heaped on the accolades last week you up and revolt, great. Yep my blood work came back to reveal, to my doctor’s dismay, that my thyroid is kickin’ the synthoid’s booty. My hormones are so out of wack (again) that my Doctor called to ask, “Are you still TAKING the synthroid?” COME ON, really? Doc thinks that maybe I got a bad batch of meds (that’s frightening) and/ or I need to up my dosage. Looks like my fat ass is all pissed off that my thyroid is burning off all the juicy-ness that it worked so hard to store. Ass… thyroid… can’t you two just get along?

While I had Doc on the line I took the opportunity to share the news of my weight loss to which she responded “Really?” Odd response I thought from a doctor who in January said, “I’m not worried about your weight but I would like to see you lose 10 or 20 pounds.” So now I’m on a new dosage and scheduled to actually SEE my doctor in a month, I guess to prove to her that my thyroid is actually responding to the medication by burning up my brick store house.

I’ve also noticed that body is going though what I can only call “shrinking pains”, thanks again body. Over the weekend my Mom said, “Wow you must feel SO great now that you lost all that weight!” When actually I feel the same or sometimes worse. You see I never FELT fat, I guess some people do, I never did (do). I have always been strong, not fast but strong. I’ve never had a problem on my 4 flights of stairs lugging up everything from my 10 bags of groceries, to my bulging 75lb. suitcase, from my 55lb. dishwasher to my tall wooden dresser. Even when I was 45 lbs. heavier I never had a problem on the subway stairs or walking for hours around the city. I never had the feeling that I was encumbered, nothing hurt, nothing was sore, I wasn’t short of breath or drenched in perspiration. All those stereotypical “fat person” ailments didn’t exist for me. But now that I’m lighter my legs are KILLING ME. No really I feel like an old lady, it’s pathetic.

On Tuesday I asked Dr. Pico to give my knees a poke and he was all “WOAH, your knee caps!” He feels that my knee caps are engaged in a tug of war of death with my leg muscles but with some frequent focused stretches I may be able to release my knees from the fiery fist of my thighs. And again – BODY GET IT TOGETHER – come on!

In my non-medical expertise I blame this knee cap cage match on the proliferation of “squats” that have permeated my week. Why is EVERY trainer coo-coo for squats? I got pulsing squats, slow squats, sumo squats, squats with lunges, squats with weights, you name it… they got a squat for it. And you know what else they got, they got a sadistic streak cause just when my body is on the razor’s edge of complete collapse they yell “GET LOWER” – screw you squat.

A Quickie

Just a little check in and update:

I am finally owning this newly revved up thyroid as well as my new body. As of this morning I have dropped over 10% of my body weight…hold it… what?! Yep the good old thyroid is chugging along after 40 years of deep slumber – way to go thyroid!

The YMCA is killing me softly with their change in schedule. The Y-guys have tested my fortitude by changing ALL three of my weekly classes, however they do not know the power of Swason’s motivational afternoon texts or the incentive put forth by the promise of one of her “winners only” home cooked meals – losers stay at home.

Talking about winners - this will only be news to persons who spend less than than 4 minutes with me - we WON the Olympic ticket raffle!!! Yep we won the lottery to purchase Opening Ceremonies tickets to London 2012. This was a huge win thanks to the all loving Zeus and Athena, for only .13% of ticket buyers were granted the opportunity to plop down a few thousand bucks to attend the ceremonies and Mom and I are now part of that .13% - USA USA USA (Hail Britannia as well). Next up 13 months of pre Olympic blog postings.

And since we are on topic of winners and the YMCA I would like to publicly report that I DO NOT punk out during my most hated work out, Boot Camp. I may be in the lower portion of ‘fit level’ but I do everything (even if modified) and remain jogging ON THE TRACK even when my feet are mysteriously turned to cement blocks encased in lead while other THIN people sneak back into the workout room through the back door. Yeah you people are PUNKS and losers; they would never get dinner at Swason’s Astoria Roof Top Café. WINNING!!!!