So, now she's horning in on my particular surgery? Buh?

You know, I really shouldn't take these things to heart but dammit, when you've had one particular weight loss surgery, you don't go gloming onto another one, claiming it as your own. I don't care that you're a moderator and have powers to change things here, there and everywhere, but damnit, follow the poet and to thine own self be true!

Here's where I become a bitch and say what's on my mind.

If you get a particular surgery and are a success with it and get fawned upon and lauded up and down all the live-long day because you are soooo knowledgeable like two other people that I can think of, then do and be just that - a spokesperson for YOUR surgery. I don't need you coming in and "helping out" with the surgery that I have chosen because frankly, I don't think that you know even half of the things that I know about the surgery that I have chosen for myself, nor do I want someone like you or even you who had this surgery speaking for it! Gah!

Say it with me, sheeple. All together now! Baaaaa!

All right. I'll do the freaking meme. *sigh*

1. What time did you get up this morning? 4:30 AKA the asscrack of dawn
2. What was the last movie you saw in the theater? The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (yeah, I don't get out much)
3. What is your favorite TV show? The Amazing Race, followed closely by So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars. I am totally prepared to LOVE Treasure Hunters this Summer.
4. Diamonds or pearls? Neither. Sapphires, please! But Diamonds if you must. Plebians.
5. What did you have for breakfast? Slim-Fast Optima Strawberries and Cream
6. What is your middle name? Rose
7. What is your favorite cuisine? Chinese American. Followed closely by Italian American
8. What foods do you dislike? Lima beans, brussel sprouts, asparagus
9. Your favorite Potato chip? Pringles
10. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Flyleaf
11. What kind of car do you drive? 1983 Toyota Landcruiser
12. Favorite sandwich? Sun-dried tomato crusted turkey breast with provalone on white. Hot, please.
13. What characteristics do you despise? Stupidity and lack of common sense
14. What are your favorite clothes? Floaty lacy things. Think the kind of things Stevie Nicks would wear. *sigh*
15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? A tour of the British Isles and all of Europe, ending in Italy
16. What color is your bathroom? Ummm, brown?
17. Favorite brand of clothing? No real favorites, at least not yet. I actually like to make my own.
18. Where would you want to retire? Somewhere coastal, but not where there are hurricanes. Perhaps the French Riviera?
19. Favorite time of day? Whenever I'm sleeping
20. Where were you born? BFE, California
21. Favorite sport to watch? Football! Go Rams!
22. Coke or Pepsi? Coke, natch!
23. Are you a morning person or night owl? I'm a better night owl than a morning person
24. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with everyone? Um, not really. Which is why I'm doing this.
25. What did you want to be when you were little? An Egyptologist
26. What is your best childhood memory? I was about 9, and I was staying with my grandparents. My mother's youngest brother was sick with cancer, but he was doing okay at that time. I did something for him, I forget what, and as a thank-you, he kissed my hand as if I was some grand lady. That's the last happy memory I have of him, and I will never, ever forget it.
27. What are the different jobs you have had in your life? McDonalds, bookstore clerk, Wal-Mart jack of all trades, newspaper typist, newspaper reporter, newspaper editor, exterminator company secretary, railroad shipping billing clerk, ambulance company accounts payable clerk, government technical writer, online college teaching assistant. Whew!
28. Nicknames? Hey you?
29. Number and location of piercings? Four. Three in my left ear, one in my right. I think. Maybe there's two in my right ear. It's been a long time since I've used all of them.
30. Eye Color? Blue
31. Ever been to Africa? Nope
32. Ever been toilet papering? Hee! Yes
33. Been in a car accident? Yes, but all low-speed collisions. Usually me backing into somebody else. *sigh*
34. Favorite day of the week? Friday
35. Favorite restaurant? Lou Malnati's
36. Favorite flower? An orchid that has the common name of "Little Stars"
37. Favorite ice cream? Dulche de leche
38. Favorite fast food restaurant? Wendy's
39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Hrm. Hancock's of Paducah or Sephora
40. Bedtime: Anywhere between 8 and midnight
41. Last person you went to dinner with? The Husband
42. What are you listening to right now? Mozart on my Ipod
43. What is your favorite color? Purple
44. How many tattoos do you have? One. I need to wait until after plastics before I can go get more. *whine*
45. Who was the last e-mail you got? My daily comic strip fix of Get Fuzzy
46. What time is it now? 8:16 a.m.

What was the name of that truck?

You know, the one that hit both me and The Husband? Oh wait. That was our massage therapist.


Now don't get me wrong, I love my massage therapist. She is a goddess at whose hands we worship. But damn. What in the hell did The Husband and I do to ourselves that she had to beat us up that badly? I mean, I can hardly get up or down it hurts so much. Ow.

Massages and other kinds of pampering have been mentioned lately on the WLS blog-o-sphere it seems. Sassy Fatty Sister Jen talks about it here and Alison talks about it here. And it's something that I think many of those of us who are overweight routinely deny ourselves. I can't count how many of my overweight friends get self-conscious when the thought of getting something like a massage or *gasp* a bikini wax crosses their mind.

Getting something like a manicure or a pedicure is something that seems to be exempt from this realm of shame, at least in my circle of real life friends. That's no big deal. It's just legs and arms But to bare any amount of flesh in the torso? Um, that would be a big no. We're just too fat.

It's all part of the cycle of shame of being fat it seems to me. I know that I would have never considered getting a massage unless The Husband had suggested it to me. The thought never crossed my mind. Get naked so that someone other than him can touch me all over? Well, almost all over? Get out of here! Who would consent to that?

And to add to that, when you do go to one of those high-falutin' spas, oftentimes they don't have robes that even cover half of our flesh. It's as if they deliberately make it embarassing for us. What, you can't fit in our plush, luxurious robes? Get out of here, you plebian! You're not good enough for us.

You would think that seeing as how more and more of Americans are getting larger and larger, they would WANT to cater to those of us of larger than average size. Heck, some of the robes I tried on in these spas wouldn't fit a size 14. What in the world are they thinking?

It's not that I want special consideration for people of size. It's just that if you are offering a service that does not specify a weight limit, then damn it why can't you accommodate the whole spectrum of people? It costs probably $5-10 more each to get a bigger size robe. Invest in a few, why don'tcha? Maybe then you'll have more customers and *gasp* make more money, ya think?

Massage therapy has become a godsend to both The Husband and me. He suffers from bad knees that we are eventually going to have to replace at some point in time, as well as has a rib that chronically pops out of place due to things he used to do in the Navy. My sacrum is determined to separate from my body and become its own country, thanks to an injury back in elementary school where I decided not to run the full length of the long jump track, jumping early and thereby landing on the wooden edge of the sand pit with my tail bone. Chiropractics takes care of putting the bones back into place, but it is up to our goddess of the muscles to convince our wayward ones into letting the bones stay in place and make the rest of us feel better.

So every two weeks, we make our way to our appointments with her. And while it may hurt for a little while, eventually we feel good enough to deal with life for a while instead of staying curled up in bed popping pills - which is where we both were on occasion before her.

Who knew pain could be such a good thing?

Because I'm a dork

I thought I would be all cool and turn on the "moderate comments" function on this blog. Not realizing of course, that this would mean I would have to approve what people said. I thought it just meant that I could remove them if necessary.

So, I've been stalking my own blog for the last two days wondering why in the heck nobody's been reading me. Everybody hates me, nobody loves me, think I'll go eat some worms!

Everything is back to normal now. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Love and Marriage and Weight Loss

"Mahwidge. Mahwidge is whut bwings us togethah today."

If you don't know what movie that line is from, then perhaps I think your license to be a human being should be revoked. It should be a law, dammit.

Awesome movies aside, marriage is something that is very important to me and helps define who I am and what I do. I guess it kinda helps that I am currently in a marriage myself to The Husband.

Marriage is so important to The Husband and I that we have become involved in the area of what we like to call "Marriage Health" through the church that we belong to. We have what are called "small groups" where we get together with other people, be they single, dating, engaged, married, divorced, whathaveyou and discuss Biblically-based principals that have been found to help two people "become one."

What this means is that we are both TOTALLY unqualified as counselors, but by God we're here to help show you some tools that can help you make your own marriage work better. No seriously. This stuff really works.

And if we had had these tools oh, say, twelve years ago? Our marriage would be a thing for the annals of history by now. Romeo and Juliet? They wouldn't have had a damn thing on us. And we wouldn't have had a whole lot of really really stupid fights and a whole lot of salt and tears would not have exited my body throughout the years and The Husband would not have been exasperated with me to the point of wanting to shoot me and go bury the body in the back yard or drop it into a deep abandoned mineshaft. And vice versa. Let's be fair. We're both human. And highly annoying at times.

One of our old fights used to be about size. More specifically, my size. You see, when we were first together, I had just lost 20 pounds in a month because my ex-fiance finally up and moved out after nine months of hell because he cheated on me and I forgave him and then he waffled and . . . basically I was very depressed. I could only manage to eat one meal a day, if that, and so I lost weight. Go figure. However, ex-fiance moved in with The Husband and then a few months later I moved in with The soon-to-be Husband and ex-fiance moved out. Again. And that, as they say, is history.

But back to my size. Having just lost that much weight in a very short period of time, I was interested in losing more, and I honestly thought I could. I looked damn hot and wanted to look hotter, especially for my new man. However I hadn't realized that by getting together with The Husband I was dooming myself. When I'm happy, I eat, as opposed to starving myself, and that means that I can't lose weight. But by God I was going to lose another 20 pounds. And I promised The Husband this. In return for him quitting smoking. Needless to say, neither of us have followed through on our promises. *sigh*

Anyway, it was a pattern for the longest time as my weight gradually crept up that about once every few months or so The Husband would get pissy that I had never followed through on my promise to lose more weight. This would create a scene and many tears would flow because damnit, I wanted to lose the weight but for some reason I couldn't. And if I did, then it just came right back on when I went off the diet. Maintenance was something my body just could not do. And The Husband just didn't understand why I couldn't just use enough self-control or will power do do this thing! Since he was blessed with an awesome metabolism, he didn't understand (and neither did I at the time) that my metabolism is slower than a three-toed sloth.

So, as those of you who have struggled with weight loss along with me know, this sort of thing just didn't work and only made for unnecessary tension between us as well as further driving my self-esteem even more into the ground.

Now to bring this back around to the whole "Marriage Health" thing, we were in one of our small group sessions about two years ago, watching a DVD by John and Liz Haywood discussing some common problems in marriage. John related that one of the problems with men is that they wanted to fix everything. That every time their wives came to them with complaints about something, they wanted to get out the toolbelt and make it right. But that wasn't what their wife wanted - she just wanted to be understood, get out some of her frustrations, or just get out some of the 20,000 extra words that she needed to use up for that day.

On the trip home from the church, The Husband was kind of quiet. Usually he liked to discuss what had gone on in the group, and sometimes we came up with new subjects to bring up with the group. No worries. He was probably tired or something.

When we got home, he took me by the hand and led me to our bedroom and pulled me onto the bed. And then he began to apologize. You see, The Husband realized that he had been doing the exact thing John Haywood had been talking about, except only with my weight. It obviously was a defect in me, and it was up to him, the Knight in Shining Armor, to make it all better for me, the Damsel in Distress, and show me how to FIX this problem that I obviously had. And that I was going to like it whether I wanted to or not.

After I picked up my jaw from off of the floor, he continued by saying that he was sorry that he had been so critical for all those years. That he would never again start that fight over my weight and the lack of my losing it. That he loved me the size that I was and that even if I gained another 200 pounds he would still love me. So long as I still had a good pair of boobies, that is.

And that's when yet again I knew that I had a keeper.

Artwork in this post is copywrited by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law.