Plateau

I am almost afraid to say it...but I think I'm off it! I saw 202 the other day, which is the lowest weight I've seen yet. I'm waiting, with bated breath, to see a number that starts with 1.

I've been trying to remember when I last saw a number that started with 1. I thought my age also started with 1 the last time I saw a number on the scale that started with 1, but I was wrong. I remember weighing 186 when I was 23 and was maid of honor in my friend's wedding. I remember this (for some stupid reason) because we were the same weight at the time. 23 years old--that's almost TWENTY years ago.

I read somewhere that people who lose a lot of weight tend to experience some of the same emotional stuff they experienced when they were that weight previously. It makes me wonder. I have been in such a funk. Unemployment doesn't help. I've sent out at least fifty resumes. In response, I've had one rejection letter. Yesterday I got excited because I got a callback, but it was just a screening call--they'll call me back if they want an interview. And this is for a temporary receptionist job. Sigh. The holidays were a total loss because I had an epic migraine and was sick for a week and then Mr. Salted was sick and he's still trying to shake whatever it was, and I'm just getting over another migraine.

My first winter quarter class starts tonight--last week's was pushed back a week due to snow. Hopefully being back in class will make me feel less like a waste of space.

Once upon a time...

...I used to write in this blog. I knew it had been a while, but somehow three months went by.

I'm still going to school, and I was let go from my job at Voldemort.com. They imposed a production quota, I couldn't make it. Neither could a whole bunch of other people. Whatever. The whole experience was a big letdown, even for a job I knew was temporary.

I didn't disappear from Blog World because I've been slacking off--quite the opposite. I'm plugging away at the swimming and the protein and the rest of it, all the bloodwork numbers are improving, I'm becoming more toned, my sizes are getting smaller (albeit at a glacial pace), and...I'm not losing any weight. This plateau has lasted many, many months. The nurse-practitioner who I see for the Berkeley Heart Labs has me on phentermine (they took phen-fen off the market, removed the bad fen, kept the good fen, what does it spell? PHENtermine!) temporarily to get me off the plateau. I've been on it a month. Not losing. Grrrrrr.

I went to a neurologist about my migraines and he has me off caffeine and aspartame and on magnesium and Topamax, which has improved them quite a bit.

I am seeing a plastic surgeon for a free consultation in a couple of weeks. Though my two-year surgiversary isn't until August of 2011, I know I will have to fight insurance for months and why not lay the groundwork now while I have all this free time? (I would get a tummy tuck tomorrow if I could get it paid for.)

I'm trying to decide whether to delete this blog or not. I still might. I don't feel like I have much to say anymore.

Cover letters and other lies

I have applied for at least twenty jobs in the last couple of weeks. My neighbor is a writer and he asked me yesterday if I was doing any writing. I told him only if cover letters count, and they should--they drain my creative juices in a big way. (They make me feel cheap and dirty, too, but that's another issue--I never have liked the whole "sell yourself" paradigm.)

The job I've wanted the most thus far got a cover letter I would be forced to deem a masterpiece. After its completion, I made my Facebook status "if I believe the cover letter I just wrote about myself, I would not only hire me, I would marry me, clone me and leave me everything in the will."

My initial unemployment claim was denied because I didn't have enough hours in the base year. (The base year was funky and took place between 2008 and 2009. I don't get how they determine the base years and I'm not going to try--I get enough headaches as it is.) I have a pending appeal using an alternate, more recent base year. I'm keeping detailed records--the required job logs, printouts of job descriptions, etc. I spent $10.89 today to send a long-distance fax at Kinko's--it seemed a little steep, but I guess they have rent to pay, too. I haven't had any more interviews since the one I went on before my job ended, but I have found a few nice things to wear to interviews, which will definitely help with my confidence when I am called for another one.

This evening is the information session about the technical writing program I plan to attend. I'm trying not to be intimidated or freaked out, but I am a little of each. What if I go and I don't want to do it? Then, of course, there is everyone's favorite old friend--The Fear of Failure. I think the worst part of not working is that I have far too much time to sit around and ruminate. I have gotten a lot of home organization and important errands done and can come up with several other projects that need doing, but there's an awful lot of time left over to think. I hate feeling so adrift in my life.

I'm not gaining weight, but my ankle has been giving me fits so I haven't walked since last week. I did do part of an exercise DVD yesterday; I have a number of them, from Richard Simmons to Hip Hop Abs and a couple I got at Target that prominently feature perky women wearing bronzer. Richard Simmons is over the top, but I can't help but like him; people who knock him should try one of his workouts (I have no opinion about his infomercials, I have never watched them or bought those products). (As an unrelated side note, his appearance on "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" was one of my favorite episodes of that show.) I'm still trying to find a bathing suit I can live with and have yet another one en route from Ebay--I think I have to get in a pool because every other kind of exercise just ends up hurting too much. A long walk feels great when I'm doing it, but then I wake up in excruciating pain during the night for the next week--it just isn't worth it. Mr. Salted and I have come to the conclusion that we will find the money for me to exercise in a pool, whether I have an income or not. I hope this suit works. I do miss, even enjoy, being in the water. (I will enjoy it even more now that I've had Lasik and won't be floundering around blind!) Before and after actually I'm in the water, that's what isn't so easy.

My third wedding anniversary was yesterday. Mr. Salted and I went to our favorite getaway last weekend, or tried to--we got there and discovered the reservations were for this coming weekend and that we had messed up the dates. It is a long drive both ways, so we decided to get a cheap room at the local Econolodge and just go back again this weekend and have two getaways instead of one. He is so supportive, steady, loving, unwavering--just an incredible gift in my life, for which I am extremely thankful.

Everything, all the time

My job ended. My grandmother got moved, and it sounds like it was a really tough experience for her, but that she is bouncing back a bit now. At any rate, she has a lot of support around her where she is, and it's a relief to know that. I didn't get the job I interviewed for, but they asked if they could keep my contact information for one they may have coming up. I spent my first day unemployed doing a lot of laundry, then attending a singalong showing of "Purple Rain" with a childhood friend. The movie was even worse than I remembered--but the music is, of course, amazing. It was a lot of fun. I also indulged in a little retail therapy with my last full paycheck. I went to Torrid and was pleasantly surprised that I'm now wearing size 18 in their pants, rather than straddling the barbed-wire fence between 18 and 20. I got a great pair of black Bermuda shorts with a big sugar skull design on one leg that I l-o-v-e. I had my picture taken with the Easter bunny for the first time, just for the hell of it.

I still need to apply for unemployment, but I think right now I'm just having the letdown period where I want to lay low and regroup--so I'll do it Monday.

Yesterday

Yesterday, it all hit me like a ton of bricks: I need two major surgeries, the rest of my year is pretty much shot. I didn't feel like being a g-d grownup about it. I felt like crap, my ankle was throbbing. I was weepy. I wanted my mommy.

Moments like that don't happen to me very often, because I never had a mom. I know there are people in the world who do--sometimes it feels like everyone does, but I know better than that. In reality, hardly anyone has that kind of mommy. But that doesn't mean I can't have a human moment and wish I was one of the lucky ones, even at the age of forty. Because I am fiercely independent and just handle myself--even if I feel barely taped together--I don't think most people I know remember that I'm not just a Kryptonite self-cleaning oven of an individual, even some of the people that are closest to me in the world. It has always been expected of me to be that way.

I tried to tell a close friend of mine how I felt yesterday, and she said, "You'll get through it" and changed the subject. She wasn't having a great day herself, and we talked it through, but I initially felt like I'd been punched in the stomach--it was really hard for me to even confide these feelings in anyone. I would rather die than ask people for help, and have a hard time accepting help when it is offered, so it's partially my own fault.

Mr. Salted is incredibly supportive. He will take every bit of time off work given his choice, but he's the sole breadwinner right now and what savings we have is hemorrhaging to pay medical bills. We are barely squeaking by. All our credit cards are maxed out. I had never been unemployed longer than six weeks in my life before this past year, and it is making me *completely* nuts. I don't mind not working, I mind depending completely on someone else. Seriously--it's my idea of hell, probably because it's never been a viable option for me. Even when I was alone and had my hysterectomy five years ago and had to be home for six weeks, I had a good job and paid leave. I feel incredibly guilty about putting all of this pressure on Mr. Salted, and he is a mensch. "If the roles were reversed, what would you do?" he asked me yesterday.

"Take care of you," I answered. "Without even thinking about it."

He said, "I know that. I love you, and that's what I'm doing. We'll get through this. You are not a burden, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me." Of course, he made me feel a lot better; he is fabulous, I could not ask for a better husband, and I love him so, so, SO much. I am just concerned about actual logistical conflicts--there is no way the man can take a month off work and just hover while I can't walk. (And I hate anyone hovering. Ugh.) I'm worried this place will catch fire and I'll have to scoot out of it on my butt. I'm worried that I'll set fire to it myself after a scorching combination of not enough Demerol and one too many episodes of "Divorce Court".

I'm worried about the fact I can't cook and have to learn how to make all this soup stock and weird food for post-op--can't I just eat baby food? Seriously, I'm going to ask my nutritionist. I'll put some protein powder in it or whatever. Mr. Salted is willing to fend for himself. The post-WLS mantra, after all, is: food is fuel, food is fuel, food is fuel. I'm just so over this food crap. It just isn't worth letting it have all this power over me. None of it tastes THAT good.

Working for a living

I need to be doing it. This is the longest stretch of time in my adult life I haven't had a full-time job--four months. I do some freelance writing and photography, but not much of late.

I'm trying to write a book. I've started writing books my whole life, and about 20-40 pages in, I discard them in disgust because they're never good enough for me. Perhaps I was destined for short stories and poetry; I have finished, even published, a couple of each. I wrote my first book about third grade; I would so pay to have a copy of it now, just for the laughs! It was about a dog named Fluffy (for real), and I wrote it on some horrible 1977ish stationery that probably had a mushroom print across the top. I gave it to my third-grade teacher in the box the stationery had come in and never saw it again. (I would have probably ripped it up later, anyway. I've always found ripping up my writing to be incredibly cathartic. Burning it is fun, too, but I have a little phobia about fire. Shredding is also the bomb, but in reality I usually end up ripping it up if I don't like it. It just feels good.)

I've also been doing other things since I've been out of work, like turning 40, cat wrangling, taking pictures, reading books, putting my vinyl LPs on CD, scanning old pictures and putting them on CD, putting up a Flickr site, and researching and pursuing this surgery.

I'm not feeling very motivated or optimistic about the job search. In particular, I am becoming gun-shy about Craigslist job postings. I've had a couple of in-person interviews from resumes submitted to employers that posted positions there, and one actual job that lasted two months because they lied about just about everything and didn't pay what they had promised. The last in-person interview consisted of me sitting in a waiting room all dressed up with copies of my resume for half an hour.
Probably fifteen people walked by while I was sitting there. Several of them made eye contact with me, and I smiled at them. One of the receptionists kept paging the person who was supposed to interview me--or pretending to. After about half an hour of this, she came out and said she was sorry, but they'd have to reschedule my interview.

They never called me, of course. I noticed that the company posted the position again on Craigslist this week.

Of course, my immediate default reaction was to think it was because of my weight. When I related this experience to a couple of friends--neither of whom has a weight problem, but they both happen to be twenty years older than I am--they said they had had the same thing happen to them. One of these friends was a man and one a woman, so apparently this kind of thing isn't always gender-specific, either.

I know there have been many jobs I haven't gotten because of my weight, and there are some I will never even attempt to apply for because of it. When I was younger, I took it much more personally when things like this happened. I was still trying to fit into society's ideal--or I still thought I should be trying to--as if my brain, skills, and personality had nothing to do with my value as an employee. (I also actually show up for work, am not a drama queen, don't steal, and can make people laugh, among other things.) I also knew in my bones, even at that time, that I was never going to fit into society's ideal. I could have had 15 plastic surgeries, thrown up every day, and never even come close.

The difference between then and now, for me, is that I have since learned that many people who fit societal beauty standards often never feel like they are good enough, either. Some of them feel like no one listens to them or values their brains because of the way they look. Even back then, as much as I wanted to be "gorgeous", I would have rather had someone really listen to me than look at me and stop listening. Every.single.time.

I also feel that getting older means the pressure is off. I don't want to be 19 or even 25 or 35 again, so why should I wish I looked as if I were? Outer beauty fades. Gravity happens. And when it does, I should hope that I have developed an above-average amount between the ears and in the heart, or life is going to be very, very empty.