I Don't Want to Think About This

A topical thanksgiving post. The things I'm not thankful for, basically.

My dad went to the doctor today and they said he has to start chemo. They're putting a catheter into his chest permanently and he's going to get the drugs through it. He starts in a few weeks I think. Most of this I found out through my brother, or through my dad talking to my sister in law. He's acting like it's not that big of a deal. My mom's upset but is putting on a good face. My brother didn't know that my dad was so sick. And me, I don't know how I feel.

I'm upset. I'm not shocked. I'm angry. Really angry at my dad for not taking care of his health, for eating whatever he wants, for gaining weight, for ignoring my mom's attempts to help him get in shape. For ignoring me when I tell him that it makes me sad that he's so unhealthy. And now? Now I feel like it's too late. People that go through chemo are the ones that need it for a last resort - which is what this is in my dad's case. I feel like I've just been fooling myself for the past few years that he would get better.

Is this really when I have to start worrying about him not being here to see me get married and have kids?

Epic. Totally Epic.

Thanksgiving so far has been of epic proportions. I'll give you a list so far:

• Lunch at Busboys and Poets, where the waitress thought that Vic (my niece) was my daughter. Epically good.
• National zoo with the kiddies, in the rain and freezing cold. Where it apparently wasn't as freezing cold as I thought it. Okay, so it was like 45 degrees, which some claim is still warm. I beg to differ.
  
• Going out to the movies with Lex to see the dumbest movie - Role Models. It was pretty much awful, and no one else was in the theatre with us. It got me outta the house though, so I won't complain.
  
• Finishing 2 bottles of wine on the floor of my room, eating crackers and cheese and gossiping about everything until 3:30 in the morning.
• Baking cookies and making cookie ice cream sandwiches with the nieces.

And now we're watching 101 Dalmatians. It's been epic fun so far. More adventures to come!

DONE!!

17 pages of glorious paper...written! I have never written anything of such epic proportions before. But I'm done!! No more homework for the rest of the time before break!!

Thanksgiving break in 2 days!

Life?

Wow it's been extremely long since I've written anything in here. After that whole dyke drama deal I just haven't been the mood to think much. And I've also pretty much been a paper-writing factory for the past week...I've written 3 papers and I'm working on the 4th and final 15-20 page paper. I have so much to do before Thanksgiving break! And now that I'm flying home in like 4 days, it's really hard to make myself focus on anything school related.

I've also become a HUGE nerd and joined okcupid...I actually shouldn't be telling anybody this lol but it hasn't been too weird so far. It's actually really addicted with all of the quizes and tests and it's pretty much just a time sucker. It's great. I can't believe the number of to-do lists that I've written in the past few days. It's just absurd how much homework I have to do...missing 3 days of class next week was maybe not the best idea.

Ummm, there's really nothing else going on in my life currently. I'm just so excited to see my parents, and sleep in my own bed, and visit Alexis at tech and just be at home. The semester is almost over! Can you believe it? Basically 2 more weeks of class and then break and then it's off to Uganda! There's so much to do to prepare for it, that requires a whole other set of to-do lists. My life is just one big to-do list.

Oh I forgot about one exciting thing! I got a job canvassing for the HRC! I'm not sure how good I'm gonna be at it, but I have orientation the day after classes end, and then I'll work two days during finals week. It sounds really time demanding - you have to do 2 days 9-5 each week...but you make really good money! Mostly I'm hoping that it'll be able to transfer over to DC for winter break so I'll have a job and can make money before I go waste it away in Europe and Uganda.

So much to think about! Hopefully t-day break will be full of relaxation and de-stressing from all of this school non-sense. It's actually amazing how fast this entire semester has gone when I'm not tied to someone at home...it really makes life much more enjoyable. I should really remember that lesson in the future.

Well, now that I've rambled for a sufficient amount of time, it's off to bed! Night!

I can't wait to go home. Get me out of here, seriously.

Fuck My Life

AHHHHH. This weekend has been ridiculous. I don't even know where to begin. Hmmm, how about I met a girl last night. Her name is cera and she's amazing. She went through recruitment this year and ended up in DG, so I knew her name and through some facebook stalking trying to figure out what houses girls ended up in, I discovered that she was gay. Didn't really think much of her cause I didn't meet her during recruitment, but lo and behold she's part of cal queer womyn and is best friends with a girl that I know...thus we met last night at "Thrust" (haha) the gay night at Blakes.

So we hit it off really well last night - she's really spunky and in your face, so she was really friendly so it was easy to talk to her, unlike all of the other girls in cal queer womyn who are just...odd. And MEAN! Anyway, I'll get to that later. So Cera and I hit it off, and after a lot of drunken dancing all over Blake's, we started making out, and proceeded to basically grope each other all over the dance floor for the next hour. Basically, it was amazing.

Until. Until someone came up and told her that Kaitlin (her best friend, the one that I know who is also gay) ran home crying because I told her that I liked Cera and then ran off and started dancing with Cera. And I told her that I thought it was because I thought Kaitlin liked me and then Cera got all worried about Kaitlin and ran off after her. So I didn't get her number :-( I facebook messaged her last night when I got home apologizing for the dyke drama and saying that I had fun still blah blah blah but she hasn't responded yet. And I know she's been on facebook. What if she just never responds? I always have these stupid doubts!

I even tried calling Kaitlin today to make sure she was okay and she didn't answer so I have a feeling she's not talking to me. Fucking dyke drama. I hate it.

God. I have a very serious love/hate relationship with crushes. Right now, I hate them.

Ugh.

Mind Over Body?

So I have these things that I need to write about. It's stuff that's always on my mind, and I'm not trying to be melodramatic, it's just there. So if you're going to read, please don't judge. It's just a disclaimer.

I woke up this morning and stepped on the scale, hoping that there might be some change in what I've been fighting with for awhile, and I thought I was doing better. But for some reason, I'm gaining weight instead of losing it. I'm pretty close to being back up to the weight that I was at the end of freshman year, and I don't understand why and it's completely pissing me off and frustrating me and making me feel hopeless and I just broke down. I feel like no matter what I do, it's not working and I have this visual in my head of me just constantly expanding. I know it's not entirely about the weight, because I have been working out more and the weight gain could be muscle, but I'm trying to base it on how my jeans fit - and right now they don't fit comfortably. I'm not happy with my body.

When did this all start? I know it was in the back of my mind towards the end of my gymnastics career but I don't think it was fueled by that. Of course, I wasn't the skinniest of gymnasts, I definitely had my fair share of Shawn Johnson legs, but I was pretty happy with my body and at least felt comfortable in it. Flash forward to the end of freshman year, and that happiness was pretty much gone. I had gained the freshman 10 (or more), mostly because I didn't know how to exercise without doing gymnastics, and I didn't know how to eat without doing that exercise. So I ate a lot and never worked out. Pretty much, it was a problem. This may have been when my anorexic mindset started, because I can remember at least one day that I refused to eat until dinner, and then when I did I still didn't feel any better. But I think it stopped after that one day - I just wasn't cut out for not eating. Not for me.

Flash foward to the summer after freshman year. I was determined to lose the weight that I had gained and at least look like an athlete again. I started keeping a diary of everything that I ate and weighing myself every morning. And I definitely cut back on what I was eating. At that point though, I think I was still being pretty healthy about everything, I just had an anorexic mindset in that I would feel bad everytime that I ate and would constantly worry about gaining weight. But somehow, it started to work. I was losing some weight, not a lot, but a little, and I was starting to feel better.

In walks Riannon. I don't mean to blame all of my problems on her, and I honestly can't say how things would have gone if she hadn't been in my life, but she was, and that's when things got worse. Riannon didn't like to admit or acknowledge that she didn't like to eat (aka, had an eating disorder) but looking back she definitely did. And I was eager to impress her, so when I was with her I would never admit to being hungry. She didn't eat dinner, I didn't eat dinner. She didn't eat breakfast, I didn't eat breakfast. By the end of the summer, I had lost 15 pounds. About halfway throught the summer, or even before that, I had stopped exercising. I've never really admitted it to myself, but those were definitely anorexic tendencies.

Problem was, I felt good about myself. I bought new pairs of jeans, and then those got loose, and I felt happy. I liked the way that I looked, and was proud of my body. Sure that might be twisted, but that was the way that I felt.

So the summer ended, and I came back to school. Sure enough (good or bad), while I still had that mindset, I didn't keep those anorexic eating habits. I ate dinner again (with the exception of a few days scattered here and there when I refused to eat more than yogurt and toast), started to exercise again, and somehow I was still keeping my weight down. It wasn't until the end of sophomore year that I really started to feel like I was gaining major weight again. I still don't understand where things shifted - why I didn't gain weight in the fall and why I did in the spring. In any case, this past summer didn't reverse the weight like the previous summer had, probably because I wasn't following an anorexic girlfriend around. I wasn't completely comfortable with my weight all summer, but I still wasn't overly obsessive over it. I wanted to continue to lose weight, but I didn't feel gross.

Fast forward to today. Like I said, whatever I'm doing, it's having the opposite effect of helping. I actually cried this morning when I saw how much I weighed. Which is stupid, and silly, but it's the way it is. Those jeans that used to be loose on me? Only one of them still fits. I want to be able to fit into all of those jeans again (I could all summer long!), and I want to feel comfortable in my body again. I know that it's a lot about my mindset and not my actual body, but that fact doesn't change the way that I feel.

I'm trying to patient and do this the healthy way. I can pick out some things to not eat that would make me healthier and lose weight (such as sweets and cheese), and that wouldn't be so bad. Sometimes I think that I know how to do it the correct way, but my brain tells my mouth to eat like I'm never gonna be fed again. No matter how much I think that I want to lose weight, my will power just doesn't seem to match that. And I don't even mean not eating all together, but just not eating the things that aren't healthy. So that's my real next step. I talked to my mom and Jon about it today, and I know what changes I'm gonna make. I just wish I could see quicker results so I could know if it was actually having any effect. Because if it doesn't, I don't know what I'm going to do.

I can't believe that I just wrote that much on my weight. If I actually told you what I weighed when I checked this morning, you would probably laugh and tell me to stop obsessing. But I can't. So please don't.