Weight What?

Before Saturday, the last time I’d been weighed was when I went to Kaiser back in February.  They weighed me at 167 pounds and I was astonished by that number; I knew I had gotten a bit more out of shape than I should have, but I hadn’t weighed more than 150 since early high school.  The nurse who weighed me told me that their scales do tend to run a little heavy, but her assurances did nothing to make me feel better.

Three weeks ago, when I started myfitnesspal, I guessed on how much I weighed.  I’d been paying a bit more attention to my food intake and so I thought maybe I’d dropped down to 160.  I put my start weight in and decided I wanted to weigh 140 and that a pound a week would be about right, meaning I’d be at my goal weight by Labor Day.  Based on all that, they gave me a daily calorie goal (I love that they don’t call it a calorie limit) of 1380.  I haven’t always been able to meet my daily goals, but I’ve been under my weekly goal all three weeks.

Since arbitrarily deciding my start weight, I haven’t had access to a scale to figure out if my guess was anywhere near accurate (not even my gym has a scale).  Last weekend, though, I visited my mother, who does have a scale.  I stepped on the scale and was really pleased when it read 155 pounds.  Five pounds in three weeks!  My extra workout time was paying off!  But then I stepped off the scale to call my mother into the room to make sure I’d read it right (I wasn’t wearing my glasses at the time).  She came in and said that her scale was wonky I had to re-zero it.  After I did, I stepped back on the scale and it said 148.  Even better!  I stepped off and back on and it read 152.  So I roughly averaged the numbers and decided I was 150, which was awesome.  (Notice a round-down trend here?)  150 isn’t my ideal, but it’s halfway there.  After only three weeks, i couldn’t believe the weight was falling off so quickly!  This diet thing was much better than I thought it would be.

Fast forward a bit and mom and I are looking around Bed, Bath and Beyond after having returned something.  We encounter the scales and I consider buying one because, after all, it will make it much easier to monitor my weight as it continues to drop like a stone.  I take a couple of the displays off the shelves and step on.  They read 164, 163, and 162.  Fuck.  So mom’s scale was apparently just trying to make friends with me.  Here’s a tip, Scale:  Flattery works wonders provided you aren’t outright LYING.

As I know there’s no way I’ve actually gained weight since starting this program, I know this means that my start weight was not the 160 I thought.  Great.  When I really think about it though, while I thought I’d been paying attention to food, I certainly wasn’t denying myself the way I am now.  Maybe I had still been the 167 I’d been in February.

I don’t think there’s a way to go back and change my start weight, so that night I enter 163 in the “Weigh In” section of myfitnesspal and watch my little weight graph spike.  The website thinks that after three weeks of being on the myfitnesspal program, despite being under my weekly calorie goal all three weeks, I’ve gained three pounds.  I half expected it to put -3 in the “My weight loss progress” box on my page.  Instead, it continues to read zero.  Gotta love how myfitnesspal refuses to be a negative motivator.

I’m bummed that my mom’s scale was off (by 13 pounds!) and so my 10 pounds of theoretical weight loss was a beautiful delusion.  But when I examine facts what I have is this:

• In February I weighed 167 pounds
• Between February and mid-April, I did not go to the gym and wasn’t really paying attention to what I was eating
• For the last three weeks, I’ve been under my calorie goal and over my exercise goal
• On Saturday I weighed 163 pounds

So, overall, I’ve cut my calorie consumption, increased my physical activity, and lost 4 pounds.  That’s a victory.  Even though my weight loss is not as dramatic as I thought it was, it’s still a victory.

So myfitness pal thinks I’ve gained three pounds.  In September, I will still have met my original goal.  And besides, this isn’t really about losing weight.  It’s about gaining health.  I’m in this for the long haul.  This is about paying attention to what I’m eating and how I’m living my life.  It’s about resisting Krispy Kremes at work and choosing Greek yogurt and granola instead.  It’s about drinking water.  Lots of it.  It’s about rock climbing, brisk-paced walking, and two-hour hikes.  It’s about the fact that now that I’m doing it regularly, the mile long trek to the BART station after work has become easy.  It’s also maybe a little bit about that flat stomach waiting for me at the finish line.

So while at some point someone may look at my weight loss graph and it’s little three pound spike from this week and say “Wait, what?”,  I’m choosing to look at it and think “Weight.  So what?”

Follow-Up: A Dangerous Revelation

It been two weeks since my decision to stop living as a commuter and start living like an active person who just happens to have a job with a commute.  The preliminary results are in and here’s what’s up:

Mondays and Wednesdays at the Gym:  I have discovered that I have the mentality of a stereotypical insecure fat person.  I’m afraid of climbing anything difficult in front of other people because I don’t want them to see me fail (this also applies to the use of the few, very public, free weight and exercise machines).  I am surprised when I make progress and close to shattered when I encounter something I can’t do.  I am secretly smug when I discover things I can do that other people can’t.  I highly disapprove of the gym admitting thinner and more attractive women than myself.  I simultaneously want help and don’t want anyone to tell me how to do things.  I want to make friends at the gym, but am not really sure how to strike up conversations.  I am convinced that everyone there climbs better than me and that they laugh at my pathetic attempts behind my back.

At the same time, I have also discovered that I have the mind set of a dedicated, fairly long term climber.  I know to plan out my route before I leave the ground and to plan on giving myself resting places along the climb.  I remind myself to breathe.  I like to boulder and top-rope and I appreciate the challenges of both.  I hate giving up on a climb before I’ve finished it (I am trying to learn to do this gracefully).  I frequently challenge myself to climb things one level higher than I think I can do.  I want to push myself to the absolute max before I give up for the night.

Strengths:  Pushing myself.

Weaknesses:  My interactions with other climbers (including perceived).

Goal:  Be the dedicated climber, not the insecure person.

.

Tuesday night Dungeons and Dragons:  The Tuesday night D&D group is freaking awesome and I’m really excited that I’ve been invited to join them as a official member.  We’re playing a 4.0 campaign (which I was leery of at first, but is at it’s heart still the same game) in the Dark Sun setting.    Dark Sun is pretty intense; the description in the Campaign Setting book is epic.  Here’s an abridged version, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Once a blue planet teeming with life, Athas has since been stripped of its fertility by the use of corrupting magic known as Defiling Magic, and the decay of its sun. It is a sun-burnt land forsaken by the gods, water, and hope. The natural resources have been depleted and a lack of metal has resulted in the use of wood, obsidian and bone for weapons, tools and other common equipment. In such a harsh and unforgiving land, even the most mundane of creatures have developed psionic abilities in the constant struggle of survival of the fittest.

For the last two weeks, we’ve been playing a pre-made, “one shot” campaign designed to be an introduction and teaching campaign for the new players (there are three of us).  I wound up playing a Goliath (Half-Giant) Barbarian named Kuori (which I’m choosing to pronounce like quarry).  I don’t typically play melee, but I really enjoyed playing big, dumb, and tender-hearted.  So now that the pre-made is done and we’re getting ready to introduce characters into the existing campaign, I decided to stick with her.  Tonight is the first night I’ll be playing Kuori as part of the larger campaign and I can’t wait.  Based on how I played the character in the pre-made, Ben (our DM) made her into a sixth level character and provided this backstory for me for the ongoing campaign:

Kuori, you have memories of being raised among your own kind, a half-giant tribe living along the Estuary of the Forked Tongue. You only vaguely remember your parents and something to do with you being “special”, but you have no idea why. In your early childhood, your tribe was attacked by slavers, and you were taken. You fought your captors fiercely, but you were a child and there was little you could do. You were brought to auction and sold into slavery… for the Balican arena! Your owners invested a great deal in you and trained you for over 10 years, until you had grown enough to fight! And fight you did – wildly, passionately, and you WON! You had never met your actual owners until after an early victory against an opponent that was “supposed to beat you”. A young human, a noble of some known house, came down and commended your efforts. He said he looked forward to your career and that night you were given special treatments, magical poultices to heal you, and a meal that was even too large for you to eat everything!  Over the next few years, you would fight every month or so – and win! More often, this human male would visit you, and eventually he began to join you for your post-victory meals! You even told him once about your desire for a pet – and he bought it for you!

.

Recently there was a special competition – the winner would gain their freedom! Your owner placed you in this competition and never did you fight with more focus! Your inner power came through and you crushed all who opposed you that day! And you had your freedom. The noble congratulated you – said you had paid for yourself one hundred times over. He wished you luck. Then you were alone. You had never known a “free” life. You didn’t know where to go or what to do. Only one person had ever treated you well. The noble. So you sought him out. Though confused as to why you would come back, the noble soon understood. He offered you a “job”. Serve him, as a free citizen of Balic, and he would pay you to protect him, to be his champion. In time, he even noticed a latent psychic potential in you and brought that out. He taught you to use your powerful emotions to keep you focused and on your feet in combat. He also taught you to use those same powerful emotions as a mental shield against psionic attacks.

.

Your master has been invited to something. But instead of dressing in those horrible “outfits” to accompany him, this time he suggests you be ready for anything when you accompany him. He shouldn’t worry though, you’ll protect him…

.

So good!

Strengths:  Character development and role playing.

Weaknesses:  Huge learning curve.  Having to relearn terms like flanking, and hit modifier.

Goal:  Buy a copy of the Dark Sun campaign setting book and a 4.0 Player’s Handbook.

.

Thursday night Bible Study:  So far, I haven’t yet been to the Bible Study at Walnut Creek Pres.  Last week I went shopping with Janelle and the week before that, we went climbing.  I still want to go to the Bible Study, but I’ve just been using the last two Thursday nights for a different kind of socializing.  Add my lack of Bible Study attendance to the fact that I haven’t been to church since Easter and I’ve only paid half my tithe for the past two months and I’ve got a huge fount of guilt to deal with.

Strengths:  Intention.

Weaknesses:  Follow-through.

Goal:  Actually go to Bible Study.

.

Friday nights free:  Last week I used my “free Friday” to come home from work and immediately go to bed.  I slept for 14 hours and it was glorious.  The Friday before, Glenn and I drove up to Sacramento so that we could spend Saturday with Tanthony, which was also glorious.  Tanthony  has agreed to keep me penciled in on their calendars too, so now we’re both making an active effort to reserve some time to hang out together but still be flexible, which is great.

Because I’ve been filling the rest of my week with activities, I’m really appreciating my free nights and my weekends.  By giving myself one night a week to screw around (or sleep a whole lot), I’m more pumped up to tinker with my house on the weekends, but I’m still in a fairly relaxed mind set, so I’m doing it with less pressure on myself to finish things.  Interestingly enough, this leads to more getting done.

Strengths:  Intention.

Weaknesses:  I expect that as time goes on, I will want to try to cram things into my Friday nights.

Goal:  Remember the intent of free Fridays; a day of relaxing with room for spontaneity.

.

Overall:  I’m doing pretty well with my myfitnesspal dietary goals and limitations, I think.  So far I’ve managed to be under my weekly calorie goals for both weeks (despite some rough patches last week).  I have no idea if it’s actually affecting my weight because I don’t have a scale (and strangely enough, neither does my gym) with which to measure any progress and I guessed on my initial weight to start with.  I’m a little pouty about the kinds of foods I need to cut from my diet and the fact that I have to pay attention to what I put in my face every day (like, every day), but I believe Laura when she says it will get easier with time.  I truly hope the results will be worth it.

Yesterday was payday and I have to renew both my BART pass and my kitchen supplies, so I’m using the myfitnesspal goals as inspiration in restocking both of those things as part of my efforts to make my new healthy lifestyle easier to swallow. (Get it?  Swallow?  It’s a food joke!  Because I have to watch what I eat!)

BART wise, this time around I did not get the BART Plus pass that also gives me half a month’s bus pass and instead put the $26 price difference directly on my Clipper card (prepaid BART fare).  This means that any time I want to take a bus, I have to actively decide to pay the $1.75 bus fare.  Walking, on the other hand, is free AND burns calories (translation: earns me extra food).  With the weather starting to turn nice, I should at least be able to commit to walking from work to the BART station three or four nights a week, and hopefully (although this one requires waking up earlier) walking from the BART station to work one or two mornings a week.  This may mean I have to invest in flip flops or other such comfortable walking shoes.

Food wise, I’m going to try to follow Laura’s advice and start shopping the perimeter of the grocery store (where they keep fresh foods like bakery, produce, meats, and dairy) and try to keep my meals filled with fresh food.  I’m going to have to gradually phase out frozen and processed foods, simply because it’s so convenient to just be able to put something in the microwave, but I will at least attempt to keep my food thoughts focused on fresh food.  This means I have to start planning meals, which is something I’ve been meaning to do, but I’m nervous about the time it will take to do so.  On the up side, Laura has also reliably informed me that perimeter food is cheaper (you aren’t paying for marketing, packaging, and unnecessary ingredients).

So even if my waistline isn’t a motivating factor, I certainly know that my wallet is.

Results?

After my first day on myfitnesspal and back at the gym, here’s what’s happened and what I’ve learned so far:

• I don’t have a scale so I guessed on my weight based on my last doctor’s visit and said I weigh 160 lbs and set a lofty weight goal of 140 lbs.  Twenty pounds might not seem like a huge deal to anyone else, but I haven’t weighed less than 150 lbs since high school.  I’m not sure what 140 lbs will look like, but I’m hoping it has nice abs.  Because I don’t have a scale, I’ll have to “Weigh-In” when I visit my mom on the weekends and as I don’t have a seamstress’ tape either, I’ll have to update my other measurements then too.
• In terms of calories, Coca-Cola isn’t as bad for my diet as I thought.  I’m sure all the sugar is bad, but myfitnesspal focuses mainly on calories, and in that sense, it’s like eating a pear and a half.  In terms of the shame I feel in having to admit that I drank it, however, Coca-Cola is awful.  Since I’m trying to update my food journal in real time, I entered the Coke on my food chart as soon as I opened it.  And then the shame kicked in and I didn’t want to drink it anymore.  But it would have been wasteful to just throw it out once I’d opened it…  So I drank it, but I didn’t enjoy it.  I expect there will be less and less Coke in my food journal from now on.
• I snack A LOT.  I mean, I knew that I ate throughout the day, but holy goodness.  I ate twice as many calories in snacks as I did in breakfast.  Granted I’m not usually very hungry in the morning and my snacking was spread throughout the day, but still.  Wow.  I’m fairly certain I read somewhere that it’s healthier to eat small portions throughout the day than it is to eat three solid meals, so I’m gonna stick with snacking for now but it’s good for me to understand exactly how much I’m eating in “snacks”.
• I’m really happy that all of the name brand foods I eat are already in the myfitnesspal database.  Sometimes I have to search through to find the right version of the food I’m eating (there were four different Stouffer’s Swedish Meatballs yesterday), but so far everything has been in there.
• If I hadn’t gone climbing last night, I would have been over my calorie limit for the day before dinner.  I have no idea what that means for today.  So far, today’s breakfast has been the same calorie amount as yesterday’ (which I find interesting).  I think that lunch today should be lighter, but that usually means I snack more.  No Coke today though, so that should help.  I guess we’ll see.
• As predicted, I struggled with climbing.  Physically, I did okay.  Mentally, I was having some problems.  I completed three V0 boulder routes on the first try, pieced a fourth, and did half of a fifth.  My hands are super soft right now, so I couldn’t climb as aggressively as I wanted to and didn’t even attempt a V1+ that looked like a lot of fun because I knew my hands wouldn’t be up to it.  It was difficult for me to admit that I’d have to start slow.  I had a short (3-5 minute) little pity party for myself before deciding I should just move on to top roping. The walls at City Beach are 25′ and I pieced a 5.8 with slight overhang and a 5.7.   (I actually did the first half of the 5.8 twice because once I was partway up, we realized I was on the wrong rope.)  When my arms started giving out towards the end of the 5.8, I felt weak and fat.  I tried to channel that into anger rather than self-pity and made myself finish the climb and do another one, but I still felt pathetic at the end of the night.  My exercise notes for the day say “I need to think of myself as a brand new climber rather than a climber returning from a break. More than six months off the wall means I need to take baby steps getting back on.”  It’s true but hard to do.  Going from piecing V2s and 5.11s to V0s and 5.8s is hard, even if I do have the “haven’t climbed in months” excuse.  I think that accepting that I have to start from scratch is going to be the hardest part of this journey.
• Eating out is hard on the myfitnesspal system when you don’t eat at chain restaurants.  Last night I had a City Beach Chicken Wrap at the restaurant attached to the gym and had no idea what to do for my food journal, so I just entered similar items.  I originally thought I could just make an entry for the food I ate (and was really happy with how easy the process was when I started it), but the waitress told me that they didn’t have a calorie list for their food* so I couldn’t complete it.  I guessed that the wrap was similar to one from Trader Joe’s, that the french fries were similar to Wendy’s (less greasy than McDonald’s and better tasting than Burger King’s), and that my side of ranch was similar to Kraft.  When I ordered, I was tempted to ask about substituting the french fries for a side salad, but I wasn’t paying for my own food and was nervous about substitution fees.  Next time, I don’t think I’m going to care so much.
• I’m drinking a lot more water now.  I started trying to drink more water a while ago, but the myfitnesspal counter is helping.  I like clicking the little up arrows on the drinking glass.  The only trouble I’m having is that myfitnesspal measures water in cups and everything else tends to measure it in ounces.  Glenn and I measured my Brita water bottle last night and it holds two and a half cups.  Laura told me that the right amount of water to drink is the number of my body weight in pounds, halved, and in ounces (so 160 lbs. = 80 oz. of water) which is about 10 cups or 4 Brita bottles.  myfitnesspal wants me to drink at least 8 cups of water per day, so I figure Laura’s right.

So far, so good.  We’ll see how I feel in a week or two.

.
.

*I was pretty sure this was illegal, but after some research it turns out that only restaurant chains with 20 or more outlets are required to disclose calorie counts (according to the New York Times).

A Dangerous Revelation

Glenn was in New Jersey on a business trip the week before last and while he was gone I came to the realization that I don’t do anything.

During the week I go to work, I come home, I go to sleep, I wake up and I repeat it all over again.  On the weekends I putter around my house or visit my mom and do laundry.  I have a very boring life right now.  This realization came shortly after my sudden and complete admiration of Sharon‘s determination to make new friends and enjoy her adult-but-not-tied-down-yet life; making it an even more poignant realization and fairly painful to admit.

I’m tired of being a commuter and nothing else.  I like my job.  I appreciate that moving has cut my commute time.  But I didn’t move to Concord so that I could get to work easier (although that was a benefit).  I moved so that I could establish a life independent of my mother.  But now that I’m independent of my mother, I don’t really have a life.  I live three miles from Todos Santos Plaza, which has bi-weekly farmer’s markets, arguably the best pub in the East Bay, the best sushi I’ve ever eaten, a movie theatre, a new/used book store, two Thai restaurants, a bunch of other shops, live music on Thursdays, and festivals every month (there was an antiques and collectibles fair yesterday).  Do I visit Todos Santos regularly though?  Nope.  Sometimes I go to EJ’s or La Pinata on Saturdays for brunch with Glenn and that’s about it.

I’m tired of only going to work and coming home.  Home is where the heart is, and right now my heart is kind of lonely and boring.  I don’t own a TV or a game-capable computer, so when I come home from work I have a tendency to just sit around.  When the most interesting thing you do during the week is unpack another box of CDs, there’s a problem.  The bigger problem, though, is that I’ve never been a huge TV watcher to start with.  I’m only noticing my lack of TV/internet now because I’m not doing anything else.  I used to do stuff.  I spent more of my after school hours out of the house than in it.  And I miss that.

So, changes.

First of all, I’ve put on the stereotypical office drone 15 pounds.  Turns out that everyone who said that sitting around all day was bad for you was right.  If you don’t do anything, but still eat the same amount, then you gain weight.  Who’d have thought?  And since “I want to be fat when I grow up!” was something I never said, I’m going back to the gym.  From now on, Mondays and Wednesday nights you’ll be able to find me on a rock wall.  (Also, I joined myfitnesspal, so if you’re on there, find me.  I’m VulpesExilis.)

I miss climbing.  I’m afraid I’ll be pathetic when I go back, but I miss it immensely.  20% of the pictures of me on facebook were taken in a climbing gym.  I met Glenn at a climbing gym.  I spent a good portion of my initial bonding time with Stripes at a climbing gym.  Most of the moments where I’ve felt truly proud of myself, my hands were covered in chalk and I was wearing a sports bra.  I miss that.  Also, I’d like to look like this again:

Look at my shoulders in this picture! They don't look like that anymore.

Secondly, without a game-capable computer, I’m quickly losing all my nerd-cred.  I tinkered a little with the Mists of Pandaria beta a while ago, but other than that, in the last month I’ve spent less time gaming than I have grooming my cat.  (Which, if you’ve never seen my cat, could make me sound like a crazy cat lady but is meant to convey that I hardly do it at all.  Oliver gets brushed twice a month, maybe.)

I miss my nerd-cred.  But since a game-capable computer costs more money than I can spend right now, I’m going to have to gain my cred by old school (which, I believe, will double the rate at which I regain it).  Pencil and paper.  That’s right, I’m going to start playing D&D again.  Thursday before last, I attempted to crash a campaign at Games of Berkeley, but no one else showed up.  While I was there though, I got a lead on another group that meets there on Tuesdays, so I’m going to make another trip out there tomorrow to see if I have better luck.  The other advantage to table top gaming is you meet people who live close by.  Which means if they’re interesting, you actually have the opportunity to hang out with them outside of gaming.  Friends!  I miss those.

I want this shirt. And people to wear it around.

Thirdly, I want to start going to the women’s Bible study at Walnut Creek Pres on Thursdays.  Meeting people is part of the goal here too, but mostly I’m trying to dive back into my faith.  I’m struggling a little bit right now because while I’m going to church fairly regularly and have added a Christian radio station to my car’s presets, I’m just not feeling my faith as deeply as I think I should.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been away from the church for so long and am just “rusty”, but whatever the reason, I’m going to keep trying to find that sense of spirituality I once had.

Faith is like a glass of water. When you’re young, the glass is small, and it’s easy to fill up. But the older you get, the bigger the glass gets, and the same amount of liquid doesn’t fill it anymore. Periodically, the glass has to be refilled.   –Liz, from Dogma

Finally, I’m leaving Friday nights, Saturdays, and Sunday afternoons open.  Maybe I’ll continue sleeping in and puttering around my house; and that will be okay provided I do things during the week.  I’m hoping, however, that my plans to visit Tanthony in Sacramento this weekend become something I do regularly, and from that, become habit.  Because it’s on The List and because there needs to be more opportunities for pictures like this:

This Whole Movie Is Six Words Long

I found this meme a while ago and just haven’t had the time before now to do my own entry.  Basically, you fill in a movie that you’ve seen that fits the title/category, and then describe it in six words.  I had a very hard time limiting myself to six words, especially on the categories where I felt I should explain my choices.  Along those lines, I expect to get a lot of grief for numbers 2, 7, 23 and 25 .  Enjoy!

.

.

1. One of your favorite movies.

Cowboys and Aliens

“Massively underrated.  Good action.  Hilarious dialogue.”

2.  A movie you really, really don’t like.

Dumb and Dumber

“Not funny.  Not funny.  Not funny.”

3.  A movie you watch with friends.

The Three Musketeers

“Oliver Platt fan club meeting tonight”

4.  A movie that pleasantly surprised you.

Thor

“Bad reviews, but made me giggle.”

5.  A movie that disappointed you, terribly.

Sucker Punch

“I want my sister’s money back.”

6.  A movie from your childhood.

Oklahoma!

“Watched with my grandparents every summer.”

7. A movie from your childhood that you hated.

Jumanji

“Made me stop playing board games.”

8.  A movie you watched on a date.

Sherlock Holmes

“How it all began with Glenn.”

9. A party movie.

Serenity

“Or is this the wrong crowd?”

10. An action movie.

Casino Royale

“Film Noir.  Parkour.  Witty Banter.  Gambling.”

11. A comedy movie.

Tropic Thunder

“The truth about the entertainment industry.”

12. A Romantic Comedy.

He’s Just Not That Into You

“Boy meets Girl.  Girl is crazy.”

13. A thriller.

I Am Legend

“Will Smith is a bad-ass scientist.”

14. A sci-fi/fantasy movie.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

“Jim Carey shows decent acting capabilities.”

15.  An indie film.

Cashback

“Sleep deprivation leads to time control.”

16. A Documentary or Biopic.

The King’s Speech

“Absolutely loved this movie.  Standing ovation.”

17. A musical.

RENT

“How do you measure a year?”

18. An adaptation of a book/TV series/etc.

Watchmen

“Moral dilemmas and shiny blue penis.”

19. A movie made before 1967.

Casablanca

“One of my all time favorites.”

20. A worthy sequel, remake or reboot.

Star Trek

“Alternate reality prevents continuity errors.”

21. A sequel, remake, or reboot that wasn’t worth the celluloid it was filmed on.

Star Wars Episode I:  The Phantom Menace

“Fucking Jar Jar Binks.  Enough said.”

22. A movie that made you cry.

Dead Poets Society

“The double-edged sword of truly living.”

23.  A movie you walked out of.

The Matrix

“The stomach bug freaked me out.”

24. A movie you watch for comfort food.

Ever After

“None of you should be surprised.”

25. A well-liked movie that you don’t care for.

The Godfather

“For this, many will disown me.”

26. A movie that you love that many do not.

Robin Hood:  Prince of Thieves

“The only bad part is Robin.”

27. A movie you can quote extensively.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

“Oh, wicked, bad, naughty, evil Zoot!”

28. A movie with a celebrity crush.

A Knight’s Tale

“Cannot say enough about Heath Ledger.”

29. The last movie you watched.

The Hunger Games

“I bet the book is better.”

30. Another of your favorite movies.

The Book of Eli

“Perfect combination of setting, characters, content.”

Neverwhere: The First Half

Well the story’s picked up a bit and I’m finding myself drawn in.  Not in that desperate, Oh my God, I can’t put down this book drawn in, but I’m certainly interested in what’s going to happen next.

The action is progressing fairly straightforwardly and I like that Gaiman doesn’t try to make the story too complex.  He is just telling a story about this adventure; he doesn’t feel the need to go off on side quests or indulge in pages upon pages of background information.  I like the simplicity of it.  Door wants to know who killed her family.  Richard wants life to go back to the way it was.  Door says she’ll get Richard home once she avenges her family.  So they are on a journey together to visit someone Door thinks has answers.  There are bad guys trying to kill/stop them on the way.  Simple.  Straightforward.  I like it.

My only complaint with the book so far is Richard.  He’s moved from being Everyman’s Neighbor to being a cross between The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s Arthur Dent and The Oatmeal’s Pants.

Arthur Dent, when faced with the fact that an alien species wants to take his brain for scientific study, is told that his brain could easily be replaced by a simple electronic brain that would only need to be programmed to say “What?” and “I don’t understand” and “Where’s the tea?” and no one would know the difference.  While I thought this was an unnecessarily cruel thing to say to/about Arthur in Hitchhiker’s, I’m finding that I’m thinking the same cruel thing about Richard in Neverwhere.

I understand that human beings don’t respond well to being thrust into situations we have no control over, and I do think it’s important for a hero to have some flaws or vulnerable spots to keep them sympathetic, but whiny is not an acceptable flaw for a hero.  A character who constantly complains about just wanting to go home is not one that I want to relate to.  I might be able to relate to being a complete pain-in-the-ass to my travel companions*, but I certainly don’t want to.  I want my hero to be flawed, not unlikeable.  Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes; this is understandable and endearing.  Richard Mayhew, on the other hand, is so petulant that he could be played by Hayden Christensen in a movie adaptation.

"But I don't want to be on what could be the greatest adventure of my life!"

Aside from his propensity to pouting though, Richard is the average guy.  He appears to be mediocre at his job.  He has a few friends, but not many.  He has a decent and always messy apartment.  He found an interesting item one day and displayed in it his life, then people kept giving similar items to him as gifts and he wound up with a collection that makes him look slightly obsessive.  His relationship with his girlfriend is flawed, but they love one another.  There’s nothing about Richard that makes him stand out.  He doesn’t appear have any hobbies or anything about which he is passionate.  He’s so normal as to be “flat”.  Which brings me to Richard’s Pants half.

Pants, The Oatmeal’s characterization of Bella from the Twilight series, is “an empty shell…. her personality is portrayed as insecure, fumbling, and awkward – a combination anyone who ever went through puberty can relate to.  By creating this ‘empty shell,’ the character becomes less of a person and more of something a female reader can put on and wear”.

Richard is very Shirt-like; he’s an empty shell character for the recent post-college age group.  He works so hard to remember all the little stuff that he sometimes forgets the big stuff, he has a tendency to panic when pressured, and he works hard but doesn’t seem to get ahead – a combination anyone who’s had a job or a serious relationship can relate to.  While it’s good that audiences can easily relate to Richard, empathy is harder won.  Characters need depth in order for audiences to form an emotional attachment to them.  As an empty shell (a Shirt or Pants that a reader can wear), characters are not individuals, they are stereotypes; stock characters.  Stock characters might make a lot of money in the box office, but no one cries when they get killed.  Some of us root for it.  Like me.  Right now.  With Richard.

Shortly after the midpoint of the book, a seemingly important, but not well explained character named Serpentine refers to Richard as Door’s hero.  When Door objects to this classification, Serpentine says “I’m afraid he is.  You learn to recognize the type.  Something in the eyes, perhaps.”  Personally, I’m with Door.  Richard is not a hero.  A true hero needs to be someone audiences can relate to, someone they are emotionally invested in, and someone they can look up to.  Richard’s got one of three, but I’m seriously hoping this adventure brings the rest of it out of him soon.  Because Dented Pants is getting really old.

In summary:  I’m enjoying the story in Neverwhere, but Dented Pants (Richard) is starting to piss me off.

Current Ranking:  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

.

.

.

.

*When I was 15, I spent four weeks traveling around Europe with my mother and (half of the time) a tour group that consisted of married couples and a spattering of late 20s, early 30s working professionals.  I was the youngest person on the tour by at least a decade.  I am ashamed to admit that by the last week of the trip I couldn’t give a damn about the interesting architecture or famous works of art; I just wanted to be around teenagers again.  I was not the most gracious or engaged travel companion.  Take standard teenager attitude and multiply it by 6,000 miles away from anyone who you think can relate to or understand you.  …Yeah I’m surprised my mom didn’t kill me, too.

Design Update: Bedroom

As promised, here’s some pictures of what I’ve been doing to my house these past few weeks.  This post is about the transformation of the smaller bedroom, which I’m using as my bedroom.  (For reference, here is the original design post for this room.)

Starting from the very beginning, this is what the bedroom looked like when I did the walk-through of the townhouse before I bought it:

Before

The walls were a kind of sage/moss green and the carpet was damaged and stained and not a great color of beige.  After it became mine, my mom could hardly wait to start painting.  So the first thing we did was put a coat of primer on the walls.

Base coat of primer and old carpet still present. Closet doors uninstalled.

Mom painted all the walls (except the one I intended to cover with brick) and the inside of the closet a lovely shade of pale yellow that looks pink in every picture I try to take of it.  Then my mom and my sister pulled the carpet and mom, Glenn, and I hauled the boxes of brick veneer up the stairs and set up for brick wall installation.

Subfloor and lots of bricks. The color on the right side of the picture is the color of the rest of the walls in the room. I promise its yellow.

Then one Sunday, bright and early, my brother-in-law, Brian, came to teach Glenn and I how to install brick veneer.  We started by putting up a chalk line graph on the wall (to make sure our courses of brick would stay straight) and getting red chalk dust all over everywhere.

Glenn evening out the spacing on the second course of brick.

This is me "buttering" the back of a brick with mortar.

Brian custom cut some pieces to go around the electrical outlet in the wall and Glenn installed them.  They were a perfect fit on the first try.  I was so glad Brian was there.  I can’t imagine how many bricks Glenn and I would have gone through before getting the cuts right.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

I learned that laying veneer is a lot like laying tile; grout is a separate step.  The first day was devoted to just getting the brick on the wall.  We used lengths of plastic rope as spacers between our courses and small yellow wedges to keep the the individual bricks level.

Later, once the mortar had dried and the bricks were for sure stuck to the wall, Brian would come back and pull the rope from between the courses and fill the space with grout.  This is where we stopped at the end of the first day:

We ran out of rope; otherwise we probably could have finished it all in one day.

And the next time I came back, Brian had finished the last few courses and grouted the wall.

Then the new carpet was installed and I moved my furniture in.

Last weekend Glenn and I bought and cut some 1×10 planks to make a flat, solid base for my new memory foam mattress.

You can tell he had just finished laughing at me for thinking this was important enough to take a picture of.

And once the slats were in place, we moved the mattress in.  This is about how the bed looks now:

No bedroom is complete without an indifferent cat!

I’m having serious issues finding a comforter/quilt pattern that I like and the sheets I ordered from Overstock.com were shipped in the wrong color, so for now I’m using an assortment of blankets (including an orange and yellow sleeping bag older than I am) to keep warm at night.

There still a bit to do in this room, including:

• bringing the brick wall outlet flush to the bricks and installing the cover plate
• repairing the baseboard that we broke in the corner before installing the brick
• cutting and installing cedar planking for closet floor (this weekend’s project)
• reinstalling closet doors
• installing plastic trim around windows
• finding and installing street lamp base
• installing street lamp

But the big stuff is all done and I’m really, really happy with how it’s turned out.  What do you think?

Stay tuned for more application of design updates!

An Inspirational Woman

For the first few months I knew Terri, I had no idea she had cancer.  At the time, the idea of cancer conjured up images of hairless hospital patients with breathing tubes in their noses.  My understanding of cancer then was naive and limited; largely driven by advertisements for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, television medical dramas, and Tyce Diorio’s choreography for “This Woman’s Work”.  While these images are certainly powerful and inspirational, I think that they paint a one-dimensional portrait of what it means to have cancer.  As an outsider, what you see (and therefore what you understand) is struggle and discomfort, pain and effort, strength and courage.  You see either a sickly shell of a person or a caricature of determination.

Terri, on the other hand, was my sister’s energetic, funny coworker who participated in conversations through the cubicle walls.  And while she was strong and courageous, she was also animated and outgoing and thoroughly happy.  With a full head of thick black hair and a big, easy smile, Terri looked nothing like a person with cancer.

This is not a person with cancer. This is Terri.

Had my sister not told me, I would never have known that Terri was sick.  And when my sister did tell me, I almost didn’t believe her.  Terri couldn’t have cancer; she was too happy.  A strange thought, maybe, but that’s what it was.  Terri never gave you any clue that her life was anything but blissful.  Interacting with Terri, you would never have been able to guess that she had a treatment-resistant form of thyroid cancer that, in the time I knew her, would move into her liver, lungs, and bones.

Last night my dear and wonderful friend, Terri, died.

The phrase “battle with cancer” has become so commonly used that I think we take it for granted, but to live with cancer is truly a battle.  And I’ve never seen someone fight as well or as stubbornly as Terri did.  It wasn’t only that she refused to die; she also refused to stop living. In the first post on her blog, Terri wrote:

It’s Probably Nothing.  This is the phrase I heard for five months while the medical field tried to find out what this “lump” was at the base of my neck. Time and experience told these professionals that it probably was, indeed, nothing. But not in my case, and my body proved this phrase wrong time and again throughout the years. In these months of not knowing, for a woman just 40 years old with a 10 and a 9 year old daughter and son, I was sadistically introduced to the gray area of life that I would forever have to acknowledge. Imagination gone wild – “What if I have cancer? What if I die? What if? What if?” The “What ifs” of my mind took over reason and spun into fear, a place I did not like.

To offer reason and comfort as she always does, Eleanor asked me one day, “What if you have cancer? What will you do?” This was a defining moment in my life, for at that very moment a clarity came to me carried by grace and the answer was as true as anything I have every really known: nothing. Nothing different. I would live my life as I’m living it today. I would drive the kids to school, go to my job, drive the carpools, do the laundry, cook the meals, live and laugh and love with my family. At that moment, I decided to live my life as if it was a choice. Because it is.

“It’s probably nothing.” That phrase has ceased to have meaning for me. It doesn’t matter if IT is something or not; it’s what we do with our lives everyday that matters in the end anyway.

When faced with some mysterious life-changing threat, she appreciated the little things, embraced the unknown, and practiced humility.  She never gave up, she never stopped trying, and she never stopped being her spontaneous, compassionate, smart, generous, honest, hilariously funny self.

On her facebook wall today, one of Terri’s friends wrote:

I have never met another woman with your amount of strength, integrity, compassion, beauty or humility. No matter what problems or hardships you faced, you always met life head-on with such grace and confidence.

This is more true than I can possibly convey.  I spent most of my lunch break today on Terri’s blog, reading her words and basking in the glow of her love for life.

Terri fought and fought and fought.  In the few years I knew her she must have tried three or four different clinical trials for some form of cancer treatment or another.  Many of them had seriously unpleasant side effects, but she took them all in stride.  She faced pain and uncertainty with an unwavering faith and a wicked sense of humor.  With Terri it was never just that she was strong, it was that she also somehow always managed to find a bright side or a silver lining.

I never saw Terri let cancer win.  I’m sure she was exhausted in every way a person could be, but she never stopped thinking outside of herself.  She still went trick-or-treating with my niece and nephew, still went on trips with her kids, and when she stopped being able/wanting to leave her house very often, she had private house parties with my sister.  Even in this last month, when I’m told she was often in too much pain to sleep, she came to my Unofficial Housewarming Party, climbed the stairs, looked at every room, and indulged me by listening to me ramble on about all the things I hope to someday do to the house.

After battling with what she called “the Voldemort of all illnesses” for over a decade, Terri died last night.  Or at least her body did.  As my mom pointed out today though,  no matter what happened in her war with her disease, there was no way Terri wasn’t going to win in the end.  If, as we all  truly believed she would, Terri beat the cancer, she would win.  If the cancer ultimately claimed her life, Terri would still win.  She would get to go Home.

The last post on Terri’s blog says this:

Yesterday was the first Sunday in Advent, this great new year in the Church, and wonderful season of Christmas. We talk a lot about waiting during this season, and when I think about this, I see all the little children willing themselves closer to Christmas Day and all the presents they hope to receive. Yet, this morning, as I was at my oncology appointment, I saw a different kind of waiting. By the time I left the exam room, and passed through the lobby and reception area, it was filled with patients and their loved ones – waiting, all of them, for…..what? I stopped there and looked out at them, bundled up, many with hats to cover their once hairy heads, and wondered what each of them were waiting for. I said a quick prayer for all of them that their wait, however, short, long, hopeful, or painful, would yield a love and a joy like no other – and a hopefulness to fill Heaven and earth.

Congratulations, my friend.  Your long wait is over.  I know that your pain has ceased and has been replaced with a perfect joy unknown to those of us who remain.  If anyone was a good and faithful servant, it was you.  You claimed a greater victory over cancer than remission; you made it fight to claim your life and you never let it take anything else from you.  You were a truly inspirational woman to be around for so many more reasons than there are words.  I miss you and I thank you for your friendship.  It will always be a part of me and will forever change the way I look at the world.

…my friends are there. A bit of me is in them, and a bit of them is in me. For that, I am fortified, and very, very grateful.

Amen.

Neverwhere: Quotations 2

Gaiman’s descriptions make me giggle.  Here’s one I particularly liked:

Varney looked like a bull might look, if the bull were to be shaved, dehorned, covered in tattoos, and suffered from a complete dental breakdown.  Also, he snored.

And this one about Hunter is probably my favorite description in the book so far (although I must shamefully admit that I needed Wikipedia’s help figuring out who Emma Peel was):

Richard was thunderstruck: it had been like watching Emma Peel, Bruce Lee, and a particularly vicious tornado, all rolled into one and sprinkled with a generous helping of a mongoose killing a king cobra.  That was how she had moved.  That was how she had fought.

Making FoxDen

Today is the 22nd, meaning I have officially been a homeowner for 20 days.  In that time, I’ve slowly been turning Sapling into FoxDen*.  In the first few days, the house went through a bit of a makeover (thanks to mom and a whole lot of paint) and a thorough scrubbing (thanks to my sister and a whole lot of degreaser/disinfectant).  Piece by piece, one step at a time, my house is becoming mine.

Last Saturday, my family and I cleared out my storage unit and turned in the lock and keys.  We drove everything the 36 miles to my house and then unloaded everything that was in storage in a new, equally disorganized pile in the middle of the living room floor.  I can’t unpack or move boxes upstairs yet because the upstairs rooms are still waiting on carpet,  but 90% of my stuff (missing clothing, dining room table, bed, and cat) is now in my house.  No more storage unit.  I’ve only to unpack my boxes before crossing number four off of The List.  (A big step!)

Glenn and Trevor got out of having to help move on Saturday by installing the new water heater.  (A new water heater means a liveable house!  One more step!)  That night, I bought (tasty and massively expensive) pizza for my crew and they drank a sizable portion of the beer leftover from the previous weekend’s (unofficial) housewarming party.  My first family dinner in the new house!

Sunday afternoon, Glenn, mom and I picked up 25 boxes of thin brick from my sister’s house and drove them over to FoxDen.  We then hauled them up the stairs to the first bedroom where they await being installed, which will hopefully happen this weekend.  (For information on the brick wall, see the bedroom’s design post.)

On Monday, Ally (of A Leap Into the Unknown and Adventures in the Kitchen) and I went to Ikea to price check some furniture pieces that I will eventually need and to feast on delicious meatballs.  After dropping Ally off at her place, I went to Target and Safeway and spent a crazy large amount of money buying staples.  I spent more money than I wanted to, but it was good practice for being a bargain hunter as I got more than I paid for (club card usage = four pounds of free ground beef and 70 cents off gas prices, amongst other discounts).

Monday night was my first overnight stay in FoxDen.  Because my bed isn’t in the house yet (the new mattress should be delivered tomorrow), I made myself a little nest out of blankets and a sleeping bag.  I didn’t sleep very well Monday night due to the combination of excitement, no bed, and new house settling noises, but I think once I get moved in and used to FoxDen’s nighttime noises, everything will be just fine.  The neighborhood is so quiet!  Not a single siren or slamming door.

Tuesday morning was my test run of what the commute from FoxDen will be like and I have to say, I am loving it; 15 minutes from walking out my front door to walking onto the BART platform.  Amazing.

Today, the carpeting contractor came to measure the upstairs floors and I should be getting an estimate from them soon.  I’m hopeful carpet can be installed next week, since the lack of clean, decent flooring upstairs is really the only thing keeping me from living in my house full time.

Until I do fully move-in and unpack, when I’m in my house, I’m basically just organizing my kitchen and sorting/rearranging my boxes to different parts of the living room.  And when I’m not in my house, I’m counting down the hours until I can be.

I’ll be posting some pictures of my nesting progress soon, but until then, here’s a picture of the view from the office/guest room.

The view of Mt. Diablo I didn't know I had.

.

.

*FoxDen:  One word.  Syllable emphasis of “Eden”:  pronounced “fawksDEN” or “fawksDIN” depending on speed of speech.

Den:  1. the lair of a wild animal, especially a predatory mammal. 2. a room, often secluded, designed to provide a quiet, comfortable, and informal atmosphere for conversation, reading, writing, etc. 3. a cave used as a place of shelter or concealment.

Eden:  2. a delightful abode.  3. a state of perfect happiness

FoxDen:  1. The secluded lair of Vulpes Veritas; designed to be a quiet, comfortable, and informal place of shelter and concealment for conversation, reading, writing, etc.  2.  The delightful abode of Vulpes Veritas that puts her in a state of perfect happiness.