Living jobless in suburbia can get kind of tedious, which is why I'm grateful for my mom's season tickets to the Ahmanson. I don't go to the theater as much as I'd like to, since it's so expensive (see that last bit about being unemployed), but every time I go, it makes me really sad I can't do Summer Stock anymore, especially when the show's as high energy and fun as the one we saw.
So, you're going to laugh, or maybe hate me, but 9 to 5: The Musical was really good. It wasn't outstanding, and they'll definitely have to do a bit of fine-tuning before it starts its run on Broadway, but the music was upbeat, the leads were all fantastic (oddly enough, Allison Janney was the weakest), and the set design was actually pretty amazing. Not that I'm a theater critic or anything, but I just thought I'd throw it out there, in case you're looking for something fun to do with the girls in LA, or need to take your grandmother on a nice night out.
I'm sorry my life isn't more interesting, not just because it means I'm bored out of my mind, but also because it means I don't have anything to write about for whatever three people still read this. There's this girl I went to college with - she works at a big-time women's magazine now, lives in New York, goes gallivanting around all the time and writes two successful blogs, and I'm kind of jealous. Well, kind of is an understatement. Now, I know I'm in a crappy place when I'm envious of someone with an entry-level job. But we all have to start someplace, right? I mean, she's not Tina Fey or JK Rowling (which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your taste and idea of success), and neither am I, but I have no doubt that in 20 years, we'll both be speaking at Smith at some poetry center event on how to break into writing. All I have to do is, well... break into writing. So I guess I should get off my ass and get back to those unfinished projects, right? Dammit, I hate it when I give in to logic.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
The honeymoon is over.
I miss Paris. Like, a lot. I can't explain it, but I think I felt more at home there than I do here, a place which is, in fact, my home. Well, maybe that's not entirely true. Maybe I just miss speaking French all day and dealing with the psycho boulanger down the street, and waking up to Notre Dame and scooters speeding down rue Monge. Maybe I'm just extremely bored and have started using my time trying to devise ways to move back to Paris and avoid being a contributing member of society, including going to pastry school at none other than the queen of all culinary institutions, Le Cordon Bleu. Well, I was devising that plan, until I realized that a six-month diploma in pâtisserie would cost me the same as my entire Master's program at NYU, not including rent and expenses. Although I'm still thinking about it - maybe not this year, maybe not even next year, but if I ever want to fulfill one of my many, many dreams of opening a boulangerie in the States, I'm going to have to do it at some point anyways. Maybe after a few years of working for other people, saving some money and figuring some shit out, I'll know what I actually want to do, and I'll stop having anxiety attacks every night as I go to sleep because my future is unclear and completely unplanned. Until then, I'm just going to to keep tinkering in my kitchen and try to figure out how to make réligieuses.
On the Lindora front: man, does this shit suck. I decided three weeks into this "rapid, safe weight-loss" program that low-carb is not for me. Excuse me, but I bake. And I eat what I bake because I am, and want to continue to be, a good baker. And also, who really wants to go to a crappy clinic way out of the way of everything in their life, every day, to weigh in and get shot up with vitamins? Thank you, but no thank you. I let a nurse give me a booster shot once, and I ended up crying the whole afternoon, not from the pain, but from the disappointment that I'd actually let her talk me into it, that I'd let another human being inflict that pain on me, and that I'd paid for it. I was so upset with myself, I'd come to the conclusion that if I'd let her talk me into it, that meant that I really did need it, or at least that I wasn't capable of doing it on my own, and if there's one thing I don't need in life, it's you telling me what's best for my body, since obviously I know all and am infallible. I just didn't want to be at the point where I was relying on someone else to help me lose the weight, or worse yet, lose the weight for me. And that's when I decided I hated Lindora, I hated the way the nurses talked to me like I was five years old, I hated cutting entire food groups out of my diet, I hated being told how much to eat and when, I hated seeing every morning that I hadn't made any progress because I faltered and ate - gasp - one measly little chocolate chip cookie (ok, so maybe it was four), I hated going in and seeing everyone's before and after pictures on the board, wondering why I wasn't following in their footsteps and dropping three pounds a week, I hated hating myself because I wasn't dropping three pounds a week. Never in my life had I ever been so obsessed with my weight, or so upset about it. Sure, I was never really happy I was fat, but when was the last time I actually cried because of it? High school? Ok, sophomore year of college, I confess. The point is: why would I want to be a part of something that I don't want to do and that makes me feel like crap day after day? I'm young. I'm starting to be active again. And I'd rather be active all the time and eat what I want in moderation than walk and eat only from a list of foods that fit on half a sheet of paper. I'd rather not diet and watch what I eat than be obsessed with numbers - carbs, points, calories, whatever. (Ok, so calories are actually, in reality, important.) The only number that really counts is the one on the scale, and I don't want to be obsessed with that either. I just want it to be smaller. However long it takes to get smaller, I don't really care, though sooner is always better than later. I just want it to get there.
And that, my friends, is why I hate dieting.
P.S. If you see me in person, and have noticed that I've lost weight and would like to compliment me on it, don't. Seriously, don't. I don't want to know that "you look so good! Have you lost weight?" or worse, "you look like you've lost some weight!" Don't ask me about my diet, don't ask me how I'm feeling if it's related to my weight loss, don't tell me "good for you for working out with a trainer". I don't want to hear it. ANY of it. I'm doing it for me, and the only reason I blog about it is because it's an experience. When I'm done losing however much weight I want to lose, I'll let you know, and then you can congratulate me. But until then, I work out for me, I watch what I eat for me, I'm losing weight for me. Not for you, for me. It's my body, and I'll compliment myself if I want to.
P.P.S. Also, do NOT ask me how my diet's going. If we go out to eat, don't ask me if we can go to certain places, implying my diet being a cause for concern with the phrase "I don't know what you can eat." Like I said, I'm doing this for me, so it's my problem. I don't want to be treated differently, singled out, or treated like it's always Passover because I'm trying to lose weight. You know what I'm doing, and I know what I'm doing, and I'll figure out what to eat at restaurants, and everyone within a thirty-foot radius does not need to know that I'm dieting. Dammit, it's not your news to tell. It's like all other activities and conversation topics have ceased to exist since I started trying to lose weight. I'm sure people with fertility problems don't really like talking about that with everyone on a night out either.
Oh, that felt good.
On the Lindora front: man, does this shit suck. I decided three weeks into this "rapid, safe weight-loss" program that low-carb is not for me. Excuse me, but I bake. And I eat what I bake because I am, and want to continue to be, a good baker. And also, who really wants to go to a crappy clinic way out of the way of everything in their life, every day, to weigh in and get shot up with vitamins? Thank you, but no thank you. I let a nurse give me a booster shot once, and I ended up crying the whole afternoon, not from the pain, but from the disappointment that I'd actually let her talk me into it, that I'd let another human being inflict that pain on me, and that I'd paid for it. I was so upset with myself, I'd come to the conclusion that if I'd let her talk me into it, that meant that I really did need it, or at least that I wasn't capable of doing it on my own, and if there's one thing I don't need in life, it's you telling me what's best for my body, since obviously I know all and am infallible. I just didn't want to be at the point where I was relying on someone else to help me lose the weight, or worse yet, lose the weight for me. And that's when I decided I hated Lindora, I hated the way the nurses talked to me like I was five years old, I hated cutting entire food groups out of my diet, I hated being told how much to eat and when, I hated seeing every morning that I hadn't made any progress because I faltered and ate - gasp - one measly little chocolate chip cookie (ok, so maybe it was four), I hated going in and seeing everyone's before and after pictures on the board, wondering why I wasn't following in their footsteps and dropping three pounds a week, I hated hating myself because I wasn't dropping three pounds a week. Never in my life had I ever been so obsessed with my weight, or so upset about it. Sure, I was never really happy I was fat, but when was the last time I actually cried because of it? High school? Ok, sophomore year of college, I confess. The point is: why would I want to be a part of something that I don't want to do and that makes me feel like crap day after day? I'm young. I'm starting to be active again. And I'd rather be active all the time and eat what I want in moderation than walk and eat only from a list of foods that fit on half a sheet of paper. I'd rather not diet and watch what I eat than be obsessed with numbers - carbs, points, calories, whatever. (Ok, so calories are actually, in reality, important.) The only number that really counts is the one on the scale, and I don't want to be obsessed with that either. I just want it to be smaller. However long it takes to get smaller, I don't really care, though sooner is always better than later. I just want it to get there.
And that, my friends, is why I hate dieting.
P.S. If you see me in person, and have noticed that I've lost weight and would like to compliment me on it, don't. Seriously, don't. I don't want to know that "you look so good! Have you lost weight?" or worse, "you look like you've lost some weight!" Don't ask me about my diet, don't ask me how I'm feeling if it's related to my weight loss, don't tell me "good for you for working out with a trainer". I don't want to hear it. ANY of it. I'm doing it for me, and the only reason I blog about it is because it's an experience. When I'm done losing however much weight I want to lose, I'll let you know, and then you can congratulate me. But until then, I work out for me, I watch what I eat for me, I'm losing weight for me. Not for you, for me. It's my body, and I'll compliment myself if I want to.
P.P.S. Also, do NOT ask me how my diet's going. If we go out to eat, don't ask me if we can go to certain places, implying my diet being a cause for concern with the phrase "I don't know what you can eat." Like I said, I'm doing this for me, so it's my problem. I don't want to be treated differently, singled out, or treated like it's always Passover because I'm trying to lose weight. You know what I'm doing, and I know what I'm doing, and I'll figure out what to eat at restaurants, and everyone within a thirty-foot radius does not need to know that I'm dieting. Dammit, it's not your news to tell. It's like all other activities and conversation topics have ceased to exist since I started trying to lose weight. I'm sure people with fertility problems don't really like talking about that with everyone on a night out either.
Oh, that felt good.
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