sweet home, los angeles??

if i lose weight for no other reason than to fit into the godamned airline seats, that will be just fine with me. the flight to chicago was quite pleasant. fortune blessed me with an empty middle seat and plenty of slack on the seatbelt, but the flight home was not so lucky. not only was the plane completely full, but for some reason i had to seriously suck it in to get the belt buckled. humiliating. and uncomfortable... and to add insult to injury, my lovely full hips/thighs kept pushing the arm rest up... thank god the middle seat occupant was a scrawny hipster who was passed out for the whole flight:)

it was nice to see friends. the movie went well. but i'm glad to be home. i think the next time i go back, i'm going to book myself into a hotel. my folks were kind enough to put me and my guy up for a few nights, but the accommodations were woefully gross and uncomfortable. i probably sound like a spoiled wretch for critiquing the generosity of my hosts, but seriously. i'd bet my eye teeth that crack dens are arguably cleaner than my parent's homes. the problem is that my folks are getting old. in addition to failing energy levels and eyesight, they are in the midst of selling one home and moving it's contents to their vacation/pseudo permanent home. their cleaning lady quit a couple of months ago b/c no one was around and the house was so empty. and my dad is still very much recovering from his heart surgery.

i get it. they have a lot going on. still...

the first nite i got in, my mom picked me up. "where's dad?" i asked. "we're fighting" she said. great. my folks exist in some state of argument 50% of their time... so this was no curve ball. i know how it goes down in their house(s) when they are fighting. internally, i braced myself for all of the shit that i worked so hard to unlearn in therapy, then immediately changed the subject. when we got back to the lake house, i was hungry and tired. i went to the spare bedroom and found some sheets on the bed... i suspected that they weren't clean and my suspicions were confirmed when i pulled the covers back to reveal - brace yourselves - scabs and a few dried blood spots. yeah. that's right. i said scabs. so. fucking. gross. it took everything i had not to keel over in a fit of trauma-induced seizures. clearly, this is where my dad has been sleeping during his recovery. i changed the sheets but still couldn't bring myself to sleep in the bed. i wandered into the office and set up camp on the couch. "why aren't you sleeping in the bed?" my mom asked. "scabs" i said. "god. that's fucking disgusting" she said. "then you better check the couch for scabs, too - he's been sleeping in here, as well."

i did have a nice time with my mom that first night. we reconnected while chatting and laughing. despite the good time, i was acutely aware of the role that food played in our discourse. when she first picked me up she said, "you're losing weight!! you look great." bullshit. and i'm not being an argumentative ass, but seriously. i have not lost substantial weight since the last time she saw me... she just knows i've been following weight watchers and she's somewhat of a sycophant. on the ride from the airport she asked if i was still doing weight watchers and i admitted that i was. when we got to the lake house, she asked if i was hungry and i said that i would forage for something. then she made these super unhealthy little pizza pockets (sabotage!) for us. then pulled out a bag of lindt's dark chocolate truffles and laura scudder's natural peanut butter. "have you mixed these two before?" she said, slathering the gooey peanut butter onto the truffle. "no" i replied, "i have enough bad habits already."

here's the unsettling part for me: why on earth would my mom serve up a gatrillion calorie meal (and by meal i mean 14lbs of enriched flour and 27lbs of refined sugar) late at nite AFTER i'd already told her that i was trying to stick to weight watchers?? perhaps i'm being sensitive, but it all felt a little too much like her trying to sabotage me. for the record, i did not have any of those p.b. and chocolate concoctions. i did, however, indulge in the crappy microwave pizza pieces. perhaps her food choices didn't have anything to do with me. all i know is that the food element didn't feel nourishing and healthy... it felt cloistering and heavy and guilt-laden.

the next day, we did a little shopping on our way back to their other house. it was nice to see my dad up and about. he looks great for an old guy who, just four short weeks ago, had his chest cracked open. we had a good conversation despite my mom slamming shit around us, making loud, angry noises. she refused to acknowledge my father and made it clear that she wasn't happy with us chatting. fortunately, i had dinner plans with my girls and had to pick up my guy from the airport later that evening so i got out of the house pretty quickly.

when my guy and i got back from the airport, we slogged our luggage upstairs to one of the empty, spare bedrooms and set up futons and sheets on the carpet. talk about skeeze city! there were remnants of dead bugs all over the place. the futons looked like they were pulled out of a dumpster and the "clean" sheets that we laid down had a few scabs stuck to them... fucking disgusting.
on sunday evening, i dropped my guy off with his bandmate and left him to a week long recording session. i drove back to my folks place and started packing. that's when i noticed an ant on my makeshift futon bed. further inspection revealed a couple of small, black roly poly looking things wriggling around. i picked up my shit and moved down to the living room and made a little bungalow on the floor. "what are you doing?" my mom asked. "bugs" i said. she grimaced. "yuck. i'm so sorry about the sleeping arrangements. do you want me to kick dad out of your sister's bed so you can sleep there?" ??? what kind of a person would kick a recovering heart patient out of their bed and displace them to the couch?? WTF!? "uh, no. this'll be fine. i have to get up at 5am anyway to get ready for my flight." "are you going to be ok to get up that early?" my mom asked. "yeah, i'll be fine. i'm going to hit the hay soon," i replied, all the while thinking that not even death could keep me from getting on that plane in the morning.

as soon as i left to get ready for bed, i heard my folks start arguing in the living room. SERIOUSLY??? did we not just talk about how we had to get up super early to get to the airport? mom, did you not just express concern about having to get up in 6 short hours? what the fuck are you doing picking a fight at 11:30 at night OVER MY BED!? i didn't know what to do. i was so uncomfortable. there's no where in the house that i could go to escape their fighting. i headed down to the basement and sat on the stairs and called my guy for a sanity check. fortunately, the fight broke up around midnight and i meekly padded in to the living room, carefully checking for land mines or any other remnants from the war, before hunkering down in my bungalow.
anyway, i can't tell you what relief it is to be home... and by myself (my guy opted to stay in chi-town for a week to record another album). i've been kind of floating around in this weird haze. my thoughts are disjointed. i get lost in the dichotomy of the truly great time with my friends and the bizarro world of my folks.

having made three or four trips back to chicago in the recent past has given me new perspective on my current situation. this last visit confirmed some sneaking suspicions in my mind. i realize that i've been glorifying and idealizing "chicago" and my memory of it. it's been tough adapting to a new life, but i gotta say, right now, my chicago life - the streets, the shops, the weather that just won't quit, the city vibe - it all feels very much part of my past. for as much as i resisted settling into los angeles, calling it home, i gotta say it never felt so comfortable as when i got off that plane at LAX and drove back through hellacious traffic on the 405. when did all this change happen?

crumb-y day

sometimes i really wonder what my co-workers must think of me… i am one tragic catastrophe after another.

around two-thirty today, i happened to look down at my shirt and noticed it was covered in crumbs. i was horrified to find… snacks…that i had unwittingly saved for later…in the folds of my cowl neck shirt. and by snacks i mean small to medium-largish crumbs of the wretched little kashi granola bar i had for breakfast. i’m not bothered so much by the fact that no one told me i had the bottom of a monkey cage stuck to my upper torso and neck. no, i’m bothered more by the fact that for the six hours or so that i walked around my place of business donning my crumb-y getup, i was basically reinforcing every negative image of fat people that exist… you know what i’m talking about – the stereotype of that dirty, stinky, fat office leper who plods around covered in food stains, crumbs stuck to their 2^nd, 4^th and 5^th chin-necks, with a gait resembling that of jabba the hut (which is really less of a stride and more of an oooooozing along), leaving a trail of empty super size doritos bags and econo-sized twinky boxes in their wake. today, friends, that fat slob was me. as soon as i noticed those velcro crumbs clinging to my shirt, i brushed them away with the ferocity of a meth addict swiping at invisible bugs… "get 'em off! get em' OFF!!"

trying to regain composure, i was reminded of another moment, not so long ago, where i was once again left melting in the wake of humiliation, by yet a different stereotype: a snot-nose, scabby-kneed 11 year old boy. oddly, i found solace in the embarrassment of a few crumbs on my shirt (all day long) because that was nothing compared to what happened to me while i was temping…

i got a temp gig shortly after i moved to l.a. (and not long after i became completely demoralized by a fruitless three-month job search). my temp cubicle was strategically placed to accommodate the every whim of five or six office dwellers. my duty was primarily to answer the phone. it was not uncommon for me to bring a snacks and drinks to work because i was shackled to the phone for seven hours a day.

one day, i decided to sate my mid-morning hunger with a pear. it was a delicious pear, perfectly ripe and super juicy. while enjoying my snack, one of the office dwellers ambled by and stopped to exchange morning niceties. i noticed that this corporate slug kept diverting his eyes from mine, his glance darting about my face. was he looking at my cheek? my nose? why the hell did his gaze keep falling to the same two spots on my face? no sooner did he disappear into the dark recesses of his office than i whipped out a mirror to view my visage. what i saw caused me to drop the mirror in horror, grab the sides of my head and shriek bloody murder...on the inside...because i'm professional. instead, i frantically jabbed at my face with a kleenex, feeling the immediate burn of a deep, embarrassed blush begin to blossom on my cheeks and neck. i had not one, but two small booger-sized pear remnants sticking to my ruddy cheek and nose. holy mary mother of god. the pieces of pear looked EXACTLY like boogies. IT LOOKED LIKE I HAD TWO BOOGERS ON MY FACE!! boogers on peoples' faces… (i’m going to have to develop a steely constitution just to type out the next few sentences because nothing, and i do mean NOTHING, is more vile than a random boogie on someone’s face… even babies with the mass of yellowy goo smeared across their top lips is enough to send me into seizing fits of dry heaving.) it is just.so.gross. frankly, i'm not quite sure how i survived the day. i think i blacked out from the trauma of the incident because my recollection of the succeeding events of that day are hazy. needless to say that guy never really talked to me again... and frankly, i couldn't have blamed him. if the shoe had been on the other foot, i would have very likely cut the conversation short to go vomit in the privacy of my office. so gross.

so, yeah. i guess the crummy crumb incident today wasn't all that bad. when i compare it to some of the other recent embarrassing moments that i've lived down, not too bad at all...

because i'm classy that way

one of my favorite sunday evening routines is fashion show. at the end of the weekend, i spend an hour or two raiding my closet, preparing cute outfits for the coming work week. i love everything about the routine: touching fabrics, playing with different garment combinations, coordinating colors/patterns, accessorizing. everything about fashion show delights me. but mostly i do it because when my tired ass rolls out of bed at the last possible minute in the morning, i know that i won't be late because i don't have to hem and haw in front of the closet for 40 more minutes trying to figure out what to wear.

today was no different. i wore a pretty wrap dress under a beautiful sweater with elegant lace detail. i paired the outfit with knee high black boots and spanx tights. i was sassing it up all over the office lookin' good and feelin' fine... the only downside to this kind of fabulousness is the spanx... and it's not really a downside because the benefits of spanx far outweigh any annoyance with them... until today...

on the weight watchers plan, i am required to drink a shitload of water every day... it goes to follow that i also take quite a few bathroom breaks... and with the bathroom breaks comes the wrangling of the spanx. getting into a clean pair of spanx first thing in the morning is a sight that no human should ever have to behold - it is a life or death struggle, often causing unnatural grunts and disfiguring twists that require the wearer to bend and torque in more ways than, say, an advanced yoga class would demand. profuse sweating and heavy breathing is sure to ensue... but dayum if those spanx don't smooth out every last bump, roll and dimple. spanx rule. getting in and out of them does not.

clever company that they are, the makers of spanx did their market research well... they even built in, for lack of a more dainty phrase, a giant pee hole so a lady would not have to spend additional time wrangling the spanx up and down in the confined space of a public bathroom stall. i, however, am not one of those gals who's really comfortable with the whole commando-pee-hole thing. i prefer to have all of my lady bits cloaked... so a-wranglin' i will go when i have to go... what i was not fully aware of, though, is that all my wrangling throughout the day left me strutting around the office with a rather unfortunately positioned visible panty line... or perhaps a more appropriate term would be visible pee-hole line. it wasn't until i got home tonight that i happened to catch a glimpse of my backside in the mirror...

behold the horror! the embarrassment! the... intrigue??? i had hiked my spank so far up that the giant pee hole was stretched to a visible position on my ass. the strain of the spanx, just doin' what spanx does best (holding in like sausage casing), was causing a terribly disfigured ledge to form as my gratuitous booty escaped through the pee hole. holy crap! did i seriously walk around all day looking like i had loaded pants (or rather, a cute little, albeit loaded, jersey wrap dress)?! christ!

oh well. what i'll hold onto today is 1. the ability to laugh at myself; and 2. how confident and comfortable in my skin i felt not only when i walked out the door this morning, but all day; and most important, 3. to always check myself out from the rear before leaving the house.