this, not that

last summer at this time i was making myself nutz exercising, starving but not losing any weight. i was frustrated, upset, depressed, humiliated. i felt awful physically and mentally. the owner was berating me weekly about what i was doing wrong and what i wasn't doing right, and that's why i wasn't losing.

fruit was coming into season locally and i started about everyday with a nice big heap of berries in a bowl of fresh no-fat yogurt. healthy, right? diet food, right? each friday i went to haymarket and stocked up on cartons and cartons of berries, grapes, kiwis, pineapples and what-not.

scroll forward to late summer, when i began to learn and accept that it's not just how much you eat, but what you eat. more importantly that the "what" i'd been advised to eat all my life was wrong, and that it was making me fat and unhealthy. the pounds and inches have fallen away, i look and feel better than i have in ages.

yesterday i went shopping, both for myself and an impromptu dinner. faced once again with dirt-cheap berries, shiny red cherries and luscious figs, i fought myself about it all. i decided to follow my nose to the golden raspberries, bought some reds too, but only enough of them for that night's dinner. they go bad so quickly, i knew i would rationalize eating too many too soon.

there is broccoli, cauliflower and bright red peppers waiting for me back home. i know i made the good choice, and am happy i allowed myself the treat last night.

it will be more of a gauntlet down there later in the summer when both native corn and local blueberries are both in season! (noodle shakes fist at sky!! damn you, new england summer!)

USA!!!!!!!!

it's world cup time and i am already late to the party. every 4 years the world glues its ears and eyes to the drama, the victories and the tragedies. (remember escobar? who was killed after the '94 world cup?)

the us DOES NOT CARE ABOUT SOCCER. call it "football" like everybody else in teh world, and fans here just get confused. little kids play it now, unlike in my day, because it's easier to have more kids running the field without harming the play. i think. who knows. what do i know? 'rents will go see and even coach their kids' teams, but they could give a rat's ass for fifa.

i work with lots of guys and most of them are sports nuts. the ins and outs of football-baseball-basketball, minored with hockey, dominate conversation and EVERYBODY is smarter than theo, doc and bill, ffs.

i also work with lots of south americans who grew up living and breathing soccer. futbal. this is the most exciting time evah for them. i get that.

so the world cup started yesterday morning. all the tvs ran it. south africa vs. mexico. nobody working had a nationality stake, but, ya know, it's the 1st match. ok. cool.

why are you exercised, noodle? because guys i have worked with for 7 months and have never once heard them mention soccer, now cannot unglue their eyes from the tube. for the next month, only the barest minimum of work will get done and that will only be by force. this happens every goddamn time the world cup comes up.

it's bad enough that the brown kids somehow feel like they are still in brazil/peru/ecuador/whatevs/ and so excused from normal duties and can spend most of the day glazed over at the screen, but the americans make me wanna kill them. the long island hockey fanatic, the connecticut football expert and the masshole baseball know-it-all somehow magically transform into soccer knowledge phenoms who cannot be budged from viewing the match-after-match-after-match.

it has happened every place i have ever worked. wtf? bonding must be part of it, but really? who among these guys cares about korea or uruguay? can they find them on a map? pro soccer gets played all over, many months of the year. my ears bleed hearing these guys. and my wallet moans cuz they simply do as little as possible.

today nationalism (jingoism?) got a boost since we tied the brits. quite sure most of the uk was suicidal over it, while most of the us remains blissfully unaware. 'cept for the restaurant poseurs with whom i must deal. grrrrrrrrrrr.

28 more days.

white trash

am gonna try to make sure to squeeze in all the deets here.

one of the ed hardy women at my work was going OFF tonight about some now-former best friend who was catty-trash-talking about her (my co-worker) being a slut. my co-worker can manage to look slutty in sweat pants and a sweat shirt. what she does in her off-hours i'm mostly fine not knowing, but she claims to not have had sex in 4 months. ahem.

anyway...

my jerry springer recap:

• this woman is 26
• has 2 babies with 2 different baby daddies
• she got preggers within the 1st month of fucking these guys
• neither of which has ever held a real job, both of them have lengthy records
• one is 33 and has never had a driver's license
• when not in jail, both guys live with their ma
• this woman is now pregnant with baby #3, from a new daddy
• she has been seeing this guy less than 2 months and is already knocked up
• this daddy was the b/f of her "best" friend for 15 years
• the ex-g/f just had an abortion of this guy's kid 2 weeks ago, before she knew these 2 had hooked up
• this guy has no job, no car and a lengthy record
• like the others, he deals drugs
• the woman has herpes and hepatitis c, both of which she knew she had before fucking this guy and getting knocked up

her trash-talking of the woman i know, took place in a local, after the mom-to-be had several jager-bombs and was calling her out on being a slut and a back-stabbah and a cratah-face, who'd fuck any guy with a nice cah. all of which was relayed 2nd-hand! jeebus!! this happens with adults?

who are these people? i always thought their stories on springer/maury/jenny/sally were exaggerated. um, not. these just have townie accents instead of hillbilly drawls and live in the projects instead of a single-wide.

women running at the mouth

previous posts have ranted about wives trash-talking their husbands when out with "the girls". it makes all the cosmo-sippers giggle and guffaw and they go home tipsy and vindicated, i guess, having proven to the coven what utter clods the spouses are. how does he manage to get his shoes on in the proper left-right combo and get a paycheck each week? will wonders never cease?

my staff at work includes two couples, both of whom are engaged. (there was a third, but they now are in the throes of a divorce due to brazilian vacation shenanigans on his end, i hear.) recently, and more than once from each the women, there has been soapboxing about what idiots the guys are. planning a big house party, why is c. cleaning the junk room before the bathroom? how dumb is that? why is b. playing the tv so loud and giving the niece crackers when she cries? how dumb is that?

other females, both single and with somebody's, circle around and laff and laff. oh, those impossible menz!

the tirades are all too full of triteness for further repeat and i am sure you get the drift. here's what gets me. we KNOW these guys. see and interact with them several times a week and have informed opinions about dumb or smart they might actually be. your future wife thinks you are an idiot because you are not doing anything "her way". i won't know any of you in a few years, but would like to, only to see how long it truly takes to have your souls completely crushed. good luck to you, hubs.

numbers don't lie

well, yeah, they do and we all can cite various surveys (like how many married people cheat on their spouses) and massaged statistics (like how the feds count unemployed peeps, but this is not a political rant, lol) to prove this point.

but the land of women's clothing has become an absolute mine-field. men buy their threads by the inch. neck and arm make the shirt and waist and inseam make the pant. now, gents, imagine if you will, that all your jeans are getting a little threadbare and you decide to treat yourself to some new levi's. you're the same weight you were 5 years ago, last time you went shopping, so you go to the mall and pick up 5 new pairs of 32's or whatever. no need to try 'em on, they've always fit. when you get home, all of a sudden you're having a goldilocks denim experience. one pair is too big and one is too small, and of the 5 only 1 fits just right. would it make you crazy?

happily smaller than i have been in a long time, i have dared to shop over the last couple weeks. not quite "there" yet, i have been bargain hunting and set random price ceilings on certain objects, hoping to donate them as too big by the end of summer. size anarchy ensues. how could 5 different pairs of ralph lauren capri, all size 6, fit differently? they ranged from just too baggy, to swimming on me. there was only one pair of size 4's, which were a little too tight for an old white lady. those more booty-prone (yeah, all you sistahs and chicas out there, i mean you) would have happily greased 'em on i guess, but not me.

as for bras, it is one of the few items women purchase with actual measurements. the holy grail of getting some decent ones that fit has brought the owner no end of hilarity. to the point where he likes to mock me in front of men i have never even met about the search. (sometimes i wonder why i tell him stuff, ya know?)

you measure in a certain spot, add 2 inches, and that is the backstrap measurement of the bra that should fit you perfectly. in a normal universe, every 36, 38, 32, whatevs, would fit the woman poking through the racks and drawers for her "size". rubbish. over the last few months, i guesstimate i have tried on over 50 bras. a lot more than that i am thinking. all kinds of brands and price-points. some of them are falling off and some of them are like boa constrictors. some cups so small they wouldn't cover an oyster and some big enough for an official nba ball with kobe's hand palming it in there.

who the fuck are these women who love to shop? it's become torture and a horrible mind-fuck. it's frustrating, humiliating and a massive effort for the end achieved.

of course, men run most fashion houses and retail companies, so i guess we know the root of the issue. huh?