subconsciously insane.

i went down south this weekend to visit the bff’s family for easter. it was fun. we bought ties for the groomsmen, two suits and a tie for the groom, and got easter baskets full of fun things from the easter bunny. we ate grilled chicken and ribs and heaps of food. we did the powdered donut challenge with the sweet sixteen donuts (because we couldn’t find the full size ones) and guess who beat the big boys in eating the six fastest?

that’s right.

this girl right here.  one minute twenty five seconds.  six donuts in that time.

and you wonder why i needed to lose 130+ pounds? that’s it right there, folks, but i gotta tell you…it was lovely good fun beating the big boys, including the bff. but while i was the fastest, i wasn’t the most impressive.  bff ate 10 in 3 minutes. he’s a balla’.

i’ve decided that i just don’t sleep well not in my own bed.  and especially when i’m in a place that i’m not sure if i’m comfortable with yet.  not that i’m UNCOMFORTABLE in any way there…that’s not the case at all.  and every time i go, i get more and more comfortable.  but it’s an environment that i am not used to and so i think my subconscious knows it.

the first night, i had nightmares all night long.  the kind that you can’t really remember other than remembering that they were disturbing enough to keep you waking yourself up all night long. the second night, i had a massive headache bordering on migraine status (oh, welcome spring.) so i slept hard.  that was good.

but by the end of sunday, i was crashing seriously. (i’m certain nothing of that had anything whatsoever to do with the massive infusion of sugar and lard that i ate in the donut challenge, eh?) last night, i had recurring dreams about having forgotten about three classes that i was signed up for, and it was 3/4 of the way through the semester.

please note. i have NEVER EVER EVER had this kind of dream before. i know that it’s a fairly common stress dream, but i have NEVER had it.  not once. until last night, where much of my dream was spent trying to remember what class it was that i was supposed to be taking and where it was and explaining to people how normally grad students only take two classes so after the first day i just forgot that i was taking five and trying to figure out a way to get back into the classes and take the exams so that i wouldn’t have a massive 0.0 GPA.

oh, and i forgot…it was a middle school.  i was in middle school again. except i was me.

and at the end of my dream? my engagement ring fell apart.  like the two side stones fell out and, with them, some ball bearings (…what the heck?).  i gathered all of the pieces together and managed to think, in my head, that i was really glad that we had the lifetime guarantee. it didn’t feel like an ominous portent of things to come–more like that it was one more thing that i failed at. and it happened while some girl was yelling at me for not going to biology tutoring (which i had apparently signed up for with a guy named miguel) because they really needed the money because they were getting married and don’t you understand what a hardship it is to not be able to count on that money?

let me tell you, sister, i do.

but i didn’t say that. i was just sheepishly trying to figure out when on earth i had signed up for biology tutoring, when someone had called me, why i hadn’t changed my address with the school, and how this had all happened.

in short (way too late…i know), the whole dream was about letting things fall through the cracks.

so…i’m going to work on lists tonight. wedding lists. i’m going to break everything down into as many small pieces as i can so that i don’t forget something big.

because, obviously, my subconscious thinks that i have that tendency.

did i mention that it’s APRIL 13TH? i thought these dreams weren’t supposed to show up for at least another three months.

sigh.

bridal diaries, part two: dreams.

i ordered my wedding dress today. i could probably have done it ages ago, but i think i wanted to wait until the last possible second before the sale ended because that’s how i do things, duh. i think it also had something to do with the fact that a) i didn’t need to order it really until now and b) i didn’t want to pay for it until i had to and c) i still wanted to take advantage of the sale that made it $50 off.

(in other news, i’m going to try very hard NOT to look at the website at all ever just in case my dress goes on superclearance and they sell it for like $5.  because if that happens, i might just shrivel up and die.)

it was $266.  i’m hoping to find someone that i know to make the bolero for me, as i want it to cover more and have longer sleeves than ANY bolero i have ever seen.

(my fat arms, you see, and the fact that i need it to be more modest than it is. in short, i actually WANT it to cover things instead of just looking like it covers things.)

i have heard rumors that the bff’s grandma is like the ultimate sewing balla’. i’m not sure if she loves me enough yet to be willing to do it for me, but i’m going to try to continue to charm her this weekend (for multiple reason, not just my own benefit, in case you were wondering) and we’ll see what happens.

$266.  i think that’s pretty decent. it has everything that i ever wanted and never knew i wanted. and it swishes.

and if you don’t know what that means, you should watch runaway bride.  because…i have that same kind of whee! moment every time i think about it.

dangit now i want to try it on again.  blah.

i’m gonna be a princess bride!  yayayayayayayay!

in other news, last night i had my first wedding related bad dream.

essentially, in the convoluted way that most all of my dreams are, it was my reception/ring ceremony except it felt like a circus because it was in this HUGE warehouse place or something. there were hordes of people everywhere, and i got superdistracted.  i let time waste away and then realized that i hadn’t bought the flowers for the bouquets or made any bouts or corsages or my own bouquet or anything, and my mom was not happy with me at all, essentially saying that was my one job.

the two positive things, in order of awesome, in this dream were the DJ, who was going to play really cool 40s music as well as new stuff as well and my bff, who i distinctly remember being awesome via phone although i didn’t ever see him in the dream. i just remember feeling really loved.

and that’s what’s important, right?

that’s what i thought.

it’s not thursday or even wednesday, but i’m calling it love tuesday anyways because look how freaking cute we are.

some of my favorites of the engagement photos…from the batch that aren’t even the finalists for what to use for invitations.

(when we saw this one, as we were looking through the pictures on the day that we took them, we both said, almost at the same time, “we’re HOTT!” what you can’t see in the edited photo is that we were standing back to back, holding hands. it was a totally spontaneous move, but it WORKED.)

(i LOVE this picture. completely and totally. i’m not sure why, but i love the perspective and our body language. everything about it i love.)

(i love the expression on his face. this is really him laughing. and i love it. and i love that he’s the one in the forefront rather than me. of course, i love those the best, i think.)

(i hate ring shots. HATE them. but i really like good hand shots. and i think this one is one of the best i’ve ever seen.)

(this is unanimously, thus far, the facebook favorite. i like it too, very much. it was a serious contender for what to use for the announcement/invitation. i think it captures something about us very well.)

so there you go, y’all.  welcome to my engagement.

collateral damage.

i’ve been thinking about consequences lately. not in terms of “oh holy crap i’m being punished for what i’ve done” but more the idea that, regardless of your action, there are long-lasting implications for what you do or do not do.

if you’ve been around a while, you know that me and my body have a pretty love-hate relationship. well, i shouldn’t say i hate my body. i don’t. not really at all. i love that it can do so many more things that i thought it ever could. i love that i take it running up stadium stairs and i love how light it seems lately. i love that it can bend and move and dance and frolic much easier than it ever has before. i love that i can listen to it and know what i need to do to keep it running smoothly. i love the way it responds to when i baby it–especially when i’m getting enough sleep.

so i’m pretty much a fan of it overall.

but losing 130 pounds leaves a bit of collateral damage.  i don’t say that to be woe is me or to even really complain. just mainly to muse on this fact and perhaps reconcile myself to the fact that me and cap sleeves will never, ever be friends because i will always, no matter how hard i shred or do tricep presses, will always have flabby arms. it makes sense, really. an entire other person used to occupy my skin with me.

that’s gonna leave a mark.

but it’s hard for me, probably because i am getting married and am thinking about how comfortable i want to be with my body on that day, to be accepting of that fact.  i am not feeling any pressure from anyone outside of my skin. the bff loves me for exactly who i am. if i lose more weight, great.  i think he’d be happy, but really just because i would be happy. because he has the purest most loving heart ever.

but i want to feel comfortable in my own skin. and i guess i figured that, somehow magically in a  mystical turn of events that doesn’t really make much sense at all, there would be no real marker left of where i’ve come from.

let me tell you what. that is NOT the case. i have marks.  i have evidence of those bygone days.

the lingering aftereffects of choices remain, in a much less concrete form, also on my dissertation.  i have not used my time as well as i could have. i don’t regret the things i’ve done, particularly, but i regret the time i didn’t take, the discipline i didn’t work hard to develop, the moments that i wasted.  there were lots of times i could have been doing something else. instead, i was pretending that that bill was never going to come due, that i would have infinite amounts of time to complete what it is that i must complete.

the consequences have been a whole lot of discouragement, self-doubt, and the consequences of my lack of diligence.  it’s not a good place for me to be, the valley of self-doubt, but i’m climbing my way out and am committed to a plan that i knew i needed to implement months ago but only now feel repentant enough to do so.

oh me and my stubbornness.

but there is collateral damage from that as well.  i will have to work harder to remember where i was in the process, have to balance more things in my life, have to still be working on it after i get married, more than likely once i’m working two or three jobs to support my little family.

that’s hard to swallow too, sometimes, but i wonder if it isn’t really just a part of the process.

am i learning something from it? oh yeah. i have turned into quite the planner, necessity being the mother of invention. i have realized that consequences are just as real for the things you choose not to do as for the things you do.  i have realized that the road to the valley of self-doubt is distraction, and i hope i’ll be more quick to see the detour.

but the body thing…i’m not sure how to get over that. i’m not sure what else i can do, except to try to have peace about it. no one is perfect–i know this–but i live in a culture that screams at me that all women are size 2s, have perfect perky boobs and flat stomachs, and have never had to struggle a day to do what i struggle every day to do.

i guess i don’t want to be reminded of the negative choices that i made, reminded of the person i was before. my life is changing so much…i guess i’d like to just live a new life in a new body, devoid of any tracks of the past.

the chasm between who i was then and who i am now seems large.  the chasm between what i think i should be and what i am also seems large.

that’s where my musing head’s at.

scattered thoughts about random things.

i am laying in my bed, surrounded by piles of junk that needs to be dealt with, knowing that i should be out walking rather than laying in my bed because after 3 i won’t be able to work out because i’m donating platelets.

and yet instead i’m writing here.

i really do have to clean this room sometime. it’s beginning to close in on me in a way that is not good, and as much as i hate it sometimes, the peace that comes from a clean room restores peace in my mind.  and i suppose that i really should read the articles that i have intended to read for the last week but which i have yet to read because there’s always something.

i have laundry to do.  and i’m planning on making a yummy pork roast this weekend in the crockpot so i need to go to the store to get the assorted accompanying yummies.

it’s conference weekend, which i’m excited about, but which makes scheduling anything a challenge.

i think i’m going to do stadiums again tomorrow. did them yesterday.  did them on some morning before that.  tuesday maybe? did much better yesterday.  i’m now running up and down most of the stairs and down the big spiral ramps. i’m still walking up the big spiral ramps, but i’m pretty impressed with my progress.

i watched the finale of ER last night. well, most of it because nobody told me that it started at 9. it was a good episode, but one storyline kept reminding me of my grandma and at the end i was like ‘that’s it?’  i wasn’t impressed, for all the hoopla.  i am, however, hecka excited about harpers island, which is a 13 week mystery event on cbs don’tcha know.  that’ll make the spring/summer pass quickly because oh my holy dang that will mean that when it’s over i will be like 3 seconds away from my wedding.

WOOT!

i’m still seriously plateaued.  my response to this varies depending on the day.  some days, like wednesday, i eat heaps of chinese food and decide not to care. some days, like thursday, i am super careful with my food and work out like a crazy person and manage to do a decent job of both. some days, like today, i’m not sure what i’ll do.

i’ve heard some rumblings about something president obama did with the queen.  i guess i should look into that. an ipod? why is everybody hating on giving the queen an ipod? if i was a queen, i think i’d probably dig that. of course, if i was a queen, i’d probably own apple, so…there you go.  i should look into that…

we’re signing the lease for our new apartment today. we’ve begun to refer to it as our house.  it’s very very very cool.

i should get up, i guess, and get to doing something–even if that something is just making my bed and eating some cereal.

happy weekend, all.

inspired by my 9pm gym trip.

if you have been on the stairmill for as long as i’ve been on the crossramp, and your ponytail is perfect and you just have the slightest glistening sheen of sweat on your upper lip, i don’t like you. i don’t trust you.  i don’t believe you’re actually doing anything. if i didn’t KNOW that you’d just been on the stairmill, which will kill you 500 ways and then spit you back out again and laugh at you all the while, i wouldn’t believe you’d actually worked out.

you should sweat. you should be good and sweaty. you should feel, as you walk out the gym door into the muggy florida night, that people are staring at you and wondering why you are in the condition that you are. you should weigh two pounds less because of said sweat.

you should look like you did something.

yeah, i don’t trust you, ponytail girl.  i have got the Christian charity for you, and i’d probably be perfectly nice to you if we were friends, but i might still think there was something squirrely going on with your workouts.

i’m just sayin’.

–

in other news, and fair warning here, if i don’t stop seeing the number that i keep seeing on the scale, i am going to go a little insane.  it’s like a bad penny, that number. keeps turning up and annoying the ever-loving crap out of me.  if it were an animate object, i’d probably punch it. but it’s not. it’s me.

and i’m plateaued.

dangit.