The Saga of D.

This belated blog post is brought to you entirely by the letter "D." D is a pretty lousy letter, and single-handedly put my college admission in jeopardy once upon a time--thanks, Calculus.

D is for dumped, which I got, and the less said about it the better. D is also for dates, which I'm looking forward to going on--even if they're abysmal, I don't care, so long as there is dinner and some drinking and some dancing and some driving, all of which, you'll notice, begin with D. The whole shitshow definitely ranks up there with other complete, life-recalibrating catastrophes (the car wreck, the cousin debacle of last summer, the whole grad school waiting game, basically anything downright shitty and miserable), but, like those other things, it's over. In the meantime, I've been

Drinking. Ha! And Decorating. Girly (read: shameful) as it is, the minute I found out I was single, I decided it was high time I made this apartment someplace I'll enjoy living in for the next few months. And it's pathetic but also amazing what a new set of curtains will do for you, especially when they are your favorite color and bought so cheaply at Ross (aka Heaven) and match the quilt you are so glad your mother sent with you. Beds are tricky things when it comes to break-ups. I recommend everyone get thee to a home decor store when you find yourself sleeping solo. Do not set fire to previous occupants' belongings--just cram them in the closet, far from sight, and sleep spread out and satisfied. Leave the windows open so you can see the blue sky, because this is North Carolina, after all, where the weather is, well, impeccable.

D is also for dog, as in mine, as in the best little fluffer nutter on the face of the earth. I am in love with my dog. I am in love with my dog to an extent that is somewhat bothersome to me. As in, I kissed my dog on the mouth the other day. I probably should not publicize this fact, but it was so bamboozling to me that I did it, then stood up, realized there was puppy snot all over my face, and said aloud, "I just kissed my dog on the mouth." There's something very childish and instinctual in me when it comes to animals--see also: when Matthew was here, there was a little black cat outside this party we were at, and I just grabbed its tail. I don't know why. Also, when we went to the Serpentarium and saw ALL THE SUPER DEADLY SNAKES, a macaw in the foyer squawked at me--so I squawked back, and then threw my hand over my mouth while Matthew insisted I was a baby. Or all the times at Hamilton when I carried stray cats around--and there were more than a few.

D is also for dogs, as in the rest of Wilmington's. Pinto and I go to the dog park maybe every other day because it's an easy way for him to burn off energy and it makes me happier than I can say. In Vienna, I often went and sat in dog parks though I had no dog (incidentally, I used to want to return to Vienna with the boy I fell in love with there; now I want Pinto and I to go to Vienna, to tromp through the Wienerwald and ride the Strassenbahns and walk everywhere together--and yes, I will probably be speaking to him like a person the whole time). Pinto made friends with a Great Dane the other day, and it was about the best thing I'd ever seen.

D is for diet, which I'm still on, and which Pinto's been helping with in his own little way. We walk a couple miles daily, run up and down the stairs, go on adventures to the ocean--stuff that makes my legs sore. I hadn't been to a meeting in about a month what with having visitors and reconfiguring my life and trying to sort out just about everything, so I had no idea what my progress was. And then, holy shit! I've lost 24 pounds since February! Goddamn! I got a ways to go still, but shit! That's Pinto's weight! I lost a dog!

D is for deactivate, which I did with this blog, and which I did with Facebook. It's pretty sad to me that taking an internet hiatus was such a big personal step, but I think it was a smart move. I missed this, though. Didn't miss my incessant facebook stalking, but I think I've got it under control. And, as Karli pointed out, how will people show me funny Youtube videos without Facebook? Noodles on my back, anyone?

D is also for done, as in me and my first year of graduate school. Yikes. What the damn? How did that happen?

D is also for darlings, my friends both here and away. Karlicakes came to see me, and though it was accidentally the worst-timed visit ever (shitty weather, shitty situation), we had a hell of a time. We went on our own pub crawl because you can do that in Wilmington and ate some fine Thai food and went and walked on the beach and she sang at me and then we drank Cheerwine. It was awesome, and it's gonna happen again! Matthew also visited, and I don't think I've laughed that hard in months, maybe years. We subsisted singularly on oysters and beer and a beef jerky baton that he kept poking me in the eye with while I was driving so I threw it out the window. We had an extended discussion about where we ate some soup. We made a lot of goofy faces at one another, and we took Pinto to the beach, and overall we had a damn fine time. And everybody here's been really good to me, especially forgiving when I say I'd like to come over at 1 in the morning and drink some beer, fixing strawberry shortcake and arranging picnics at the lake, basically putting up with me in the midst of all this. It's nicer than I can say, knowing I'm not really alone. Lonely, maybe, but that's familiar, that's a state of mind and not a state of being. These are things I'm learning.

And, last but not least, D is for depressed. Surprise! No, not at all. I think it's been about a decade in the making, but yes, friends, fellows, farmers and freeloaders, I'm certifiably melancholy. This does not mean I'm different; it does not mean I'm in danger. All it means is what I've suspected for a long, long time--that I am expert at making myself unhappy, that I think in patterns that are unhealthy, and that, most importantly, I'm doing something about it. It's a lot like weight loss--I developed a lot of bad habits when it comes to food, and now I'm working to fix them. Likewise, I developed a lot of mentally bad habits, and now I'm acknowledging them and taking steps to fix them. I'm not out the woods yet, nor do I think I ever will be, but at least it's something I know and can speak about openly, instead of hiding it all away and beating myself up about it. But it's also not something I'm going to advertise, haha. That's another aspect of my odd psychology--I arbitrarily want to keep things secret for no reason. Like the fact that I wrote a book, which I did, but you won't hear it from me--and it's not modesty or humility so much as irrational paranoia. Anyway. So here it is on the internet for all to see and behold and make their own conclusions out of. High five!

Pinto is asleep on the floor and the sun is shining and my job starts tomorrow. There's the news from my spot in the world, which I'm slowly starting to appreciate more and more.

The Saga of Pinto.

Will this blog be temporarily devoted to my new dog? Probably. I'm sure it'll lift, though, as soon as something more monumental than having a fussy, cuddly, insane little chow mutt living in my kitchen happens. See also: North Carolina springtime, which my bones tell me is imminent, or the gift of gainful employment descends, or one of my pieces gets accepted, or a hurricane hits or something.

As of thirty minutes from right now, Pinto will have been a part of our lives for one solid week.

And Jesus H, what a week.

When I decided I wanted a dog, really, I wanted a dog--I wanted Penny, my family dog in Tulsa, who loves nothing more than spending all morning on my lap while I am reading, who will expend what little energy she has left chasing the cat (needing no more than someone, usually my dad, going "BRRRAWWWWR" to make her run endless laps around the house), who dances for her dinner.

Pinto, however, is not Penny. He is also not a dog. He is a puppy.

More specifically, he is a little furry adorable hellbeast monster baby.

I think we have Pinto for all of two hours, spent mainly with him sleeping on our laps, when we decide to give him some alone time and he unleashes the scream. Really. It's a scream. It escalates from whimpers to a howl to this garbled yelp and finally, finally, there's the scream--it will make you jump. It will make you worry. It will make you paranoid that someone in the apartment complex will hear, and suspect, and call the cops because clearly a small child is being brutally tortured over in that couple's place, saying I never liked the looks of those two, anyway, he's so much taller than she is and they never seem to leave their house--I think they might be drug dealers or terrorists or graduate students or something dangerous like that.

At first, we laugh at the scream, because it is such a disproportionately hideous and enormous noise emitting from something so small and sweet-looking. We have brushed up on all the Dog Whisperer tactics, but still, we go to consult The Book of Cesar, and he tells us: Your puppy will whine. You must ignore it.

So we do. Or at least, we try to.

But it's three days later and we are low on sleep and energy and Pinto's adorableness is wearing off, or at least becoming familiar, and suddenly the scream starts up while we're not with him and keeps going and keeps going and keeps going and we both lose it and isolate ourselves and pretty much have ourselves a go-to-pieces.

I should add, though, that Pinto's healthy, and everyone I've consulted--Cesar Milan, Dog Godmother Katherine Owner of Hank, my parents, Rob's parents, every idiotic forum on the entirety of the internet--has agreed that puppy yowling is merely the dog's way of expressing simple fear and loneliness. And I hate to say it, but Pinto, buddy, we all get scared. We all get lonely. I know you're just a puppy, but I'm 23 and I feel like making that noise sometimes (instead I go to bars--if there were such a thing as a puppy bar, lord knows we'd take you).

Point being, I showed up to school with bags under my eyes and a whole host of puppy scratches lining my arms like self-mutilations, and everyone's asking, "How's Pinto? How's the puppy?" and I honestly can't hear them because the echoes of his little puppy hollers are still ringing in my ears.

But then!

The next day, we'd decided to ignore Pinto's morning yelps. These, to me, are excusable yelps--he's been in his crate all night, he probably needs to pee pretty badly--so we've been answering them, taking him outside at 6 in the morning, then spending a very bleary hour entertaining him in the kitchen so he will hopefully zonk out and allow us to get another hour of shut-eye. This hadn't been working too well, making both of us zombies, making Pinto feel neglected--so we'd decided, maybe he can hold it til 8. Then we can all be functioning human beings, or dogs, depending on who's who.

And what do you know, the little fucker did it. Rob goes downstairs when all is quiet, both of us resolutely cramming the pillows over our heads when he had his 4 a.m. round of whining, his 6 a.m. follow-up (the yelping only lasts 20 minutes at most, but still), and there is tiny sleepy Pinto, no accident, no aggression, ready to go.

Yes, it's been tough. Yes, my mother thinks we should rename her "grandpuppy" (don't get me started) Marley, in honor of that idiotic little book that was made into a shitty rom-com. Yes, I'm apprehensive, and yes, I don't sleep well at nights, not because I'm not exhausted, but because I'm terrified he's going to contract Parvo or choke on his bone or just be miserable, and that I'm not doing a very good job, and I'm pretty lousy at this, and well, hell, this has all just gone wrong, hasn't it.

But I remember that Pinto could still be in that field where he was found, shivering in the rain, or in the groddy foster house where we picked him up, or he could be starving or sick or homeless or dead. So being raised by two fairly incompetent twenty-somethings with short tempers but infinite affection to dish out might be bad, but it could be a lot worse. As Rob says, "I have to keep reminding myself--puppies don't hold grudges. Puppies don't hold grudges."

And it's been great for me, too--the past week I think has been the first where I haven't spent 80% of it feeling sorry for myself, or feeling itchy and discontent, or feeling generally out-of-sorts. I did have a spell the Day of the Perpetual Scream, but it passed pretty quick. Moreover, I've been more productive this week than I have all semester, because my time's suddenly become worthwhile--when Pinto's napping, fuck! It's time to do something! Quick, before he stirs! To the keyboard! To the drafts! To work!

So it's been up and down in turns, but puppy-having is finally settling into some form of constancy--he only fusses when we leave the room sometimes, not all the time. He sleeps the night through and will happily bed down in his crate. He still chews the shit out of my pants legs, but he hasn't attacked my arms in days. It's going to be a long, long journey, I know, but I have foretelling dreams starring me and a big yellow dog, where we are driving across the Midwest on an adventure, and we are throwing amazing Frisbees, and then Pinto talks to me and I realize I'm sleeping. I'm hopeful, to say the least, but damn, wow, this has been an experience.

And truthfully? After puppy-rearing--puppies who bite you, and destroy things, and who are an entirely different species and whose faces bear no expression whatsoever (he's a chow-mix, aka the most inscrutable dog in the universe), I'm pretty sure baby-having is going to be a cinch.

The Saga of I Love Puppies.

Here are a few things you should know to fully understand the contents of the following post:

1. I love dogs. And when I say "I love dogs" I don't mean I am a fan of dogs, I enjoy dogs, or I admire them from a distance. I mean I love dogs. If a dog is in the room--as has happened at a few parties here, the culprit primarily an overweight boxer in a scarf named Hank--I have trouble interacting with other people because I only want to hang out with the dog. If I see a dog pass by while brunching downtown on seafood omelets and fresh orange juice at a sidewalk cafe (that's right you wished you lived here admit it), I will stop eating and interrupt whatever Rob is saying to announce, "TINY DOG TINY DOG TINY DOG" or, as the case may be, "BEAR DOG BEAR DOG." Annie can vouch for this because that's pretty much all we did while in Vienna--that, and eat perplexing breakfasts. Vienna, by the way, is full of dogs. It might even be governed by dogs. The cruelty of it all is how you are not allowed to pet any of them because they are so austere. Like the rest of Vienna. Oh, those swanky, swanky Viennese and their breakfasts.

2. The month of February was, hands down, shit. Just shit. Plain, awful, sloppy shit. I tried to post about it probably a dozen times, but no amount of wisecracking could mask the truth of this fucking terrible month, and seeing the ugly facts of it gussied up by my meandering clauses only doubled the stress and depression--what you could call strepression (depressss?). Yes, my birthday was fabulous. Yes, I'm still doing that Coterie of Hungry Overweight Women (henceforth known as C.H.O.W.) business and it is equally uplifting (slow but steady progress aiming always for boots!) and intensely terrible (I can no longer indulge in my one true love of buffalo sauce).

Moreover, though, Rob lost his job, which he discusses at length in his own blizzog. There are details, but you won't find them here--all you need to know is it felt like a tornado had come through and tossed what we'd made of our life into some trees, inaccessible by any ladder. It was August all over again and not in a good way--the whole what are we doing here, how do I manage the guilt I feel for bringing you here, what should we do, what the hell are we going to do rigmarole in rerun. Fun fact: this kind of stress will eat an ulcer into any relationship, and it definitely did ours--a few new bruises, a few old sores reprodded. If you consider a relationship an apple, sometimes I think ours would be better off mashed into sauce. Which is not that brutal of a thing to say, considering applesauce is delicious and loved by Polish people as a condiment to pierogies as well as babies everywhere.

But this is cryptic Xanga-esque shit! We will leave it at this: February was bad, bad, bad. But there were some good points--I finished a story, won a little contest, we went to our first grown-up dinner party and ate venison for the first time, Rob got started writing again, I took a lot of baths and drank a lot of chai, we both watched inordinate amounts of The Twilight Zone and cooked some snappy dinners on the Goddamn Good George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine (the GGGFLMFRGM as my father calls it).

So that's the disclaimer. Now, this:

One Sunday, Rob and I decide that nothing will cure our respective liquor-hangovers (margarita for me, bourbon for him) like some fancy downtown brunch. This was, as a matter of fact, last Sunday. Less than a week ago--that's how rapid and exciting the following story is.

We have our paninis and omelets and soups and water, water, water, and then we go strolling because yet again it was 60 and sunny and charming and there's a river and benches and a big stone courthouse and some fat little palm trees and you get it, it's lovely.

Dogs are a staple of the downtown area. Frequently I'd try to go to the outdoor Saturday market in the warmer months not for some overpriced tomatoes, but because I was pretty sure I'd get to pet a dog, or at least ogle one and chant in my head tiny dog tiny dog tiny dog.

Well. As we are ambling along the riverside, what is there before us but a gaggle of children and two tiny adorable puppies. And us, being us (because Rob is also a dog lover though I think he has his infatuation a little more under control), stood there weirdly, watching these children heft these puppies around like living teddy bears, until this lady--presumably the owner of both the flock of children and the two puppies in question--snags both and walks over and says "I see you looking" and hands them to us.

And this is how my brain goes: JOY! RAPTURE! DELIGHT! OH MY GOD I LOVE PUPPIES SO MUCH

One of these puppies looks like an Ewok. Really. All fluff and nothing else. But the other puppy is shorter-haired and camel-colored and falling fast asleep against me and I think "Oh goddammit I'm in love." Too soon, one of the forty-six assembled children tugs on my hem and asks for the puppy back, and I let it go, knowing, as we've been saying to this lady the whole time we're holding these dogs, oh, we can't get a puppy, we have no money, we have no room, etc. etc. But at the same time I'm thinking this is about the most content I've felt in weeks, maybe months, maybe years, holding this little sleeping mutt, who was found under a piece of cardboard, alone with his siblings, in some terrible frigid field. That being said, he is outrageously mellow and happy to nap on a practical stranger.

I only forget about the puppy that day because we spend the entire afternoon driving around North Carolina--first we find the ocean, then we find a lake, and in between we find a lot of little highways. We have dinner, we watch a movie, we remark on what a wondrous day we've had, and then we fall asleep.

Monday I do something stupid. I have gone on a long walk and realized I want nothing more than to walk a dog, and that that dog will be named Pinto, and that if I word it right, I could put up a craigslist ad hunting for that same little yellow puppy I held yesterday, and he could be ours, and everything would be good in the world again.

Long story short: That's exactly what happened.

The ad is half missed-connection, half-imploring request, and I think it's foolish and impossible and I should probably take it down before someone attacks me with one of those "SAVE THESE SHELTER DOGS GIVE THEM LIFE YOU ALONE CAN BE THEIR CHANCE AT EXISTENCE" posts when through the wires of the internet, lo! A response. The puppies are being fostered by a local humane society, but yes, call this number, fill out this application, we'll see you on Thursday.

All week I fret. I fret that Pinto will not be as cute as I remember. I fret that he will be an enormous, unruly beast and he will eat the couch whole. I fret that he will chew a hole through our patio fence and choke on splinters and catch puppy cancer and die. I fret that he won't be happy, and that I'm making a huge mistake. A huge mistake, or maybe the best choice I've ever made.

See? That's how I feel about everything.

Then it's Thursday, and we're at the foster house, and the Ewok still looks like an Ewok, and there's our Pinto, and holy fuck how can anything be that cute and real at the same time, and he rides in my lap all the way home, and we walk him around on his little blue leash, and I just realized the level of love and detail in this post might be overtly weird to some of you reading this because I'm getting a little self-conscious but then, really, all you need to know is we now have Pinto and he's amazing.

So March is going to kick major ass for several reasons.

1) March is a verb and march is exactly what I'm going to do--to the future! To progress! To success and contentment! plus 2) KARLI RIGGS IS COMING TO VISIT ME!!!! and 3) I'm spending my entire spring break with my boyfriend and my bike and my dog. Because I have a dog now. And his name is Pinto and he's amazing. And if you are in Wilmington and this post has made you puppy-envious, Pinto's littermates are up for adoption on craigslist right now (all fostered by the Columbus Humane Society, the headings all list them as 7 week puppies).

Can a dog save your life?! Can this dog save mine?!

Yes, yes, yes, oh my god, yes.

The Saga of How Awesome My Birthday Was.

My birthday? Awesome. How awesome? On a scale of one to awesome, it was like a bajillion zillion and a half.

And it had some mighty, mighty competition from the past few years--observe!

Nineteen: Beirut, balloons, and a paper banner with a nickname I'd rather not repeat strung across the ceiling of a quad in South. Pretty sure we lugged Winston's keyboard across campus that night too, because that's the kind of crazy freshmen we were, right!? I drop my new camera in the snow and proceed to lose its memory card--remarkably, the camera lasts for another two years, even when I have to tape the battery door shut.

Twenty: TOGA PARTY TOGA PARTY TOGA PARTY. We play Kings but call it Emperors. I do not take pictures because I am busy passing out face-down on a couch. It was awesome.

Twenty-one: "We were on a pub crawl in Berlin, dragged from what was supposed to be 4 bars and a nightclub, but I only made it to Bar #3 before collapsing in a bathroom until some Angel of Light rescued me and put me in a cab. But before that fantastic catastrophe, we made friends with Spaniards who couldn't speak a word of English but kissed us all when we left, I put in a request for 'Someone Great' and danced by my lonesome, an Australian bought me a Jagerbomb, had Jager poured down our throats under a train bridge, and did I mention Johanna and Jamie were there? When I erupted back into the hostel room, miraculously alive and semi-coherent, our sober compadre Tommy took notes on our drunken shenanigans, and the best and truest quote of the night was this: "It was great. I do not remember 75% of it." (from the oft-references study abroad blog of 2008).

Twenty-two: SURPRISE PARTY SURPRISE PARTY SURPRISE PARTY. As documented earlier on this here blog-a-log, I'd decided not to try and throw a party, opting instead for a quiet weekend of Indian food and never-getting-out-of-bed with Rob, and then I am summoned downstairs and GOOD LORD EVERYONE I KNOW IS HERE AND THERE IS A CAKE! I think 4 a.m. hit and I was outside smoking and telling everyone, "You know, I love you guys, like, this is like, the most greatest--I just want to say, I mean, I know it sounds silly--" And everyone nodded politely because I was hammered and it was my birthday.

Compare these to earlier birthdays, one at SkateWorld in Tulsa when I was so concerned with whether I would get in trouble for wearing my hat (which was denim with a big bow because it was 1995) that I didn't have much fun because there was a big sign expressly forbidding hat-wearing--not to mention I did not know how to skate. I still don't. In high school, I got kidnapped by my friends once, which was pretty awesome except for the part when someone forgot to push my head down before throwing me into the van, and since I had a sheet over my head, I basically gave myself a concussion. Then we went to the arcade and all piled into the photobooth. It was pretty adorable, even with the headache.

But this year--lordy!

So remember that last post, the one where I was all "Yeah I need to lose weight but I'm so cool with it I am like totally okay with this yeah yeah"--absolute lies. As soon as I hit Publish Post, the shit hit the fan in a bad, bad way. The whole thing was just enormously daunting, the numbers, the tracking, thinking I am going to be doing this for a long, long time--but really, there's no good time to get in shape, just like there's no good time to quit smoking--but it's something you have to do, because there's no reason for you not to. And like I said before--I want boots, dammit. Boots.

On Friday it all fell apart. I got out of bed, looked at all the program materials--the cute little journal, the little slide rule calculator, the overlit photographs of no-fat mayonnaise and glistening baby carrots--and promptly got back in bed and stayed there. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't.

Rob, meanwhile, baked cookies. I emerge from the cave of our dim, depressing bedroom having slept through the entire afternoon, sit in front of the TV and try to be calm and rational and not insane and hateful and terrified, and Rob comes home and in standard Rob is the Best Boy Ever fashion, says to me, "I'm taking you out tonight. I won't take no for an answer."

We've been trying really, really hard to be more frugal about food, so I instated a no-eating-out ultimatum to last between Rob's birthday dinner and mine--which was only two weeks, but which would be the longest we'd spent eating in since we moved here. Even the George Foreman Grill couldn't break the monotony.

So dinnertime hits and we go out, to a fancy-pants restaurant downtown that serves amazing bread and amazing salads and amazing gorgonzola-bacon-spinach dip, and it's such a nice date that I feel around 1000x better already. I suggest we see a movie, which starts at 10--it's around 9:15, check paid, waitress tipped, and Rob says sure, let's go to a movie, but I want to go home and eat a cookie.

This does not trigger any warning signs because Rob's cookies are really, really good.

So we get home, and we park, and we open the door, and it's very dark, and then of course what do you know

SURPRISE PARTY!!!!!1!!!!!

THERE ARE PEOPLE HIDING IN OUR HOUSE AND THEY ARE THROWING BALLOONS AT ME AND THERE IS A CAKE AND CANDLES AND BEER AND HOLY SHIT HOW DID YOU GUYS GET IN HERE!?

That's about how my thoughts went.

And then, you know, the usual--we go out, we get drunk, I say absurd things and become very indignant when my second double vodka-tonic gets cleared away when I was certainly not done with it, never mind that I am way past drunk already. All in all it was super-duper fabulous fantastic and made me happier than I could've imagined. And it's corny, but I've only been here in Wilmington for six months, and yet there were people who like me (or at least like surprises and drinking) enough to crouch in my house for 20 minutes and get me a cake. It meant a lot to me.

And the next day, it was a hell of a lot easier to wake up, and get up, and stay up, and say "All right. Let's rock this bitch. I'm getting me some boots if it kills me." And then I emitted forth a fearsome battle cry and ravaged the refrigerator of its terrible unhealthy, non-nutritious contents! I bought some motherfuckin' berries, and I had those fucks for breakfast! Rice cakes and tomato slices! Bran flakes and yogurt! Chicken noodle soup motherfuckers!

No, I didn't do this. I was far too hungover.

What I did do was lay around all day with Rob, and we went on a walk in the cold around our fantastic neighborhood that I love so much, and then we went and watched a movie with friends, and then we went to bed. And it wasn't even my birthday yet!

That, friends, was yesterday, and it was a day of pure, undiluted glory. Behold!

I talk to both my folks who both get nostalgic about my birth, my father reminding me that I had the biggest, bluest eyes he'd ever seen on a newborn, my mom about how she didn't believe I was a girl even after, you know, I was present in the world and obviously not a boy. How my brother could have cared less about me but was fascinated by the hospital bed's up-and-down functions--he was 2, so I guess I forgive him.

Then Rob, who has graciously taken the day off, takes me downtown, allegedly to go to the Serpentarium. Did you know Wilmington has a Serpentarium? It does. What is a Serpentarium? A building full of super deadly snakes.

Sadly the Serpentarium was closed, or at least locked, but there was a WILL RETURN BY sign up, so we decide to walk around downtown because oh yeah I forgot to mention it was February and the sky was blue and it was like 60 degrees and gorgeous outside. Not to mention downtown is charming as can be--old store fronts, little boutiques, ice cream parlors, bars and bars and bars, and, yes, horse-drawn carriage tours. We are minding our own business, ambling a long, and then this little, magical-looking man in a top hat and tails standing beside one of these carriages flags us over, and we try to decline, politely, those tours are expensive, when he explains they're shooting promo materials for their Valentine's Day special offers, would we mind modeling?

"We'll give you a free tour if you do!"

Oh hell yes I was sold. So we spend about 20 minutes posing and smooching and pretending we just got engaged (eek) and this man snaps our pictures and films us riding around all full of joy and happiness, and then he thanks us for our time, and then we take a real bona fide carriage tour around the historic district, looking at all the fancy houses, learning all these koooky architectural terms from a goofy dude in a knee-length gold-button coat and ponytail, and Rob and I realize how great it is to live here, in this place that has these big trees and colonial houses and brick streets and wraparound porches where the sun shines in February plus there's a Serpentarium plus have I mentioned the ocean is like right there, and it is altogether splendid and great.

Then I got my free smoothie at Smoothie King and then I went to class and then it was today. 23! You sure know how to treat a girl right.

The Saga of Not Being On Fire.

I had a friend in high school who would respond to any modicum of bitchin'/gripin'/general complainin' with one defiant rebuke: "At least you're not on fire."

This both amused and annoyed the hell out of me - my response usually being, "Yeah but still" - only to hear the refrain again. At least you're not on fire.

It's true. I'm not on fire. Nor am I homeless, or limbless, or penniless (working on that last one), or any other word suffixed with -less. But I am fat.

If that last part bothered you, please, cease reading now. It's been a long time coming, friends, but tonight, the blogging of RR (or, as I think of myself in my head to get used to my new rap name, Lil' Cthulhu) is gonna be heavy. See what I did there? Heavy? Fat? Get it? Lil' Cthulhu!

I will be 23 on Monday. It's not really a monumental age, but it is the first full year, a whole calendar, twelve entire months, that I'll be living the way I always wanted to live--I'm in a fuckin' awesome program, with some fuckin' awesome people, and I do some fuckin' great work, plus Wilmington is fuckin' paradise (62 DEGREES IN JANUARY BLUE SKIES AND HAVE I MENTIONED THE OCEAN!?!). So in my mind, it was high time to tackle that terrible beast that I inhabit, also known as my body.

I joined a program. You may know of this program. They have a very aggressive advertisement campaign that features (not the wife of Eddie Van Halen I hate that bitch) a little orange monster called Hungry. I identified not with the trim women vehemently ignoring this little orange monster's temptations of donuts and pizza, but with the monster. He's kind of cute. I also like the whole Points system, having gone to a school disciplined by Points--it's familiar to see the wide range of 4-12 points, mirroring the disciplinary actions taken should you be caught with some weed (incidentally no one could tell any of us how the 4-12 broke down when it came to weed - was 4 a joint, 12 a dorm closet greenhouse? 7 a bong, 12 a 12-foot bong?).

And sure, it's embarrassing. And sure, publicizing it like I'm doing now might not be the smartest idea, and I might regret it later, and you might be thinking TMI TMI Stop This Right Now, but I made a new discovery today, in addition to the fact that my weight is fast on its way to becoming a medical issue.

Jokes help me cope. Jokes, I think, are necessary to coping. I make a lot of bad jokes at even worse times, but it's an intrinsic part of how I get through the days.

For instance, I texted a friend of mine who is also a part of the weight-loss program in question and told her that truthfully, I was terrified. She said: don't be its like the least scary thing in the world. And I said: yeah i guess in general bears are scarier. (This same friend helped me last week when I admitted I was terrified of yoga. She: don't be its super fun and easy. Me: what if i fart? Because that is actually the root of my fears, which I did not realize until I cracked that joke).

So as I'm gearing up to go to this meeting, to sit in a room with all these other women, uniform only in how much older they are than me, I start composing this post in my head. My brother insists I don't make up any jibes on the spot, but keep a notebook that I refer to, that I sit in my room coming up with these--and it's partially true (but the point is he is just hugely jealous that my wit is so, so sharp, whereas he is dull and awful and terrible and doesn't even read this so I don't even care pffffft). In the car, I started listing all the fucking awesome things about my life, like my fucking awesome car and awesome boyfriend and awesome hair and awesome awesomeness. Then I got to the meeting. Then I kind of freaked out.

Truthfully, it wasn't mind-blowing. The sermon--sorry, lesson--was on emotional hunger versus physical hunger. Apparently you should only eat when your body needs to, not when you are sad or angry. No shit, Sherlock. Though I know, when I'm in the middle of a heated argument, putting my face in a cake really helps. That's why I always keep a cake on hand. Likewise, the rewards system is based on early childhood--lose 10% of your starting weight, you get a key ring! Lose 25 pounds, you get a charm (put it on your key ring)! I'm not making this up.

But the numbers were pretty staggering. I won't drag you through the Annotated History of Rachel's Weight (that last post about the journal keeping? Yeah, I'd say probably 70% of those journals are moody musings on body image), but I've been overweight for a long, long time, and I've known about for a long, long time. I have made efforts to remedy it for a long, long time, and probably now is the first time I've been doing something about it in a good way--eating better, riding my bike--versus bad ways (see: all of middle and high school). And this program-joining business is really a last ditch effort, but I have a lot of hope that someday I will be able to wear galoshes. Seriously. That's all I want. Knee-high boots that don't cut off the circulation to my feet.

And I know it could be a whole lot worse. I admit I am unhealthily obsessed with reality-TV programming about marginalized America, and there was a day while Rob was in NJ that I swear to God, TLC was having a SUPER-OBESITY marathon. And I watched a lot of it, and yes, took some comfort in it, knowing sure, I'm heavyset, but I'm not bedridden, good grief. Likewise, I don't eat cheese fries for every meal, or drink 2 liters of Coke straight from the bottle, or gorge myself on Ding-Dongs (there was a time when my diet was probably 3 parts Super Pie and 4 parts Keystone, but those days are over). I don't slather butter on ice cream and sprinkle it with lard. Well, sometimes. But rarely.

There's this new show on National Geographic called Taboo, where every week they pick a group of persons and cover them from different angles, and two weeks ago, it was the Fat episode. I made it a point to watch it, and it affected me more than I liked. There was the usual bit on someone super morbidly obese (so passe nowadays), an African country where fat is still a symbol of prosperity, but then the show closed with a profile of the Miss Plus USA Pageant and a 450 lb. woman who does soft porn. And it was amazing. Here were these women, unapologetic, fuckin' proud of their size--I mean, good lord, those are the two social pinnacles of feminine beauty, a pageant queen and a porn star! And they were huge!

So I guess the point of including them was to say I admired their ability to recognize their own potential within themselves and celebrate it. And Rachel-watchin-her-weight does not mean I'm going to eat only carrots and a single bean, that I'm going to stop going out or drinking or enjoying myself, or that I'm going to hate myself and be a bore to everybody.

Probably the opposite will happen--the whole time I was at that meeting, I just kept thinking what a hilarious story it would make, what awesome fiction data I was collecting, how this would make one heck of a blog post.

See what I did there? Get it? Cyclical posting?

Lil' Cthulhu!

And, you know, if all else fails, well--I am still not yet on fire.