More on Food Obsession

My run with the flu pushed me off track with my gym and weights routine, and screwed my eating habits. Well, no, that's not true. My eating had been getting out of hand again as I was swallowed by stress, most of it having to do with trying to get the rewrites on the fantasy saga done. I felt like Iwas caught up in a tornado and then dropped into a big pool of sludge and I was floundering around, sinking faster and faster with every pitiful stroke...

It's no wonder I was literally bedridden and starving for a week, dreaming of food and the day when I could once again read a book without feeling like I was puzzling out a physics equation written in ancient Egyptian.

My week post-flu was spent being hungry all the time, eating lots of bread, pasta, yogurt, and soup and worrying about how much I was eating.

Last weekend, B came into town and said, "You know, I hate to say this, but you really have lost weight. It's a little disturbing."

Well, yes, it is. Because secretly, I really don't mind the way I look. For all my wishing and hoping that I'd drop two fucking sizes, I really don't mind looking the way I do. I like being substantial. But... but...

Now that the book's gone out, the major stress is off. I'm still living too much with my credit card, but I'm hoping to take care of that by the end of the year. My eating this week has been reasonable and very filling. I feel terribly content. I've been eating a big breakfast, snacking on grapes and yogurt during the day, partaking of communal roommate dinners at night (usually consisting of pasta and salad or fish and salad and asparagus, or eggs and vegetables, and etc.).

I've had no binging stress at all.

And I worried about that.

I worried about my weight, worried that I hadn't been able to get back to the gym, worried about what pancakes for breakfast every morning would do to my waistline. Worry, worry. Not a big worry, just that little, nagging voice, "You're eating too much. You're enjoying yourself. You won't lose weight this way. You're going to be confined to buying clothes from the same 3 stores for the rest of your life."

Boo-hoo

But nonetheless, there I was, sneaking out of the house last night and going to Borders to look for a list of books about compulsive eating, overeating, and body image.

I spent an hour going from shelf to shelf to shelf. With no luck. I couldn't find any of them.

And as I perused the "Recovery" section of the bookstore, looking at books purporting to cure me of smoking, bulimia, alcoholism, anorexia, and drug addiction, I thought, "What the fuck am I doing here?"

I was struck again at how much time, energy, and effort I put into thinking about dieting, weight loss, body image. It's not on my mind all the time now, but when I get to being worried, when I'm uncertain of myself, this is where I go back to. I think, "If I could just fix this one thing, everything will be all right."

Which is horseshit. Utter, utter horseshit.

I'll still be me. I'm the same person at a size 12 as a size 16. There's no difference.

And the real kicker? The real fucking kicker is that there's nothing wrong with me. I'm totally healthy. I take the stairs everywhere. I walk over an hour every day. I eat reasonably. I have no health problems whatsoever except that I overstress about things. That's going to be the source of any of my ill health problems, not the fact that I weight 200 lbs (or whatever). No doctor has ever told me to lose weight. I don't have any strange aches and pains in my back or my knees. I don't have diabetes. I don't smoke.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with me, and here I'm standing in the "recovery" section like I'm slowly choking to death on whipped cream.

Hardly.

So I left the Recovery section and went to the "General Military History" section and picked up a ridiculous number of books for God's War.

Fuck this shit.

I have more important things to do with my time.

Yea, I'll get back to the gym and hopefully jogging next week, but I don't intend to lose one bloody pound doing it.

I'm so tired of hating myself over a number.

Writing Schedule

Oddly enough, I've still got God's War slated to be finished by year's end. Not sure how I'll pull that off, but I've got a strong beginning, a strong outline, and strong research. I've taken some downtime for research recently, but this weekened should get me back into the groove.

I'd also really like to get back on the short story route. I'd like to finish:

The Boxing Magicians of Faleen

A story about a boy who wants to be a boxing magician, set in the same world as God's War.

Heroes

A dark little peice about madness, torture, flying women, and cannibalism. Yay!

I'd also like to send something to a couple of anthologies including Clash of Steel, and From the Trenches (war stories, baby!).

I had a depressing look over at Ralan at the current OK-paying SF/F zines out there, as I've been doing so much work on novels, I've ignored short markets. For good reason, it seems: they're mostly closed to submissions.

Yay.

This is Why You Really Need to Prepare For Your Interview With (INSERT FAMOUS AUTHOR HERE)

Seriously. Some people just suck at interviewing. Margaret Atwood takes her young interviewer to task.

(thanks, Jenn)

Free Books

Just a reminder, there are over 16,000 free books over at Project Gutenburg.

It's pretty cool.

Send Twisty Some Presents

Twisty, now uniboobal, is in recovery.

If you'd like to send her some stuff to peruse, go for it:

What I really need are mystery novels, or old movies, or even some good old patriarchy-affirming yet diverting SF. Email me.

You're a Super-Fatty: I Make Fun of You Because I Care

In the eighth grade, I had a science teacher who decided he was going to teach us about health and nutrition and exercise. I really liked the guy, all told, but he really, really didn't like fat people. Well, no, I'll amend that: he didn't understand fat kids.

Let's call him Mr. H.

This made dealing with him kinda tough, because I'd just put on 30lbs of puberty weight, and I wasn't skinny to begin with. I would later lose 20lbs and grow a few inches, but looking back at some of my 8th grade photos, I was startled to see it was my second highest height/weight ratio.

Was I horribly unhealthy? Well, I sure could have used some exercise, and I probably ate too many sweets. But my diet was just as shitty when I was thinner as I hit highschool as it was in the 8th grade - I just didn't eat *as much* shit food. But I sure did *look* "healthier," I'm sure.

In any case, Mr. H. decided it was time to do something about all the fat, unhealthy kids in the class. We did a 2 or 3 month "course" in the class on health and nutrition. So in addition to PE classes, we came to science class and did circuit training and kept food journals. People got to marvel at how much or how little other people ate. I discovered I could do just as many exercises as some of the skinny girls who ate less. And of course, I got my ass kicked by everybody who exercised regularly.

Mr. H. arrived on campus at 6:30 am every morning and went jogging. It's just what he did. He invited other students to join him in these morning jogs. Which was a great thing if you were already in shape and could keep up. People like me would have to work into doing something like that. And, of course, I have. I can jog three miles now. Not a fast three miles, mind you, but I can jog it nonetheless. I can more-or-less find clothes that fit me, though I've got a narrower range of stores to go to than my size 4 roommate, who can shop anywhere.

What I appreciated about Mr. H. is that he did seem to care. What he didn't seem to get, though, is where all the fat kids were coming from. I don't think he got that we didn't feel we could go jogging with him at 6:30 am without feeling like fat lazy slobs because we couldn't keep up. Being harrassed or feeling like a slothful moron at 6:30 am isn't anything anybody wants to experience.

Keeping food journals and then sharing them with your teacher (binge sessions included) and having other kids comment on them isn't fun either. Nor is being compared to an athlete in how many circuit exercises you can do.

Being an overweight kid who's been made fun of everytime you try to do something active (which gets worse, particularly for women, at puberty when you've got all sorts of things jiggling all of the sudden) is pretty off-putting. I'd rather go home and read books.

So it was with in mind that I read this article by a Canadian high school chemistry teacher commenting on the health risks to her "Super Fatty" students:

Another problem is that its a taboo to make fun of fat people. We make fun and harass smokers regularly, but we think its rude to make fun of fat/obese people.

And yet how else will fat/obese people gain the willpower to exercise/eat properly if they don't get negative feedback/concern about their weight.

I MAKE FUN OF YOUR FLABBY BODY BECAUSE I CARE! THAT'S RIGHT JABBA THE HUTT! GET OFF YOUR FAT ASS AND EXERCISE! PUT AWAY THE COCA-COLA AND THE GREASY FOOD! GO WALK IT OFF!

For the record, I can't think of anyone in high school who made fun of smokers.

I can think of a whole hell of a fuck of a lot who made fun of me and others for being chunky, tubby, fat, slothful, ugly, lazy, overweight, obese, bovine-like.

Hear that? Nobody makes fun of fat people enough. That's why high school students don't exercise. That's why they're not keen on understanding nutrition. They's why we never went out running when our uber-friendly science teachers at 6:30 am.

If we just make fun of fat people more often, they'll be thin. It won't depress us and send us into our rooms to binge on cake and ice cream for three days and watch Titanic and cry. And absolutely nothing of our weight has anything to do with genetics, as researched, scientifically and everything, below.

No, we'll be invigorated if we're made fun of! Just like in the Marines! We'll want to go out and get thin!

You want to know what invigorates me to exercise? I want to be strong so I can kick the shit out of assholes like this fucktard.

(via bfb)

Those Pesky "Fat Storage" Genes! Just Think How Well the White Folks Would Have Populated the West Without Them

DURHAM, N.C., Oct. 12 - A gene that programs muscle tissue to store fat is over-expressed in obese women, researchers here say, and may be a key reason why dieting fails...

For now the take-home message for clinicians treating obese people is that diet alone is unlikely to have much effect, Dr. Muoio said.

Well, first of all:

1) Duh.

2) Why is it always *women* only who get put into these studies? Because fat women are scarier than fat men? Why can't you look at both in the same study? Or do dual studies of men and women?

3) Does it worry anyone else that if we start trying to mess with something like a "fat storage" gene, the more at risk we are of living in a society that looks a lot like Stephen King's novel Thinner?

Boy-Gamer Porn Poetry

Though I must say, I'd like to see the girl-gamer version of this. Any takers?

Nerd Porn Auteur

But I don't wanna watch this misogynist he-man woman-hater porn.
I want porno movies that are made with guys like me in mind:
Guys who know that the sexiest thing in the world
is a woman who is smarter than you are...

My porn starlets will come in all shapes and sizes.
My porn starlets will be too busy working on their PhD to go to the gym.

In my kind of porno movies the girls wouldn't even have to get naked.
They'd just take the guys down to the rec room and
beat them repeatedly at chess
and then talk to them for hours about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
or the underlying social metaphors in the Aliens movies.

Woe to the Unbelievers

Biology, in the western world, acts almost like the Qur'an in the eastern world - it is the ultimate excuse for why things for women cannot and will not change. In a secular world you are told that inequality rests on nature; and in a religious world you are told that it rests on God's word.

Haunted Alaska

Alaskan ghost stories...

Here's a couple from places I've been:

Circle - Circle Hot Springs - haunted by a former owner, they don't like renovations. Beers often move across the bar on its own. foot steps heard walking across the porch of the rental cabins

Fairbanks - mile 8-12 Chena Hot Springs Road - This road is haunted by ghostly lights. Late at night two lights that resemble headlights follows passing cars. Sometimes it will start to fly and form one bright light and other times it will just look like a fast moving car or truck with bright blue, white and orange colored lights.

(thanks, b)

Better Late Than Never

I'm catching up on my e-mail just now. Here's a worthwhile request for ya'll from Colleen Mondor:

As you may have read in the Bookslut blog two weeks ago, (I am a regular contributor over there), or over at Moorishgirl, I am working with a group in Baton Rouge who are helping children sheltered with their families at Southern University. We have put together a couple of wish lists of books and games that the folks at Parkview Baptist Church will happily deliver to the SU kids and other area shelter kids, all of whom would love to have a diversion right now. We are also trying to contact authors, illustrators, publishers, book and comic book reviewers in particular to let them know that any children, young adult or all ages titles they have lying around would certainly be welcome down in Baton Rouge.

If you could mention my project on your site, it would help get the word out. Also, feel free to buy off the lists, and send the links on to everyone you know and pass on my email to anyone who has any questions.

Take care and thank you for your help in spreading the word.

Best,

Colleen Mondor

Mailing Address for Donations:

Josh Causey
Parkview Baptist Church
11795 Jefferson Highway
Baton Rouge, LA 70816

Good Morning, Chiklits

Another day, another dollar.

B's in town for the long weekend, so we have been quite busy. Eating good food, watching shows. Stayed downtown Friday and Saturday night. Really neat to be bunking down a couple blocks from the Sears Tower.

Lots going on. More later.

I'm Sorry, I Had to Do It

They just make it so goddamn easy:

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- The court that made Massachusetts the first state to outlaw slavery will now decide whether slaves from other states can be freed there.

The case is being closely watched across the country. If the Supreme Judicial Court strikes down a 1913 law, slaves from across the country could be freed in Massachusetts and demand human rights at home.

Eight slaves from surrounding states, all of whom were denied freedom papers in Massachusetts, are challenging the law. It forbids nonresidents from being freed in the state if their freedom would not be recognized in their home state.

Massachusetts last year became the first state to outlaw slavery. Forty-one others have passed laws or constitutional amendments reinforcing slavery.

Michele Granda, a civil rights lawyer for the slaves, argued Thursday that the 1913 law "sat on the shelf" unused for decades until it was "dusted off" by the governor.

Granda said the high court, in its historic ruling recognizing the freedom of slaves, found that under the Massachusetts Constitution, black slaves had the same human rights as white people.

"Nothing in (that ruling) says that our officials can discriminate simply because officials in other states discriminate," Granda told the six-judge panel.

Attorneys for the state argued that the law is being enforced in an evenhanded way.

Assistant Attorney General Peter Sacks said Massachusetts risks a "backlash" if it flouts the laws of others states by freeing slaves from states that allow slavery.

"We've got respect for other states' laws," he said.

The high court is expected to rule in the next few months.

The eight slaves who sued are from Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and New York.

They include Sandi and Bobbi Cote-Whitacre of Essex Junction, Vermont, who are considered slaves in their home state but would like to be legally free.

What's the Lyndon Johnson quote? "Sometimes you do something because it's right, not because it's popular."

She Makes a Wonderful Sweet Potato Pie

Hitting the Media's Glass Ceiling

Harriet Miers may have broken through glass ceilings on her way to a Supreme Court nomination, but President Bush’s “work wife” has a long way to go with gender stereotyping in mainstream media coverage. Need proof? Compare news coverage in the days after her nomination with coverage this summer of the John Roberts nomination:

ROBERTS : “A career that had been marked by distinguished and relentless advancement.” (LA Times, 7/25/05)

MIERS: “She’s not somebody who is a gossip.” (AP, 10/4/05)

ROBERTS: “Brilliant but self-deprecating, earnest but not humorless.” (Boston Globe, 7/21/04)

MIERS: “She never misses a birthday.” (LA Times, 10/4/05)

ROBERTS: “Exceptional intellect. Exceptional temperament. A conservative judicial philosophy.” (LA Times, 7/25/05)

MIERS: “She makes a wonderful sweet potato pie. Many marshmallows.” (AP, 10/3/05)

ROBERTS: “Disciplined, self-assured and performance driven.” (Chicago Tribune, 7/24/05)

MIERS: “She would look at you blankly if you mentioned the name of a designer.” (Bloomberg, 10/4/05)

MIERS: “A pit bull in size 6 shoes.” (New York Times, 10/3/05)

ROBERTS: Sorry. No word on what size shoe John Roberts wears.

I just love our media.

What I've Been Up To

I've been spending a good deal of time recovering from sickness and catching up on all the things that didn't get done while I was sick. There were a lot of things.

I had several writing-related commitments to finish in addition to regular things like house chores, bills, and laundry. Got my book out to the Agent, wrote a recommendation for promotion letter for my academic advisor in SA, edited a paper for my brother, and have started in on my first contracted writing assignment for a software company.

On top of that, the Day Job has been busier than usual (meaning I'm actually doing things work-related during work hours), and everybody on our Indy team is wound a bit tight, especially Yellow, which makes working with him a little twitchier than usual. I've got a number of daily updates/reports to generate, which are annoying more than difficult. Been working on cutting myself away from work when it's over. I've been letting stress get the better of me, which is likely one reason I got hit so bad with the flu. I need to wipe my hands of work when I leave the office. It's just not worth stressing over. I'm not going to be doing this stuff much longer.

B is in town this weekend (yay!!), and we're snagging a hotel for a couple of nights because Jenn has a couple of friends in for the weekend and, well, we've only got one bathroom, alas. Looking forward to eating junk food, watching boxing and movies, and going to the Field Museum with B. And sleeping. And sex.

You know, good stuff like that.

I'll be heading back to the gym next week. After a week and change out with sickness, I started back up on my morning free weights this week, so I figure progressing to gym work next week is a nice, steady way to get back into things. I really don't want to wear myself down and get sick again.

The real fun month will be November. I've got the World Fantasy Con in Madison from the 4-6, flying to NY to visit B the 18-20th, and visiting my buddy Stephanie and her husband Ian in Ohio from the 23-26 (I'm bringing the wine, baby!). I've got more traveling in December. Because of B's school schedule, I'll probably be doing NY again December 16-18th and then hitting my parents' place for the holidays from the 22-28th.

There are a few more things that need to start happening in these next couple of months, too. I need to get out my application for the MFA program at Brooklyn College, and I need to start putting away money for my move to NY next July. I've been doing preliminary work looking into prices/areas of Brooklyn/Queens/Manhattan and looking at what sorts of jobs are available, and that process will increase in intensity as the time for movement nears. We'll need to start looking in earnest for a place in April, and by May I need to be looking into jobs if the BC College thing doesn't pan out. And, of course, temp jobs if it does. And let us not forget that my book God's War has a January completion date.

Busy life, good life.

Who Will Be Eaten First?

The Elder Gods are going to rise and eat us all!!

Orgies are the way to ease social tensions, claims US judge

..it turns out that there is another side to Justice Antonin Scalia: he thinks Americans ought to be having more orgies.

Challenged about his views on sexual morality, Justice Scalia surprised his audience at Harvard University, telling them: "I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged."

It seems unlikely that this is what President Bush meant when he promised to appoint more judges like Scalia to the court, should the opportunity arise.

The first major study of an experimental vaccine to prevent cervical cancer found it was 100 percent effective

No shit?

I'd like to see a study that wasn't done by the maker of the vaccine, but if this turns out to be true, it's hellacool:

The first major study of an experimental vaccine to prevent cervical cancer found it was 100 percent effective, in the short term, at blocking the disease and lesions likely to turn cancerous, drug maker Merck & Co. said.

Gardasil, a genetically engineered vaccine, blocks infection with two of the 100-plus types of human papilloma virus, HPV 16 and 18. The two sexually transmitted viruses together cause about 70 percent of cervical cancers.

I Want to Grow Up to Be Just Like You!

(thanks, K!)

How Time Flies

At the weekly office meeting today, I was startled to hear that Blaine, my old boss, had been at the company two years as of this week.

I was startled because I started working here a month after he did.

I'll have been here two years next month.

Where did the time go?