The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Hypocrite/Hippo Crit

My upgrade expires in a couple of days so I thought I'd try to drum up some gift points so that I won't risk losing it. I stumbled upon Mary Lou's Easter Egg contest and thought that I'd found the solution given that the contest was easy enough, just dive into specified portfolios and find the hidden eggs. Then, I realized that I'd missed all the easy ones and that those which remained hidden were in portfolios which are as complex as a cornfield maze. Oodles of folders inside folders, and of course, the people who owned these portfolios were smart enough to know that they had to adjust the edit date on just about everything so that the egg hunters wouldn't immediately know which item held the hidden eggs. I nearly went blind scouring through all those folders, my back felt like it was permanently bent over and my insides would twist and seize whenever I came across an egg, only to discover that it had already been revealed. Eventually, I found five of them but it took me a few hours to do it. So far, no mother lode of gift points, but I'm satisfied in knowing I was able to hunt those eggs down. It was like a personal vendetta and I couldn't let it go until I'd found five. I should probably have spent my time doing something else, but at least I met the challenge.

I bought myself a DVD on the weekend. I made the questionable decision to go shopping with my mother on Saturday, not thinking about how crazy the roads and shopping centres would be given that it was a long weekend, and I clicked my tongue and emitted hot words while I searched for a parking spot in a parking lot full of mental, bunny-obsessed people. What made it worth the trouble was finding the DVD bins which were loaded with films for $6.99 or less. As I've bought very little for myself over the past year, I decided to treat myself to 'Jezebel' which stars Bette Davis in one of her most widely touted roles. A Davis fan, I was beyond excited to find it, having never seen it for sale anywhere before, much less for only $6.99. I've seen the film once, but I am waiting for the perfect time to watch it again, like a stormy afternoon when there's nowhere to go but under the bedclothes, or at night, cuddled up with M. who might be inclined to watch it with me. It'd be nice to have a bottle of red wine in front of me, or a bag of that Kettlecorn I've recently developed an addiction to. My dreams aren't that big.

I've been boasting about how well I've been doing in the 'gall bladder department' lately. I have told my sisters and parents that it's been 'ages' since the last serious episode and I knocked wood every time I did, making sure I'd whispered the date of the last sleepless night. I knew the fates would hear me, though, and tonight there is pressure in my back and upper ribcage which are reminiscent of the agonies I endured all those months ago. I've been trying to figure out what could be bringing it on, thinking I've been so good with my diet lately, and even better at pretending that I'm not stressed about my employment status. Then, I thought about how I've been eating more chocolate than usual, how I spent the weekend with my parents and ate a potato chip here and a turnover there. That I avoided meat and cheese likely doesn't matter much I think, and then I remember that I made a grilled tomato with basil and goat cheese sandwich for lunch today, and that I've been delicately hacking at the remainder of the apple pie when M. hasn't been present. Dinner was an omelet with chopped tomato, cilantro, green onion and avocado, and I thought this was a wise choice, but apparently my body has other a different opinion. Tomorrow I'll likely be eating plain rice and toast just to reset my system, but that's okay. What I really want, though, is to get through the night without an attack. I have no problem abstaining if I know it will keep the pain away.

Now that I think about it, my assertion that I've developed better eating habits is sort of baseless at present. Sure, I don't eat the greasy fast food, and also I have been avoiding meat, but somehow I've convinced myself that eating my weight in sugar is a good idea. Maybe this is the problem? I don't know, but what I do know is that I don't consider the kitchen stocked unless there is at least one sweet snack alternative in the cupboard and it had better not be fruit. I've managed to keep the twenty-two pounds I've lost off, so that's something, but I could stand to lose some more, and I would also like to be free from obsessing about how I feel after I eat something. I consider the abuse I exacted on my body all the years before this one a kind of ignorant endangerment. I didn't really know what I was doing, and I put myself at risk, but why should I be punished for it now that I'm trying to do something about it? What more do the fates want of me? Exercise? Meditation? Eight glasses of water a day?

I hate when people write about this stuff and somehow that hatred did not deter me from doing the same.