The one New Year’s Resolution I can remember
So I wrote down some New Year’s Resolutions while having a margarita with my husband last week but now I can’t find them and can’t remember what they were. I guess “be more responsible” wasn’t one of them.
A pretty safe guess was that one of them probably involved losing weight, since that’s what I have been vowing to do every new year (OK, every week) since I was 16. Although back then I was just upset about that extra five pounds that I could never seem to shed. Now that I’ve had a baby and the weight isn’t exactly falling off like it’s supposed to after your first child it’s more like twenty five pounds. So when we get back to Austin (we’re currently in Houston) I’m going to start my own modified version of the South Beach Diet. I modified it because I don’t eat fake food – no egg substitute, nonfat cheese and faux butter for me. It should be interesting since my willpower has been at an all-time low lately. I had a big lunch at Katz’s this afternoon and then just got back from an Italitan restaurant where I did my impression of Jabba the Hutt.
On a related note, I may never update this blog again because I have discovered the wonderful world of weight loss blogs. In fact I may never do anything again. For some reason I am fascinated with shows, blogs, or any other documentation of weight loss that involves before and after pictures. I never cease to be amazed at how much a person’s weight impacts every aspect of their life.
OK, I need to wrap up this post because I can’t think. I apologize if any part of this post has been incoherent. I am at my mother-in-law’s house in Houston. She recently took in an elderly friend who needed some help as well as her two cats. So it’s me, J., the baby, his mom, her cat, her friend and her two cats all in a 1,200 sq. ft. house with Everybody Loves Raymond reruns being played at full volume about eight feet away from me. Not exactly a silent bastion of concentration.
The fish stick incident
I think I am now fully recovered from eating six Gordon's Fish Sticks on Sunday night. I have spent the past 36 hours trying to forget about the foreboding queasiness in my stomach that may erupt into full-scale projectile vomiting at any moment, and to distract my mind so that I don't accidentally visualize or think about fish sticks, which would definitely trigger the aforementioned projectile vomiting.
It all started when J. and I were hungry and had run out of all of our usual dinner fare. We rummaged through the freezer and came across a box of fish sticks. Fish sticks, what fun! we thought. We'll have them with ketchup and milk, just like when we were kids! Looking back on it now it's like watching a grainy, black-and-white flashback sequence in a horror movie, where you want to jump up and yell at the screen, "Nooo, don't do it!"
I had forgotten that fish sticks are the hot dogs of the marine world. They're made with all the byproducts that are left out of the fish that sophisticated consumers unlike me purchase. I don't know exactly what the ingredient list is, but I'm sure it's something like, "Gills, eyeballs, fins, bladders," etc., all deep-fried in old oil for about ten hours.
At first I was wondering why they didn't at least try to make the sticks slightly less oil-drenched or at least put a healthy-sounding spin on it like "Good source of protein!" or "There may actually be some Omega 3's left in here!" But after seeing the recipe suggestion on the back of the box it quickly became clear that their target market is people who just don't care anymore.
The picture you see above you is for what Gordon's calls "Fish on a Log." This recipe is made by combining fish sticks with Cheez Whiz and Goldfish crackers, thus creating the holy trinity of processed foods. (Something tells me that people who actually make this recipe are going to go ahead and skip the tomato and lettuce garnish pictured in the photo.) Although, to their credit, what can you actually make out of fish sticks? I pity the intern who had the job of coming up with that one. Cans of soup can offer recipes for interesting sauces and pasta packages lend themselves to endless possibilities, but fish sticks? It was a wise man who just decided to say screw it, throw in some Cheez Whiz and Goldfish and call it a day. At least those are two ingredients you can guarantee the purchasers of fish sticks will have in their pantry.
Anyway, the moral of the story is this: don't eat fish sticks, ever. You may have fond childhood memories or some other nostalgic reason for wanting to try them once again, but don't. Your stomach and intestines will thank you.
Insomnia 1, Me 0
So today marks the end of my Week of Getting My Shit Together. My goal was to be more productive, step one being breaking free of my natural schedule of sleeping from 6:00am - 3:00pm. No luck. Now that I'm pregnant I don't handle fatigue very well, so I just couldn't force myself to get up at 10am when I'd just drifted off to sleep four hours before.
My body is just hardwired to this schedule and without a job or school forcing me to change it, it's virtually impossible for me to go to bed before midnight and wake up before 11am. It just never happens. Even when I'm exhausted and skip a nap in an effort to go to bed early, I get a second wind around 10pm and end up going to bed sometime in the middle of the night.
We're meeting friends for an early dinner tomorrow night. Before I go to bed I'm going to have to set an alarm to make sure I wake up in time to get ready beforehand. Yes, I am a freak.
Maybe I'm a vampire
Lately I've been going to sleep at 6:00am and waking up at 3:00pm. It's a weird way to live. I am asleep the entire time my friends are at work. It's difficult to run errands because everything closes three hours after I wake up. By the time I'm really awake and alert the sun starts to set. On the bright side, it's no problem to communicate with J.'s business partner in London. (All together now: "Enjoy it while it lasts. You won't be able to sleep all day after the baby's born." Got it, thanks.)
We have an amazing view of the city from our 19th-floor condo which serves to reinforce the fact that I am the only person in Austin who is on this strange schedule. Right now, as I'm thinking about trying to go to bed, I see the number of headlights on MoPac highway slowly increase. The streets below our building are starting to rumble with traffic as early risers come downtown to go to work. I'll probably drift off to sleep as the sun rises.
Today was supposed to be day one of living my life on a normal schedule. I had big plans to get up at 11:00am and be asleep by 2:00am. Clearly, that goal was too ambitious. Considering that it's past 5:00am and I'm wide awake I think I can write today off as a failure. Tomorrow I'm going to try for a 1:00pm wakeup. I have big goals, I know.