Sick Day Knitting

Caught a nasty cold, stayed home yesterday: drinking soup, knitting, sneezing, more sneezing, some weezing and snuffling, more knitting and even more sneezing.

Aces.

MeMeMeMeMeMeMeMe

I was thinking about what to write, and I keep coming up with the same dilemma - do I continue the navel-gazing pseudo-psychology mumbo-jumbo? Or do I have the stones to share what I've been thinking about the current mess of politics? But I'm just not sure how my voice could add value to the discussions already taking place.

I am an expert (in progress) on me, but I know only bits and pieces about politics. Same for economics. And alternative energies. And the hundreds of other things I read about in my free time. I refrain from bringing these things up and weighing in on them because I am aware of how little I understand regarding the nuance and subtlety of these subjects.

Case in point - Ohio Politics...
After increasing the pay for his senior staff, Gov. Kasich decreased the salary of an Administrative Assistant from $35,000 to $23,000. As of late 2010, $23,000 was 212% of poverty for a household of one. At 200% or less ($21,660), one becomes eligible for energy assistance and a variety of other federal and state subsidies. I am appalled. I am outraged.

But I also don't know the whole story. I assume it's one person getting a life-altering pay cut, but what if he's hiring some supporter's wealthy spouse/child/relative into the role? It certainly provokes a different negative response. Or what if that person has requested unpaid leave? Or a decrease in hours? I don't know these details and I haven't seen them listed anywhere. So I don't tend to consider things like that here.

My job is all about detail, finding references and data and double-checking them - so in my free-time writing, it's easier to ignore these things and focus on the only thing I feel I can speak to with some authority - Me.
What you get is a truly self-centered blog. Which is probably a good reflection of who I am right now. Not terribly proud of it - but I'm totally willing to cop to it.

So, increase my expert opinion on me where there can be no wrong answer? - Or go into more effort to discuss the rest of world and risk being wrong?

Hmmm, maybe my next post should delve into my fear of being wrong...

The Audacity of "No"

Despite a constant treadmill of thoughts, analysis, and decision-making that actually occurs in my life, I realize that I haven’t been delving into anything of any real substance here. So I’m going to try to put some of it down into words.

That was the whole point of this project in the first place. It was somewhere to chronicle my experience so I could go back to it, somewhere I could put my thoughts – clear or jumbled. This isn’t for you, reader; it’s for me. In the rush of doing, I’ve neglected to document, and I’m going to try and remedy that.

So… where’s my head is these days? I’ve adjusted to my new job, adjusted to my new habitat, adjusted to my not-so-new solitary state. I seem to be focused on attaining larger goals through denial - which is odd for me. I’m not a “no” kind of girl. I spent the whole of my twenties saying yes: to food, to purchases, to ill-advised romantic entanglements. It was a decade characterized by experience for the sake of experience. No real goal – just living in the moment and placing the consequences of actions in that box over there labeled “Later." I placed blame for uncomfortable or unattained things on vague externalities and ran off in random directions to see if that thing over there was better than what I currently had.

But that started to change, in small degrees, when I went back to school for my Masters. I was 28 at the time. It was a true challenge, since I used to hate writing. I hated process and methodical anything. I was rash, impatient, impetuous, impertinent, and stubborn. I wanted to jump from idea to conclusion without bothering with the middle bit. But I was determined to succeed, so I learned to make lists, think through things and start tackling projects with smaller steps. I learned that I had the strength to ignore distraction and meet procrastination halfway.

A bit of fallout from the degree and time that came before was debt.

When one is rash, impatient, impetuous, impertinent, and stubborn, one tends to gather debt. There is no such thing as “saving up” nor is there the inclination to deny oneself anything. So I just kept adding to the debt with the belief that one day I would be able to painlessly manage it.

But that was only one of a litany of unrealistic expectations. I assumed that by 31 years of age I would have traveled the world. I would have a small wardrobe of clothes tailored to a body that was much different from the one I was actually lugging around. I would have the mutual and unwavering love and adoration of a brilliant man. There was no plan for how I would achieve any of these goals – they were just goals.

I think I may have actually believed that one day I would wake up and magically things would have fallen into place overnight. My bank account would always be overflowing (without having to attend to it), my body would reflect years of tireless training (without sacrificing the time), my soulmate would be at the ready (without having to search for him or compromise anything.) Instead, I was carrying around a decade worth of plane tickets, suits for interviews, the GRE, entertainment, gas bills and groceries – my past was keeping the present from happening.

In fall 2007, I saw the debt was becoming a problem that could no longer be ignored. I firmly said, “STOP.” And thus began the time of fiscal austerity in earnest. I stayed put to save money, I cancelled all my credit cards, I created a budget and learned to tell myself no.

That final bit, the learning to tell myself no, was hard.

Is hard.

So very, very hard.

But “No” seems to be working for me. I am nearing the end of my debt. By late spring, my car and consumer debt will be 100% retired.

Since I seem to be doing so well with these self-imposed austerity measures, I went ahead and decided to return to vegetarianism - something I left behind long ago when I lost the willpower to deny myself Dad's barbecue. Then I decided to tackle the weight thing, with a fairly high degree of success.

Now, before you get to thinking I’m all smug with my almost-retired debt and loose pants, know this. There is a price to be paid – there’s always a price to be paid – and that price is the word “No.”

I hate that word.

I want that word to die and to go to hell.

Despite how well that word is working out for me, I hate it. Hate it hate it hate it.

Daily – Daily! - I say “No” to myself exponentially more times than I say yes. And I have ADHD, so imagine how many disjointed ideas, thoughts and concepts are freely bouncing around while my pre-frontal cortex is left cowering in the corner.

But ugh!, “No” – that word pulls the plug on indulgence and makes the hubristic assumption that there will be another day to travel, another cupcake to eat, another man to love. Saying "No" in the present in order to have delayed gratification means you truly believe that the day will come when you will reap your reward. And for some reason, I have to work really hard at that.

I see Now and I see vague, blurry Tomorrow – but this whole attainable future thing to almost too much for my head and heart to handle. I come from fatalistic stock - a people who assume the worst and can pick out the one grey, gloomy cloud in perfectly blue sky. I have an authentic optimistic streak, but at my deepest, darkest core, I seem hold a belief that It Will All End in Tears - so eat the god damned cupcake, kiss that questionable boy, and put it on the credit card, since you may not even be here tomorrow.

So I'm treating this as an experiment. I've traded the small and ill-advised indulgences of the present for restraint that will bring me a greater measure of freedom and health in future I can't yet imagine.

The Good, the Unexpected and the Bad

Every day I discover more interesting changes as a result of the weight loss...

The Good:
I can do more yoga poses. I kept my strength, but decreased my mass, so it takes less effort to do more. And less volume means I can do binds and a deeper plow pose.

The Unexpected:
Some of my shoes are too big now. I never thought of feet as appendages that gain or lose volume with weight loss.

The Bad:
I've switched to a smaller bra.
Damn.
My boobs were always a feature I felt consistently good about.
Here's to hoping that sentiment will extend to an increased roster of parts.

I can't say enough positive things about this process, but I also have twinges of guilt that "Too much food" is the problem I face. I exist in such a unique time and place in the world, when a legitimate personal challenge includes learning how to fight the evolutionary and biological directive to eat as much sugar and fat as possible.

Forecast: Quick and dirty is relative.

So this pattern has been in my Ravelry queue for ages. After finishing the Urban Mandarin, I needed a quick and dirty sweater. When I added it to the queue, it seemed terribly daunting... the bobbles, the cable, the dramatic sleeve decrease, the all purled construction. (sneer)

I started it December 12, finished it on January 2nd.
Not too shabby.



Picked out some vintage buttons from my stash, 10 that turned to 9 when one was sacrificed to that place where things that you swear you just had mysteriously disappear.



I mentioned in my last post that I got red glasses and provided no visual evidence.
So this is that.

See, red glasses. And a model train over my shoulder - there, to the right.

Knitting is very serious business.
Look how very serious I am about my knitting.


Or maybe I'm about to throw down.
I can't tell.
It's a bit unnerving, really.


Here's what it would look like if it were a vest.


Not that that was an option, but the light in that bathroom was just really good.

Saving face

So this Weight Watchers thing is working and my face is starting to show it.

To celebrate, I got new glasses: wide, rectangular ones - red, with a swooping silver architectural accent at the sides.
It's also time for a new haircut, so I had a consultation with a stylist. The topics ranged from bangs to color to growing out strategies. Scintillating stuff, I tell you. But I've had the same damn cut, in varying permutations, since 2006. I hoped to walk away from the consult with direction - a change to look forward to based on professional direction. But alas, it's still up to me.

So I searched online... for bangs, for bangs with glasses, for side swept bangs and swooping bangs. For fringe bangs and blunt bangs, even hipster bangs.

The question they all posed was the same, "What shape is your face?"
I don't know.
Face-shaped, I guess.

Square.

I measured.
It's SQUARE.

But... I'm in good company.
Kristin Scott Thomas.
Isabella Rossellini.
Jodie Foster.
We of wide, angular jaws and broad foreheads.

And I have a fabulous forehead (all the better for protecting my amazing pre-frontal cortex).
Can I really make a case for covering it up with bangs?
No lines to speak of (yet). No cystic acne scars.
Just a vast, clear plane of lily-white smoothness. And I say this with such poetic fervor because I am only now realizing the worth of such a feature.

But I also know the worth and power that comes from drastic external change. Given the breadth and depth of the mental and emotional changes I experienced 2010, it's fitting that I find a way to present them to the world.

I spilled into 2010 as an almost amorphous thing, my edges blurring into the people and world around me. But I've since laid out stricter perimeters, gained edges, and know absolutely where I end and others begin.

So. How do I translate that into a haircut...?

A pretty good week overall...

I finished the lion's share of the Urban Mandarin Sweater.

It's been a hell of a slog... through Spring's upset, Summer's uncertainty, Autumn's changes and now that Winter is settling in, I'm eager to face 2011 with a sweater born of persistence and patience.

And even a little destruction. See, you have to steek it, or cut it, before you finish it.
Scary business, steeking.


In other news, I weighed in today and learned I was a mere 3 oz short of my first goal - losing 5% of my starting body weight. I won't share what that actually was (a lady has to keep some things to herself).

To wrap up, this week there is 5% less of me, but at least 5% more of the sweater.
And I think that's an excellent trade off.