It's hard to lose weight when...

your ass is planted firmly in front of a computer all day. And if not in front of a computer then at least at a table working on an illustration. I'm currently working on an illustration for a class that is going to take a minimum of 25 hours. How do I know this? Because I've already spent five hours and don't even have a quarter of it done. See...


This is a technique called stipple (tons of dots clustered together) and this illustration is due on Monday. I have always loved stipple, but the pressure is on right now. Aside from choosing the toughest technique to use on it (we were also allowed to use crosshatch and/or line), I have chosen an intense photo by a local photographer and promised him that I would give him a copy of the illustration when I'm done. It is mass critical that I don't screw this up. With that much left to go and those kind of time contraints, that affords me a lot of opportunity to screw the pooch (so to speak). There is a pint of Ben & Jerry's in the freezer if the pressure gets to be too much. Hee.

And now for a shameless plug. I have been working on establishing an identity for my freelance business (the one I hope to live off of when school is done) and I even have a blog for it now (as well as facebook, twitter and its very own website). If any of you weight loss hotties have a secret crush on art and design perhaps you'd like to follow that one as well. Now you can stalk me in multiple places.

Pixel Dust

Pixel Dust Blog

Life raft anyone?

I'm struggling. Big time. I'm hardly sleeping, hardly eating, hardly keeping my head above water. I'm sad. I'm lonely. I'm stressed. I'm...drowning.

School is fucking insane. I haven't weighed since the gain of a couple weeks ago. Insertnamehere and I haven't seen each other in two weeks and it's likely not going to change anytime soon. Sadly, that's not so much my fault as it is his. He's just as busy as I am and, well, I'm/we/this is on the back burner for a while so that he can sort some things out. I miss him. I miss the escape that spending time with him provided. I miss how he calms me and right now, I need a lot of calming. I'm on edge. I'm going to snap. I'm scheduling a breakdown for about 1:30 this afternoon. Should be fun.

On that note, back to homework. It's all I do these days. All day, and often all night. All week and all weekend. Mama needs a break, but not for another 8 weeks. FML.

Waving my white flag

I surrender, or quit rather. The responses I got last night from Alex were as follows:

Alex: No I did not know that. That's funny though...people always like to gossip.

Me: Daniel has been telling me to ask you out all day. What's that about?

Alex: I didn't say anything to him...I don't know what to say.

Me: Interesting. I guess I get Daniel harassing me and you get Laura. They probably won't stop until we're making out in a back room somewhere knowing them.

As of 11:30 last night...that's where we left it. And, to be honest, that's where we're going to leave it. My Gemini ways have me already getting bored. If anything ever happens it will be because he grew a pair and repeaked my interest because right now he's dropping back down to "just friends" status.

Did I mention that I went to 24 hour fitness on Tuesday? No, of course I didn't. I'm only posting about the ways of stupid socially inept boys these days because that and school are all I've focused on lately. Well, I did. I got a 7 day pass and went to use it. All the sales people were gone for the night so she just gave me a day use pass and said to come back and we'd initiate the 7 day pass. Whatevs. I worked out and realized I don't like that gym. It's one of the Lance Armstrong Super Sport versions and it's the only one between school and home that's somewhat easy to get to. It was packed, it was way too stuffy in there, and it's more expensive to join a super sport than a sport. No thanks. It was nice to be back at it, though. To feel like I'm making an effort again. I've lost a little at the last few WW meetings, but will only be going until the middle of next month. Can't afford the $40 a month with the way unemployment is fucking me these days. I'm so broke I'm taking summer classes just to try and get more financial aid money so I can live. Oddly though, I'm still not stressed out. It's like the day I decided I wasn't going to let all these things get me down...they didn't. Is that because I'm stronger or more at ease with things being out of my control? I don't know. Maybe I'm just so used to bad things happening that I'm unable to give a shit anymore. Either way, not caring is nice right now.

I have about one more week of classes for this term and it's going to be a rough one. There are a lot of projects due that involve a lot of work. After that I have two weeks off before summer classes start. My plan for summer was to really focus (like last summer) on losing as much weight as I can. It would be nice to go back to school in the fall and have people do a double take. We'll see what me, good food choices, my wii, and walking out at my brother's can do for me because I likely won't be able to join a gym just yet. Wish me luck, I could use some.

A day of class, culture, and introspection

I gave the Portland Art Museum three hours of my time today. It had been a very long time since I had been there. Many things were as I remembered them. The Monets, Renoirs and Picassos were all cohabitating together with various other artists. The Asian art exhibit is still so large that it takes up most of the lower level. I now firmly believe that, when it comes to sculpture, the Tang dynasty kicked the Han dynasty's ass. I realized that I still love art as much, if not more, as I always have. I see in every piece something different to appreciate. Mostly I am envious of their talent. Sometimes, I'm envious of the fact that someone, somewhere, got paid a lot of money to paint black stripes on a very large canvas.

I am mostly in awe of the European Collection. Some of the paintings are so life like. Considering the day and age that they were created? Their talent floors me. My question remains the same, however, what is up with all the little boy junk dangling about and all the rubenesque titty shots? Babies just laying around naked and women looking like Janet at Superbowl. Not because they were about to breast feed all the naked babies. Not because they were exquisitely depicted as the voluptuous women that they are. They would just be sitting with their friends and a boob would pop out, crying at the feet of a man in armor as if begging him not to go and a boob would pop out. Playing piano? Oh look, a boob. Plucking a chicken? Boob. Holding your dying husband? Boob. In a big battle with Centaurs? Two Boobs (some of those centaurs were hot, I must say). I get the appreciation for the female form. I love that we big women got mad props back in the day. I thought they were all very beautiful, but, seriously? This was my stroll around the European wing today, "Man in wig...boob...man in wig looking a bit pinched...baby junk...baby junk...baby junk AND boob...two boobs...boob and man in wig...baby's junk getting circumsized. (WTF?)...boob...ah, two women playing piano. Is that a nipple?...baby junk..." I think you get the point. Let's not accuse me of immaturity just yet. I was at least 15 paintings in before I was consumed by the completely random diplays of T&J.

Anyhoo, I came to realize something else during my afternoon of class and culture. I need to get back to being me. I need to find balance. I need to do the things I enjoy and stop stressing so much about things that are out of my control. That's what most of the things going on in my life are; out of my control. Why worry about things that I cannot change? Why let it stifle me and make me miserable? Decision made...no more stress. It's that simple.

The world I live in

When I was in first grade the biggest thing I had to worry about was making sure I didn't miss the bus. In fifth grade I had to move up to a different school and we were no longer in one classroom all day, but had to go from class to class. My biggest stress then was finding all of my classes. My freshman year was more of the same, but now I had to worry about the rumored initiations one might undergo by seniors. I also had to worry about my grandma that was dying of breast cancer. As high school progressed my stress ranged from my weight, to getting my driver's license, to boys I might have secretly liked, to grades, to a bad relationship with my father. At the time everything seemed so critically important and as if my life were hanging by a single tattered thread.

Now I'm a college student. I expected the various stresses that go along with this level of education, but there is one aspect of it that I didn't anticipate. Every term we have what is called an Active Shooter Drill. Whichever class you're in when it happens has its own method of dealing with this drill, but it goes a little something like this: an alarm goes off indicating that there is a lock down; lights are turned off; doors are locked and closed; people sit on the floor, huddled up, quietly hiding; we wait for the alarm to stop thus signaling us that the coast is clear. Usually when this happens I sit and ponder how fucked up it is that the world I live in has a need for a drill like this. That because someone is having a bad day or a series of bad days, they are coming to schools to kill people (I also occasionally joke with friends that, at my size, at least two of them could easily hide behind me should the shooter get through the series of locked doors between us and them).

Today was different. Today the alarm didn't stop. Today we sat huddled in a room texting furiously to family and friends. Today our hearts beat a little faster. Today was not a drill. Today there was someone on campus that meant harm. Today we sat in the dark with no information other than the fact that someone had a gun. The stories of other school shootings cross our minds and, for a moment, we feel the fear that they must have felt. At one point someone walked up to our door and tried to open it. "Of all the classrooms on all the campus," we think, "he chooses ours." He walks away and we never find out who he was. Maybe he was just someone trying to get into a room to hide. Maybe we should have let him in.

I text classmates telling them not to come to campus yet. I text my sister and let her know what's going on. I opt not to tell her I love her refusing to believe that this is serious enough for such a dramatic addition to her day. I do tell her to tell mom what's going on. Part of me does wonder if I should be doing more, saying more. What if the last thing I said was "You gotta be fucking kidding me. I'm up to my eyebrows in gradient mesh and clipping masks and you want to have another drill?" (I also wonder if the shooter is an over-stressed graphic design student and feel a sense of connection to his plight). Eventually the alarm stops. Eventually we snap out of our stupors and stand up. Eventually we walk out and go back to our classes as if nothing has happened. We find out that someone was at the bookstore threatening to commit suicide.

I learned something about myself today that bothers me greatly. I learned that no matter how dire the situation, I will still worry about my weight. Today I worried that I wasn't hidden enough because I'm too big. Today I worried that should we have to run, I'd never get away and secretly hoped that adrenaline worked miracles. Today I worried that I would, indeed, die fat. This is the world I live in.

Bedtime stories didn't used to be this scary

Last night before bed I spent about 15 minutes with Maya. Her version of bedtime stories involve squats and lunges, bicep curls and tricep presses, crunches and some odd little thing where I curl into a ball and roll back and forth. I'm supposed to bring my knees to my chest for this. I haven't brought my knees successfully to my chest since I was a fetus, I assure you. I think I prefer my bedtime stories have ghosts, dragons, gory details of dismemberment, and the like. They'd provide far less nightmare potential for me I think.

This morning I decided to see what she serves for breakfast. Planks. The bitch had me doing planks. I guess she IS a real trainer because they ALL make you do planks! Where's the originality in that I ask? As you're working out with Maya she occasionally asks you how that last little bit of torture treated you. You can choose from "No sweat," "I was working hard," and "I couldn't keep up." This allows her to decide how she wants to ream you the next time you hang out. She'll only dial it up a notch if you say no sweat, people. I'm just sayin'! She is kind enough to let you have a rest period between certain things. Just long enough for her to adjust her ponytail, her shoe, her spandex, whatever might be riding up into her nether regions. And before you start another part of the workout, she'll ask you to wait while she "finds the beat." My new BFF for sure!

After dinner I went for a walk. I needed to clear my head and see if it filled back up with clarity. It didn't. I've been so disconnected the last week. So indifferent to everything. I've been seeing someone lately and I've even pulled away from that (for various reasons I'll not get into). School starts tomorrow and I don't want to go. Since when haven't I been jacked up on school? Even when I was drowning in it I was still loving it. Right now, I'm not. Maybe I'm depressed. Maybe I'm just tired. My life is still all kerfucked and I'm getting quite fed up with it all.

Before I sat down to write this I popped in my new Jillian Michaels' Fitness Ultimatum 2009 game for the Wii. I did about 15 minutes with it. I'm not all that impressed with it yet, but maybe I'm not doing it right. Maya works me out much harder than Jillian so far. My Wii Balance Board can be used on that one, maybe that'll make the difference. Right now it's just a lot of running in place. The rowing and the monkey bars seems good, but F@#$ it all if I can figure out the grenade toss. I'll have to play with it some more and see what happens. As you work out you gain access to new training tips and things.

For those of you trying to tally my activity for today. I got in about an hour. Considering how sedentary I've been for the last, eesh, six months...this is huge. Tomorrow starts another 11ish weeks of hell. Let's see if I can't bring my A game this time, shall we?