can't post now ~ gotta finish this

So I was toodlin' around yesterday when I should have been working/cleaning/rolling quarters/kiting checks/staring off into space. But it was actually in the course of doing some legitimate research (I swear) when I stumbled across this little divertissement and...well, a girl just cannot have too many avatars, as far as I'm concerned. They're like Barbies for grown-up geeky girls. Everyone needs a Barbie, right? No? Just me? Okay.

Sure, I know you're busy ~ like me, you're struggling hard to make up believable resumes (what year would I have graduated college if I were the 38 year-old systems engineer I am claiming to be? Where would I have gone? Is a $150k starting salary too high? Too low? Should I also be fluent in Chinese? What will I wear to my new office?) all the while upending your couch in search of loose change to pay for that last latte before the corner Starbucks closes and Armageddon commences.

Or maybe you're just energetically combing YouTube for video mix-ups of Christian Bale's rant, poo-flinging chimps and another one of those whack-job preachers calling Obama the Antichrist. All great fun, I agree. But even that kind of effort gets exhausting after a while.

It'll waste of a good hour or so of your life, I promise.

You're welcome.

I love my little avi. I think she'll get a tattoo.

tabula rasa

Lately I've been playing around with trying to turn a few poorly written personal journal pages into a few poorly illustrated personal journal pages with predictably muddled results. In the process, I have learned two things about myself which I will proceed to put down here, as god knows I am currently unable to put them down there, for reasons which will be soon become clear.

A) I have the aesthetic and attention span of a six year old girl.

Despite having recently purchased and perused not one but three gorgeous new books on how to create successful mixed-media collages, I do not not understand these new materials at all. Acrylic paints remain an unfathomable mystery to me, and I cannot seem to grasp how to handle them without brushes drying up and the paper buckling and splotching willy-nilly while I am busily distracted elsewhere, cutting up magazine photos and gluing down pretty plastic pearls. It appears to require more organization and forethought than I am accustomed to. When it comes to the art of collage, I am still a child eating molding paste and dreaming about unicorns, gaily coating everything in sight with glitter and faerie dust, and thinking it magic.

B) I am not that bright.

Actually, this is probably a subset of A, but as I have predetermined that this should be part of an epic 2 Random Things You Don't Know About Me post, it gets its own heading. Although, come to think of it, you may already know this about me, or at least suspect as much. Consider yourself validated.

Inspired by the likes of Judy Wise, Teesha Moore and Amber Gibbs I attempted to
decorate a few journal pages of my own. This seemed to be going remarkably well, and so pleased was I with my cleverness that I even wrote a haiku to grace one of the freshly renovated pages. It was beautiful, that little poem; elegant, self-contained ~ a delicately framed image of the mountains being seduced by enveloping storm clouds. I like writing haiku because it combines two of my favorite things; precise imagery and counting to 7. Plus, they are easy to remember until I can write them down. And because I also like smooth, shiny things, I added to all my pretty pages what I thought was a light coat of glossy gel medium.

You may guess the rest.

I now have a journal full of pretty pages on which nothing may be written. They are sealed; no gel pen, no graphite, no watercolor pencil; no ballpoint, nor Sharpie, nor quill dipped in blood will adhere to the now impermeable surface of my mini masterpieces. Diaries without drama, journals without joy. It is the Never-starting Story.

Of course, I could still paste prose into them, or use acrylics and a very narrow brush to paint entries, calligraphy style, but frankly this is demanding far too much of my limited literary abilities; already there had been a question of what I could write that would be deemed pretty page-worthy. Hauntingly beautiful and long forgotten haiku aside (verily, I swear; a brilliant addition to the art of counted syllables, it was) what was I going to set down in my Japanese garden; the daily calorie count? Miles on the treadmill? My thoughts on the president's stimulus package? Surely, painting one's daily weigh-in is going a step too far.


The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on...

I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend

Pay no attention to the dazzling creature you see before you, light dancing off the mirrors of her magnificently mosaic frame. The Fitness Blog is clinically depressed, and feels not her power.

Three weeks into the Most Pointless Diet in the History of Womankind, I have gained back 2 pounds, leaving me just 6 pounds less than I was when I started. Not to mention infinitely more sober, which has done nothing to improve my mood. If I get any more clear-headed I'm going to have to start going to meetings. Preferably meetings sponsored by Celebrity Rehab's Dr. Drew, whose freshly detoxed people all seem to turn up weeks later on TMZ partying at Teddy's or Chez Deux, none the worse for wear. And lookin' mighty trim, I'd like to point out.

In any case, I am frustrated and unhappy with my sudden inability to control my own body. I know how to do this thing, dammit. I have been a dedicated dieter since the age of 15 when, much to my mother's dismay, I dropped 15 pounds on a balanced diet of black coffee, TAB and teenage angst. Since then, whenever I put on a couple of pounds I simply throw myself into the latest diet craze, be it Grapefruit, Atkins, the Zone or Cabbage Soup. I vaguely recall one which started with rice cakes and peanut butter in the morning and ended with canned red beets and tuna at night. Oddly, it was not all that bad, and not the worst regimen by far. Certainly not as bad as eating several grapefruit a day. Those vodka and grapefruits can really get to you over the course of an evening.

Inevitably, I would get back down to where I wanted to be and resume normal eating habits, which are generally not all that different from what I've been putting down here for the past 3 weeks: primarily fruits and vegetables 3 or 4 days a week; steak, chicken, fish or pasta on weekends. The only difference is that when I'm not dieting, I really let go when I play. When I'm dieting I don't, and aside from the one blowout weekend, I haven't this time either. I've behaved myself. I've counted calories. I haven't seen a potato chip or M&M in weeks. I've run and stepped and downward-dogged myself from here to Texas, and still I can't fit into my jeans. Frankly, I'm flummoxed. And it goes without saying, poorly dressed.

An article in this week's Times on the merits of fasting states that women of my age should be eating between 1600 and 1800 calories a day. I would like to be on that diet. And everyone seems to be losing weight; the folks over at The Biggest Loser are losing 10-15 pounds a week; anyone gaining weight, as I have, would have been laughed clear off the farm. Or beaten to death by that mean-girl trainer, Jillian. Now there's a woman with issues.

But the reality is that years of extreme dieting, coupled with decades of regular, strenuous workouts have slowed my metabolic rate down to that of a tree sloth. In fact, I have developed a metabolism so ruthlessly efficient that I no longer burn calories, I create them. And the vast storage areas required to house them. Thus, I am a victim of evolution. I should be studied by scientists. And possibly theologians. I'd love to be able to settle that dispute.

The good news is that if my plane ever crashes into the Andes or a deserted island somewhere I will be able to exist for months without food, and therefore not forced to eat my fellow survivors for energy.

The bad news is that I will be so insufferable in my smug plumptitude that my fellow survivors will choose me to be eaten first. It's a win/lose situation.

So, I win. I am the Biggest Loser!