Twilight Galaxy

Measurements

After a particularly disappointing measurement session two months ago, I kind of stayed away from the numbers.  I obviously weigh myself, but everything else was banned.  There isn't much more disappointing than working your ass off at the gym every day, to see that your bicep has gotten bigger.  Not when you still have roughly 80 pounds to lose.  The logical part of my brain knew that I had built muscle and that things would get smaller consequentially, but the emotional part said WTF!?!

So, like any skilled avoider would do, I put off taking my measurements again until yesterday.  My clothes are all loose, and I have dropped almost 15 pounds since that disappointing day. But, I was still worried.  Cori had to force me into the office with threats of 5 minute long wall sits, super setted with walking lunges... it got ugly.  BUT!  The news was good... great even.

I have lost two inches in my bicep, three from my waist, three from my chest, three from my hips, two from my upper leg and half an inch from my calf!  I am pretty proud of all that.  I am also only two pounds away from my year end goal of 20 pounds.  I really think that for once, I am actually going to meet my goal.  Maybe even before the end of the year.  HOW COOL IS THAT!?  Well, probably a lot more cool if you knew me, and knew about all of the false starts.  

Jack Sh*t over at Jack Sh*t Gettin Fit, asked today in a repost when my Day of Reckoning was.  I know that a lot of people had one day that they realized what they were going to do, and then they just... DID it.  I had a bunch of days scattered over the past four years where I said, "this is stupid, and I am not going to do it anymore."  But those decisions were fleeting, and often my good intentions were ruined within days.  More recently, my resolve has been more trustworthy.  Two and a half years ago, I decided to hire a personal trainer, and that really helped me get started, but I still ate like shit.  So it took me a whopping year and a half to lose thirty pounds.  

At the beginning of 2009, I kind of gave up again.  School was hard, and I wasn't seeing any results, and I lost my job, and all these REASONS came to be why I COULDN'T lose the weight.  It is amazing what you can convince yourself that you can and can't do.  I am amazing at convincing myself to give up.  If I believed in myself half as much as my family does, I think I would be in a much different place now.  But, that's not the point. The point is, that my most recent I've Had It Moment, came when I realized that not only was I not losing weight anymore, but I was actually GAINING some of my lost 30 pounds back.  Over the summer, I had my heart broken for the very first time. I kicked this girl out of my life completely, and told myself that I had to put me first.  And then it was there.  Not the I've Had It Moment: the calm confidence.

I've never had the calm confidence before.  In my book, it is much more powerful than being fed up with my body and vowing to change.  The calm confidence was the manifestation of years of trying to lose weight.  I knew exactly what I needed to do, how to do it, and that it wasn't about focusing on what I would look like in a year, 6 months, whatever would motivate me before.  It was about knowing that I was hurting more than I ever had before and the ONLY thing that would make me feel better was getting to the gym and sweating.  I don't think I have ever had a moment of focus that has lasted as long as this.  In anything.  Maybe that's sad, but it makes me hopeful that I am growing and that I can stick to something and make it happen for myself.  

So, in response to Jack Sh*t's question, I don't think my Day(s) of Reckoning have been the most important part of my journey.  Sure they do fire me up and get me moving for a time.  But that will always wear off.  And when it does, I am still left with the old coping skills.  For me, the change was when my coping skills changed, and when I realized the true power of NOW.  Nothing matters more than this moment. That more than anything else is what I will take away from this year. And hopefully, by the end of it, I will be 50 pounds lighter than when I started.  

Simplifying Solves a LOT.

I haven't blogged in a long while.  Usually that isn't a good sign, it means that I am either ashamed of something that happened and feel that I need to mention it in my blog, or I am just too unhappy to even fathom writing something about my life.  I looked at my last entries, from over a month ago and had one of those "thank god I'm not there still" moments.  

I was still hovering around the 200 pound mark then.  And now, because I "failed" at school this semester, I have completely devoted myself to the most important thing in my life.  Losing weight.  And I have.  It is so liberating to say that.  189.8.  I don't even remember the last time I was in the 180s.  It was over seven years ago.  It is kind of mind boggling.

But my weight loss and focus has made EVERYTHING easier.  None of the trivial things matter as much anymore.  It takes a lot more to hurt me, because I have just become so blissfully selfish that if I am even a little upset, I work out.  And it goes away.  Like that.  In fact the only thing that has upset me enough to not go away with a little sweat was the book that I finished today.  

"Eating Animals", by Jonathan Safran Foer has changed my life.  I knew when I started it, that I needed to congruently begin weaning myself off meat and into a vegetarian diet.  I had read reviews of the book, and knew what I was getting myself into.  A lot of people stop there when they hear something that might lead to a discussion about animal cruelty.  It is a lot easier to not know.  It sure makes it a lot easier to eat your Big Mac.  I was one of those people, and I don't know what changed.  I suppose that I accepted the fact that there was something fundamentally wrong with my thought process.  How cowardly is it to consciously choose to not know something?  I don't want to be a coward.

But, let me tell you.  This book was hard.  And I can confidently say that unless I am faced with some unlikely situation involving me being forced to eat meat, it is more than likely that I never will.  I am not morally opposed to eating meat- if the animals are given a fair life and death.  I love the taste.  But, what we are eating is, more often than not, the product of a tortured life and an unbelievably cruel death.  What I grew up understanding as the farming industry (with grass and tractors and cows on fields and chickens living in a space larger than my head) simply doesn't exist anymore.  Instead we are faced with the unbelievable brutality of major corporations deciding to sacrifice any sense of welfare, just to turn a profit.  Workers have come forward with video proof of acts that they call "common" that involve such obscene violence- completely UNNECESSARY violence- that I don't even feel comfortable repeating it here.  

I have been in such a fit of rage today after finishing the book.  I did my cardio and didn't even realize the time passing.  I suppose I feel angry for not knowing sooner.  For choosing to not know.  No one wants to hear this stuff.  You start a conversation about it and you are immediately considered a downer.  Everyone is so attached to their food, their habits, that they won't even consider changing.  It is the root of the problem in this country.  I am not sure that I have ever felt so ashamed to be human as I was today.  

But, in an effort to not let my education on the matter stop there (that would be really depressing) I am now reading Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal Vegetable Miracle".  She and her family moved to North Carolina and pledged to consume nothing that they did not grow on their farm.  Hopefully this will inspire me.  

Please.  If you read this blog.  If you CARE at ALL about what you eat, what you consume, what you feed your family, where it comes from, how it affects the world, PLEASE read "Eating Animals".  It will be hard.  You know that already.  But you deserve to be informed now.  You deserve to not feel ashamed for choosing not to know. Please read it.  I'll even send you my copy.  

You can buy it here, too:

http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069906

Musings On A Perfect Match

Florence + The Machine has recently gained notoriety in the independent music scene.  While their sound is overall a little on the pop-y side, I have to admit that I completely fell in love with "Blinding", "Kiss With a Fist" and "Cosmic Love" from their album Lungs.  I forced both my sister and my mother to listen to the album.  I feel a degree of accomplishment that I can influence my mom to listen to music she would NEVER listen to if not for me.  Anyway, I don't listen to Lungs that much anymore, and most of the other tracks get skipped over. But when I stumbled across this remix of "You've Got the Love" done by The Xx, I immediately fell in love.

The intro builds from a quiet beat that reminds me of the drum and bass line of some of the older Lamb tracks, and becomes this crazy study in contrasts.  The Xx's dirty deep beats paired with a high light voice is pulled off so effectively.

 

You've Got the Love (XX remix)

Sometimes Orange Shoes Don't Stop Traffic

I finally caved a procured a new pair of running shoes.  They are borderline cute, but mostly just hideous. The orange is fluorescent. Really really fluorescent.  I met with my trainer the day after I bought them, and Cori remarked that she loved them.  I quickly held them up to the ORANGE fan in the gym, noting that my shoes are "oranger".  She debated that "oranger" is not a word.  Regardless of my vocabulary, we agreed that I would be safer with my new kicks while trotting the roads. Visibility, and all, right?

WRONG.

Today as I crossed the street in my new shoes (to get to the gym, mind you) I was nearly motored down by a SUV wielding woman.  Her tires SQUEALED as she tried to stop after staring blankly at me - orange-shoe wearing me, standing directly in her path - without changing speeds for a full ten seconds.  She was lucky that I didn't kick her white marshmallow of doom.  I thought about it.

Here are my shoes:

Cute/hideous, right?  Definitely visible. 

I have been sampling the new Air album, Love 2, and I am not hooked yet.  I think I need to give it a real chance to sink in.  I do love the Emily Haines track off of Tiesto's new album, Kaleidoscope.  I love everything Emily Haines does though.  Seriously, the woman is in tune with my soul.  If only I lived in a city that was cool enough to merit a visit from Metric.  Oh well.  Someday.

Alright, I am off to try my luck at not getting run over again. Be well.

WHIIIIIIP IT. and other news....

I don't know if I was immediately smitten with Whip It tonight simply because it opened with Knocked Up, the best Kings of Leon song ever (and one of my ALL TIME favorite songs), or if I fell head over heels in love with the film as soon as I saw Ellen Paige's blue hair.  I do know that I am a sucker for good first impressions, and the film de-livered.  More than that, it continued to deliver for the short 2 hours that followed.  

 

I do have to say that the soundtrack carried the movie and kept me onboard, with music from the Kings of Leon, The Raveonettes, MGMT, The Ramones, Tilly and the Wall, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, PEACHES, The Ettes, and much much more.  

Even if the soundtrack had sucked, the movie was funny and endearing enough on its own.  The story of a passive girl who finds something that she truly loves enough to break out of her comfort zone is completely awesome.  Girls need to have things they are passionate about that empower them, and it really was uplifting.  I came home and hooped for an hour.  

In other news:

-I went to the Brother Ali show on Friday, and had a blast.  It was at In the Venue, which is small enough on its own, but apparently they were having two shows one the same night and so the bigger room was given to Coblie Callait, and the Brother Ali fans were stuck in the smaller room.  It was alright because we had a fairly small crowd, so it just made it more intimate.  Brother Ali did "Walking Away" which has significance to this part of my life.  All in all, it was an epic night filled with dancing and drinking and singing and wandering through Temple Square at midnight.  Wonderful.

-My house is clean.  It feels so freeing to say that.  I am going to say it again.  My house is CLEAN!!!!

-I told my father about my failure to do the one and only thing I need to do right now.  School.  It felt good to get it off my chest, and have him validate me in some ways.  But there are certain aspects of why I have failed that I can't tell him right now, and his disappointment in me is justified.  I hate disappointing people.  Especially my dad. I'm hoping that this break from school will end up being a good thing. I have some things I need to figure out, and though I hate my self-sabotaging ways, maybe this will enable said figuring out. 

I think there is more, but I am not sure what it is right now.

I am currently obsessed with:

Savoy - Welcome to Jamrock RMX

Until We Bleed ft. Lykke Li- Kleerup

Sink-Brand New

Adventures With The Law

I've never been pulled over by two cop cars at once. I must say, the experience is quite exhilarating, and everyone should try it at least once in their lives. 

Let's start at the beginning. There I was at Coffee Connection, being extremely studious (*deletes previous status updates*). I even stayed until closing: finished my coffee and salad, gave up on my investment write-up, packed my bag up, said goodnight to the wonderful staff. As I arrived at the stop sign to pull out onto State Street (now pay attention, this is where the story gets INTERESTING), I stopped, but as is characteristic of State Street, you have to drift into the road a TINY bit to be able to see around the cars parked along the side of it. Scintillating, I know. I drifted, waited for a car to pass through the intersection, and pulled out into the road. I quickly realized that I had pulled out in front of not just one cop car, but TWO. So, instead of accelerating to the full 35 miles per hour, I stayed at a healthy 29, just to get them to pass me. 

**Sidenote: Police officers piss me off. I think that when one insists on following me on a multi-lane road, it is only fair for me to travel at LEAST 5 miles under the speed limit. You can just see them get irritated. It's a quick way to know if they are checking you out and planning on pulling you over. Usually, they just trot around you, failing to signal, plundering off into the night to cause mayhem and destruction elsewhere. However, as was the case tonight, you also KNOW that you are getting your ass pulled over if that cop car slows down to match your speed. End sidenote**

I was fully expecting one of the cars to pull me over, while the other continued on to do some evil bidding, but imagine my surprise, my exhilaration when both did so, AT THE EXACT SAME TIME. Those lights came on and it was as if those cop cars had a psychic connection, or perhaps more likely, those officers were sitting there on their radios, "Ok, on three.... 2, 2 1/2, and GO!" It was quite impressive.

I pulled over, trying to imagine what they were going to tell me I had done wrong. I mean, there are a few reasons why little ol' me would be pulled over with two cop cars:

-those French-Canadian workers that I often smuggle into the United States in my Mini Cooper. All the French Canadians think that UTAH is where the party's at, let me tell you.
-the bricks of cocaine that I stash in the back of my car for easy access... you truly never know when the urge will hit.
-or, even possibly that Atticus had escaped from my apartment and wandered down to Temple Square and was kissing other boy cats. 

I am ashamed to admit that I failed to get the officer's name. For the purposes of this story, we shall call him Humphrey. Anyway, Humphrey approached me in customary police-officer-fashion. 
Humphrey: Soooooo, you kind of blew through that stop sign back there......?
Me: Is that a question? No, I stopped, and drifted forward so I could see around the line of cars. You weren't even in my line of sight when I stopped. 
Humphrey: Weeeellll, neither of us saw you stop.........
Me: Yeah, I would agree that it would have been hard to visualize me stopping if you couldn't see me at all.
[Insert confused look on poor Humphrey's face]
Humphrey: Well, I am going to need to check your license...

I handed him my license. Let my complete disappointment set in at just HOW anticlimactic this all was. Waited. Waited some more. Turned my car off. Got my phone out and checked Facebook (what can I say? I have a problem). Reclined my seat. Took a short nap in which I dreamt vividly about dolphins and ice cream. I was startled out of my slumber when Humphrey finally wandered back to my car.

Humphrey: Soooo, have you have anything to drink tonight?
Me: No. 
Humphrey: That's what I thought. Okay, well, we will let you off with a warning. 

Really? All that for a warning...? For not stopping? When I was pulled over for my DUI last year, I was pulled over by a motorcycle cop. We discussed his tall boots while we waited thirty minutes for a four-wheeled vehicle to arrive. But, worry not, Salt Lake City is CRACKING DOWN on those nefarious stop sign runners! Watch out! I collected my license, buckled my seatbelt (Mom), put away my phone, turned my car back on, signaled and returned to the road. Humphrey and his cop buddy pulled out behind me. I continued down State street at a brisk 29 miles an hour. 

I was fully aware that both Humphrey and his friend were still behind me. It was irritating, but let me tell you what was more irritating: as we pulled up to the red light at State and 200 South, both cop cars COMPLETELY ran the red light (I mean, didn't even PRETEND to touch the brakes), failed to signal, AND turned into the far lane without properly moving over. I was pissed. Irate even. Believe you me, if I had dear Humphrey's real name, I would be making a plethora of calls. Alas, I think I will simply settle for the letter I have crafted below.

Dear Salt Lake City Police Department,

While your officers are definitely lacking skills of observation, I thought I would let you know the hidden talent I have discovered right here among our esteemed law enforcers of Salt Lake City. Synchronized Swimming. Now, now, hear me out... If you have access to a pool(maybe you could work that into the budget?), I think you have some great untapped potential in the sport, and I truly to encourage you to endorse any involvement. Just imagine if we little people, here in Salt Lake City, had a TEAM! 

Thank you for wasting my time, and have a delightful day!

V.King.

Weak

I caved.  On something I promised myself I wouldn't cave on.  And it caused me to cave on multiple other areas of my life where I had a tiny amount of control.  

Why does that happen?  Why do we sit around and say: "No matter what..."  only to just let ourselves down.  I even journaled about it right before I caved.  I knew what I was going to do.  ARGGGGGH.

I text her.  Even after everything.  Fuck.

And then, I ordered pizza.  Instead of going to the gym.  Great.  Wonderful.

On the bright side, I am meeting with Cori in the morning.  I will be going to play with my pony.  I have a ton of stuff to do around the house.  And mom gets here on Saturday.  

Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it.

Bed

1- Today was amazing.  I worked out twice.  Once in the morning with Cori.  And once in the evening.  I love double days.  They make me feel INCREDIBLE. Who cares if I won't be able to get out of bed in the morning?????

2- My classes seem to be pretty great.  I am going forward full force with my Finance major.  Though, I haven't let the school know that, and I suppose that MIGHT be an important element I am omitting...

3- I went and played games with my psycho pony.  She threw a shoe, but the farrier is coming out on Friday, and he will get that all fixed for us.  I need to get some current pictures of her.

4-  I am in the process of deciding what to do with my bed.  I need lights above it.  I am having a hard time deciding whether to go with:

A: All white bedding, crazy colored lights.

or B: All white lights and crazy colored bedding.

Oh, here is a picture of my bed (which I am still utterly and completely smitten with, having just graduated from my twin sized bed of 20 years last MONTH)

I think I am going to go with all white lanterns, and maybe graduate from there to colored in the future.  I can always change it.  

Identity

Do you ever sit there and really wonder who you are?  I do.  I wonder what is genuinely ME and not the result of some outside force. Riding used to be ME.  It was wholely a part of me, and something I could not fathom living without.  But, I can live without riding.  I do.  Daily.  

I wonder if I am really gay.  If I am gay, or if I am just accepting that as the "ANSWER" to all my relationship mysteries.  I am 99% sure I am gay.  Anything I have ever felt has been for a girl.  But what if I'm not?  Does it matter?  I don't especially care what other people think about it, but I would hate to tag myself with a label that wasn't me.  I hate tagging myself with any labels.  

I can sense that when I talk to my mom about being gay, she gets very uncomfortable and quiet.  I know she doesn't approve of it.  I know she loves me either way, but I also know that she doesn't approve.  I haven't told many people, though.  I told my old friend, Shandi, before we stopped talking.  I told my mom.  I told Alison.  And now I have told Jillian.  So, I guess my mom gets the brunt of my venting and confusion.  

Do you know what I LOVE?

Hummus & Cucumber.

Metric

I love Metric.  Metric is amazing.  Twilight Galaxy = my mantra, the name of this humble blog.

Did they tell you, you should grow up

When you wanted to dream?

Did they warn you, better shape up

If you want to succeed?

I don't know about you, who are they talking to?

They're not talking to me

I'm higher than high

Lower than deep

I'm doing it wrong

Singin' along

Did I ask for attention

When affection is what I need?

Thinking sorrow is perfection

I would wallow till you told me

There's no glitter in the gutter

There's no twilight galaxy

Go higher than high 

Go lower than deep 

Keep doing it wrong 

Keep singin' along

I'm alright, c'mon, baby

I've seen all the demons that you've got

If you're not alright now, c'mon, baby

I'll pick you up and take, take you where you want

Anywhere you want

Anywhere you want

Anywhere you want

Anything you want

I'm higher than high

Lower than deep

I'm doing it wrong

Singin' along

I don't know what to say.  I have made a pact with myself to not talk about a certain person.  And I think it is largely because of this song.  There is no appeal in being unhappy.  No appeal in making choices that enable unhappiness.  The people that I attract to myself when I am unhappy are dangerous people for me to be around, and really, I don't have time for that.  

 1.  School starts tomorrow. Feeling very ambiguous about it.

 2.  I have a large list of things I would love to get done before school starts.

 3. I am still not below 200 pounds, but I am confident that now I am home from my three-week traveling stint, I should be able to level out and continue losing weight. 

 4.  I feel prepared to focus on my goals and not on feelings that deliver no utility.

That's all.