#and I’ve been extra grumpy knowing I have a good reason to be grumpy (i.e. this internet)

[floral-hex]

Moved into this apartment and only had 1mbps internet, which is… bad. good luck watching anything.

Called yesterday and they said they could only pump it up to 7.5mbps due to the building’s wiring, which is a tiny bit better and I suppose I’ll take what I can get for now just so I can actually use the internet.

A few hours later, I’m now sitting on a whopping 768kbps plan at $40 a month, which is absolute bullshit! WHAT!? I didn’t even know you could get internet that slow! What happened?? I might as well go back to dial-up. And $40! Is that my idiot tax for trusting them?

Just give me decent internet, please, I beg you 😫

[ja9doeswhole30]

Before-Whole30 Baseline

One of the reasons I kept putting off committing to a firm eating plan like Whole30 is that I consider myself a pretty healthy eater. I’ve always anticipated that forcing myself to be 100% compliant with a strict plan would send me into a deprivation mentality, and that being a ~90% whole-food eater with a little wiggle room for other stuff wasn’t the worst thing in the world. 

Nonetheless, here we are. I’ve bought into the idea of a 30-day reset of eating only the “right” foods. As my start date approaches, I wanted to focus on the ways in which I’ve been eating well and can build on during Whole30. 

I cook at home. A lot. Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved to cook. Eating is awesome, so why wouldn’t someone want to participate in the creation of the food and make it exactly to spec?! My early attempts as a teen mostly consisted of eggs, pancakes, certain traditional Jewish holiday foods, and cookies. I also messed around with salads, sandwiches, smoothies, etc. (more “food assemblage” than actual “cooking,” if we’re being technical). Then during college I graduated to vegetable stir-fries and sauteed pasta dishes, and I made a lot of marinated chicken breast on my Foreman grill. When the hubs and I moved in together we started incorporated baked salmon once a week along with the grilled chicken, turkey sausage, and turkey meatloaf that became our staples. 

Still, I didn’t realize just how much we ate out in NYC until we moved to the suburbs. Pre-kids, we’d pick something up from the pizza place one night during the week, and perhaps another weeknight we’d meet friends or coworkers for dinner and drinks. And the weekends inevitably involved eating out in some fashion or another. These days I cook dinner every weeknight pretty religiously, and that way weekend restaurant visits and take-out meals really are a special treat for everyone. 

I’m also kind of grumpy and cheap when it comes to grocery store shortcut foods - no cooked rotisserie chickens or other prepared foods from the deli counter for us. That said, I understand that this is often an optimal alternative to true take-out food for people who are too busy to cook. But it’s not like I’m relying on them and need to cut them out now, which is good. 

Finally, I’ve almost always packed and brought my own lunch. Occasionally I’ll treat myself to some sushi (since no one else in my family likes it) as a special Friday lunch, but otherwise I eat a homemade salad or leftovers from the night before. 

Hence, I’m intimidated by the menu requirements of the Whole30, and the prospect of making sure my meals are compliant while also satisfying for my family of picky eaters, but it’s not like this is my first rodeo in the kitchen. 

When I do eat outside food, I don’t go overboard. The sushi aside, when eating in a restaurant I usually pick something sensible like a salad with lean protein. If I indulge in a sandwich, I make sure to stop when I’m full (usually eating around half & saving the other half for the next day). In my youth I was a total glutton whose brain used the “oh, we’re eating out!” signal as an excuse to stuff myself, since it was a “treat”. 

I guess it’s also worth mentioning here that when we eat out, it’s pretty strictly Greek diner, Italian, Thai, or Chinese - i.e. somewhere I can eek out a decent meal (even if it means ordering steamed veggies and tofu with brown rice while everyone else has saucy deliciousness). The only time we even consider a typical “fast food” joint is on road trips, and even there you can always get a salad. 

Obviously, I’m not perfect. My willpower is shit when it comes to a nice diner bread basket or a steaming tray of garlic knots. But, in contrast to my youth, I’m able to have half a slice of challah, or one garlic knot, and stop there. This doesn’t really help with Whole30 since all that stuff is off-limits, but if I used to eat a lot of something, and trained myself to eat just a little, by extension eating none of it isn’t such a big stretch. 

I don’t eat after dinner (anymore). Because I have small children, we eat dinner around 6:30, finish by 7:00, and have them in bed by 8:00. A few months ago, I found myself picking at randomness in the kitchen during the evening cleanup. I realized that I was rushing through dinner, too distracted facilitating everyone else’s eating to slow down and feel myself to satiety. Thus, a few hours later I was either still hungry, or just antsy and unsatisfied enough to pick at nonsense. For the last several weeks, though, I’ve been more strict about dinner being the time to eat the good foods that’ll keep me full until the morning. (I say those exact words to my kids every single night; may as well take my own advice, right?)

I only booze occasionally. Last January I basically gave up drinking alcohol. Every once in a while I’ll have a glass of wine or a beer at a party, but between the negative effect on my triglycerides, the extra calories I don’t need, and the fact that I have small children who wake up me at the asscrack of dawn even if I have a headache, these occasions have been fewer and farther between. The logic also falls somewhere along the lines of “what’s the point of having just one drink?”  The other night I drank (a whole beer!) for the first time in over 2 months, and while it was delicious the buzz kept me up too late and I spent all of yesterday feeling sluggish and exhausted. Not worth it. So I know I can go 30 days without booze, no problem. 

I exercise almost every day. I know there’s a lot of speculation about whether exercise is actually good for weight loss - you burn a lot of calories but that just makes you hungrier, or you pat yourself on the back and take more liberties with crappy food choices, blah blah blah. All I know is that I got into the habit of working out every morning and I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I gave that up. My usual routine is 20-30 minutes on my elliptical, plus some strength exercises from a 30-day challenge chosen by my sister-in-law and her friends. It might be psychosomatic but I’m convinced the endorphins help me manage stress and have energy throughout the day. Plus, knowing I have to get up early to get the workout in before the kids get up is usually enough motivation to get into bed at a decent hour at night. 

The Whole30 book warns that adjusting to the program may affect athletic performance, so I’m going to proceed with caution the first few days. It so happens that we’re almost at the end of a thigh challenge, so the first day of Whole30 I’ll need to do 40 leg swings, 45 side leg lifts, and 45 side lunges (per leg). The next day it’s 50 side lunges, 55 plie squats, and 45 inner thigh pulses. So maybe I’ll skip the elliptical one of those days, or do it as a quick 10-15 minute warmup instead of a full cardio session. Regardless, according to the book exercising means you need to eat an extra (small) meal, and for my money that’s enough reason in and of itself to keep exercising. 

So there you have it. Stay tuned for my next post in which I bitch about all the reasons Whole30 is going to be insanely hard. D:

[austinpanda]

About Damn Time :)

I have been depressed lately. (I know. What are the chances?) Now this, obviously, is an “above and beyond the normal baseline malaise” kind of ennui. Lots of reasons. The job can get difficult sometimes, and it’s been difficult. I’m still not smoking cigarettes, which makes my body happy, I’m sure, but it makes the rest of me all fuck-you-stabby. We still don’t know where we’ll move, but the need to do so grows, despite the corresponding increase in stress and fear.

But lately, on top of all that, I suffered another setback. Naturally, it’s all of my own doing, and I’m bitterly disappointed in myself. I have to start on insulin. Despite all my effort, and worry, and attempts at disgusting exercise, my pre-diabetes has become professional-strength diabetes, and it’s time for some changes. Gotta inject myself. Gotta see a nutritionist, so that I may pay actual money for the privilege of having someone tell me that Hamburger Helper served on a bed of mini Snickers and garnished with Cheetos is bad for me. (Duh! That’s what makes it taste good!)

And the doctor wanted to put me onto a medication called Ozempic. The good news was that it would get my blood sugar down and also help me lose weight. The bad news was that it causes weight loss through nausea, which is awesome! The other bad news is that a brief google strike gave me the impression that the cost per dose was somewhere between $600 and $800. That was also awesome!

So this morning when I left work I was pretty damn anxious and depressed. I had to go to CVS to pick up the prescription, and my only plan, if it cost $600, was to refuse it. That’s what the doctor said I should do: Don’t accept the medication, just let them know you’ll need to get with your doctor for something else and they’ll understand. And when I went to the CVS, I was not optimistic. I got in line at the prescription pick-up window and texted Zach, “Now I get to find out if I can afford to continue having blood.”

The guy in front of me had one prescription that was ready and one that was still being worked on, and he hated that. He was grumpy with the wee lass behind the counter. “Yeah, that’s what y’all said last time, grumble grumble…” So he grumbled away and I got nervous and said, “HEY! My doctor called in a prescription for me, I think, for some stuff related to, um, diabetes!!! I’m Rick Weidmann!” And she found it in her system, and said it was going to be $25.

So I figured, that’s obviously wrong. I said, “For what medication?”

“For O-...O-...Oz-...”

“Okay, yeah, the internet said it would be many hundreds of dollars!”

“It’s a few hundred, but your insurance, ya know. Oo! I like your shirt!”

At this point I dissolved into a puddle of ecstasy on the floor, swirling and swishing around, helpless with mirth. I paid for the medication. (It’s an injection pen thingy.) She asked if I’d ever taken it before, and I’m probably the first person all day who replied, “Why no, I’ve never taken this stuff before.” So she arranged for an even more wee lass, who never made eye contact with me once, to tell me the following:

“So you take this out. Take the pen out. Take this cap part off and put the needle in. Turn the dial to point two five here, that’s your dose, and stick it in your stomach. Hold it there for thirty seconds. That’s it. Any questions?”

I may have had questions, but the fact that she still hadn’t looked at me (and the ridiculous affordability of the medication) got me flustered so I left. On the doctor’s advice, I’m now going to watch at least one YouTube video to show me how to use the pen, because Dr. No-Look’s narrative just didn’t cut it for me.

I felt good! I got my medicine pens, four doses, one month’s worth, and it cost less than dinner for two at Whataburger. I decided to see if the drugstore had any other items I might want to purchase, like more gum, and perhaps a card for Zach. He’s been an extra-sweet husband lately, since I’ve been depressed. He got me the cool new multi-bulbed tree lamp thing, just because it was on my wishlist and he wanted to do something nice for me. I got a card for Zach, and a Russell Stover assortment to go with the card, and got myself an Arizona green tea and some more sugar free Juicyfruit to keep not smoking cigarettes. And I went up to the counter, and I was rung up by this tidy bearded fellow who said he loved my shirt!

Here’s what my shirt has on it:

So I’m feeling a bit better about everything now. I can afford to have blood. Two CVS employees complimented my gay shirt. I got all my adulting done, stayed under budget, got some love for the husband, and it’s Junk Food Day.

JFD is going to take on a more austere shape now that I’m a professional-grade diabetic. I’m going to have to serve myself fewer dishes on beds of Snickers with Cheeto garnish, i.e., which is sad, because, while I never actually ate that, I did enjoy having the option to every Wednesday. But I’m still going to eat something fun. It’s not going to be a bowl of brown rice with a single broccoli floret in the middle holding a note that says, “Fuck you,” either. I’m thinking something in the neighborhood of a bacon cheeseburger. Will advise.

[rozonelayer-blog]

Saturday 19th May

Royal wedding today. Who actually cares? Evidently I do, because my blog is suppose to be a *Sunday* summary, yet here I am...

Today I found out that my flatmate Lucy and her boyfriend Hudson broke up. My first instinct was to tell Ro but I have held off for now.

Lucy got together with Hudson at around the same time I got together with Ro. This was a year or so ago, before we lived together - the flatshare started in mid-October. We were chatting at Svetla's birthday drinks and she told me about the guy she was seeing, said it was a bit intense for her at first because he's 31 and seemed to consider it a relationship from the beginning. I said I sympathised, said I'd just got together with a 28 year old (I was 24 at the time). When we woke up together the first time, the first thing he wanted to know was "What is this?" My heart sank because I thought, why does it have to be a thing - something with a label? Why can't it be our secret little something for now? And I told her how the first time he stayed over at mine, I woke in the middle of the night, and Ro took my face in his hands and said "I love you" - italics because that was his tone of voice.

Since moving in with Lucy and Svetla, I've felt uncomfortable about their attitude to Ro. It seems clear that they don't approve of how much time I spend with him. And there's the comparison that no one wants to make - that Lucy sees Hudson once every two months, if that. That's partly because they both work shifts, and partly because a few months into their relationship, he decided to move back in with his parents - in Orpington. If Greater London is the solar system, Orpington is Pluto/Planet X, i.e. further away than Neptune. He's saving up for a house, supposedly, so he is taking on as many shifts as he can, and living rent-free with his parents. Lucy couldn't stay over at his ever because he never told his parents about her. He said that she'd meet his parents at his father's retirement party, which she duly put in her calendar, and she bought a new dress and had her outfit planned a good month in advance. This was in November. The retirement party was supposed to be on a Friday night; on the Friday morning, he texted her to tell her he'd made a terrible mistake, and the party had actually been the previous night, on the Thursday.

Another time, he was supposed to come round one Sunday night. I knew he must be coming round because Lucy cleaned her room. (Sidenote: it peeves me a little that Lucy is the messiest one in the house, yet makes her room beautiful every time Hudson is supposed to come round: he must think that she's the tidy one, and Svetla and I are the messy ones.) But he never showed up; at eleven, Lucy gave up and shut herself in her room for the night. The next day, Horace told her that at the last minute he'd been called and offered an extra shift, so he took it. Why didn't he let Lucy know? Because his phone ran out of battery so he couldn't call her. The same phone that his boss called him on to offer him an extra shift...

Whenever I hear something new about Hudson, I tell Ro, and if I haven't mentioned Lucy-and-Hudson for a while, Ro asks. It's juicy gossip for us. Our fascination with them is maybe something to do with the frosty welcome Lucy and Svetla tend to give Ro - for reasons I still can't work out. But I think we'd be curious anyway. Other couples are always a curiosity, also when you're single, but I think especially when you're in one yourself. Before Ro I've always hated the business of letting mutual friends know I'm with a boyfriend because it opens the floodgates of Judginess. This is really why my heart sank when Ro asked "What is this?" I don't want it to be a thing because I don't want to tell people. Once you've told people, the gossip and judging begin: what does she see in him? Why did/didn't he do X, Y and Z? Do they really love each other? That's never going to last...

I think there's a there-but-for-the-grace-of-god-go-I aspect to it as well. For example, when my pal Pete tells me that his girlfriend gets huffy if he wants to read his book - "But why don't you want to spend time with me?" - I think, thank God Ro likes reading and lets me do my own thing on a Sunday afternoon.

Conversely, there have been times when friends who I thought would be with their other halves forever have split up, and it really rocks your world. My friend Dan broke up with his girlfriend Susie when we were 17. Within a month, he was with a girl I'd never even heard him mention before, called Phoebe. "That'll never last," I thought contemptuously. Seven years later they're still an item - shows what I knew. And when Luke and Marcella broke up...

Today's the royal wedding. Today is an occasion for either celebrating or despairing at what has become of the United Kingdom. There are a million pertinent issues to be discussed here (a few of them mentioned in this article that my grumpy father sent me this morning). And yet somehow, my friend Precious updates her instagram story celebrating the gospel choir and the sermon delivered by a Black priest, and what do I text her saying? "What do you think though? Personally I don't really get what Meghan Markle sees in prince harry but I am aware that it's not for me to judge"

So I’m not telling Ro about Lucy and Hudson - because do unto others.