After a lot of time reading the various blogs that branched off from the AFG blog, one thing that strikes me is that many of the readers and bloggers there live alone. I normally don't live alone, but my husband went off to a sporting event. I haven't spent much time home alone lately, and I thought my husband leaving for a few days would give me a chance to regroup and pull together something resembling Weight Watchers, maybe get back on a healthy-food kick. It would be like a week at the spa! I started out with great intentions, stocked the fridge with lovely farmers' market produce and bought all kinds of whole grains. I made a tabbouli salad which would be great for me to eat throughout the week!

Instead, the demonic part of me is thinking, "No witnesses!" Who's to know or care if I go out for gelato, or have half a bag of tortilla chips for dinner? Watching an episode of "Food Challenge" on the Food Network (v. bad idea) had me fantasizing about making up a pot of macaroni and cheese. The tabbouli, feh. The recipe made such a depressingly huge amount of it that I'd have to have it every day for a week. That thought makes me not want to touch it, even though it was pretty good when I had some yesterday.

So I felt the need to go cut up a red pepper to munch on while I wrote this post, because even though I haven't pulled any really terrible food stunts, I realized that my vegetable serving count for today was only 2. Now I'm up to a respectable 3, at least. I did have some berries with yogurt earlier. Mostly what I want is the (Un)Holy Trinity: Starch, Fat, and Salt. Maybe a little Sweet, just as a chaser.

So I don't know how much of this behavior is a response to feeling lonely and bored and unmotivated to do anything productive, but I suspect that it's way up there. I took a walk, straightened up the house, did some laundry, changed the sheets on the bed, took a shower, and it's only 7 p.m. Not sure whether to be sad that my weekend is ending, or just relieved. Maybe this sense of empty time is one of the challenges for many of the Angry Fat Girlz?

Decided the next healthiest thing to do would be to write down the stuff I've eaten but not journaled yet: about half an ear of sweet corn (it was too chewy, 1 point) a 99-cent bag of Smartfood cheddar cheese popcorn (7 points), some very salty pistachios (3 points), some crackers and cheese (4 points), and half a raw red pepper (o points).

Since I ate healthy food most of the day, that just dips me 7 points into my Flex points for this week. Not as bad as I thought, before I took the time to tally things. I just stopped in the middle of my post and put on decent clothes, because even though I have no real plans for the rest of the night, there's no need to rub it in.

I'm changing jobs again. I am taking a risk: Taking a big pay cut to take a temporary halftime position that I think will take me one step closer to my Big Dreams. This is the stuff I've been hinting around with in the last few blog posts.

I am hoping this will all work out for the best. At the very least, I'll have some time to think, to write, and to maybe lose the Dissertation Pounds, the (Old) New Job Pounds, and the leftover Winter Weight. In the meantime, I'm wearing a lot of skirts and the more forgiving of the clothes I bought for this job, plus the few bigger items I finally broke down and bought.

I'm thinking of doing some freelance writing, too, though I'm not sure where to start with that. I know I want to take some time to work on things that have been buzzing around in my head as I drive to and from work.

I'm really excited about this opportunity, though a little sad to leave the friends I made with Snazzy (Old) New Job.

My friend Sean told me about this great episode of the Diane Rehms show on "Distraction and Democracy." I had brushed off his recommendation of D.R. once before, and the topic sounded interesting, so I thought I'd give it a try on my commute home. Sadly, embarassingly, I got bored, distracted, and also kind of annoyed at both speakers after 25 minutes or so. I switched to an episode of RadioLab instead.

I don't think it's really that I'm shallow, or uninterested in current affairs, or too used to multitasking. I get impatient with the kind of "kids these days" superiority that goes into the viewpoint that we are now somehow more flawed than we were at some time in the past, and it's because we're not trying hard enough. Or reading enough newspapers. Of course both authors wanted more mandated classes in K-12 education, which annoys me too. Our public schools are expected to be all things to all people on no money. But that's another kind of post.

I mostly was aggravated because there are reasons we're all constantly distracted. I think most of us are trying too hard not to make a mistake. Even college students are already laser-focused on how to find a job that will give them health insurance and enough money to pay the bills. The stakes have become so high that none of us can afford to fail anymore, and there's not much of a safety net, and we're afraid we'll never get a second chance to do things right.

J.K. Rowling's address to Harvard talked both about the lessons of failure and the importance of empathy. I think that both have been undervalued in our "but-how-much-will-you-get-paid" world. I've managed, in my time, to find and follow a few dreams, and those are the times in my life when I've been happiest. The times in my life where I've been too busy trying to play it safe to dream have been the saddest times I've lived through, and also the ones where I've felt most like a failure. Playing it safe seems sometimes like the most dangerous thing you can do.

I have a lot on my mind right now and all I can do is worry, and scratch (my hands are breaking out in a rash) and hope for the best. A lot of the thoughts are happy, excited thoughts but there is a part of me that really prefers things to be settled, and they're not right now. Things are in a state of flux, and I'm hoping that in a month or two I can tell you what I've been babbling about...
But what's the biggest dream you've chased lately, and how has it turned out for you?

Things are still the same here, unfortunately. I'm exercising sort of sporadically and not tracking my food, despite my 4,000 resolutions to "start fresh." I was at my sister's house this weekend to visit with her and see the new (teeny-tiny) baby. I kept raiding her snack cabinet -- I am the worst example of a Weight Watcher in the nation. They are going to send someone here to film me for a "Don't" video, I think. I actually would be OK with that, if they'd pay me.

Money has returned to the top of my worry list now that it seems that the little guy is going to be fine. Money, closely followed by work, then angst over my fat, then my assorted neuroses. It's a more comfortable set of worries, though, than being afraid of losing my sister or my new nephew.

I leave for another work trip next weekend. I requested this Monday off, which is going to be a "staycation" day where I take care of all the little things I need to do but don't have time to get done in a regular week.