So I started a new weight loss/get healthy(er) program the other week. Thanks to things like age and the fact that I don't walk across a campus and teach all day anymore, I was weighing more than I ever have before in my life. I'm five-foot-three-and-a-half, people! (And with a "small frame" if you believe those BMI chart thingies.) I should not have the same "ideal" weight as a six-foot-tall man.
People said I "still looked great" when I would casually mention this and while I mostly believe them, the important thing for me was that my clothes were starting to not fit or be tight or uncomfortable or (worse yet) fairly unflattering. And I simply don't have the budget to buy a whole new wardrobe to fit my expanding belly and booty and boobs (and other body parts that don't start with the letter "b"). And some of my current clothes are really cute, dammit! I don't want to get rid of them.
And my previous ideas of using MyFitnessPal to log my meals and trying to work out wasn't cutting it. Frankly, because I wasn't doing it (especially the "working out" part). And this new program promised to help me build healthy, long-lasting habits which are (apparently) key to not only losing weight, but keeping it off.
One of the big things with this program is to celebrate my wins/successes/whatever. That's not easy for me. I mean, I will definitely toot my own horn about my awesomeness in other arenas, but talking about these goals/wins, especially since some of them are so tiny, feels weird for me. It may be in part because I've never struggled with my weight before; I've never had to worry about what I eat. I've always been curvy (read: "BOOBS, I have 'em"), but I've also always been slender/properly proportioned. But you know the old story: you hit 30 or 35 and your metabolism suddenly says, "Well, that was fun!" and packs its bags, abandoning you mid-snack-break.
So this is me, trying to celebrate some "wins" and healthy habits. For example: I've been eating apples -- grabbing one on the way out the door to have as a mid-morning snack, having one as a side with my lunch instead of chips or bread.
And let me tell you, that is a BIG DEAL because I love me some crunchy, savory, salty, delicious carbs. Keep your sweets, your desserts, your chocolate and cakes and ice cream. Hand me a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine, and I'll be a happy camper.
Don't mistake me; this program doesn't say to cut anything out entirely or to deny yourself things. It's more about moderation; "moderation in all things," as Aristotle taught us. So, y'know, I'm not supposed to eat just the bread, or ALL the bread ALL the time.
Today I ordered my lunch (before walking the 0.6 miles, roundtrip, to pick it up and come back to the office), and I hesitated. I almost picked that delicious side of French baguette to go with my turkey chili. I really, really wanted it. And I can have it, remember! Just not all the time. And then I remembered that I'm planning on making pot roast with potatoes and carrots and gravy for dinner this evening, so maybe I should save some of my carbs and calories for that and holy shit another healthy habit just happened!
Planning ahead, also filed under "Shit I'm Not Good At."
I don't plan ahead (food-wise). I don't "meal prep." I haven't been looking ahead at my calorie allotment for the day and planning accordingly -- or planning at all.
But look at that! Up there! I just did it! Go me!
So I ordered my apple and was a little proud of myself. And I walked to the restaurant (0.3 miles, per Google Maps) to pick it up and then walked back to my office again (0.6 miles total because math). And I opened my bag to get out my bowl of turkey chili and there was my apple, happy to see me. But what's that? The bag is still heavy? I look inside, and the restaurant also gave me the chunk of French baguette (equally happy to see me).
Curse you, and your accidental carbohydrate generosity, restaurant!
I won't be eating either item anytime soon as I'm thankfully I'm stuffed from lunch -- well, not "thankfully." The goal is to feel satisfied, not "stuffed" or uncomfortably full.
Today's Pro-Tip: if you're also getting a smoothie, you probably only need a cup of soup rather than a bowl.
So now the apple and the bread are both just sitting on my desk, staring at me, possibly judging me. #SuspiciousStillLife
Please note: this post is not a request for tips or advice, nor is it an advertisement for said program. If you want info on it, just message me directly.
There was one of those Q&A memes going around the other week that said to "focus on your senior year of high school" and then answer the questions. They were things like "What kind of car did you drive?" or "Where did you work?" One question asked what your favorite shoes were, and I wrote "All of them" because hi, have you met me? But that got me thinking about shoes in high school, even now, weeks later.
Yeehaw, bitches!
My love affair with shoes started eons ago, long before high school (my first pair of leather cowboy boots were red; I was five years old and I wore them to stomp on spiders at my dad's farmhouse). But by the time I reached high school, I was starting to earn money here and there from work, babysitting, etc. And I (very slowly) learned how to (very slowly) save up money from those things and my allowance and whatever else came my way. And even though I knew my mother wouldn't approve, I started to use that money to buy my own shoes from a women's shoe store at the mall (THE mall, we only had the one).
With my heart pounding, I walked into the mall store with, y'know, grown-ups shopping -- I still remember it had mustard-colored walls and unflattering fluorescent lighting. Then, just as now, I hit the sale and clearance section first. I may love shoes, but I'm also a cheap bitch and don't like spending a ton of money on a single pair of shoes; my cut off seems to be fifty dollars.. And at age 16, fifty bucks was a lot of money, period, let alone on one purchase. And I found them. And they were still on sale. And in my size. It was love at first sight between me and a pair of knee-high, black leather, stiletto-heeled boots. I shelled out my hard-earned cash, and I was even tempted to put them on right there in the store and wear them around the mall. But I didn't.
A li'l something like this
I did go home and try to hide their existence from my mother for as long as possible. That probably lasted a day, maybe two. And she was not happy with my purchase. My mother was far from a prude when it came to how I dressed in high school. She was all for figure-flattering outfits and things, including some that were borderline trashy (and I wore anyway). But black leather CFM boots were a line she wasn't willing to cross for her 16-year-old daughter. But more than that, she objected to the amount of money I spent.
She flat-out told me I couldn't wear them (though I don't recall her saying that I had to return them). And I naturally asked (read: "whined"), "Why?" It was my money, wasn't it? They were just shoes (boots), weren't they? Where's the problem?
My mother was unable to articulate the world's hypersexualization of teenage girls, the sexual connotation that boots have due mostly to the patriarchy, the fetishes associated with black leather. And in the back of my mind, there was a slight tug that the boots were somehow "inappropriate," but all the facts on the surface said it wasn't any big deal.
So I wore them. I even wore them to school one fine fall day, below my plaid Catholic school girl skirt, and garnered more than one disconcerted look from some teachers, but not a one of them said anything directly to me. As they weren't sandals or tennis shoes, I was still complying with our dress code.
Somewhere in this same time period, I saved up my allowance and bought another pair of knee-high leather boots. These, however, were flats (gasp!) and made of suede instead of regular leather. They had a large kind of patchwork pattern on them made of jewel-toned suede squares -- emerald, magenta, black, and dark teal. They laced all the way up the back. They were the kind of boots that would look awesome at a ren fair or with a Robin Hood outfit. I had plans to wear them with my costume for madrigal singing.
Imagine these 4 pairs of boots had a beautiful 1990s baby
Later that year, we were on a school trip for an acting competition with events like improv, choral reading, one acts, solo interp, duo interp, etc. A group of about twenty of us arts/theatre students, freshmen through seniors, were there together competing in events against other schools. I was probably a junior. I wore the jewel-toned jester boots over my jeans and was feeling pretty fabulous.
And every now and then that morning, I would feel a tug at the back of my leg. But when I would glance behind me, no one was there. And it wasn't happening all the time -- just intermittently, and I couldn't find the rhyme, reason, or pattern as to why or when. I felt it when going up the bleachers in the auditorium for the morning announcements/introductions. I felt it when sitting at the lunch tables in the cafeteria with my classmates.
And somewhere in the early afternoon I discovered the culprit: a fellow student, one of my own group (so another theatre person) had tied the laces of my boots (because they laced up the back, remember?) together. At the back. But not so tightly or close together that I couldn't walk outright. I still had a couple of inches to spare; hence, why I only felt the tug during certain activities.
And I no longer felt fabulous.
Instead, I felt crushed, embarrassed, defeated. Had they been tied together all morning? How did he do it without me noticing? Did everyone know except me? Were they all secretly (or sometimes not so secretly) laughing at me? I was humiliated and a little betrayed. Even though I wasn't close friends with my fellow performers, we had at least had that arts-theatre-not-a-jock bond in common and were from the same school, traveling together, competing with each other against the other schools. But I was still ostracized and bullied by the very people you would think would understand what that feels like.
And even typing it out now, the fact that someone tied my shoelaces together in a public place, is humiliating and upsetting, and it happened nearly thirty years ago.
I cried in the bathroom at that strange, out of town school and tried to go on about my day, seeing the other events and trying desperately not to feel self-conscious about my choice in shoes (boots) -- and failing miserably. I didn't confront my classmates or the particular "suspect." I didn't tell a soul, and I've never told the story until now. I don't think I ever wore those suede boots again. A year or two later, post-high school, I went looking for them (having conveniently forgotten about this incident), and they had disappeared.
Reticence marks the end of an era, as Miss Gail Carriger has already stated that there will be no more books in the Parasol Protectorate/Custard Protocol universe. For that alone it deserves the four stars as creating this universe and such a series of books (3 generations of characters!) is no small feat.
The rest of this review does have spoilers, so click accordingly.
Was Reticence Carriger's best book in the series? No, it wasn't. She's had others that made me feel more (How to Marry a Werewolf comes to mind; I bawled like a baby at Faith's big reveal); she's had others that made me laugh more at some of the ridiculousness and utterly dry delivery (the lobster line in Poison or Protect, anyone?). And, of course, nothing beats the original; Soulless was the first love for many of us.
Like many sequels, prequels, and other "-els", Reticence sometimes falls into the trap of wrapping up things a little too neatly; Carriger, of course, acknowledges this with the cheeky epilogue, aptly titled "With a Neat Little Bow." Bringing in the characters from the Finishing School series felt a little forced. While we knew that Agatha was sponsored by Lord Akeldama (a.k.a. Goldenrod), the fact that he's been playing this game with these ladies all along was perhaps a little too contrived. Similarly, mentioning that "Miss Imogene" had been around "forever" (with Genevieve LeFoux) felt shoe-horned in, probably because of the writing order; when we're first introduced to adult Quesnel in Prudence (and his mother), Romancing the Inventor (Imogene's introduction to the universe) hadn't been written yet.
My other quibble (and it really just a quibble, a matter of style and preference, really) is one that I also noticed in both The 5th Gender and Competence: playing the ending. When our two main characters meet, their romantic involvement is already a foregone conclusion. Granted, we spend the book watching them try to tell each other (which is amusing); however, I seem to prefer it when we spend a good portion of the book watching the characters trying to figure out their feelings. Arsenic and Percy (and Tris and his detective, and to a lesser extent Prim and Tasherit) already know they are attracted to each other. To me, the rest of the novel then feels a bit rushed since we already know the conclusion coming. I much preferred it, to use an example, when Alexia and Connall didn't quite realize their feelings for each other (though nearly everyone else around them did); their dance around each other (and their feelings) was much more interesting to me that way. It could also be due to the narration type in the books; Alexia's books are primarily (though not 100%) from her limited POV; in the others, we get fairly unfettered access to several different characters' minds.
All of that said, do I regret buying this within minutes of it being released and procrastinating at my office over the course of two days to read it? Absolutely not.
It was still full of Carriger style: charming, sweet, flirty (yes, please, to the boot-unlacing bit!) and had my favorite cameo thus far (Lady Manami).
But first, the song that is now in everyone's head:
So, sex. It is a thing that many humans enjoy doing for its own sake ("recreational purposes").
But how often have we been told that there is "more" to a relationship than "just sex"? I don't know about you, but I pretty much had that hammered into my head since puberty and definitely all through college.
And that "warning" came from a place of somehow trying to "help" young people (including li'l Leonard) not to throw themselves away on their first crush/love/lusty high school sweetheart...I guess? It was some kind of basic "life lesson" that you don't marry the first person you fall in lust with. Or perhaps just because you're young and in love, eventually looks (and sex drive) fade, and you'll want someone with whom you can have a conversation or maybe some common goals and activities.
Maybe?
The why's and wherefore's were never really articulated. It was just that bland, blanket statement: "there's more to a relationship than just sex."
What the fuck does that even mean? Do you remember hearing it? Is this simply a Gen-X thing? I have an inkling that it goes part and parcel with the HIV/AIDS "scare" that we angry Gen-Xers also grew up with.
At any rate, I think little Leonard took that piece of grown-up advice and ran with it, right to our forty-year-old detriment. Follow me through this:
I lost my virginity relatively "late." I was eighteen and a freshman in college, and it was with my first "real" boyfriend. And for that matter, it was by accident, but that story is neither here nor there. And I was, of course, very in love with him, although that's not why I "lost" my virginity with him. Our relationship didn't survive that first summer apart, especially since he decided he was not coming back to our college.
Later that same fateful summer, I spent some time with my dad and step-mom and their family (always a mistake; it never goes well), and my (Catholic) step-monster had a question about health insurance (as I was still on my dad's insurance). Basically, she wanted to know why they were being charged for birth control pills for me. I think she actually said something like, "Are you taking these for....?" and couldn't even finish; she couldn't even make up a reason (many women take BCP for all kinds of health reasons that literally have nothing to do with sex/procreation).
And I said, "I'm taking them for their intended purpose: so I don't get pregnant."
At that, the step-monster made a face and said, "There are some things you want to save for your husband."
To which I replied, "Were you a virgin when you married my dad?" feeling 90% sure that she wasn't.
Somewhere in that same conversation I mentioned that I had "only slept with one person anyway," and she threw back in my face, "And he dropped you like a hot potato!"
Bitch.
Anyway, that conversation shows the foundation of Puritanical, patriarchal, heteronormative nonsense they raised me on -- always there, lurking in the background. And again and again, the same refrain of "there's more to a relationship [or marriage] than sex."
Fast forward several years to my first engagement (circa 2002). I can't remember if we were even engaged yet when our sex life stalled and seemed to die. But I was determined to remain engaged (literally), to get married, AND to "make things work" (WTF does that mean?!?). And I was also convinced that lack of interest in the bedroom must have somehow been my fault. I take a heavy dose of SSRI's every day, and everyone knows those can kill your sex drive. I didn't put it together at that time that having an attraction and then not having it (even though meds remained the same) was a different issue than not having a sex drive at all.
I went to my physician and told him my problems. He prescribed an antihistamine of all things to take 1-2 hours "pre-coitus." One of the antihistamine's lesser known (unintentional) uses was increase libido. I did that, I bought a sexy new corset from Victoria's Secret1, and I thought things would be fixed.
I want to say that my ex-husband even went to his doctor to check for low testosterone, too, but now that I think about it, I believe he (and I) just talked about him maybe going, but it never actually happened.
Things were not "fixed." We didn't really start having regular sex again until we decided to try to have a baby, many months later. And then a month or so into that, he left.
We had many, many red flags during our four years together that things were not going to work, and the lack of sex and attraction should have been near the top of the list. But I discounted that because, y'know, "there's more to marriage than [just] sex."
Flash forward many, many years later: my first kiss with my most recent ex. I remember it because, frankly, it was flat. She and I had almost no sexual chemistry whatsoever. We were dating four months before we ever slept together. And when we finally did, it was kind of awkward.
Yet, I still said "yes" when she proposed. Because I thought that's what you did after a year of dating. I wanted to move in together; this was practically the same thing, right? And maybe, maybe the attraction would improve, maybe things would get better.
Spoiler alert: they did not get better. We had some very good and fun things going for us, but we were also missing some fundamental pieces for a healthy relationship, and one of those was a physically intimate relationship. And I don't just mean sexual intercourse; I also mean cuddling, holding hands, burning kisses like we were twenty-year-old's.
Flash forward to early 2018: I had resigned myself to my life as it was at that moment: living a comfortable lifestyle with a person for whom I cared deeply, but for all intents and purposes was a roommate/good friend. We had a good life and things weren't "bad," per se, but they could have been a lot better. And my reasoning went something like this, "I guess this is it. This is what happens when you get old, right? You stop having sex. You're just comfortable around each other." And, of course, "It's just sex. There's more to a relationship that 'just sex.'" And, of course, always the lingering thought that my daily Zoloft was erasing my sex drive.
And I even said something to that effect to my therapist: "This is what happens, right? You just end up as friends/roommates?" And she reminded me that 1) that doesn't happen to everyone, and 2) it only has to be okay if you want it to be okay. Some people are fine living like that2; others are not. And it only works if both people are okay living like that.
And then I met someone. Someone who was not my partner.
And quickly, and much to both of our surprise, feelings sprung up. Very real feelings of a romantic nature. And I let myself believe that maybe, perhaps I could "have it all" -- I could be with a person who had similar tastes, things in common, someone with whom there was shared mutual physical attraction -- even though, y'know, we're both middle-aged and not as svelte as we used to be -- and that thought was scary and wonderful and eye-opening. As was the thought that we were having physical feelings for each other while I was on my meds the whole time. That perhaps there wasn't anything "wrong" with me; it had been previous relationships that weren't right.
And Person X and I were head-over-heels for each other. And in the middle of our very brief time spent together, in the midst of spinning fantasies and telling stories to each other about what life would be like together, I came up with a fantasy that surprised even me.
No, not because it was twisted or kinky or anything like that (those were different fantasies). Fantasies for me generally fall into two categories: sexual or domestic.
Sexual is fairly self-explanatory. Domestic, though, domestic involves all those little somethings that help make a relationship: cuddling on the couch together, doing different things in the same room at the same time, decorating for the holidays, all that silly "domestic" stuff.
And so far, in my life, never have the twain met. They were separate spheres of desire for me. Not necessarily intentionally, but that's just how it was. And without meaning to, I concocted a fantasy that was both sexual and domestic with Person X. And that's the part that shocked me -- that I could have both things. At the same time!
I never got to tell them about this particular fantasy, and the details of it are unimportant in the scheme of this post; we have since gone our separate ways, with my heart getting broken in the process. But I guess my point after all of this is that telling me over and over again that "there's more to a relationship than just sex" did more harm than good as it caused me to ignore when part of a relationship didn't fit/wasn't right/wasn't working. It caused me to ignore ALL the parts of a happy, healthy relationship and end up "settling" for some things.
During English AP class in high school, we read a poem that I could have sworn was by Maya Angelou, but I cannot find, that described the "recipe" for a good marriage, and it included 3-4 "heaping cups" of sex. I wish I had paid closer attention to that poem than to the "moral" commands of (largely) religious hypocrites.
1I did not buy said corset "for" my ex-husband. I bought it because it made me feel sexy; the fact that he would also enjoy seeing me in it was an added bonus. I recently was told of a woman who bought two pairs of "sexy underwear" but then "never had a chance to wear them" because she and her partner's sex life was dead. And that was one of the saddest things I ever heard -- not that their bedroom was dead, but that this woman somehow felt she needed her partner's attention/approval/interest to wear the sexy underwear. That's not how lingerie works, people. You buy it and wear it FOR YOU, because it MAKES YOU feel sexy. The gaze and desire of someone is an added bonus, but not the point.
2It should hopefully go without saying (but I'm going to say it anyway), almost none of this applies to people who identify as asexual. Not having a sexual component to their relationships does not make said relationships "unhealthy" if that's what they (and all people involved) want. I (obviously) do not identify as asexual.
