When I was pregnant with Ben 6 years ago now, I was utterly floored to find out that he was indeed a he, so floored that it was a miracle I had been laying down for the sonogram because if I hadn’t been, I’d have fallen over from the shock of it. My intuition is terrible, almost as bad as my ability to sing on key, which is pretty horrifying. I’ll admit it now, I was pretty upset by it as I had really, truly, madly, deeply wanted to have a daughter (let’s be honest here so that I can tell you that it was a damn good thing that I found out then and not later in the delivery room. I’m sure the doctor and nurses would have been a little freaked out by the sight of me crying over the privates of my perfect little boy, as apparently I had been judged to be an unfit mother. I guess I must have a poker face when it comes to OB appointments, because my ancient little doctor who barely said a word to me in the nine months that I saw him, kept coming into my postpartum room and saying “Wow, you REALLY love that baby!” which shocked me. Of COURSE I loved my ickle baby!)

When I got pregnant with Alexander, I was much more laid back about it, likely because it had taken quite a long time to get pregnant, as long as It was healthy, I genuinely didn’t care if It was a She or a He. I found out before Dave did, as the sonographer refused to let him come into the room until she had completed her assessment of the fetus, which I wasn’t so happy about, I mean, what if something had been wrong? Did I really need a stranger to tell me some bad news alone?

Anyhow, she asked me if I wanted to know what flavor baby I was having without Dave’s hulking presence (hahaha) and of course, I’m impatient so I found out. I can still hear her in my mind, “It’s a little boy and he’s perfect.” Ah, sweet sweet relief, the baby I had wanted so much was well (to be fair here, having had the misfortune to rotate through the NICU at a major children’s hospital, I took nothing about the health of my unborn child as an assumption of the best. I saw many, many horrifying things there, most of which will never leave me and STILL haunt me even now), and now I could gloat: I had won the bet.

Instead of having to wear a “Chicks Dig Linux” shirt, Dave was going to have to wear a Britney Spears one. In public. Without covering it up. Which reminds me…I need to make him DO that and THEN I’ll post them on the internet for him! I’m such a nice wife.

The discussion of having another baby has recently come up, as my initial intent was to not go back on birth control and just wait-n-see what happened, get the newborn/baby thing done with and get Dave’s nuts snipped (again: aren’t I a SWEET wife?), and while our other friends were dealing with midnight feedings and diaper rash, we’d be sipping Pina Colada’s by the beach somewhere, laughing knowingly. Unfortch, Lake Michigan doesn’t exactly count as a beach in my book, AND I think if I were to have an Oops! Baby! now Dave’s head might explode and Alex might try to strangle me in my sleep.

So no babies for awhile (besides you need to actually ovulate to have babies, and the one benefit that I can see to Alex’s need to wake up at all hours of the night and eat is that I haven’t had my period since last July.) for us. A long while, actually, because the prospect of physically being pregnant again freaks me the hell out. I’m a TERRIBLE pregnant woman, a fat, obsessive, unhappy, and sick as hell.

But (isn’t there always one with me?), I have a new problem. Suddenly, I really, really, really want to have a daughter with every fiber of my being, in order to balance out all of the testosterone raging rampantly throughout my house. I want to play house and dolls and put her in cute ickle dresses and OOOHHH PATENT LEATHER MARY JANES! I want to choose a name that I really, really like for her and not have to worry about it being too trendy or frilly or not manly enough (plus, between the two boys and their 209 middle names, I’m clean out of good boys names), I want to not have to cut off her hair because it’s “too long” and “too girly looking”. I want someone who maybe just maybe looks somewhat like me and have it not be an insult to them later in life, because what boy do you know WANTS to look like his mother? I don’t want to have to train yet another young boy how to pee standing up WITHOUT losing aim because Oh! Look! A Mirror!

It’s okay to have wants, although I am highly afraid of what I would feel if/when we have another baby and it turns out to have yet another penis. Because frankly, I have enough of them to worry about.

Last Thursday, Dear Internet, I told you that I was done whining about being fat and was going to start really DOING something about it. And, because I cannot tell a lie to you, darling Internet, I did. I joined Weight Watchers Online. I’d done a hacked up version of it before, after my wedding and I’d lost about 10 lbs (but I was obviously much thinner then). It’s a diet I can live with and (apparently) works for me.

Tuesday, I weighed myself and I’ve lost 2.5 pounds, which is a little over 10% of the upper end of what I’d wanted to lose before Christmas Eve. If that isn’t motivation, I’m not sure what is. This doesn’t mean that I won’t offer up a silent prayer before I get onto the scale each week, because I happen to be superstitious like that, but I am hoping that the numbers continue to go down in a reasonable manner, because I cannot do those low-carb diets (one word: anal leakage. Oh wait, that’s two words. My bad. Now I’m fat AND dumb!)

The kicker of all of this is, is that I’m actually eating MORE than I was before (although I am frankly AGHAST at the points values of some of the things I’d thought were pretty decent for you. Who knew that the huge tortilla that you get at Chipotle ITSELF has 7 points? Asinine, really, especially considering I don’t even really care for the tortilla part), which honestly goes against everything that I’d thought about dieting. Dieting = eating LESS, not MORE in my head, or at least it used to.

So I am not hungry, I don’t feel as though I have to subsist on boxed meals, and occasionally I have to force myself to finish my points for the day. (Ohmygod, did you know that creme brulee has about a million calories in it? I DIDN’T. That sucks, because it is BY FAR my favorite dessert. I loves me my creme brulee.)

Now I just need to secure some babysitting so my ass can get back to the gym and burn some more of those damn calories off (did you know, because I didn’t, but with breastfeeding, you need an additional 10 points per day!?! That’s awesome. I may never wean him.)

Week One of Operation Get Rid of My Fat Butt is done. Let’s hope that Week Two is as awesomely awesome.

I started this blog several months ago as a sort of Mommy Blog, not necessarily because I didn’t like my other blog, because I do, but because I needed somewhere to chronicle what day to day life is like when you’re somewhat outside looking in. I don’t have a ton of Real Life Mommy Friends ™, which can be hard for me sometimes as I don’t have people to reassure my feelings or experiences. Not the end of the world, no doubt, but surely I wanted somewhere where I could really be me, without constant humor or judgement from those who do know me.

I wish I’d started it sooner because it has been a tremendous outlet for me.

Now, to be clear, I am not particularly computer savvy. Wait, scratch that, I am not computer savvy, and the only reason I am able to have a blog is because Dave set them both up for me. I have been known to try and respond to spam email because, hey, I thought it might actually be for me (I don’t get much email). Thankfully, Dave stopped me from being too much of an idiot (to be fair, it wasn’t an email for pen!s enl@rgement or V!@gra or anything of the like), and I have since learned not to be completely stupid.

Today, I noticed that I had a comment from someone who has not been to my house and seen first hand the swirls of dog hair floating in the breeze and he mentioned that I had been nominated for an award. This blew my mind as I had only thought that the people who read this blog were people who knew me!

At this point, I am so freaking flattered that I don’t even CARE if it’s a spam thing (although I don’t believe that it is). I don’t actually expect to win, as I have never won anything in my life, unless you count the Cougar’s tickets I won when I was twelve and the team was just starting out and they were practically giving the tickets away to fill seats. I don’t gamble and I don’t win, but hey, whoever nominated me, I will totally write a post in your honor if you tell me who you are and what you want me to talk about because you have made my day infinately better.

So thank you, whomever you are, thank you.

Dermatologists are strange creatures. Being a nurse, I’ve run into a whole slew of doctors, and I have to say, dermatologists are the strangest of the lot.

Let me back up for a second: back in August, at Ben’s 6 year old checkup my non-alarmist ped (which I love, love, love, especially since he is our GP. He’s an old military doctor, very no nonsense and I adore him) noticed a mole on his back that he wanted someone else to take a look at. I felt pretty bad, mainly because I’m trained to notice this sort of stuff and I hadn’t. Probably because at 6, I don’t often examine Ben’s body sans clothes.

So I dutifully made the appointment for him, and yesterday I pulled him out of school to visit this dermatologist. And thus began the day that should have been good.

We waited for over an hour to see this guy only to have him quiz me incessiantly about the state of this mole, when it popped out, if there had been any changes in it, if it bothered Ben whatsoever. When I confessed that I had no idea about anything to do with it (to me it looks fine, and I never would have thought to have a specialist take a gander, but hey, I trust my GP/ped impeccibly). We were sent on our way, slightly creeped out by his strange manner (he spent a good time stroking Ben’s large head of hair, which was just strange and made me take a mental note to NEVER, EVER leave my child alone with this man) with an appointment for 3 months to check if it’s changed.

My error came on the way home when I decided to keep Ben home from school for the rest of the day. Visions of having two children home together playing sweetly danced in my head, which turned out to be just that: pipe dreams.

Alex was furious because he had to go poop and couldn’t seem to actually do it (damn you mushed bananas, you will never grace his palate again–I should have known better–the B in the BRAT diet does stand for bananas).

Ben was unhappy because he was tired and bored and wanted to play with his frrrrriiiiieeeennnndddsss, which meant his normally decent attention span was less than that of a mosquito and he was supremely whiny.

The whole day was like being pecked to death by two extremely cute chickens with the only highlight being when Ben decided to “play” with his brother while he was in his Exersaucer. Pretty much, all that Ben has to do is get down next to Alex’s face and make noise to make Alex belly laugh. It’s freaking adorable.

I was waiting for the sweet salvation of bedtime to relax and unwind for an hour or two. Har-dee-har-freaking-harr.

As Alex was finally falling asleep nearly an hour after his normal bedtime, Dave let the dog out…

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

And the dog, in his infinate wisdom, decided that RIGHT NOW was the appropriate time to tangle with the neighborhood skunk yet again. Off to the garage with H2O2 and baking soda again.

Then we realized that the reason for the exorbitant electric bill was not due to turning the A/C temperature down at night, but was due to the fact that the unit is now starting to fail. Thankfully, it’s September in Chicago, and we should be able to live off box fans (I’m deluded, I’m aware).

After the dog had been sucessfully cleaned, the baby began to scream loudly. And continued to scream on and off every time that I started to fall asleep, until I finally gave up and just slept holding him all night long (which reminded me of those glorious newborn days).

It’s lucky that I long ago decided to take this parenting thing one day at a time.

(but how do people with 2+ kids manage? I wish I knew)

I remember back in the day before Ben was talking normally, people’d always tell me “Once they start talking, they’ll talk back” and I remember thinking that that was the stupidest thing to tell someone whose child is verbally delayed. No shit, he’d talk back, but that sure beats the hell outta biweekly speech therapy.

Suddenly, I have blissfully begun to imagine a world in which LITTLE PEOPLE WERE QUIET in a way I’d never have imagined. I used to threaten Ben by telling him I’d sell him to the gypsies, of which he heard “chippies” and began to ASK to go to the chippies, because of course, that is junk food and junk food + Ben = heaven on earth. So I had to rethink what I was threatening him with.

Now I cannot seem to get the kid to shut his trap for more than 28 seconds at a time, because Lord knows his head might explode if he couldn’t narrate whatever the hell he was doing at a particular time. Half the time, it’s hilarious, but the other half drives me nuts because although I can completely ignore whatever is coming out of Dave’s mouth at any given time “blah, blah, blah, shut the cabinets after you’re done, Becky, blah, blah, blah,” I seem to be utterly unable to ignore Ben.

Not that he lets me ignore him for just a moment: “Mom, this juice is sour, grape juice is sour, Juicy Juice is 100% juice, grape juice is sour, yummy so yummy in my tummy, grape juice is sour AND yummy in my tummy tummy tummy, but I can’t drink it on the carpet because you know what will happen? MOM, do you know what will happen? MOOOOOOOOOOOOOM DO YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF I DRINK THE JUICE ON THE CARPET? MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!?!?!”

Until I finally have to answer him. And if I, by chance, am able to ignore him, he will continue monologuing (giving Dave a run for his monologing money) until I respond at increasingly louder intervals and my entire head of hair has turned completely grey.

But that isn’t what is driving me crazy lately, suprisingly. What’s driving me mad is that he will interject into any other conversation I may be having with someone else and try to join in. Whether or not he knows what he is talking about. This morning, I got a lecture on the amount of hashbrowns he was about to get from the drive thru which he didn’t understand yet because he hadn’t seen what I was talking about, which sounds less annoying on virtual paper than it was in real life. Let’s try again, so you can fully grasp what I am talking about:

Pretend you are having an intelligent conversation with a coworker about, say, particle physics (assuming, of course, that both of you know something about this), something of which I know absolutely nothing, and I walk up to you and start to tell you that the proper answer to what you are discussing is “obviously hot dog buns.” And when you inform me that I am wrong, and maybe I don’t know enough to be having this conversation with you, I begin to draw diagrams of why hot dog buns IS right and YOU are wrong.

Because six year olds know it all, even if they don’t.

So I’m going to revise my threat, I am going to see if the gypsies need a slightly chubby nurse to join them LIKE RIGHT NOW.

Seriously now, how many blogs can one person have? Okay, so I have 2, but I update pretty regularly now.

Then I found this, and realized that if this is not you, there’s a frightening sub-culture out there that I’d never known.

I don’t know which is a scarier thought.

In my household as a child, I grew up feeling as though my needs/feelings/gushy crap were generally unimportant. When it’s a choice between Becky who has the stomach flu at age 6 and my mother who was threatening suicide, you can guess whose needs were made more important. It wasn’t always splendid as you may imagine and it has left me with a fairly large chip on my shoulder about such things. Overarchingly, I tend to be fairly sensitive about people negating my feelings on a particular matter but I also attempt to not play the Pain Olymics with other people. Your bad day MAY be worse than mine, and I’d be the first to admit it.

Ben had colic as a baby, and I admit that it was pretty severe. I can honestly say that it impacted our bonding while he was younger as well as causing me tremendous guilt for many years. What was I doing wrong? Why didn’t my baby love me? It’s irrational, I’m aware, but you can’t help but feel rejected when your cute little infant screams most hours of the day and you cannot do a damn thing to make it better.

I don’t have a lot of mommy friends who have kids around the same age as mine, so I didn’t have a lot of input on the subject of colic save from what my mother and/or Dr. Spock had to say about the matter. (Even now, I’m not sure any of my mommy friends had kids with colic. Maybe karma is paying me back for stealing that package that was delivered at Christmas time to the wrong house, I don’t know.)

Colic sucks and it’s hard and I hated every moment of it. Especially because I had had colic as a child myself, and my mother suffered tremendous guilt about it, even 20 years later. So much so that when I decided to wean Ben (hahaha, like he EVER latched on or breastfed), she began buying formula designed for premature babies (which Ben was not), in an effort I suppose to assuage her guilt about my colic. It’s basically already digested. AND it costs double what normal formula costs. Luckily for me, a lactation specialist intervened and convinced my mother that there was absolutely no need for this formula. Period.

Over and over I had to listen to my mother go on and on and on and on and on about what a horrible colicky baby I was, to the point where it basically negated whatever I was feeling. Sample conversation: Me: “Man, he is SO COLICKY and I WANT TO DIE.” Her: “I don’t know what YOU are complaining about! YOU WERE SO MUCH WORSE!”

Even now, 5 years later, she is still convinced that Ben was a much easier baby. Maybe he is, I have no idea (this affected me so much that I had to clear it with Nat several months ago and his answer was yes, Ben was a really hard colicky baby). I wasn’t around to take inventory over which was harder, myself or my son. All that I can say is that I am sick to death of having my own personal feelings pushed aside in favor of how much harder her life is. Yes, I am aware that it is partially my problem with my mother, a subject for another blog post (or prolly not)…or I was until Alex was born.

Alex, God love him, is not colicky, not one ickle bit. He had his own difficulties, just like newborns often have (like trying on a daily basis to crawl back inside of me), but he was never colicky.

My mother-in-law, I was aware pre-Alex, had had a colicky baby as well: my brother-in-law. When she’d call or stop by, we’d mention the difficulties we were facing with Alex (or show her, as the case may be) she would spend a good portion of her visit/call trying to convince either of us that Alex was just a colicky baby. Dave actually ordered some crappy Colic Be Gone or something snake oilish which didn’t work (BECAUSE HE DOES NOT HAVE COLIC) and stained the bejeesus out of everything it came into contact with.

To this day, whenever I see her, she tells me the same stories over and over about how colicky her first baby was. When I mention that Ben, too, was extremely colicky, it is brushed aside THE EXACT SAME WAY MY MOTHER DOES IT.

I guess I just don’t get it. I’m aware of the Mommy Wars (ala my baby is SO much better and more advanced and awesomer than yours could ever be) and the Pain Olympics (ala my life is harder than yours will ever be) but is it really so hard to admit that someone else both may have experienced a similar problem AND give them a little more empathy and a little less brush off (especially considering that these colicky babies that I constantly have to hear about are 27 and 34, respectively)?

Colic sucks, newborns mostly suck, babies are hard, kids are hard too, and I think it would be just a teeny-weeny bit easier if mothers (and non-mothers) just acknowledged the plight of other people, or in this case got off the damn cross because we newbies might need the wood, too.

For those of you keeping track at home, I may have set a new record for dumbest injuries sustained:

It appears that I have actually broken my toe while making a peanut butter sandwich.

That’s right, a peanut butter sandwich.

And not one for some cancer ridden child in a building that’s burning down, either. Just one for my son’s lunch. For tomorrow.

I cannot believe they let people like me breed.

On the way home the other day, Daver mentioned that he’d been posting on his “Twitter,” which sounded like he had yet another Internet Girlfriend to add to his collection. My knowledge about current stuff -n- things has always been lackluster at best, especially considering I only recently found out about this thing called “MySpace.” Come to think of it, I was amazed that this house actually had a microwave AND a dishwasher to boot!!

He explained that it was something you can post little bits of things here and there, kind of like a mini-blog. When I stopped laughing long enough to catch my breath, I promptly began laughing again.

Here’s the thing: I’d always found blogs to be incredibly self indulgent (keep in mind I have 2…what does that say about me?), useless, and boring, full of ramblings about what the owner thought about kittens and poodles and the like (although to be completely fair, I have found a TON of interesting blogs in the past couple months). Mushroom Printing was started as kind of an anti-blog blog, and I found I rather enjoyed it. We only posted when we actually had something either semi-interesting or semi-coherant to say (some may argue that this is actually never), and I’m pretty sure we never discussed at any length what we ate for lunch (unless there was a pube in it or something).

To me, posting about the minutae of your day sounds stupid and boring, only interesting if you were a teenager or an international man of mystery. If possible, this is MORE self indulgent than a blog. I’ll give you an example by writing what my day was like today, ala Twitter:

*Oh my God, I’m tired. WHY does Alex insist on waking up at 6:30? OHMYGOD did he pee a lot last night. AAAHHH! Why does he wait until I open the diaper to pee on me? Asshole.

*Ooooh. I’m hungry and my nipples hurt. YAY! I can eat a bagel now! I like bagels. I gotta hide these from Ben, or he’ll eat them all. DAMN, he spied my bagel and now he wants one. Guess I should’ve waited.

*Wow, the Internet is boring. WHY isn’t it interesting yet? OH MAN I GOT TO PEEEEEEE!

*That was a GOOOOOD pee. I feel SOOOOO much better now.

*Yum, bagels are gooooooooood. I’ve got to start Weight Watchers today. I wonder how many points are in this delicious bagel…OOOHHH I wonder how many are in a Monte Cristo sandwich. I’ve heard those are terrible for you, but ew, they sound nasty. Dave probably likes them.

*Am I really old enough to have a first grader? Damn, I’m old. But HAHAHAHA Dave is older. I should remind him of that.

*Hmmm…Dave sounds crabby. I guess he didn’t want to hear from me about how old he is at 8:16 am. I wonder why…?

*HOLY CRAP I’M THIRSTY! I need a Diet Coke STAT.

*That’s much better. I freaking love Diet Coke. I wonder if it’s addicting. It must be.

*NOOOO! Alex wants to eat again. The kid breastfeeds at least every hour. I guess it’s time to start the formula.

*OHMYGOD I have to PEE again. JESUS H CHRIST I GOTTA GOOOOOO NOW!

*Aaaahhhh. Better. I peed for like 20 minutes.

*Wow, the Internet is still boring. I wish people did cool stuff. And post on their blogs.

*Oh shit, soccer practice is tonight. So is Parent Night. Hahahaha, Dave has to go to Parent Night. I should remind him of that.

*Wowzers, he sounds cranky. I wonder why he’s cranky now? I didn’t mention how OLD he is, hahahahaha. Maybe it’s arthritis…CAUSE OLD PEOPLE HAVE IT!! HAHAHAHAHA. I should ask him if he has arthritis. And hemmorhoids.

*Man, he is UNHAPPY to talk to me. I wonder if he’s having a bad day.

*The basement smells like pee. It’s probably cat pee. Sometimes, I hate the cats.

*There are too many socks for me to sort. I hate sorting socks. Dave has this weird hangup about sorted socks. He got that from his mother. SHE is anal about sorted socks. I bet she doesn’t like it that my socks never match. Ever.

*Lunch is good. I like lunch. I had an egg white omelette and an english muffin and an apple. I wonder how many points are in that.

*WOW HOLY CRAP IS MCDONALDS BAD FOR YOU. LOOKIT ALL THOSE POINTS!!! I should tell Dave to not eat McDonalds anymore.

*Hmmm…he’s not answering his phone. I guess I should call back.

*Now it sounds like he answered but then the phone hung up. I should call back to make sure that he’s okay.

*Voicemail again. He must be busy. I’ll send him an email.

*HOLY CRAP THE BABY JUST FARTED ON THE CAT!!! HAHAHAHAH! Wow, that smells TERRIBLE. I wonder if he pooed.

*No poo this time. Maybe that’s why he’s so crabby right now. I get crabby when I have to poo.

*OHMYGOD I think I just heard a car pull up! Maybe Dave’s home from work!!! We can talk about being old together BECAUSE HE’S OOOOOLLLLDDD!!!

*No it wasn’t. Now I’m sad. Oh, I guess it’s only 1:30.

*FINE, I’ll go take a walk. I should move my fat butt.

*OH MAN!! I just got LAPPED on my walk by an old guy with orthopaedic shoes! MAYBE IT WAS DAVE!!! HAHAHAHAHA!

*I like my iPod, but I wish it was blue, not pink. I didn’t want the pink iPod, I wanted the green one, but they were out when I got this. Now I’m sad. Maybe I should break this one AND THEN I CAN GET A NEW ONE!!!

*Man, I’m HUNGRY. I wonder how many points are in a sandwich.

*Wow, that was a gross orange. It peeled well, but sheesh, it tasted like sawdust.

*I love our vaccuum. Especially because it has a motor. Motor vaccuums are awesome. I wish it were pink. I saw a pink one at Target and now I want it. Maybe I should go buy it.

*UHOH I gotta get Ben’s soccer stuff ready for him. I should totally get a skull tattoo on my arm so I don’t look like a soccer mom.

*THE BABY FARTED AND IT WAS HILARIOUS. It totally smelled like rotten eggs. I should tell Dave that.

*WHY is his phone now registering as disconnected? I should call back.

*Hmm, the phone company doesn’t know why his phones are all disconnected. MAYBE HE’S AT MCDONALDS AND HE DOESN’T WANT TO TELL ME. I’m gonna punch him for that. McDonalds is awesome and I love it.

*Holy crap, feeding the baby rice cereal is hard. It’s like peeing into a moving target at 20 feet. WITHOUT A PENIS.

*Man, the baby is soooooo cute. Too bad his butt smells like rotted eggs. He must get that from Dave. His butt smells rotted, too. Gross. Men are gross.

*WOW, I’m glad someone else is taking Ben to soccer. Practice is boring.

*OHMYGOD, I just accidently busted Ben for taking a dumpalump. I thought he was playing in his room when he was supposed to be getting ready for bed. I guess I’m a bad mother or something.

See, my life is BORING and DULL and you don’t care what I do minute to minute. Because it’s BORING!

At 5 months postpartum, I still am 38 pounds heavier than when I got pregnant. This fact makes me highly bitter, as I neither enjoyed eating while pregnant, nor did I eat myself into a stupor as I did when pregnant with Ben. Plus, I cannot avoid all of the “wow, I breastfed and lost 93 pounds in a week!” propaganda that LaLeche League puts out. I’ve been working steadfastidly at losing weight and STILL have only lost 7 or 8 pounds. That’s depressing.

I fear that the only way that I can go nose to the grindstone to lose this weight is to quit breastfeeding. Ah, breastfeeding, have I ever felt more conflicted about something? In short: no, no I haven’t. I share a love-hate relationship with it, more hate these days with the incessant biting that Baby Alex loves to do to my poor bedraggled nipples. I’m imagining some sort of gradual weaning taking place over the next couple of months.

So, what does someone as OCD as me do in this sort of situation? I make a plan.

I am going on the record here to proclaim that I plan to lose 15-20 lbs by Christmas Day. Considering how overweight I currently am, this may be a loftier goal, but come hell or high water, I’m going to give it my all. I could lie and say that I’ve been only halfheartedly sticking to my diet, and maybe it’s partially true, but now I mean it for serious.

It’s on fat, it’s SO on. You’re going to have to take up residence on someone else (like Dave, for example, he needs it more than I do).