Thanks, connie. But I think I actually need some time alone. I haven't had any in a really long time.

It was pleasant enough conversation, but it turned ugly with no warning, and ended with a hang up.

It's going to be raw for a while, Sean. I'm sorry.

Also, there was a second call, and rough feelings were....

....de-roughed. A little, any way.

....de-roughed. A little, any way.

You're both trying. That'll make a big difference.

Dylan really likes the squeeky shoes (they have a squeak toy thing in them so they go off with every stomp). He's totally woken up and stomping up and down the hall now.

I told him I'd give him the shoes but his mommy would kill me.

::admires Hec's wisdom and sense of self-preservation::

I love how awesome it is that Jess can travel to the other side of the continent and has friends-as-babysitters Right.There with added peer-playmates AND commentary.

Sean, I'm just glad there are people close by if you decide that alone time has gone on long enough.

{{{{Sean}}}}

Plus I kept trying to blame Daniel for "dragging" me to it in the first place. Poor guy

see, that's why there needs to be drinking. And the stress was worth it, because you looked STUNNING.

Blushes. Thanks. Yeah, if the drinking had started earlier, not only would I not have been feeling no pain while dancing, I would have inflicted less on Daniel.

Thanks for the continued compliments, people. I tried to hold on to the afterglow to keep the BID at bay. It worked for a while, but they've been slipping in again. This helps. Also, I keep trying to make up reasons to wear the Outfit again.

To maintain the 130, I a) worked 2 physically demanding jobs, walked 3 miles back and forth to work AND rode an exercise bicycle for 30 minute a day, as well as eating no "white" foods, 5 servings of vegetables, 5 of fruit, and pretty much only tuna fish with no dressing.

This kind of regimen would get me down to about a size 22. I'd still be too fat to be a plus size model. When I complain about how my weight loss efforts yield such disappointing results to lay people, they generally advise going to a doctor, because clearly there is something wrong. But what no one can tell me is how to force a doctor to believe that someone my size not only is capable of comprehending a diet, and following it accurately, but also has in fact, actually done so. I have had the lovely experience of making myself write down what I was eating for weeks, carefully measuring every little thing (right down to the artificial creamer for my coffee), shown it to the doctor, and had the doctor reply, "If this is all you are eating, you should be losing weight." The hell of it is, she said in a fairly friendly way. So it took me a few years to figure out the unspoken, "Since you aren't losing weight, it's impossible to believe that this is what you are eating. So there is nothing I am willing to do for you."

Are there magic words for this? I mean, aside from, "Three of those pounds on my current weight are from the handgun I'm aiming at your head. Now, get to work, Dr. House."

She's also learned that she can only make a proforma request for me to consider gastric bypass. Not going to happen unless they make it less dangerous and reversible, sorry.

"Learned"....from you, you mean?

Indeed.

Well done. I mean that wholeheartedly.

So it took me a few years to figure out the unspoken, "Since you aren't losing weight, it's impossible to believe that this is what you are eating.

This is perhaps the most maddening part of being fat and trying to get good healthcare. Because *clearly* every single human being on the face of the planet burns calories in the exact same manner and at the exact same rate as a calorimeter in a laboratory. And *clearly* while there's age-, hormonal-, gender-, and disease-related reasons (among others) for people to *metabolize* medications differently, they should still all metabolize food exactly alike. Because human beings are all exactly alike in every detail. That's why we're all the same height, race, hair color, eye color, nose shape, and belly-button status. Riiiiight?????

So if you say you're starving yourself (which is a lousy way to try to lose weight but one hell of a way to make yourself gain over the long term), but you aren't losing weight, why, then, despite NO other evidence, you MUST be lying.

A pox on all of them. Hippocratic oath, my fat ass.