We have more copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in our house than we have of the Bible. When the book came out this weekend, we were camping in Soldotna. The only thing we could talk about the entire drive down was the new Harry Potter book and what we (Nicholas, Alex and I) thought would happen, who would die, and how we were going to share one book between the three of us. Alex and I even placed a bet (a bet I lost, so I now owe him a Cold Stone ice cream) as to what would happen in the book.
When Saturday morning rolled around, we decided we needed to go get food. What we REALLY wanted was the book. We picked up a copy off of the table in the store, took it back to the campsite, and began reading. Ok, I began reading. I don't like to share when it comes to my Harry Potter books. We ended up going BACK to the store and purchasing 2 additional copies so that we each had our own. That's dedication. That's addiction. Yes, that's pathetic. What's even more pathetic is that I'd also preorded a copy at the local bookstore that I have yet to pick up.
I told Alex on our drive home yesterday that I thought Harry Potter was the new Jesus (I'm waiting for the lighting to strike me as I type this). He fulfilled a prophecy, he triumphed over evil, he came back from the dead (well, sort of anyway), and he's managed to unite all peoples (through god knows how many language translations of the book) in a common purpose, the fight against the evil of Voldomort and his demon hord. Harry "saved" those of muggle and magic blood alike. Sure, he was a fictional character, but who doesn't know who he is? Some like him, some love him, some say they refuse to jump on the Potter bandwagon and downright hate him. But, like him, love him or hate him, everyone is talking about him and the book (young and old alike).
I converted to Catholism a few years ago. As a Catholic, I appreciate that there are saints that I can look to as examples in times of trouble and happiness, and believe me, there are plenty. There's a saint for travelers, a saint for mothers, teachers, children, just about every profession. I'll probably be excommunicated, but I think Harry Potter should be sainted. He performs miracles (sure, he's got a wand and wizard blood), he's encouraging, he's so "human" in his actions that he's easy to relate to, and he's inspiring. He's an example that goodness and love conquer all. Also, because he doesn't represent any one religion, he's someone that everyone can rally behind and support (unless you are Pat Robertson, of course).
I'm actually sad that the books have come to an end. Maybe I'll start a church based on the book and JK Rowling can be a traveling minister. Why not? Anyone interested in joining?
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Being Fat Sucks
Everyone knows it... being fat SUCKS. Anyone who claims to be fat and happy, or pleasantly plump, is just fat and deluded. Anyone who tells you that you "have such a pretty face" is basically saying "Lord, when did you get so FAT?" If you are ever described as having "a nice personality," read that as "there's no chance I want to sleep with you."
I joined Weight Watchers again yesterday. I've joined, quit, and rejoined so many times that if I pasted all of my membership booklets on the wall, I could wallpaper my bathroom a few times over. Why have I joined and quit so many times? Well, being fat does suck, but the pain of withdrawing from eating, and the pain of working out, is more painful than being fat sometimes. Weight Watchers and their program is much better than the clinical study I did from November of 2005 to January of 2006 though. That was a total nightmare. Here's some advice: if ever given the opportunity to take a drug that hasn't been approved by the FDA, a drug that doesn't have a name (only a number), the opportunity to participate in a program that requires that every time you go in for an appointment you have blood drawn, have to pee in a cup, and have to get an EKG done, RUN (or waddle, or crawl, depending on your fitness level) as fast as you can! Why do we put ourselves through stuff like that in hope of losing a few pounds? In hope of finding a miracle cure that allows us to eat whatever we want, exercise little, and end up looking like Jessica Biel? It's not going to happen!
I don't like stepping on the scale any more than the next person. I don't care if it's 5 pounds, or 50 pounds, any woman who feels she isn't the "ideal" weight has a love/hate (or hate/hate) relationship with her scale. Like being in a bad relationship with a man and staying, we keep stepping onto the scale, hoping it will tell us what we want it to, justify our not having that piece of cake at dinner or that slice of pie at lunch, will it into making us feel good about ourselves. And what do we do when it doesn't read what we want it to? We feel bad, abuse ourselves because we were "bad" and that's why we didn't lose the weight, and then get right back on it the next morning.
I have to say one thing about the clinical study I did, I did lose weight. Going on a drug with no name, enjoying the wonderful side effects of no appetite, emotional upheaval (it made me LOOOOOOOOPY), sleeplessness and irrational amounts of nervous energy (I was like a toy poodle on LSD) helped get some of the weight off. But, when I realized I was heading to crazy land, I got off the ride! What happens when one gets into a program with no possiblity of making it a life-long change? Uh, POOF! the weight one lost suddenly finds its way back to where it left.
A friend of mine has this whole theory on the distribution of weight. He says that the earth can only hold so much weight without spinning out of its orbit into space and that the weight has to continuously be redistributed. So, when one person loses weight, another has to gain it. That's why, with the extinction of the dinosaurs and so many large mammals becoming extinct, the population of humans had to increase, to maintain the weight distribution. Don't know if I believe his theory, but I do know that the more weight my friends lose, the wider my hips get. Instead of taking personal responsiblity and admitting that I've gained weight because I have no self control, I guess I can blame it on the weight distribution concept?
Anyway, I didn't join Weight Watchers simply because they have a wonderful program. If I have to be honest, I also joined because I need to be responsible to someone else. It's too easy to lie to myself when dieting. It's too easy to roll back over in bed when the alarm goes off, instead of going to the gym. I tell myself I've already done a half marathon, I've already run a few 8K runs, I don't have anything to prove. I tell myself I'm in ok shape, so I'm ok. Lie, Lie, LIE to myself. I also joined WW because I like the fact that when I go to meetings, there are people there that inspire me, people who have been where I am now on their weightloss journey. And, there are a lot of people there that are bigger than me. Somehow, in my own sadistic way, it makes me feel good about myself that I'm not where they are. Plus, for every five pounds I lose, I'll get stickers. I always liked stickers. I like the instant gratification I feel when I get a gold star. If I got them at work, I'd probably work harder!
Use whatever catch prase you like to encourage you to lose weight... the whole "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels" mantra doesn't do it for me. But, "Being fat sucks" definitely does. It's simple. It's catchy. It's true. BEING FAT SUCKS!
I joined Weight Watchers again yesterday. I've joined, quit, and rejoined so many times that if I pasted all of my membership booklets on the wall, I could wallpaper my bathroom a few times over. Why have I joined and quit so many times? Well, being fat does suck, but the pain of withdrawing from eating, and the pain of working out, is more painful than being fat sometimes. Weight Watchers and their program is much better than the clinical study I did from November of 2005 to January of 2006 though. That was a total nightmare. Here's some advice: if ever given the opportunity to take a drug that hasn't been approved by the FDA, a drug that doesn't have a name (only a number), the opportunity to participate in a program that requires that every time you go in for an appointment you have blood drawn, have to pee in a cup, and have to get an EKG done, RUN (or waddle, or crawl, depending on your fitness level) as fast as you can! Why do we put ourselves through stuff like that in hope of losing a few pounds? In hope of finding a miracle cure that allows us to eat whatever we want, exercise little, and end up looking like Jessica Biel? It's not going to happen!
I don't like stepping on the scale any more than the next person. I don't care if it's 5 pounds, or 50 pounds, any woman who feels she isn't the "ideal" weight has a love/hate (or hate/hate) relationship with her scale. Like being in a bad relationship with a man and staying, we keep stepping onto the scale, hoping it will tell us what we want it to, justify our not having that piece of cake at dinner or that slice of pie at lunch, will it into making us feel good about ourselves. And what do we do when it doesn't read what we want it to? We feel bad, abuse ourselves because we were "bad" and that's why we didn't lose the weight, and then get right back on it the next morning.
I have to say one thing about the clinical study I did, I did lose weight. Going on a drug with no name, enjoying the wonderful side effects of no appetite, emotional upheaval (it made me LOOOOOOOOPY), sleeplessness and irrational amounts of nervous energy (I was like a toy poodle on LSD) helped get some of the weight off. But, when I realized I was heading to crazy land, I got off the ride! What happens when one gets into a program with no possiblity of making it a life-long change? Uh, POOF! the weight one lost suddenly finds its way back to where it left.
A friend of mine has this whole theory on the distribution of weight. He says that the earth can only hold so much weight without spinning out of its orbit into space and that the weight has to continuously be redistributed. So, when one person loses weight, another has to gain it. That's why, with the extinction of the dinosaurs and so many large mammals becoming extinct, the population of humans had to increase, to maintain the weight distribution. Don't know if I believe his theory, but I do know that the more weight my friends lose, the wider my hips get. Instead of taking personal responsiblity and admitting that I've gained weight because I have no self control, I guess I can blame it on the weight distribution concept?
Anyway, I didn't join Weight Watchers simply because they have a wonderful program. If I have to be honest, I also joined because I need to be responsible to someone else. It's too easy to lie to myself when dieting. It's too easy to roll back over in bed when the alarm goes off, instead of going to the gym. I tell myself I've already done a half marathon, I've already run a few 8K runs, I don't have anything to prove. I tell myself I'm in ok shape, so I'm ok. Lie, Lie, LIE to myself. I also joined WW because I like the fact that when I go to meetings, there are people there that inspire me, people who have been where I am now on their weightloss journey. And, there are a lot of people there that are bigger than me. Somehow, in my own sadistic way, it makes me feel good about myself that I'm not where they are. Plus, for every five pounds I lose, I'll get stickers. I always liked stickers. I like the instant gratification I feel when I get a gold star. If I got them at work, I'd probably work harder!
Use whatever catch prase you like to encourage you to lose weight... the whole "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels" mantra doesn't do it for me. But, "Being fat sucks" definitely does. It's simple. It's catchy. It's true. BEING FAT SUCKS!
Camping with the past and Harry Potter
We went camping this past weekend in Soldotna with some friends. They have about an acre of land near the Kenai river. We packed the truck with camping gear (thanks to my highly superior packing skeeeeelllllllsssss, it all fit), placed Beaner (the dog gets carsick, so there's no way he's riding in the cab) in the kennel in the back, put Nicholas in the truck with Chloe (the dog that doesn't get carsick) and headed out for the three hour ride south.
We arrived in Soldotna in the evening and unpacked the tent. I didn't realize that we would be there with so many other people. Marilynn (Alex's friend from work that owns the land) had invited a few other friends for the weekend. Our tent looked downright rustic surrounded by the RVs and 5th wheels on the lot. Marilynn's RV is the size of a tour bus, and looks like an apartment inside, complete with plasma tv, dvd player and a washer and dryer! With the people that came and went all weekend, I'd have to say there must have been about 25 to 30 people there! It was loud, full of laughter, and a lot of fun.
We'd brought a cooler of food, but it didn't get eaten. We brought a small camp stove, but it didn't get used. Marilynn cooked something for every meal. The woman should be a professional caterer. She's Filipino, so we got the treat of dining on Pork Adobo, seafood soup, rice, fried fish chips, and some "American" food like the normal cheese burgers, sausage, etc. I do have to admit though that being surrounded by people speaking Tagalog took me back to my past. It also reminded me that someone from my past go married on Saturday.
We dated for almost 5 years. It was one of those relationships that neither of us really wanted to be in, but it was familiar, comfortable, and hard to leave. I'm definitely not jealous he married someone else. I didn't want to marry him for more reasons than I can count. I ended things to move to Alaska, and I made sure before I left that there was no going back to that situation ever again, intentionally. I guess I can't escape my past, or the people in it, entirely. Thankfully, life does go on. The only constant in life is change. Things change, people have the capacity to change. Good memories, not so good memories, happy memories, painful memories, they are a part of me. Sometimes I do want to know how the people in my past are doing and what they are doing in their lives. I think that's normal for everyone. Some people have left profound footprints as they walked through my life. I've known some truly wonderful people that have shown me that people are good, kind and decent. It's helped me maintain hope in mankind when I've allowed people into my life that were selfish, self centered and hurtful. This walk through life has taken me down so many twists and turns, and I've learned so much about myself and others along the journey. The walk down memory lane that I've been taking for the past few weeks topped itself off with this camping trip.
Looking into my past memories is like looking into a pensieve (sorry for the Harry Potter connection, but I can't help it!). I can pop in and out of my past and view my memories as if they are someone else's memories and not my own. I can view them with an emotional detachment that I didn't have when I was living the actual event. I can't go back and change anything, but I can definitely learn from the events and see now the pain I may have caused others, not just the pain I felt in some situations. I know I don't have the right to intrude on the lives of others in order to say that I regret doing and saying some things I did and said (oh, and there are some things I did and said that I don't regret IN THE LEAST, but that's another issue), or see how they are now, but maybe feeling the remorse and taking responsibility for my actions is enough?
I didn't catch any fish on Sunday. I should have cast differently and gone when I knew the run was on. Instead, I waited till no fish were running and the catching was sparce. I bought hip waders instead of chest waders and ended up with a wet hiney and cold legs, unable to go very far into the water. I should have bought chest waders and gone into the water as far as I could, without fear of getting wet, no holding back. I'll add the memories of this weekend, good and not so good, to my memories of "shoulda, woulda, coulda, didn'ts" and go on with my life. The good thing about life, camping trips and memories is that until this life ends, there's the possibility to do things differently next time. There's the opportunity to look at all the decisions I've made, good and bad, and see how those decisions have led me to where I am. There's also the opportunity that when I'm faced with making decisions in the future, hopefully, I will have learned from the past. I think I have. I don't have a magic wand to wave to make my life any different than it is now, and if I did, I wouldn't use it. Are there things I would do differently if I could? Maybe. If I would have said the things I should have when I had the opportunity, gotten out of relationships I shouldn't have stayed in as long as I did (or gotten into relationships and friendships I never should have), reached out to people I should have kept in my life instead of letting go of them, my life would be much different than it is today. And, so would theirs. And, maybe that's not a good thing. Who knows. It's like the movie Sliding Doors, starring Gwenyth Paltrow. In the movie, two decisions she could have made actually occur, and throughout the movie we follow each decision and its consequences through to the end. Some of the decisions she made along the way were good, some weren't so great. In the end though, the path she DID take and the decisions she DID make were right. I have to believe, so were mine.
We arrived in Soldotna in the evening and unpacked the tent. I didn't realize that we would be there with so many other people. Marilynn (Alex's friend from work that owns the land) had invited a few other friends for the weekend. Our tent looked downright rustic surrounded by the RVs and 5th wheels on the lot. Marilynn's RV is the size of a tour bus, and looks like an apartment inside, complete with plasma tv, dvd player and a washer and dryer! With the people that came and went all weekend, I'd have to say there must have been about 25 to 30 people there! It was loud, full of laughter, and a lot of fun.
We'd brought a cooler of food, but it didn't get eaten. We brought a small camp stove, but it didn't get used. Marilynn cooked something for every meal. The woman should be a professional caterer. She's Filipino, so we got the treat of dining on Pork Adobo, seafood soup, rice, fried fish chips, and some "American" food like the normal cheese burgers, sausage, etc. I do have to admit though that being surrounded by people speaking Tagalog took me back to my past. It also reminded me that someone from my past go married on Saturday.
We dated for almost 5 years. It was one of those relationships that neither of us really wanted to be in, but it was familiar, comfortable, and hard to leave. I'm definitely not jealous he married someone else. I didn't want to marry him for more reasons than I can count. I ended things to move to Alaska, and I made sure before I left that there was no going back to that situation ever again, intentionally. I guess I can't escape my past, or the people in it, entirely. Thankfully, life does go on. The only constant in life is change. Things change, people have the capacity to change. Good memories, not so good memories, happy memories, painful memories, they are a part of me. Sometimes I do want to know how the people in my past are doing and what they are doing in their lives. I think that's normal for everyone. Some people have left profound footprints as they walked through my life. I've known some truly wonderful people that have shown me that people are good, kind and decent. It's helped me maintain hope in mankind when I've allowed people into my life that were selfish, self centered and hurtful. This walk through life has taken me down so many twists and turns, and I've learned so much about myself and others along the journey. The walk down memory lane that I've been taking for the past few weeks topped itself off with this camping trip.
Looking into my past memories is like looking into a pensieve (sorry for the Harry Potter connection, but I can't help it!). I can pop in and out of my past and view my memories as if they are someone else's memories and not my own. I can view them with an emotional detachment that I didn't have when I was living the actual event. I can't go back and change anything, but I can definitely learn from the events and see now the pain I may have caused others, not just the pain I felt in some situations. I know I don't have the right to intrude on the lives of others in order to say that I regret doing and saying some things I did and said (oh, and there are some things I did and said that I don't regret IN THE LEAST, but that's another issue), or see how they are now, but maybe feeling the remorse and taking responsibility for my actions is enough?
I didn't catch any fish on Sunday. I should have cast differently and gone when I knew the run was on. Instead, I waited till no fish were running and the catching was sparce. I bought hip waders instead of chest waders and ended up with a wet hiney and cold legs, unable to go very far into the water. I should have bought chest waders and gone into the water as far as I could, without fear of getting wet, no holding back. I'll add the memories of this weekend, good and not so good, to my memories of "shoulda, woulda, coulda, didn'ts" and go on with my life. The good thing about life, camping trips and memories is that until this life ends, there's the possibility to do things differently next time. There's the opportunity to look at all the decisions I've made, good and bad, and see how those decisions have led me to where I am. There's also the opportunity that when I'm faced with making decisions in the future, hopefully, I will have learned from the past. I think I have. I don't have a magic wand to wave to make my life any different than it is now, and if I did, I wouldn't use it. Are there things I would do differently if I could? Maybe. If I would have said the things I should have when I had the opportunity, gotten out of relationships I shouldn't have stayed in as long as I did (or gotten into relationships and friendships I never should have), reached out to people I should have kept in my life instead of letting go of them, my life would be much different than it is today. And, so would theirs. And, maybe that's not a good thing. Who knows. It's like the movie Sliding Doors, starring Gwenyth Paltrow. In the movie, two decisions she could have made actually occur, and throughout the movie we follow each decision and its consequences through to the end. Some of the decisions she made along the way were good, some weren't so great. In the end though, the path she DID take and the decisions she DID make were right. I have to believe, so were mine.
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