Get in mah belleh.

There are a lot of things in my belly.  A cookie, two pieces of bacon, some coffee, a bite of Rocky Road fudge, a bite of turkey...

Plus yesterday, although I showed more restraint than previous years, I certainly did my part in eating the entire world.  So now, whilst I wait for Molly to wake up & eventually get picked up by her momma (at which point I will dress & go to the gym), I am going to watch an old favorite on Netflix:  "Auntie Mame," starring Rosalind Russell.  ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES EVER!!!!

Go get it and see it right now...you will not be disappointed.  I am now going to pick up my crocheting and commence watching said amazing movie.

A poem, written today, Nov. 21, 2009

You were smaller then.
You did not know such things,
nor did you think to ask of them.
They simply were not.


But they crept in,
slowly, insinuating themselves
into the dark corners.


One day you turned too quickly,
and they stared you in the face.
You gasped, grasped for stability.
They would not leave.
Once seen, a thing cannot be unseen.
Once known, a thing cannot be unknown.


Now you knew where they were.
You tried to avoid the dark corners.
You took cautious steps.  You did not run.
Smiles became measured, laughter checked.
A too-loud sob could awaken them.


The colors on the trees never seemed as bright as they did that last autumn of childhood and you have wished every day since then that time would stop insisting its way forward so that you could reverse your step and unsee and in unseeing, un-know, but it cannot be done and so instead you walk through the streets with your head down and your eyes lowered for fear of what you may see.


All the while, they sit in the dark corners,
silently crying.
Were they so hideous, that you should fear them?

Joined a gym today.

Depression & addictive behavior run in my family. The Dickinson women, especially, have a tendency to low self-esteem & setting-the-bar-high-for-oneself standards. Which results in a lot of internalized conflict and self-doubt, which begins to develop into depression which is numbed with fillers — like alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, food, etc.

Food has always been a self-destruct tool for me. I have, since I was at least 12, struggled with my body image. I was much sturdier and stockier than kids my age growing up, and somewhere between 8-10, the baby fat started to just stay and as I grew up, I also grew around. I wasn’t obese, or terribly overweight, but I wasn’t willowy or lean like a good deal of the kids I knew — or like the models, actresses & public figures. I have no idea when I became a compulsive eater — hoarding food, sneaking candy, pouring 1/4 sugar onto dry Rice Krispies so I could let the sugar sink to the bottom & eat it at the end of the bowl — but somewhere along the line, I did. Food was an escape, it was an out — if I was left home alone, the only real “bad thing” I wanted to do was to eat up all the food in the house, especially fatty/sugary treats.

I still find myself doing this 18 years later, as an adult who is cognizant of nutrition & a healthy lifestyle. I go on uncontrollable food binges, and have more than once in the past three years been guilty of devouring an entire 1/2 gallon of ice cream in 45 minutes, or a cake (frosted) in one night, or a 6-piece fried chicken with french fries. I have to end up throwing things away or else there are times when I know it will be nearly impossible for me to stop myself.

My overall daily eating habits are not bad — much healthier than many, I would think. I try not to eat meats with too much fat content more than twice a week, I make a conscious effort to get vegetables in me, I stay away from sodas, processed foods, etc. But there are these moments of weakness.

And my metabolism is none too high.

So, when I belonged to NY Sports Clubs for nearly two years, I was ecstatic. It was so great to have long stretches of feeling healthy and truly comfortable in my own body. I know there will always be “jiggly bits” to me, but the leanness and tone I had gained was a first for me — literally the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE that I had been fit. It was such a blessing and gave me a new perspective on my own confidence.

When I moved back to CA, I couldn’t afford a gym membership & I wasn’t particularly strict with food intake (it’s hard to live in the beautiful CA summer and not feast on BBQ’s, hamburgers, steak dinners, grilled cheeses…). Although I am still a smaller version of myself — if you didn’t already know, I was 185lbs when graduating high school…and about 150 when I left college…after moving to NYC, I dropped another 10 just from all the walking around the city — I have lost a lot of tone and can definitely say I am out of shape. If it wasn’t for needing to bicycle places, I’d be even worse for the wear.

The “moment of truth” day was a couple of weeks ago when I noticed that my face was really starting to fill out. It sent little panic shivers through me and I had a mental flash of having an extra 15lbs on — and how uncomfortable in my own skin I had been when I was at that weight. My circulation was different when I was 150, my panic attacks were more frequent, and I felt a lot more tired a lot more often.

So, after depositing the check for services rendered for my directing work, I went to InShape City this morning to find out about their package. I signed up for a three year deal—and it was a special, no enrollment fee, month of Nov. free deal — I only paid $109 for the startup processing and key card, and starting Dec., I only pay $40 a month for an all-inclusive membership.

I can’t wait — and I’m excited that I got the chance to start this before rehearsals start for “Beyond Therapy.” My hope when I was cast in that play was that I would use that wonderful opportunity to force myself to get into better physical shape — because I know from my training that when the body is tuned/fit/ready, the mind can utilize it all the better for acting — the first read-through of the show isn’t until Dec. 16, so I’ll have a month headstart on it.

I could go on for paragraphs more about all my food issues and weight issues and body image issues. I won’t — I’ll just say again how glad I am to have a gym membership again. I know I’ll never be a bony runway model — but I also don’t want to be one. Working out gave me appreciation for the curves and the angles — my clavicles became my favorite thing, but I also loved how I had stopped seeing my child-bearing hips as a curse — instead they were incredibly womanly and the contrast of my curves to my angles was sexy to me…bring on the elliptical!!