on Netflix in my office. I say it’s frustrating because sometimes I prefer to be busy. Surfing the internet for 8 hours can be boring, especially when sites you’d normally look at (insert your own private thought here) are blocked at work. There is only so much gossip about what 26 year old Demi Moore has in her bony-ass claw that I can handle in a 24 hour period. (Girl, you are now freed from the world’s biggest douchebag manchild. Flourish. Go find someone with chest hair. I spoke to Bruce Willis and he concurs.)

(Tom Selleck and his hairy chest: always, forever. And he’s a Republican. SWOON.)

So I’m vainly staring at myself in the bathroom mirror at work the other day when I noticed something. (And no, I didn’t go to the bathroom just to stare at myself. I actually had bidness to attend to.) I peered back at my reflection and leaned forward. No, I thought. Surely not. I went over to the full-length mirror and got eyeball to eyeball with my own reflection. And there it was, straggling up toward the light. Wiry. Belligerent in its marked difference. A wayward soul.

A motherfucking gray hair.

Oh hell no, I said out loud to no one. I almost ripped myself bald trying to pluck it out, which I did. Also, because it’s my nature to be both sentimental and weird, I saved it. I held it between my thumb and forefinger and brought it back to my office. I was still in disbelief.

Maybe it’s blonde, I figured. Maybe it’s a strand I missed the last time I colored my hair. I laid the hair on a black surface and stared at the truth. Gray as gray can be. My very first. I texted Paolo. To which he replied, “Shish. Shush.” I left the hair in a special spot on my desk, where it still sits. (A testament to the cleaning crew no doubt.)

I know plenty of people who went gray at early ages, and most of them wear it well. Especially the dudes. They get all Clooney and shit with age. Women? Well, put it to you this way: I feel more like Kathy Bates than Diane Keaton. I do not feel regal. Guys on dating websites don’t want to bang the fat, gray haired chick.

 (While I think Paula Deen is very attractive for someone her age, it’s entirely too soon for me to embrace my inner memaw.)

Which is why my ass is going to CVS post haste to get my Perfect 10 haircolor. Gray? I’ll be goddamned. I saw a picture of a 91 year old women today who is a full-out ginger, and that’s the kind of bitch I want to be. Faking it until my dying day. I started using Sun-In back in the 80s and haven’t seen my natural haircolor sense. And now ain’t a time to start.

Still, it’s not like I’ll have that preserved look about me. You know the look I’m talking about. Those women who fight age until their knuckles bleed. The ones who are pinched, plucked, sucked and pulled tighter than a drum (Adrienne from Real Housewhores of Beverly Hills, I am looking at you).

I mean, it’s not like I have a lot to preserve, for one thing. It’s not like I can exactly recall a time when I’d like to press pause and freeze that version of me because I’ve always been dissatisfied. (Correction: I’ll take early spring, 2005. I looked pretty good then. Not perfect, not ideal, but good.)

I always assumed aging wouldn’t happen to me, mainly because I feel eternally 15.  There’s a large part of me that has Peter Pan syndrome out the ass. I’m just in denial that it could ever happen to me. I’ll lose my hearing, get diabetes, and break a hip all while wondering how that can happen to someone my age. I think I would feel more my age if I had a mortgage, a spouse and kids to be responsible for, too. I think that’s part of it. My thought is, I shouldn’t be allowed to get a stray gray until I’ve actually lived a little. I shouldn’t be able to get old until I am old, dammit.

(In case you’re not cuing up a visual of who Ron Johnson is)

the chick who’s so thin her thighs don’t touch (who I was majorly jellie of until she turned around and I saw her face. Note to self: would always, always prefer to be a Butterbody than a Butterface.) Anyway, one man is an older gentleman with thick, white hair who’s always crisply dressed and very polite – letting me on and off the elevator first, holding the door, etc. When he was 18 he was probably of the generation that wore hats. You know….THOSE guys. Like an elderly Don Draper.

 (This never gets old)

So today, we’re on the elevator, and he looks over at me and says, “Very pretty colors you’re wearing.”

My dress is black with orange, red and purple flowers on it, which I’ve always thought resembled a mumu my one-legged grandmother used to wear.

(Don’t get me started on why the fashion industry thinks that big women want to be covered in giant hibiscuses.) And I have on a bright purple cardigan (like I’ve said before, I would cut a bitch for a cardigan), a color I know I look good in because I have red hair. And Paolo has told me before.

I said back to the man, “Thank you. Gotta do something to liven up a Monday.”

“I’ll think of it all day,” he said quietly.

Instead of being 75, why can’t he be 35? This just depressed me. But then, I’ve been Depressed Bitch lately.

Speaking of depressed, finally last Friday, I shimmied in to see my new shrink, a good-looking young guy who goes by Benji, which is fabulously endearing to me. He’s very sincere and calm, which is always good, though his cuticles need some serious attention. I once had a swarthy Russian shrink with a pinky ring (he was a liter of Stolichnaya away from being a caricature) who was, in short, a complete spaz, convinced I had the “A-Tea-Tea.” The phone service? No? ADD. Fucker couldn’t pronounce for shit. But he thought I had every disorder under the sun. Benji’s not like that. He doesn’t get worked up about much.

(except fatter, and not so angry)

Thing is, when I walked in to see Benji Friday morning, my mom had been there the night before. (She came up to stay with me Thursday and Friday night.) So Friday morning, I – who is used to talking to NO ONE first thing in the morning (yes, though I occasionally meow back at Butters) – has to deal with a barrage of questions from my mother. “How do you work this coffee maker, I forgot,” to “Don’t you have any coffee that isn’t flavored like chocolate?” to “Is that what you’re wearing to work today?” and “You’re going to keep your hair pulled back in a ponytail?” So when I arrived at Benji’s, I was agitated.

He noted as much, poor bastard. Wouldn’t you hate to roll out of bed, go to work and deal with surly people all day?

(I googled surly and this guy came up. I mean: I wouldn’t want to piss him off.)

Long story short, I’ve been off all my meds – thyroids and anti-depressants – for months. This is, I can tell you, most ill-advised. So yeah, the 15 lb weight gain and major irritability make perfect-o sense. Benji and I agreed that I need to open up my piehole and swallow those motherfuckers post haste. Then, later, he’s going to do blood work to determine if my cholesterol is high (I’m sure it is, since I have a love for beige crispy things) and if my liver is in the process of pickling or not (again, the chances are good).

So this morning, I gradually started back on my meds. I am kind of a holy terror when I’m not on them. My mother and I got into a rip-roaring fight that sort of built out of nowhere, though that’s a story for another post.

My depression, as I’m sure I’ve said before, is something I have to manage. For me, it will never be cured. It’s chronic

and it seeks to destroy me. Benji would like to see me get into some talky therapy, which I don’t disagree with, though we’ll have to find someone who does night and weekend hours. Still, it’s doable.

My depression reached the perfect storm last week when, apropos of nothing, I broke down in tears, sobbing about the mess of my life, and turned back to cutting.  It put me in a (predictable) trance and I went straight to bed and slept like a baby. The next morning, however, I regretted it, as always. Does winnowing it down to episodes that occur twice, three times a year seem like progress? Yes, sometimes, especially when you consider how intoxicating it is to me. But still. At 35, it’s not anywhere I want to be. It’s just a bad habit I picked up as a kid to cope and haven’t ever put down.

Much like eating. And drinking. And spending money. And being lazy. There’s a theme there, if you look closely. It’s all about instant gratification. No thought to the future is given. We are, by far, a nation of self-soothers, addicted to all kinds of things, all so we can zone out of some aspect of our lives, be it big or small, surmountable or not.

(There’s only one problemo here. I’m not an adolescent. Age-wise, anyway.)

Really, I’m a hedonist of the first order. I am all about satisfying myself for the next few minutes. I may pay for it weeks or even years later, but that rarely crosses my mind. And yes, by the way, it does make me angry that I can articulate exactly what the culprits are and still feel powerless to stop them. You always hear about how naming your problems is the first step. Great. Fantastic. What’s the goddamned second step? Because it’s the one I never get to.

I know I say this a lot, but let me reiterate. I am afraid I will be alone forever, that the best part of my life is passing me by and I’m partner-less, family-less. Damn near all of my friends are either married, engaged, healthily dating, dating toward marriage or are at peace about not being in a relationship. Even my seemingly forever-single friends are suddenly partnered up and crazy happy. And while I am so happy for them – because I love them, they’re my friends and they deserve the best – I am also secretly sad that I am not a part of any of that.

Oddly enough, Paolo and I talk about this stuff. Abstractly, of course. When I tell him that I am depressed, he responds that he is too. And he is. (BabyMama kicked him out. He’s only allowed to stay there when she’s working at night or out with friends.) But we’re depressed for different reasons. He wants a steady job, his own place, time with his daughter. I honestly just want someone who loves me and treats me well. Who wants me to meet his family, and friends; who wants to take me out, and plans things for us to do. Who’s laid back, kind-hearted, thinks my ass hung the moon and isn’t voting for Obama this year. (Sorry, my Libertarian just fell out. Let me get that before you step on it.)

My old beloved shrink, Stiff, would tackle it every once in a while. “Do you really focus that intently on how much you dislike yourself?”

“Surely you don’t find that hard to believe,” I’d snark.

“Well,” he’d say quietly. “Maybe that’s something we can work about changing.”

“Good luck,” I said. “I’ve been like that since I was a child. Shit’s ingrained.”

Maybe it’s because I haven’t been on my meds [thyroid or anti-sads], but I’ve been pretty down lately about the state of my affairs. I feel like I get a year older every day, and like I’m watching people around me have lives and families, the opportunity for which has seemingly passed me over. Here, it’s a king sized blanket: come on in and join my pity party, would you?

I know that no one really likes to listen to a bitch-fest (okay, I do, but I’m weird. In fact, when I was a kid, I used to get out my tape recorder [what up 80s!] and pretend I was talking to my best friend Catherine, and I’d just BITCH. Gripe her out, gripe about the dog, my parents, my teacher, my then-thoughts on Gorbachev, whatever. I actually called them Gripey Tapes. And the worst part was, I’d play them back repeatedly to listen to myself rip someone a new cornhole. You could read a lot into that if you wanted to. I try to pretend I never did it, except that my parents confiscated one and still have it in their safety deposit box because they think it’s hilarious. My issues run deep, yo).

So I’ll at least be fair. Perhaps I can write a blog about my faults and shortcomings, and then I can try to write one about how sun and peace shines out of my asshole for X-number of reasons.

First, and most importantly, I think my major disease is a rather unfixable one. In that, there’s not a pill you could take for it. It’s totally intangible, not hereditary, and reversible with determination (I possess none of that). And if there were a pill you could take for it, and I was given a life supply, I’d be too lazy to take it. Because that’s my main flaw: I am FUCKING LAZY.

Think of the laziest person you know. Now multiply that poor, useless bastard by 1000. And you’d get ME.

There are just certain words people would never use to describe me. Lithe, for example. Ambitious. Mild-mannered. Athletic. And industrious. I have turned wasting time and procrastinating into an art form. In fact, the fact that I procrastinate, as I’ve talked about here before, is closely tied with my laziness.

I’m not proud of it. I’m just not a hard worker. I can’t think of one thing in my life that I’ve worked really hard at, except perhaps being hard on myself. But the thing is, I’m hard on myself for a reason. Probably for the same reason my mother was/is hard on me: we think that the harsher we are, the more likely I will be to snap into focus. But I’m telling you: I don’t have it in me. I mean, I need my ass kicked in a major, Bob-Harper-freaks-the-fuck-out-on-your-ass kinda way.

I guess that in 35 years, I just haven’t had my moment yet. Or maybe I haven’t really grown up. (I always thought marriage and chirrun would make you grow up whether you wanted to or not. And I have a cat child, but apparently that doesn’t count.)

And speaking of cat children and laziness, I’m so lazy I don’t even give Butters her inhaler every day. Yeah. How’s that for parenting? (“And do you now know,” God bellowed, “why I have not green-lighted a pregnancy for you?”) I would give Butters my goddamned kidney if she needed it, but I’m too lazy to give her her inhaler treatment every single day like I should. Though it’s fair, since I won’t take my meds, either. Which includes my birth control, which I take sporadically. Yeah, I tempt fate that way. I just dare it to happen.

I could literally make a list of 100 things that I need to do in my apartment to de-shit sty it, and when I accomplish 1 or 2 of those, I pat myself on the back and quit. Like last night: did a load of laundry (well, re-did a load. I’d done it days before but neglected to remove it from the washer (see? Lazy) and so it smelled mildew-y so I had to re-wash it) and changed the sheets on my bed. You would have thought I had climbed Mt. Fuji. That meant, to me, that I had permission to skip all the dusting, sweeping, mopping, clothes-hanging-upping, dish doing, folding, and Christmas shit putting-away I needed to do and finish watching season 3 of Breaking Bad until after midnight. (That Walt is turning into a bad motherfucker.)

Like I’ve said before, I consider laziness (I think God and the gang called it sloth) a personality flaw. And frankly, I don’t know where it came from. I think it’s just a program that came preloaded on the computer, you know? It’s been there since I can remember. I have never, ever been the organized type. Creative yes, but not particularly resourceful and certainly not with-it. I let things boil over into a glorious mess before I muster whatever energy I have (which is always very little) and turn into the Tasmanian Devil, going on day- or weekend-long cleaning/organizing binges. My life’s always been like that: bingeing on energy, money, sleep, food, self-harm, alcohol, studying, whatever. Just so long as I didn’t have to do anything in moderation or pace myself.

My notorious laziness also extends to my job. Like now: am I working? Survey says…FUCK NO. I am typing out this blog. And my job requires that I be relatively fastidious, what with being a proofreader and all, which is like THE WORST profession I could have. (The copywriting flows like honey, thank God.) I spend a great deal of my day – even busy ones, where I work long hours – grabbing snippets of time here and there to whore out recipes and bathroom remodeling ideas on Pinterest, or read people’s status updates about how much they love hot-house yoga or whatever in the fuck. It’s a damned wonder I haven’t been fired yet. It’s probably just a matter of time. If I last another year there without getting the ax, I would be most surprised. Every boss I’ve ever had has had some gripe with me about my ability to pay attention to detail, which is, apparently, something I am not very good at. I chalk it up to just being lazy.

So by the time I hobble home, I have spent the majority of my usable energy just getting through my day, and I have nothing left. If I could go home and go straight to sleep, I would. As it is, I rarely even cook myself dinner. I fix a drank, watch TV, surf the web, and have scholarly conversations with Butters about Greek mythology and existentialism. (Turns out, Butters is quite the intellectual.)

And I’ve mentioned to you my propensity toward procrastinating, which is a kissing cousin of being lazy. So roll all of this into a ball and you get a big boulder of NO.

Personally, I think being lazy is about two things: physical energy (or lack therof), but mostly it’s a frame of mind. And I’ve honestly wondered if there’s a way to break out of that frame of mind. I  mean, I see and know people who are really determined folks. They’re movers and shakers. They get things done. My parents are both this way, in case you were wondering. Where does it come from? Some inner reserve? Am I really lower energy than I think? Is there something specific that makes people able to put their mind to things and then accomplish them? Because I don’t feel like I have that at all. I make excuses for everything.

Do I just not want it badly enough? I mean, if this were about weight loss only, I could understand that. But this is about simple shit. Taking my meds. Giving Butters hers. Not farting around at work. Using my time wisely. Mailing something when I should. Whatever. How in the hell do you teach self-discipline? (Fuck all of you who just shouted in unison, “Your fat ass should have joined the military. That would have taught your ass some discipline,” to which I reply, “Touche.”) I just feel like some wayward soul who’s never been righted. And I’m beginning to wonder how much of this is truly me — just who I am, intrinsically — or if this is something that can be unlearned. I mean, I have some friends out there (who are blog readers, who have four children and work as an attorney and run long distances and not because you’re being chased by a mountain lion) who I constantly marvel at, how they do it. And I am slowly beginning to truly realize that it’s probably best that I don’t have children because I would be a wreck. I can barely keep myself together. (Logic does not work when I watch Intervention and every fucking pill-popping meth head on there has managed to spawn.)

I don’t know. Does anyone else perpetually feel like they don’t have their shit together? Or it is just me? And for those of you who do … what’s your secret? Is there one, or were you always that driven, even as a kid?

In it, I was at a party, seated at a table next to people I was unfamiliar with. The lady next to me said, “Is that a maternity dress you’re wearing?”

Now, if I had this dream 10 years ago, the dream-me probably would have burst into tears. But today? This middle aged dreaming bitch wasn’t having it.

I turned to her and said, “Is there a particular reason you’re dressed like a 1980s crack hooker working the strip in Vegas?”

Honest to Pete. I by-God got ornery in a dream. I woke up tickled with myself and my ability to fire off totally cunty remarks when called for.

I’ve blogged many times about how I think that, besides the numbers part of it creeping up on my ass, I actually kind of like getting older. Really – there are beaucoup advantages. I want to be one of those old memaws who doesn’t hesitate to beat your ass with a cane as I fly by you on my Hoveround. I want to – if I’m (lucky, fortunate, unfortunate) enough to live to be 80 – not give a sweet goddamn what anyone has to say about me. You know old people: they fall into two categories. Those who get old, fat and sweet as time goes by, and those who morph into politically-incorrect turds who won’t hesitate to hurt a bitch’s feeling.

But there’s another thing about aging. My generation (I’m at the tail-tail end of X) ain’t the same as my grandmother’s. She grew up in the Depression and earned every damned wrinkle she had. They worked in the sun without sunscreen, they didn’t get manicures, they didn’t have La Mer cream to writhe around in, and vanity was not an issue – feeding your chirruns was.

I think it’s my mother’s generation that really got to start fooling around with facelifts and shit. And now, women my age don’t even have to resort to that – we’ve got Botox and fillers and fake titties galore. No telling what our (okay, YOUR) kids will have available to them.

So whether we like to admit it or not, I think we’re a pretty vain bunch. And if we know someone who’s not, it’s a miracle, because every day we’re bombarded with advertisements for new creams, potions and anti-aging treatments while simultaneously having to see Hollywood types at every turn, who seemingly start to panic at the age of 23 and begin subjecting themselves to all sorts of shit.

For example, saw a picture of Cindy Crawford the other day, and the blogger was speculating on her alleged Botox use. They showed a late 80s Cindy vs. the Cindy of now and it was staggering. Now, this woman is beautiful (in a mannish sort of way, to say nothing of the mole which has always bothered me) and she even has her own beauty line! Doesn’t said beauty line sort of insinuate that one doesn’t need to have surgery to achieve great skin and a youthful appearance?

Of course, on the opposite spectrum of that is someone like Helen Mirren (my mother’s generation) who looks ah-may-zing, not like she’s been shot full of silicon and ass fat. And Kate Winslet promises that she’s not going to have anything done, that she is going to “age gracefully,” whatever in the fuck that is.

Despite the big azz scar on my face, I will admit to being quite vain. I probably have $10,000 worth of beauty products in my “makeup room.” Yes, I have a makeup room. It was why I wanted my apartment – 2 bedrooms, 2 bath and a den that really would have been the perfect place for my dining room table, chairs and buffet. But no. I put an old pink desk in there and bought a bunch of shelving from IKEA and it’s my MAKEUP ROOM. (And the location of Butters’ litterbox. Which is also pink.) I go in there every morning to get ready. I am almost as obsessed with beauty products as I am with Alex Skarsgard and  saying the word “fuck.” (Funny how those last two obsessions oftentimes go together.)

Maybe it’s genetics, or maybe it’s all the Strivectin and Chanel creams, but I have the skin of someone who’s 22. (This is also due in large part to one of the few gifts God gave fat girls: we don’t age like our skinny counterparts. WORD.) I can’t exactly be vain about my body, because it’s the body of a stocky Greek chick who birthed out a Duggar-sized army of children. But I am vain about getting just the right dewiness to my makeup, about curling my eyelashes with a heater curler, about lipstick that stays on 16 hours and still looks fresh.

My point is, I wonder how I will handle aging, because I’m just now sort of conscious of it. I never worried about it much in my 20s — I just stayed my lily-white ass out of the sun and smeared on Oil of Olay whenever I was standing still. But let me say unequivocally that when I find my first gray hair (which may never happen because red coloring goes on that shit every 6 – 8 weeks) I will shit a bowling ball. Ditto with finding crow’s feet. I’m not about to be the type to start shoving my lips full of restalyne (I’m like the only living woman alive who seems to be happy with her natural lips — I have no desire to, as Michael K would say, have lips that look like a  gorilla’s swollen asshole)

(a lined bra would also not be out of the question, supertits)

because it looks unnatural, but would I be above a well-done face lift when I’m 50? Or Botox when I’m 40? I mean, I’ve had vast experience with plastic surgeons before because of the scar. I know what they can do. Shit is amazing, and it gets more amazing and undetectable as the years go on.

So what I’m saying is, I don’t quite know the boundaries of my own (future) vanity. As much as I’d like to be all, “That’s right, assholes! I’m going to age naturally!” I’ve sort of already acted to the contrary, what with all my anti-aging creams and hair dye and concealer and shit. And the only thing that would stop me in the future from having a little work done is money, probably. But I also haven’t felt that quiet desperation yet, of looking in a mirror and feeling suddenly old. But if I ever do get that feeling one day, I have some decisions to make. And for the life of me, I don’t know what they’ll be.

Are you adamantly against plastic surgery and fillers, or do you think all’s fair in the war of aging?

I should also mention that a year ago yesterday, darling Brodkey and I decided to end our relationship. I resisted it at the time, but it was for the best. However, in the year since we split, I’ve experienced the Dating Year from Hell, replete with Ryan (“I thought you’d be thinner”), Bobby Darin (utter fucktard from South Carolina who could kiss the socks off a tree), Princeton (who wanted to stick something – anything – in an orifice of mine), and let’s not forget Captain Cock, who routinely pulled it out whenever the wind blew. This was all, of course, prior to Paolo. And considering our current status, I’m not too sure you should write him off as a success or not.

I just typed out the whole reason I’m in a snit about Paolo, but realized that it was tedious, boring, and in the end, doesn’t really matter. Just suffice it to say, I am sick of getting the shit end of every stick (except the sex stick) that comes along with us. I am growing weary, and I am not going to long be content with the status quo. I love Paolo, and in a lot of ways, we’re really good together. But I deserve more than he can give me at the moment. I deserve someone who acknowledges my birthday past a text message. I deserve someone I can go hang out with on the weekends, whose family comes to know about me, whose friends I meet. Who can come home and meet my parents.

Right now, dating sites (like diet programs) are flooded with well-intentioned people who are finally ready to shed the chunk and/or find The One. Part of me thinks that now would be an opportune time to get on and find someone who’s actually really ready to be in a real adult relationship. But the fact that I actually love and would miss Paolo is stopping me.

Well, there’s a second thing. I would rather be poked repeatedly in the asshole with a deer antler than have to go back on a bunch of blind dates. Hopefully the lessons I learned in 2011 would serve me well in 2012 – and I wouldn’t meet up with someone who had one blurry picture on OkStupid, or who was obsessed with whipping out his cock 17 times a day (and who also had a limp due to arthritis). And perhaps this Texas chick can go ahead and write off the Yankee with the grating accent who feels that it’s perfectly acceptable to comment on my motherfucking body type on date #2.

Yeah, you can learn a lot in a year. Just a little ol’ year – what a difference it makes.

Still, part of me wants to just hide – curl up in a ball – and hope that God drops Mr. Wonderful on my apartment, all wicked-witch type, just BOOM out of nowhere. Because I am beginning to lose hope, fast. For the first time in my life, I truly can see a sad and lonely future for myself, replete with living in an apartment forever and cat wrangling. Where I actually *name* my vibrator. Where I have more NYEs like this one where I fall asleep after eating pasta or whatever.

On New Year’s Day, however, I did meet up with some friends. One of them is terminally single, like me, and has been through some real assholes. Her faith is much stronger than mine, and she noted that she’d finally found peace about being unmarried. (She prays a lot. And asked me to go to church with her. I said churches scared me.)

Not that I don’t have a relationship with the Big G – I do. But if there’s some peace He could bestow upon me about being FUCKING ALONE, it hasn’t happened yet. Because I feel super unpeaceful. I feel like I’m living the wrong life. And it all comes back to the cyclical “I’m alone because I’m fat. But I’d rather find someone who loves me at this weight so that way I know they love me for real. But my chances of finding someone like that are slim to none. So I need to lose weight. But what if I do and then I meet someone and it’s all great and shit, and then I gain the weight back and they cheat on me or leave me. So I should stay fat.” I’ve yet to talk myself out of that rat’s nest of a rationalization.

Then I get pissed thinking about how much I love Paolo, how much he makes me laugh, how well we get along, how much we have in common and the stuff that we don’t have in common turns out to be comic relief. And if he weren’t beholden to Baby Mama, had a great job with insurance, a reliable car and his own place, then things would be groovy. And I think, “Those are really superficial reasons to not be with someone.” But then I look at the reality of our sitch and it’s just not working for me as much as I’d like.

Perhaps this needs to be the year of GET REAL.  Or not. Shit, I don’t know what this needs to be the year of. What I don’t want is to wake up in 2013, be 36 years old, weigh anywhere close to what I do now, and be as alone as I feel now. But when I think about the enormous effort I will have to make in order to change, I want to hide under a blanket and die. I have no energy to do anything except get through my abysmal workday. I am not motivated. I don’t have enough faith. I want something for nothing.

We’re not just talking about a wake up call. We’re talking about reversing what has been a lifelong trend for me, a lifelong approach to things. I avoid, procrastinate, talk myself into or out of things, am constantly tired, and would rather zone out and wait for things to happen. Those are character flaws. Those things have become who I am. Like I’ve said, when I lost all that weight years ago, I was in a fucking zone, and for the life of me, I don’t know what the impetus for it was. For the first time in my life, I was determined – both to lose weight and write my book.

I just feel “blah” about pretty much everything right now: my life, my job, my lovelife, my future. (Blows party horn, confetti comes out.)

The truth is, Pinterest is awesome. And addicting. The problem with it is, you are literally overloaded with ideas. It’s like what would happen if your brain actually worked all the time. (Ditto with FoodGawker.com. I warn you: Don’t go there, unless you plan on being there for several hours, are prepared to plan your menu for the next 612 days, and won’t be happy until your ass is a size 32.)

(yeah, that’s a Jack and Coke slushie. you’re welcome.)

Which brings me to my quandary. I have a mad case of the wants, and Pinterest only exacerbates that. You find yourself having simultaneous NEEDS: you want to cook THAT chicken parmesan casserole in THIS gourmet kitchen wearing THOSE shoes while making THESE homemade toys for your kids (I don’t even have any fucking kids!) while your hair LOOKS just like that model’s in the picture, all while it snows outside and your doting husband is wandering around doing ingenuous home improvement projects all before he slips that PERFECT rose gold bracelet on your wrist to say thanks for just being your wonderful, sparkling self, and then offers an inspirational Bible quote.

(bullshit. but bullshit I want.)

Pinterest makes me realize what kind of person I will never be. It’s like a horrible extension of Facebook, where people routinely post the most dazzling facts and pictures of their lives. I mean, think about it: wouldn’t Facebook be a lot more palatable if people posted pictures of their post-baby cellulite and shot video of their fights with their husbands over his wandering eye? It would for me. It’d make the fucking thing a lot more human, at least for my schadenfreude-loving ass.

Pinterest just reminds me of what I am not, who I am not, and what I will never have because I lack money, a husband, kids and a great body. And good hair. And an organized, persistent spirit.

Sometimes I think I don’t have kids because I truly would be a horrible mother, and yes, Pinterest has brought this idea to my forefront. And now the reason I think I would be a horrible mother is because their nurseries wouldn’t be painted with some elaborate stencil, and I wouldn’t make my own laundry detergent, and I don’t have clever birthday party ideas, I’m not going to spend hours making Harry Potter cake balls, and I don’t make toys out of empty coffee cans. I’m creative, yes, but Christ on a cracker! I would have to wander off to the land of Bad Motherhood if Pinterest is any gauge of quality.

I’m also convinced that there are a lot of pro-ana girls on there, since there appears to be an abundance of pins featuring ridonkulously thin women in exercise clothing, Victoria Secret models with captions like, “Do you think a VS model would skip her workout today?” and then twenty some-odd comments from chimers-in below it that say, “No!!!! Glad u posted this. It’s gr8.” Whereas I have a category that features pictures of women I aspire to look/be like: Adele, Crystal Renn, Tina Fey, Christina Hendricks. Seriously, I would bust a nut if I could be a size 10/12 for all eternity. My ass is never going to look like Jillian Michaels. And that’s okay. (I guess.)

So I stay away from the Thinspiration Bitches, whose pencil-sized throats I’d love to strangle while force-feeding them one of the cupcakes I just posted a picture of. (I post a lot of really decadent recipes. Like, A LOT.) Part of me thinks I could learn from them, that I myself could use some inspiration and goal-setting, especially since I want to get FORTHEREALZ about losing weight in 2012. But there’s only so much rah-rah I can take. And it takes more than a picture for me. If I want to inspire myself to put down the fried mozzarella stick and eat an apple instead, I perhaps should take a picture of me in my current state, posed in my bra and undies, and tape that hot shit to my fridge. (Paolo, the weird fuck that he is, would probably see it and steal it.)

(This is why Lane Bryant shouldn’t make thongs.)

Anyway, my point is, Pinterest reminds me of how ideal other women’s lives are, and I’m very much in the throes of “the grass is greener” syndrome. You could argue that I just don’t appreciate a goddamned thing, and that wouldn’t be entirely off. I just feel like other people’s perfection is in my face all the time – Facebook, Pinterest, magazines, online sources – and I’m being constantly reminded of what I am not. And may never be. And what kinds of houses I will never live in, looks I will never pull off and a life I might not get to lead.

For some, as with the pro-ana stuff, it may be inspiring and motivating. It’s depressing for me. Why isn’t there a methed-out trailer park trick with 4 kids (she only knows the location of her youngest 3) posting snippets of her life on Pinterest? Here’s me with my belly shirt on! Made it myself! Or, How to con your pharmacist out of Sudafed: Top 10 tricks! Or, How not washing your hair for 10 days will let you make the chicest chignon!

Of course, I kid, but that chick is noticeably absent from Pinterest (and only just now making a splash on Facebook.) And such absences make me and my imperfect ass feel conspicuous.

I’ve got to shake this. (And giving up Pinterest and social media is not an option. DEAR GOD! WOMAN, ARE YOU CRAZED?) One thing I would like to start moving toward in 2012 is not giving a red hot shit about other people’s lives. I’ve got to stop coveting what other people have and live more by the mantra about being willing to let go of living the life we have planned so we can live the life that is waiting for us. There’s something nice about that sentiment, comforting. And also really lazy. But mainly, I like it.

I must stand firm in ridding myself of the notion that I’m a freak because I’m still childless and unmarried, and not living in a house with a picket fence and driving a Range Rover and sitting in front of a fire at night, as snow gently drifts to the ground, while gathering around a table and playing Scrabble and eating popcorn with my family while wearing designer jeans in a size 6 with my long, perfectly mussed hair in a low side pony. FUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKK. Even typing that made me wistful.

And I need to get out of that envious mode of thinking because a) it’s counterproductive as hell. I mean, really, it gets me nowhere. If it motivated me to bring those things into my life, or make changes, then that would be one thing. Instead, for me, it’s just destructive thinking. B) I know people who really have drawn the shit end of the stick in life. Who seriously have undergone some shit that would have destroyed my ass. And I’m almost positive that they’re not crawling out from said sorrow and pain by wringing their hands and acting like jealous hussies at every turn. (They also are probably not spending 3 hours a day on Pinterest perusing articles about how to make a magnetic bulletin board out of an old cookie sheet and spray paint.)

I think so, so much of life is about acceptance. When I look back on my mistakes and epic fails, many of them came about because I couldn’t accept certain things: that so-and-so didn’t love me; that, in fact, I wasn’t old enough to handle that situation; that I can’t drink an entire bottle of tequila and be “buzzed”; that I am never going to be a size 4 with blonde hair and blue eyes, though God knows I tried with hydrogen peroxide and aqua blue contacts in high school – and consequently ended up looking like a chubby Barbie zombie. (But I was pretty cute back then, to be fair, chubby or not.)

But I think there’s a fine line between acceptance and resigning yourself, and you have to know which is which. And that, my friends, might be one of those lifelong journeys, and one I will, of course, blog about here until you bitches start throwing shit at the screen because you’re so tired of hearing it.

Do any of you guys struggle with envy and coveting what others have, be it creativity, sex appeal, money, lifestyle or opportunity?

My hey-day is, basically, regular football season. Small window, my wonder months.

But back to Christmas. My teeny tiny family had a good one this year, albeit a short one. I got 3 days and 3 nights, which isn’t near what I’m used to. When I freelanced, I had languorous, Christmas vacays – filled with seeing friends, dining out, parties, last-minute shopping and sleeping in. No more. I raced to my parents’ home on Friday afternoon after fleeing Alcatraz (work) early. I was sick as a dog, and should have called in sick that day, but I didn’t (WHY WHY WHY). In fact, I spent most of my Christmas break sick, which was lovely. Nothing like going home to be with your family only to Rip Van Winkle the fuck out of it the whole time you’re there. With only 3 days to celebrate, you feel like you’re wasting time when you do that, regardless of whether or not you really needed it.

But still, it was good. The house was decorated beautifully, my childhood bed is still comfy, and Butters managed to stay in her Christmas dress I bought her and not get a turd stuck in her tail fur.

Still, at 35, I am acutely aware that my parents are…aging. As an only child, I have no one to discuss this with, and no one to rely on, so I’m still of the mindset that your parents should always know best, know everything and make brilliant points on every subject.

Back in the day my father and I used to discuss politics. I say discuss: he would offer me his thoughts and I would nod along, occasionally offering a verbal tidbit that was nothing more than a sycophantic dingleberry of what he’d just uttered. I rarely offered up thoughts of my own, mainly because I didn’t have any.

But over the past few years our political discussions, which routinely involve my mother, too, have been scaled back for a number of reasons. One, he gets entirely too worked up about it. Like, talking about the state of our nation changes his mood from quietly thoughtful to full-out hollering mad. (I can understand that.) Two, his views have gotten more simplistic, and with that, more extreme. He is not one for political discourse or theory. He couldn’t give a fuck less about either, nor does he give a shit about shades of gray. He is very intelligent – reads several newspapers daily, works several crossword puzzles daily, watches the news daily. But he’s never approached politics with a scholarly eye. Not even when it comes to business, and he’s been in the same business for over 50 years. With Dad, it either is or is not. He shoots down questioning or opposing viewpoints immediately. It’s become less a teaching discussion and more of an edict. Still fascinating, still relying heavily on common sense – and I still agree with a lot of what he says. But his presentation has eroded over the years, mainly because he is 70 years old and doesn’t give a flipping fuck what anyone thinks of him anymore. (I cannot wait to get to this point.)

For example, he no likey the Mitt Romney. (For my part, I could take or leave him.) While having a discussion with just my mother about why I didn’t *hate* Romney and musing aloud why Dad does, she cut me off: “Well, financially speaking there are a lot of reasons he doesn’t like Romney. Reasons you don’t understand and wouldn’t know anything about. He’s looking at it from a businessman’s point of view, and that’s over your head.”

She does that a lot. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” This from the woman who swore that I had the smarts to be a doctor. (I most certainly do NOT.) The “you’ll never be a business person so you wouldn’t understand the first foggy thing about money, financial politics or tax issues.” To be honest, I resent the implication. There’s a lot I don’t understand because yes, I’m a goddamned writer and not a CEO. And then there’s another part of me that zones out at the mere mention of some of that dry, boring-ass shit. But I’m no dummy, and I can usually do a pretty decent job of reading between the lines, or just teaching myself.

I don’t appreciate the knock-down, to be honest. But that’s her way. She routinely puts me in my place – which is never to be confused with adulthood. It’s always the place of the uninformed, inexperienced child.

To rub a little salt in the proverbial wound, I told her while we were playing cards that perhaps the next time she comes to The Big City, I should be the one doing the driving if we go somewhere.

“Uh, I don’t think so,” she said. “I have more experience than you do.”

“So does a 90 year old,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure insurance companies would feel much safer with me behind a wheel.”

She turned her head and raised her nose. “You’re still not driving my car,” she said.

Other things I learned while on Christmas break: apparently, I have a flat ass.

My mother, who is markedly swayback and has a rather rounded derrière, issued her proclamation after turning around and staring at my father. “Look at that,” she said to me. “He has no ass.”

“Most men don’t,” I said, not particularly wanting to look nor seeing a reason to.

“Your ass is about like his,” she said. “Flat.”

“My ass is huge,” I retorted.

“But it’s flat.”

“Great, so not only are you saying my ass is gargantuan, it’s made even worse by being flat.” I stood up and looked at my profile in the glass. “Look at that,” I said, running a hand over my clearly protruding rump. “NOT FLAT.”

She knows that to, after all these years, tell me that I have a flat ass is a glaring insult. A mutual friend of ours really truly does have no heft to her ass at all – like a pancake –  and Mother and I have long bemoaned it on her behalf. Having no ass at all is one of the worst features a body can have. I even once famously told a boy I liked in junior high that his ass looked like two golfballs rolling around in a sack. (He’s still never forgotten it, to this day. And yes, that’s how I operated back at the age of 12, commenting freely on young men’s posteriors.)

Not to act like my ass is some kind of sacrosanct thing. It’s not. I have a friend whose ass is legendary. I would *kill* to have her ass. It’s truly like a goddamned SHELF.

Mine…will do. Paolo, in fact, seems to like it very much and references it often. According to him, I have the Baby Bear of Asses: Not too big, not too small, just right. (What in the hell kind of asses has he been looking at to think that mine is within normal range?!)

It’s just…I wish no one in my family would make comments about any of my body parts. (My father never does. Never has. Okay, no, once he told me that I had small ankles. Which I do, comparatively speaking.) I feel like a Chinese buffet o’ body parts: look it all over, take what you like, nitpick what you don’t. There’s not much of myself that I’m comfortable with being up for public consumption. And that public consumption includes my mother.

Another thing I learned at Christmas: I do not prefer things from Chico’s.

I side-eyed my mother when she transitioned to wearing things from Chico’s several years ago. I had gotten used to her love affair with all things Talbots, and even dared to venture in the store myself, if only to pick up a cardigan or two. But I drew the line with Chico’s. Like, I would imagine Paula Deen wears a lot of Chico’s clothing. Nothing against Paula Deen: she’s beautiful, loves butter, and is Southern. But I ain’t a fan of her wardrobe at the ripe young age of 35. Or, fuck that, wouldn’t be at 65 either.

So when I opened a present containing an off-white jacket-y type sweater, and saw the Chico’s label, I laid it down quickly. “I don’t know about this,” I muttered, then offering the obligatory: “I’ll just have to try it on.” I was never one to hurt someone’s feelings about gifts received. I have, however, over the years, learned from Mother that it’s perfectly acceptable in our family to make confused faces, harrumph under our breath, or utter a flat “Ohhhh. Ok,” when looking at a freshly given present. In my head, I wondered what made her think that buying me anything from Chico’s – even something as innocuous as a sweater – would be a good idea. But rather than running around the room while tearing it to shreds, I simply assured her I would consider it. Even if it weren’t from Chico’s, I wouldn’t have kept it. The style was too boxy for my liking (and not a good fit on my super-curvy frame) and it was OFF WHITE. Are you serious? *I* am off white.

Some of my other cardigans I received (I literally probably own upwards of 75 fucking cardigans) were a size too big. “I usually like mine in a 14/16,” I told her.

“Well,” she shot back, “most of your sweaters are a little tight.”

“I don’t like oversized sweaters,” I shot back. “They look sloppy. Even if you’re big, sometimes it’s a good idea not to wear a tent for an outfit. A fitted cardigan can go a long way.”

She harrumphed.

What else….Dad and I learned that we love green beans, but not when they’re all fancied up with a lemon vinaigrette and panko bread crumbs. Lemon is one of my favorite flavors, but it decidedly does not belong on an emm-effing green bean. Mom was crushed. But her Dijon and Kettle Chip crusted beef tenderloin was awesome.

No desserts were fixed (put into effect by my earlier proclamation of being back on Weight Watchers and Mom’s predilection to not ever fix anything sweet if I am in the vicinity, so as not to tempt me and make that fat, flat ass of mine even larger) so I had to rummage for some frozen toffee, which I found and nommed around on.

Dad is never disappointed over receiving socks for Christmas. (Paolo received socks too.) This must be a man thing, because I would be offended. Unless they had cats on them.

Thing is, there is nowhere else I would rather be for Christmas. And I know, at their ages, Christmases as easy and fun as these are limited. Of course, they always have been, but when you’re 8, or 15, or even 20, you don’t think about that. But with age comes a creeping realization, and it won’t go away. So, lemon-soaked green beans, Chico’s sweater, flat asses and thundering politics aside, it was still a great time and I wouldn’t have wanted to spend it with two other people (or one other animal) in the whole world. I wish I could have 100 more just like it.

So I’m reading January’s issue of Glamour at lunch the other day (which features the Kardashian sisters on the front, therefore negating both the title and the intent of the magazine) and came across a snippet article. He Loves You; He Loves You Not: Six Ways to Tell Whether He Is Into You (Or Ever Will Be).

We have a tendency to believe what we see – and that counts things written on paper or published on the web. (This is especially true for my mother, who, every time she sees me, barrages me with clipped newspaper articles warning on everything from killer bathroom fungus to online dating scenarios gone wrong to recipes on fixing the perfect hamball.) It’s like we’ve finally just learned not to believe everything we hear, but that extension hasn’t drifted over into the “what we see and read” category.

So I’m reading the Glamour article, and naturally my thoughts turn to Paolo. Will I, I wonder, be able to tell if he really, truly loves me after reading these six things? Will this be life-altering?

1) Are you his plus-one?

According to this drivel, if he’s not taking me as a guest to dinner parties and weddings (what is he, a goddamned Vanderbilt?) then it’s a bad sign. And of course, the answer to this is NO. He does not take me around anywhere. I’d be happy if we just showed up to fucking Rite-Aid to shop for Kleenex and shampoo together. However, I doubt I’m getting an invitation to anything anytime soon, so.

2) Does he call (not just text)?

Yes. Yes, he does. He called last night actually. So, up yours, Glamour! (Or, rather, up yours, little 23 year old with a cushy position whose job it was to dig around in her brain and think of something to write. Bitch, please. I *am* a writer. I write marketing copy for a living. I know how you work.)

3) Does he listen when you talk?

Yes. In fact, he’s really good at it. He sort of amazes me with the stuff he remembers, which is probably only highlighted by my tendency to forget fucking EVERYTHING. Not only does he listen when I talk, he asks me very personal, thoughtful questions. As if he wants to really know more about me and my vajay.

4) Is he close (very close) with lots of women?

Considering that he lives with his BabyMama, I’d give that an emphatic HELL YES. But at least it’s not multiple women that he’s close with. That I know of. I had an ex who was VERY close with three women: his mother and two sisters. And Glamour makes a decent point because it doesn’t mention the relation of the women who have control over him: a vagina is a vagina. And women – family or not – know how to edge other women out if they’re perceived as threats. Period. Trust me – Mama knows. I have been hated by mothers nationwide since I was 15.

5) Is he introducing you to everyone he knows?

He introduced me to his friend Wes. Wes happened to be over at Paolo’s house when I came over one time. We all sat around and talked about politics and The Walking Dead. Wes ate some cookies that I brought over and said they were good.

6) Can you tell he’s thinking about you when you’re not around?

Since I don’t have motherfucking ESP, no, I can’t. Glamour uses the examples of, “If he brings up something he saw that he ‘knew you would love’ or he watches your shows even on nights you aren’t together, you’re on solid ground,” says some useless expert. And by “bringing up something he knew I would love” I would assume you mean his dick.  Because yes, he brings that up all the time.

So here’s the thing. Glamour, while it makes some semi-salient points, also is trying to pigeonhole love, its components and complexities, using a cute article that can be digested in 48 seconds. And as adult women, we should know that’s hard to do. Love is not always cookie-cutter, easy, wise, or sensible. (In fact, sometimes it’s best when it’s none of those things…)

I could let a thousand things dictate my feelings about Paolo’s feelings for me, but I’d like to factor in only what I think. I don’t think the guy’s madly in love with me, no; but I do think he loves me in his own way…because he’s told me so. And shown me, through his graciousness and kindness toward me.

There’s no way to really tell about love. People sometimes go into it with a blind ferocity (marriage, for example, thinking it’s forever and will never end) only to find themselves years later wondering where it went. There’s no way to know if love will increase or decrease in the future. So I just bask in the days of knowing someone cares about me now. Maybe it’s not perfect, Paolo’s love, and maybe the script doesn’t read exactly the way I would have written it. But it’s special. And it’s something I’ll always remember. And that has to count for something.

Truth is, I long to be one of those women who isn’t intimidated by the fact (or rumored lore) of other women’s beauty. But – surprise, surprise – I am.

Just the other day, Paolo was telling a story of a girl who would sit in next to him in a music class he took in college (which was as recently as the past year). Certain details of this girl were revealed: mainly, how good looking she was and namely, that she had a killer body. Even though Paolo went on to purport that she managed to annoy the living shit out of him daily, I barely heard that part. It didn’t much register. All I heard was how sick this girl’s body was – a detail not, apparently, lost on Paolo. I half expect stories like that to end with him breezily admitting to fucking her at least once, if not for an entire year. Because he’s, just, well, banged a lot of women.

Even when I briefly dated Bobby Darin (you remember him, of the Fuckwit Without a Cause fame last spring) I remember serving him dinner, and as we sat across from each other, thoughtfully chewing, he gave me a long rundown about the former love of his life. He made sure, as I was gumming my enchilada, to tell me that she was 5’2” and weighed 105 lbs. Twice. Twice that big dumb bastard mentioned that detail. Immediately I put down my fork and stopped chewing, since I had lost my appetite. I mean, is that classic “shit you should never say on a date, especially a date with a plus sized woman” or what? Fuck me running.

Because the thing is, no one’s ever going to sit across the table from a new date and extoll the details of my anatomy. Or, if they are, it’s not going to be anything I’d want to hear. I might get a, “She had big tits,” out of someone, but that would be the extent of it.

I’ve long been the jealous type, as I’ve detailed here many times. I mean, it’s almost epic. When I was 5 – and perfectly cute, perfectly normal-sized – I had a doll someone had given me. I hated it. Frequently disavowed her existence or simply hurled her across the room…all of which came before my final act of dismissal, which was to chop all of her hair off. My reason for disliking her? She was prettier than I was. Yeah. A doll. A fucking doll. And something I somehow perceived as a threat. I’m telling you, folks: this shit is deeeeeeeply engrained with me.

The reason details of other women stick in my craw so much is because I’m just usually the one described as having a pretty face, a verbal must-experience if you’re a fat chick. And the worst part is, it’s a compliment people give out liberally. Turns out, most assholes aren’t even selective about issuing it. I’ve witnessed many a fat chick complaining of the same thing and I’ll look at her and think, “I’m sorry…was the person who told you this blind?” Because very often, the fat chicks who hear such things aren’t even that attractive. But apparently when one does not know how to give a proper back-handed compliment to a fat chick, and have simply run out of nice things to say, the “You have such a pretty face” is the first thing to bubble up in one’s brain and must therefore be used. So it almost negates the compliments that actual somewhat-pretty fat chicks (moi) get.

I’ve long said: I’m not a dog. But visually stunning I am not. I am…okay. Even my wicked grandmother, after I was born, took one look at me and said to my mother, “Well. She’s certainly no raving beauty, is she?” (And I wonder where my mother’s tendency to say inappropriately mean shit to me comes from, even though at the time, when my grandmother said it, my mother ran off in tears and wouldn’t speak to her for months, and still talks about it 35 years later.)

I’ve never, not once, gotten by on my looks. No, fuck that shit: I had to be good at something. I had to carve out a niche. I had to learn to be funny. I had to be all fucking friendly to people and shit. In other words, I had to cultivate a life and personality. And I think most women feel that way. Because most women aren’t little Lolitas in training, or running around looking like supermodels or well-kept Texas trophy wives.

Still, I know many average/slightly above average looking women, and most of them don’t foam at the mouth with jealousy like I do when beautiful women are mentioned. I think there are lots of women who embrace the way they look – faults and all – and are relatively comfortable by my age. And most of them should be – most of them are married, some to very handsome fellows, and are still a good size 8 or below after popping out litters of children. But maybe they had their day – or their month, or year – when they were younger and were fan-damn-tastic looking. I never had that. I’ve never once, ever, felt genuinely attractive, even when I was. (And this was many moons ago…but I was too fucked up at the time to even realize what I was working with.)

(I totally did.)

What never helps is seeing really facially unattractive, boring, vapid, insipid women who have managed to wrangle a man. It only furthers my theory that you can be borderline horrible, but as long as you’re not above a size 12, you’re fine. You’ll find someone. But you can look like Catherine Zeta Fucking Jones in the face but if you have a cottage cheese ass and love handles, you can forget it.

I’ve told Paolo that I feel invisible to men. And it’s true – I pass men all the time in my building, and they look right through me. I am a non-issue. I do not create boners. My mother chided me for not going to a Christmas luncheon hosted by our building today. “You could meet someone!” she hissed.

“Or I could scoop up some saucy shit out of a chafing dish and blow my Weight Watcher points all to hell,” I said back. “I’m going to Panera for a cup of soup and a half sandwich. I know how many points are in that shit. Plus you know I hate crowds.” And the truth of the matter is, I am almost positive that I am not going to meet my future husband while my ass is holding a plate with one hand and ladling ranch dressing from an economy sized tub onto my salad.

 (Even as ranch-belongs-on-everything Texan, this grosses me out quite a bit.)

And there are times when it’s tempting to want to meet someone, especially when Paolo’s no-committing ass has been virtually ignoring me for the past two days. I just imagine him dick-deep in someone else, all the while I’m sending innocent little texts trying to start up conversations by asking him how his day has been. I told him when I saw him last week that I envisioned myself in about 6 years, married to some perfectly harmless, boring CPA type, only to miss the days of sleeping with and being with him, even though he can’t (won’t) make a commitment, is touch-and-go with attention, and doesn’t even write Happy Birthday on my Facebook wall. Which reminds me, my next post will revolve around a “He Loves You, He Loves You Not” article I read in Glamour today about how you can tell if he really does…or really doesn’t. Like those hos really know. But I’ll give you a sneak peak: it doesn’t bode well for me.

I need to get some HOPE up in this bitch.

I realize I have a long way to go, emotionally speaking. Part of me would like to give myself kudos for properly assessing my demons and shortcomings in the first place. Some people have their heads so far up their own asses they never can actually name their issue. (Sounds like a great game show, doesn’t it? Name That Issue! “Ken, you’ve got 30 seconds on the clock. This poor bastard probably is unable to date women long term, since he is secretly infatuated with his mother and wants to fuck her.”  Ken: “What is an Oedipal Complex?” Host: “That’s right for $500!”)

But I still feel like a slave to it. I still have visceral reactions to people describing beautiful women, or women they find sexy (unless they’re making the case for Kathy Bates), because I feel like there’s a unstated clause: “Britney Spears…back in the day, yo! She had that tight little body!” and what I hear is, “Britney Spears…back in the day, yo! She had that tight little body, unlike you and your fat ass. You could never look like that.”

What I’m endlessly curious about is from where these issues stem. Some of them cropped up so early that it’s hard to imagine they were drummed in by anyone….anyone except that disproportionate bitch Barbie. Let’s blame her, goddammit!

The weekend before my birthday was a swirl of activity and lack thereof. Last Friday, my parents drove up to the Big City, where they had reserved a hotel room and were going to take me to a nice dinner. The Big City is a two hour drive from where they live. So they arrived, only to discover that they had left their dress clothes at home. So they turned around, drove back 2 hours to their town, got the clothes and drove back to the Big City to take me to din-din. Now that’s love. We had a nice time and I was happy they cared enough to take me out…since my dinner plans with Paolo on Saturday fell through. It was a legitimate excuse – he just got a new job, and because it’s the holiday season, it’s going to be a lot of nights and weekends. And he can’t help that. I want him to have this job. It’s a good start for him, so I had to be understanding.

Still, in my own private musings, I was upset and disappointed not to see him. It was a gigantic reminder that he is, in fact, NOT my boyfriend. And he confirmed as much: “It’s why we’re not boyfriend-girlfriend,” he texted me after telling me he couldn’t be with me on Saturday, much to my consternation. “I made that choice on purpose to avoid having things like this happen…even though it happened anyway.”

The good news is that I had an opportunity to take a day off yesterday (I won’t say why, but it was legit), and Paolo came to see me for the afternoon!

It was heavenly. I don’t think I’ve ever been with someone who’s sweeter to me than he is. People can say what they will about him, but he truly is a kind, sweet-hearted person. And when I’m with him, I am closer to feeling the way I’ve always wanted to feel: like myself.

But, as you could probably guess, I am still in the midst of slightly tweaking over being 35, which is also known as being FUCKING OLD in my book. Paolo insists I have my whole life ahead of me – but all I can think about is the whole life I have behind me, and how little I’ve actually done with it.

What I’ve done is fail to get myself to a point where I can be genuinely happy. I am not happy with my job, my career path, my financial situation, my lack of a great husband, my lack of children, and my lack of a body that doesn’t make me want to hurl myself off a downtown skyscraper every time I catch a glimpse of myself naked.

My thinking has always been that if I could get my weight in order, the rest of it would fall in place. At the least, it might help me find a mate and start a family. But – and I’ve said this numerous times before – I resent the fuck out of the idea that I have to lose weight to land a husband. That doesn’t hurt – it pisses me off. Pissed or not, though, it might very well be a reality that I just have to accept.

Earlier this year I said that I would rather be happy than be right – and that I should stop defying all the people who have ever encouraged me to lose weight, and get healthy not to please them (or to stay fat to spite them) but for myself. And yet, I’ve let that idea lapse, managing to gain 10 lbs in the past few months instead. So now, I am at my heaviest weight in 10 years and I am NOT happy about it.  Quite simply, it’s not where I want to be.

To me, weight loss is about getting into a specific mental zone. For me, it has nothing to do with what you are or aren’t eating. Eating isn’t important to me – it would seem to be, even on the surface, even to me, but in truth, it’s not important at all. What’s important is what food has always been to me: a panacea, a comfort, a soft place to fall. And it’s that comfort I crave. I don’t know where else to derive it from.

 Um, Sex?

The truth is, I just have to do something. I can’t keep going at this pace. I don’t know what else to do except to go back on Weight Watchers, so I’ve already entered my points for today, and will, I guess, start over with gusto…even in the midst of the fucking holidays, which seems like a recipe (pardon the pun) for disaster. But I can make it work. The holidays so often turn into a time where it’s okay to gain 5 lbs and I just can’t do that. At least it means I don’t have to throw out everything in my fridge and start over. I just have to be accountable for what I shove in my hongray piehole.

Here’s my challenge, however. Here’s something I’ve never figured out: I don’t know how to unlink my weight from my worth. Sounds corny, I know, but it’s the truth. I’ve always judged my worthiness as a human being – my inherent goodness, how deserving of happiness I am – with what I look like or how much I weigh. And that’s what I have to work on, perhaps even more than anything else. And man will it be challenging. It requires a whole mind shift. It goes against everything I’ve practiced and been led to believe in my entire life.

It’s funny, but when I complain to my mother that I’ve been fat since I was 8, she’s always quick to jump in and say, “No, you certainly were not!” But here’s the thing: at the time, no one ever told me that. Not to blame my family, but my weight was always a fixture, whether I was 10 lbs overweight or 100. No one ever told me that my weight, my body, my shape, was okay as it was. In fact, fuck – I think the first person to really tell me that (and mean it) was Paolo.

Because yeah, I’ve seen pictures from when I was in middle school and I looked great. I looked like an 18 year old…but I was 12.

Unfortunately, I had the bad luck of having a lot of friends who didn’t get tits and start menstruating until they damn near got their driver’s licenses, so I was like Khloe Kardashian in a sea of Olsen twins.

I think all any of us want it is to be loved for the way we are, faults and all. And even better, to have what we perceive as faults be seen as positives by people we love. I mean, I honestly think that’s a basic human need. Even villians among us (Jerry Sandusky, Pol Pot, John Corzine, Jerry Falwell, take your fucking pick) probably just wanted to be accepted as they were. I think it’s an across-the-board thing.

So anyway. I’ll say this, to be positive: there are two things I like about getting older –  one, I’m getting saltier. Why, just this morning, I rode a guy’s ass because he was driving too slowly, and I as was finally able to pull around him (which I did in a gun-the-accelerator totally asshole kind of way) he honked at me and shook his fist. I got right in front of him, raised my hand and shot him the bird. (He was this middle aged CPA looking dude driving something like a Dodge Stratus…I wasn’t scared.) Then he decided to try and retaliate by riding my ass, so I promptly tapped my brakes at him. Ahhh, yes. Aggressive driving: something I was too much of a chickenshit to do in my 20s.

And two, I wore a new dress today, and noticed upon arriving to work that my sweater puppies are on practically full display (and sans sweater, no less). Rather than driving back to my apartment to get a scarf or one of those sold-on-TV Cami Secret thing-a-mah-roos (which, yes, my cleavage-averse mother has already purchased for me), I just let them breathe. Paolo told me yesterday that I need to walk around and act like I just own shit. I need to embrace my sexiness. So today at work, everyone gets a free show. Ta-da!

(actually me)

See, I can always find a silver lining. And now, I’m off to drink some water with lemon in it because hey, it’s 0 Weight Watcher points. (Hops big ass onto the wagon again….)