Spirit and Flesh

The saying goes, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I find this baffling, for over the course of a lifetime, I have personally found my flesh to be more than willing.

If you consider it, willing can connote determination, stubbornness and focus. Because you will something to happen, will it happen?

My spirit continues to will my flesh into becoming less and less flesh. By now the process has carried over years and years. It's become a kind of hazy mandate, an outdated law that still lingers on the books. By now its obscene prejudices have simply been absorbed into the rhythm of my daily life. The thought of putting on weight sends me into a preemptive panic. I eat a lot of leaves and apples.

Not that I feel completely deprived -- waiter, more wine please -- but it is kind of sad, because I always have felt that voluptuousness of flesh connotes a certain generosity of spirit.

Let's hug.

Red Meat, Red Wine, and French Fries

Gack!

One leg on wagon . . . .

Back on the Wagon

Under the auspice of recovering from violent illness, I let myself eat whatever I want.

I've had bread and cheese for three meals straight, with intermittent bananas and cookies.

It was a fear of fiber, really. Even the thought of edamame made me shudder.

But enough already. Back to normal, starting tomorrow!

Still Crazy Shit; Smaller Ass; Further Reflections

I deleted the last entry. It Just Wasn't Right. I shouldn't talk about people so negatively, even if they occasionally terrorize me.

Also I don't think I got to the heart of the situation: How even a seemingly-supportive comment can set off feelings of inadequacy, even paranoia. This week three (3) other people (female) also commented on alleged weight loss. I accepted and appreciated their compliments but also started to feel self-conscious. Considering I'm really trying to drop more weight, and always have felt some degree of ambivalence toward my stature, the comments set off some weird thought spirals. I actually entertained the thought that they might just be fucking with my head.

It appears as if I've regressed to seeing everything through the lens of day camp circa 1982.

But this is what always happens -- a wave of insecurity, and then an upsurge of energy.

Save the date: the record will be released January 25!

Sample Sale Redux!

Hi. Anyone still out there? I'm still here. Must have slipped into the matter-eating vortex . . .

I had a reconnaissance with the sample sale that caused much disgruntlement last year. It was much cooler out this time around, and that was a good omen. I found a dress that I had seen for $450 in Bendel's for 80% less. And it fit. And I got 2 other dresses and a jacket.

Plus, changing in a room with 23 other women gave me good kick in the pants re: the aesthetics of matching your panties to your bra.

Preparing for a beach vacation brings the inevitable trip to the groomer's.

I liked the menu choices:

Bikini (regular)
Bikini Brazilian
Bikini semi (landing strip)

The Source of the Problem Reveals Itself

It felt so great, eating steamed vegetables and tofu over brown rice for dinner. I was a little hungry afterward, though, and started looking around for one more thing to eat. I saw a bag of bialys I had been meaning to freeze. I put most of them in the freezer, and then ate one schmeared with scallion cream cheese. Mmm. As I was putting the cream cheese away I saw a tub of crispy green pickles I had bought from the pickle guys. I'm trying to snack on pickles instead of chocolate. I ate three pickles. Then I ate chocolate.

Easy Does It

If you'll permit me, I'm going to bitch a little, and then brag a little.

I hate doing these big workouts. I don't like having 18 pounds of dumbbell in each hand and having to lift, lift, lift and let it down slooow, and then lift lift lift once again. It is boring and makes me sweat through clothes. I seem to be in the shower all the time. I'm doing laundry all the time. I'm sore all the time. I'm frustrated all the time. I don't like being pushed, or criticized for taking too long of a rest. I don't like feeling as if I'm gonna upchuck when I do push-ups. I don't like being so tired all I can do is lie on the couch. I hate the fucking treadmill.

I like that my grey pencil skirt fits again. I like that I can do as many push-ups as a boy can. I like being on the couch with cats, Vogue, and blanky.

It's interesting that one pushes oneself to the point of being immobilized, and only then learns to sit still.

A Short Psychohistory of My Ass

I'll come up with a Milosz poem as soon as I can dig through my books at home. It seems so long ago that I used to read loads of poetry.

In fact, lately I worry that I have regressed and become stupid.

You know what I'm talkin bout. If you've been tuning in to these pages with regularity, surely you have noticed an unhealthy obsession with food, animals, and shoes. Where o where are the lists of books-2-read of my youth? Have they been supplanted by a fixation on the lists of flavors of Tasti D-lite?

Part of me thinks this is overcompensation for an overserious adolescence. Living in a world of ideas with which I had no real experience, I diatribed over the Duchess of Malfi and Dostoyevsky. But how long can you pull that off while wearing shit brown chipmunk shoes?

Such aggressive disregard for taste only got worse when I graduated and got a job. Neurotically insisting on wearing pantyhose even in the summer, at a job where my colleagues couldn't care less, I sweltered and went through cans and cans of Static Guard. Becoming immersed in Shakespeare and Bukowski at the same time triggered a psychic catastrophe that brought me an even worse curse on the overly intellectual: Psychotherapy.

Perhaps psychotherapy has been my true downfall. It's a mosh pit of the mind in which dreams, thoughts, urges, and actions come together as their own big, humming reality––a veritable playpen for egobrainiacs. Somewhere along the line, wrestling with the beasties, I stopped reading so much. I also started dressing a little sexier and graduated to pilgrim shoes.

But I wonder if, as a result of tapping into my unconscious urges, the frivolometer has gone in to the red. Perhaps there is a tradeoff to feeling more free, more honest, and more sharp and daring. Maybe you lose your mind a little. I can't stuff myself back into the shell of my old self, much like I can't stuff my ass into most of my dresses (but do anyway), and the result is a kind of teetering 3-martini embarrassment.

Maybe it isn't psychoanalysis to blame -- it's rock 'n roll.

And we're out of time.