Floor Games

I can gain or lose three pounds within ten seconds. All I have to do is move the scale to a different spot on the bathroom floor. Then, of course, instead of taking the average of the various results, I elect to believe the lowest of whatever numbers come up. Because that must be the correct result.

I had the unprecedented experience recently of having the doctor’s office scale match the lowest of my floor-game results. Doctor’s office scales are evil, sentient beings that know exactly how many pounds to add to your morning result to knock the wind out of your sails and send you directly to the ice cream aisle. But this time, its battery was dying and it just didn’t have the energy to lie. So that locks in my theory that no matter how often I have to move that scale around, and wait ten seconds before I get back on it, the lowest number it comes up with will be the correct one. Because it just is, OK? Is what I choose to believe.

Which is ridiculous anyway, because even though I’ve been working my ass off with eight pound dumbbells and have gone from “are you f..ing kidding me?” to “yes, Amy, I can do that plank, row, twist and raise that (5 lb, in this case) dumbbell up toward the ceiling, and repeat six or eight time on each side,” I HAVE BEEN LOSING AND REGAINING THE SAME THREE POUNDS FOR TWELVE WEEKS.

At this stage the only reason to get on the scale at all is to make sure I’m not gaining weight (any more than that damn three pounds, which is the top end of the 24 I gained back stuffing my face with chocolate in a fit of depression over Easter). But hey, I got all jolly when I turned sixty and decided that I wasn’t going to worry about this anymore, right?

I take it back. I care. I have clothes I love that fit but don’t look as good as they used to. I have jeans I adore and I still think that for a woman my age my ass looks pretty fine (if you are an appreciator of the larger, rounder variety) in them, but they’re wearing out and predictably I can’t find my size in the same brand anywhere (what’s so hard about making jeans short enough for a five-foot-tall woman, I ask you?)

And I miss male companionship, which is apparently awarded only to the slender and the young. Or “the lucky and the strong” (from the song, “The Rose“), I guess.  I’m strong, but not lucky in the sense of “getting.” You know what I mean. Bah!

I’m on a roll with my writing, at least insofar as I have now actually submitted two pieces to lit mags and I’m saving new opportunities daily on Submittable. But that means planting my butt on a chair in front of my laptop for several hours at a time and it seems there is no amount of deprivation or water guzzling or sweating-with-dumbbells or primal-meat-gorging that can counteract the effect of the sedentary arts. ARGH!

My hair is growing out because I can’t afford a haircut. It’s all I can do to get one job application submitted a day while also trying to write something to submit on Submittable while also trying to give at least some attention to Angelic Daughter. I have three minutes left to write before the moment I promised her we’d go out to get her some tacos before I have to go to my three-hour chorus rehearsal.

I guess I can try tweaking the hours of my “window,” which is the eight hours out of twenty-four the intermittent fasting folks say you can eat. My brother has taken this to ridiculous extremes, fasting for 36 hours at a time, TWICE A WEEK. He is disappearing.

There will be treats at rehearsal. It is very likely I will consume some, unless I can find some primal meat to gorge on before I leave. Nothing like a meat-breather next to you in a tightly packed chorus of over 100 singers. Note to self: brush teeth and gargle before rehearsal. I think there’s some shrimp in the freezer I could boil. Doesn’t seem quite primal enough but it will have to do.

Tomorrow more Kondo-ing in the house to find crap forgotten treasures I can sell on eBay or Facebook or at Half Price Books. Workout, shower, write something and then sally forth to face down the evil doctor’s office scale again (the scale is evil, the doctor is really nice). Routine, cautionary look-see, no worries.

After that, plan Fall Excursion, subsidized by Kondo-ing sales, I hope. Until then, I remain,

Your running out of shrimp boiling time,

Ridiculouswoman