Friday, May 23, 2008

mission...

i kind of george bushed this one.
it all seems so accomplishable when i'm on my couch at home.
today i am spending some quality time with my lappy at my favorite local coffee shop, allegedly working on finals. i just got up to buy myself a brownie and ran into my personal trainer from the gym. you know, that gym i was supposedly going to go to every day.
ok interventionist god, i get it!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

endurance within endurance

tonight i'm promising myself that tomorrow i will start again. now, i admit that i say this every few months, yet here i am, fat and lonely, sitting on my couch watching e.r. rather than working, working out, or working on my social life. still, i retain an irrational feeling that it will be different this time. perhaps being accountable to the internet will change it for me.

it was my 29th birthday last week, and i looked in the mirror to much dismay. it feels so biggest loser to say, but my body does not reflect who i perceive myself to be. the image i want to project is far from the one i have to offer right now. drastic measures must be undertaken. seriously, it's bad. worse than ever. i'll provide photographic evidence as soon as i can figure out how to do that.

so internet, i promise you and i promise me that on my 30th birthday things will be different. i will probably need some help. i will probably have ups and downs. but it is way past time to get this under control.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

eight simple rules

thursday afternoon has become decompress and watch tv time. having caught up on my tivoed episodes of american idol and top chef, i came across the 8 simple rules episodes just after john ritter's death. they are beautifully done: sweet, funny, sad, a tribute to him without being overly cheesy. i don't even watch the show, but these two episodes made me cry good tears. it's a fascinating endeavor for television, which is so often soulless and reckless with the lives of its characters to be forced to humble itself and deal with the real lives of the people they have created.
fascinatingly, this is not the first real life tragedy katey segal has had to deal with on prime time television. when she got pregnant during the filming of married with children, they wrote her pregnancy into the script. she miscarried. i wonder if it might have been therapeutic for her to deal with her personal loss through what became her character's loss.

8 simple rules deals delicately and artfully with so much of what is difficult about mourning. so much more than i would expect for a sitcom. guests make awkward and somewhat inappropriate comments at the funeral and the mourners have to play gracious hosts; kate struggles with her relationship to god; everyone replays and regrets their last interaction with the deceased; through loss, the living reflect on the blessings they have in their lives.

i didn't expect to be so touched in such unexpected circumstances.