Curiouser and curiouser.

Oh, the joys of health care... I managed to get a podiatry appointment for May 19. My foot will either be better or have fallen off by then. Jeff thinks it's likely plantar fasciitis, but I don't have the most telltale sign, which is worst pain first thing in the morning or after long rest. It gets worst the more I walk on it. I hope it's not a fracture. I figure as soon as I'm sure my referral has gone through, I can call and bug podiatry every day until I get an appointment.

Today was just one of those mostly ineffective work days. And no is going to be around tomorrow, so you better believe I will accomplish nothing.

I'm going out for Cuban food tonight... it's so exciting to be able to socially eat again, and to eat what I want.

... I had a Bob moment writing that. "What do you want to eat? In the snack machine!"

Cuban food is soooo goooood.

I really hate this not-walking thing, though. I mean, I love excuses to be lazy, but only to a degree.

After consultation with my officemate/social advisor, it's been decided that an AIM hiatus is in order. For oh so many good reasons.

Ya know, the next time some boy whines to me about how girls don't like him, I think I'll suggest that perhaps that's because he's a frustrating fucktard. Cuz that's nearly always the case.

This is the last week I have to do any clinic crap, thank god. It's such a giant flaming waste of time.

Gah, my foot still hurts! Jeff said he thinks it's probably an overuse injury from wearing my crappy sandals and walking around too much. But how lame! I'm limping around because of sandals? The worst part is here I've lost all this weight and now I'm having random bodily pains... that kind of crap is supposed to go away!

It's also cold in this room and nice outside. :-(

I don't plan to do it often, but a nice cheeseburger is fab. And eating it outside is even better. I did get rye bread, and I only used 3/4 of it. :-)

I love the Wednesday clinic, because the surgeon never has anything but shoulders, and the one person he had in many weeks that was a possibility was perfect for our purposes. So he's like 1 for 1. The rest of these docs deal with too many other kinds of knee issues.

Roy wrapped my foot up for me; he's the nicest!

I have realized that despite my griping here, my life is really entertaining and generally enjoyable right now.

Whenever I see anything about conjoined twins, I think about my usually politically-correct sister prefacing an episode of Dateline NBC with, "Oh, this one is about the freak show!"

Damn you, insomnia. If I had known getting to sleep would be this difficult, I would have not been a lameass! Fucken fuck.

But... at least things have resumed interesting.

Arg, I don't get insomnia too often, but when I do, it's brutal. After finally getting to sleep around, what, 3:30 or 4, I woke up right at 7, even though I set my alarm for 8. I managed to groan in pain in bed until 7:30 without ever really falling back asleep, and then I slugged my way to work. I need some feckin knock-out pills or something for nights like that.

Urgh, and now I need some serious uppers to make it through the day. Too bad my stomach hates me. Not that I blame it, sleep-depriving it and all for no good reason.

Oh my god, could this day be any more torturously too slow! Then again... it could be five minutes and that'd be five minutes too long to wait.

All the wasted time and energy and anticipation. Fucken shit.

They were nice plans, the plans I had for the evening. I think the nicest part of the plans was having some company and just feeling comfortable and happy and not lonely. I don't feel lonely nearly as often as I used to, but sometimes when things don't work quite right it stings through. So I sit on the porch by myself.

I feel really bleh today. What the hell? Not like I didn't sleep enough last night... I went to bed early and got up late!

Balancing the old cash account was fun... esp since I didn't do it the week before the hosp, and it was unclear what I spent where during my Friday night drunkenness. But I think I figured it out. Good old memory, it hardly ever fails me completely, even when hammered.

Fucken almost May already!

If only y'all could view the room from my eyes, you'd be so amused.

Bleh. Everyone left for dinner or for the Notes concert. I can't eat dinner in the dining hall, and I wasn't going to go to the concert for oh so many reasons. But now I'm lonely and I don't want to go home and I should eat something but I'm too lazy to figure out anything. I should go outside because it's nice, but I don't want to get locked out of here. But that's dumb because people will return, and I should just go until TV is on.

Also, I hate being ignored.

I'm not that hungover from last night, but my intestines are complaining a bit. It also doesn't help that I have no food in the house.

So... that was completely unexpected!

Uh, time for furious personal journaling. Sorry, nothing to see here.

Matt, on my life: "The ratings must be really bad if they're throwing that stuff in there." Heh, yeah, suspension of disbelief can only take you so far.

Things on the other front have been disappointingly tame lately. That kinda bums me out, but who knows, maybe it's just a phase.

I'm free, kids. Fucking a, I never believed this day would come.

So far I have not gone wild and crazy with eating. I had a little chocolate dessert thingy in the freezer from some meeting we had a couple weeks ago (two actually, but I only ate one), and while in the past I would have slugged down the whole thing, without any qualms I ate the chocolate out of the middle and tossed the little pie shell it was set in. And then I had a big ol cup of coffee, and that's been it since breakfast (they served me Monday's breakfast, reading my mind, oddly). Before the study, I would have been grazing all morning, but now I just have the ability to ignore food for hours at a time. I have a plum and a Toblerone bar sitting right in front of me that Heather gave me, and in the past they'd be gone or partially gone already, but I just let them sit there now. The willpower of the study has now become my own.

Matthew saves my ass once again... I left work with my laptop bag, figuring I had no real need for the other bag over the weekend. I get all the way home before I realize my keys are in the pocket of my jeans which are in the other bag. Car-boy fought rush-hour traffic to get me to work and back with the bag just in time for me to get ready for the Lowell House dinner.

One problem with our current society is that there's so much hypocrisy that you can't have nuance, because it looks too much like hypocrisy. This is especially true with respect to the law and discussions of law.

I feel so incredibly good right now. Two months ago when they finished with the blood draw, I felt like ass the rest of the afternoon. Now, I'm done with the hardest part of this hospital stay, I'm even a little dehydrated (I guess I just absorbed the saline drip all up), but I feel energetic and excited. It's too bad I have to stay here! But I have 18 hours until total freedom, and it's awesome.

I anticipate kind of a letdown, though. This study has ruled my life for three months, and now I have to fend for myself. It's weird, Heather asked me what I've been craving, as we tried to make lunch plans for tomorrow... and I couldn't think of anything. Everything I thought of to eat around here just seemed so large and carby and awful for me that I felt actively repelled. It's amazing! I replied the truth, which is that I've really only missed chocolate and getting drunk. It will also be nice to have flexibility with eating, but as far as specific foods... yeah, not a lot I miss, and a lot of things I used to love eating that kind of scare me now.

The problem with not paying any attention to your inpatients such that you leave no one at the nurses desk is that they "go for their walk" but really go to ABP and buy coffee and then return with like 7 minutes left on their walk, run into their room with the coffee, and never walk any more because the fucking 9th floor sucks to walk on. I'll dance around my room instead.

It was like the excitement of the week sneaking around down in the lobby. I thought about doing it this afternoon, but I'm glad I didn't because I would have pooped my pants.

Speaking of poop, they're also not getting anymore of that. I gave them like 6 samples. I'm pooped about poop.

I shouldn't be drinking coffee at 8:30 pm, but fuckit, I'm having withdrawal. And the excitement!

I started to watch the Michael Jackson special, and that's what propelled me to my walk. Now I know MJ's home movies are just as boring as everyone else's. Of course, I put it back on when I returned, but I don't think it'll stick.

I should put a tally each week of how many pages I wrote in my personal journal, so y'all know how much I'm not talking about here. ;-) But I guess the only purpose that would serve is to drive you all mad trying to figure out the salacious details of my life that I am not disclosing.

It would also be distorted by things like hospital stays. This particular one has given me hours to ruminate and analyze. Now I understand why my journal writing was so much more useful and in-depth in high school... I did it all the time, and I had a lot of free time! College gave me other priorities, and post-college has either been traumatic or boring instead of fun and intriguing. But I'm back to the fun and intriguing for now.

I was thinking about the Band banquet last night (instead of falling asleep... as if I didn't have enough time to daydream during the friggin day), and I intend to make this one very fun. The last couple were sort of unfun in different ways. Okay, last year was nothing compared to the year before, and at least I had the good cabbie story, but still. The only one I've really enjoyed all the way through was my sophomore year, an eventful evening in its own way. So, I hope this one is uneventful and just fun.

I'm already planning for the weekend... Friday I'm ditching work early after my cameo and heading home, making myself pretty, and heading over to da hizzouz de Lowell for awesome dinner. That should be over bout 10... okay, I guess I don't really have any plans after that. But I have one plan!

Pro brings up the very awful fact of the high number of people killed by medical error each year. But he fails to bring up the number of people that would be killed if there were no medical care each year, so I'm having a hard time deciding whether medical care is actually bad for you, as he seems to imply.

I'm woefully incapable of doing anything productive today... I just want to sleep or daydream. And I'm not even halfway through yet!

The last happy times before the shit really starts to hit the fan, as it were. Oh, but people say I spin things negatively.

At least my life is going well right now. :-) It could be interesting, but it will never be as bad as all that. Goodbye sucky horrible past life!

I think I've decided to have the parts of college I never had. Sure, I enjoyed many parts of college, but I also got too muddled to enjoy other parts. Even if it turns dramatic, it will be a simple, benevolent drama in comparison.

So far the hospital has been pretty good. I got to sleep in today because it turns out they aren't doing any tests until Wednesday. Oh, except for the part with my poop, of course, and the walking around in circles three times a day. But other than that, peace and relaxation. I haven't been motivated to try to do any work yet. :-)

I *have* been motivated to daydream a whole lot. Damn you.

I've never watched the marathon before, but I found it on TV. It's actually good background TV. It's just so amazing how goddamn far a marathon is! I'm also jealous because it's supposed to be really nice outside.

I just watched someone run 26.2 miles... man, I'm tired. Hoo!

It doesn't help to be told you're wonderful unless it's the right person saying it. And it's utterly frustrating at times to be the not-right person.

This is why I'm not allowed to have a TV... what am I going to be watching tonight? American Idol, but not the competition, some show randomly inserted to get more ratings, and Mr. Personality. Oh geez. Maybe I should at least find a substitute for the American Idol thing.

Oh, they sang on American Idol, so it was worth it. Now I'm watching Mr. P... okay, number 17, the motivational speaker, is CREEPY. He's like a psych major gone really, really wrong. But I suspect that the girl is a really big conceited bitch... I think they're portraying her in as good a light as they can, but I bet in later eps we see some major self-absorption come through.

...sigh. I have to remind myself not to fuss over things I can't control.

Dearest water cup, please never fall into the laptop ever again.

I'm amazed and happy to see the laptop restored to quirky but full functionality after a couple hours of drying, a few bouts with a hair dryer, a threat to be usurped by the other computer as I set it up, more drying, and finally, startup. It looks like it now knows it has all its memory, and when I type one letter, only one letter comes out. Yay! This means I can take it to the hospital.

I did take the accident as a sign to act upon, however. And I think it was a good idea.

But... sigh. It's a uniquely addictive thing, especially in the short term. After months without, it's sort of like, eh, whatever. But right away... man, I'm going to have some wicked insomnia.

And, of course, insecurities abound. But... I have some faith.

Cuteness is also good, and altogether too new for me.

Funny, I have a story from around that same time. A story you've probably never heard. A story I may never be able to exorcise that almost nobody knows. But you can be sure that when I'm crying about something else, I'm really crying about that, and about all that meant and represented. I hope you never have a story like mine to tell someday, and I hope my stories sound more like yours someday when I find someone good who actually likes me. But, I don't have the greatest hope for either of these counts.

Up much too early... see, insomnia.

The laptop is still burping from its crazy night of binge drinking. Just now it spontaneously went to standby, and when it came back, nothing would respond. Before I typed "i" and got "5". I can't tell whether I'm making typos, or if the computer is just dropping stuff.

Well, that was fun. The keyboard decided to go on the fritz for a while, but the mouse worked, so I IMed with Jerry by copying and pasting, and then the keyboard started working, but it went on standby soon after I started using it. Upon restart, it gave me the classic, "Windows standby is broken... do you want to stop using it?" I was never so happy to say yes. Then my mom IMed me, and the computer started doing this weird thing where it sounded like it would power down, but I could still send and receive IMs, and then it would sound like it powered back up again. And the keyboard and mouse would alternately work and not work, and sometimes the monitor would flick off and come back. Finally I killed it, took it apart again, unscrewed many screws in an attempt to further take it apart (These laptops are uncrackable, I tell ya), gave up on that, and reassembled it, and now it seems to be fine. Maybe it just got overheated. I wish it would either keep working or die so I could have a clear course of action.

Man, this hospital stay is going to be brutally long. But then it will all be over.

See, now I can't think of anything else. I knew this would happen!

How did I know this would happen? Today my roommate tells me she thinks she's found a place for her and D, so they'll most likely be moving. Which means I'm back to Square One.

But I'm not making any moves until they have the new lease signed. Because I know as soon as I do, things will fall through and they'll want to stay again.

I fucking hate boys.

No, really, I mean it, boys suck. I'm sick of getting jerked around and treated like crap by every stupid boy I spend any amount of time interacting with. They always want to call the shots like I'm just here for their purposes when they feel like dealing with me, and I'm fucking sick of that shit. I wish I could find one that's fucking grown up already, but I'm not sure the selection of those is anything but negligible.

Other people will just end up making you feel worthless. My cynicism and misanthropy are only proven more rational by the day.

Beh. I'm projecting issues onto other people that aren't their issues... god, will I ever be able to interact with anyone again without thinking they're just evil?

Though, I dunno, it's still hard not to come away with the message that people find me a good idea in theory, but when faced with the reality of me, would rather run very far in the opposite direction.

People with siblings are likely to understand the phenomenon of the switch that happens when "X's younger sister, Y" becomes "Y's older sister, X", and suddenly X is old and remote enough to become Y's appendage. This has happened to me in the world of Band weblogs. Used to be I would put props to a young, new web-author on my page, and the hordes of people reading my page would check out the youth's page. Now there are no hordes reading my page, except when the youths link to me and make me cool enough to check out. I'm so old!

Today was my final DEXA scan (body x-ray thingy), and I got to see it side-by-side with the original image. I shrank! In most of the ways I could tell from just looking at me: my upper body composition has completely changed, my waist went back to a more shapely shape, and I still have quite the butt hanging around, but it's clearly reduced. Very satisfactory, overall.

A comment in Jamie's comments made me laugh about the phenomenon of girls' night. Every time a girls' night is called for, boys for miles around lament their inability to participate. What are the boys supposed to do? they ask. It's possible that some ape-monkey part of their subconscious is upset because ze wimmin are running off on their own to conspire against them to overthrow the patriarchy and destroy all of society, and they want to supervise. But to give their consciouses more credit, I think it's just brought to their attention how much they need women to have a social life, and the idea that all the women will be elsewhere brings up the intolerable idea of, what would the social world be like WITH ONLY MEN?! Oh my god! Sure, they can sit around and play poker and drink beer and watch football and porn for hours together under normal circumstances. But when it becomes the only option, it sounds like a night in hell. So, I dunno, it's an odd dynamic of wanting to have control over what you depend on, so it doesn't run away from you.

I'm getting extremely excited about the pending end of this diet business.

I'm a little concerned that the dress I planned to wear to the Band banquest in a couple of weeks will not fit by then. As in, though I could not zip it for several years and could not breathe in it when I bought it, now I think I need a little stuffing so it will stay up and look right. And here I have a perfectly nice nearly-new strapless bra that is *useless* now, and so I need to go shopping again! All this weight loss is great, but damn, I have a lot of borderline-useless clothing now.

No matter what, I need a strapless dress because my shoulders are pretty fucking badass these days.

I also need neck adornment. Where's my sugar daddy?

Hmmm. Hmmmmmmmm.

Another useless clinic day so far...

I think I need to figure out how to let go. He's right: I want to, but will I?

So, in addition to not really caring adequately that me spending time down here in clinic is a giant fucking waste of time, my boss-type people have also added all sorts of questions to the freaking survey. Without even considering that 1) I have to add this crap to the Access database for data entry; 2) I have to redo the photocopies; and 3) I'm the one that has to administer a fucking long survey to people. I'm pissed. There was a reason we had a meetnig to discuss the fucking questionnaire *before* we started the stupid study. Jeff made some noise about things changing during the pilot phase... but, they're supposed to change because you're learning new things along the way. These changes occurred because they just didn't think through what they wanted to ask in the first place! Total crap.

If I am really going to go into nutrition, maybe I should start looking for a job in the area...

My roommate asked me today if I thought I would be staying. I told her I had kinda gone back and forth on it, but I don't really want to move, and her and Daniel are nice people that I already know, so, yeah, probably I'll be staying. As I was telling Matt today, I will really be hard-pressed to find a room with as many wonderful features as my bedroom at a price that doesn't totally make me balk. Worst-case scenario here is that I feel confined to my room a bit, and I'll be confined to one room anyway with a studio, so it would have to be a better room than this room. But anyway, I figure, if they want to live with a third person, they have to not care if I'm wherever I want to be in the house. And I think my roommate realizes that, and she realizes they can't monopolize the apartment. So, I may look around, but then again, I may not.

Okay, I'm feeling less pissy about seeing the place today. And I think I'll even be leaving early enough to miss stadium traffic, thank goodness for afternoon starts. I would like to get there early enough to walk around the neighborhood a bit and get a feel for things, but I'll have that stupid food bag with me, which lugs me down a little. Oh, plus the rain.

Uh, anyway, who has PMS? {raises hand}

Man, a 70-minute bus ride to Central from work today, thanks to the home opener getting rained out and rush hour and the rain itself causing massive backup out of the Fenway area. If it hadn't been raining and windy and awful, and if I hadn't had my big food bag, I would have walked.

So, I saw the place. It was all right. So small though. And there are more rooms in the place than I thought; there are just four available, not four total. The floor bathroom thing is okay because they're very clean and all. But... I felt like it was like living in Pfoho or something. The room is small and dormlike and has a twin bed (which, admittedly, very nicely has drawers built in underneath, bu still), and the kitchenette is pretty good, and the closet was decent sized and tehre's a storage space in the hall. But... I was thinking about it while waiting for the bus home, and I foujnd myself thinking about how maybe staying wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Which surprised me for a second, and then I realized the essential question was, would I rather be paying $175 more to live there or would I rather stay where I am, and I think I choose the latter.

So, the question is, are there places that exist such that the balance is tipped the other way? It's a tough task. Right now I have not-bad rent, a huge room with tons of storage space (where would I put all my crap in a small room... it'd be insane), a nice big bed, and a wonderful porch. Furthermore... I don't have to stare at the same four walls all the time. I can wander into the rest of the house, even if I don't a lot. And, the fact is that I don't use the rest of the house so very much, so would it really be so horrible if L&D were both here together? Maybe I'm overestimating the burden entirely. Yeah, it's still a weird situation, but maybe I just need to be more assertive anyway about taking up my own space. I just think of how much I would be giving up by leaving, and how much more difficult it would be to leave, and I just become very unsure. I guess I can always look around more, see what's out there, since I have the option to stay right now.

Uh, I'm falling asleep. I'm never going to make it to this party thing.

Reading the newspaper in the living room was too relaxing. Esp with chamomile tea involved.

I think I should have a dinner party here when I'm done with the study.

After waiting all day to go see the place, I leave work at 4:30. The bus comes around 4:55 (yes, this is a bus that runs every 20 minutes), I get there at 5:15, she's gone already. I get my sister to get her phone number off the internet, I call her, and she's like, whatever. She even showed a room to some other guy at 5 and still managed to leave in 15 minutes. She suggests 10 am tomorrow; I suggest that I have to work. So we arrange for 5 pm tomorrow, but frankly, I wonder if I should even bother. FUCK YOU MBTA, FUCK YOU APATHETIC LADY, FUCK YOU FUCKING ROOMMATE WHO HAS MADE ME HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS.

I really don't want to move. But I really don't want to stay here under the foreseen circumstances.

Holly came down to the clinic yesterday afternoon, witnessed its great suckiness, and now is on my side in convincing Jeff this method of recruitment is horrendous.

Today I went down there for a couple hours and didn't see any patients again, but I did search for housing. I think I've fallen in love with the idea of living alone. I figured out I can get into HPRE's website with my old ID number (the only Harvard institution that loves its graduates after they leave) and from the Brigham, since it's Harvard. I found a couple of very promising places, and I'm going to see one tomorrow that actually will be perfect if it's not tiny or vermin-infested or next to a sewage treatment plant. It's a few blocks south of Central, which I had forgotten to include in my thinking as convenient to both work and Harvard... the 47 bus goes directly from Central to work and takes very little time. It's also only 2.5 miles from work, so on a nice day, it'd be a solid walk. From there, it's also a quick shot to Trader Joe's, Harvest, Bread and Circus (2, actually), and Star Market. There are lots of bars and restaurants, and, best of all, the T in Central. And I'll see tomorrow, but I feel like the neighborhood is fairly safe (people who know Central Square from long ago have jaws dropped now, I'm sure.)

The place itself sounds pretty great. The woman I emailed with sent me a set of photos of the outside of the building, and it's a cute yellow house. There are four studios in the house (unfortunately the cheapest one already taken, but the next one up is what I've been aiming for anyway). There are 2.5 bathrooms that we share, which I might not like, except they're professionally cleaned three times a week, which is just insane. Each room is fully furnished (meaning I can maybe sell all my furniture to whoever would move in this room, and not have to move it!), including dishware and linens, it has a kitchenette with standard kitcheny things. Heat, hot water and electricity included (thereby solving the utilities problem pretty much completely), and the room comes with a TV! This amazes me. I'd have to pay for cable if I wanted it, of course, but wow, free TV. It's like a hotel. There's also laundry in the building. So, if the room is a decent size, I may have my housing settled by tomorrow afternoon, because a studio in Cambridge with all that for this price is a steal. So we'll see how it goes.

Turns out the reason it sounds like a hotel is because it used to be a bed and breakfast, or so the internet implies. This would make sense given the setup described. This also probably means that the rooms are a decent size (but probably not enormous like my current room... but I can't expect that), and that the bed is probably a double bed, which is fab. I wish I could see it now, because the suspense is too much.

Another heinously boring clinic morning... I need to turn on the convincing that this method of recruitment sucks a lot.

And I'm starving. But if I go to lunch, suddenly there will be a million patients for me.

Sweet, benevolent Splenda packets have been procured and brought to work. Coffee goodness for all!

So, in my quest to finish this fucking diet on time, I have been eating all my food before 7pm. So this means eating my snack in the afternoon. Of course, I went to the gym tonight, and now I am STARVING. I am chewing gum in an attempt to feign eating. I would like to get some tea, except there's a never-ending UMB philosophy dept faculty meeting in my living room, and when I returned from the gym, they all stared at me (as I told Jer, I said to them, "Kiss this booty, mofos!" except I didn't really). I will not be stared at while attempting to procure leafy beverage.

Running through the numbers, I've decided that if I don't get graduating people to live with me, I can afford an Allston studio. It's not my ideal to dump so much into rent, but I did just get a raise, I'll get another raise in June, and I've been saving plenty of money. And it's worth not having to find more roommates that I don't know at all. And, actually, if I chose a good location, getting to both work and Harvard would be easier than from my current location.

A major silver lining to the possibly-not-ending-diet thing that I shouldn't forget is another month of no groceries and no dining costs. Which, if I really will be moving and dealing with first/last/security, would be a good thing.

Went to the gym! Woo! Weighed in on target. It's been like 3 weeks since I've gone, and I've lost like 6 pounds since then, so it was really strange getting on the scale. There are mirrors everywhere too... and everything looks different! Amazing. So, maybe there is hope for getting this thing done, so long as I kick my ass around these next couple of weeks.

And it's nice today!

Today for lunch I made what looked like taco salad. But it didn't taste like it at all. It was actually a ton of dry-ass tuna with celery, a ton of dry-ass pumpernickel bread all crumbled up, an eensy bit of tomato, plenty of lettuce, and a shot of cottage cheese for lube. I need more of that for lube, given that there must be two cans of tuna in there. Some of the meals I could eat forever, and some of them make me look at the calendar to count how many more times I have to eat them if I finish this month. Same with Saturday's lunch: icky roast beef. I'm not a huge roast beef fan to begin with, but there must be some out there that tastes better than what they give us. Fortunately, Sunday dinner rocks the house.

Though I love Daylight Savings, it really throws me off at first. It was also sort of embarrassing to write on my pre-lunch sheet that it was 3:30pm, and that I'd eaten breakfast at noon. Those numbers would look so much better as 2:30pm and 11am.

I did forget, though, that the expensive part of living alone is paying all the utilities. It's not a dealbreaker, but still, gotta think about that.

Conversation tonight has revealed to me that there are many things that are Not Fixed, and I've been ignoring them because they're not crucial to most of my life. But, on some ways, they're the essence of years of bad treatment, and they've made me cynical and scared and insecure and afraid to move forward.

Now I'm thinking about cognitive dissonance... people try to resolve inconsistencies in their behavior by reassigning the motivation of one of the behaviors. Such as, how could I have spend so many years putting up with that person's shit, unless I really loved them and cared about them and found many reasons why they were worth keeping around? Because that's easier than trying to figure out, no really, how in god's name did you ever let that go on for so long, and why is this person still in your life now?

Sweet sleep...

It's awful outside again today. I need to get in a lot of exercise, since input can't be altered. Gotta increase output. It's hard to move when it's even cold in my room. That's negative motivation to go outside where it's colder! I'd like to go out and do things, but it's gross outside. I'd even go to the gym if I didn't have to walk there through the miserable wet evil. Or miserable icy evil, I'm guessing. And the weather forecast remains dreary for over a week.

Bah, I've officially hit Extremely Discouraged and Down. There's no way I can do this in two weeks, not when I can't even do anything in my house because I'm so chilly and awful-feeling.

Feeling better after some exermacise. I would still like to run around, but at least I'm not so bummed. Still cold now that I've stopped to eat lunch! My hands are freezing!

When I look at a graph of what I have to do to get into the hospital in two weeks, it looks completely do-able. But when I think that I have to lose 4-5 pounds in 2 weeks *for sure* to get into the hospital, that sounds much more discouraging. And possibly not that healthy, but maybe I'm just paranoid. At any rate, if I don't do it, that means I have to wait until May more-than-likely, which would mean after Am's graduation, which means not getting to eat with my family at all that week. How much would that suck?

The weather looks like it will only be windy cold hell instead of rainy-windy cold hell tomorrow.

On top of these annoyances, I talked to my roommate tonight, and she was asking about my plans for housing. The other roommate is likely to be leaving, as she's looking for jobs in New York (though she just started, so nothing is set). But this roommate I thought would be moving out too with her husband. But they can't afford to buy anything yet, so if they moved out, they'd be renting anyway and would have to move again in a year. So they're thinking about having the husband take the outgoing roommate's place, and if I liked, I could stay. Well, that's lovely, and they're nice folks and all, but... I really don't enjoy that idea at all. I have no interest in living with a married couple, seriously. So, my big plans of possibly having some friends move here are maybe turning into plans of me and some friends apartment hunting. That's okay, I guess. We can probably find something cheaper and with a better location. But, bleh, moving. And I like this place, and I love my room.

Other suckitude is that this lease runs out in July, but if I move in with recent grads, we're probably going to have to find a place starting in June for their sake. That means double rent for me for a month, or very short-term subletting. I guess, though, that while it is not cost-efficient to pay a month in two places, it would mean I could take my sweet time in moving out. Or, it's even possible that a new roommate would want to move in first of June and could take over my rent for that month. So, maybe that's not such a problem.

I poked around at studios a bit, since living by myself would also be great, but it's expensive. The cheapest one I found was $700 in Dorchester, and I have no idea how safe that neighborhood is. After that there are a bunch of $800 and $850 places in student areas, but who knows how big they are. That's still pretty expensive. Ideally I would have two roommates, because 3-bedrooms seem to be the best value.

I stayed up way too late last night. I hung around the BR too long because I didn't want to go out in the rain, and then I stayed up too long once I got home. All I want to do is sleep! I don't have enough compelling work to do at the moment.

Uh, I'm moving to Florida. This weather is just heinous. "Wintry mix" all day, the ground covered with a thin layer of ice, cold cold cold. I wouldn't mind leaving my house if it weren't for the winter of death outside.

I always thought that the Kiefer model of ending conversation was great... caught up in the crazy day, you just end things without any formalities. Now I have met someone who ends online conversation in as abrupt a fashion, and now I know why people don't do it in real life!

How much is the weather here killing me if my Friday night has included searching for a way to go to Florida tomorrow and return by Monday lunch.

This would be a great weekend to hole up at Foxwoods, if I had a partner in crime with a car.

Today ws a big ol' drop, thank goodness. But I'm holding my breath until tomorrow's weigh-in, because Friday is always up for some reason.

Bah. Weight stagnating... and if it doesn't kick into gear, I'll be on this fucking diet another month. Good thing I haven't quit the gym yet... maybe I need to hit it more, because the substitutes may not be adequate. I wish it would get nice so I could exercise outside.

But tonight, I must clean and try to keep up with laundry.

Bah, I'm really upset by this. 1200 calories a day and I've been stuck for like a week at pretty much the same weight. This sucks.

I did quit Netflix, as threatened. Not that I don't love it; I still do with all my heart and recommend it to all who need to watch movies, but I just haven't been in the mood to watch movies at all lately. So I say fuck it for a while.

The clinic is going pretty well today... rather, I haven't seen anyone yet, but at least I brought work to do, so I feel like it's productive, even if it's not at all. I feel more on top of things this week, having narrowed down the list of possible participants ahead of time. I also feel more comfortable hanging around and doing what I have to do.

Though I have no idea why I'm so damn hungry! Oh, maybe cuz it's almost noon... wow, I really haven't seen anyone all morning! Suck!

Of course, I go to lunch and return to find that a perfect candidate came eary and was already gone. Poo! I'm so glad the schedule is, like, so very funny in its distance from reality.

Though I did get two this afternoon. Yay for picked-up pace. Boo for still being a giant waste of time.

And boo for having a meeting tonight until 7. I hope I'll have time to pop over to the office and back for some dinner.