2 November 1998: Yammering about Weight

Headline in an Aussie paper: "Thank god they got the Puritans and we got the convicts." Hear hear. Except I wish I were there there instead of here here. To get away from Monica's hair hair. Enough.

It's the end of the world.

1. I was browsing through a catalog (evincing my own consumerism for good or ill) and saw a featured garment that resembles a vest, that is pronounced "weskit," but that presumably has been deemed too difficult to spell. So "waistcoat" has been dropped in preference of the phonetic rendering. Evolution of language and all that, I consoled myself.

2. Rather like the spelling "comptroller" being adopted from the French a few centuries ago, because it looks so much snazzier than "controller," you know, like "comte" instead of "count," and here we go pronouncing it "comp-troller."

3. And the whole "orphan-often" pun being lost from "The Pirates of Penzance" or whatever because now people are pronouncing the "t" in "often."

4. And since "there" and "here" pro'ly evolved simultaneously, why doesn't "here" rhyme with "there?" I suppose if it did, people'd confuse it with its hypothetical homophone "hair" instead of its current homophone "hear."

What we have here is, in a), my not liking spelling to follow pronunciation and, in b) and c), not liking pronunciation to follow spelling. I am typically prescriptivist: I want everything done exactly my and no other way. As in d), which is not really the end of the world.

Last Friday I took a tour of a gym downtown for a week's free membership. I dream of losing the 20 pounds I want to lose before we go to New Orleans next week and I eat myself silly. Right. So, there not being a noon step class, step being what I love, I took a body-sculpting class. Oof.

If anyone asks, I am fairly strong for a woman who works out hardly at all. I like to say this is because I come from hardy peasant stock, which I do. However, I am not so strong that 45 minutes of aerobically working my biceps, triceps, deltoids, and [insert name of shoulder muscles] didn't whip me. I don't have lunch-lady arms and I can tote my weight, but oof. In one exercise we lifted handweights (mine were two pounds apiece) with straight arms from hips to parallel with the floor. My arms shook, my shoulders shook. Eventually I had to drop my weights and just lift my arms. Relatively, my back and triceps are stronger than those of many others in the class; relatively, my biceps and shoulders are weaker. When I do work out, I suppose I work out unevenly.

Park Services alleges that the new recreation center near my house will open in mid-November. I hope it offers step classes in the evening. The gym downtown is out of my budget and, relatively speaking, too far away. At C&A, the gym was in the basement; at ATK downtown, on a lower floor. The Y lurks just across the street and is cheaper but the last I knew didn't offer step at all, or not until almost two hours after I leave.

So my plan to peel over the next seven months: the gym this week, the rec center afterward I hope, the Nordic Track at home, lots of abdominal exercise, somewhat more discipline about chocolate. No sneaking the turkey skin over the cavity, cracklingly stiff on the outside then a crisp layer of fat and globs of stuffing on the inside. (Ooo, I can't wait for Thanksgiving.) Eating oatmeal for breakfast, more filling, lower in fat, and generally more healthy than toast. No more nursing from the bottle of Hershey's syrup. Remembering those stupid empty calories in manufactured beverages. And of course, going off the pill. I wouldn't've achieved my 1989 weight if I'd been a month pregnant. Ten or fifteen pounds are my own responsibility; another five or ten the hormones'. And I know I can't maintain that lowest weight. I would like to touch it though, and be touched at it.

And I know the difference between weight and volume. Really it's inches I want to lose. I don't know what my fat content is; in high school it held steady in the mid-teens; in my early 20s it was in the low twenties. Being 30 does not justify 30%.