Short of breath, yes, but still long-winded.

You know how you keep meaning to say something to someone, or you have this question you've been meaning to ask, but one thing leads to another and finally you just blurt it out because otherwise it'll never happen?

Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, there are these things I keep meaning to mention, and then I distract myself with my mad hip hop blogging skills, like yesterday's interview mash-up.

(God, I just love it when I can come up with an intellectually-pretentious justification for using other people's material!)

So anyway, here are the things I'm thinking about:

• Susie Sunshine, Wendy, and I are convening in Tuvalu at blackbird's for BlogHere starting on July 16th. (Please note, this is not Blogher--we did that last year) OMG! So fun! So drunk! So LOUD!

OMG what am I going to wear?

• Tonight That Stud Muffin I Married and I watched the last episode of Season 3 of House, M.D. I'm already starting to go through withdrawal. Send Vicodin Hugh Laurie stat!

• I don't talk about it every day, but I'm at the gym or doing something worky-outy every day. And just so you know, it's very difficult for me not to whine about the punishment that the Maharini of Massage is putting me through. I mean, the amazingly painful rolling of long metal bars up my legs is apparently breaking down my TCI bands or whatever the hell they're called, but it hurts. Also, you'd never guess I was getting any more flexible from watching me in yoga class. I know yoga isn't competitive, and we aren't supposed to compare, and this is our practice, and namaste and all that--but I'm pitiful.

• Whenever I get a large chunk of free time, I manage to fill it with stupid things like going to the gym every waking minute. I mean, what happened to the concept of summer as a time where I lounge around drinking lemonade and reading trashy books ? Hello, the gym is there all year 'round.

• I weighed myself yesterday.

I weigh 181 pounds. That's 30 pounds overweight. GODDAMNIT. But it's 12 pounds less than when I first signed up with Weight Watchers. (Holy crap, I must have looked like one of the larger marine mammals.)

• I don't know. I'm sensing twin desires: to hang out on my new sofa (when it arrives) and watch Season 4 of House (when it's released) but then there's a part of me that wants to go back and forth to the gym like a gerbil in a Habitrail.

And if this doesn't make any sense to you? You're in good company.

176

I went to Weight Watchers today not in fear and trembling, per se, but not feeling all that great about it, either. I haven't been tracking my food, and I certainly haven't been working out.

See, I'm still getting the house back in order after last fall's construction project. Yes, still. Not to mention Christmas. Confession time: our Christmas tree went down on January 20th, mostly because it seemed a little silly to still have a Christmas tree up on Martin Luther King Day.

It's taking so long because I wanted to do this right. Not just put everything back into the kitchen--not to shove Christmas decorations into random boxes, but do things properly. This meant I needed to do a whole shitload of some decluttering.

So I haven't been working out, per se, but I haven't been sitting around eating bonbons, either. I've cleaned out a bunch of closets and made multiple trips with a van packed with stuff to donate to the rummage sale. I've moved furniture around. I've cleaned out the storage area.

(Which badly needed cleaning. I mean, I found a box of rattles. May I remind you that my kids are not 1 and 2 but 11 and 12?)

While I've been dejunking the house, I've been pondering my clutter situation. I decided that if you want to see a house that needs attention, maybe the first person you need to talk to is a woman with a weight problem.

Marcia Cilley, a/k/a Flylady, has a book out called Body Clutter. I haven't read it, and I probably won't, because to be honest, the Flylady stuff gets on my last nerve--all that stuff about Purple Puddles is so ... how can I put this tactfully ... not me.

But. It seems to me that weight problems and clutter problems very frequently strike the same people. And the reason is Freud's Pleasure Principle. You know, where you seek pleasure and avoid pain. Because let's face it: it's much easier to let crap accumulate than pare way down. And it's much easier to have the second helping, super-size the fast-food order, and sit on the couch and watch television rather than get up and move.

In both cases, the deciding vote is cast by entropy.

This means that if you don't do anything about it, what with the gifts, the junk mail, the outgrown children's clothes and toys, the collectibles, the books you're not interested in any more, the DVDs you aren't watching, the CDs you aren't listening to, the clothes you're tired of, the stuff that doesn't fit any more, the piles of antique linens your mother foisted off on gave you--you, like me, are up to your armpits in a lot of crap you don't use or love or have any real reason to own.

And if you sit around on your ass and eat a little too much every day, and drink a little too much every day ... you are probably carrying around a bunch of clutter under your clothes.

So for the past couple of weeks, when I thought I wasn't working out? I really was. At least, I was doing something very similar to working out. I sure didn't want to do it. But once I got going, I got all energetic. And when I was done? I was exhausted, but I felt great. Also, I needed to take a shower.

So you see, decluttering really is like going to the gym.

And I think that's why I lost a pound last week.

177

This morning I went to my Weight Watchers meeting, and that's what I weighed today.

This is up from 175, which is what I weighed on December 19th, the last time I went to a meeting. In fact, I haven't weighed this much since Halloween.

But you know what? It feels great.

Because I honestly felt as though I'd gained not three pounds back, but 15. I feel seedy, all flabby and just generally icky.

It must be because I haven't been working at AT ALL. I haven't been to the gym since we all moved back into the house on December 5th. I don't have that I'm-made-of-Silly-Putty rubbery, bouncy, firm feeling you get when you're using your muscles to do something other than drink wine and eat cheese and crackers.

Still, it felt good to face the music. Especially because things weren't as bad as I imagined they'd be.

And so to help myself get back on track, I bought a WW magazine as I left the meeting, and a Shape at the supermarket (where I stocked up on broccoli, Clementines, shrimp, and Skinny Cows, OK?) I plan to steep myself in motivational literature. And start tracking my points again. And re-lose those three pounds.

As God is my witness, I'm going to get under 174 pounds. Even if I have to bore the internet into a coma.

Diet update: The good news is the scale said 174.

The bad news is the scale I used is the lying-sack-of-shit bathroom scale that I estimate is off by six pounds.

So I'll say I weigh 180. I'm actually relieved. Somehow I pictured myself as having gained every one of the 18 pounds I lost back. Mind you, that would have involved spending my Christmas vacation eating something like 3,000 extra calories a day, which, while not impossible, takes some doing. Training, even. You know, like someone getting ready to enter a pie-eating contest.

You know, I thought I was being whimsical when I typed that last sentence, but on second thought, I'm not. For a real eye-opener, check out this week's People magazine--the January 14th issue with the people on the cover who had lost half their weight. There's an article where they show what these people used to eat on a typical day, and what they eat now. Teresa Williams used to weigh 310 pounds. And Teresa Williams really did used to eat 10,000 calories a day. Want to know what that would entail? From Page 97:

Breakfast: 6 cinnamon rolls and a large chocolate milk

Lunch: 1 entire box of Lucky Charms and a half-gallon of milk

(OK, so at least she didn't have to worry about getting enough calcium. Plus, let's face it: when you weigh that much, simply walking around is weight-bearing exercise.)

Dinner: 2 Taco Bell half-pound burritos, 2 Reeses Peanut Butter Cups

Snacks: 2 brownies, 8 fried mozzarella sticks, 12 jalapeno poppers with ranch dressing, 1/2 gallon ice cream

At 5' 8", Teresa Williams now weighs 150 and is a size 8. I do not, and am not.

But I'm still down 13 pounds from when I started Weight Watchers. I don't have to panic that I've given away a lot of my size 16 clothes.

Basically, I'm only a few bowls of oatmeal--and 10,000 hours on the treadmill--away from my goal.

The Wednesday Weigh In that wasn't

You can imagine how enthusiastic I felt about heading to my Weight Watchers meeting this morning.

I just knew the meeting would be packed with all the people whose New Year Resolution was to lose weight. I knew the news from the scales was going to be bad, bad, bad. How could it not be bad when I spent the last month sitting on my ass, drinking champagne, eating chocolate, and watching House, M.D., where, for some reason, no one ever seemed to be dying of obesity-related illnesses like diabetes or hardening of the arteries or stuckinthebathtub-itis.

My weight gain? Hugh Laurie's fault. Damn him and his stubble-faced wonderfulness!

And then, at 8:00 or so this morning, when it came time to pack my daughter's backpack for school, I found a bunch of homework sheets that she had not done. So there I was, still in my pajamas, trying to get some of her homework finished and properly slotted away into the binder ... grumpy past all my abilities to describe, yet trying to sound cheerful and loving and not like the kind of mother who stomps all over her daughter's self-esteem, minces it, dips it in flour, deep fat fries it, and EATS IT.

So I sent her off to school, not in tears or anything like that. Yay. But at that point, I really didn't want to go to my meeting.

Mind you, I do want to get to the gym. I do want to re-lose the weight I just finished losing, for God's sake. I do want to be back on track. Why, on Sunday, I had sushi for lunch. On Tuesday, I had a grilled shrimp salad. Yesterday I spent 90 minutes on my new treadmill watching Bringing up Baby.

But baby steps for now.

So I'm wearing one of those god-awful Juicy Couture knock-off velour track suits. I'm going to make the beds, clean up the kitchen, and pack the van with a nice selection of rummage. If I have time, I'll get on the treadmill. (Maybe watch House, M.D.) And I will not drink champagne while I'm on it.

Tomorrow I will weigh myself on my friendly (i.e., lying sack of shit) bathroom scale. And I will post the number.

Honestly, what I do for my darling Hugh you people.

Weigh in Wednesday: 175

Today I pulled myself up by my (big, fat) bootstraps and went to a Weight Watchers meeting. It was my first since November 28th, when I discovered I had gained weight at Thanksgiving. "What a surprise!" I murmured to myself, "usually sitting around on my butt eating highly caloric food has no effect whatsoever on my weight. I'd better watch what I eat--and exercise more. Yeah, that's the ticket."

Then the madness that is part-time Christmas singing kicked in.

Accordingly, the next Wednesday, I had a lunchtime singing engagement and couldn't make my meeting.

The Wednesday after that, it was my birthday. I debated going to my meeting, but decided that the chances were extremely slim (hee!) that anyone was going to give me any cake, so I said the hell with it and stayed home. So as not to be a complete slacker, I weighed myself on my bathroom scale. I had no idea how accurate my scale is, and was therefore delighted to discover that by its very low standards of accuracy, I had lost six pounds. My jeans knew that this was obviously a big lie, bu I played along. I didn't want to injure my scale's self-esteem. And anyway, happy birthday to me, right?

This brings us up to today. I bit the bullet, went to my meeting, and got weighed. I weighed 175, which is 1.4 pounds less than the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, and is actually pretty good, considering that for weeks now, I haven't been tracking my points or working out or doing much of anything except charging around singing Christmas music--at least, when I'm not busy putting our lives back together in our new, post-renovation house.

Or getting ready for Christmas. Which--OK--all I've done is trim the tree and get cards, but still.

But anyway, there you have it. I'm still fat, but not as whale-like as I was in August, when this adventure began.