What were they thinking

I'm on Weight Watchers.  Again.  Unofficially.  I start every Monday since the end of Passover, only to fall off the wagon by Thursday.  Recently I have become even more efficient and some weeks last only until Monday night.

I am persuaded it is not my weak will, but faulty WW system.  Seriously, let me walk you through this.  The allowed daily food points are allotted based on current weight and work like this:  you starve for a few weeks, drop some weight, hopefully, and as a reward you lose one point worth of food for every ten pounds lost.  Imagine the horror of losing 60 pounds!

What were they thinking?  Where is the incentive here?  If WW offered unlimited cheesecake or ice cream or eclairs or preferably all three, I could see myself following through.  Otherwise, it's like I starve only to starve even more once I lose the weight?  It's like you get punished and not rewarded for actually following the diet.  Why would I do that?

Love letter to one's own blogging

Goodness, I miss blogging.  I didn't realize how much until about a week ago.  I really, really miss it.  It might sound pathetic, but, for reason poorly understood even by me, it was an important part of my life for about two years.  And old habits die slowly.  At any given time I am compiling a post or two, at times coming up with a rough drafts, but, as you can see from the recent activity, the posts rarely materialize.

I guess many things are at fault here: turns out that as children grow older, they need me more, and not less; the immediate gratification of Facebook, which I vowed not to use not so long ago; discipline and organization required for regular posting - among other things - has almost completely disappeared; dwindling comments, which I see in any other blog I regularly read; discovery of Dancing with the Stars by your truly, among some other shows.  (Yes, Maxim Chmerkovskiy, I blame you for he downfall of my blog).  Overall, it seems that only half of the blogs on my Reader have posted an entry in the past six months, and only a very few still post regularly.  Pretty much everyone has reduced the frequency of posts.  Is there something cyclical about blogging, or is blogging dying?

Well, I hope not.  Because as pleasurable as The Body of Proof is (and I really mean shirtless Maxim Chmerkovskiy - I can practically smell excommunication) (OMG, that was so unintended, I really meant Dana Delaney's show, and it could've just as easily been Lie to Me or Parks and Recreation), the satisfaction of wittily written post, even if no one comments on it, is far superior.  And, as a wise person have advised me, one must nurture the inner self.  In my case, it's writing, no matter how poorly it is done.  So I am making yet another attempt to revive my blog.

Wish me luck. 

10 resons why life with arthritis is so good

1.  You get to use medicine named after the guy who is either happy in an old-fashioned kind of way or very comfortable with his sexuality. 

2.  Rubbing Bengay in your eyes is fun to watch for those around you.  You, on the other hand, can't watch yourself being funny because - well, you have Bengay in your eyes.

3.  After all the pain, the only thing that keeps you going is the thought of lamb kabob at your Dad's birthday party.  After doctor's visit you find out it's off limits.

4.  So is stinky cheese.

5.  And beer.

6.  Carpal tunnel in right hand and arthritis in left, make sweeping the floor an unforgettable activity.

7.  You get to relive your childhood by having your significant other dress you in the morning.

8.  You finally have a fair chance at competing with 60+-year-olds in getting a spot for Celebrex commercial.

9.  If you got $1 for every time someone said you are too young to have arthritis, you could afford all those Celebrex co-pays!

10.  At least it's not lupus!

Dedicated to the Fashion Week, Tommy Hilfiger and Nice Subway Strangers

It's Fashion Week in NY.  Did you know?  I only found out this Thursday under peculiar circumstances...

My closet ate two of my skirts and countless number of tops.  It's true and it can happen to you if you are not vigilant and stuff your closet with everything: from bags of old clothes prepared but never quite given to donations to ill fitting shoes you are not ready to part with to confiscated toys.  Somewhere in between the bag of unmatched children's socks and an old pillow are my missing clothes.  But to find them, I would need to organize my closet, so for now I am doing without.

The absence of skirts coupled with the fact that quite a few of my other skirts have salt and snot stains on them - winter, I know you are here! - resulted in having nothing to wear one fine Thursday morning.  Frantically going through every piece of clothing I own and rejecting them one by one - snot, too small, too summery, too dressy, salt, snot, yogurt, snot, too small, wore just yesterday, damn it, I should've left 5 minutes ago!!!!- I finally came to a piece that resulted in a "maybe".  It was kind of summery, somewhat ill-fitting (yes, I gained weight like I do every winter and summer and fall ) and a jumper to boot, but running 15 minutes late made the "maybe" piece a winner.  In retrospect I realize that even my closet exercised a better sense of fashion by refusing to consume this jumper.  But maybe my closet just got overly fastidious, after all it was Hilfiger! 

Despite my unseasonal garb, the entire day went just fine.  Going back to work, the subway was overflowing with people, but I don't think that it's fair to blame my jumper for it.  As I squeezed myself between two people who insisted on standing close to the doorways, I came standing right in front of a seated guy about my age.  "Asian," I thought, so I figured that I had about 50% chance of getting his seat at Delancey, only three stations away.  Yes, racial profiling in NY subway system is so rampant, it's appalling.  As I was shamelessly calculating my chances to get his seat, our eyes met and he uttered the unicorn of subway phrases, only few of the riders claim to have heard and scientifically proven to be non-existent.  "Would you like a seat?"

 I was caught a bit off-guard.  I was not pregnant - did he know something I didn't? - or sick or elderly.  But then my instincts kicked in and I said, "Sure!  You are being awfully nice.  Thank you."  "He must be getting off next stop," I told myself.  He did not.  I stubbornly pushed away the obvious.  "He must be a REALLY nice guy," I thought.  We passed Delancey, and my benefactor was still standing only a few inches away from me.  I looked at my jumper, my protruding stomach and remembered slightly greenish tint on my face from watching Interny till wee hours the night before; all the dots connected and I could no longer deny it.  "The nice SOB thinks I'm pregnant."  As this thought entered my mind, I glanced to the left and saw my neighbor studying pictures from the Fashion Week shows.  "Is it Fashion Week?  Again?  (Sigh.)  I am so out of vogue.  (Deep sigh.) I bet this fashionista would never wear a jumper that made her look pregnant, " I sulked.

And then another thought entered my mind.  "Too bad for her."  I got a seat in an over-crowded subway car.  Half of those well dressed fashionable women were getting killed by their high heels and poked in the ribs by neighbors' elbows.  And frumpy and pregnant looking me was comfortably sitting.  Right then and there I made a decision to upgrade the jumper to an all-season regular.  With that thought I peacefully drifted off to dream about fashion, jumpers and Interny.