Tag Archives: Asshole

Preparing to Negotiate.

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now,

LV

So I guess you could say that today marks the start of my countdown to holiday – exactly four weeks from now almost to the minute, five of my very best friends and I will be touching down thousands of miles away from home for a few days of girly time to celebrate my big birthday. The one that kicks off my next decade…you know, the decade where I’m going to be fifty and fabulous.  Fifty, fabulous and skinny. My friends and I have been exchanging giddy texts this afternoon along the lines of ‘Four weeks from today…’ and I’m grinning from ear to ear when I think about how much we are going to laugh.

Now, I have to hold my hands up and admit that I’m not really a big planner. I’m more of a ‘fly it as I’m building it’ kind of girl – in work I have to be uber organised which means that outside of work I lurk at the opposite end of the spectrum and I’m often caught with my pants down, metaphorically speaking.

I’m conscious that this holiday is my first milestone where the diet is concerned, and I’ve got a big red flag waiting in the wings to signal danger…I’m so happy that 5 weeks in it’s going so well, but it’s only the first in a long line of milestones, and I’m in this for the long game so it’s time to open negotiations with the asshole about what happens on holiday, and what happens when I get home. I need to have a plan.

He’s obviously been anticipating the conversation, and his opening gambit was to suggest that for the four days I’m away, I throw caution to the wind and eat everything that isn’t nailed down. Predictable, asshole. To be fair, it’s a strategy I’ve agreed to in the past, in fact I’m probably not exaggerating when I say I’ve been known to leap on it with indecent enthusiasm and sign on the dotted line without giving it a second thought. In the past, but not this time.

I’m not a big drinker – maybe because I’ve been on so many diets over the years where I’ve been mindful of restricting calories, or counting points, or adding up sins…whatever form the diet took, to me alcohol was a waste of whatever it was I was counting – but even when I’m not dieting, I can take it or leave it. If I’m with friends and we’re having a drink, you know I’ll have a drink, but between social occasions it doesn’t ever occur to me. Thing is, I suspect our little holiday will kind of be a four day social occasion…if you get my drift, wink wink. 

So lets examine the possible flash points.  The asshole is on my case, singing ‘Let it go’ …I’m likely to be flirting with tipsy for a good proportion of the holiday (my friends are wicked wicked people 🙂 ) and we’ll be loose in a city where there’s a buffet on every corner and mostly the drinks are free.

I think I need to work on my strategy before I return to the negotiating table.

 

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Don’t Ask Me That!

Biggest struggles, In the here & now, , ,

XXXL

So, how was your day? Mine was going great guns right up until the moment that a male colleague from a different department to the one I work in sent me an email asking me what size shirt I wear. Way to put a crimp in my day huh?

I should explain – I mean it wasn’t done for sport, you know like ‘I can’t help noticing you’re the size of a moose and I was just wondering how many X’s you need ahead of the L hahahaha’…or worse, ‘I’m looking around for an awning on the side of my RV and I just wondered where you buy your clothes from’ – he did have a reason to ask. I have to go to a conference next month, and everyone there representing the company will need a branded shirt. But still, you can picture my face when the email dropped in I’m sure. It was one of those moments where time stopped dead in the face of mortification and I just sat and stared at my screen.

Of course the asshole was off and away from the starting block like Ussain chuffing Bolt, diving through that open window of opportunity with a selection of carefully chosen comments designed to hammer home the humiliation. “I bet the rest of his department are gathered round his screen waiting for your answer…they’ve probably got a sweepstake going!  They’ve probably dared him to come and ask you face to face so they could hide around the corner and watch you squirm!! He’s probably moaning about the fact that you’re going to blow his whole shirt budget on that one cavernous garment, hahahaha!!!”

As the flush of horror made it’s leisurely ascent from my toes to my ears, I thought about lying. What if, I say I’m a size large because that’s big ish but it’s only kind of the big end of average…I could try and stretch it..? I mean lots of people wear a size large don’t they, so that would make me nearly normal right? And if it’s not stretchy fabric, I could go find another shirt from a fat-lady-shop and cut the branded bit off, and stitch it onto the fat-lady-shirt and nobody need ever know how many X’s are really in front of the L…that might work..?

By this time, the asshole had gone into overdrive. “Hahahaha I bet the shirt making company will have to call him and make sure he’s put the right number of X’s on the form, that can’t be right can it?  She’s really THAT big..? Crikey how many pies did SHE eat?!!!”

I didn’t lie. I styled it out. “Hi, I’ll need a size 26 please, if they make them that big (!) regards, Dee”.

Get the joke in first to let him know I don’t give a crap that he asked. Even though I do. Let him know I’m ok with it, because he probably felt horrible having to ask (I mean he’s a bloke, you guys take your lives in your hands when you mention any woman’s size, right?) so make it obvious that your size isn’t embarrassing for you. Even though it is. Note to self: Make damn sure next year you’ll actually fit into size L which by that point might even be too big on your scrawny-assed body.

By the way, no cake was consumed during this pretty shitty day therefore the scores on the doors remain Me: 1 – Asshole: 0 🙂

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Stepping over the Gauntlet

Biggest struggles, In the here & now, , ,

Listen Vs. Ignore - Toggle Switch

So I might have mentioned that the asshole in my head has been biding his time just recently, hanging back a bit you know, to see how this writing malarkey was going to work out for me. Up until yesterday it must have been a clear week or so since he rattled his chains, but I knew it was too good to last…he jumped out and said BOO twice yesterday in a carefully thought out pincer movement. His first attempt was in the supermarket on my way home from work. He’s delivered a few killer blows there in the past when I’ve gone food shopping on an empty stomach – never a good idea.

I think he was just trying his luck to be honest and I didn’t cave, although to anyone who happened to be paying attention, it may have looked like I was actually having a row with a bag of cashew nuts in aisle four.  I’d like to think my lips don’t move when he goes into attack mode, although I’m generally too busy digging in for the fight to pay much attention to what my face is doing. Still, I’m teetering on the edge of the age where eccentricity is pretty much par for the course, so if anyone noticed they were too polite to stare.

The fun really started after tea when I logged into my blog, read and replied to a couple of messages and then settled down to write some words. I was basking in the glow of some lovely feedback from one of my close friends who knows I’m writing this – hardly anybody does – and I was feeling great, but for the very first time, no words came out.

Now, bear in mind I’m a fat girl who likes to write, not a writer who happens to be fat, so I was a bit stumped. I don’t have a strategy, or any kind of experience to draw on to overcome writer’s block. Someone told me when I started posting every day to prepare myself for times when every word would need to be pulled kicking and screaming from my head and to just accept that sometimes it would happen, but I was arrogant enough to believe it wouldn’t happen to me – I’m rarely stuck for words.

The longer I stared at my fingers, the emptier my head seemed to get. And then out of nowhere, BAM there he was, my very own asshole with his shiny new strategy – forget commenting on her appearance, that’s so yesterday…throw the gauntlet down, go in for the kill and just make her feel stupid.  Ruin her mood and she might go in search of cake…that’s what normally happens.

“Hahahahaha…the blog’s history, you’ve blown it!  It was rubbish anyway…don’t kid yourself anyone’s interested in it, those visitors you had, they probably just clicked on the wrong link. As IF anyone’s interested in what you have to say anyway – go and make a cup of tea and eat some cake, it’s all going to go wrong now so you might as well just get it over with – told you, you’re just not good enough…three weeks in and you’re washed up, how pathetic…on the skids before you’ve even got started. Empty head, empty head ha ha you suck at this”…and on, and on, and on.

Honestly?  I started to really doubt myself – I felt like crap. But all the lovely things my friend had said about the blog earlier in the evening somehow cut through all his bullshit, and I managed to ignore him. And I continued ignoring him until he got bored and crawled back into his corner. So the scores on yesterday’s doors, Me: 2 – Asshole: 0.

I still couldn’t find any words, and I’ve gotta be honest that did freak me out a bit…fortunately I’d got a couple of posts in reserve so I was able to use one of them, and I’m very relieved to report that today the words seem to have got un-stuck again.  As for the asshole…it feels like I’m really starting to get the upper hand.  One day at a time  🙂

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Asshole Logic

Freeform thoughts, In the here & now, ,

mouse

I like to think I’m a fairly intelligent person. I mean not in an academic kind of way – I’ve got a handful of smarts but I was thinking more along the lines of plain old common sense logic. Give me a problem and I’ll usually figure out a way to solve it. Make it a complex problem and that really gets my grey matter working – I love a challenge. Thing is, when it comes to dieting, logic deserts me before I’ve even counted a single calorie.

I suspect it’s the asshole factor if I’m being honest. I’ve thought about this a lot and you know that way where someone from the I.T. service desk can dial into your computer and move your mouse? Well I reckon as soon as I talk myself into another diet, the asshole gets hold of my mouse and moves it around the bit of my head that controls logic.  I can provide examples.

I’ve never ever started a diet on any other day but a Monday. Why is that? Even the mandatoryJanuary diet – obviously you can’t start a diet on New Year’s day because of the hangover munchies. But unless the 2nd of January is a Monday, I can’t start it then either…it would have to be the first Monday after that.

And say for example I decide on a Thursday that I’m starting a diet on Monday, the next bit of asshole logic means that I have four days left to eat my bodyweight in all the naughty food I won’t be able to eat once I’m on the diet. That exact thing happened before I started this one – I got back from holiday on the Saturday having basically spent the previous 2 weeks eating my way through Northern Europe, in fact I don’t think my jaws stopped moving for two straight weeks. But between Saturday night and Monday morning I still managed to fit in a chinese takeaway, fish and chips and an Indian meal. Because asshole logic told me that I wouldn’t be able to eat them ever again, so it was now or never.

Of course had the asshole not been controlling my mouse, I would have realised that the more I ate pre-diet, the more I’d have to lose on the diet.  And god forbid I put a foot wrong – let’s say someone’s passing a bag of Maltesers around at work, and I take one. They’re like 8 calories each, but well that’s the day ruined isn’t it. I’ve cheated now so I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

So as the asshole jumps up and down with glee I’ll ignore the rabbit food I brought for lunch, and have a cheese and ham toastie from the deli up the road oh and a piece of battenburg cake whilst I’m there. I’ll start again tomorrow. Except tomorrow’s not Monday. I’ll start Monday.

Real logic would tell me that’s like walking 500 steps forward, stumbling back 2 steps and feeling like I’m back to square one. Of course I’m not – I’m 498 bloody impressive steps from the starting blocks and despite the stumble I’m still facing forward. But for as long as the asshole has his hands on my mouse, I’m afraid I’m shafted.

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Bad Lands

Freeform thoughts,

ducks

I used to work with a lady who was quite spiritual in her approach to life – I don’t mean in a religious sense, it was less defined than a belief system. In fact I don’t really know how to describe her…the nearest I could come up with would probably be ‘as mad as a box of frogs’ but that sounds unkind and actually I look back on her attitude with fondness and not a small amount of envy if I’m honest. She believed in whatever felt right to her in any given moment in time, for whatever reason, no matter how quirky – or utterly bonkers –  it seemed to anyone else.

Just think about that for a second…how liberating would that be. I mean on one level, I reckon we’ve all done it to some small degree – hands up if you’ve ever read a horoscope and immediately checked a different newspaper or magazine or website to find one that sounded more appealing – I know have.  And if I have two to choose from, and one of them tells me today is the day that a tall dark handsome millionaire is going to carry me off to a land where chocolate has no calories, where he will ravish me till my eyes pop out,  or better still I’m going to bag my dream job as chief ice cream taster for Haagen Dazs and I’ll get skinnier with every mouthful, count me in I’ll pick that one every time. But much as I might leave the house with a spring in my step ready to embrace Utopia, that’s closer to wishful thinking than belief.

Our personal belief systems have evolved through our respective lifetimes as a direct result of things we’ve seen, experienced, been told. My personal view is that our self esteem is so closely linked to our personal beliefs that it’s nigh on impossible to separate the two. And if somebody says something which resonates within our personal belief system, the message lands far more easily than if it’s at odds with what we believe.

That’s why the asshole in my head has so much power over me. My belief system is built on some fundamental principles which include skinny being good, and fat being bad. I’m not alone in this belief – it’s widely held if you’ll pardon the pun – it’s a message that seems baked into the fabric of society, unless you live in Tonga (which by the way I’m still considering as a relocation option if the diet goes to shit). I can’t even begin to tell you how much I envy those people who regard fat and skinny as having equal merit in the body stakes. I’d give my right arm to feel like a goddess instead of a moose but I just don’t see a world where that’s going to happen. After almost fifty years (*weeps * HTF did that happen) my beliefs are pretty hard-wired into my DNA.

So if someone tells me I look nice, I’ll smile and accept the compliment but it doesn’t land, you know? When the asshole tells me I look fat, that lands. Bad lands every time. The trick is, taking the hit and using it to spur you on to a better place…I’m on it.

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