And now what?

Sky asked me what I had planned for the summer. I told him that I had dropped the ball on getting a summer apartment at the beach, but it was just as well, since he is still on probation and is starting college this summer. I said that my plans were to work out, clean the house and take him where he needs to go. He said that he thought the house would be quite clean.

Help. I need something to do. I already feel unanchored! Usually, I am full of so many creative ideas that I can’t begin to do half of them. For the last six months or so, I haven’t felt one creative spark. What’s up with that?!?

Being at the pool reading books is not a bad thing, but I’d rather be in Mexico learning Spanish or at the beach. It is not going to happen this summer, though, except for a trip to the beach for a few days. I still don’t know how long we can afford to stay at the beach with the beach money. What I did was save every bit of change over an entire year. For example, if I went through a drive-thru, I dumped the change in my purse and did not use it at all for the next transaction. This change is in my kitty cat bank, along with any unexpected money I encountered, such as when I got a rebate I had forgotten about and other similar things. It’ll be interesting to see how much money was really disposable, because this savings plan didn’t hurt at all.

Anyway, I feel like I am a boring person. I would have liked to start the school year with exciting pictures of my summer exploits in Guadalajara or something to that effect. Next year?

At any rate, no one can say that my apartment doesn’t have a view.

I consider my going to the pool to catch some rays to be an act of altruism. I figure that I give the girls with body image issues some comfort, in that they can look at me and say to themselves, “Oh thank goodness there is someone fatter than me out here!” and then relax.

Possibly, this is not true. Yesterday, I was out there attempting to both read a book and watch Sage swim when heard a girl say, “I heard there is a size one-half now. I’ll never be able to fit into a size one-half! Like, I don’t understand how this whole size thing works. I see girls who wear a size two, and I’m like a size four, and they’re bigger than me! It gives me a complex!”

I’ll say. First of all, I wanted to inform her about the new 00 size, just to freak her out. Also, I felt a little miffed that she was loudly discussing body weight when it is obvious that I make two of her. Then I finally turned my head to see who she was talking to.

The girl with the weight issues was a stereotypical bleached blonde boob-job skinny chick in a black bikini. The other girl was not wearing a bathing suit at all. She was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and you could see her stomach bulging out. She had thick thighs. She wasn’t merely average, but overweight. I figured she wasn’t wearing a bathing suit because she was self-conscious. Of course I thought the girl who had been doing the talking was pretty self-centered and cruel.

Bored, I continued to listen to their conversation. Turns out skinny blonde is trying to get a job as a first year teacher at my son’s school. Yikes.

I felt better about my own body issues when I logged into my computer last night and saw this really cool poster that demonstrates that a full 31 percent of people in the US are fatter than me. Seeing that we lead the world in terms of obesity was not too cool though, even though it was not surprising.

I have been taking steps to remove the fat from my body. I have put on twenty pounds over the past year, and I was not exactly thin beforehand. I realized that I had to do something the night that I caught myself taking a bag of Chex Mix to bed with me like it was some sort of teddy bear and that I had done the same thing for several days in a row. I figure that I have had some issues with sleeping alone this year.

At any rate, I joined the gym that is next door and which has a pool with lap lanes. I have been entering what I eat on www.fitday.com, and it is interesting to see that even when I ditch the Chex Mix and eat fruit and vegetables instead, that I still do not meet the US RDA for most nutrients. I am trying to look at this whole thing as a lifestyle change as opposed to merely fitting in my “thin” jeans again. I feel so much better when I exercise that I have been inspired to cut the benzos in half again. At this rate, I should be benzo-free by the end of the summer.

Smile.