In Other News
Day 7 of South Beach Diet dawned for me with a 2.2 pound weight loss overnight, thanks I am sure to Shelly Rae’s magical soup. 
Or maybe just to a week of dieting–I am about 5.5 pounds down on the week.
But it’s not really about the pounds–that’s just a nice objective way to measure it. What I am really excited about is how I feel, especially in my yoga practice–I can get farther into poses than I could even a week ago, it all just feels better. It’s not dramatic, but I can tell, and I am really pleased.
Better still is how easy this has been. I thought it would be a lot more challenging. I’ve expected every day to sit down and write the “Okay, I am officially sick of meat and vegetables” post. But, not yet, anyway.
My theory is that, with everything else going on in my life, changing the entire philosophy and reality around everything I eat is, excuse the expression, small potatoes. That my mind is like, Food? Yeah, whatever.
I dunno. Just a guess.
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More later, after the Second Unplugging. But, I just wanted to note that.
Soup for Comfort
Shelly Rae arrived on the morning train, and by dinnertime she’d concocted a lovely healing soup…full of warmth and spice and garbanzo beans and kale. Yum.
Jay’s chemo pump clicks on.
Demonhead progressed by all of ten words today. But they were *good* words.
I read a little, too. But not much.
That’s all I got.
Chemo 2, Day 1
Jay and I had a nice quiet day.. at the infusion center.
Everything went swimmingly–just like last time, but without all the novelty and training and extra anxiety of the unknown. We were out of there by 2 and resting at home soon thereafter.
Watched the third Pirates movie (which I had never seen), made a bit of dinner, now we’re both utterly exhausted.
I don’t know why it’s so tiring for *me*. I just sat there all day. But… I almost napped, earlier, too. I don’t nap. And now I feel like I could weep, I’m so tired. And tiny things frustrate me beyond all reason. Like, LJ is down, and so this won’t cross-post from my website blog, and so people won’t see it, and I’ve posted to LJ every day this year, and …. I mean, who cares? The world will see it tomorrow.
But, you know, like that. Clearly it’s time to lie down.
ETA, Saturday morning: LJ back up, so I will cross-post this now. But, this is last night’s entry, FYI, and I do feel better after a night’s sleep.
Morning Randoms
Jay is very funny about the stages of a developing writer. Of course, I have not experienced any of those stages, not at all. Nope. Not me.
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Actually, my writing quite literally began with an “I can do better than that” moment. And what’s funny about that is this: It was a nice little trilogy about a witch. I enjoyed the whole thing all the way through–until the ending. The ending was so wrong, so utterly not what I wanted as a reader, I was furious. “Oh no. That’s not how it’s done. That’s not how it’s done AT ALL.”
So I started writing…and writing more…and going through all those stages… And now, just yesterday, I get to the end of Demonhead and realize, WTF? This isn’t how it’s done. Clearly, I haven’t a clue either.
Well. If I ever figure out how it actually *is* done, I’ll be sure and let you know.
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I was down another half pound this morning, though since I’m using a different scale, that is not scientifically reliable. Even so. I’ll take it.
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And tomorrow starts Jay’s second round of chemo. So today we are pretending to be normal–lunch with a friend, dinner out, working on our novels. La la la, nothing to see here.
The View From Up Here
Up here in Portland, that is. First impression: wow, it’s not raining.
Because that was some adventure, getting out of San Francisco this morning! The storm there is fierce, epic, impressive….wet. But it’s lovely up here. I think I even saw blue sky earlier.
I lost two more pounds overnight, taking me just slightly below my recent range of fluctuation. Of course, that’s just Christmas cookies dealt with: we knew that would be easy. Now we can get down to the real problem.
But it’s all going well–I’m not overly hungry, or cranky, or weird-energy’d, or anything else I remember from the last time I did this. In fact, I continue a bit astonished that I’m not craving a drink. Very peculiar. I’m finding the food very satisfying–I just made a delicious coleslaw with walnuts for dinner, to have with skinless chicken thighs marinated in soy and a bunch of other yummy things. Om nom nom!
That’s the good news.
The bad news is, after arriving at Nuevo Rancho Lake, I settled in to edit those last 20 pages of Demonhead. I got to within 8 pages of being done… and realized the whole ending was completely broken. Two, maybe three scenes are missing: the whole climax, as written now, takes place off stage. The great emotional revelation just…happens, with no drama, no tension, nothing. An important character’s story arc doesn’t get tied off.
Who *wrote* this???
Anyway. I think I know how to fix it, or most of it. So I spent the afternoon brainstorming and asking various smart people for advice (Jay and Jak). I wrote one of the bridging half-scenes, then got a few paragraphs into the actual climax scene, when I realized I’d run out of steam–the pacing and voice was coming out all wrong. But I’d worked on it for about three hours at that point… that was probably enough. I’ll tackle it again tomorrow. Maybe it’ll be done by the end of the weekend.
Oh well. Far better to find this out now than after it had gone out into the world!
Plodding Along
Diet still going well: lost one pound overnight, which is still well within my usual fluctuation, but it was better than *gaining*, anyway.
Didn’t crave wine today, oddly. Did, however, crave starches, to the point of a bit of a bellyache for a while, which is gone now.
Had terrible battles with the Laundry Overlords. Lost terrible battles, as ever.
Thunder and lightning was spectacular, throughout the day. And very weird, for San Francisco.
Got within 20 pages of finishing the edit on Demonhead: woo hoo! Will finish tomorrow or Thursday.
Am now packing to head to Portland and Jay on the morrow… double woo hoo!
Writing all sentences without a subject today, apparently. No, that’s not actually part of the diet. 
Lean Times, Day One
So far so good on South Beach. My body hasn’t completely wised up to what’s going on–it’s starting to, a little, but only just. It’ll get much worse, I know; and then it’ll be fine after that.
Breakfast was lovely: 3 scrambled eggs with pimenton and half a sliced red bell pepper, and coffee. Lunch was kind of random, a series of small snacks rather than an actual meal.
By the time I was making dinner (diced up chicken breast, mushrooms, and asparagus all cooked together in my new pan, and a lovely glass of….tap water), my lizard brain kept offering up the clever idea that now it was time to open a bottle of wine. I mean, again and again. Of course I didn’t. Lizard has stopped with that; now it’s just confused. I feel both hungry and full, and am thinking about ice cream.
Just thinking about it. Not going to do anything about it.
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I slept horribly last night, a result no doubt of all the food I crammed into my belly right before bed. And nightmares about finding people stealing my car, running up to them and trying to stop them, hitting them in the face, while they ignored me as if I were not there at all, just kept loading my little car into their RV.
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And it rained all day, and the rest of the gang (Jay, Shelly, and Mark) are having dinner together in Seattle whilst I am down here… no fault in that, of course; just the way the schedule rolls sometimes.
Stupid geography.
Eat Drink and Be Merry…
…for tomorrow I diet.
As in: South Beach, starting tomorrow. This last bit of wine in my glass, right here, right now: the last until February 1. Yep.
Not to mention the giant bowl of vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries I just finished, and the quesadillas for dinner, and the Junior Mints in the movie, and the sushi last night (the white rice part anyway, and the mochi ice cream), and the crepes the other day, and even the oatmeal for breakfast this morning, laden with brown sugar and dried fruit: that’s it: all forbidden in Phase 1.
I am stating this publicly, just so you all know. And so I can keep honest.
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The movie: Mark and I went to see Avatar at the IMAX. It was his third viewing, first at IMAX; my second, and second. It was wonderful, once more. I saw so many things I hadn’t seen the first time.
Then I drove him to the Oakland airport and we discussed it. The visuals, of course: but the plot as well, the story. The characters. And the (promised) sequels, and what will be done with those, maybe, perhaps, we hope.
I am not a critic, and won’t pretend to try. I know Mark plans to post some thoughts soon (following so quickly on his first actual post earlier today!), so I will simply refer to that one, when he does. Because he’s smarter than me.
And that’s fine.
And now: to bed, if I can even bear to lie down, with this many calories in me, bulging at my poor belly. Because you see, I had to get rid of all the things in the fridge and freezer that *aren’t* on the diet, and I can’t bear to throw food away, so… :/
To Continent’s Edge
After a lovely breakfast with Dad and Stepmom and Half-Brother (who are down from Points North to see the Cirque du Soleil, followed by Avatar at the IMAX) (and Half-Brother being so wonderfully healed from his tonsillectomy drama over Christmas) (and who told the Best Story Evar) (which I had not heard before, nor had my parents until a few months ago, even though the events in question took place two years ago) (and involve exciting things like trucks with no brakes and a river on fire), Mark and I walked to the ocean.
Specifically, left the Witchnest early afternoon, walked through Golden Gate Park, and to the sea. I’m not sure at what point in the walk he said, “We’re going to the ocean,” and at what point I actually said, “Okay,” but, that’s what happened.
It took three and a half hours, exhausted us thoroughly, and I took no pictures, because I left the apartment with nothing but my keys–thinking we were just going up Buena Vista, as usual–but, it was fantastic.
Everything’s sore now. We had a lovely restorative sushi dinner, after we were back and collapsed a little; I’m ready to collapse again, but he’s reading the instructions to the tarot deck, so…. I’ll let you know what we learn about the future.
Filled the Trunk Again
Mark is in town (got in late last night) and today we went shopping.
See, previously when he’d been here, and cooked for me, he was a bit… underwhelmed… with the state of my kitchen. Specifically, how well it is provisioned for things like, you know, cooking.
Well, I haven’t even been here a year, and I started with essentially nothing. Add that to the fact that people who live alone can tend to, ahem, eat more simply (*cough* standing over the sink eating cold leftovers from the container *cough*), or go out, or travel… well, people other than Chaz, of course, who is even at this moment eating stupendous chili, following closely on his homemade pies, and not to mention whatever in the world he does with the oak-smoked granary flour.
Anyway. Since we are not Chaz, we have to rely on the kindness of our visiting friends, and must provide them with the appropriate kitchen infrastructure. So off to Bed Bath & Beyond we went, in search of same.
I LOVE Bed Bath & Beyond. Have I mentioned that before? Yes, I have. Yes, I still do. The coupons! I love that bit at the end where they stand there taking your final bill down, down, down, down… I saved nearly the entire price of the lovely glass-lidded skillet I bought. And I got microwave-safe plates, and a crepe maker, and a space heater, and new towels for the bathroom, and and and and…
And then we were starving, so nipped into Trader Joe’s for a salad or something… and emerged (mumble mumble) dollars later and two bags’ full of things to make tonight’s crepes, which are happening right now in the kitchen, which I should probably go attend to.
But yes. Filled the trunk, again. And now the Witchnest is just a tiny bit more like a home, and not a bachelorette pad.
Though I still do eat leftovers over the sink, when called for.