Well, duh: it’s Twitter. Now that I can so quickly and so easily drop one-liners on the internet, I have little-to-no patience for several paragraphs of blogging. I can rarely be bothered to take the time to open up a browser and compose a more in-depth commentary on my thoughts than 140 characters would allow. Sometimes I will begin to compose a blog post in my head, and by the time I have my hands on a computer that is suitable for typing, I am bored and already wondering if there are any new cat pictures on the internet. Twitter has ruined blogging for me. Worse than that, Twitter has ruined the reading of other people’s blogs.

All of the things I just said about writing blogs? That goes for reading them, too. When I can quickly scroll through my friends’ tweets while sitting on the bus, I feel less of a need or desire to read their more drawn-out thoughts. Entertain and inform me, but please do it in the 5-10 seconds it takes me to scroll past your name! It’s horrible, and I end up missing out on a lot. Only today I found out via Facebook status update (almost as cool as Twitter) that a friend of mine had ended a long-term relationship a couple of months ago and just recently begun a new one. My friend had been blogging about the events of her life as they unfolded, but they didn’t tweet about it so I didn’t know. People are trying to tell me (and, well, everyone) about their lives, and I’m not listening. I feel like an ass.

This blog post is less about solutions and more about me identifying the problem for myself. I didn’t even know I was going to write about this when I started typing. I thought I would ramble on about my day and try to be funny and all the usual wotnot that I used to do. Instead I am realizing that I miss writing and reading and I resent being part of the YOU’RE NOT GIVING IT TO ME FAST ENOUGH demographic. I will have a think on how (or if) I can change this.

A woman took me back into the fitting room and measured under my bust. She eyeballed my cup size and brought me a couple of bras to try on. The fitting room was small and there was no one else there when I started my fitting. The stall I was in had no door, just a curtain, and no matter how much I tugged on it I couldn’t get the curtain to close all the way.  Not that it mattered all that much since half the time I was there the curtain was open so the woman fitting me could tug at and adjust my bra.

I am not a thin woman. I have rolls and bulges and extra chin. I am not used to being partially clothed in front of people I’m not planning to sleep with. Yet several women saw me in my bra today. I was mortified. I wanted to hide behind the curtain. I wanted to leave the store and resign myself to painful, ill-fitting bras. I felt like nothing more than a disgusting lump of fat, and I wanted to hide.

And then I thought, fuck that. This is my body. It’s not the greatest body, but it’s mine and I love who I am. Who gives one flying fuck if my belly protrudes? Who cares if my inner-thighs rub together when I walk? Certainly not the woman who was politely and kindly adjusting my straps. Certainly not the woman in the next stall who was exclaiming over how large her cup size was. Not a single person in that shop even looked at me funny, and why would they? I was a woman in a bra in a lingerie store. I was in no way special to anyone there, and any body issues were my own.

I go through a minor version of this every morning. I get dressed, notice that my belly fat is still showing through whatever I’m wearing, wonder if I should wear something else, and think, fuck it. I know women who refuse to wear tank tops because they think their arms are too fat. Fuck that. If it’s hot, I’m wearing a tank top. I know women who refuse to wear skirts because they think their knees are too ugly. Fuck that. Skirts are pretty and I’m wearing them. I will wear bathing suits and yoga pants and knee socks and corsets and dresses both long and short and when I feel myself starting to worry that people will notice how dark my armpits are, I will say, Fuck that. My hope is that someday I will skip over the self-doubt completely, stop cursing so much, and get the hell on with my day.

In my dream I found myself making a date with a fellow on OKCupid. The fellow I was supposed to meet looked a little beefy and not really my type, but making friends is cool too. We were to meet outside and it was dark and I had trouble finding him. I kept looking at the picture of him on my phone and scanning the faces of people on the sidewalk, but no one looked like him. Then I did a double-take and said hello to my date, who, as it happens, was Callum Blue. He looked nothing like he did in my photo – Callum Blue isn’t really beefy, and he’s much prettier than the fellow in the photo I had – but I knew absolutely that he was my date. As soon as I realized I was now on a date with Callum Blue I was stunned that I had almost turned down the request.

I don’t know what he thought of me, but he was polite with just a smidge of arrogant charm. So perfect. He held the door of his convertible (and there ends my knowledge of cars) for me and took me for a drive. I remember leaning over the side of the car and watching the world whiz by and just loving it. I clearly remember thinking about how much I love being driven around and how it almost felt as though we were floating above the world. And then we were.

The car stopped being a car and instead became something like a ski lift seat.  Callum Blue and I were flying above the earth in a ski lift seat. Even in the dream I knew this was a little weird, but I thought “Maybe he has super powers?” and went with it. I wasn’t scared, as I would normally be if I were flying or very high up off the ground, but I was afraid that I would drop my camera. Whenever I look down from a good height, I am always a little bit concerned that my glasses will fall off of my face and smash to pieces. The falling camera is apparently my dream-equivilent.

I didn’t worry too much, though, because soon Callum Blue decided to have a little nap. He rested his head on my shoulder and wrapped his arms around me and dozed while I admired the flight. I’m still not sure which was more exciting: flying through the city in a chair, or being embraced by Callum Blue. Lucky for Dream Me, I didn’t have to choose between one or the other. Dream Melanie can have it all.

The rest of the dream was sadly Callum Blue-free, but I did end up in bed with Matt Smith. The weird thing about that is that I am a huge David Tennant fan, so I’m not sure what my brain was thinking.

I thought it would be a good idea to do today’s walk on my way home from work. The after-work walk is a tricky one to manage. First, you have to be wearing the right clothes and the right shoes. Second, you can’t have an appointment to get to, since it could actually take longer than an hour to do your hour-long walk. Thirdly, you need weather that’s at least nice enough to walk in, since sploshing around the rain in your work clothes is hardly desirable. Oh, and it also helps to not have a lot of stuff to carry home (which I usually do), and be prepared with a charged mp3 player.

All of these points were in my favour, so a nice walk home seemed like it would be a good idea. I decided to get off the bus about half-way home, which left me with an hour of walking. The fuck up came when I got off the bus and immediately started walking. What did I do wrong? I forgot to fucking stretch.

Stretching. UGH. It’s such an easy thing to forget, but so SO important to remember if you’re doing any type of strenuous exercise. Because I forgot to stretch my muscles before working them, I ended up getting shin splints after about 15 minutes of walking.  I had completely forgotten that this was something that happened to me if I started walking without stretching, and I felt like an idiot. I had to stop, sit down, stretch, and rest for a while before I could continue walking, and even then I was forced to go at a slower pace.

I got my hour walk in: I fulfilled my commitment to myself, but it feels like wasted effort since I wasn’t doing it properly.

Lesson learned.

I’m going to go back to blogging about my walks. This time I will be doing it for a much longer period of time (perhaps a month) and not always at the same time very day. I’m not going to tweet about these blogs because ultimately I don’t think they’ll be that interesting, but it will be a way for me to be held accountable. It doesn’t really matter if anyone is actually checking up on me – if they have the ability to check up on me, I will try harder to keep my word.

My goal is to walk for one hour per day, five days per week. Anything beyond that is gravy. I’m starting today.

I mean, I thought I did. Then I ate some vegetables.

Last Friday I ate potato chips and McDonalds. On Saturday Ihad KFC and popcorn. Sunday, more chips. Each of these food items came accompanied by soft drinks. The weirdest part about this junk-foodathon is that I don’t even know why I did it. I had excuses for all of this junk, but they were flimsy and none of this food even tasted all that good. Okay, that’s a lie, it all tasted pretty fucking delicious. But still! Junk food is not a thing I do a lot of anymore.

Ever since I went back to library work, I’ve been making progressively less and less money. Suddenly saving money wasn’t just something that might be nice to do, so I could buy some more comic books – saving money was essential if I wanted to keep paying my rent. It didn’t take me long to discover that buying a bunch of carrots and grapes at the corner market was cheaper and more convenient than going to the supermarket and buying chips. Soda, even when it only costs $1 for a 2ltr bottle, was more expensive than water, so I stopped buying soda. Fast food was way more expensive than rice and veggies, so I stopped buying fast food. Basically, I started eating way healthier because I was too poor to eat like crap. And even then only because I am lucky enough to live super close to a wonderful produce market.

Anyway, once I realized that there was probably a link between the food I’d eaten all weekend, and the miserable mood I was in, I went back to my water and my carrots, and I felt better within a couple of days. The only reason any of this is noteworthy is because it surprised me to see real physical effects resulting from my poor eating habits – I mean other than just me being fat. People have been saying for years that eating crappy food will make you feel crappy, but I had no idea how true it was. Having dealt with depression before, I am astonished at how much the effects of my weekend-diet felt like depression. It certainly puts my entire childhood, where chips and soda were often considered dinner, into a new light.

Afterwards, I stopped by the comic book store, because I was in the neighborhood and I am weak-willed. I am trying hard to pinch my pennies, but, well, comic books: they will be my undoing. I picked up “The Last Temptation”, which was written by Neil Gaiman (who I am currently in love with), and another really fun-looking one called “iZombie: Dead to the World”. The latter of the two is from Vertigo, which I like because they’re kind of like grown-up comics, and if you know anything about me at all you know that I have a soft spot for zombies. If I take the concept of zombies seriously, they are fucking terrifying to me. This comic seems not to take the scary approach, though, and looks pretty novel. I will check in with you guys once I’ve actually read it.

On the walk home I finished listening to the “Stardust” audiobook, which is read by my boyfriend, Neil Gaiman. I cannot get over how much I enjoy hearing his voice. I suppose I am not being completely fair when I call him my boyfriend, though, since I get a little wigged whenever he narrates sex. I kind of don’t like to think about him as a sexual object. Sorry Neil. I think of him as my platonic boyfriend, which to be fair, is how I think of many of my boyfriends. “Boyfriend” is really just another way of me saying “I think you are AWESOME and I love you”.

When I got home I chopped up some meat and stuck it in my tiny slow-cooker – it’s almost done now – and finished my essay. I went back and forth on how to structure the essay, which is an exploration of motherhood in Titus Andronicus and Macbeth. I ended up with: Intro-here’s why Tamora sucks-here’s why Lady M sucks-Lady M dies-Tamora dies-Conclusion. I’m not convinced that it’s the best structure, but I like it marginally better than Intro-Tamora does this-Lady M does this-Tamora does that-Lady M does that-Tamora dies-Lady M dies-Conclusion. This probably doesn’t make any sense to anyone. Nevertheless, the most important thing that I learned is that my typing skills have been shot to shit. I make an incredible amount of typos. Just in that last sentence I made four. I used to be so good at this.

The rest of the evening is pretty much just me eating pot roast and watching episodes of “Homicide: Life on the Streets”. If you’re unaware, it’s a pretty fucking excellent show, and the impetus for my usual internet nickname. Even so many years later, when I have developed a general dislike and mistrust of police officials, I adore the cops on this show. They’re like superheroes: fighting the good fight, no matter what it costs.

And how was your day?

To be honest, on Tuesday I caught myself thinking This is not going to work out. I was only on my second day and I was already breaking up with mornings. I really don’t like waking up in the mornings.

What I do like, however, is eating a proper breakfast. Did you guys SEE my breakfast yesterday? That shit was tasty. And I never would have gotten up to make it if I hadn’t already gotten up to go for a walk. I like eating yummy food early in the morning. Before this I would usually eat nothing, or whatever tiny object I could grab from the fridge, like a piece of cheese or some nuts. Even making toast was too much effort for me. Now I’m like a damn gourmet lady with my egg poaching. It’s pretty cool.

I also like the idea of audiobooks. I like the idea that I get to experience a god book for the sake of my own personal enjoyment and not because I am required by any class I’m taking. I miss reading for fun, and this is a sort of compromise I can make for myself. No, it’s not nearly as much fun as actually reading a book, but I also like being told stories, so it’s fun in its own way. And I’m doing it because I want to, not because I have to, which I think is something I need in my life.

On the other hand, I hate hate hate waking up in the mornings, and with the exception of Friday, I have been super tired all week. Not just tired in the mornings, but tired all day long. I am drinking tea and eating well, yet I’m still drained. I think, as I said before, that a lot of that has to do with the fact that I’ve been working so much (and that a lot of my work is really dull).

The idea was to do the morning walks for one week and then see how I felt about it, and how I feel is that I don’t know how I feel. I’ve decided that I’m going to give it another week. I don’t know that my busy schedule will change at all, so I may still be exhausted, but we’ll see how it goes.

And no, I won’t be blogging about it every morning. That was just for the first week. I’ll let you know how it goes, though. I was thinking I’d try making pancakes on Tuesday!

I didn’t hit the snooze button. I woke up as soon as my alarm went off, and I felt rested and alert. This was a huge change from the zombie-like movement of my usual morning self.

This morning I took Neil Gaiman on my walk with me. He was reciting the introduction to his book, Fragile Things, and then started telling me a wonderful story about Sherlock Holmes. For the whole walk I was entranced by the sound and inflection of his voice. I had read Fragile Things several years ago, but listening to him read his own work was like discovering it all over again. The only flaw, if there is one, is that I am enjoying the audiobook too much. I kept listening to it while on the bus to work. I should be savoring this; instead I am loving it like a fat kid loves cake.

When I got back from the walk I made myself breakfast. I made eggs Benedict for the very first time ever. That included poaching an egg, for the very first time ever. People, let me tell you, poaching an egg is ridiculously easy. I used a pot of hot (but not boiling) water, some vinegar, and a slotted spoon. BAM: poached egg. My Benedict was built from a crumpet, sliced tomatoes, and the egg in question. Topped with a yummy cream cheese-based sauce, and a few rashers of bacon on the side. This is most definitely the best breakfast I’ve ever made.

I’d like to say that I had such a good morning because of any of the things I’ve already mentioned, but I don’t think that’s what did it. Last night for the first time all week I had the opportunity to slow down and do something just because it was fun, not because I needed to. I spent the evening with two lovely people, talking about the nerdiest of topics. I think we dwelled on Dr Who for about an hour. I got to just be nerdy and drink hot chocolate and not spend a few hours doing something fun. It shouldn’t surprise me that the next morning I woke up feeling energetic and happy.

The good news is, I learned a lesson. It’s important to socialize and relax. The bad news is, it’s not going to make much difference. I’m as busy as I ever was, and no matter how nice it is to slow down and geek out, I still have a huge amount of stuff to get done during the week and will probably still stress myself out trying to do it all.

But at least I had a nice morning.

March 21, 2000

Dear Sirs:

I am returning a copy of Perpetuities in a Nutshell which for some inexplicable reason I neglected to return. You have probably been wondering as to its whereabouts all these years, and I apologize for my neglect.

I may say that I didn’t understand the rule then, and certainly don’t care about it now.

Yours very truly,
Some Dude*
Class of ’55

*name changed to protect the dude.