Being Amber Rhea

Also…

I just realized, today is an anniversary of sorts. Two years ago, Cari and I were hurtling west on I-20, en route to Dallas and my new life there. Here is the fateful last entry before leaving Georgia (I know, it’s not exciting at all). Of course, we all know how The Dallas Experiment turned out… but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t regret it at all. I learned a lot while I was there. And I had some good times, too – being driving distance from Niki was huge. Anyway… that’s where that is. I can hardly believe it’s been two years.

Waxin’ and Juicin’

First of all, I survived The Waxing unscathed. (Okay, slightly scathed; but that was to be expected.) TL and I agreed that we’d both anticipated a seering, unbearable, “we’re all going to die” type of pain, so when it wasn’t that bad, we were pleasantly surprised. For thirty bucks, I kind of wish they’d taken off more hair, but what can you do. Next time, we’re doing the Brazilian – just to see what the big damn deal is. TL is my partner in “let’s try anything once” these days.

On to news related to day 2 of the pre-fast (or day -1 of the fast). There really isn’t much to tell. I’ve felt normal all day. I feel kind of tired right now, but that’s probably just because I got up early on a Sunday. I’ve eaten some cantaloupe, watermelon, strawberries, a banana, and a Jello fruit cup; and TL and I had lunch at Doc Green’s, where we each got a big ol’ salad.

I went to Whole Foods tonight and stocked up on portable-sized Bolthouse Farms juices and SmartWater. I plan to take several of these to work with me tomorrow in a small cooler.

That’s all for now. Don’t worry, I promise to write about other stuff besides just the juice fast during the next three days.

Day 1 (or -2?) Recap

The first full day of the pre-fast is coming to a close (at… almost 1:00 in the morning). First of all, I’ll be straight and admit it: I cheated by having a slice of pizza at Fellini’s for lunch. So sue me.

But the rest of the day (and last night – I started early) I stuck to the plan. In addition to the pizza slice, here’s what I ate today:

• Cubed cantaloupe
• Cubed watermelon
• 2 bananas
• A few raspberries
• Dried apricots
• 1 Jello fruit cup
• Field green salad w/ tomatoes and Bosc pears (raspberry vinaigrette dressing)
• Brussels sprouts

… and I’ve been drinking a ton of juice.

Observations so far:

• I don’t feel hungry. (Like I said, I eat a lot of this stuff on a daily basis anyway.)
• Lots of interesting rumblings and guglings have been heard from my stomach.
• I have gas. I stink.
• I pooped 3 times today.
• I have kind of a weird taste in my throat. I can’t imagine that this could be related to the pre-fast, but you never know. But it’s only been one day, for crying out loud.
• I still can’t paint my fingernails without messing them up due to impatience. (Oh, that’s unrelated, my bad.)

That’s pretty much it. I wonder if any of this is psychosomatic?

Other (off-topic) notes:

• Only two more chapters left in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – but don’t worry, there will be no spoilers from me.
• Charles’s blog/message board hybrid is coming along nicely, although I’ve only been able to work on it sporadically.

So there you have it.

Oh, and as Pat mentioned here, in response to the fast he has embarked upon a “slow” (or, he’s talkin’ the talk, at least). This involves eating lots of wonderful foods like hamdogs and Lutherburgers, and finishing it off by shoving a few hotdogs up one’s ass.

Strike Two for MARTA

Well, the #23 bus has screwed me again. I thought I’d go up to Tower Records to pick up the new Dane Cook CD (I can’t believe I don’t have it yet!!). But, as you may or may not know, this weekend is the dreaded sales tax scam holiday, and I ain’t tryin’ to drive in that mess. I figured it’d be easier to just take the #23 up Peachtree. Makes sense, right?

Well, I never made it. I waited for that damn bus for about 35 minutes; after two scheduled busses (the 6:13 and 6:28) failed to show up, I got pissed off and came back inside my apartment. Guess it won’t kill me to go another day without the Dane Cook CD. But, dammit! There is no excuse for this. Commence writing a highly agitated letter to the Mayor.

The Beginning

And so it begins: the juice fast pre-fast.

The fast itself begins on Monday. As of this afternoon, Sam, Brent, and Ryan are all still in. I think we might put money on it (a la the Seinfeldian “contest”) so that if anyone drops out before the allotted three days, they have to pay the remaining contenders a small sum. Or maybe not, maybe we’ll keep it purely friendly. Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself!

This weekend, in anticipation of three days of nothing but juice and water, I will be attempting to prepare my body by eating only fruits and vegetables. I made a quick run to Publix after work, and I’m stocked: watermelon, strawberries, raspberries, cantaloupe, dried apricots, red potatoes, field green salad, tomatoes, peach-in-strawberry-gel fruit cups, Bosc pears, baby carrots, broccoli, Brussels sprouts. (Dammit! Why didn’t I get any peaches??) My typical daily diet is comprised of a lot of these items anyway, so it shouldn’t be too hard. (Famous last words.)

Oh yes, I will be blogging the hell out of this whole process. Expect, at the very least, daily updates on my mental stability and the degree to which my body hates me at any given moment. Be forewarned: in the days to come, this blog may or may not include descriptions of what has emerged from my colon (if anything interesting does emerge). But seeing as how the detox post was so popular, perhaps that’s what you people want.

I admit to being a little nervous about the fast. I know how cranky I can get when I’m hungry – and I’m also acutely aware of the horrible stomach cramps that attack me if I go too long without eating. I’m betting there will be some of those. But, hopefully I won’t feel hungry too much of the time; I’ll just make sure to be constantly ingesting juice or water.

Anyway, mostly I am excited and eager to see what the outcome of all this will be. Oh, and let’s not forget (on an unrelated note) that TL and I are getting our nether regions waxed on Sunday; we’ll see if it’s blogworthy.

As a co-worker said today, “Wow, there’s a lot going on down there.”

Here’s Hoping the Dems Get Their Shit Together

No, this isn’t Georgia news – it’s Ohio news, but relevant to the nation as a whole. Check out this Paul Hackett dude. From A la Gauche:

Now, Paul Hackett isn’t a flaming liberal. The Cincinnati Post, described him as a “Libertarian Democrat.” He’s progressive to be sure, but he doesn’t follow the party line on every issue. I think that’s a good thing, actually. Hackett has a license to carry a concealed firearm, for instance. But he’s also dedicated to protecting Social Security, to providing healthcare to ALL Americans, and to protecting our environment.

Less relevant to Hackett in particular, but this is my favorite part of lefty’s post:

Republicans are fond of saying they support our troops. Judging by the 3 or 4 yellow ribbon stickers on their SUVs, they support the hell out of ‘em.

We now return to your regularly scheduled “get all up in my ass” blogging.

Self-Affirmation, Dammit

You know, I give myself a lot of crap. And unnecessarily so. Recently, I was reading some of my old blog entries from ~2 years ago – they are fraught with second-guessing and self-doubt (the bane of my existence). But I realized something, reading them from this perspective/distance/what-have-you. I didn’t give myself nearly enough credit. All the shit I was going through then… Jesus H., I did a damn good job of handling it, and I was am a really strong person. There have been several points in my life where I’ve had this revelation after the fact. I’ve certainly gotten a lot better about trusting myself and not letting other people’s noise drown out what my intuition is telling me. But it’s something I still struggle with at times.

Anyway… why did I feel like I needed to “rush” the process I was going through, back then? (And I recognize that I am still dealing with and coming out of everything that’s happened.) I just felt so much pressure from all sides. But you know, realistically… finding out that your husband wants to become a woman is a big damn deal, and I should be able to take my sweet time in “getting over” it. And looking back, I can hardly believe the grace with which I handled everything (though of course it didn’t feel like it at the time).

So, in summation: I rock, dammit. And I should be able to say that without feeling that little pang of, “Shut up you selfish bitch!” inside.

Guest-blogging Trivia

I am annoyed, and I am going to blame it on not going to Chick-Fil-A or Starbucks this morning. Actually my Starbucks pal went without me. I am hungry and cranky. And if anybody makes a comment about me sounding whiny or snobbish, I will delete it. This is my blog goddammit.

Anyway, I didn’t go to trivia last night, but Garrett sent me an email with a good synopsis, and gave me permission to post it here, so here you go:

First place baby!!!

Final question: From which floor did Lee Harvey Oswald shoot JFK in the Texas Book Depository…

The carryover question was the one about what year women started to play at Wimbledon. (1884)

We were down 2 pts going into final, and bet 20 and won. Seat of our Pants was there, and I met a non-nutjob guy from the team; he was nice. They didn’t place, I think. Little Lebowskis were hot on our trail yet again, but we luckily kept them from three-peating (I hate that term).

We had a commanding lead going into the 10th question (bonus #2), but blew it betting 10 points that Lake Erie doesn’t border Michigan. (It actually doesn’t touch Indiana, out of MI, IN, OH, NY, and PA.)

All in all, a really good game. I think we ended up with 102 pts. We had at least 2 perfect rounds. Especially being so short-handed… (Karlo, Jeff, Hoover, Dean, me).

Button Idiocy

I take issue with the placement of buttons on women’s button-up shirts. There always ends up being that space between the 2nd and 3rd button that bulges out slightly, so that from the side anyone can get a glimpse of whatever is (or isn’t) under your shirt; and sometimes it looks weird from the front, too. The bigger your boobs are, the worse it is. Why don’t they just adjust the spacing/placement of the buttons and be done with it? All my female friends and acquaintances have this problem… it’s exasperating.

Get Yer Numbers Up

It’s becoming a pattern, isn’t it? When I’m too preoccupied to write an actual blog entry of my own, I just lift from Pandagon! Easy to do, as there’s so much good fodder there.

For one thing, there’s the issue of sexual jealousy, and the fact that women are often judged more harshly than men for having a high* number of sexual partners. Amanda Marcotte (who is, interestingly, not my lesbian lover, but may be my alter-ego in Austin) says:

Even as people strive to get past [the double standard], it’s a stain of sexism that’s hard to scrub out. … I’ve had some of my funniest, most brazen girl friends have moments of doubt and fear that their “number” is somehow too high to make them loveable to a man who they would never suggest was unloveable for past dalliances. I know I tend to hide more about myself than most men I know do; it’s not that I somehow believe in the double standard, but admitting certain things that don’t trouble men as much is just too much of a headache.

I am pleased with the fact that I can say, with 100% assurance and no grandstanding or hiding behind the safety of teh internets, that this is one thing I am not guilty of. I am so over the judgement-based-on-number-of-partners schtick. I don’t pull that shit on people. And anyone who tries to pull it on me needs to grow the hell up, because I couldn’t give two shits about anyone’s judgement of my “number.” I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in any man who would think I was “unloveable for past dalliances,” and in fact I have a term for such men: unfuckable.

So, yay! Amber – 1, Sexual Double Standard – 0.

As an aside, I can’t refrain from commenting on Amanda’s remark here (in the comments section of the blog she was referencing). I make it a point to ask each of my partners what their number is. This is not because I am an “immature idiot.” The reason is twofold: 1) it’s smart to know your partners’ sexual past; and 2) I am relentlessly curious.

* Let’s leave aside for a moment the fact that “high” is an incredibly subjective term. That’s another post for another time.