i figured it out my ownself

This was going to be a nostalgia/TMI/Boston-peeps-help-me-out post, but since the answer to my question spontaneously popped into my head while I was bathing, I don't need yous people. So we are left with nostalgia and TMI. Weigh carefully the balance of listening to yet another excruciating story about my life with the promise that we're gonna mention seks, and proceed at your own risk!

On jezebel yesterday, there was a post about bodysuits coming back into fashion, and how the author was firmly saying NO to this. Bodysuits being those leotard-like shirts that snapped at the crotch that were extremely popular and fashionable in the early-mid 90s, in case my male readers are unclear on the terminology. After I had to explain "romper" I take nothing for granted, all y'all. The comments were full of nostalgic fondness mixed with loathing. People who were in college during the said period remembered with horror the difficulty of using the facilities in a bodysuit when you were out drinking beers and women of all ages who ever wore one remembered the aggrevation of your bodysuit spontaneously coming unsnapped and the semi-panic of finding a restroom or other place that you could resnap before the damn thing worked its way up out of your pants or skirt. Plus, people had stories about particularly fugly examples that they at the time thought were the shit, but face it, anytime we ladies discuss what we wore for fashion, there will be those. But one commenter brought up how certain bodysuits with particularly irritating snaps combined with the tight, high-waisted jeans of the period led to a couple of days of needed recovery for one's labia after the wearing. Ha! And thus Andrea went down memory lane.

It's not only the tightness or the high-waisted-ness of early 90s jeans. It's the fact that there was no such thing as stretch denim in those days, and the fact that the denim was usually of a much heavier weight than today's fabric. I hear women these days commenting often about how much more comfortable jeans are these days and how they would never go back to non-stretch denim, but they are missing one important point, to my mind. Those heavy-weight, non-stretch, tight early 90s jeans had crotch seams that were capable of rubbing and pressing upon one's, um, special lady places in a most delightful manner, a manner that could liven up one's dull day when one was in such a mood to appreciate it. The snaps on a bodysuit were too low placed to directly contact that area, but yes, they could rub on one's labia, and if not actually strangling one's crotch, add to the party in one's pants. (Guys, admit it. You had NO idea about any of this, huh?)

And thus we finally come to our story. The question I was going to pose was, "OMG, what was the name of the bookstore that used to be on the corner of Exeter and Newbury in the 90s?" but: Waterstones! I loved Waterstones. I think it was the first bookstore that I was aware of that had the comfy chairs scattered around in which you could plunk yourself down and waste a good portion of a Sunday afternoon that your kid was with his father reading a book you had absolutely no intention of buying. Ahem. And so it was that one Sunday, in delightfully crotch-seamed jeans and perhaps a bodysuit beneath my flannel (shut up, just shut up) I came across a book that I will not mention the name of, but which I will tell you is a famous piece of absolute pornography written under a pseudonym by a well-known author of non-pornography. I had heard about this book, like unicorns, but didn't expect to find it right out there on the shelf of a lovely store where people bought, y'know, literature.

As further background, let's just remind you all that the early 90s were a sad, sad time for Andrea's sex life. Andrea was split up with D's dad and while she would occasionally and regrettably find herself making out with him, that was as far as it went, and she was not yet dating Whatever He Was to Me, or anyone else. Andrea was that other c-word, celibate. The horror! Let's just say Andrea appreciated crotch seams rather more than most people and leave it at that.

So on that fateful day, I took this piece of absolute disgusting filthy smut to a comfy Waterstones' chair and proceeded to have, with the help of, god bless 'em, my crotch-centric 90s garments, the first public and no-hands orgasm of my life. In fact, first and only! I was very sad when that store burned down and was turned into a fucking chain restaurant, lemme tell you.

I will not be buying any bodysuits this time around.

The end.

xoxo

Addendum: Okay, it was a chain restaurant, then Waterstones, then a school (?!?), then another chain restaurant, I believe. But the emotion still holds.

"the ikea effect" and food

Okay, go read this first, so you'll know what I'm talking about. Go on. It's short.

You back? Alright. I have a few thoughts. First of all, I was thinking of my own dinner last night. On the way home from the gym, I was thinking that I had a package of hamburger in the fridge that I had to cook one way or the other because it was at its sell-by date. This didn't fill me with any great joy, because I was tired and I'd have preferred to skip the whole cooking dinner thing. But because that wasn't an option--I had meat to use up--I was running down the options of what I could do with it, considering what else I had in the house. I could make tacos, but that's such a production, what with all the toppings to prepare, and it makes a mess. I could make meat loaf which is less of a production, but it needs to be in the oven 50-60 minutes, so I'd be eating late. Or I could just make cheeseburgers, easy peasy, but which would mean there'd be leftover hamburger and we'd be eating cheeseburgers on Sunday too. Well, by the time I was in the door with my coat off throwing the junk mail into the recycling and putting my gym clothes in the wash, I made the decision to go with meat loaf.

And despite my not not not wanting to cook it, it was delicious when it was finally done. I make good meat loaf.*** Just sayin'. If the theory posited in the article is correct, maybe it was extra delicious because making it was filled with effort I hadn't wanted to expend.

On the other hand, do you see the flaw, the glaring flaw, in the premise? If in 1965 the average married woman was spending more than twice the time her counterpart 30 years later was cooking and cleaning up after, perhaps this theory explains why she was less fat than the 1995 chick. But what about her husband, huh? Average married guy in 1965 spent no time and effort getting fed. He didn't even have to push a few buttons on the microwave. He sat down at the table and, glory hallelujah, someone put a nice (or not-so-nice, not everyone who cooked everyday got it down to palatable****, but at least it was food) home-cooked meal in front of him. So why the fuck shouldn't he have been fatter than 1995 dude who presumably had to do some work in the kitchen at some point?

But I may see a way around this, if we take into account that striatum business. Maybe the act of having someone cook us a meal hits up our dopamine receptors because it's so emotionally satisfying and pleasurable--it is at least for me--and thus we are satiated that way.

Or maybe this is all a bunch of bullshit and the reason Americans are getting fatter is the HFCS in every goddamn thing they eat. Excuse me, "corn sugar." That's what we're calling it now, aren't we?

xoxo

***Actually, I have been buying almost solely the "nature's promise" meat from Stop & Shop or, once in awhile, the actual grassfed stuff from Whole Paycheck, and D and I are both convinced it tastes better than the cheap meat. I made pork chops the other day, just sauteing them in a little olive oil with rosemary and salt, and they were so freaking good, and I'm not even a pork fan.

****I had a couple of aunts...oy.

the world's most perfect garment

It's a red hoodie dress, with ruffled pockets. I saw someone wearing it on her blog (where it looked even cuter than in the above [sales] photo, because it was a bit more fitted on the blogger) and immediately googled the maker to see where I myself might buy such a wondrous piece of clothing. Only to find that the world's cutest hoodie dress costs $230. Oh. It's organic cotton and made in the USA, though. I could feel good about wearing it, as well as wicked sassy.

However, I probably would not feel good about not being able to pay the electric bill.

Sigh. WHY IS LIFE SO HARD? (Do we need an irony alert? No? Good.)

xoxo

and now for something totally different

Why do people lie when they don't have to? Why do they lie when they don't need to say anything at all? Specifically, why do people feel the need to provide false excuses or explanations when no one is asking them to provide an excuse or an explanation?

I find it very odd. The person who wasn't even asking for an excuse, who would have been fine with the whole matter not even being touched upon, is nevertheless going to be at least slightly pissed when they are provided with a totally false one. Are these liars so stupid they think no one will find out they're lying? Or is it just blatant disrespect for the person they are lying to?

Sorry to be so cryptic, but this whole situation has me caught between

and



Jesus, lolcats, and I all find human behavior very strange.

xoxo

body parts are falling off

That got your attention, didn't it? I wish I had my camera with me to document this, but you'll just have to picture it in your mind. I am sure you are all capable of that.

So, circa 1998, when I climbed that big mountain in the Adirondacks in improperly fitting hiking boots, I damaged the nailbeds of both big toes, and for years and years, I had an indented line across both toenails. But eventually (is it seven years that supposedly all your cells have turned over?) the nails finally grew out straight. Cut to 2009 when I did the Walk for Hunger and bruised both big toenails badly because my sneakers might possibly have been slightly too tight, though I didn't actually feel any pain when I was walking. Again, re damaged the nailbed and my toenails have been growing out with divots in them ever since.

I had originally made an appointment for a pedicure yesterday, but I cancelled it because it was too late in the day and with all the running around I've been doing this week I just wanted to get home earlier than that. Then last night as I was getting into bed, I realized the toenail on my left foot felt odd. I turned the light back on, only to find that from the horizontal divot across the nail (2/3rds of the way down the nail) up, the whole nail was coming off. There's like a damaged layer of nail underneath it, not just skin, and it doesn't hurt, so I don't know if I should actually pull that nail off all the way, exposing the kinda yucky nail underneath, or whether I should, with nail polish and top coat, attempt to shellac the nail back together enough that it will stay adhered to the rest of the nail. Right now I solved the problem by putting a bandaid over it. ::eyeroll::

This whole thing is disconcerting, as well as gross, because I didn't do anything to that foot yesterday to suddenly make the nail come off. Plus, what if I *had* gone to my pedi appointment. I can only imagine poor Angela taking off my polish and the nail coming with it, freaking her out. I'd have had to double her already generous tip, yo.

xoxo

now other people's birthdays make me depressed

Today is Receptionist Without Colorful Nickname's birthday, which we of course celebrated with cake, because there is nothing that cannot be tied into the consumption of food in this office. Well, in amongst the festivities, I asked RWCN just exactly how old she turned today. She is 31. This led to some discussion about how she is still the baby in the office, and how us old folk can't keep track of how old we are anymore unless we subtract our year of birth from the current year. "It's easy for me," RWCN said, "because it's an even year--1980."

Holy shit, says I. That's the year people who are turning 31 were born in? I graduated high school in 1980. "God," I said, "I could be your mother."

I could theoretically be the mother of someone with two children in elementary school and a stepchild in high school. Even cake with strawberries on it doesn't make that easy to swallow. In another 31 years, I'll probably be dead.

I'm closer to death than to high school. And yet still I have the remnants of a zit on my chin that popped out when I got my period two weeks ago. I know life isn't fair and all, but that's just hitting below the belt.

Have a nice day, bitches.

xoxo

non-bargains and follow up odds n ends

I finally got to the optical store today amongst the very many many productive things I got accomplished, and ordered my new glasses before it was too late to claim them on last year's flexible spending. And though I was aiming to spend $210, I ended up spending three hundred. The guy suckered me into the gradient lens, which I suppose is okay considering I had been mulling over just getting prescription sunglasses. I am however very afraid I am going to end up looking like a dorky old lady. Stop laughing. The frames are very cute, though--they look green from some angles and blue from others. Kinda funky.

My bathing suit I ordered Sunday arrived and it fits. I was sorta surprised that the tankini top isn't tight to the body. It flares out from where it is tight under the chest, and I am somewhat concerned it may annoyingly ride up in the water. But it's cute. Of course the bottoms make my saddlebags look like whoa! but we of the bulgy Polish catcher's thigh persuasion just have to work with what we have got. Maybe by June and with a tan, that situation will be better.

In other follow up news, I had to go to the GYN today and instead of the scary Russian nurse/assistant, my doctor was working with this nice middle-aged Latino woman. And thus with my not being afraid I was going to the gulag, my blood pressure was a lovely 100/60!

And finally, if I can get it to work, I'ma take a picture of what came in the mail today and put it up here. Fingers crossed. Ah, here we go. Except for the flash obscuring the top of my uncle B's head, not bad. That's my dad (far left) with three of his brothers at the diner-type restaurant they owned, circa late 40s, early 50s. My cousin's wife sent me this. Cool, huh?

xoxo

stepping up with the stepfords

So, this article has been disseminated all over the interwebs and is causing all sorts of hoo-ha, consternation, and gnashing of teeth. Just read the comments attached to the original article to get a small taste.

I suppose you Adventurers know where I stand on all this. You all know I am a feminist. There is little that makes me more apoplectic than systematic oppression, societal control, or blatant disrespect of women. I make jokes about The Patriarchy all the time, but that's not because I don't think it exists. I think you you all also know that I am a woman who likes to spoil the people that she cares for. Since I am also the most heterosexual woman in North (and parts of South) America, it follows that in an intimate relationship the person on the end of my pampering is going to be a man. In other words, when my future contractor second ex-husband comes into my life, he can expect to have his laundry washed and folded, his aching manly muscles massaged, and his sexual needs taken care of. With pleasure. And that is because by the time he is in a position to become my contractor second husband, I will know that he is appreciative and respectful of such attentions, and does not sneer at them. (Those who don't get it will be shown the door, no matter how big a truck they own, yo.)

It has been a long, long time since I have felt any conflict between parts a and b above. It confused and worried me as a young woman, but once I realized that feminism meant making up my own rules for my own life, I was at peace with it. But I still was, and am, aware that society, that people as a rule, have no idea what to do with a woman like me or the article's author. To me, she's a chick who took the lemon of unemployment and made a delightful lemonade wherein her boyfriend feels like a king and she gets to throw herself into making him happy in a way that makes her happy. What's so regressive about that?

See ya in Stepford.

xoxo

i die

Zoo keepers in China dressed up in panda costumes in order to lure a baby panda back into the basket, after it was temporarily released into the wild to get used to, y'know, nature.

Sorry to say it, but this kinda confirms my suspicion that pandas, while adorable, are the stupidest of all mammals. Either that, or those two zoo dudes are "furries" and they came up with a clever ruse to get their bosses to pay for their kink.

xoxo

the theme for the week is bargains

Apparently.

You people have heard me complain often enough about the hospital cafeteria. There is rarely anything I want to eat there. When they do start carrying something I like, it inexplicably disappears after a few months or weeks, never to return again, and is replaced by something I don't like. And above all, it is ridiculously expensive for what it is.

Growing weary of all of the above, especially the amount of money I waste there, I have been doing better about bringing my own food to work. Uh, when my own refrigerator is stocked and when I'm not running out of the door late. No one said I was perfect. God. But it's been easier since Led Zep Girl procured us the bigger dorm fridge that actually keeps things cold. The old office refrigerator was skeery.

The one meal I do not mind buying at work two or three days a week, however, is breakfast. Because at breakfast, they have industrial oatmeal, and you know that is one of my greatest pleasures. (Well, within reason. I mean it's not on a par with performing oral sex, but since jezebel told me this weekend that's gonna give me mouth and throat cancer, and I'm sure oatmeal has antioxidants n' shit in it to combat that, it's all of a piece.) A large sized industrial oatmeal with my employee discount is $1.03, which I find quite reasonable, especially since I'm doctoring it up with Splenda and raisins and milk on their dime. But it has recently come to my attention that there is an even bigger breakfast bargain to be had.

In my quest to get in all the protein I am supposed to be eating, and because I am not a huge fan of the egg, I've been getting a little side of bacon with my oatmeal. (My boss: "THAT can't be good for you." Andrea: "It's good for my mental health.") The bacon is self-serve. They have a bowl all cooked up, with tongs, and you take how many pieces you want. The first day I got some, the grill lady made it a little too crisp, so the pieces were broken and it was hard to tell how many slices I actually took. Last Friday I got some again and this time I know I got four pieces. The cashier charged me "one bacon." Today, I got six pieces. Shut up, I was hungry. The cashier charged me "one bacon." I am so tempted to keep on pushing it until I see how many slices you can take before they call it two orders. There's gotta be *some* limit. Anyone want to meet me for brekkie, I'll try to get away with twelve pieces and we can share!

Oh, and what were you doing in work today anyway, Andrea? It's a federal holiday on which your department is closed, is it not? Why, yes it is! However, I had to come in for an "emergency." Take those quotation marks as you will. No worries, though. My belleh was full of cheap bacon.

xoxo

show n tell

Still working on the Christmas gift cards, I did some online bargain shopping today.

First I bought a new bathing suit, because I realized in the locker room yesterday that the one piece I wear into the Y pool and steam room is too big and makes me look like shit. So I bought a new tankini from Athleta, $20 each piece!

Here is the top:

Here is the back of the top. Aren't the ties cute as hell? (And look at her lat spread. Athleta actually uses models who look like they are athletes.)


And here are the bottoms:


Then I went to jcrew to see what they had on clearance. And I bought another pair of pants just like the two I already have. Again, for twenty bucks. Can't beat that with a stick. This color is called shadow. I hope it's actually some shade of gray, as it appears on my monitor. But even if it is some weird funky color, for $20, I will work with it.



And finally at jcrew I got this long sleeved tshirt for $15. I also already have one of these in a sorta terracotta color. I thought this color was nice too.


So, to review, I got a bathing suit, a pair of pants, and a shirt for $75. Plus shipping. And it was all Xmas money. Go, me.

xoxo

more proof of my basically poor character

Would it be wrong of me to tell you that a.) I don't particularly care that Scott Brown was molested and b.) wish he had kept it to himself, because I'm really sick of knowing too much about our public officials but also c.) am cynical enough to wonder if this is because some photos of Scotty sucking dick are about to surface and this is some kind of preemptive move so he can then claim "not my fault I'm TEH GAY! it was caused by my childhood trauma!" Yeah, I thought so. I'm definitely going to hell.

In other evidence against me, I had to hurry around this morning wrapping a couple of Christmas presents because I may possibly see my (ex)sister-in-law tonight and I have stuff for her kids that hasn't been gifted yet. How lazy do you have to be to have presents you bought over two months ago not wrapped yet? Pretty damn lazy! (Though not as lazy as the person who told me this week they fully intend to buy me a Christmas present, they just haven't gotten around to it yet. Ahem. You know who you are.)

On the positive side of my ledger, I am taking baby steps on some things I have been procrastinating on, which is good, right?

I hope you are all enjoying this semi-spring-like day. And praying for my soul.

xoxo

snacks and baseball

First, I would like to make a food recommendation to you. Go to your local neighborhood Trader Joe's (or, if you are like me and they closed your local neighborhood Trader Joe's [bastards!], go to a less convenient one--trust me, it'll be worth your time and effort) and take yourself to the aisle in which they sell the nuts and dried fruit and trail mix thingies. There you will find a product called Wasabi Wow. This is a mixture of dried fruit, nuts, and wasabi peas, and it is, I'm not lying to you, the perfect combination of sweet, salty, and spicy/hot. Your three most popular snack category flavors rolled into one perfect munchible food. Is genius! Especially, ladies, if you have PMS. But good any time of the month. No worries. The only worry, actually, is that it is so munchible, I highly recommend portioning out a serving or two into a bowl and putting the rest away. Eating from the bag directly could possibly be dangerous.

And now I will segue smoothly into my next topic by saying you'll want to keep this in mind because before you know it, you may be on your couch watching fuckin' Papelbon blow a save and you'll want something yummy to snack on while he's doing it. (The compatibility of wasabi wow with beer has not yet been tested, at least not by me, but feel free to report any of your own experiments.) Yes, boys and girls, the time is almost upon us for me to start yammering about baseball, both real and fantasy (Ubaldo 2011!) This was underscored by the arrival in my mail yesterday of my Sox Pack, half of which belongs to Mr Indemnity. Look for us in the nosebleed seats of right field on selected occasions! I'll be the one *not* wearing my son's jersey, since apparently that's an evil, bad luck garment.

xoxo

P.S. Both google chrome *and* blogger spell check do not recognize wasabi as a word. Again, I ask you: isn't that racist?!? Ha!

things that aren't going to be gotten to

So many things I could discuss with you all and that have come to mind to write about: the orgasm wars, the usual snitty things about Valentines Day, how D and I threw out a huge amount of my dad's stuff yesterday (and there's so much more to go), how my recent great pleasure with how my body is doing has been eroded by just a few comments from other people, about how baseball--real and otherwise--is just around the corner, about people I see in my gym all the time and how I have given them all descriptive names, and a bunch of other miscellany. But unfortunately I am having a huge anxiety attack about money and the house and the future and how I am fucking up everything in my life and what the worst case scenario of EVERYTHING is, all of which a nice dose of ativan has not alleviated. But I'm still here, and I'll get back to writing things for your amusement soon, I promise. In the meantime, have some lolcats:

because we always bring you the followup

The big trial I almost got impanelled on concluded yesterday and the defendant was found guilty of second degree murder. You can read about it here if you'd like. Can I say again how grateful I am that I did not spend five weeks of my life on this? Not least because there were three days of jury deliberations, which indicates to me that the facts weren't all clear and cut-and-dry, and the defendant was given the mandatory life sentence. The responsibility of sending--let's face it--a twenty year old kid away for at least 15 years, at which point if he isn't a sociopath now, he will be then, is not one I would like to have weighing on my conscience. (If you *didn't* click on my link [tsk tsk], the defendant was yelling, "I didn't fucking do it!" after being pronounced guilty, and the murder weapon wasn't ever recovered. I'm not saying I believe he's innocent based on the scant facts I know about the case; I'm just saying that if I were to send someone away for life, it'd be easier for me to swallow with nice hard DNA evidence.)

I also am deeply divided on how I feel about what and how much punishment is meted out in this kind of case. I mean, I know you can't just let people go around shooting other people scott-free, but like I said above, this kid was 18 when he (probably!) committed the murder. 18 year old males are renowned for having both too much testosterone and too few good decision-making skills. Not all of them (so don't tell me *you* were awesome, mature, and a paragon of good behavior at that age, I ain't talking about you) obviously, but many many. And depending on what environment they are in, that bad decision-making might lead to things as benign as drinking way too much their freshman year in college or acting like an asshole in their nascent romantic relationships or things as non-benign as joining a gang and shooting at their rivals. Relatively benign or relatively malevolent, I don't think that for many many people it accurately predicts how they're going to be ten, twenty, thirty years down the line. But once you put someone in state prison, the chances of them being pushed over the line to "really really bad guy" is pretty high. Prison doesn't rehabilitate--nor does our society seem to want it to--it just hardens people, strips away their humanity, and usually teaches them some new tricks about how to commit crimes.

Secondly, yeah, Lynn has a gang problem, but the thing is, it doesn't much effect anyone who isn't a gang member. Very rarely there'll be a stray bullet that hits someone who's an innocent bystander, but that's uncommon and unintentional. They just basically prey on each other and leave the rest of us citizens alone. I'm not saying one gang member killing another gang member is something society can overlook, but I'm saying, I'm sorry but it's different than killing your wife, your kid, some old lady whose purse you're trying to snatch, or a random prostitute because she reminds you of your mother. I dunno. I realize by saying that, it seems like I'm saying one person's life is worth more than another's, and I don't really mean that. I'm just saying there's something almost consensual there: you join a gang, and no matter how young and stupid you are, you gotta know that means you're putting yourself at risk for being shot. It's kinda part of the deal. Again, I know society can't countenance that, but I think it should count somehow when it comes to sentencing.

Sorry. I'll go back to talking about vapid things like my biceps. Peace!

xoxo

and in the annals of hilarious passive aggression

Any of you all who work in health care, or are a consumer of health care, are probably familiar with the process of trying to get a greedy goddamn health insurance provider to approve a drug that is not their first choice in their formulary. This involves what we in the biz call a "prior auth."

After four go-rounds with an insurance company that shall remain nameless, trying to get a drug the patient is *already on and doing well with* approved and which culminated in a suggestion from the insurance people that he try THIS instead of THAT, my boss just faxed them a letter that said (paraphrasing slightly): "I do not agree that [drug name] is an appropriate treatment for this patient. If you, however, would like to take over his care and treatment, I would be very happy to forward all his records to you. Sincerely yours." Then a four line signature listing all his board certifications.

I am not sure any of these people who work in the Prior Authorization departments of major health insurance companies are smart or self-aware enough to recognize heavy sarcasm when they read it, but *we* all LOL'd. Laugh is the best medicine, peeps!

xoxo

i must share

So, as I said, I took my progress pictures so I could put them up a couple places that I post. One is mainly a weightloss forum. There's a group of ladies on there in their 40s and 50s who I am friendly with that have similar fitness goals to me and who post regular progress shots. We all agreed to put new ones up this week/weekend. Well, I met my obligation there, and got nice supportive comments on how I am doing.

The other place I put my new pics up is on a weightlifting site, where, well, that's what people do. We show each other how our muscles are coming along, which is only marginally less obnoxious than the flexing we all do in the privacy of our own homes, though much less obnoxious than the flexing some people do in the gym. Now, as a woman, you take your chances putting up any kind of picture on a big open forum like that, and I am sure some of the extremely hot 22 year old girls get all kinds of aggrevation. But I have found even the meatheads to be nice and polite. But, as always in life, you do get people unclear on the concept.

Here is a list of the responses guys have left on my new photos:

"very nice, quads are very impressive from this angle also"

"Great legs"

"yummy calves can u please lay on your stomach with your legs up my fav. pose thanks sooo much your HOT!!!!!! rob"

Oh, Robert, you sir are unclear on the concept. (As well as on the difference between your and you're, but if major mass market retailers of teenage girl clothing are too, I suppose we can let that slide.)

It's sorta equivilent to my confusion about guys who shout propositions from their car windows: does that EVER work? Does anyone ever give "rob" a photo taken just for him in his favorite position? I suppose, however, that hope springs eternal. Ha!

xoxo

o hai, kids

Today, mostly because I need to post these elsewhere and it's much easier when they're already uploaded here, we have pictures. Progress pictures, to assess how the fat loss and muscle building is coming along. NSFW. Maybe.

As you are looking at them you may say to yourself, "Damn, Andrea, do you have a whole nother room in your house which you *haven't* yet made us suffer through redecorating photos of?" Welll, no. Mr Barma kindly played photographer for me and that is his tastefully decorated living room. As you are looking at them, you may also say to yourself, "Damn, Andrea, you weren't kidding about the bulgy Polish catcher's thighs." To which I say, "No shit! Would I lie to all y'all?"

So, here we go. Onward and upward. First up, side view, not flexing anything.



Front view. See the very faint suggestion of abs? SQUINT, goddamn it. Ha!



Flex! I don't think my arms have grown much since I last gave you a gun show. However? Note my outer pec: my armpit is now so indented, it makes it hard to shave. (Have I mentioned that before?)



Leg flex!


I still think I don't know how to flex my lats to best effect, but even so, very pleased with my progress back there. Note also that while I kept my face outta these, I had no problem showing off one of my distinguishing marks. Oooo, slick, I am!



And in this full back shot, you can probably just barely make out my neck tattoo as well! When Mr Barma was taking this, he was sweetly and tactfully trying to tell me I had a little "shadowing" at this angle and maybe I wasn't going to like the shot. I was like, no, dude, it's not shadowing, it's fat. Is ok, I know it's there. That's why they're progress pictures. Maybe the next ones will be better. But actually what I don't like about this shot, seeing it on the computer, is that it looks like I have no neck. Please refer to the top of the page: I do have one. Srsly.



And, finally, we were goofing around, doing a cheesecake shot--which by the way, I was really bad at. I kept inadvertently smooshing my boobs into my chest or somehow covering my boobs yet letting a nipple show. It was pretty funny. But when I finally got myself correctly situated, Mr Barma told me this shot actually shows off my arms and shoulders very well. So I kept it. It also shows off the loose skin on my belleh, but I figure that can only make you people pity me and want to donate to my tummy tuck fund. It's all good.

xoxo

the cranks and the idiots are forever with us

So, according to jezebel, today is World Nutella Day and some fruitcake in California is suing them for claiming they are a healthy part of your kid's breakfast. I admit, those commercials are laughable but that's all they are: laughable. If you seriously think something made up primarily of sugar is good for you, then your kid deserves to get diabetes and OMG THE OBESITY booga booga. (I of course have no moral high ground on this, having admittedly fed my toddler "fruit snacks" on the faulty assumption that something that contains something that was once kinda sorta fruit had to be at least marginally better for you than, say, Hershey's Kisses. But goddamn it, that boy needed calories. Mothers of skinny preschoolers who seem to subsist primarily on air, you know what I am talking about.)

I am not a huge Nutella fan myself. I mean, it's good and all, but so many women seem to go on and on and on about it, like it's an orgasm in a jar, and it really ain't all that. This lawsuit is stoopid, though, obviously.

But it puts me in mind of other laughable food commercials in which dubious foods are being sold under the rubric of healthy eating. For instance, have you seen that one for (I believe) Total cereal in which they show you a bowl of Kashi Go Lean Crunch and about 18 various horse-sized pills vs a bowl of their own cereal and ask which you'd rather eat to get your complete daily quota of vitamins and minerals? This always makes me talk back to my TV and tell them that I personally would like to eat that bowl of Kashi Go Lean Crunch and, y'know, take a multivite, because Kashi Go Lean Crunch is the best tasting cereal EVAH. Plus it has 9 grams protein in it. Plus Total sucks.

It's like my beloved VitaminWater, which I am sadly broken up with. No one in their right mind believes that adding a few supplements to a bottle of sugar water *really* turns it into a health food, but someone felt the need to sue them too. I thought it was obvious that the clever little spiels on the bottles of this adult Kool Aid were just for entertainment value and no one is seriously swilling down cases of "mega-c" because they are concerned about their immune system. But I suppose I could be wrong!

My advice is, if you're gonna celebrate Nutella Day, chase it with some milk. That actually is good for you. Unless you're lactose intolerant. Ahem.

xoxo

i look like a man, right?

I present to you this article, which I'm sure you won't bother to read, but if you do not, how the hell are you going to know what I'm going on about? Cue the "but we never know what the hell you're going on about anyway, Andrea", to which I say: shut up. Anyway, Leigh Peele, the author of the piece, is a personal trainer, and the gist of the piece is that when your average woman says, "I don't want to bulk up," she means she doesn't want any visible muscle at all and she fucking means it. In fact, your average woman (and your average man?) thinks that any kind of visible arm or shoulder definition on a woman is gross and masculine. They think that in the rather famous white bikini shot, Jessica Biel is "bulky."

Ms Peele's point in all this is that if you are a trainer and a client says this to you, it is not your job to tell her she's not going to get bulky (when your definition of bulky and hers aren't the same damn thing at all) and it is not your job to convince her of the error of her ways; it is your job to help her get the body *she* wants. I agree. The analogy to me in massage therapy is that if your client comes in and asks you to spend extra time working on her low back, you don't then spend half the massage working on that spot in her upper left trap that *you* think needs attention. You may be right technically-speaking, but the client is paying their hard earned money and they deserve to get the service they want.

But that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is that it absolutely blew me away that anyone would think Jessica Biel is "bulky" or masculine-looking in that photo, that anyone ever watched Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2 and didn't think, "holy shit, I want her arms", and basically that apparently the vast majority of the American public think visible female muscle is ugly. I am so proud of the fact that you can see definition in my delts and biceps now even when I'm not flexing, it just never occurred to me anyone would think it's ugly and manly. Frankly, I think it's beautiful. If I actually make it through this winter from fucking hell, I look forward greatly to wearing sundresses and tank tops and letting my arms out to play in public, 'cause I don't think they have ever looked better. (At least not since 1987 or so. Carrying my kid around and being young gave me pretty arms too.) But I might just be alone in this! Gasp. If any of all y'all are embarrassed to be seen with me because my muscles make me look too butch, despite, y'know, my boobs, my floofy hair, and my eyeliner, you just let me know. I'll wear sleeves just for you.

The other point of this post is that, yeah, as Ms Peele points out, there's a certain decision to be made when you're working out about what your goal aesthetic is. Obviously, if you're playing a sport, that dictates it. Form follows function. Swimmers have wide shoulders, sprinters have nice asses. And obviously, genetics plays a part. I could decide I'd like to look like (an older) Gabrielle Reece, but since growing a foot isn't gonna happen, that would be a silly, silly goal. But within those limitations, there are choices to be made. It's really really difficult to know for sure without one of those dexa scan thingies, but my best guess is that my bodyfat percentage right now is in the low twenties somewhere. And even though I still have plenty o' thigh fat (and, sob, cellulite) at this %, I really do not want to get much lower--certainly not below 20--because oops, there go my boobs. The total annihilation of The Bulgy Polish Catcher's Thighs and really visible abs would mean attaining a level of breastlessness I personally do not want. In fact, to be honest, I've lost enough fat from my butt without gaining enough glute in return (it's hard, dude!) that I don't fill out all my jeans anymore and that's pissing me off. (But then I just pet my bicep and it distracts me. Ha!) So, yeah, I know there are a whole lot of women out there in the gym working hard and dieting to get to 16 or 18% bodyfat and a six pack, but I'm not gonna be one of them.

Alright. That was all over the place. And has many parentheticals. Deal. It's Friday.

xoxo

i take it back, mark wahlberg

Remember how I was perplexed over how Marky could look so buff in one scene of The Fighter and so, uh, non-buff in the next, when presumably they were shot within a short time of one another? It can be done! Look at this "two week transformation."

According to the guy in them, those were literally taken two weeks apart and the difference is all in posture, angle, tan vs non-tan, how hydrated and on or off carbs he was, photography (lighting etc, NOT photoshop), with a pump vs not, and on or off supplements that increase vascularity. Blows your mind, doesn't it? And should clear up any lingering doubts you have about whether you should believe infomercials!

I just thought this was fascinating. Carry on.

xoxo