Starvation is the New Black

I know that recently I bowed down to the reality of Spanx as my future. That truth has not changed. But I have gone back to my commitment to diet and lose some weight. I'm almost 36, so a little weight loss isn't going to cancel out the necessity of shape wear. So, alas, I sit here starving AND cruising the Spanx website.

Side note: Technical writer usually thinks of nothing but murder every day but now technical writer thinks of nothing but food all day.

I lost about 20 pounds a couple years ago. I was in the best shape I had been in in a long time at age 34. Then cancer happened and I decided to comfort eat my way through it. Oh, and the effing steroids they gave me didn't help. I had the cravings of 12 pregnant woman thanks to those meds. So, I gained all the weight back and maybe even a little extra. While I haven't been pigging out, I haven't been a slave to My Fitness Pal and I decided on Sunday that it was time to chain myself to that evil mistress again. I bought some Special K diet breakfast sandwiches and some Lean Cuisines and dragged them to work with me on Monday. I was elated to fill the freezer here at the office with a bunch of crap that will never sate my appetite. Yay? Winning?

I'm on day 3 of behaving. I've only thought of eating my own arm once or twice. I've only thought about stealing change from co-workers for Doritos from the vending machine about 7 times. I've only daydreamed about going nuts in the new Snarf's when it opens right next to work about 53 times.

Side note: I will totally go ape shit when Snarf's opens. Everyone deserves a cheat day (week?), right? Damn you, Snarf's for creating sandwiches so good that they taste like are made with crack and baby tears.

Do I miss food? Maybe... I may or may not have wept when I passed a McD's yesterday. I may think longingly of a Philly cheese steak from Bogey's. I may think about giving up all my TV shows to be able to eat anything I want without any caloric repercussions. I may want to shank the co-worker walking by with a real meal from the cafeteria.

Side note: Hey! Technical writer DOES still think of murder all day!

But I am determined. I did it once before and I can do it again. I will just pretend all food is a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style because we all know how I feel about that bitch. No one wants to eat all that proper grammar. My own form of aversion therapy!

And for those of you wondering... Yes, I know how many calories wine has. But I firmly believe that rehab is for quitters and I am already stabby enough, so don't touch my Pinot Noir for the safety of the human race. Besides, when you look at the pic below, you will see that my lunch is SO depressing that I deserve a treat at the end of the day and, in Brook's world, treats always come in the form of wine.

Side note: What asshole decides to commit to a diet the week before Thanksgiving? This one, apparently. *sigh*

My lunch:

 

Just for fun:

 

I Just Introduced Myself to My Phone

My Samsung Galaxy and I have been hanging out for almost 6 months now but, apparently, we never became properly acquainted before today. A few of us were standing around discussing the weather (snow and very cold) and this lead into a discussion about weather apps. I proudly displayed my Weather Kitty App where (for an extra $1.99) you can get Grumpy Cat to let you know that it's snowing.

Side note: Grumpy Cat is just as cranky about the snow as I am. Shocking.

So, then my phone became a topic of conversation because it's a Mini and I said I thought the battery sucked a little bit. I forgot to mention that I work next to IT and one of them is an avid smart phone junkie. He kept asking where all my apps were and I showed him. He said my phone was very Monk-like because I only have 4 apps on my home screen. Hey, phone clutter annoys me! I might have closets stuffed with junk to overflowing at home but my phone is clean as a whistle. And besides, what do I need besides Contacts, Text Messaging, Weather Kitty, and My Daily Horoscope on my home screen? I'm fine letting all the other apps I have (and don't use) hide.

Side note: My Daily Horoscope keeps promising me all this great stuff is going to happen and I am losing patience waiting for this to be true. I wonder if there is a Grumpy Cat Horoscope App because you know HE would be honest. "You're a grown up, life sucks, get over it."

But the real mind-blowing thing happened when my co-worker told me about "Ok, Google". What it this piece of magic and how did I not know about it??? Now all those commercials with people saying "Ok, Google" are making SO much more sense! And I am no longer jealous of Siri (she seems kind of like a bitch any way, if you ask me). But first I had to introduce myself to my phone. THREE TIMES. Now it recognizes my voice! I feel so close to the little darling now. I just want to "Ok, Google" random shit all day. I can't believe I have wasted all this time using my fingers to look things up. I could have been doing so many more important things with them, like opening the wine spigot on my trusty box o' booze. If I just had just cozied up to my phone properly when we first met, I could have been way drunker these last 6 months. I just smacked myself on the forehead and said 'God, I'm an idiot", just like Dad taught me to do when I was three. Lesson learned. More wine will be had when I get home tonight and converse with my phone rather than actually touching it.

Side note: I am going to ask IT for more phone lessons. I hear it can give you directions to places and stuff. I think I have discovered a whole new world of technology and it has only taken me three years of being a smart phone owner! And here I thought I was all fancy using it to help me do math during Monopoly last night.

I'm all About Those Spanx, 'Bout Those Spanx, No Treble

No, I don't own a pair of Spanx. Yet... I decided on the way to work that I will ask for some for Christmas, though. I hear they liquefy your organs or something but, whatevs, because I am facing the truth. Even with diet and exercise (*snort* we all know those things are never happening for this gal), my age alone is beginning to require any and all help to look good.

Side note: Does the whole liquefy organs thing mean Spanx are voluntary Ebola??

There are certain outfits that look good on me but would be greatly enhanced by a cheat sheet to fix the, um, topography of my beloved body. Why not use the Cliff Notes version of the perfect curves - aka: Spanx?! The person who invented these things of genius was put here on this earth to make life easier for women who refuse to give up wine and carbs and wine and gluten and pizza and wine and, well, you get the drift.

So, on the days where I am not hiding my belly with a well-placed and stylish scarf, I am no longer sucking it in. I am letting Spanx suck it in for me.

Side note: Does this mean I am even lazier than we already thought I was??

Sure, I could "plank" for minutes every day. I could try a crunch or two. Or I could count every minute that I don't waste on that exercise bullshit and say that the time saved is $1 going into my "Saving Up for Spanx" piggy bank (pun intended).

Hello, Spanx! Welcome reality! Farewell, pipe dreams about Treble.

Side note: This was my breakfast this morning. Yes, you see carbs, bacon, egg, cheese, AND pesto. It's pretty much the only reason I got out of bed today.

Strung Out on Chamomile

Most people wake and caffeinate. I wake and sedate. My to go mug carries chamomile, not coffee. People find this odd and ask me why I am not half asleep. I look at them with scorn and say things like "Um, have you met me???" At this point, ingesting horse tranquilizers would be a drop in this bucket of stress and anxiety I have going on. So, no, my morning tea choice does not make me sleepy.

In addition to stress and anxiety, I am also feeling a bit stabby today. I mulled over the reasons as to why this is during my commute. I came up with the following possibilities:

1. My day literally started at 12am with Hubby cussing at me about my snoring. (Screw you, dude, you snore, too.) I went to the couch where I spent the next 5 hours listening to my dog smacking his lips. WTF? What was he doing and why did it never end??? Maddening!

2. PMS?

3. I am channeling my inner Dick Cheney (because, seriously, be you Democrat or Republican you have to admit that Dick Cheney is the embodiment of evil).

4. Chamomile tea is neither wine nor horse tranquilizers.

I'm sure my current stabbiness is a mix of all of the above. It's really in everyone's best interest that I start my day chamomile tea, so stop acting all weird about me drinking it at 6:30am.

My dear son chose today of all days to wake up on the wrong side of the bed. I love him and I'm 99% sure that I will not run away to Mexico and "forget" to pick him up from school today but he was getting on my last nerve... He woke up whining about not getting picked to have breakfast with the principal (which just sounds like punishment to me) and there isn't even a breakfast with the principal scheduled today! That's like me whining about not winning the Wine Princess Contest when such a contest doesn't even exist!!

Side note: I would totally win a Wine Princess Contest.

Dear son could have at least chosen to whine about something that exists. Like the fact that I am never going to let him have his friend over for a play date because I am too lazy to clean the house. He really needs to think this shit through. He went on to mope for the entire ride to school (which is less than 10 minutes but felt like a millennium this morning). Woe is him and all he has are bad days. It was really hard to keep the words that I wanted to say in my head. Some examples are:

"Poor you. School must be so much harder than my soul-sucking career."

"Poor you. You get $22 MineCraft stuffed animals while Mommy is wearing clothes from 2003."

"Poor you. Is your shirt clean? It is. You want to know why? Because I do the same 6 loads of laundry every weekend and this wonderful chore will NEVER END."

"Poor you. Do you like using your tablet? I hope so because I pay the electric bill that charges that damn thing. And Xcel Energy is a real asshole company that triples my rates 4 months out of the year to 'encourage us to conserve energy during the hottest months of the year'. AND I'm still paying off said tablet but, no, you are the one who has it so rough."

Side note: Xcel Energy is right up there with Dick Cheney as the root of all evil but I won't get started on that now. That rant is a whole other Oprah.

Being the adult in this situation, I did keep all those words (and many more) in my head. Small victories? And now I'm off for another cup of chamomile. I fear for humans near me if I don't...

This isn't really a post...

But rather an ode to the one year anniversary of my last chemo treatment. This time last year I knew I would never have to sit in that chair and get hooked up to a bunch of poison again in two weeks. All 8 treatments were done! I had survived my worst nightmare. A lot has happened in that last year and every day keeps getting better and better. I pause often to be thankful for the place I am in now compared to the place I was last year. This picture was taken after I got home from my last treatment. I celebrated with champagne. This year I will celebrate by feeling well enough to take my son to Trunk or Treat (and also wine because, come on, like I even have to explain why).

A Day in the Life of a Technical Writer (aka - Tree Killer for No Reason)

I just spent four hours wrestling with a Table of Contents that is supposed to generate automatically. I consider that a huge technology fail on the part of the software I use (coughFrameMakercough) and I am now silently seething with rage. I want to go to my local library and rip every table of contents out of every book and then set the pages on fire and roast marshmallows and drink wine while I watch them burn. That's a perfectly normal reaction, right?

Side note: I realized my last blog post didn't mention wine once. WTF??? I must have been having an off day! I will try and use the word wine as many times as possible in this post so that the drinking game my friend suggested is super awesome for ya'll. For those of you who don't read my comments (shame on you, btw), the drinking game is taking a shot every time the word wine is used in a post. I won't let you down with this post, I promise.

So, back to all my technical writing woes. In addition to asshole TOCs, I would like to bitch about hyphens. I work with a Hyphen Nazi. The redlines I get back from peer review are ridiculous. I'm super close to hyphenating everything. The-only-thing-good-about-hyphens-is-that-my-boss-hates-them-and-it-drives-him-crazy-that-The-Chicago-Manual-of-Style-states-that-we-must-use-them-as-often-as-the-Hyphen-Nazi-says-to-because-that-is-the-gramatically-correct-way. Folks, never ever argue with The Chicago Manual of Style.

Side note: They gave me a copy of the Chicago Manual of style here at work. I have had it for four years and never opened it. I should probably be disbarred. Wait, I think that's a term for another profession... I should probably take a look at that dictionary they gave me, too... Nah, that sounds like too much work. I shall now stop digressing.

Let's see... What else drives me crazy about technical writing aside from the mind-numbing boredom that comes from writing one manual for two years straight? My documents always end up becoming "critical path" for every project I work on. And by "critical path" I mean that everyone ignores me and forgets I exist until they need their documents RIGHT EFFING NOW so they can release their product to market before we all get fired. But, no pressure. And somebody got turned into HR for saying "Poor planning on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on mine" so I was told to take my sign down. I plan to secretly tattoo that saying on my body and go look at it every time I smile and tell someone "no problem, I will get that right to you" and then start daydreaming about shanking them. It's a verb: to shank. (See, my blog teaches you stuff. You're welcome, readers.)

Side note: Are you starting to see why I love my wine so much?

And, finally (well, I could keep complaining all day but I have some commas to move around, so I have to wrap this up), no one reads what I write! This revelation came straight from a person who works in a hospital. Documents go directly from the box to the garbage can. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Technically, I kill trees for no reason for a living. I should get new business cards....

Side note: Wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wint wine wine wine wine wine wine wine wine. Have fun getting wasted everyone!!!

It's Time You Learn the Truth

I loved personality quizzes way before Buzzfeed made them so cool. For any young'uns reading this blog, my love of quizzes started with magazines. Yes, things actually in print! I'm a damn dinosaur... But Cosmo only came out once a month so I resorted to any sort of personality test I could find, even the "legitimate" psychology ones. For the record I am an ENFJ. Yahoo that if you don't know what I am talking about.

With the invention of the Interwebs, we now have personality quizzes out the wazoo. And this is a good thing because without Buzzfeed or Playbuzz or Quizony I would have NO idea what kind of person I am. I would be wandering around in the dark, clueless. I would have no answers to questions such as "What Female Movie Stereotype Are You?" (the Mean Girl which I sort of take offense to). How could you live with yourself not knowing the answers to such deep and meaningful insights into your own soul?

Because I CARE about knowing myself, I take every quiz out there. I can tell you that I should actually be living in Georgia, my wild animal soul mate is a dolphin (and stupid me thought it was a tiger, so I'm thankful for being set straight), I'm a Democrat (nice to have validation that my voter registration card has been correct all this time), and I will be wise as an old person. I was super relieved to solve the mystery of which Kardashian family member I am (Kim, ew, but now I know at least).

How did humanity evolve without these quizzes? Screw Freud. HE never asked the important questions like "What Time of the Day Are You?" (late night for me which is bullshit because I haven't seen 10:30 in at least three years but whatevs because NOW I KNOW THE TRUTH and will adjust my entire life accordingly). And what the Hell was Carl Jung up to? That moron was wasting our time with all of his theories. Where was his published paper on "Which Hit Country Song Are You" (The Devil Went Down to Georgia).

Side note: That is a badass song and I am quite proud of myself and this might also be the reason why I should actually be living in Georgia. See how these quizzes are helping me connect the true dots and get my shit together?? I'm going to start house hunting as soon as this blog is posted.

But back to Freud and Jung and all those other amateurs. Rorschac can eat a dick. You know where those stupid pictures can be shoved. In fact, the whole field of psychology should just bow down to the Interwebs and admit that they have nothing on the profundity of "What Should You Buy in September" (car accessories, wtf?). So, cancel your therapy sessions and throw out all those self help books. Stop pretending that you know who you are and start taking the quizzes that bring the truth about you to light. This is mandatory to becoming the best you that Quizony says you should be. I'll let you know when I've secured housing in Georgia.

Another side note: I am not living anywhere near that ridiculous escalator in Atlanta. That shit is crazy steep and long. It's as bad as these freaky mountains I live near. My crippling fear of heights says no way!