☀️A Most Unreliable Narrator 🌨️ Issue #209 An Interlude
It's Wednesday, so why not?
Dear Internet,
First, a weather report:
Tuesday, March 11: High of 34F
Wednesday, March 12: 48F
Thursday, March 13: 55F
Friday, March 14: 67F
Saturday, March 15: 69F
Sunday, March 16: 39F with snow
It is Wednesday afternoon, a bit chilly outside (41F) but sunny. Mr. Lisa and I went into town today to run errands, and I had an on-site client meeting to fix what should have been a simple problem but instead became a rabbit hole of a problem I want to solve. I see the client after the library gig on Saturday to finish the work. I have Square on my phone and a card swiper so that I can get paid on the spot. God, I love technology.
On Sunday, Mr. Lisa and I are driving to KY for a few days; by a few days, I mean we leave on Sunday and return on Tuesday. We had plans to go later on in the month, but shit keeps coming up where if I’m not working that weekend, we have guests. I’m off Sunday/Monday/Tuesday (unless I pick up a shift), so this week it is!
All winter (which I’ve survived with 130” of snow so far this season!), I’ve been keeping a list of things we need to bring up, such as my Fiestaware butter dish and my rowing gloves. We have a door shoe rack that houses 90% of my Chucks. That is coming up here, and I’m planning on donating 1/2 of my collection. I have a few bits of clothing left and other odds and ends to bring with me. On our last trip, we brought up J’s office chair to ditch the cheap one he was using. The big items in this trip may be our industrial printer and two-drawer filing cabinet or J’s favorite chair or our couch console for my turntable and speakers.
We now have our Michigan driver’s licenses, and the car has Michigan plates. The mail we get in Kentucky is mostly junk mail. Why should I be in Kentucky?
(There is no good reason that I can think of.)
We did survive the winter of 130” of snow. Last fall, we purchased new tires, and I asked for the beefiest ones available. With the beefy tires and 4WD, the car drove beautifully all winter. ABS only came on a few times!
This is good because if the car couldn’t handle the winter, we would swap it for SUV or a truck. With Mr. Lisa officially laid off, not having to add to the monthly budget is a godsend.
As of March 11, Mr. Lisa was officially laid off from Global Mega Corp after nearly 26 years. It’s been bittersweet for the last few months because they keep dicking around his last days. Mr. Lisa has been beyond stressed, as one could imagine, about the next steps.
Mr. Lisa is now part of Nerd Girl Industries, doing back-end work (cybersecurity, server and database admin, and more). We’ve already picked up a customer for Mr. Lisa, who did a cybersecurity audit. There are potentially more projects down the road, not only with this client but also with others.
I’ve begun teaching classes on various online forums, which has been nice. The pay ranges from decent to “holy shit, that’s amazing” for 1 to 2 hours of my time every month. Mr. Lisa is also going to teach several courses himself. Additionally, we’ve got clearance to post the classes on these online sites and Udemy.
We’ll take all the passive income for $100, Alex.
Speaking of classes, I pitched to the Romance Writers of America's (RWA) yearly national conference on information literacy, and my presentation got accepted! My payment is a comped ticket (about $500), and I pay for food, lodging, and transportation. The event is in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and the Canadian dollar is only worth 70% of the American dollar (at the current stage of the world, who knows what it’ll be in July), so the currency exchange is helping. The drive from N. Michigan to Niagara Falls is only 8 hours, which is what we do to drive from here to KY, so it’s a no-brainer to drive rather than fly. It’ll also allow me to stop and see my mother’s grave, visit friends on both sides of the border, and see Canadian relatives.
(I really, really, really do not want Canada as a 51st state.)
Since May 2023, my weight has stabilized between 275 to 280. The fat girl doctor wanted me down to 220 and I knew I would not get that low. I had a hard time maintaining it when I was younger. I told myself I would be happy between 240 to 250.
Buying clothes off the rack has been great. Depending on the brand, I usually wear an XL or XXL (16 to 18). The only hiccup that remains is shirts being too short. I keep running into that problem, even buying shirts marked tall, which has been ongoing my entire life. I bought a few Gap shirts and J. Crew sweaters that fit, and I loved them, but while the tops and sweaters weren’t marked crop, that’s how they ended up with me.
I remain anti-zipper and button. After I had lost the bulk of my weight, I bought jeans shorts and the 18s, which fit well. I bought regular jeans in the same style and cut; even the 20s did not fit. It was right then and there that I decided fuck pants with zipper and buttons. Outside of my beloved leggings (which I own nearly 12 pairs, I think, in various colors and fabrics), I’ve been buying “pull-up” pants and pants with a bit of elasticized waist. I’m still shopping at Old Navy (because I do not have the budget for bigger or indie brands I like), and the trend, as it were, is pull-up pants and pants with a bit of elasticized waist. I own four pairs of wide-leg linen pants (I bought them in England years ago and fit into them again) and seven or eight pairs (I’m too lazy to look) of pants in various styles and fabrics. I’m favoring wide legs with ankle length, which seems to be my go-to. Being so tall (5’10”), most of my pants were ankle length anyway, so I just leaned into the trend.
Kristin and I were talking about style recently, and she’s favoring classics over trends because classics never get old. I’m of the same mindset, but I’m more about having a uniform of sorts that is both comfy and stylish. I jazz up the outfit with statement jewelry. My uniform has remained so since my 20s: printed t-shirts, Chucks or Docs, some pants/skirts/shorts, and a cardigan. That’s the style I’ve always favored and the one I feel the most comfortable in.
I’ve been thinking deeply about my body for the last few months, and I think I want to lose another 20 lbs. I have self-confidence in wearing bikinis, tank tops, and tight clothes, but it’s the paunch that looks so odd around my tummy area that I want to ditch it. Per Mr. Lisa, that’s a hard area to tone up, so maybe losing a bit more weight would help.
If I don’t lose the 20 lbs, I'm OK with staying my current weight. I’m more interested in loving myself, having a good body image, and being healthy than what’s on the scale.
I haven’t weighed and portioned out my food in months (because when you eat so little, there really isn’t a reason to), but I’m finding myself becoming obsessed with the scale again. Knowing the numbers has always been a triggering point for me back when I was heavier; now that old habits are creeping up again, it worries me.
I put my gym membership on hold over the winter and will start back up in April. The promise I made to myself (and Mr. Lisa) is that if I’m not utilizing the gym at least twice a week for a few months, I’ll cancel the membership no questions asked.
I’m thinking of leaving OA for good. I get the point of the program and understand what it represents, but the groups I meet with weekly are obsessed with the scale and how much weight they gained or lost. I want to talk about using food as a crutch, not the fact that I lost X amount of pounds.
I suppose I could find another group, so I might try that for a while. Who knows? I’ll report back on what happens next.
Speaking of therapy, with my work schedule set for three days a week (with pick-up shifts the other days from other libraries), I haven’t been attending the weekly bipolar support group as often as I should. I don’t think I’ve attended one since Brendan died in January. (I cannot believe it’s been two months since the self-ish bastard took his own life.)
As for regular therapy, it turns out our shitty insurance (which we do have until the end of September and then who knows) doesn’t pay much for my new weekly therapist. After several sessions with her, I had to drop her to once a month. Mr. Lisa says that money spent on my mental health is worth the investment, but this therapist is nearly twice the cost of my last one, and while I like her, spending the kind of money just isn’t in the budget, which means I need to get back to my daily, free, meetings!
(I just scheduled those for the next few weeks.)
On top of NGI and teaching, my library schedule is on overtime. I emailed the director for Library A, and they don’t need me this summer. Library B is where I have a set schedule. Library C hasn’t reached back out. Library D is official, and I will start training there in a few weeks. Library E has been the most intense because I’ve been training across all departments. I think I’ve done 30 to 40 hours of training at Library E across two weeks on top of NGI and my set scheduled with Library B. I still have another 15 hours to train as I have to train at two other branches and advanced training at the main library.
Everyone has been so kind at Library E (well, everyone has been so kind everywhere I’ve been in N. Michigan). The department heads are all super chill, and I get along with all of them. After years of a toxic environment, crying most nights of the week, and having to up my anti-anxiety meds, it is so weird to feel like I’m wanted, respected, and needed.
(Someone asked me how I keep track of everything: my calendar is color-coded to an inch of its life.)
Damn, nearly 2000 words! This is what happens when you don’t write for a few months!
It turns out that sending today is a good thing and not because I was bored. As I was scheduling stuff for the next few weeks, AMUN is due this Sunday but I’ll be driving that day to KY and I’m working pretty heavily Th/Fr/Sat.
(I still plan on sending the Blotter out tomorrow (Thursday) and get cracking on next weeks newsletters.)
Spring will be here in a few weeks and I’m excited for it! If you checked out the weather report at the beginning of this issue, we’re getting a false spring and then snow. It’s mainly melting and we can see our gravel driveway for the first time since mid-November.
I’m really going this time. Take care, I love you, and I’ll see you in a few weeks!
lisa x