A Most Unreliable Narrator Issue #108 douze points!
It’s not spring without Eurovision
I came home from my girls’ weekend with Best Kate Sunday to watch nearly seven hours of Eurovision with TEH. We missed the semi-final 2 on Thursday and the Grand Final on Saturday.
Ukraine won.
Ukraine played in the first semi-final, and I predicted on social media that we should just give them the award and call it a day. I wasn’t the only one who felt this way because popular voting in the Grand Final pushed Ukraine ahead by four hundred points with a two hundred point gap between them and second place.
Who happened to be UK which shooketh nearly everyone as last year UK didn’t get a single point from the juries or the public. I bet it was because of Brexit. Europe has spoken.
And a perfect example of Eurovision craziness is with Norway by the band Subwoolfer with “Give That Wolf a Banana.”
I will also introduce you to Latvia’s song, “Eat Your Salad,” in which the opening lines are “Instead of meat, I eat veggies and pussy.”
And it gets better as the song continues.
With Eurovision comes the true arrival of spring. TEH and I saw our first Eurovision on the telly when in Amsterdam for our honeymoon in 2010. We were stoned and eating amazing pastries so it seemed fitting. We’ve been hooked ever since watching on BBC via VPN, with Graham Norton (national treasure) commenting. Last year discovered that Paramount+ aired the show live with no advertising but there was zero commentary which was just fine. Paramount+ amped up adverts this year and Johnny Weir hosted which wasn’t bad but wasn’t awesome either. Weir was fine but the show needed a straight man to play off of Weir. Weir’s outfits were amazing though, totally in the spirit of the show.
All three episodes of Eurovision is available for replay on Paramount+ which is about a solid 10 hours of watching. If anything, you should watch the grand final (four hours) because not only is it 25 countries competing, and you can see Norway and other bands, but you also get to see how the judging works.
(The EBU, who produce Eurovision, also had a hand in the American Song Contest which 50 states, DC, and territories competed in a similar fashion but it just did not have the je ne sais quoi as the original so I stopped watching. (It was boring.))
Next year, all things considering, I’m going to get tickets for me and Tia to go to the Ukraine or wherever it will be held.
Norton called today to schedule my pre-auth meeting for the fat girl surgery. It’s happening in a month, and it’ll be around three hours long. After that, meeting with the surgeon, and then it’s not clear what happens after that. I’m not sure if my insurance requires some kind of weight loss program before the surgery (which seems ridiculous because if dieting
worked, I’d be fine!) Doctors and nutritionists refer this to as the shrinking liver diet to help with the surgery and it’s pretty typical.
I’m still on the fence on how I feel about this. My therapist keeps reminding me that I have until the day of the surgery to change my mind. I’m trying desperately to not beat myself up about things that while I’ve been working out for over two months now, three times a week bay-bee, my eating remains sporadic, and I gain weight if you sneeze on me. Best Kate and I had a pretty debauched weekend food and drink wise so that didn’t help.
And after each debauchery, no matter when it happens, there is always the promise of “not again” or “I’ll be more mindful/careful/whatever.” Diet starts Monday. Always, always, always.
TEH is convinced he can get me to lose weight on his plan which is pretty simple:
Breakfast: yogurt, sliced almonds, protein shake, fruit
Snacks: Fruit, veggies, hummus
Lunch: Huel (meal replacement)
Dinner: Factor meals
Dear friend who is on the liver shrinking diet for their own surgery has lost roughly 30 pounds since January watching calories, eating protein, and low sodium foods. TEH’s plan is similar, we’re just using prepared foods to shore up our meals. If TEH had his way, it would be meal supplements all the way down but I like food and breakfast and the motion of chewing. Sue me.
I’ve swapped out my water enhancers to my 40oz water bottle which I fill with ice and cold water and sip all day long, refilling several times a day. My sliding foray into drinking caffeine is back on hiatus. I now work out five days a week with strength training on M/W/F and cardio on T/Th.
When TEH and I were putting the plan into place last week, we both noted we had to get our eating under control not only for our health but so when we travel this upcoming winter, we can actually go do stuff and not be boat bound because we’re too fat to move. We’re not My 600lb Life over here but sometimes it feels like it.
The worst part, for me, is trying to not set myself up for failure by saying, “Okay, so, if I do X by Y time, I can lose Z weight.” It doesn’t work like that, it never worked like that. But that’s the story us fat folk tell ourselves.
I wish I could buy into the self-love and body confidence rhetoric because it would allow me to make my peace with food, my body, and to want to love me for me. I’m not there yet, not even close, but hopefully one day, surgery or no, I will be.
Tomorrow, May 17th, is Kentucky’s primary. I’ve researched my candidates and I’m ready to go do my civic duty. Our polling place is within walking distance so that’s our walk for the day. We’ll be getting up at normal work out time so I can get it done before work.
My brother called me today (well, he does every day) and proposed the idea of setting up my nephew his own Gmail account and we email him stuff about him or the world going on so that when he reaches of age, he has this wonderful trove of things to read. I set the account up for them and I’m pretty excited for this mini-project. I had the idea a few years back when Joey was born to write him a newsletter about his family and the world around him but that never came to pass. This idea is so much better.
Things I Recently Wrote
If you read #97.5, you’ll recall I’ve ditched the We’ll Read Anything Once (Twice If We Like it) book review blog for a newsletter of the same name.
What I’m Reading
FINISH A FUCKING BOOK LISA BEFORE STARTING A NEW ONE.
The 7/12 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle An Agatha Christie-esque locked room mystery
Reputation Mean girls with Jane Austen thrown in
Dissolution Lawyer turned sleuth in Tudor England
The Historian A 700 page tomb of the retelling of Dracula
The Book of Life All Souls #3
Girls to the Front Oral history of Riot Grrrls
all about love bell hook’s classic
Black Loves Matter Essays that intersect on love, romance, and media through the lens of Black authors and creators
Healing: Our path from mental illness to mental health
Being Mary Bennet A young woman deeply unsatisfied with her life decides to stop being Mary Bennet and live her authentic self
Wonderful Thing
Sweet tea vodka and lemonade.
When Best Kate and I had our debauched weekend which included a fancy steakhouse, they called this concoction the “John Daly” which was so delightful I had three. A spin on the virgin Arnold Palmer, it’s a refreshing drink I could drink all summer long and not mind getting drunk. Erika said that’s her go to drink during the summer when she’s relaxing on her porch. I knew there were reasons we got along so famously.
Get vaccinated! Vote in the primaries! Boop a dog’s nose!
lisa x