A weekly(ish) series where I talk briefly about somebody who I think is cool for one reason for another.

I used to work at a Lane Bryant, and one of the advertisements we had in the store was a poster nearly as tall as me. It was an add for Seven7 jeans, and showed a pretty dark-haired girl in a garden, looking over her shoulder. I absolutely loved it. Sometimes when I was alone in the store I would stop and just look at it, and her. When I left, I wanted to take it with me as a wall decoration--it really was a beautiful photograph, in addition to the woman being lovely. I had no idea who she was until last fall, when I opened a Glamour magazine and there she was!

Who she is: Crystal Renn, former straight-size, current plus-size model.

What she's done: Ads for Lane Bryant and Torrid, all sorts of magazine spreads, finale dress at 2006 Gaultier show (right).

Why I love her: Renn started out doing traditional modeling early in her career, and was at one time a size zero--in fact, she weighed less than 100 pounds. Not that I put much stock (okay, any) in the BMI, but her BMI was about 13. And guess what? She wasn't happy. She didn't feel healthy. So she quit her job--on the verge of getting a $40k contract--and started eating again. She's now about a size 12, and absolutely smoking hot. And she does more than catalog work--she does the same sort of editorial layouts her skinny counterparts do, for Elle and Vogue and other magazines. She's also very open about how she struggled to fit into the straight modeling world, and how much happier she is now at the size her body wants to be. Even though she's not what I would consider truly fat, I think she's an awesome size acceptance role model. And because she's a model and therefore puts herself out there for people to oogle, I have no qualms about saying that aside from all the intellectual reasons I love her, she's a total babe.

Just as a comparison, here are two pictures of her. The left is when she was a "normal" sized model, and the right is current. Doesn't she look so much healthier, and sexier, now?

I tend to fixate on songs; I'll find one and listen to it endlessly for a few days. This is the current one.

I've been trying to like this guy (let's call him Dylan, and my cousin Christy); I've tried to be welcoming, since apparently he's here to stay. I tried not to let my first impression color everything--that first impression being a desire to kick him in the nads after he shoved my harmless little dog with his foot and told her to get away or he'd kick her. And then said he wasn't joking when I swooped her up and told him not to threaten my dog.

That was the weekend of my older cousin's wedding (Christy's brother), which was the first time I actually spent any time around Dylan. He monopolized Christy's time that whole weekend, keeping her with him almost every moment and getting pissed off when she left him to talk to anyone. My overall impression was that he was a self-centered, judgmental jerkoff.

Apparently, my dad and her brother both had a talk with him about his behavior, and supposedly he was better after that. He seemed to be okay over Christmas; he actually talked to people, and didn't insist on my cousin being within arm's reach at all times. Less than a week later, though, he irritated me again with his smug pharmacist routine that he pulls out at every opportunity.

Since then, I've seen him at a few holidays, and he's done nothing to impress me. The fact that Christy waits on him like a servant does not amuse me. The fact that he puts her in a headlock and plays UFC wrestling with her also does not amuse me--because she doesn't play back. It also disturbs me that he wants her to move to Kansas while he goes to medical school--now that she's finished school and has a job and can support him.

The more time I spend around the two of them, the more bothered I get. We had a get together at the beginning of the month when his parents came in to town; I can see where he gets his personality. Neither his mother nor father actually talked to Christy much that I saw; his father actually didn't talk to any of the women at all, really, now that I think about it.

His mother, though, never shut up--no matter what anyone was saying, she had something to jump in and say to take the conversation in another direction. She also didn't talk to Christy much--instead, she talked about her, primarily about her popping out babies! I'd say a good 75% of the conversation that day was the mothers and my grandmother talking about Dylan and Christy having children, preferably immediately after getting married.

When it came time to eat that day, Dylan, Christy, and I were sitting on the couch watching television. Without a word, Dylan got up, sat himself at the table ... and waited for Christy to serve him! It wasn't like she'd said "Honey, why don't you sit down, I'll get you a plate." He just expected it. And then he complained about what she brought him, too.

Today, he exhibited two examples of controlling behavior that made me want to slap him and grab my cousin and just shake her. The first was when he and I were watching tv, and he was flipping through channels.
"Oh, Sex and the City, that'd be perfect." was my sarcastic comment.
"Hell no! That's so retarded. She [not Christy, she] wanted to buy the movie and I wouldn't let her."
"What?"
"She's not watching that."
"Are you kidding me? Why not? It's not like you have to watch it."
He snorted. "I don't care. She's not watching that on my television!"
I just looked at him for a minute, and then I couldn't control myself. "You cannot be serious."
"Yes I am."
Somebody interrupted at that point, which is probably good, because I could feel my blood pressure rising.

My dad keeps a candy dish on his coffee table; Dylan spent most of today sitting on the couch, watching UFC and eating all the Snickers out of the candy dish. Not too long before they left, Christy sat down next to him and grabbed a miniature Milky Way. Before she could open it, he captured her wrist with one hand and took the candy bar from her with the other.
"How many have you had?" he asked.
She looked away and said "Four" and didn't even try to take it back from him. I opened my mouth, but knew I was going to cause a scene that my family wouldn't understand or support. Instead, I grabbed another candy bar and tossed it to her without even looking at jackass. I don't know if she ate it; I got up to get some water and started talking to her brother's wife. A couple of minutes later I heard Christy sort of squeal and tell Dylan to stop--because he had been grabbing her inner thighs and pinching her! Like that's not an obvious way to shame her about her weight!

The "adults" in the family all seem to think he's great--my aunt has a stupid nickname for him and treats him like her own son. My grandmother is just sooooooo impressed that he's a pharmacist. My dad ... well, I don't know why he thinks this jackass is so great, but he got really pissed when I said the guy's an idiot.

I rode home with Christy's brother and his wife, since I'm still lacking a car. From things my dad has said, I thought her brother was cool with this. On the ride home, though, his wife turned around and asked me "So what you do think of this whole situation with Christy and Dylan?"

I hesitated for a moment before I said I thought it was a huge mistake. To my vast relief, she agrees with me (and she graduated with both Christy and Dylan), and so does my cousin, who flat-out said the guy's a douchebag. They agree they don't like how he treats her, and how he seems like a less dangerous version of her only other serious boyfriend, who was physically abusive as well as seriously controlling (to the point of her ceasing all contact with her entire family the last year of high school).

It's all very distressing, especially since she reacts so defensively to anything that's even remotely critical of this guy.

So I finally get out of work tonight, a mere half hour before close ... And my car? Won't start. At first I wasn't too bothered, I figured a jump would set it right (even though I hadn't left the lights on or anything). Oh, no. There's some connection somewhere that's screwed up.



It's actually my dad's car, so I called him to see if he could shed some light. Maybe he could have if he hadn't been drinking most of the night. Instead, he kept repeating himself and not understanding what I was telling him.



It's not like I'm stranded, I can get a ride home with a friend ... After the usual Friday night crew goes to the bar across the street for a drink. So now I'm sitting at a bar, which is never comfortable for me anyway, pissed off and just wanting to go home. So yes, I'm sitting at a bar typing a blog entry on my phone, because I don't want a drink and I can't hear my coworkers over the music anyway.



And then when I get home I have to make my house presentable because my dad will be picking me up in the morning--assuming he remembers tonight's conversation--to remedy this car situation. And I'm just not up for the lecture about my house being a mess and smelling like cats.



Maybe he'll forget and I can just stay home tomorrow. I don't feel like dealing with my family tomorrow, watching my aunt and cousin wait on the menfolk like slaves and listening to my aunt and grandmother nag my two cousins about when they're going to spawn.

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A weekly(ish) series where I talk briefly about somebody who I think is cool for one reason for another.

Just because I like to shoot my mouth off about things, I've decided to implement weekly "columns" of a sort. Well, the goal is weekly, we'll see how often I actually get around to it! I just want this blog to have a bit more focus, I guess.

Friday columns will be about people I admire. I admit, I feel a bit lame doing this--it seems a bit cheesy. I'm going to try to make it at least somewhat interesting--no cop-outs like Mother Theresa or Lance Armstrong.

Today, I admire author Laurell K. Hamilton.

Who she is: author of 30 published novels, plus short stories.

What she's written: The Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series, the Merry Gentry series, and several others--including a Star Trek: The Next Generation book I read long before I ever heard of Anita Blake.

Why I admire her: She publishes two full novels a year, to start with--and not short ones. As somebody who likes to write, and used to write fiction for fun, I appreciate the work involved--both in terms of labor hours typing, and in terms of coming up with ideas, connecting the dots, keeping track of what's happened in all the books previous, etc. Plus, the first two Anita Blake books have been made into comics, so there's a lot of work there, and she's working on a screenplay for a movie of Guilty Pleasures, so basically it's a ton of work.

Also, I think what she writes about is amazing. I started out reading the Anita Blake books, and I love the details. It's modern-day St. Louis, but with a supernatural twist, and the little things that make it feel real are awesome--like a casual mention of a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of the last witch burnt at the stake. A lot of the supernatural fiction is just supernatural beings plopped into our world, but the details in the Anita Blake and Merry Gentry books make it seem absolutely grounded in reality--even when dealing with something like a night hag being magically turned inside out.

It's also rare to find women authors, with women characters, that are as violent and sexual and self-assured as Hamilton's characters are. That's usually the territory of men. I think it's awesome to read a female character talking about her guns, and the way she arms herself, and the difference between Glaser Safety Rounds and regular bullets. I love Anita's snarky, sarcastic bitchiness.

As far as the sexual stuff ... people criticize that there's too much sex, some people are just terribly offended by it. I think it's awesome, particularly in the Merry Gentry series, because the character of Meredith is absolutely unapologetic about the fact that she's regularly having sex with a lot of men, usually more than one at once. I think there's too much shame about sex in our society (despite the media sexualization of everything), so I think it's refreshing that the characters are shameless and the author is unapologetic about what she writes. Is it perfect? No; there are some feminist issues I won't go into here.

But overall, I love LKH's books, and to sound like a total fangirl, I'm in awe of her creativity.

Next week: Your mom. Ha! Seriously, I don't know yet.

So I was just getting ready for bed; I had just taken my contacts out, actually. One of my cats was making this hoarse, quiet meowing noise, and I didn't know why. Well, I think she smelled something through the open bedroom window, because a minute or so later I heard this horrible screaming, yowling noise outside. The dogs started going nuts, yapping and barking; I pushed past them and out the front door, but the noise had stopped.

Instead, there was my neighbor, in his boxer shorts, carrying a sword.

He saw a fox dart into the underbrush, dragging something; we suspect it killed somebody's cat. My neighbor got a flashlight and shone it under the bushes, thinking the fox might still be there, but it'd found a hole in the fence and was long gone. His girlfriend came out too, and she was really upset; they had thought it was one of their cats, because they couldn't remember if they'd let him back inside at first.

Just one of the reasons my kitties aren't allowed outside.

This is supposed to test your reaction time; but it's totally cute. :)

I was at my dad's last week, right before I got sick. We were having a leisurely evening, sitting in easy chairs on his wrap-around deck, getting some fresh air, listening to the crickets. I don't totally remember now how the conversation went, but I know he managed to give me grief about two out of three of my least favorite topics to discuss with him.

The first was my weight. He said something about when was I going to get my weight "under control" and I said it is under control. "Bullshit! When are you going to do something about it?" I said I'm not, and he demanded to know why. I said "I don't care enough about it to do anything."
"You don't care about your health?" Now, I find that absolutely hilarious coming from someone who drinks every night, smokes, spray paints cars without a mask, dips his hands in paint thinner, and thinks guns and whiskey are a great combination.
"I'm perfectly healthy," I told him.
"Oh really? Could you run two miles?"
I just looked at him, trying to figure out the best response--I was leaning towards I couldn't, but plenty of skinny people couldn't either.
"Well, could you?" he demanded again.
"Could you?" Okay, no the best response.
"I'm 50 years old and I drink like a sailor and breathe toxic chemicals! But I could if I had to. I wouldn't like it, but sometimes in life you have to do things you don't like."

Which was his excellent segue into giving me grief about my career/schooling. He started in about how I need to pick something and stick with it, blah blah blah; when I said I didn't know what I'd be good at he told me that's a 12 year old's answer. Then he said, "I thought you were going to be a dietetic technician, or did you give up on that too!"

That right there tells me that my aunt's got a big mouth. Because I have in fact "given up" on that whole misguided adventure, but wasn't planning on telling my dad that yet. I told my aunt, though, but asked her not to tell my dad and explained why. But I'm sure she did. I didn't admit it, though. I just wasn't up for it. Instead I just sighed and said "Do we really have to talk about this now?"

"No, let's put it off another ten years!" and he stormed off to go flip the burgers on the grill. Luckily he let it drop then, and instead we talked about his dog with the broken leg. And then I pissed him off again by calling my cousin's fiance an idiot because he told my dad something totally incorrect. But he's a pharmacist, so naturally he's infallible.

I'm just so tired of having these conversations with my father. I know he's just worried about me; but I wish he'd just let go of those two topics. I'm sick of him making me feel like I'm disappointing him because I'm fat--oh wait, I mean unhealthy.

I saw this hideous picture because of Simon; I found the second occurrence of a bird-eating spider by accident.

If I'd seen this in my backyard, the followup pictures would involve a shovel spattered with spider guts. Even if their silk is useful for nerve re-attachment.

And then there's this, where a black widow stowed away in something that was shipped from San Francisco to the UK. Instead of SQUASHING THE POISONOUS FUCKER, they "found a home for it" in a freaking zoo! Seriously?

When I was little, I watched Nick at Nite any time my parents would let me stay up late. I remember watching Mister Ed while waiting for our first litter of puppies to be born. I wasn't a big fan of Donna Reed or My Three Sons; but I was okay with Bewitched and Green Acres.

I started watching Nick at Nite again when I got cable on my own, mostly because I stumbled across a block of Roseanne and got sucked in. And then of course, there's Fresh Prince, and even when I was feeling super sugary, Full House.

Basically, it's always been older shows, a dose of retro. This year, they've changed their line-up a lot. They swapped out Roseanne for The Nanny; at least the Nanny is a different decade. Same for Home Improvement, which seems to have taken the place of Full House (okay by me). But in the last few months, they've started showing The George Lopez Show and Malcolm In The Middle. They're not even from a different decade! George Lopez only ended two years ago, and Malcolm In The Middle (which I despise) ended three years ago. And apparently in September they're adding Everybody Hates Chris .... which only ended a couple of months ago!

Why is Nick at Nite suddenly a dumping ground for any show that's over? I can see re-runs of 2000s shows on other channels. I like the nostalgia of 80s/90s shows. I can be nostalgic about elementary school, even to an extent high school. I can't be nostalgic yet about anything that happened after 2000.

I hate spiders. Seriously hate them. I'm not really sure why; it's not like I ever suffered a terrible bite or anything. I didn't see "Arachnophobia" until I was in high school, and at that point my hatred of them was well established. Just seeing one makes my heart start racing. If I find one actually on me, I shudder and scream and flail and basically freak right the fuck out. I know that they're necessary in the ecosystem, that they're really beneficial predators, blah blah blah. If they're in my house, they're dead beneficial predators.

I think it started when I was about five. The house we lived in had this spiders with oblong bodies that were sort of watermelon striped. And the lady next door had a big garden that she grew watermelons in, and from my midgety little point of view, one of the watermelons and vines looked like a giant spider. Maybe that's it, I don't know.

Usually, the presence of a spider in my bedroom triggers immediate panic. Once there was a big hairy spider on the wall above my bed, and I ran to get a shoe. I got back with a shoe just in time to see one of my cats take a swipe at it and knock it on to my pillow. It scurried away, but I couldn't find it. My response was to completely dissasemble my bed, move it away from the wall, and reassemble it--at about 3 in the morning. I slept in the middle of the room for a week. I don't like spiders.

This all just preamble to illustrate how miserable I've been feeling this last week. Last Thursday I was fine. On the way up to my dad's house I had the windows down, was listening to the new a-ha album and singing, felt great. Right after dinner, I started feeling not so good. At first I thought it was an allergic reaction to something--I am, after all, allergic to the planet. Then my stomach started feeling queasy, but I thought it was my dad's cooking--heavy on the bacon grease.

Halfway down the hill, though, I was pretty sure I was getting sick. I started feeling really hot but sort of clammy, and just not right. My throat hurt more, my eyes felt swollen, etc. Since then, I've continued feeling anywhere between crappy and incredibly miserable. I still don't know if it's flu or cold, as it has symptoms of both. The ridiculous heat in my house hasn't helped.

A couple of days before, I noticed a big bug bite of some sort on my hand. I didn't think much of it. The day after I got sick, the same hand got another bite--and I'd been sleeping with that hand under my pillow, sort of against the wall by my bed. I thought I might have a spider in my bed, but I felt too sick and weak to deal with it. I checked my pillows and that wall by my bed, but other than that I just couldn't deal with it. I did spend more time on the couch, but when the worst of the sickness hit and the only position I could find that didn't make me vomit with head pain was on my bed. I passed out, even thinking to myself that there was probably a spider around.

I got a bite on each leg that night. Two nights later, and I finally felt up to pulling my bed out. Sure enough, there was a little brown spider back there. It's now in spider hell. I might not have even bothered tonight, as I still feel exhausted, but I woke up this morning with either a giant cystic zit or a bite on my face. I think it's a zit, but still, my exhaustion was finally less than my spider hatred.

I'm still not going to work tomorrow, though. I managed a very short shift tonight, but I'm still getting flushes of extreme hot and cold, my balance is off from gunk in my ears, and I generally still feel sub-human.

At least my bed is spider-free.

Check out these absolutely terrifying medical "instruments" from ye olden times.

See, I've discovered StumbleUpon. I have found a whole new way to waste time.

And then I see things like this. Twilight tattoos. (shudder)

Yeah. New dog. I didn't want another dog. But if I didn't take her, she was almost certainly going back to the pound--and with one police report for biting and being 8-9 years old, she wasn't likely to get adopted. She's a good dog, she was just being mistreated, and I couldn't live with her being sent off to probably die. Not when she behaved perfectly for me.

She was originally my cousin's dog. When my cousins were probably 8 and 5, their mom got them puppies from the same litter. They had them for a couple of years, but then the oldest girl's dog started acting up. I don't remember exactly how; but I know that my aunt took her to her "friend's farm"--which would be the pound.

Shortly after, they got her another dog from the pound, and my cousin named her America (why? because she was nine, that's why). Her sister got a dog too, and for a few years everything was fine. Then they moved into their current townhouse, and a couple of days later the other dog got out and got killed on the road.

So a year or so later my aunt replaced the other dog; I don't remember where she got this new dog, but she got rid of him not long afterward too--because he wasn't housebroken. So again, to the "friend's farm". A year later, they came home from a trip to Texas, dragging another new dog behind them. This one, my aunt knew wasn't housebroken--she was six months old and had been a dog running around loose on a ranch. She also wasn't spayed, which I had the pleasure of informing my aunt of when the dog started bleeding all over the house.

The first year or so things were okay--the new dog was going in the house, but seemed to be getting better. Of course, the two cats were terrified of this new dog and one of them literally starved to death under my cousin's bed. I've always felt terrible about that--I didn't realize he wasn't coming out ever until it was too late. I pulled him out from under the bed and got him out of the house, but he died a week later.

Anyway, after a year or so, both dogs started going in the house all the time. So they started keeping them in crates at night, and when neither of the kids was home. And then my older cousin started high school; she started honors classes, and track, and golf, and theater. And she stopped spending any time with the dog.

Predictably, the dog's behavior got worse. She was incredibly hyper; she crapped all over the house; she started attacking the other dog. She'd never liked the kids' father, and would attack him. Then she bit a neighbor girl; then she bit a neighbor woman, although she was startled and I don't really blame her. But that woman called the cops and threw a fit, even though I've hurt myself worse shaving.

But after all this, nobody was willing to watch the poor dog when they went on vacation in March. I didn't want to; I wasn't sure how she'd do with my dog and my cats. But I agreed. And she was perfect. No messes in the house, no jumping the fence, no fighting with my dog, etc. So I offered to keep her a little longer; I felt bad for her.

About a month ago, my cousin finally came to get her dog. And two weeks ago, she called and asked if I'd keep her permanently. As soon as she was back in that small house, with urine-soaked wood flooring and a crate, and no yard, she started misbehaving again. She even bit my aunt. And this time, there was no talk of the "friend's farm", just the pound.

So now, in addition to a vile schnauzer with horrible breath, and three crazy cats, I've got a German Shepherd/husky mix. She's currently asnooze by my vacuum cleaner:

(You can also see a clump of hair on the floor next to her. She sheds like mad.)

It's not all bad. I do love her, she's really a sweet, smart dog. And I feel more secure--sometimes at night I'll sleep with my bedroom window open now. With a security stick, still, but before I had the dog I wouldn't even do that. (I'm very paranoid, because when I first moved out on my own there was a serial rapist breaking into single womens' homes .... all within a couple of miles of my house.) And she does seem to make my schnauzer a little more active. So overall, I like having her here.

I say she's another accidental pet because one of my cats and my schnauzer were acquired kind of like this. The schnauzer I was watching while my mom was out of town, and when I tried to take her back the dog didn't want to go. And the cat ... well, she was my other aunt's, and I got attached to her, and then she couldn't find a home for her, and she already had three cats and two dogs, and .... hey, that's where I am now! Dammit.

Mostly because of one part, from 1:37 to 1:50.

This article is great. I love the tenth reason:

"It is embarrassing for one of the most scientifically, technologically and medicinally advanced nations in the world to base advice on how to prevent one of the leading causes of poor health and premature death (obesity) on a 200-year-old numerical hack developed by a mathematician who was not even an expert in what little was known about the human body back then."

Agreed!

I went to go to bed, and found this.

The presence of the cat might lead you to believe the cat put it there. Thing is, I haven't seen that Beanie Baby since I moved, and I was pretty sure it was still in a box. My cats are smart, but not that smart.
Damn ghost.
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So after buying my new $10 sneakers and my new $17 swimsuit that doesn't fall off and expose my tits to the world, I finally dragged myself to the gym tonight.

Well, actually, I went to Qdoba first because I had a free burrito coming, and I sat and read and let my stomach settle for about an hour. Then I drove down the road to the gym, and spent another ten minutes sitting in my car listening to the new a-ha album, feeling tired and not at all like dragging my ass into the building. But I finally did.

Then I verrrry slowly got ready. I had to use the lint roller on my workout shorts, because they looked like I'd rolled them in a dust bunny (I have no idea why, I took them out of the dryer and sat them in the damn bag!). Then I had to lace up the new shoes. Then I had to untangle my headphones which were tied in a knot. And I had to move to a different bench when it turned out I was in front of somebody's locker. And I kept dropping stuff. Then I had to change, which was probably the quickest part of the whole thing since I don't care if anybody sees my cellulite and I just whip my clothes off--none of that dancing around minimizing the bare flesh crap.

So finally I wander out to where the exercise bikes are, and spend ages fiddling around getting the seat to the right height. I always have that problem with bikes; the pedals are either too far away and I have to stretch my feet to keep them on the pedals, or my knees are about hitting my chin. Maybe my legs are a weird length, I don't know.

Anyway, I did eight minutes, which isn't much, but it was 1.25 miles, which is the distance from the far bus stop to my house, which is the whole point of this. I could've done more, but I at the end I was just starting to get a bit of pain in my right knee. So I stopped, and figure next time I'll do a quarter mile more.

Then I changed into my swimsuit, which has a really weird thick lining but whatever, and jumped in the pool. I swam a couple of laps, walked the length of the pool a few times, floated on my back for a while, and generally just enjoyed being in the water. At one point I did an underwater somersault, which was one of my favorite things to do in the water as a kid; but since my sinus surgery it makes me insanely dizzy, so I should probably not do that any more. I'm not sure why that is; I guess just because after 26 years of being clogged my inner ear can finally actually respond to be whipped in circles. Christ, think how sick I'd be now on carnival rides!

Anyway, after that I sat in the hot tub for about half an hour reading a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine (which I just typed as Ssquitaine about five time), because me = nerd. Then I was too hot, so I went and stood in the pool and read. I'm sure people think I'm a freak, but whatever.

I felt sort of sleepy by the time I left, but I had to go to the grocery store and the post office, and was more awake by the time I got home. Still, I think I should be able to get to bed a little earlier .... like now, maybe!

I didn't know what I was missing in my life until I watched a bunch of wannabe gangstas gang-bang an ottoman!

You think I'm kidding. I'm not. This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

I've been pondering this lately, because it doesn't really accomplish anything. I'm not trying to gain Internet fame and publish a book based on my web pages or anything. I'm just throwing words out into the Interwebs for the hell of it, and I started to wonder why.

When I very first started blogging, it was because I was very isolated. I felt like I had no one to talk to, and just writing things in public sort of eased that. Then I got a social life and some friends, and my pathetic depressed Myspace blog essentially died.

Later, I started this blog as a weight loss chronicle, but when I stopped trying to lose weight it languished for months. Starting to write here again coincided with moving, which was again partially because of isolation. It was also partially out of boredom, since I wasn't working multiple jobs anymore!

For a while, I thought maybe it was just an ego thing--look, I have things to say! Look, people are voluntarily reading the things I have to say! Whoohoo! And that is kind of cool.

But really, I've realized it's just because I like to write. I used to spend 99% of my spare time writing; I thought once that it would be my profession in some way or another. Unfortunately, while I think I'm a fairly decent writer, I lack ideas when it comes to the next big novel. My daily life may not be that exciting, but at least it's something to write about!