Hot People Don't Shimmer (At Least...Not Like This)

The daytime high today in my little northern town was 31C and it's still something like 29C.

One wouldn't think that I'd be one to complain. You know, given the fact that this whole blog is about WANTING to be hot (get it? hot. har-de-har!). But it's not just that. Don't get me wrong. I like summer. Summer means that I can swim and eat vegetables that might have had less travel time than I've had in my life and that the days last longer so I'm not suffering from totally unexplainable depression in the middle of February...AND no raised eyebrows at cracking a cooler in the middle of the day BECAUSE IT'S EFFING HOT OUT AND I NEED TO COOL DOWN, DAMMIT. And, given the fact that northern winters boast a chill that literally has it out for you...like seriously, the weather is TRYING to kill you...it's very difficult not to appreciate a little excessive sizzle in your life.

But there's one thing about hot weather that really bothers me, and that is the fact that no matter how hard I try, I ALWAYS look like I'm suffering from debilitating, corpulence-induced meat sweats. Once upon a time, I thought it was because I was fat, but even during my leaner summers I still look like I've been generously greased with a pastry brush. I don't understand how other girls can go through summer looking like beach goddesses with their tans and their sun-bleached hair and their short shorts without the chafing...the awful, awful chafing.

And let's just be clear here, I don't want to spend hours in a tanning bed or bazillions of dollars on just the right amount of bleach (though I could do without the chafing). I'm ok with being pasty and mouse-brown. I'm not ok with looking like a pit-stained fishwife.

Surely there are products and tricks that can help me in this regard. Some kind of grease-removing face wipe? Some kind of maxi-pad for my armpits? Has anyone invented these yet?

Also...my hair has grown out since that picture was taken. What do I do with that? Theoretically, it should just sweep back and tendrils of my naturally curly hair should fall out in just the right places to make me look tousled but not messy, right? RIGHT? THEN WHY DOES IT ALWAYS LOOK MESSY AND GROSS AND PASTED TO THE BACK OF MY NECK ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS?

Dear Blogosphere. Please help. So I can think about what to barbecue.

Sincerely,

Miss T

Hot People Can't Eat Just One

If I was going to pick the psychological disorder I'm most likely to suffer from, I'd probably pick depression nine times out of ten. My last post, I thought, was a pretty good illustration of that (thanks, to my commenters on that one, btw. Nearly all the kick in the ass I needed. Plus this one, which pretty much pulled me up out of it.) Regardless of whether or not I ACTUALLY suffer from depression, this post is about what I think I'm not. I don't think I have an addictive personality. I don't think I have any personality disorders. But a sober(ish) inventory of my life this past weekend suggests to me that I'm both an addict AND a hoarder.

Problem 1

I'm addicted to having things to do. There, I said it. I know. It's a problem. Most of you are probably reading this thinking that I'm crazy (actually, that's my point...); having things to do is totally normal. I'm not going to go through the laundry list of activities I've engaged in over the past few months (because I've done it many, many times already). But I've said yes to so many things that,

a. in order to do my taxes and spend some time with my parents I spent approximately 11 hours in a car, 5 having dinner with one parent, 2 having a fight with another parent, 3 hours doing my taxes, and only 6 hours sleeping so that I could be back in time on the same weekend to rehearse with some vocalists whom I was accompanying in the local music festival. Please note the car to sleep ratio there...

and,

b. my involvement in so many activities in the last month or two was so intense that more than one person thought I might do actual physical harm to myself in the completion of these activities.

So...maybe that's not normal. And though things are winding down for the summer, I don't find myself completely ready for relaxation, beaches and drinks like this:

(even though my boyfriend has admonished me and instructed me that I am not permitted to participate in any sort of extra-curriculars until September). I'm actually getting kind of anxious. Surely, here's JUST ONE MORE THING I can do or get involved in. A community garden? A book club? A quilting class? ANYTHING?

I've taken up crafting to fill the void. And to further illustrate my pathological need for things to do, let me describe my latest crafting venture. I had decided to make flower brooches for my mother and my boyfriend's mother as a belated Mother's Day gift (yeah, yeah...this "things to do" kick also means that I'm chronically late with EVERYTHING). It's pretty, and that's all that matters. See? I had none of the materials or tools necessary for this job. The result was that after work, I went racing to three different stores to get all the materials I needed. Despite the fact that I live in a reasonably well-appointed town, amenities-wise, there was one item I couldn't find. This resulted in massive panic, manifested by a sweaty-browed, arms-flailing sprint to my favourite yarn shop to inarticulately gesture and holler for the missing item. She didn't have it and that was a DISASTER (though totally understandable, because the missing item wasn't yarn, which is what she sells).

The point is, even when my "thing to do" isn't a previously scheduled, organized group activity, I WANT TO DO IT RIGHT NOW. I need to have my fix. See? Problem.

Problem 2

I cleaned my bedroom yesterday. Not even my whole apartment. Do you know how many empty, opened envelopes I found in there? More than one. Like, a grocery bag full. WHY? And hole- and run-ridden pantyhose? Like, a MILLION PAIRS. I don't even remember when I decided that the best course of action for both of these items was to let them lie (on the dresser, on the floor, IN THE BED[?!?!]) rather than toss them directly into the garbage. Because that's what both of those things are. Garbage. Similar items include safety pins, hair elastics, hairballs (helpfully placed in the middle of the bedroom floor by my cat). See? Problem.

Does anyone know of a detox/intervention program for loonies with my kind of problems? Anyone? Yeah, thought not. Anyway, I figure I could quit anytime I want. I just have to subscribe to cable television again (because its hold is WAY more powerful than any community garden committee), and develop a further hoarding habit for attractive containers and dust bins. See? Problem solved.

Hot People Don't Smell like Failure

I wish I could say my absence from the cyberwaves has been a result of my having reached my goal. I wish I could tell you I was superhot and I haven't been blogging because I haven't NEEDED blogging. However, saying any of those things would be a whole bunch of false.

I've been absent from the cyberwaves because I've been hilar-busy. And I've been absent from the cyberwaves because, honestly, I've been feeling like a big pile of turds recently. A big pile of failure turds. I have failed at being fit, I have failed at doing more, I have failed at doing less, I have failed in a house, I have failed with a mouse, etc.

And I have failed at writing actual words...to the point where my father points my failures out to me. (Normally, I wouldn't "out" an anonymous commenter, except that he already outed himself in the comment.)

...And that really is the last straw. I am nearly 30, and there are still numerous things that I can't do without my parents. This, above all, makes me feel decidedly not hot. Though I have a pretty reasonable income, I still feel as though I need to ask them for permission to do things from time to time...like take vacations with money that I legitimately earned and saved. Hell, I can't even string a sentence together without some input.

Now, I don't really know what to do about it. I've tried gently suggesting that I don't need their help. I've had screaming fights that, I think, more than gently suggest that I'd like a litte breathing room. But that's a thing I fail at also. I find it difficult to suggest to the people upon whom I was so dependent (for more than a quarter century) that I don't want their help anymore without feeling like a complete ingrate or a tantrum-throwing two-year-old screaming "No! I wanna do it."

But it's that attitude that's gotten me to this feeling of a big giant, steaming pile of failure-turds. My unrelenting attitude of doing everything that's offered to me that I have the slightest inkling that I might want to try has resulted in my having succeeded at only a few of them (since, you know, I can't be amazing at everything...like hot people would be). And now I feel like I'm frantically treading water and my limbs are burning with fatigue and all I want to do now is drown in my bedsheets. Sigh.

Hot People Don't Sit Down

So, one of my resolutions this year was to "do less." I think my (I hope) notable absence from the cyberwaves is an indication that I've already failed at doing less.

That being said, I'm really quite proud of how I've managed to "do more." When I was in university, all of my energies were focussed on three things: doing well in school, drinking on weekends, and attending debate tournaments...mostly for the purposes of drinking on weekends (perhaps that's actually two things with one sub-thing...bahaha). In my first year post-university/post-employment, I've managed to do a whole heck of a lot here. Sometimes that means my cat becomes king of the apartment and I'm just some person who comes by to warm up the bed at night and leave some food in the dish in the morning. But it also kinda means that I'm a mover and shaker - which, considering my social resignation when I started this blog, is a huge deal for me. Not only have I become a participant in the social fabric of my community, I've also become a performer. I've moved from medicating my shyness with copious amounts of alcohol (with sometimes disastrous results), to putting myself on display for tens of people. I'm hoping to get some of the stills from the performance to post up here. I played a nine-month pregnant farm girl. They're pretty funny.

And I'm pretty happy with myself. But not completely. I'm just finding a little difficulty with the balance of happinesses. I love being involved...having my finger on a pulse, or what-have-you. But when I'm so engulfed in activity, it's really hard to be...active. Physically, speaking. Or, you know, eat foods made of food. And I've gotta say, it certainly doesn't make me happy when NOT A SINGLE PAIR OF PANTS THAT I OWN WILL DO UP COMFORTABLY. Of course, the play's over and in a month or two, so will all of my other extra-curriculars. I'll have the whole summer and miles of country highway sprawling before me and my bicycle. But I know the same thing's going to happen next year and I'm FINALLY learning that given the choice between being fun and being fit, I'm going to choose fun every single time. And I'm going to languour in my resulting corpulence every single time as well. So, the key is to find ways to make fitness fun. Seems like a no-brainer, huh? Halp.

Hot People...Guh...

I've been here a year. My one-year anniversary at work was yesterday. Normally, I'd be celebrating how awesome I am.

However, I celebrated my anniversary by taking my first sick day, after having a tooth pulled in the most upsetting dental experience of my life. I'll continue the celebrations this week by cutting my cat's balls off.

I'm pretty sure I've done some awesome stuff in the last year, but right now it's hard to see through this funk.

Hot People Find The Fire

I was supposed to go to the gym today. I have decided that I will not be doing so. Today was crap. So was half of yesterday, actually.

But it makes me worried. It doesn't seem to take much for me to want avoid expending some energy. Finding your motivation in February is difficult. There's no sun, and it's effing cold here. Back in September I had glorious notions that I'd be skiing and snowshoeing and skating...but now I mostly just want to curl up under a blanket and drink milky tea. In fact, if I could skip work to do that, that'd be even better.

So...how do I make sure that this isn't a permanent state of affairs? Well...I don't really know. But I've got a pretty good idea. Way back in September, when I was all dreamy about what a Great Canadian Winter life I'd be leading, I took some pictures of myself. They were meant to be "before" comparison pictures to illustrate exactly how successful I'd been with Plan Abtastic. Then, of course, that plan was an epic failure. I took another one today...an "after" shot...for comparison. Only, instead of the "after" meaning "after lots of exercise and sensible eating", it means "after overcommitting myself, being more or less sedentary, and eating a steady diet of microwave dinners, pizza, subway and candy for breakfast".

Before
























After











Now, I don't want to get into the fine details of the analysis of exactly what's happened physically. And I'm sure my eyes are exaggerating the differences between the two pictures, but I think we can agree that one is preferable to the other. And it's not the "After" shot. In fact, I don't think the jeans I'm wearing in the before shot even fit anymore. But THIS. IS. MOTIVATING. This happened over a matter of months, and, frankly, it makes me frightened about what a year (or more) could do.

Now, I know I'm not supposed to be motivated by fear. I've been to several seminars given by highly respected behaviour change specialists suggesting that it's a bad idea to use fear to get people to do stuff. But I'm pretty sure the only thing that's going to work is to burn these pictures onto the insides of my eyelids and resolve to go. That's the only fire that's going to get me there.


...but not today. Today was crap.

Hot People Feel Dirty Sometimes (and not in the good way)

So, I was absent-mindedly checking my blog analytics this morning. As some of you may remember from that cryptic post of approximately 5 months ago, my blog analytics allow me to see what search terms people have used to find me on google. Sometimes it's a no-brainer that they're looking for me - they'll search things like hotmisst or hot in 6 months blog or something like that. Sometimes, I'm not sure what they're looking for; when they search things like why did people use to ware capes and white tights male dancers, I'm genuinely unsure of what they hoped they'd find. Other times, I know exactly what they're looking for. Today, I found this (you might have to click on it to read it properly):


















But, for those of you who don't read teensy tiny writing, what you're seeing there is big boobs red bra. Someone, somewhere in North America, was looking for someone with big boobs and a red bra...and they found me. And faithful readers will know, I delivered. In conclusion, there's a very good chance that someone in North America was jerking off to my boobs.

...


Yuck.

So, guys...does this mean i'm hot? Because if THIS is what hot feels like, I can do without it. I recognize that this is partly my fault for having a picture of my big boobs in a red bra posted on the internets, but my culpability in the matter is doing nothing to relieve this slightly sticky feeling I'm encountering right now.

Because if I get right down to it, this isn't really what I had in mind when I started talking about being hot. Sure, I wanted to have some sex appeal, but I was never really interested in being an object in this way. I wanted people to desire me (or desire to be like me) because of some kind of confident je-ne-sais-quoi, not because of an accident of anatomy.

I know I sound like one of those girls who looks like a model and complains because "she can't help the way she looks...she just wishes that sometimes, men would leave her alone," but I know I don't look like a model...and once upon a time even this kind of attention would have been satisfactory to me. Well...perhaps the fact that it is no longer satisfactory (it is in fact unsatisfactory) is a good sign. No?