Aren’t Saturdays for Good Thoughts?

I woke up in something of a brooding mood today. I started the day by reminding myself that I needed to order a gift for my co-worker’s baby shower. As I did so, I started to get into a rather foul state of mind, similar to the one that I experienced when buying another baby shower gift — I started to get angry that I was once again spending money on other people whilst I languished away, unable to even get my co-workers to attend my goddamn birthday happy hour. I’m not exactly sure why this is bothering me so much (the registry perusing and purchasing) more than it used to; is it perhaps because I’ve been doing this for about 10 years now, is it because I’m ready for it to be me on the receiving end, am I starting to get jealous that my friends are continuing to procreate while I begin my 30s still unmarried? I honestly don’t know and would like to know — why can’t I just buy the stuff and get on with it? Yet it’s bothering me, even to this moment. The intellectual part of me recognizes that my life will not radically change once I begin planning a wedding or perhaps a nursery, the rational part of me knows that I’m pretty happy as is and that will not dramatically increase with a ring or a kid, but I think I’m kind of tired of the sidelines. I’m also bracing myself for my friends to not really care when I do proceed into those new realms and that makes me even angrier. It’s sad that I have so low expectations for my friends but time and time again they’ve pretty much let me down in almost every regard. And for those curious, no, I will not be attending the baby shower. I don’t have a car and I really can’t stand showers for the most part. I dislike the games and fuss and would hate to be in the middle of it all — being in attendance only makes me feel sorry for the guest of honor. So can you see how ridiculous this is, that I’m even the tiniest bit jealous when I would just feel sorry for myself if I were the guest of honor?

Then thinking about my co-worker led me to think about my job, in which I am currently very, very bored. At the risk of addressing work more than usual, I have given my current place a deadline of September 1 to make the changes that they’ve promised — a substantial increase in pay, a title change that reflects what I’ve been doing for nearly all of my time there, and some intellectual stimulation that doesn’t involve keywords, menu selection or placating asshole academics. Should September 1 roll around and no changes have occurred, nor are they likely to ever occur, I will begin to make moves to leave before the year is out. I updated my resume today and almost loaded it online — it never hurts to let recruiters see I’m out here — but IP convinced me that this would be unwise since my current employers might see it and therefore decide not to go ahead with any changes they may have in mind (even if I did block my company from seeing my resume). Instead, after hashing it out with IP, I decided that I needed to fine tune my search, try to figure out what it is I want to do in Washington while I’m here (one day, western states, one day), and keep an eye out for what’s upcoming at work. At least I’ll be gone for half of July. That still doesn’t change the fact that I expect to be nothing but bored on Monday morning.

Then it was time to go to the gym.

After a particularly tough run, I created a profile at myshape.com in order to get a better sense of the sizes I should be wearing these days. I’m trying to come to grips with the fact that I’m no longer the running maven nor skinny minnie I used to be in college. It’s been nearly a decade and my college weight was probably abnormal more than anything else — the combo of lots of running, no strength training and a bad diet which featured small meals, next to no fat and crazy restrictions. Thinking back to my other weights in life, when I was active and eating many varieties of food and not paying attention to anything except how I felt, I was always in this current weight range, always in this current size range. Like my doctor said, I’m healthy. But it’s difficult to let go of that lower size, of that lower weight — never mind that I have a ton of muscle and a low body fat percentage, but it’s still affecting my thoughts about my body. Add to that the occasional tough run and I feel like a whale. I try very hard to focus on what my body can do — it’s done a half and full marathon, it’s run countless 5K races, it’s put on 14 pounds of muscle in the last year alone, it’s been pretty damn healthy all of my life, and it powers me through the day with no problem. So why do I have to focus on the little bit of flab above my belly button when all IP sees is a nicely toned set of abs that have sexy curve to them? Why do I admire my arms in the gym mirror only to then focus on my thighs, which seem incredibly huge even as they stride easily at 6.6 miles per hour on the treadmill? Why am I pissed about being a small on top but a medium to large on the bottom? The thing is, I’m so sick of having to restrict what I eat for the benefit of a smaller size — when I do, I end up exhausting myself and making no cardio/strength gains, so what’s the point? And still I think “If I cut out this, maybe in a few weeks . . . ” But like I said weeks ago — there isn’t anything I could cut out! Nor do I want to. Still, those goddamn sizes are so discouraging.

Argh!!!!!! So I feel like a fat, underemployed childless spinster. Who has a tiny upper body, by the way.  Weren’t Saturdays made to not feel like this?

I’m also kind of disappointed in Alanis Morissette’s new CD. I really hope it grows on me the way Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie did. How’s that for a killer conclusion?