Fee to Check Bags

I accept that I have baggage, you know. I don't know a single overweight person who doesn't have some issues... ( I'm sure skinny people have issues too, I just wouldn't know anything about them.)

[My husband would like to pretend he doesn't have issues, but this is the man who wouldn't give me roses for the first seven years of our relationship because when he sent roses to a girl he liked back in college (bad timing for him, as he sent them about two days after she'd gotten together with someone else, but he didn't know that) she never spoke to him again.

One incident, and he decides the ROSES were the problem. So I got carnations. Or tulips. And honestly, it wasn't so much that I have a yen for roses, because I don't. I tend to prefer lilies anyway... but the fact that he wouldn't do it because of some other girl... yeah, I had a problem with it... a problem that was promptly stopped when a girlfriend of mine sent me - ok, technically speaking, her D&D character sent my D&D character - roses... real ones... no, I'm not the only person with issues.]

Wow. I got sidetracked there... why do you people let me run on like that? Don't you know better by now?

Issues.

Obviously, I have them. If I didn't, I probably wouldn't be overweight and constantly ragging on myself, and if I wasn't doing those things, then I probably wouldn't keep a blog. Does anyone keep a blog who doesn't have issues?

One of my biggest issues is with my parents. (It's one of the reasons I'm so scared to death about being a parent myself. I dread the days to come when my child sits down with one of her best friends and cries herself sick about how terrible a parent I am.)

Admittedly, my dad and I get on a lot better than we used to. And he is working to improve the relationship (most of the time) and so am I. I think as long as we're working on the issue, even if things never exactly square between us, that we're pretty much golden.

However, there still comes those awkward moments... those projections of mine, and thoughtlessness of his, that sort of jumble the hell out of a conversation.

He and my step-mom are taking Darcy for a week; August 9th to the 15th I will be CHILD FREE! Huzzah! Anyway, I called him to start tacking down details... and during the conversation, we got onto other topics.

"So, how much weight have you lost?" (It's been a while since we've talked for more than a few minutes.)

"About 45 pounds." (That's close enough for government work, and very likely to be true in fact by the time I see him.)

"Wow."

"And Thomas has lost 52."

"Well, you two are proof that the plan works..."

"... as long as you work the plan," I finish his sentence with him. "Really, any plan would have some results. It's not taking off the weight that is the hard part. It's keeping it off." Honestly, I don't know anything about maintenance, but that's what I'm told... as hard and frustrating and nerve-wracking as losing weight has been, I haven't seen anything yet as far as frustration, pain, and stress goes. Oh. Joi.

"Don't I know it," says my dad. "I should go back to Weight Watchers."

"Oh, what happened?" I say, sarcasm dripping. "Did you forget to get a haircut?"

"I've put on about twenty-five pounds, actually."

"Oh, really?" Ok, I'm a bad person. And I have issues. And god as my witness, I'm such a bitch. I get serious amounts of schadenfreude whenever my father fails. It doesn't happen all that often... which would probably be why I get such searing delight out of it.

"Yep," he says. "And if they can help you take off fifty pounds, then they ought to be able to help me take off twenty-five."

Subtext: If you, slack, lazy, fat, slobby, worthless person, can lose fifty pounds, surely, me in my perfection, could take off merely half that. Because, you know, I don't let a bad thing go on as long as you do before I do something about it. Bet I can do it in half the time, too.

I know. I know. He didn't say that. But that's what I heard.

Yeah. I have baggage. Lots and lots of baggage.