Photo by thingsarebetterwithaparrott / by NCND 2.0 CC

My neurologist told me to lose weight and I thought, “So, it has come to this, has it?” The last time a doctor told me to lose weight, I weighed about 350 pounds and was preparing to have my gallbladder removed. To make the day even more perfect, the neurologist’s nurse had weighed me on one of those old scales with big metal counterweights that slide left to right. I thought the digital revolution had rid us of those scales and the drawn out torture of watching the nurse politely start at a lower number and then slide, slide, slide, slide you up to a much bigger number.

I know people have various reactions to a doctor telling them they’re fat, but my first thought was, “Yeah, of course I need to lose weight.” Let us not forget the pant-splitting incident in January precipitated by the 50-pounds of headache weight gain (which I actually had forgotten until I was searching the archives for something else and found that entry). [...]

• Continue reading "Things never happen the same way twice"

Photo by 7-how-7 / by NCND 2.0 CC

Back in the year 2000, I started watching a TV show called The West Wing and loved it. That was the good. The bad? I started watching from the second season premiere and we had no Hulu, no Netflix, and no BitTorrent for me to watch the first season. It was the dark times, younglings. (We did have IRC sharing channels, newsgroups and FTP queues, but we also had dial-up*. Oh, dial-up.)

So, what was a girl to do? Well, she got on the interwebs and got a fan to send her ten VHS tapes containing copies of copies of the episodes. Shipping cost at least twenty dollars and thirty seconds of one episode was overridden by a California emergency weather alert, but they were watchable and that’s what we had, so we made do.

But now, now we have DVDs and Netflix streaming and life is good! Life is fantastic! Now entire seasons of television shows are available to watch in binge marathons on the weekends. It has transformed [...]

• Continue reading "I love TV, and I’m not ashamed!"

Photo by juniperberry / by NCND 2.0 CC

“So, why did you move to North Carolina?”

This is a question I’ve gotten a lot since I moved to Chapel Hill six weeks ago. Yet every time it is asked—by the mail man or the insurance agent or the bank teller or the sofa delivery man—I hesitate. I’d like to say something simple, like “for work” or “for school,” which is easy to understand. People move because of work and school all the time. I could make up a boyfriend and say I moved here because of him, or pretend I moved for a job, only these lies would then mandate follow-up lies. I don’t want to have to discuss my fake job and my fake boyfriend every time I deposit a check. Also, I am bad at lying. It takes far too much energy to keep track of two separate realities in my mind.

Despite all the self-promotion I’ve had to do for my books and my blog, I’ve never quite gotten over the uncomfortableness I feel talking [...]

• Continue reading "So, why did you move to North Carolina?"

This is Tiger:

Tiger is the neighborhood cuddle whore. Tiger does not care who you are or what you’re doing, he just wants to cuddle. Now. CUDDLE HIM, NOW! He does not care if you and your brother are carrying a heavy piece of furniture up the steps. He will fling himself directly in your path on the stairwell because he knows no one would step on a kitty so cute and lovable. So please put down the IKEA and cuddle him. NOW.

The first time I met Tiger, he followed me up the front steps and lodged himself between me and my front door, begging for cuddles. He did not have a collar, so I did not know if he had an owner he was cheating on for lovin’. I petted his pretty orange furs, told him he was pretty, and then dashed in my front door and washed my hands immediately. I didn’t want the feline contingent of the Fulda family to be jealous or to get fleas.

This week, Tiger stopped by for some cuddling [...]

• Continue reading "The Chapel Hill Chronicles: Catch a Tiger by its tail"

This is the last Diet Dr. Pepper I had. The photo is date-stamped for August 5th, which means I’ve been off of sodas for…hmmm…let’s see…FAR TOO LONG!

I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with soda dating all the way back to our first break-up in 2004. If diet soda were a person, all my friends would be telling me to ditch that guy for real this time because he’s no good for me or my teeth. Then I’d reply, “But he can be so sweet and bubbly! You don’t know him like I do!” I know in my head that he’s no good for me, but my heart (or my tongue) just can’t say no.

This time around the dissolution of our partnership was ordered by my new headache doctor. New state, new neurologist. He’s making me avoid artificial sweeteners and preservatives because they can inflame your nervous system and___________ (fill in the blank with the bazillion reasons I know fake foods aren’t good for you, but that I don’t want to hear).

Anyway, I have no reasonable [...]

• Continue reading "A really hard break-up"