One of the annoying things about having a chronic illness (of which there are about eleventy billion), is that I never know if I’m having a bad day because I am sick or if I’m just having a bad day. I know I had bad days before I got my headache over a year and a half ago. I know there were days when I didn’t want to work out or go to work or be involved with any sentence that included the word “work.” So, I would assume I’d have days like that now even if my head didn’t hurt all the time. Yet, I always blame any foul temperament on the headache.

Today has been a rather BLAH day. I just now finally got up the will to reply to some of my emails that have been sitting in my “Respond To” folder for days. And that is only partly because I got my ass out of the house and drank a tall coffee at the Barnes & Noble cafe (although the barista always [...]

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I hung something in my bedroom above the treadmill last month, as Krupke has obviously noticed.

Right after I moved into my apartment, I went on a decorating bonanza. I signed up for craft store mailing lists and clipped coupons every week to buy picture frames and fabrics at 40% off to hang on my walls. I pretty-fied two and a half walls of my bedroom before I got bored. (And before I got my credit card bill. All that glitter paint and fabric dye adds up!) So, one and a half walls have been as white as the halls of a mental ward for the past year. I’d considered hanging a picture in front of my treadmill of a road disappearing into the horizon or of the M.C. Escher sketch of monks walking an endless path on top of a tower. But after the Hallmark conference, I was glad I saved my money and hung up this piece of swag instead:

I would never have bought this for myself. If anyone had given this to me [...]

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I’ve had that old Monica song from the 90′s running in my head today. Anyone else from the 90′s remember that one? “Just one of them days/That a girl goes through.” Ah, the wisdom of 90′s R&B songs. For me it’s been just one of them days when I’ve felt “blah” for no real reason and have been sitting around eating too much. Actually, I have been avoiding doing things that I should be doing by watching season 2 of Alias and eating too much. Which is odd because my life is going really great these days. I think no matter how wonderful your life is you sometimes just want to lie in bed all day and watch the spiders work on their webs instead of weaving your own projects. It’s on days like this that I feel really bad for people who suffer from chronic depression. It must be horrible to live in a hole, trying to climb out of it on a daily basis. I don’t even feel that bad, just unmotivated and [...]

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Sometimes people ask me how I get motivated. How did you get motivated to lose weight? How do you motivate yourself to exercise? What motivates you to keep eating healthy? And doesn’t the word “motivate” start to sound really weird after you keep saying it over and over again? Motivate, motivate, motivate.

The only answer I can come up with is, “Screw motivation.” If I waited until I was motivated to do my dishes, I’d have plates stacked up on my counter so high that I couldn’t open the microwave. Which I currently do. I’m never motivated to do my dishes. Yet I turn on the faucet and break out the dish soap anyway. It’s not because I want to have fun with bubbles, it’s because I have to. How am I supposed to make my morning oatmeal if the microwave has more restricted access than the Mexican border? My only other option would be to go to Goodwill every week and buy more plates, which I’d have to wash anyway. That store is dirty, y’all. [...]

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