I'm happy to announce that Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir is now being distributed in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand via Palgrave/Macmillan. If you live in any of these countries, you can go to your local bookstore and request that they order a copy for you. If you're lucky, they might already have one in stock. Karen already wrote in to report a sighting at the Borders in Auckland. It doesn't matter what store you go to because my distributor accepts orders from big chains and independent retailers. And yes, Britons, please request "Half-Assed" not "Half-Arsed."

I want to apologize that I did not have this information for you guys sooner. If I'd known the book would be available internationally, I would have told my foreign readers to wait to buy it locally instead of paying to have it shipped overseas. You could have saved money on shipping and I would have saved my hand cramping up filling out bizarre custom forms. I want you to know that I'm genuinely sorry and hopefully the shipping costs were worth the two month head start you got on your neighbors. If it makes you feel any better, after Helen sent me pictures of her reading the book on a beach in Mexico, it occurred to me that my book has now traveled more places than I have. I wish my body could visit the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, but my words will have to suffice for now.

If you're a techie, you might be happy to know you can also get the e-book edition of Half-Assed, for Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device. I saw one of these on a plane last month and now I wish I owned one just so I could see how my book looks on it.

The entry period for the viral video contest is now over. I will draw a winner as soon as I finish confirming entries. I'll announce the winner on the blog when I do so. Thank you to every one who participated. As of this moment, my video has 6,566 views!

Those are my feet, as funky as ever. Those are my toes, still gnarly from the half-marathon two months ago. And there is the issue of Women's Health my book was reviewed in this month, proving the photo is recent.

It's July 2, 2008 and I weigh 179 pounds. That's exactly what I weighed on July 2, 2007. And that's good enough for me!

When I started this journey back in...the stone ages? The bronze age? Okay, maybe it was just 2005. I set 160 as my goal weight because I wanted a number to aim for, 160 fell in the "normal" BMI range and it ended in a 0. Since June of 2007, I've been hovering below or above 180. Sometimes I've been really psyched to get to 160, charting out how many months it will take if I lose a pound every week. Sometimes I've looked at 175 on the scale in the morning and thought, "I'll have a chocolate éclair for breakfast!"

So, let's scratch out that "160" next to my goal weight because I. AM. DONE. 180 is my happy weight. I can run 3 miles without stopping. I can buy normal clothes. My health is pretty damn good, most things considered. My weight is not the first thing people notice about me...unless I'm walking into a book signing. Life is good and I haven't given a shit about getting to 160 for months. I predicted this state of mind back in April of 2006:

"I might just get to 180 or something and say 'Well, this is good enough.' Kind of like old time settlers who were headed for California but decided to just quit in Nevada. I might easily be distracted by the shiny lights of Las Vegas."

Vegas looks pretty good to me. The lights are indeed shiny. I think I'll stay here for awhile. 160 is not a goal of mine anymore. My new goal is to maintain a weight of 180 or below for the rest of my life. If I happen to lose those 20 pounds, I won't complain, but I don't really care if it happens or not.

This means I'm done with the monthly weigh-ins too. They've been a helpful tool to keep me on track. They helped me lose a lot of weight. But lately they've been driving me to the crazy farm. I'm ready to keep my weight private again. I'll still track it for myself, but I don't want to have to justify every gain or loss to the masses. I post enough pictures of myself on this blog that you'll notice if I start to pork out. If there's suddenly a 6-month gap without any self-portraits, you'll know something's up. I promise to stay accountable in my own ways, just not in exact poundage statistics. If I beat any of my personal records, you'll be sure to hear about it.

I'm still going to blog. You couldn't get me to stop if you stole my computer. I'd wait in line at the library. I'd use my mom's dial-up. I'd steal some kid's iPhone. I'm a blogging addict and you can't make me quit! If you've been reading for awhile, this announcement should be as shocking as a puddle of water. I first saw the number 180 on the scale on June 1, 2007, so I've been maintaining my weight loss for over a year now. It's about time I made maintenance official. Maintenance and I have been dating for so long, it's about time we got engaged already and set a date!

Today's the day. July 2, 2008. Not quite Independence Day, but close enough.

When I reached my goal weight, I had planned on giving an acceptance speech thanking every person and product that had helped me get to 160 pounds. I imagined it like the Oscars, me stumbling up to the stage stunned and stunning in a size 10 dress, taking the podium and saying, "Thank you, thank you, I wasn't expecting this at all," as I whipped out two pages of perfectly typed notes. Then the orchestra leader would set his baton down while the bassoon player went out for a smoke. I'm not sure if I can squeeze into a size 10 dress (possibly, depending on the manufacturer) and I don't weigh 160 pounds. But since I've decided I'm happy with the weight I'm at, this will be an entirely different type of "acceptance" speech and I'm giving it anyway.

Thank you to my mother (and my father) for never fucking me up about my weight. They never put me on a diet, never called me fat, never made me feel self-conscious about my weight, and made me feel a sense of value and self-worth that had nothing to do with my body. I've read several weight memoirs in the past years and I've come to appreciate how exceedingly rare this sheltered kind of life is. It's as if I grew up in a bomb shelter in the backyard while everyone else was exposed to the evils of magazines yapping about cellulite.

Thank you to my brothers for never teasing me about my weight, or if you did I don't remember it. Thank you to my younger brother for setting a good example by losing a lot of weight four years ago and gentling nudging me in the right direction. It was awesome having someone to chat about the glycemic index with who didn't fall into a coma afterwards.

Thank you to the makers of sugar-free fat-free pudding, no-sugar-added fudge pops, fat-free Cool Whip, Lean Cuisines, and diet sodas. There are probably too many weird preservatives and artificial chemicals in your products for my own good, but you helped me out more than you'll ever know. Big props to the string cheese manufacturers, pistachio growers, and the fruit and vegetable farmers of the world. You give me quick, healthy snacks in a fix. Rock on.

Thank you to Arthur Agatston, whose book gave me good ideas on what types of foods I should be eating (not chocolate frosting), Ana Caban, who makes great Pilates DVDs (that have made my butt a bit perkier, perhaps?), and Cathe for the weight-lifting DVD (that made me unashamed to wear a tank top last night).

Thank you to the happy fun and fitness trail that runs next to my apartment. I love running amongst the bugs and leaves, even when I have to drag myself out there against my will. Your delightful nature always wins me over and I never regret spending time with you. (Except when you're covered in ice and snow and freezing fog.)

Thank you to all the bloggers and commenters who cheered me on. I remember when you all first started stopping by I wondered, "Who are these people and why are they being so supportive? How odd." I didn't understand why strangers could be so excited and happy for me. But when I was running my half-marathon and someone yelled, "Go, Jennette!" at mile 13, I truly understood. You need people cheering you on or else you'll faceplant on the pavement. Thank you for keeping the skid marks off of my rosy cheeks.

Thank you to my treadmill, my dumbbells, my Pilates mat, my YMCA membership, and my poor broken bicycle. Thank you to my heart-shaped silicone muffin pans, my silicone whisk, my breadmaker, my hand-mixer, my skillet, and my cookie sheet that I've roasted hundreds of veggies on. Thank you to fat-free cheese. Thank you to my cute activewear, my sweat-wicking socks, my running shoes, my MP3 player, and to cheesy techno music. Thank you to sexy boys and adorable children on the trail. Thank you to personal records and finish lines. Thank you to sunny days and endorphins.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Congratulations to Kelly, who has already been contacted and confirmed her acceptance of her prize as winner of the viral video contest prize package. She was lucky number 63 of 83 entries. Thank you to everyone who posted my video on their web sites. I almost feel dizzy from all that spinning.

ETA: Kelly now has a blog at Losing it! Check it out.

I got nine bug bites while reading Stephanie Klein's book Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp, so I felt fully immersed in her camping experience even though I never attended a fat camp myself. I suppose that's what I get for reading on a wet bench in the park after a rain storm. But reading outside was the only way I could stop myself from eating after reading the vibrant descriptions of food in some of the earlier chapters. She has a way a with words. In fact, I stole picked up the phrase "happy weight" from this book which I used in an entry last week.

I was particularly happy to get a copy of Stephanie's book because she is a blogger, writing regularly at Greek Tragedy. She'll also be one of the keynote speakers at the BlogHer conference in two weeks, which I'm also speaking at, so hopefully we'll bump into each other. Until then, the PastaQueen and the former Porno Queen conducted an email interview about her latest book, though you'll have to actually pick up a copy to learn how she got the latter nickname.

Thanks again for your time, Stephanie! Stephanie's book Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp is available in bookstores and you can catch her on her blog Greek Tragedy.

I recently found out that I'm going to be in New York on Thursday, July 31st to appear on CBS's The Early Show and I'd like to plan an event on Wednesday evening, July 30th, for my New York readers. Anybody got any ideas? Book signings are usually planned two months ahead of time, so it's too late for my publicist to schedule anything on her end. The Early Show tapes at Trump International Plaza at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue (next to the glass Apple Store), so a location near there would be good - either a bookstore, coffee house, or some other locale that would be okay with people gathering and watching a woman read aloud and wave a large pair of pants in the air. An independent bookseller would be lovely because they could handle book orders. If not, I still have a handful of books in my trunk that I can personally sell on the street corner of the park if it comes to that. Do I need a license for that? Do they crack down on that stuff? I'd hate to spend the night before my national TV appearance in a cell next to a hooker named Trixie. Though I'm sure my Aunt Lori would have a hell of a story to tell at the family reunion when she came to bail me out.

I would like to schedule the event for either 7 or 8 o'clock. That way I can get to bed early, but it also gives people enough time to get there after work. I'm also assuming that some of you would want to come, right? Please comment below if you think you could come, otherwise I'll just go ride the mechanical bull at Johnny Utah's, which I missed the last time I was in New York.

I would also like to give big props to my publicist, Isabella Michon, for her great work setting this up. It's not like I call Les Moonves and arrange these things myself. Special thanks to Jen Rios at Seal Press for being my travel agent and booking all my flights. I am truly grateful for all the hard work everyone has put into promoting my book and I feel so lucky for all the good things that have come my way as a result. As for the question I know someone will ask - will I be able to say the title of my book on television this time? I do not know, but I'm working on a workaround if I can't. Cross your fingers for me.

When Carla told me she wasn't going to apply to the geek summer camp I'd attended the summer before senior year because she'd heard it was a drugged-out sex orgy, I was befuddled. The only sex I remembered was between the squirrels.

"Where did you hear this?" I asked her.

"From George Johnson."

And that explained it. George Johnson appeared to live in our universe, but actually existed in a parallel dimension where cars were Shinier! and girls were Prettier! than they appeared to those of us in this world. George Johnson never let reality get in the way of a good story, or he might have just seen reality bigger and brighter than the rest of us. (Or there might have actually been secret sex parties going on in the bushes that I was not invited to.)

However, George Johnson seemed to be pretty damn happy in his shinier, prettier, world, even if it wasn't the reality that the rest of us were living in. I was thinking of him when I was sent this article on low leptin levels in people who've lost over 10% of their body weight for the third time this week and I thought of him when I deleted the link without reading the article again for the third time this week. I am grateful that people read the article, thought of me, and took the time and effort to share that information with me. I like that people share their stuff with me. I like to share my stuff with people too. So, I thank the people who sent me the link. However, I've decided that when it comes to articles and books that are going to tell me that I'm doomed to regain all the weight I've lost, I'm going to take the George Johnson approach and live in my own happier, fairyland instead. Fuck you, science!

It's an odd approach for me to take because I love me some science. A friend of mine recently announced she is getting married at the Carnegie Institute of Science and it warmed my secular little heart. However, in this instance science isn't necessarily my friend. I have a distinct goal: to maintain my 192-pound weight loss. To do this I have to think positively. I have to believe that I will do it. I don't see any advantage to reading an article that is going to tell me all the reasons I am going to fail. If it's true, all the things that are true in the article are going to affect my body whether I read the article or not. The only thing that will happen if I read the article is that it will bum me out and eat away at my self-confidence, self-confidence I need to be successful in my journey.

This is why I never read Rethinking Thin, a book by New York Times health writer Gina Kolata that was released last year. It debunked many dieting myths and explained why maintaining weight loss is so hard. I got a copy of the book to review, but it sat on my coffee cart for months, the pear on the cover sitting next to the window like a fake bowl of fruit. It taunted me for months and months, making me feel guilty that I hadn't read this book that everyone was talking about. I would occasionally skim a few paragraphs before I'd find something far more urgent to do, like pick cat fur off the carpet. Eventually I stuck it out of sight on my bookshelf, where it sits today, virgin print not defiled by my eyes. I didn't read it because I didn't want to hear what it had to say.

I've come to realize, this isn't always a bad thing. Sure, there can be dangers to shutting out differing opinions. If you get stuck in an echo chamber, you'll only hear what you want to. That's how we end up in endless wars in Iraq. But I'm not leading the armed forces here, just this army of one. I don't have to be completely open-minded about every single issue in the world. When it comes to certain things, I can defend my personal boundaries and that's okay. I lock my apartment door at night to protect my personal space and I can set up mental barriers to protect the internal areas most precious to me too.

That's something I've come to realize about nasty comments. I used to read all the comments on my blog no matter what. I thought, "People have a right to their opinions. I am putting my thoughts out into the world so I should read theirs too." This is total bullshit. Sometimes people leave comments to attack me. I have a right to defend myself. If I were sitting in a room and saw someone running towards me with a baseball bat, I would run the other way or throw a chair at them. A nasty comment is the same sort of attack, only with words instead of a Louisville Slugger. I can tell within a sentence or two if a comment is meant to harm me, and when I see that, I defend myself by stopping reading. I lock the door and don't let those words into my house. I save the comment in my blog software in case I need it for legal reasons and then delete it from my email, never to be read. Thankfully, this doesn't happen that often, but when it does I've learned how to defend myself.

When I wrote my acceptance speech I started to read one comment that had a sentence that said something like, "...I have to admit I was disappointed..." at which point I stopped reading it. I still haven't read that comment and I have no idea what that person said. I decided I didn't want that information in my head. My weight and my self-esteem are not up for a committee vote, and my decision was final. I decided the comment was irrelevant, it would only upset me, and it was better off left unread in my trash box.

I like having these boundaries. I like enforcing them. It's made my life so much better. A couple years ago I vowed to stop going to web sites that annoyed me and to stop getting into stupid fights on the internet. And I did. And life is so much better. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Which is why I have not read the leptin article and I do not plan on reading the leptin article, unless there is a section in the article that tells you how the low leptin levels work to your advantage. I don't need that stuff in my house. I will live in my happier reality. Keeping that stuff out of my house keeps my reality happier.

And I have George Johnson to thank.

Now where's that sex orgy?

I'm glad my headache doctor opens at seven o'clock in the morning, because no one is awake to see me entering his office. I'm not ashamed to be seeing a neurologist, however he works in a large medical complex occupied mainly by another unrelated practice. That is the reason, and I swear the ONLY reason, I was entering a building Wednesday morning labeled, "St. Censored-For-My-Privacy's Bariatric Weight Loss Center." I feel paranoid visiting that complex, because I know if someone were to snap a photo of me entering the front door for the interwebs, I would be accused of being a big (skinny) fraud. I only have the most recent issue of Neurology Now with Morgan Fairchild on the cover that I stole from his office to prove where I really was.

I was at the doctor because all the IV treatments and medications we've tried lately haven't done anything except make me poorer. I could have paid off my car by now with the money I've spent. So, we're adjusting my medications again, which means I'm going off of Topamax. When I talked with my doctor about going on Topamax a month ago, it sounded worth a try.

"What are the possible side effects?" I asked him.

"Yadda, yadda, yadda, (stuff I don't remember), and possible weight loss."

"Sign me up!" I replied way faster than I should have.

I started taking the pills, slowly upping the dosage to the target level as recommended by the doctor, not really sure what to expect. I've never done drugs, never smoked pot, never even puffed a cigarette. My only forays into altered states of consciousness have been doctor approved pharmaceuticals. As the pills eventually took effect over the following weeks, I wasn't as hungry in the evenings. I didn't feel compelled to raid the cabinets for granola at 9 o'clock. It was like someone had turned off the crazy switch in my brain that I never realized I'd left on. Sadly, they weren't doing anything for my headaches, but they were doing pretty well as diet pills.

And I totally hated them for it.

I didn't want the pills to work like that because I DESPISE diet pills. I think they're evil. When I decided to put ads on my site over a year ago, I decided not to place Google Adsense ads in the sidebar because they are context based. Google ads search the text of your page and target ads "relevant" to your content. Other health, fitness and weight-loss sites that have Google ads inevitably are sent ads for Hoodia, Phentermine, Alli and other products like that which I don't believe in (as well as some other truly crazy ads for anorexia or bulmia). You can try to filter out ads like that with the Google tools, but the people I've talked to say they always get through anyway. I could make money if I put those ads on my site, but I don't, because when it comes to this particular issue, I put my money where my mouth is. That is how much I hate diet pills. I don't think you should take pills. I think you should eat well and exercise.

To complicate things further, although the Topamax was making it easier to eat less, it was also making me stupid. It's nicknamed "Stupamax" and "Dopamax." It made it harder to speak right, like someone had placed the English language on the top shelf where it was just out of my reach. I could still see it, but I had to stand on my tippy toes to grab words, and even then I was just knocking them over instead of grabbing them firmly. I just felt...dumb. I found myself unable to focus as well. It put a damper on my mood. The crazy switch was turned off, but the stupid switch was turned on.

So, I knew I had to go off of them. I don't like to play with my brain chemistry unless necessary. And I hate being dumb. But I started thinking, "I might just go down to 25mg. That would be okay, right? I'll cut the pills into quarters and they'll last longer." At which point I started to wonder if the crazy switch in my brain had really been turned off after all.

What I had really hoped was that the Topamax would cure my headaches, and then the appetite suppressant would be a convenient side effect. I could traipse around saying, "La, la, la! I take these pills for my HEADACHES. My headaches! Not because they make me thin. But wow, the thinness is nice, isn't?" Not only would my life be pain-free again, it would be a little bit easier. I wouldn't have to fight as hard - all the time. But instead it just made me dumber, a little thinner and more broke, because Topamax isn't out in a cheaper generic form yet.

So, I'm going off of them and they will be out of my system just in time for my trip to San Francisco next week. That's good timing, because I love eating when I travel. Vacation calories don't count! The weird thing about the Topamax was I sort of missed being hungry. I missed eating too many ice cream sandwiches at 20 minutes until midnight and feeling pleasantly full. Food is one of life's pleasures and I missed having my desire for it. Wanting food I know I shouldn't have can be painful, but not wanting it at all is empty and lonely.

My experience with Tomapax has also slightly shifted my perspective on diet pills. Before, I viewed them as an all-out evil, equivalent to anthrax as a substance that should be eliminated from society. I still think diet pills are a stupid decision for the majority of people. They shouldn't be used if you just want to drop 5 pounds for swimsuit season or some superficial crap like that. However, I'm now open to the idea of using them to treat people with serious compulsive eating problems. When I think of women who've written to me saying they can eat a gallon of ice cream with a box of Oreos and follow it with a bag of potato chips, I have to wonder if there is something wrong with their brain chemistry that allows them to do that. In those cases, taking a pill doesn't sound like a bad idea. Now that I've experienced what it feels like to turn off the crazy switch, it makes me wonder if some of my own wiring isn't a little off in that area.

However, I prefer being smart to being thin, so no more Stupamax for me. (But if it had cured my headache, I'd settle for some stupid. Who need brain? The dumb not so bad. Ouchies worse.)

"I need some caffeine," my brother yawned as he climbed off the freshly purchased air mattress on my apartment floor. He opened my fridge door. He closed my fridge door. He stared at me in horror. "You don't have sodas?"

"Um, no. Welcome to the crazy house," I replied. This was coming from the woman who drank five canned diet sodas a day back in February and loved the sweet, fizzy poison. "I don't think I have any caffeine in the house, except for some old tea bags. Technically the decaffeinated coffee has some caffeine, but you'll have to drink a lot of it to get a buzz."

"I can't believe this," he said. My poor brother had spent the previous day moving and needed the insane jolt of consciousness to the brain provided by caffeine if he was going to pack up the rest of his kitchen and closets today.

"Sorry," I said. "I got rid of all the caffeine because of my headache."

I don't know whether essentially eliminating caffeine from my diet has helped decrease the intensity of my never-ending tension-type headache I've had since Februrary 18th. However, I don't think it's made it worse. So, bub-bye sodas. You were rather heavy to carry up the stairs anyway. I would never have gone off of sodas by choice, but now that I have a chronic illness, I'm living cleaner than I ever did before. I'm drinking...water. Water! I know! I've gone completely insane and I go to the bathroom a lot. I drink water and Crystal Lite and some diet flavored teas...and occasionally you can find me in line at Starbucks. But only for one hit of coffee a day. I said I "essentially" not "totally" eliminated caffeine. I tried going off of it completely and felt in perpetual need of nap time.

And still I have a headache. I know people who drink a lot and smoke a lot and they don't have headaches (except early on certain mornings). I eat well and exercise and now I don't even drink sodas and I always have a headache. This doesn't seem fair. But at least I am off of soda, which I know is good for my teeth and bones and my general health, though I would never, ever have done this on my own. But forgive me if I feel like I need a nap.

ETA: By the way, I know you all mean well, but I'm going to start deleting comments with suggestions about what to do about my headaches. I've heard just about everything at this point, and hearing the same suggestions over and over again are just giving me another headache. So, be warned. And yes, that means you, not everyone else except you. Comments about caffeine, soda, and coffee are welcome.

"Hey, beautiful!" I heard a man yell. I kept walking towards downtown. "What's going on?" I slowed down and looked towards the voice yelling these words and saw a 20-something, man dressed in street clothes crossing the street, arms open, looking at me. It then occurred to me that, oh my, he was talking to me.

This left me greatly confused.

I gave the man a befuddled look, as though he'd just asked me where the library was in Portuguese. I kept waiting for him to follow up with, "Can you spare some change?" but he didn't, so I kept walking in the other direction. As I continued down the sidewalk, I came upon another man who looked at me and said, "Hey, how you doing today?" Dear Lord, why were people being so friendly on the street? What was this, the deep south? Here in the Midwestern states we typically ignore our fellow pedestrians and let them live out their hollow lives in peace, thank you very much.

I still don't know why I suddenly attracted the attention of two men while walking down the street in the middle of July. I felt like the revolving door of my office building had spun me out into an alternate dimension where I was suddenly an irresistible sex object. I looked down at my outfit and saw that I was wearing the most generic clothing possible, as if I were auditioning to be a extra in a crowd scene of a movie - jeans, t-shirt, and a purse. I wasn't even wearing foxy sunglasses.

My only hypothesis about these events has to do with the fact that I work with a bunch of guys. Typically when I'm walking around downtown, I am traveling with a pack of men, with perhaps one other woman, to get Starbucks or chow on Indian food. They are obviously scaring off the hoards of available men in the vicinity who want to throw themselves at my hotness. My co-workers are holding me back. So, if I want to score with random men on the streets, I will have to walk to get my coffee alone.

In this instance, however, I was walking to Borders to buy a map of San Francisco because it occurred to me that, "Oh hey, I am traveling there in, like, two days, and maybe I should not get lost." Or if I do get lost I should have a map handy to wave around to better alert potential muggers that I am an easy pickins' tourist.

All of this is a roundabout way to remind you that I will be at the BlogHer conference at the Westin St. Francis this July 18th-20th in San Francisco. Registration is closed, but if you are attending, my panel is on Saturday, July 19th and 3:15pm and is called "What We Do: Blog to Book Redux." I'll be speaking along with Ellen Gerstein from Wiley & Sons, literary agent Neeti Madan from Sterling Lord, and fellow blog-to-book author Rita Arens. You can also stop by the BlogHer bookstore right after the panel from 4:30pm-5:15pm where I'll be signing books. You can buy a copy there or bring your own. (I won't tell nobody.)

Last night tell I could tell I was stressed out about travelling because I ate all five of the tasty and delicious, strawberry yogurt protein bars I had intended to stuff in my suitcase as travel food. Obviously, the Topamax has worn off. My appetite has returned. And while stress eating is bad, it's nice to feel like myself again and not zombie girl. I am particularly stressed about this trip because I have never travelled this far before. I've never been to California. I've never seen the Pacific Ocean. I've never been on a four and a half hour flight. That leaves me a lot of flight time to freak out.

I worry that I will forget to pack something essential - like my pills, cell phone charger, my sunglasses - and my whole trip will be a disaster (because it's not like they sell sunglasses in California). I worry that I will forget to bring something obvious, like my flight confirmation number, and I will miss my plane. I worry that I will be sitting in the terminal waiting for my flight, but I won't hear it called because my headphones are on. I worry that the plane will be delayed and I will get there so late that the trains will stop running and I'll have to find a taxi and it will cost five bazillion dollars and the driver will only accept Euros. I wonder why I chose to fly into a strange city at 11:00pm their time, 2:00am my time (because it was cheaper). I wonder if I've packed too much and my suitcase is too heavy to practically tote around the city. I wonder if I haven't packed enough and I will be too cold or inappropriately dressed for the various events. These and a million other hypothetical scenarios are why I've also eaten three fudge pops.

However, I'm all packed now, and I'm pretty sure I didn't forget to pack my brain. On the bright side, I don't feel the need to write out a will in case my plane crashes like I did five years ago when I was petrified of air flight. That's growth, right? Once I'm there I think I'll have a good time, because I had lots of fun at BlogHer last year and I don't remember what anyone was wearing.

If you see me, please say hi. There are going to be about 1000 people there and a lot of weird mojo can happen involving status, popularity, cliques and all that crap when you get that many people together. However, we are all just people, and I think most of us are friendly and want to make new friends, so please say hi if you see me. I am just a person too. A totally, hot, sexpot of a person.

Today I'm speaking on the Blog to Book panel at the 2008 BlogHer conference, though hopefully none of you are reading this while I'm speaking on the panel because that's kind of rude. Eyes to the front please. Oh my God, everyone's staring at me! Look away, look away!

If you're stopping by for the first time, hopefully my blog will make you laugh your ass off. It did that to me. I lost 190-something pounds over two years (via diet and exercise) and blogged about it along the way because typing burns calories. These days I blog about my life through the filter of health, fitness and weight maintenance. Some of my favorite posts include:

• Definitely not the tea room
• My first half-marathon: What, no bagels?
• I support your right to look good
• Feeling strangely fine
• ...more greatest hits

My book Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir was published by Seal Press in May 2008. You can read a series I wrote about my blog to book experience on my book blog, appropriately titled Blog to Book. If I don't see you at the conference, I hope to see you around the blog.

It's odd that the one thing that stops me from blogging for almost a week is a blogging conference. The busier my life gets, the less time I have to write about it. Let's just stick to bullet points so I can take another nap while my body tries to figure out what time zone I am in.

• In San Francisco they paint their houses pink, purple, orange, blue and all sorts of beautiful colors. If I see a purple house in Indiana I automatically wonder, "Was purple paint on sale that week?"


• I could not get over how many hills there are in San Francisco. The world has a third dimension, did you know that? Every time I'd drive up a street I'd say, "Wow, look at that hill!" Indiana is so flat that it was shocking to be able to see buildings rising up above and below me on sharp inclines.


• I now have 4 USB flash drives. Thank you, swag tables.


• My panel went very well. I did not fall off the stage and I kept my legs crossed so I didn't give anyone a panty shot up my dress.


• Someone suggested they should sell T-shirts that say "I got fat at BlogHer." If they did, I'd be the first to buy one in an XL. This city is the home of Ghirardelli chocolate and they don't let you forget it. Cookies, cupcakes, and croissants, oh my.


• I arranged a royal tete-a-tete with Princess Nebraska and got to meet Mr. E and the adorable lil' Eli. When she was asked what she was going to do that day she got to tell people, "I'm meeting a weight loss blogger...at the In-N-Out Burger," because I am a weird kind of weight loss blogger. They don't have In-N-Out Burgers in the Midwest and I had to partake while I could. They were very kind to drive me all around town site-seeing. We mostly stayed in the car though, because it was FREEZING, and because they had a big bag of taffy in the front seat that was difficult to pull myself away from.


• I got to meet several other bloggers in person and can verify they are real people and not artificial intelligence programs, including (in the order I pulled their cards out of my big plastic baggie of business cards): Mo from Big Fat Deal, Anne and Weetabix from Elastic Waist, Stephanie from Back in Skinny Jeans and Noshtopia, Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen, Zandria from Zandria.us and the BlogHer site, Carmen from The ELLF Diet, Susan from Mr. and Mrs. Get Fit, Stephanie Klein from Greek Tragedy, Corrinna from A Celebration of Curves, my roommate Anne-Marie from a zillion different blogs, Busy Mom and lots of other people, but I am too lazy to enter all of their URLs in this post and they will now hate me forever for not link-checking them. Sorry!


• Lots of other fun, interesting things happened, as well as a couple weird, not as fun things, none of which are appropriate to talk about on this blog. These events will stay sealed in my secret vault forever.


• BlogHer attendees were KRAZEE about Twitter. I now feel intense pressure to Twitter even though I don't really want to. Tweet!


• Overall, it was interesting to observe how a group of 1000 women (and some men) interact with each other.

Okay, back to bed. Someday I will have the energy to unpack and sort through my backlog of email, but probably not today.

I don't remember the exact words I used to introduce myself at my BlogHer panel last weekend, but I do remember how everyone reacted. I said something like, "Hi, I'm Jennette Fulda. I blog at pastaqueen.com. Three and a half years ago I weighed almost 400 pounds."

That's when everyone gasped so hard I was nearly sucked off the stage.

I just flicked my eyes back and forth, furrowed my brow and thought, "What? Didn't you read my bio?" I don't know why I spent so much time deliberating over what to say in that silly little paragraph about myself if no one was going to read it. Now I wish I'd claimed to be the last Amazon warrior from Themyscira or that I'd been raised by alien goat people instead of whatever I ended up writing.

I've told my story so many times now that I don't think it's that big of a deal. I used to weigh 372 pounds, I lost a lot of weight, my flight leaving for Indy was delayed, I had some oatmeal for breakfast, yadda, yadda, yadda. I'm so over it already. I forget that my weight-loss story is SUPRISING! And SHOCKING! to people who've never heard it before. I think I would have gotten the same reaction if I'd said, "I ate a kitten for breakfast." Slurp, slurp.

In the last two weeks I've met two new people who didn't know me when I was fat say, "I can't imagine you being heavy." I'm not sure what to do with this statement, other than say, "Try harder." Anyone can be fat if they eat too much. I briefly considered carrying around a "before" picture in my wallet, but immediately dismissed that as being lame overkill. I may as well hop around the city in one leg of my fat pants in some desperate plea for attention. I suppose the statement is meant as a compliment, but instead I see it as proof of the human tendency to categorize and oversimplify things. You're a fat person or you're a thin person. You're tall or you're short. You're smart or your dumb. You're not both.

But even the dumbest people sometimes say something absolutely brilliant, a tall person can look tiny next to an NBA all-star, and ever the skinniest person could be fat if they ate enough or were put on the right kind of mind-altering drugs. Bodies are flexible, and so are minds. People really can change. They can be more than one thing in their lives. You can be born poor and become a self-made millionaire. You can be so fat that you injure yourself walking up the stairs and five years later run a half-marathon.

It would be nice if that wasn't so shocking. It'd be nice if it didn't make people suddenly inhale all the oxygen in the room.

I dispatched a scout (aka my Aunt Lori) to case the New York neighborhood I'll be staying in next week. After much deliberation (aka a 9-minute phone call), we've decided to host a meet up at Swizz, a wine and fondue bar at 310 West 53rd St. between 8th and 9th Avenues. We'll be hanging around, dipping bread in cheese or chocolate, on Wednesday, July 30th from 7:30pm EST to probably 8:30 or 9:00ish. If you are around, feel free to drop in, say hi, have a drink, or snack on some cheese.

This is a "bring your own book" signing, meaning that if you want a copy of Half-Assed signed to you, you should buy a book at your retailer of choice and bring it yourself. I'll have a couple of copies available on hand to sell for $15.95, but I can't guarantee they'll last. If you want to reserve a copy, contact me at halfofme (at) pastaqueen [dot] com and I'll give you instructions on how to do so.

You can contact Swizz for directions at 212-810-4444 or visit their web site at 1291swizz.com. I hope to see you there! If you plan on coming, please RSVP in the comments so I can give the restaurant an idea of how many people will be attending.

Last Thursday I forgot I'd lost 200 pounds.

More accurately, I ran into someone from college and I forgot that the last time he saw me I weighed twice as much as he does. I was at the local biergarten for an annual alumni association mixer, catching up with my old friend and I totally forgot I looked like a different person than I did four years ago. It was probably shocking for him to see my much skinnier self traipsing amongst the picnic tables, even though he's read my blog and knew I'd lost weight. I don't know if I would have said something about it if I had remembered, but it's weird that the thought didn't even cross my mind.

I used to wish I would run into old friends, teachers, or mailmen so I could show off my weight loss to them. I fantasized about shocking people I had known and seeing their surprise at my transformation. Now, I don't really care, and as I said in my last entry, the gasps kind of piss me off. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal anymore. I suppose this is a sign that I've fully integrated my weight loss into my identity. It doesn't even seem worth mentioning anymore.

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The alumni association gave me a free drink ticket, which was worth at least six or seven bucks. I headed to the bar to redeem it and asked the bartender for something light. He recommended a draft and I asked, "Is that light?"

"It's light in color," he replied.

"Is it light in calories?" I asked. I don't drink much so I didn't know. I don't have anything against alcohol, but if I'm going to spend extra calories on something, I'd prefer it was chocolate instead beer. If they come up with chocolate flavored beer (and they probably have), my dilemma would be over.

"Eh," he shrugged. "Honey, I don't think you need to worry," he said. And that statement alone was enough to make me smile and start thinking about stopping at the Dairy Queen afterwards to eat two dipped cones and a Brownie Earthquake, all because some random guy implied I was skinny. It was nice to be complimented, but it was a weird to realize that the opinions of others can still have a big impact on me, especially when I consider myself to be more self-confident and thick-skinned than ever before.

Later, I told my younger brother about the encounter with pride, and he said, "Yeah, he probably just said that to get a tip."

"Noooo!" I replied. "He said it because I am svelte and sexy and super-beautiful! Not because he was trying to get one dollar bills out of my wallet!" But I knew that my brother was probably right, and even if the bartender did think I was cute, he also knew saying so would increase the contents of his tip jar. However, I am a doofus who never remembers to tip bartenders and I didn't even pay for that beer myself, so his plan failed.

If he'd provided me with some chocolate beer, it might have been another story.

After I learned to drive, I once volunteered to fetch tomato paste from the grocery store for my mom just so I could get more time behind the wheel. Driving was fun and new and exciting. Then I had to start driving three hours between home and college, or I had to drive thirty minutes to work every day and driving suddenly wasn't fun.

The first time I flew in a plane, I went to Disney World and I probably wasn't tall enough to ride all the rides. It was also so long ago that they let people meet you at the gate. I flew a couple times after that as an adult, to New York and Boston, but it was still a rare thing - a scary, rare thing. I would listen with rapt attention to the flight attendants. Where were the emergency exits? You say the closest one might be behind me, not in front of me? Good tip! Are the seats really going to work as flotation devices? When the plane sped down the runway and took off, my stomach would drop and not return to my chest until the "Fasten seatbelts light" was turned off.

When I flew home from San Francisco at midnight last week, I whipped out a pillow and snoozed through the emergency exit lecture. I've reached the point where air flight is now boring. This is good for my anxiety levels, but a little bit sad when I think of the millions of people who lived before me who would have gawked in wonder at an airplane. What would Leonardo da Vinci have done to sit in coach beside me? I have to wonder what technological wonders of the next century will seem mundane to our descendants. I suppose they'll jaunt off for weekends on the moon and think nothing of it.

If you are reading this on Wednesday morning, I'm probably on a plane. I'm probably not freaking out about it. If you're in New York this evening, you can catch me tonight at Swizz at 7:30pm. I will send updates to Twitter via my cell phone, which I just configured tonight. I'll announce when I arrive and when I leave if you want to check in. Here is my Twitter page. (Yes, after intense peer pressure, I've started Twittering). Then you can watch me on CBS's The Early Show on Thursday morning. I'm not going to Twitter during that because it's rude to text during interviews.

Hopefully my appearance on The Early Show went super duper fantastic and you are checking out my web page because you were interested in my book and not because I fell off the stool or spilled coffee on the host. Feel free to discuss the show in the comments. If you missed the show, I don't know if/when video of it will be available online, but I'll let you know when it is. If you are new, check out my best entries and take a look at my book, Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir. I really hope they let me say the title on TV this time.

ETA: Here's the video.