So, a few weeks ago I decided to subscribe to the Amazon DVD rental program thingy. I guess I thought it would be a good idea to hire a new workout DVD every week, and that way I’d never get bored, and I’d be all skinny and toned and stuff.
I guess I also thought my whole personality would change sometime in between joining this programme and receiving the first DVD because once they started to flood in it became clear to me that I am the laziest person that ever did live, and that I may as well just take my £4.99 and throw it into the wind.
It’s just not happening for me. The presence of these fitness DVDs in their spiffy little orange jackets doesn’t suddenly make me want to leap out of bed in the morning and into my running shoes, and nor do they create an extra hour in the day, in which exercising for the sake of it becomes viable, and, indeed attractive.
In fact, they just sit there, all neglected, until it’s time for them to go home, and I sit there all lardass and cellulite-laden, and feel vaguely guilty that I didn’t make them more welcome while they were guests in my home. The funny thing about this, though? Since I got joined the program, I’ve lost weight. For real.
This is strange because for the past two years I have tried everything within my feeble power to lose the work-from-home induced weight I’ve been carrying around with me. Nothing has worked. I’ve tried rollerblading. I’ve tried kickboxing. I’ve tried running, walking, cycling. I’ve tried beating the crap out of the inflatable punch bag that lives in the spare room. Nothing. Has. Worked. This week, though? This week I decided that I had two choices:
1. Bust my ass working out every day and be <insert weight that is more than I’d like it to be>
OR
2. Sit on said ass, doing sweet FA in the way of exercise every day, and STILL be <insert weight that is more than I’d like it to be>
Needless to say, I chose option 2. And I have lost weight. Now, before y’all say anything, no, it’s not just loss of muscle tone caused by stopping exercising. Because I kinda stopped exercising a while ago, and nothing happened. I figure I either grew a tape worm or all the salads I’ve been eating finally paid off. (But I think it’s the tapeworm.)
Either that, or the Amazon DVD thing makes you lose weight just by joining. I swear they did not pay me to say that. (Although, Amazon? If you want to pay me, you have my bank details…)
I’m currently on deadline for The Scotsman, which, of course, means that I’m here updating my blog, reading other people’s blogs and surfing random websites in a frantic kind of displacement activity which ensures that although my deadline isn’t until 9am tomorrow morning, I will still struggle to meet it.
So, I have 1500 words to write on the subject of how to make sure that burglars don’t break into your home while you’re on holiday. I currently have 163 of those words nailed (although only happy with about half that number, maybe slightly less), and I have this stupid thing going on whereby I sit and read people’s blogs for a while, run the Microsoft wordcount again, as if the number of words on the page will have magically increased since the last time I checked, sigh heavily, lather, rinse and repeat. If an opportunity ever comes up to procrastinate for the Olympics, I am THE MAN, people. (Well, the woman. I could probably be pedantic for the Olympics too, should the need arise. Just bear it in mind…)
I get so much done when I’m on deadline. I mean, I don’t get the writing done, obviously, but my house gets really clean and I also manage to get round to all those niggly other little tasks that I’ve been putting off forever. (Not the accounts, though. I’m not that desperate).
Anyway, because there is more than enough procrastination to go round here, here is a link to my last article for The Scotsman, for your viewing pleasure. Read it and weep. Criticise it in any way, and I get Rubin to bite your bum…
My neighbour is trying to kill me. With noise. Yes, noise could totally kill me. It could drive me so freaking crazy that I go out of my tiny mind and end up in a tinfoil helmet and a straightjacket, and let me tell you, that’s not such a far-fetched idea. I mean, I already have the tinfoil helmet.
OK, well, I don’t. Not yet. What I do have, though, is a pair of bright orange ear plugs and matching orange ear phones, and by God I’m using them.
It started last Friday. Beautiful day, sunny, windows open. There I am sitting at my desk listening to the little birdies cheeping outside, the sound of children’s laughter… and Robbie Williams. Robbie Williams was IN MY FACE, people. He was coming from the house one block along for us, and my God, he was singing his little heart out. Loud.
When Robbie finished, someone else came on. I don’t even know who it was because by that point I was so incandescent with rage that I all I could hear was the sound of blood pounding in my ears. I hate noise. I especially hate noise of the pounding baseline, “I don’t care if you hate my music, because I’m going to play it anyway,” type. I hate it so much I could SPIT. Are you getting that I hate it, people? Are you?I chalked last week’s experience up to a one off. When I went out to buy napkins for the dinner party we were having that night, I saw the lady of the house in question out in the street in her nightgown, trying to chase her little blighters of kids back into the house. So, OK, I thought. Either she’s off work sick and it’s addled her brain to the point of ignorance, or she’s been holed up in there all day with just an Elvis CD for company.
Looks like it was the latter. Today it started again. Last week I sat out five hours of it before giving in to my urge to email the local council a short, but nevertheless whiny, rant about how I run a business from hoooome, and I need silence, and also, why do I pay you council tax when you don’t doooo anything? Today I lasted about five minutes before I got on the phone.
So. I grassed her up. I am a grass. I will totally wake up tonight with a horse’s head in the bed next to me or something, but at least it will be quiet! I hope. There, is, of course, always that chance that Our Lady of the Dressing Gown could retaliate, with even louder music, or by playing Bryan Adams instead of Robbie Williams, but I feel I have done the right thing. I have struck a blow for justice, for all of the poor, beleaguered people who are being slowly killed by noise.
<– Today’s outfit. I am nothing if not coordinated…
So, if I were to ask you what would be THE WORST thing that could happen in your relationship right now, what would you say?
Short of adultery and, y’know, death, mine would be having my fiancé go through all of my credit card bills and paypal statements for the past year, finding out exactly what I spend on ebay and, worse, what I spend it on. And then questioning me about it.
Which is pretty much how we’ve spent today.
It’s tax time, people. That time of year when Terry and I traditionally don’t speak to each other without shouting for, ooh, a week, maybe? More? Because I? Am bad. Bad to the bone. I didn’t keep my bank statements. I threw away my credit card statements. (Un.Opened.) I bought things from eBay using the business account. I’m scared. Hold me.
Sample conversation:
Terry: White peasant dress so boho Sienna size 6 . Do you recognise this at all?
Me: Umm. No. Nope, don’t know what that was for.
Terry: Jade green dress, not Karen Millen. Was this a business purchase.
Me: Uh-huh. Absolutely it was.
Terry: La Prairie eye cream 5ml…
Me: You know what I think has totally happened here? What has happened is that someone has hacked into my ebay account, bought a whole heap o’crap and tried to pass it off as mine!
Terry: “…..”
Except he didn’t say that last bit because he doesn’t yet know how much the La Prairie eye cream cost, and if he did, he totally wouldn’t understand how very, very important it is to me, and how the smooth, unwrinkled eyes I will soon have will all be SO. VERY. WORTH.IT.
Let’s not even talk about the shoes…
People, we have a dress. We have a VERA WANG dress. Let me just say it again: Vera. Wang. Dress. Oh. My. God.
The Precious was purchased early yesterday evening and will be winging its way towards me sometime this week. It’s very simple, but very lovely – very Vera, in fact, and I was almost sick with excitement when it was purchased.
I actually feel like I should invite Vera Wang to the wedding, such has been the level of obsession with her wedding gowns these last few weeks. Failing that, I will appear on Mastermind with “Vera Wang wedding dresses” as my specialist subject. I’m pretty sure that if you showed me a picture of a Wang gown, I’d be able now to tell you a) which collection it came from b) the item number c) the price and d) how hard it is to find that exact dress, in a US 2 – 4 / UK 6, and a colour that will flatter my skin. (Pretty freaking hard, just in case you’re wondering…)
So yes, I’ve been obsessed, you could say that. The search for the dress has been all-consuming, but now that it’s over, don’t expect to see me update here any more frequently, because now begins the search for The Shoes. For real.
Vera. Wang. Dress. Come to me, myyyy preeeeccciousssss…
See these babies? These are my credit cards. One is pink! But one is a nasty, murky blue. Gah to the nasty blue credit card!
These cards live on my desk now. This isn’t in order to make internet shopping easier (Although it totally does! Kidding. I’m kidding!) but to remind me at all times that I? Am terrible with money. Terrible. Absolutely freaking awful if you want to know the truth.
Case in point? This time last year we had to prepare our accounts for the year to send to our accountant. (Which is something I like saying because it makes me sound like a real business person. Which I totally am not.) During this hellish process, it transpired that I was supposed to have kept hold of each and every one of my bank statements for the year. That’s twelve bank statements, total. The number of bank statements I actually had in my possession? Zero. None. Nadda.
I had to call the bank and ask them to send me copies of all of the statements. I really hated doing this because a) they were kind of pissy about it and b) when you call my bank, the first thing you get is a recorded message saying, “Hello! We are your bank and there is no way in hell you’re ever getting to speak to us, sucker! Please select from the following seven options. Please note that no matter which option you pick, it will be the wrong one. Have a nice day!”
So, long story short, I promised myself that this would never happen again, and that I would be a super-organised perfect person who kept all of the bits of paper she needed to keep and knew exactly how to get her hands on them when the time came.
Well, the time came today, people. Number of bank statements needed: 12. Number possessed: 3.
In my defence, I’m doing better than last year. And if I continue to improve at the same rate it will only be another three years before I remember to keep them all. (That’s assuming that my maths is correct, and, you know what? It probably isn’t. If I was anyways good at maths, I wouldn’t be in this sorry mess to start with.)
Anyway. Credit cards. The pretty pink one contains an amount which, although not quite so pretty and pink as the card itself, is nevertheless not too frightening. The murky blue card contains a big, frightening balance which I’m going to call Bryan. Do you think I can kill off Bryan in the course of this year, and keep my sanity (and also buy shoes and organise a wedding?) No, me neither. But let’s give it a shot, shall we?
That whole "getting up at 7am to go cycling" thing? Nah, that didn’t work out.
Well, it sort of did. Does every second morning count, do you think? Because at the moment that’s all I’m managing. I’m still going cycling on the other days, but it has to wait until it can be fitted into my hectic (*cough* ) schedule, because some mornings? Some mornings not even that photograph on me in my underwear will get me out of bed.
Today was one of those mornings. It’s not my fault though, for last night, for the second time in a month, I started to experience the tell-tale signs of the cold. Or maybe the bird flu, who knows? Gah. I can’t believe that I’m ill again. I just don’t have time for this, people! I really, really don’t. I mean, it’s hard enough to concentrate on work when my head is full of Vera Wang wedding dresses…
I’m having a really, really hard time motivating myself to do anything other than obsess about weddings and look at dresses on the internet at the moment. I have a lot of work on, but it’s all little, fiddly jobs of the type that I enjoy the least – press release distribution, article distribution. Basically anything with the word "distribution" in the title, then. All I want to do is lie around like a lady of leisure and relax. Oh, and eat chocolate, obviously. Which is a good point, actually, for how am I supposed to get fit and lose weight when there are two* easter eggs sitting in the kitchen? How?!
Ah well, maybe next week will be better…
*OK, one Easter Egg. I kinda ate the other one. Yeah.
The Little (Wedding) Shop of Horrors
Yesterday I went shopping for wedding dresses for the first time.
Today I was up and on my bike by 07.30am, cycling as fast as I could (so not very fast then) in a desperate bid to work off some of the blubber. Because who knew that going to a wedding dress sale would involve me standing in a room full of people, dressed only in my underwear and a pair of stilettos? Who knew the mirrors would be that unflattering? Who knew you could get cellulite on your freaking belly?!
Not me. But I know now, and I will be having none of it. If getting up at 7am, is what it’s going to take to deal with this, um, issue (and remember, I work from home, people. 7am is really, really early for me), then by God, that’s what I’ll do.
Weirdly, despite the blubber situation, all of the dresses I tried on were about a mile too big. See, I’m not fat. I’m just fatter than I used to be. And I was really, really horrified by the state of my belly. I mean, I never want to see that again. Well, I do, actually. In fact, I’ve taken a picture of it to motivate me when the cycling/running/ballet all gets boring and I start thinking that, y’know, Haribo sweets don’t have too many calories in them, do they?
I’ve started to panic a little bit about the dress, actually. Nothing I seen yesterday really grabbed me, and I’m so picky and indecisive that I can see this whole thing rumbling on until it’s too late to order a dress anyway, and I have to just turn up in my jeans. My jeans which showcase my BIG WOBBLY BELLY people. Gah.
Actually, I’ve seen loads of dresses I love on American websites – and for not much money, either. The problem with those dresses, of course, is that they are in America, which means that I’d have to order one without trying it on. Argh, it’s all so difficult…
On the other hand, maybe the bird flu will have wiped us all out by then? Who knows?Oh, we also went back to Orocco Pier to pay our deposit this weekend. Very exciting as there was a wedding happening that day, so we were able to see the room decorated for it. It all looked lovely, and Terry has filmed it so that we’ll have a "one year before" video of it too. Because we really are that sad.
And on that note, back to work I think…
I think I may be responsible for bringing the bird flu to the UK. No, I’m serious. You see, ever since we booked the wedding, I’ve been waiting for something to go really badly wrong. It’s kinda like a universal law or something: "And the Lord did decree that from that point on nothing would go right for Amber. Ever." I mean, I can pretty much guarantee that as soon as I have something to look forward to, or be excited about, this will immediately be balanced out by some pretty serious crap.
Example: December 15, 2003, Terry and I get engaged. December 26, 2003, Terry is diagnosed with end stage renal failure.
Our lives are pretty much like that, y’know? So, I’ve been worrying a little about what would happen to ruin the shiny happiness of the wedding preparations. I figured someone would probably die. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that, actually, EVERYONE would die. Because make no mistake people, WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE. All of us. Bird flu’s comin’ to get us. Tinfoil hats and World War 2 gas masks at the ready. (Also, credit cards. Because if I’m going to die, I’m going to do it in style. Hell yeah.)
The whole wedding thing is freaking me out a bit, actually. I just can’t get used to the idea of having something to look forward to. In the past couple of years I’ve become so used to having things to dread – Terry’s operation, his dialysis sessions, the arrival of my credit card bills every month, Celine Dion’s new album – that it feels really, really strange to actually have a happy event looming on the horizon rather than a terrible one. I can’t seem to get past the feeling that something will happen to ruin it. When I speak to people about the wedding (seriously, I try not to do this, but they WILL ask…) I always feel like a big old fraud. It’s like I’m just pretending that this is actually going to happen, and sooner or later I’m going to realise that it isn’t.
Anyway. The bird flu is here. Terry has his fortnightly appointment at the hospital tomorrow to check that the new kidney is hanging on in there. I have a 1000 word article to write for The Scotsman for tomorrow morning, which I um, kind of haven’t quite started yet. (Not my fault, really, the deadline was Monday, but they changed it. But I haven’t even thought about it yet, so, yes, kinda my fault). I’m scared. Hold me.
In brighter news, Rubin has updated his blog.
OK, I need to lose weight. I need to lose weight because:
a) Cosmo Brides told me to, and Cosmo Brides, it is the Bible
b) I got on the scales this morning after a lengthy absence, and discovered an extra HALF A STONE had materialised somewhere on my body. I’m guessing my belly. That would explain why my jeans almost garrotte me when I put them on now. (And yay to me for gratuitous use of the word "garrotte". Not a writer for nothing, hell no…)
Anyway, yeah, so I took up ballet. Don’t look at me like that, adults can so do ballet. I mean, clearly I’m never going to be a prima ballerina (Note: I SO wish I could be a prima ballerina. Why did my parents allow me to drop out of ballet classes when I was six? Why did they?) as I’m so freaking old, but it’s good exercise, and good fun. Also: have you seen those little ballet cardis and skirts? SO cute.
So, ballet is this month’s fad, but also cycling and walking because hey, I need all the help I can get here, people. I also signed up for Amazon’s DVD rental program. You basically pay £5.99 or something per month, and for that they send you three DVDs every month. I signed up and will get them to send exercise DVDs. Given that I have the attention span of a goldfish but a magpie’s love for new, shiny things, I figured that was my best bet at staying motivated. Well, that and whole "fat-bride" thing.
Of course, with all of that said, we’re now off to Terry’s mum’s to eat our own weight in mousaka. I hope the next exercise DVD comes soon…
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