Hey!

Here I am!

(I told you I’d be back.  I totally told you.)

Kids, the time for change is nigh.  I know I’ve been screaming that from the mountaintops for, like, ever now, but I really mean it.  The time for change is nigh.  First up - that blasted weekly countdown I’ve been using to chart my progress lo these many months.  I’m over it.  Are youns?  I’m over counting the weeks.  Let’s do something different.  Something better.  Something funnerer.  Something new.  (Aaah, such a good movie, that Something New.  Sophisticated Sistah meets Creamy White Hotness and life is ne’er the same again.  How sweet it is, how sweet it is!)  I wanna do something that doesn’t make me want to go at my fridge with an axe because all those weeks make me think I should be a LOT further along in my weight loss.  Something that celebrates my past success even if my present is less than stellar.  Hell, I’ve lost a LOT of weight without any plans, without any procedures and without any pills.  Why not sing my body electric?  So what if I climbed off the wagon to have a beer at the bar down the way…I’m still here, I’m still standing, and by gummit someday (soon?) I’ll start losing again.  This is a party, people…and I’m nothing if not an excellent party planner.  So allow me to introduce the “Hot-O-Meter”, official success-celebrator of Hot Man Diet, Inc.  (Patent pending)  Every week the Hot-O-Meter will greet you with the news you need to know.  Think of it as my personal Hotness Alert Level.  Because I am ALWAYS Hot.  (p.s. So are you!)

So in spite of the fact that I would rather plunge flaming knives into my eyeballs than weigh in, despite the tremors and shakes currently rattling through me old bones due to sheer, unadulterated fear, fear, fear, I will bring you the inaugural Hot-O-Meter reading right…now…as soon as I step on the scale…face the fear, ya know…face it head on…gotta be accountable, ya know…right…now…Hey, did I tell you guys I’m going see my Yankees tonight?  Yup, I haven’t seen them live yet this year, and I’m chomping at the bit for some pinstriped Hotness in front of me own two eyes.  It’s September, ya know, every game means a lot…okay…gonna step on the scale…brutal honesty, ya know…reality check…coming…right…And my mom is coming to visit next week!  Yeah, I’m completely stoked to have her visit.  She gets to see my new pad and, most importantly, she gets to meet the RLHM (Real Life Hot Man).  I know, I know.  Her Hotness is an actual “girlfriend” to an actual “man”.  And he’s not a bouncer or married.  And I know his first AND last name.  I’m really moving up in the world…okay, okay, okay, OKAY.  Deep breath, sip of coffee, here goes:

Hot-O-Meter Reading:  down 47.5 pounds total! 

Weekly Hotness Alert Level is Low due to a major threat of Whitewineuss on Behinduss, reading up a whopping 7 pounds since last quarter’s briefing.  (Holy crap!)  After initial evaluation SASSY (Suggested Action Steps to Shrink Yo’ass) recommends the following: a revised physical fitness template that includes no less than four (4) workouts of significant impact (i.e. biking to bars does not count), coupled with the abolishment of Fourth Meal, which is not good for anyone no matter what Taco Bell says.  For the record, SASSY would also like to point out that Saturdays need vegetables, too.  SASSY believes these few tweaks to an out of control regimen will quickly yield positive results.  And SASSY is always right.

Hot Manspiration of the Week:  This is a bittersweet one, kids.  We’ve bid a lot of Hot Men goodbye, haven’t we?  Paul Newman, Heath Ledger, and now Patrick Swayze.  Forget the parting image of our dear, sweet dirty dancer racked with illness and remember instead the time of our lives, for he was the official Hot Man of Slumber Parties for many, many years.  Aaah, Dirty Dancing…you gotta love it!  We were young and innocent and awkward like Baby, and he was the first jolt of sex we’d had since John Travolta in Grease.  Didn’t we want him then?!  Didn’t we need him then?  And didn’t we dream that someday, someday we’d dance just like that with someone just like that and even though we’re well in our thirties and well aware that will NEVER happen, don’t we still dream?  And so we thank him, that Hot Man Patrick Swayze, for being there, for being Hot, and for making sure that we were never, ever put in a corner.     

Hi.  Hey there.  How’re ya doing?  Life good?  That’s swell.  Me, tWHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAA???????!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know.

I know!

GOOD MORNING, HOT MAN DIETEERS!!!  Did ya’ll miss me?  Come, come, fret not, kiddies.  Dear, dear peeps, ah let us kiss and make up.  We’ve been through so much, so very much.  What’s a five week silence between friends?

I know!

If I may be so bold as to attempt an excuse…it was summer and summer was slipping by at, like, crazy warp speed, and I was trying to spend some quality summer time with the RLHM (Real Life Hot Man - yup, he’s still hanging in there!) and with my friends and with my official Boys of Summer (can I hear it for my Yanks, what what!!!  Best record in baseball, biotches!!!) and it was all just becoming too much and by too much I mean Too Much and so something had to give, something had to bend, something had to acquiesce and yes, that word works perfectly in this situation, absolutely perfectly, because I needed, needed some part of my life to “submit or comply silently or without protest” (thank you, www.dictionary.com) and that certainly wasn’t gonna be the RLHM or the Secret Weapon (the goddess Eileen - yup, she’s still hanging in there!) or my official Boys of Summer or my friends or my family or my new neighbor, the Pacific Ocean.  Nope.  So I did it.  I HAD to.  I stopped the Hotness.

WHAAAAAAAAAAA??????!!!!!!!!!

But I didn’t mean to STOP it.  I only meant to put it on hiatus.  And there was supposed to be an entry, The Hotness Hiatus, that was to explain the reasons for my brief departure.  It was supposed to illuminate and inform, entertain and enthrall, delight and deliver.  It was supposed to wish you all a hearty end of summer and leave you looking forward to my return come fall.  It was supposed to exist.  Only problem?  It didn’t.  Except in my head.  And, as my new relationship constantly reminds me, you guys can’t read what’s going on in my head.  Silly rabbit!

And so now I can only sit here and offer my most sincere, my deepest, deepest apologies for this blogular travesty!  I am very sorry.  Truly, I am.  That was a false move, a callow and cowardly showing for someone who knows better.  I’m really sorry. 

The good news?  I’M BAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!  Bigger (unfortunately I also mean that literally) and badder than ever!  Are you kids ready?  Are you ready to return to the Hotness?!  Holy crap, but I need it!  I need you kids!  Or as they say in Pittsburgh, I need youns!  ARE YOU READY TO BE MANSPIRED?! 

I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am!!!!!!!!  

And so we go back to the beginning and we begin at the beginning.  We roll up our sleeves and prepare to work.  We concentrate.  We focus.  We dig deep.  We call on our strength, our deep reserves of liquid gold strength.  We ask for help.  We lend support.  We work.  We Manjoy.  We work.  We Manticipate.  We work.  We Manspire.  We work.  We work.  We work.  And we don’t resent the work.  We love the work.  We need the work.  We rock the work.  We change because of the work.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  That which does not kill us shall only make us stronger.  We will because we will it.  Pain is just weakness exiting the body.  Nothing tastes as good as a Hot Man feels. 

Nothing?

Nothing.

Let’s get this party started! 

Hot Manspiration of My Life! The Week:  When you’re watching someone become a legend right in front of your eyes do you realize what you’re seeing?  Do you understand the weight of it?  The heft of it?  Can you see the rules being re-written?  The incredible things being undone and done?  Can you see the change, the way the world will never be quite the same again? Can you see the bar being raised when it is already soooo high?  And if you can, does it change the oh-my-god-Derek-Jeter-is-SO-effing-HOTness of it all? 

Yes, it does.  Stunningly enough, it just makes him that much Hotter.  I can’t…I can’t…there are no…words…not enough…I mean…really…

Begin at the beginning.  Call on the Original Trifecta of Hotness.  They will see you through…they will see you through…

See you next week!  (I’m cereal.)

Week 110: down 0 pounds (-54.5 pounds total!)  Can you say stalemate?

Hola peeps!  Happy Last Tuesday of July to you all.  Umm…where did July go?  How in the hell are we bumping up on August now?  Did I miss something?  Did I pass out again?  Did I pass out and miss an entire month?  And if I did pass out did I at least win the shotgun competition?  I trained for that one real good…

So I know I got all emo and soft and cuddly last week.  Sorry.  Sometimes a girl’s just gotta be all girly, ya know.  Anyhoo, I also know last week came sans Hot Manspiration.  What the?!?  Sorry again.  Can I…well…jeesh…is it awful of me to say I just wasn’t feeling it?  Honestly, the only Hot Man who’s truly been rocking my world this summer (besides the RLHM - Real Life Hot Man) is Derek Jeter, and you guys are probably over me blathering on and on about El Capitan.  What’s a girl to do?  I’m only one woman!!

Anyhoo, that shant be the case today.  I’m revisiting one of my fave entries, bringing back the attitude of gratitude, and updating it for your pleasure and Manjoyment.  Good times, good times…

Dear Universe, I thank you for the following:

The Roots - Oh man, there’s nothing better than hip hop unplugged, and no one does it better than The Roots.  (That Jimmy Fallon has asked them to be his in-house band now gives him gobs and gobs of street cred and gives me another reason to get TiVo)  My geeky schoolgirl crush on Questlove just gets stronger every time I see him perform.  He’s a freaking musical genius and let’s face it - genius is Hot!  They’re coming to the Hollywood Bowl the end of next month…holy crap…will I be able to contain myself?!

Unpacking - Aw kids, my apartment is still in a buck wild uproar, but I’m trying to embrace the madness.  I took an unscheduled unpacking hiatus to…I dunno…goof off and enjoy what little bit of July there was, but now it is back to business.  And for all my complaining the truth of the matter is I thoroughly enojy putting my own stamp on a new place.  And this place is great, so the stamp will be, too.  Besides, the sooner I get her done the sooner I get to party time!  Woo hoo!!

P.S.  The RLHM is one humdinger of a picture hanger-er/put stuff together-er and that ROCKS!!  I always said I wanted a man who could fix shit…thank you Universe!

Andy Samberg - Living steps from the marina has inspired significant amount of boat envy, and the RLHM is frothing at the mouth for one.  Well, no conversation regarding said future boat occurs without at least one of us shouting “I’m on a boat” and cracking up.  If you haven’t seen this awesome clip from Saturday Night Live (is there someone out there who hasn’t seen it?!) see it and soon!  This dude is great.  He’s reinventing the short video and rocking my world in the process.  Don’t even get me started on “D*ck in a Box”…

Lemons - Lemons get a bad rap.  Everyone’s like they’re all tart and sour and only good for accessorizing my vodka drink and I’m all step off, lemons are awesome, you just don’t know, lemons rock, you just don’t know how to use them, how to work them, so step off you just don’t know that lemon zest makes, like, anything taste a gajillion times better, and some lemon juice can be super sweet and can rock in marinades, salad dressings, on top of roasted broccoli or fruit, so step off the nasty lemon tip cause I’m here to tell you you just don’t know, lemons rule, they RULE, and most especially they rule because they do all this without adding fat OR calories.  Word!  So step off. 

Baseball Games - Many people are bored by live baseball games.  Whaaa?!  Am I the only one completely turned on by four hours of nothing but sitting, eating, drinking and staring at all the Hotness?  Am I?!?!?!?  Apart from the fact that one day in the wrong ballpark could set you back well over $100 (I’m looking at you, Dodger Stadium), there’s nothing better than spending some quality face to face time with the boys of summer.  Especially when you’re in the All You Can Eat section (God bless America!) and your team is down by one run in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, two men on base and a full count and then, holy crap the Hotness!, and then Casey Blake, already a Hot Man Diet mainstay, Casey Blake drops in a game winning blooper and all hell breaks loose and you attempt to work off those two Dodger dogs by jumping up and down in delight, utter dee-light!  This mighty Casey so rarely strikes out…yum…Hot…baseball…Hot, Hot, Hot…

Week 109: down 0 pounds (-54.5 pounds total!)

Hey kids, how’s everyone doing?  I myself am a smidge under the weather, felled as I am by one of those pesky summer colds.  ‘Tis a mild one, to be sure, but it totally took me out of the game last night.  I haven’t slept that much in one 24 hour period since college.  Word. 

So…I kinda have nothing to say today.  I’m cereal.  I haven’t a thing to say.  I stemmed the tide of the “plus two pounds” juggernaut that’s been the bane of my existence these past few months.  That’s good.  I tried to save the drinking for the weekend, the sweets for deserving desserts and the carbs for the first half of the day.  That’s good.  And my results were okay, nothing gained, nothing gained, nothing gained.  That’s good. 

But dammit if I didn’t want this week to be great!

Not that I’m complaining.  I’ve thought a lot recently about my happiness and what constitutes both my present and future versions of it.  What are the things I currently have in my life that are sources of happiness?  How did I get them?  How can I keep them?  What can I do to continue to deserve them?  When I think of my future, what are the things I believe will make me happy?  What kind of life do I desire for myself?  What steps can I take now to actively promote said life? 

This sounds like a very goal-oriented check list, doesn’t it?  When I write it down it kind of sounds exhausting.  But here’s the thing - oftentimes the result of this mental ”To Do” list is to simply do nothing at all.  Oftentimes the result is to just sit back, shut up and enjoy.  Enjoy the beautiful place that my crazy life path has led to.  Enjoy the ocean, enjoy the beach, enjoy this half-unpacked apartment and all of the potential it holds.  And the peeps, ah the peeps, enjoy the hell of out the peeps!!  Enjoy the people in my life that are everything to me, all goodness and light, some close and some far away, but all still precious, so freaking precious!  Enjoy a day like Sunday, this past Sunday, this past perfect Sunday, a gorgeous day spent wandering through a huge art festival with the RLHM (Real Life Hot Man) and an evening spent on his patio surrounded by candles and Christmas lights (because I am a sucker for candles and Christmas lights and the RLHM is good!) and jazz music and freshly made frozen white peach margaritas.  Holy crap!  Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy…if I may be so bold and oddly religious as to quote the Bible - these are the days that the Lord has made. 

So what does all this have to do with food?  Well, it doesn’t.  And that’s the point.  Don’t get me wrong, health and wellness are vitally important to this whole endeavor.  But they’re only one part of a much broader canvas.  They shouldn’t be ignored, but yet they cannot take center stage.  No one thing should.  

This is about having a full life, a full, happy life.  I do NOT want to look back years from now to remember that week I lost half a pound.  Hells no.  But I know I will remember Sunday, that glorious Sunday, that Sunday where we went to the Sawdust Festival and I bought my first piece of real art and we walked for hours and hours and then you made me the best peach margarita I’d ever had and we sat outside under the stars and the candles and the Christmas lights and then we went upstairs and then…well, then we enjoyed, enjoyed, enjoyed…

Jeesh.  I guess I had something to say after all.

Week 108: up 2 pounds (-54.5 pounds total!)

Ahh, good morning kids.  I’m barely awake.  Barely.  Last night I got one of those late bursts of energy and began unpacking and organizing like a mo fo.  And now I’m barely awake.  Oy.  This is gonna be one of those days…

…yup.  I was right.  Up 2 pounds?!  Another up 2 pounds?!  This makes it official - there’s something broken here,  something not quite right about the core concept of Hot Man Diet.  Whaaaaa?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!  Say it ain’t so, Joe.  Say it ain’t so!!!

But there is.  And since I created this sumumabitch, it is my job to fix it…with your help, of course.  It take a village, people!  It takes a freaking village.  And so it was that this comment from good friend and first ever real life Hot Manspiration, Bones Rodriguez, delivered a swift kick of reality to my growing ass -  

Seriously, you’ve been slacking, and I don’t wanna hear any Manstracted crap. Get back on the horse, and burn it.  You plateaued months ago, and it’s been long enough.  No one else will say this to you. Bones will.   If the HOT MAN DIET has failed to continue working under these new developments, then I guess your new Hot Man ain’t that hot.

Ouch!  Harsh words, indeed.  And he followed up by text to make sure I had read his missive.  After I threatened him within an inch of his life to leave my man OUTTA this, that his Hotness need NOT be questioned, he fleshed out his argument with this nugget, this kernel of super-mega-holy-shit-I-hadn’t-thought-of-it-that-way truth -  now that I have a RLHM (Real Life Hot Man) it is time for me to up the ante.  It is time for my A game.  You don’t bust your hump to make the playoffs just to play like a schmuck once you’re there!  You bust your hump to get there so that you can win!  Besides, if I’m so into him wouldn’t I want to give him the best Me possible?  Don’t I want to show him how amazing and wonderful I can be?  Isn’t he worth it?  Isn’t he?!

Whaaa?!?!?!?!?!

I honestly NEVER thought of it that way.  I adore this man, I really do.  So why have I become That Girlfriend, you know, that girlfriend who constantly worries about weight and talks about food and feels guilty about what she has or has not eaten, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc.  I hate That Girlfriend!!  So why should he have to put up with her?  And while he does think I’m fantastic just the way I am who is to say two more months of “up 2 pounds” every week won’t be enough to drive him away or at the very least tame some of his physical desire for me?  That is NOT ACCEPTABLE!!  That will not do!!  Can’t I see?  Isn’t it obvious?  The work you do to keep the RLHM must be equal to or greater than the work you did to get the RLHM.  Nothing less will do.  Nothing less.

All right.  Okay.  I’m ready.  Let’s play ball.  

I’m actually kind of excited.  I’m gonna show the world just how awesome I can be.  My man deserves this!  Let’s hear it for the boy!!  Woo hoo!!!

Hot Manspiration of the Week:  So this past Sunday I took the RLHM for his first ever trip to the Hollywood Bowl to see Ray LaMontagne.  The show was simply amazing.  That man has one of the coolest, sexiest voices I’ve ever heard.  He looks like a freaking mountain man, but when he performs…yowza…it’s all kinds of major Hotness.  If you don’t know his work check him out.  You won’t be disappointed.  Anyhoo, there is something about him, I don’t know exactly what, but there is someting about him that reminds me of Wes Bentley, that kid from American Beauty with the ridiculous blue eyes.  Where’s he been?  We need hime back.  Hot.  Although we need to call a spade a spade - he was always a poor man’s Jared Leto.  Jared Leto!  So.  Very.  Smoking.  Hot.  Shit kicking Hot!  Damn!