Friday

Dead tired. That's how I feel right now. Just exhausted. I know I've been whining about this a lot lately, but it's the truth. I've been overdoing it and by the time the weekend hits, all I want to do is sleep. After my vacation over the holidays, I've made a commitment to myself to crank out as much overtime as possible. And by the middle of each week, I've been telling myself that it's wearing me down and I need to pull back some. But I haven't. And then I sit here Friday night, ready to fall asleep before 9pm. Has it been worth it? Right now the answer is NO. I haven't seen any of that overtime in my check yet. There's a four week (or two pay cycle) lag in overtime, so I haven't seen my reward yet. My next paycheck will be the first one to show the overtime, but that pay period I only worked two days (because of my vacation). Two more weeks until the nice check.

I need to stop whining about this. I'm sure I've beaten that topic to death already. A long time ago.

But it won't stop me from talking about money. Today, for instance, I dropped a few hundred bucks. My tires were getting balder and balder and with all the shitty winter weather we've been having, it was a good idea to replace them now, before I run into trouble. All four of them were getting pretty bald. I knew that the tires weren't going to pass my next inspection, which is due in May. I was going to replace them then, but Ken convinced me now is a much better time to do that. Plus, I'll have fresh new tires for my road trip tomorrow to Jersey. We're going to spend the weekend at Ken's BFF's. Haven't seen Jim in a while and it will be nice to get away for the weekend. Especially because it means two things. 1) IKEA and 2) Converse Outlet. I fell in love with the Converse Outlet when I was in Florida this past summer. We had to buy bigger luggage to get all the new shoes I bought home. Naturally, once I got home, I googled it to see where the closest outlet was. It's about two hours south of here and we have to pass it on the way to Jim's. I'm pretty happy it's that far away, because if it wasn't, I'm afraid I'd be spending my paycheck there every payday. Two of my favorite words in the world are Clearance Converse!

I'm annoyed that I'm still behind on all my blog reading, but I did catch up almost completely on my email. We had a storm two days ago and I left work at noon. I intended on playing online for a little bit and then do something constructive, like clean or read or something. But I ended up spending hours and hours online. I can't be mad at myself because I did get something done.

The day of the storm I decided to be helpful and shovel the driveway and the sidewalk when I got home from work. That was a bad idea. My sciatic nerve had been (mostly) back in check. The last flair up, I thought, was caused by all the shoveling I had done in the middle of December. Well, on Wednesday I got the confirmation that this is true. My nerve started going crazy on me. Not as bad as it did in December, but it hurt. It's two days later and it's still kind of bothersome. I'm hoping it calms itself down. If it doesn't, though, I do have doctor's appointment on Monday and hopefully I can get something to help it out. My appointment is with the PA and he has no problem writing out prescriptions if I need something. We'll see if he's in a helpful mood on Monday.

C Is For Cookie

Stolen from Sean, who stole it from someone, who probably stole it from someone else.

You Are Spontaneous and Bold

You view the world with childlike wonder. You are very inquisitive. You can help but spy, investigate, and ask questions. Your life is all about change. Right now, you may be going through some changes you really don't like. You're easy going and easy to be around. You aren't picky or high maintenance. You seek sensations in your life. You crave excitement and love risks.

The Sandwich Cookie Personality Test

I Don't Like, I Love and I Hate...

I don't like that I've gotten behind on almost every single blog I read. I don't know where my time goes that I'm not current.

I don't like that I've gotten behind on most of my email again. There are two or three emails I really need to write or respond to, but I just haven't. I know this past weekend I was in no mood for socializing, either in person or virtually. That included email. I really needed to be a hermit. I need to catch up this week, at least with the important ones.

I love that this is day two of being in a really good mood. I don't know what's going on, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. Because I know I'm going to be in a shitty ass mood soon. I know me.

I hate that I was up another pound today. I am officially the heaviest I've been all year. I need to see a downturn on the scale soon. I just bought four more pairs of pants and if I outgrow them, there's gonna be trouble.

I love that there was fresh, new drama at work today. I really do enjoy watching these people and their self-created issues. Couldn't happen to a better bunch.

I hate that FrankenKlinger spoke to me for the sake of speaking to me. I know it's bad when she talks to me, because that means she's alienated EVERY SINGLE PERSON she works with... AGAIN.

I love my new iPod. LOVE IT! It's amazing that I drained so little of the battery on this one while the same usage on my old one, I would have drained at least half the battery. Hurrah for a fresh battery.

I hate that Bret Michaels keeps getting rid of all the fun girls on Rock Of Love. I also hate that I got sucked into this season when I swore I wasn't going to watch. I also hate that I'm about to go watch the Real Chance of Love Reunion Special. What's wrong with me?

I love that I might be going to IKEA this weekend. I don't really need anything there, but if we're going to Jersey, I need to go to IKEA.

I hate that boot shopping tonight was another bust. I love that the cute boy at EMS was more than accomodating and went above and beyond the call of duty to try to find me a pair of boots.

I love that I found out my W-2 forms were mailed out at 10am this morning. If I don't have them tomorrow, I'll have them on Wednesday.

I love that there was a new Entertainment Beat with Frances Gumm (JudyCast) today. It has to be a year since the last one.

Sunday Nattering

I've been kind of lax with posting the last week or two. There have been a number of reasons I've been slacking, not all of which I feel the need to get into here and now. If you've read this blog before, you can probably guess a couple of the reasons right off the top of your head.

Anyway, this is meant to be a shortish catch up post. Most of the stuff I've store away in my head to write about is now gone, and it's probably for the best. I'm sure it was worse than the regular shit I bitch and moan about. Consider yourself saved.

I don't know why, but I'm in a fairly good mood today. Knowing myself like I do, I shouldn't be. Ollie started in his needy licking at 2:30 this morning, with repeat performances at 4:30 and 5:30. I got up when the 5:30 one started and have been up since. I used that as my motivation to get out of the house and do my walk. I walk 3 miles in about an hour at the mall. Six a.m. is the perfect time because there is only a small handful of blue hairs there then. The time went quickly today, too, which is nice. I had two podcasts to listen to and I did a little Twittering with Thom, who was at work at that ungodly hour. As per my usual pattern, I headed to the supermarket before heading home. I don't know what the hell is going on, but grocery prices are still climbing and getting out of hand. It seems I'm paying roughly $20 - $30 more for the same things I was buying six months ago. Anyone else noticing this? It's really pissing me off because I'm not earning $20 - $30 more a week than I was six months ago.

So I left the house just before 6 this morning and got home just before 8. My plan was to put the groceries away, look at the paper and then head back to bed. That didn't happen. I put the groceries away and then took off my coat. When I did that, I knocked my iPod off of my belt and it dropped to the floor. No big whoop, I thought. I've done it before and I'll do it again. I picked it up and it was still playing, so I went and grabbed the paper. But my song ended and another didn't start. I looked at it and it was still on and about every 5 seconds it would show another album cover and then skip to the next track, and so on and so forth. I had this happen to me once before and all I had to do was reboot the iPod. When I did it this time, it rebooted and gave me what I assume is the iPod equivalent of the blue screen of death. It was a big red X and the Apple support url. Not a good sign. I went there and followed the steps they said to restore my toy. Nothing seemed to work. Then I googled my problem and everything I read basically said to go buy a new iPod. For some reason, I was still in a relatively good mood. While reading some of the posts I found, someone mentioned that he had this problem and since his iPod was still under warranty, he got it replaced. That got me to thinking. Was mine still under warranty? I bought it just after Christmas last year, but I couldn't remember the date. I dug through my email and saw an email from Amazon saying it shipped to me on 1/17/2008. I'm guessing I got it a day or two later and that would still put me just outside the one year. I was curious as to when my warranty actually expired, so I dug out the box, typed in the serial number at the Apple site and found out that they claim it ends on 1/29/2009. This crap does not happen. My warranty should have expired a few days ago, no matter what the date was. Things like these always break just days after the coverage ends. I was now kind of hopeful, but not completely. When I went to find my warranty info, this is how it's worded on the website: "Our records indicate that your product is covered under Apple's Limited Warranty which is estimated to expire on January 29, 2009." Estimated. I made an appointment for the Genius Bar for this morning and hoped for the best. I got to the store just before it opened and although my appointment was for 11:10 this morning, I was seen almost immediately. I spent a total of maybe five minutes in the store. The guy helping me typed in my info, turned around and grabbed a shiny new iPod and swapped mine out for it. That was that. I was stunned it was so easy. I expected to hear that they were going to send it out and I'd be without it for a week or two. I didn't expect to be without it for the time it took to hand him my old one and for him to hand me the new one. Francine Fishpaw is dead, but Francine Fishpaw 2 is currently syncing to my iTunes right now. It's a beautiful day.

I haven't mentioned my weight in a couple of Sundays. Today the scale told me I was 192. Second week in a row. I seem to be holding steading at 192 and it's been like this for about two weeks now. To say that I wasn't down about this would be lying. It's been frustrating me that I'm stuck at 192. I've said before that I have so much self-esteem tied up in the numbers I see on the scale. It's hard to seperate my logical side from my emotional side when I weigh myself. My logical side sees 192 and says "Shit, that's an amazing number!!" while my emotional side sees it and wonders why I can't get back down to 190. I know this is a big problem with me because I'm having dreams that I think are inspired by those extra two pounds. The dreams are generally the same. I'm back working at the record store. It's closing time and there are all sorts of people still milling about. No matter what I do, I can't get them to leave. In some variations of the dream, I also have more people piling in. The dream is telling me I think things are spiraling out of control in my life. I tie a large part of it to weight control, though I know there are other things I'm freaking out about. I know how foolish this sounds and I know how foolish it really is. I've lost 108 pounds. Why I can't appreciate that and only focus on the 2 pounds I still want to lose is just not healthy. I'm working through my issues slowly but surely.

Boy Date

What a fucking fantastic day I had today. The best one in quite a while. And it's all a blur. It started out first thing this morning with me finishing up a project at work that's been sitting on my desk. It's been annoying me that I haven't had enough time to get it done, but I did (at least the annoying part of it, I should say.

Next up was being able to go downstairs to one of the conference rooms to watch that little thingie that was happening in Washington DC today. Something about this guy swearing at people or something. :-) That cut a nice hour or so out of my workday and that's always a good thing. It's even a better thing when I actually feel good about this country. It's been a long time. A very long time.

Then the best part of the day. Lunch. I had a boy date with my new BFF, Sean. I wrote about it in an earlier post. We were supposed to go out last week, but life got in the way, so we rescheduled for this week. Today specifically. So at 1 o'clock we met in person, officially, outside my building. He only works three streets up from me. We're practically neighbors. I picked this chopped salad restaurant around the corner to go to. I'm still trying to behave and it took everything in my being not to suggest we go for pizza. But I'm glad we did the salad thing because I had three of the best things in that restaurant. 1) A great time with Sean, 2) bleu cheese and 3) bacon. We spent an hour just talking and I swear that when I noticed it was 1:55 on his watch, I was sure it was wrong. It didn't seem like an hour. It barely seemed like fifteen minutes. It flew by so fast. I'm soooooooo glad Sean is a talker, because I'm not. And I'm especially not at first. And we barely scratched the surface of any one topic. There was so much I wanted to talk about. But that leaves the door open to more and more lunches. Sean in person is so different from Sean in the pictures from his blog. If you notice, he looks serious there an awful lot. But in real life, he's bubbly and fun and smiley and adorable. I felt much more comfortable than I expected, though I was still somewhat clunky. He claims I wasn't, but trust me, I was. When I got back to the office, I was convinced he thought I was a freak and that was the end of that. But he didn't. Yay me! :-) I really meant to snap more pictures at lunch, but the clunkiness set in and I didn't get too much. This one is really horrible, but it's the best I got. I look like Gigantor to his Tiny Tim. Next time we'll get better pictures. Oh, and what you can't tell in the picture, we're both wearing the same designer... Graphitti Designs. I have something from the Brian Bolland collection while he's in something from the Alex Ross collection.



I had other things to say, but I'm blanking and I'm getting sleepy and I have some trash tv to watch. Maybe tomorrow. :-)

Don't forget to check out my 365 Days of Walt. It's just so fascinating.

Sunday

I love when Sunday falls right in the middle of a weekend. I don't have that 'I can't believe the weekend is over' feeling right now and that is cause to smile. Tomorrow night at this time I'll have it, but I'll worry about it then, not now.

I don't know how or why, but this was one hell of a difficult week. It started out strong and just turned to absolute shit by the end. Naturally I'm referring to my work week. I think I mentioned the other day that I cranked out the overtime in a big way this week. What drove me was a panic over money. Last week we got our heating bill for December and it was the single biggest heating bill we had ever gotten. And this is for December. We haven't even gotten into the cold months yet. So that put me into a major panic and I made myself work as much as I could until I couldn't stand it. I was anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours early every day and stayed at least an extra hour most nights this week. I have to tell you, by Friday, I felt like I was the walking dead. I was so tired. And the more tired I got, the more everyone was annoying the shit out of me. On Thursday I asked one of the supervisors I like if it was ever appropriate to punch someone in the workplace. I was told it was generally frowned upon, so I kept my hands to myself. :-) But it was starting to feel like I wanted to smack someone. Without getting too specific, at work, I'm support staff. What that means is if someone needs me to do something, I do it. I float around between a few units and help them with whatever they need help with. I'm just a lowly clerk, but I don't care. I love my job and I have a good time with it. This week, though, I spent a HUGE chunk cleaning up the mess of one of my co-workers. He really has no business working here because he's such a fuck up. But this being the State, no one ever gets fired. When they fuck shit up, they get moved. Well, Fucky here is stuck in his current position because he's been every place else already and no one will take him back. Hurrah. He's a higher classification than I am, too. So why is it I'm spending most of my week double checking (and correcting) his fuck ups? It really got to me this week. I made a point of bringing over every single mistake to his supervisor, who has just about had it with him. But because of the way things work where I work, there isn't much she can do. Her hands are tied and I really do feel bad for her because she's one of the nicest people I work with. The more irritated I got this week, the more I noticed who does work and who likes to go smoke. All day. And who likes to consider their work schedule "optional" and just show up whenever. I really do work with a bunch of scumbags. Like I said before, normally it doesn't bother me, but when I wear myself out, it really gets to me. Next week is a new week and I'll be fine again.

You know, if something did go right this week, it was watching the trials and tribulations of FrankenKlinger. She's gotten herself into some serious hot water, and while I know nothing is going to come of it, I've been enjoying watching her being beyond miserable.

I know I had other stuff to say, but my mind is blank right now. I've had a headache all day today and it's just not going away. I think that's a good sign that I should go lay down and watch some bad VH-1.

Despite That Hair...

...I married him anyway.


And speaking of pictures, I'm trying to take a picture of myself everyday for 2009. I've been posting them over on my photoblog. Here's a handy link to bring you to 365 Days Of Walt.

A New Week

I haven't written anything in almost a week. I'm not sure why. I can't use the excuse that I didn't have anything to say because I usually don't have anything to say. It doesn't stop me from writing, though it probably should. I guess I've been uninspired and feeling a little hermitish.

So what's new with me? I'm tired. Tired tired tired. Though I guess that's not really new because I'm always tired, it seems. But I'm extra tired right now. My entire sleeping routine is broken and I don't know how to fix it. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I don't know what time to set the alarm for in the morning anymore. In the olden days, I would set the alarm to go off just before seven. That gave me time to get up, shower, take care of the cats and then wait for Ken to get ready before we'd head to work. He'd drop me off to be at work by 8:30 and then go to his own office. Then he changed his schedule and we don't carpool anymore. I was still getting up at the same time but rather than wait for him, I'd walk to the bus stop and catch the bus to work, still getting there on time. I've been going in early lately for the overtime and I don't have a specific time I set the alarm for anymore. So I don't really know what time I should be getting up. Add to this Ollie's new routine of climbing on me at 5:15 - 5:30 every morning to start kneading and licking my face. So that's about the time I've been getting up. And it's starting to take a toll on me. I could fall asleep right here and right now.

I'm learning more and more about my stupid sciatic nerve. I was back on the steroids as I'm sure I mentioned here. That helped quite a bit... until yesterday. The nerve started acting up again and I think I know why. My desk is right next to the radiator and I like sitting with my legs stretched out on top of it. I've noticed that sitting like this for an extended period makes the nerve hurt. It's a terrible habit I've developed and it's been getting hard to break. Right now I'm sitting like a normal human being and it's making me antsy. I want to sit like I was, but I can't. Today at work it was feeling better for most of the day, but late in the afternoon it started twitching. That's when I realized that I was slouched so much I was as close to laying down in my work chair as humanly possible. I need to learn that I'm not 20 years old anymore and indestructible. Old habits die hard. I'm not happy about it, but I'm trying to actively change these bad habits.

And speaking of which, I've noticed lately that some of my old eating habits are trying to force their way back into my life. It's scaring me and depressing me and I need to put a stop to it before I start doing any real damage to all the hard work I've accomplished. Overall, I did extremely well with all the crap food that's usually around during the holidays. That's not to say I abstained, but I tried to keep the snacking under control. But lately I've been eating things I really shouldn't. Things I've had little trouble avoiding are screaming to me. Hell, I've managed to avoid Girl Scout Cookies since starting my diet, but in a moment of weakness the other day, I ordered a couple of boxes from a co-worker. (Thin Mints and Tag-Alongs if you were wondering). As tasty as they are, I don't need them. Sure, I want them. This week I'm making a concerted effort to get myself back on track. Wish me luck.

I have a date. It's kind of, sort of, almost like a blind date. Because of this person, I found this person's blog. Turns out he's a local boy. We got to chatting and found we have a whole lot in common. Way too much in common, in fact. We both work in the same area downtown, separated by three streets. Next week, we are officially going to meet in person and go have lunch. I'm really excited by this and not nearly as freaked out as I should be. But I have a whole week to get all freaked out, so I'm not worried. Last Friday we we kind of, sort of met in person, but it doesn't really count. I left work and walked across the street to wait for Ken to come pick me up. While killing time, I went to read Twitter and saw a message saying he was leaving work and walking down the hill. Immediately I started scoping out the foot traffic. Nothing... Then Ken showed up and I got in the car. As we were turning down the road, I saw him. Ken asked if I wanted to pull over and I said 'yeah' which freaked Ken out because it's so out of character for me. I rolled down the window and proceeded to ambush Sean. "SEAN!" I yelled out to him. I'm sure I freaked him the fuck out. Here's this freak screaming his name out from the passenger side of a car. I know I totally caught him off guard. As we drove off, I started to freak out that he had no clue who I was. He assures me that this is not the case and I believe him. I don't know who possessed my body Friday afternoon because that's not the shy and timid Walt that usually resides in it. :-) We tried to set up a lunch date for this week, but it wasn't working out. But we have one set for Tuesday, Inauguration Day at 12:30. I hope to leave the awkward Walt in the office and just bring the fun Walt.

Monday

Well, it's not Monday, but for some reason it's felt like it all day. I don't know why.

I got up at my usual time this morning, looked out the window and saw that it really wasn't as snowy as promised. I considered going to work even though I was approved for today off. I fired up the computer to check out the latest weather report and the call for afternoon icing was still there, so I decided to stay home. The weather, while not great, turned out to be not nearly as bad as they predicted. I could have gone in and saved a day, but fuck it. I sat around like a bump on a log today and I have to tell you, it felt great. I did absolutely (almost) nothing today. I did throw in three loads of laundry (because someone asshole I happen to live with finally unpacked his luggage from his trip to Kentucky three weeks ago, even though I asked him to do this the weekend he got home.....)

When Ken got out of work tonight, we needed to go pick up his car from the shop. Neither of us had eaten much of anything today, so we decided to go out to dinner. I was hungry and I really overdid it. I ate way too much. Started with a salad, cup of seafood chowder and some cole slaw. Oh, and a huge ass piece of bread. Then my entree, which was seafood stuffed salmon and a sweet potato. My stomach feels rock hard now. I hate that I shoveled the food in. I fear I haven't quite banished all of my old ways because they seem to pop up every now and again. I'm going to promise myself now to get back on the wagon tomorrow and not freak out if I bounce up a couple pounds this week.

Tomorrow is going to be interesting. I have a whole bunch of shit on my desk and I'm sure there was more piled up today. I'm not complaining, I'm just not sure where to begin. I hope to get a couple hours extra in tomorrow, too. And when I get home, I should have a nice, shiny new box of comics waiting for me. It's been three weeks since my last delivery. I'm getting very excited!

Tomorrow

So I did it. Before I left work today, I put in a time request for tomorrow. We're supposed to have a decent size winter storm, which really should have no effect on whether or not I work tomorrow. I don't drive to work, I take the bus. I don't have to walk far to the bus stop to catch the bus or walk far from the bus to work. The weather has minimal impact on my ability to get to work or do my job. But I just came off an almost two week vacation and I really wasn't ready to go back. This is just an excuse to lay around the house one more day before I refocus and get back to work. You know, people who take every weather related day off piss me off. I don't know why, but they just do. It's probably from my years in retail where shitty weather meant nothing. Deciding whether or not to work wasn't an option. I still have a lot of that retail conditioning in me. I still feel slightly guilty for taking tomorrow off. I don't know why. I have almost ten weeks worth of accruals just sitting there, rotting.

Sunday night was pretty miserable for me. It's when I realized that I barely touched the mental list of things I wanted to do around the house while on vacation. The list wasn't that long to start with, but the realization that I dicked away all that time made me feel pretty low. I think part of my justification for taking tomorrow off was that I could work on doing some of those things. I know that it's not going to happen. But it sounds good.

Another reason I really don't want to go in tomorrow is the horrible, nasty woman I sit near. Today it was a joy being there near her because she got called into a meeting with her boss and her boss's boss that she thought was about a new work procedure (only about 10% of it was) only to find out it was a meeting addressing her bad behavior, her unprofessionalism, and her general shitty attitude. I only realized the meeting was about this when she stormed to her desk, called her husband and started venting at him about what just happened. She told him she stormed out of the meeting blah blah blah. Then she grabbed the union reps on the floor and dragged them back into the meeting with her. When I tell you that ALL work in the section stopped when this happen, I tell you the truth. Everyone stopped and gathered and starting talking about it and laughing and having a really good time. Now, knowing how things work there, nothing will come of this, but it's really nice to see the fucking nasty skank whore taken down a peg or two. But being around her tomorrow, post counciling session, is just going to be painful. I'm sure she's at home right now plotting and planning out her revenge of those who did her wrong. Tomorrow will be all about her being the helpless victim and I can't deal with that.

I'm Not Sure How I Feel...

Saturday Night

I don't feel so good. Not horrible, but certainly not all that good. I think I ate something bad at dinner tonight. It's the only thing I can think of as to why I feel this way. On Saturday nights, Ken and I like to mix it up and try different places that we wouldn't normally go to. The last couple of weeks we haven't really ventured out. He's either been away or the weather hasn't cooperated or it's the holidays. Whatever reason. Anyway, tonight we decided to venture down to Kingston, where my family lives. They live about an hour south of here. When we went down for Christmas, Ken nearly passed out from excitement when he discovered they have a Texas Roadhouse restaurant there now. He was just at one when he was in Kentucky a couple weeks ago and he loved it. This is the first one any place near here. I called a couple of friends who live down there and asked if they were interested in joining us. They passed (one was sick, plus they've already been there and weren't impressed.) So we went. The two piles of vomit out front should have been a warning. The predominantly obese hillbilly clientele should have been a warning. But I took my chances. I ordered a half rack of ribs and a baked sweet potato and a salad. Ken ordered the New York Strip, a sweet potato and a salad. My ribs were fine, nothing spectacular. My sweet potato was cold. Ken's steak was undercooked so he sent it back. It came back out undercooked and extremely fatty. He ate about 1/3 of it. Shortly after leaving the place, my stomach started doing things. Right now I feel like I need to lay down. Ken already is. He's not feeling right either.

You know, I have nothing against chain restaurants. Nothing at all. Some are good, some suck ass. I'm afraid I'm going to have to file this one under Sucks Ass.

I had something else I wanted to mention, but it's completely left my head now. Maybe it'll come back to me if it's important (which I'm sure it wasn't.) I think I'm going to go lay down and put on a dvd and fall asleep.

Resolutions

It's the first day of the year and it's customary to make a list of resolutions for the coming year. It's also customary to toss them all to the side of the road by the fifth day of the year, so I don't bother doing it. Sure, there are plenty of things I really want to work on this year, but it's no different than wanting to work on them last month or even last year. Why pick January 1 to make a list of things you want to work on? Well, with that being said, here's my list of things I'm working on for myself, not necessarily beginning today. I want to continue watching my weight. I'm in my goal range and I want to stay there. I want to work on keeping my house in a somewhat cleanish state. All the clutter and all the mess is getting to me. I know this means more about working on Ken than anything, because as I've stated before, he has an uncanny knack of trashing the entire house within seconds of getting home. Already I know I'm struggling because the other day I finally got around to cleaning off my desk and already I've got a new pile of stuff started. I want to work on staying in touch with people better than I do now. I'm not doing horribly, but there's lots of room for improvement. I want to work on making a decent first impression. Sean, you're going to be my first test! Basically, I guess, I want to continue working on making myself a better man. It's an ongoing struggle, but it's one I can definitely make progress on.

Okay, I know I freaked out a bunch earlier this week about my holiday weight. Well, this is a photo from when I stepped on the scale first thing this morning. It's my starting weight for 2009. I have to say I was shocked and very pleased. It's going to be a hard number to strive to stick to, but I'm game for it.

A Little Help In 2009

Intervention with Kristin Chenoweth by Kristin Chenoweth