But I did take one of my favorite photographes of all time, which is on my Buzznet at the bottom of the page. (4/16/05, for posterity.)I felt slightly less like crap today than yesterday, although I still had some of the same symptoms that made me think yesterday I had a UTI. Except today I went to the doctor's office and peed in a cup, so now I know that I don't have a UTI. What do I have? I figured it out about five o'clock this afternoon: it's hormones again, which is a polite way of not giving you too much information. I'll say it again: I'm too old for this.
I think this is also why my new weight-loss campaign is working for shit, even though it's the same thing I did to lose 20 pounds last year. But that stopped working in December or so, the last time the hormones kicked in. I wasn't kidding yesterday about wanting my uterus removed. That evil organ and its little satellites are the source of my misery.
Earlier today, I thought that all I needed to do to kick start the metabolism was WALK WALK WALK every day, for at least a week, and so I got myself up and out to the park (where the mill is, where I went on Tuesday) and I got about 10 feet from the car when I realized that I had to get to a bathroom fast, and that, worse, at the edge of the parking lot there was a car in which sat a man, his head sort of lolling out the open window. I don't mean lolling in a drunk or ill sense, but in the sense of creepily watching the people go by. If I hadn't been alone I might have gone on walking, but I was alone, and that feeling of not being safe there really took the wind out of my sails. I'd forgotten why I don't like to walk at a park alone; it's because I don't feel safe. So I drove home. Tried walking again from the house a little later, but I went out dressed too warmly and that wasn't good, so I took off a layer and then I was cold. Once again, I am at the mercy of those evil bodily chemicals. I gave up. I'll try something tomorrow. Honestly, if I ever did get to the magical 10,000 steps a day mark, I'd have to set off fireworks.
So then I was in. R was at work all day, as was the Hubs, mostly. I had dropped in on her at the store this morning, where she made me a really nice skim milk latte, but now I was kind of without a plan. I had already taken the pictures I took today, and worked on them a little. So I watched a movie. I had Vera Drake on hand, which let me tell you was a very good movie. It was all period (1950) and acting; which is to say that the story/plot is very very simple, but the characters and the actors who performed them were excellent. Imelda Staunton was nominated for an Oscar for the role, and I can see why. (She's my choice for Umbridge when they make the Harry Potter/Order of the Phoenix movie. You heard it here first.)
I started reading Peter Pan and Wendy, which someone in my class has written her project on. I didn't get very far because Barrie's wink-wink-aren't-I-clever? style is putting me off a bit. But it's given me an interesting sense that this was to its time something like what Harry Potter is now: a window into a different, and imaginary, sort of world. One of the others in my class is a card-carrying Harry Potter hater; she's the kind of person who comes on as all open-minded and contemporary but she's so not, and it's pissing me off. (Her project was terrible, btw, but maybe it's just that she rubs me the wrong way.) She carries on like a great big feminist, but only if girls want to compete with boys on their level, not do traditionally girly things, and so on. (Kind of like that teacher at work.) Seems to me that if you're a feminist, then you support little girls doing their own thing, whatever that is, even if it's baking pies or knitting or *gasp* wanting to grow up to be mommies. If a little boy said that his ambition was to grow up to be a daddy, who in this day and age would criticize him? And what if he said he wanted to be a fireman? Lighten up, all you -ists out there. Let kids be who they are, okay? Even if who they are are kids who want to read Harry Potter.
It's Saturday night, almost 8:30. Another hour and a half of Gilmore Girls to go. At least I've got something to do for an hour and a half.
