play time is over. my health is deteriorating and the things i want most in this life i may never get if i do not take care of myself. the truth is that i am lazy and i love to indulge in excess. unfortunately it is visible in layers and layers of fat all over my body. fat that may prevent me from getting the man of my dreams, but also my dream job. i know the job is mine, but i want to feel confident and look beautiful. i don’t want to be a fat slob…. which is basically what i have been for the past several years.

no more. tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. green smoothies, exercise, waking up early, getting myself into a routine, taking my supplements, caring for my skin properly, regular showers, manicures, waxing, etc – basically just taking really excellent care of myself.

i deserve it and i want to present the best me possible. no more being lazy and indulgent – i don’t want to forfeit my real dreams and passions because i don’t put the work into myself i should.

i love myself and i will no longer neglect my body, mind, or spirit. it’s time for the true me to emerge from underneath this fat.

I’m not going to write about how much I suck, because I am actually feeling quite proud of myself for all of the things that I have been doing, but I do think I still have plenty of room for improvement, and one of those areas involves writing regularly and keeping myself in check. This morning I had told myself that I was going to quit smoking, but of course, I woke up wanting a cigarette. I suppose I knew better, as I have had more success in the past if I put the patch on before I go to sleep so I don’t have that massive craving for nicotine first thing in the morning, but I was trying to be miss smarty pants and show my willpower and I lost. That sort of set the day off on on a less than ideal route and I’ve been lounging around reading all afternoon.

One thing is for sure, I am going to bed by 10pm tonight. I really want to head for bed around 9pm and be asleep by 10, but I absolutely need to wake up at 8am tomorrow to start my day and that is going to be difficult unless I just can’t stay asleep anymore. This is called adjusting your sleep schedule by brute force.

I wrote that earlier in the day and became sidetrack, It’s now 8:49pm and I am about to get ready for bed. I am disappointed in myself that I had such a lazy day and didn’t accomplish much, but I did read some good material, have some good meditations, and I feel rejuvenated and ready to start the week with a kick tomorrow morning.  I have pilates at 9am so I want to wakeup at 8 and eat breakfast around 8:15am. I am curious to see what the pilates class will be like and I hope that it is challenging. I think I should also plan to walk on the treadmill for at least half an hour. Otherwise, I should do the EFX. We’ll see how I am feeling based on the class.

After that I have a block of 7 hours and in that time I think I need to focus specifically on getting all of these eBay items listed and packed away. I should also unlock the iPhone with the latest software and reduce it’s listing price to something a bit lower. That will be the focus of the day and everything else needs to be turned off so I can just get it done. I read some motivational ideas on productivity today and have come across some inspirational sites in the last few days so I think everything is on track as it should be.

Aside from the smoking. I need to stop. I have to stop. I want to stop. So why do I continue? All of these things are crutches. They are just here to give me a false sense of confidence and control when they are the things that are really controlling me. Food and Cigarettes are my nemesis, yet I cling to them. I have been a lot better about eating. I have been losing weight and I think I will achieve my goal of being under 200 by the end of the month. So yay!

I want to lose a minimum of 10 more pounds before I go back to LA, but of course, I would prefer to work my ass off and lose more like 15-20. I know I can do it if I do all the right things, and I need to be doing those anyway to achieve 10, so why not shoot for more? I’m ready to be over this obsession with my body and just love it and take care of it. I know what it righteous and what is not, so why keep falling victim to the weakness?

I am ready to take over the world in my own way and tired of feeling like I have to hide myself. I hide myself and shy away from things because I am not confident in how I look. I am so exhausted from being overweight and unhappy with my body and how it effects every single thing I do every day and every hour of my life? I want to feel proud of everything I do and everything that I am, including my body, my work, my dreams, my motivations, everything. I can’t do that until I honor the commitments and keep the promises that I make to myself.

Tonight I am going to go to bed with a patch on. I am going to complete the 8 week program and not smoke a single cigarette. No cheating, no puffs here or there. No exceptions. I can do this. I know that it will be better for my body. I know that it will be better for my mind. I know that it will be better for me financially. There is no reason NOT to quit smoking cigarettes, other than I am addicted and it is a crutch. I will NOT use smoking as a crutch any longer. I want my lungs to be clear and free and I do not want to have the chest pains that I have been experiencing today. I am getting older and I cannot afford to continue on with these bad habits. I am just opening myself up to having more diseases and if I don’t try to reverse this now, I could not have as full and long of a life as I would like. Three of my grandparents died early of disease and I do not want the same to happen to me – or my parents.

While I am here I want to set a good example for my father and make an impact on him. It hurts me to see him smoking and drinking so much. He doesn’t get out of control or abusive or anything, but I know it is not good for his health. He doesn’t need to do it, but he’s retired now so maybe he is bored. Whatever the case may be, I don’t want to smoke anymore because I don’t want him to smoke anymore and I think I am being a hypocrite if I tell him not to smoke while I am continuing to smoke away. I don’t want my mother smoking either. It’s a terrible habit. I could sit here and blame them for allowing me to develop the habit, but ultimately I did it to myself. I don’t know if I would have become a smoker had they not been smokers when I was growing up, but I think it certainly contributed to my addiction and my belief that it was okay to be a smoker.

i was just reading through some of my older entries and there was reference to the date that everything fell apart with him. i picked up my phone to scroll through my texts. i knew i had one with a time/day stamp from the day i saw him. i had thought it was may, but it turns out i was wrong. is it weird that the same day he finally called and the same day that we hung out was exactly a year later? just another reason why i can’t deny my connection with him.

i guess i haven’t written about how it all happened. it was april 11, almost midnight when the phone rang and it was him. i should rewind even further and explain how i ended up where i was. her boyfriend was coming and she didn’t want me to stay there so i booked a hotel on hotwire. when i arrived at the hotel over an hour later, they did not have my reservation. i was told they were supposed to receive a fax and could not check me in without it. frustrated and tired, i called hotwire to resolve the issue. i was told they would resend the fax and it should be there within a few minutes. ten minutes later, i called back and asked the woman to stay on the phone with me until it went through.  throughout all of this, a homeless couple came in looking to secure a place for the following night after they got a check from a local church. another man came in wanting to use a bathroom and then asked to see a room when he was denied. the manager made him leave a cash deposit while he went to look at the room. when the man left, i asked him about that and he said people would come in and take showers or use the restroom and then he would charge them for the entire night. after it not going through again, she called and spoke with the hotel manager to try to get him to check me in until the fax came through. i already knew what the answer would be after having over an hour to assess his character as people wandered in and out. the answer was no.

finally, the woman at hotwire apologized profusely, told me that this has never happened and they were just going to re-book me at a higher star hotel nearby and hotwire would cover the difference. pleased that the situation seemed to be resolving itself, i happily went to the hotel next door and waited as the representative from hotwire called the new hotel’s manager to make sure everything was straight and i would be allowed to check-in promptly. when i arrived, my phone was about to die, so i plugged into an outlet in the lobby and waited on hold. once she came back on, she informed me that they were awaiting the confirmation fax and i would be checked in shortly. another half an hour later and the supervisor came on the phone. he told me that he had tried everything, even asking the hotel to book it with his credit card directly, but they would not oblige. he apologized profusely, confessed his embarrassment, and offered me a full refund and a fifty dollar “hotbucks” credit to my account and suggested i book the hotel directly at their higher rate.

as this played out over several hours, i started to get the sense that it was all happening for a reason. i had no clue what it could be as i was in the valley in the middle of nowhere where i know nothing but my pilates studio, however, that feeling was planted. i called kels and asked if i could spend one more night and promised that i would sleep on the couch so as not to dirty up her freshy cleaned sheets. the next morning i decided that i wanted to secure a hotel for the evening and i would then look for places from the hotel on my laptop and i wouldn’t feel stressed or rushed. i went on hotwire and decided to go for a 4 star hotel in west hollywood/beverly hills because i had the fifty dollar credit and it made the hotel less than the previous nights 2.5 star.

as anyone who has used hotwire knows, you do not select the individual hotel, but an area and star level. there are so many hotels in the area, i had no idea where i would end up, but i figured a 4 star would be nice and i would feel good having a little pampering after shuffling all over the city. what a surprise it was when it was revealed that i was staying at le parc suites. le parc suites is the first place i ever stayed in los angeles, the first time i ever visited the city. courtney had flown me out and put me up there for several days. i remember feeling so chic and i still have a corkscrew with the hotels name on it to this day.

when i arrived, it was exactly as i had remembered. as i went to check-in, i noticed a large tour bus pulling off. again, i got this feeling that this was still happening for a reason, maybe something to do with him, but when i asked the valet who the tour bus belonged to, it was no one that meant anything to me. still, i had planned to go in, bathe, and put on my makeup. i wanted to be out and about looking beautiful, but i ended up feeling lazy and decided to stay in and relax. i was hungry so i went to the nearby 7-11 and bought a bag full of crap, only to decide i needed a hotdog while i was checking out. slightly embarassed but completely ravenous,  i ate the hotdog in the parking lot as i thought to myself how mortified i would be if he happened to see me.

back at the hotel, i made microwave food and scolded myself for it. i put on a mask and lounged around the suite getting ready for bed, snacking on chips. my phone rang. “bread in the oven bakin’…” , my heart nearly jumped out of my chest. it was pounding and i couldn’t bring myself to even pick up the phone. i had seen him online on messenger, but i definitely was not expecting a call. i had to calm myself, smoke a cigarette, smoke a spliff, do deep breathing as i ran around and jumped up and down like a giddy school girl. i couldn’t believe he was calling, that he called. today, tonight, now, of all times. and he left a message!

i decided to finish getting ready for bed and climb in before calling him back. talking in bed was something we did often and i was looking forward to it like christmas morning. i dialed his number and as it rang, i filled with anticipation… only to reach voicemail. i had only waited ten minutes to return the call, where could he be? brick wall. again. sigh. so i turned on the tv and tried to forget about it. a few minutes later, i received a text message. “what up?” … OMG OMG OMG. i called him back and it sounded like he was in a loud bar. i inquired and he confirmed, then asked where i was. i told him LA, but he didn’t relent and wanted to know where in LA. “oh, i’m in a hotel in west hollywood, where are you”. he responded that he was at barney’s beanery and my heart skipped a beat. that was walking distance from me and right next to the 7-11 i had visited only an hour earlier. i laughed at him and questioned why he would be there of all places. he said it was down the street from his hotel. he said his credit was about to be finished and i said i wasn’t done talking. he told me to come meet him for a drink. so i did.

I had my employee come into work today. She arrived late in the afternoon and was of some help, but having my mother came over was the real brute force. I turned down her offer to help last night. The whole house was/is just overwhelming. You don’t know where to turn or what to do because there is just crap everywhere. I really had intended to go through all of these things and get totally organized, but now we are down to the wire and there really isn’t time for that anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I did organize a lot, but as far as selling things goes, I have yet to list a single thing. 

I am so turned off eBay and dealing with customers and shipping and sales, I just don’t want to look at it. It is such a hassle to go through all the various processes to get things listed, then managed, then shipped, boring and tedious. I have been procrastinating and putting that off, but it’s really show time now and I don’t have any time to waste. I need to have these items listed to sell and I’m not nervous because it all may have to be out by a week from tomorrow! Yikes! Where will it all go? I guess the next week is going to be really, really busy for me. I will at least be rewarded with a trip to Japan at the end of it. 

I need to remember that promise that I made to myself about getting all of the pictures taken and items listed and things packed up in order to be able to justify taking this trip. I sort of let myself forget that and didn’t stay focussed or live up to my promise to myself. Promises to myself and trusting myself are big issues I am dealing with right now. I do know that I need to follow through on these things, but I don’t end up doing them, oftentimes, until it’s too late. I have squandered away so much money just by failing to live up to my responsibilities towards myself. It’s sickening really.

I did make some progress today though. I did drink my green smoothie and I did go out for exercise. I also packed most of my house other than the bathrooms. I don’t feel like I should pack bathroom type goods to go into storage for 6+ months. That just doesn’t make sense. I wonder if I should pack my lights and tables and all of that good stuff. It would probably be a good idea. And shit, what am I going to do with all my huge storage shelves? It is looking like I am going to need S afterall to manage the selling off of this stuff. 

I don’t know why I thought I could really pull this off and I stopped myself as I started to type that because I couldn’t believe what I am saying, but I guess that is how I am really feeling deep down. I know that I can pull this off if I put my mind to it and work hard, but I’ve been having a difficult time getting to that place. I bought some red bull today and then I smoked some in the afternoon. It was my first red bull ever and it tasted like candy cough syrup. I had no idea. I don’t think it’s something that anyone should look to drink on a regular basis, I feel like it’s probably highly addictive in a sick sort of way. Why do I say that? I found myself back at the store this evening buying myself another 16oz. can. What am I thinking??!

I talked to a good friend today for quite awhile and he really made me feel better on the relationship front. He offered a good perspective and kept me from doing something I didn’t really want to do anyway. By that, I mean calling a close friend that disrespected me out of nowhere, a lashing out, likely stemming from being in the midst of a long, drawn out breakup. But maybe not. The maybe not has been driving me crazy, the lack of caring or importance of my feelings too. Maybe I expect to much of my friends, maybe I don’t. This is how I am though and he more than anyone does know this. Now I suppose it’s the wondering how long it’s going to take him to man up and apologize, but hopefully I can focus on everything else going on right now and remove this from the forefront of my mind. What good is calling someone an asshole when you’ve already said it hundreds of times before? What good is being friends with an asshole, much less close close friends? Whatever it is, I know that things will change is going to happen and I know that I’ll be better of for it and grow in the end.