Grand Marquis

I always considered a Grand Marquis and the Lincoln version, whatever that is called, a Granny mobile.

what isn't granny-ish about it?

it's big, i mean HUGE. plenty of room to move around. perhaps too much in my opinion. although i do must say i enjoy the leg room. then again i'm typically squeezed in the back of a Golf or Focus. i guess thats what the old people like, the ability to get in and out without any problems.

oh, and i think they may perhaps like the leather too.

did you know that they also have lumbar support? seriously...i honestly dont even know what in the hell that is except that on the airplanes, in business class, they have lumbar support too and if you turn it on you get a lovely back massage.

what i didn't know about this automobile though is that it caters to fat people. yes, you heard me right...fat people.

why would i say that? well, i got to sit up front yesterday. and do you know what i saw?

2 SEATBELT LOCKS!!!!

i kid you not...one is like the ones in your average car that are directly attached to the seat or next to the seat via a little bar. now, this 2nd seat belt lock isn't wedged in the leather like the first one but lays around attached to seat belt material approximately 8 inches long. imagine an extender.

seriously, i never even considered a grand marquis as a possible big person car. i guess i can understand it though.

although the front is 2 seats, they were so wide it could technically be considered a bench. the backs were completely straight across so it wasn't confining you like a chair.

in my focus, the seats are more sports car-ish so if your wider, you feel the sides of the chair attacking you. i know when i was in the 190's, it was uncomfortabley for me to sit in at times.

i know its a tough time for automakers, and since everyone else is widening their seats (except perhaps for the airline industry) should the car makers automatically put in an extender seatbelt lock?

i don't want to say that fat people shouldn't be driving, but isn't it a hazard at that point? are the people that need the extenders, the same people that need to be carted around in a wheel chair in the airport?

or is it better that more options, safer options are available to the larger consumer?

or is it only adding to the obesity problem by aknowledging the need and therefore supplying the demand?

Detroit

it was a fun weekend. i had decided to not go up north with pb and our fellow friends because a good friend of mine was having her bachelorette party. i ended up spending the weekend at home with my mom and brother since i'm too chickenshit to stay at the house by myself. does anyone else do that when your SO is gone?

so my gf, K, she lives in Detroit and is a huge fan of its revival. i think it helps that a lot of her friends play various roles in Detroit's renovation. honestly, Detroit gets a horrible rep. yes, a lot of it is rundown and needs a lot of work, but it's getting there. will it be all that it can be in my lifetime? probably not, but it's getting there.

ill be honest and say i don't know the whole story behind Detroit's demise but i'm sure a lot had to do with the race riots and white flight. The present isn't much better though, its current mayor was named as one of the worst mayors in the U.S. Plus, the people (citizens not elected officials) who should be rallying behind the revival/renovation really aren't doing much about it. Should they? In a lot of ways they have been left behind/forgotten. It seems to me that a very young, white demographic is in charge of spear heading the movement. Which, lets say Detroit becomes a great big city, will it face the same problems it faced in the 60's?

thats not the point, the point is that it was an amazing night. her apartment overlooks downtown Detroit, in particular Greektown. i used to work in the Renn Cen, and the view during the day is breathtaking but at night the view of Detroit is magical. You seriously think your in Chicago.

There were 9 of us. I've met the majority of these women before at the Bridal BBQ and i thought they were all great women. They are ambitious, fun, intelligent and not caught up with this whole marriage and children are my greatest ambition mentality. It was great surrounding myself with these types because I frequently feel myself pulled towards the marriage/children mentality although I know it's not mine. I know a lot of it has to do with the fact that the people i am surrounded with do adhere to that mentality and it makes me annoyed/depressed/lost.

we walked everywhere saturday night. first we went to pulse, this little hidden martini bar. next we hit up envy, where instead of paying a $20 cover we bought a $75 bottle of wine and had our own couch right next to the dance floor (which by the way was frickin awesome!) and then we ended the evening at her bar the well. it was just so awesome being able ot drink and not worry abouty how in the hell are we gonna get home!

the night really put a few things in focus for me. first off, it felt right me asserting that i dont go up north with the gang. yes, i would have loved to hang out with 2 of the girls up there but the reality is i was friends with k before these other 2 girls and K is more of a person that I want to hang out with (meaning our lives are more than marriage and kids). secondly, i had claimed that i wanted to go out clubbing more but i dont know about that. it just all felt so pointless. not that i'm guy hunting but they just annoyed me. i dont like guys coming up to me and thinking they can grind up on me becuase i truly enjoy dancing by myself! plus, the whole scene seemed so poser-ish. finally, and i plan on making a whole separate post about this so i'm not gonna go in to deep about this is that i'm not ready to accept the way i am. i just wish i didnt have a zillion things going on so that i could really buckle down and continue losing not maintaining!

reasons why i should want this job

1. i miss getting a regular cut and color
2. i would love to get my nails done on a regular basis
3. i want new winter boots
4. i need a new winter coat
5. ooohhhh...expensive makeup.....
6. join an overpriced gym
7. $600 bedsheets
8. more entertainment

the list could go on, and although they looked very, very enticing last night. i'm thinking i could live without all of them!

regardless, my time has come. i need to get back to it.

it's not that i'm against working, i just want to do something i enjoy/love. is that too much to ask for?

then again i feel whiny for complaining about something like that, i mean there are plenty of women out there that work and dont love their job and their doin it.

i hated my last job and i became increasingly negative because of it, i just dont want to become like that again!

so, peeps...wish me luck on my interview today!!!

quote

"Your opponent, in the end, is never really the player on the other side of the net, or the swimmer in the next lane, or the team on the other side of the field, or even the bar you must high-jump. Your opponent is yourself, your negative internal voices, your level of determination." - Grace Lichtenstein, writer

ain't that the truth. running has been tough for me lately.

saturday i "ran" 11 miles in 2 hrs 33 mins. the previous week, i ran 10 miles in 1 hr 45 mins. explain that one to me.

today, 4 miles took me an hour. normally i run this in 44 minutes.

it's not really the times that bother me, it's the negative voices in my head and i'm trying to squash them but the more frequently i stop and walk, the louder and more powerful they get.

i don't know what is causing this. could it be the new climate, the terrain, or TOM.

i'm not quitting. i refuse to quit. i know for a few of you out there, walking would be quitting, but i'm doing the distance if i have to walk it and it takes me twice as long.

i keep on telling myself that this is like anything else, some days/weeks/months are better than others, i just have to make it through this time.

i'm a runner

oh hell, yes, i am!

it's weird, sports were never a big priority in my family. it was something that we didn't do because we were smart. and smart people don't need to play sports.

i did ballet until i was 8 or 9, i was getting ready to buy my first point shoes when my instructor told me i was too fat. Surprisingly, this WASN'T the moment when i started enjoying a good chocolate bar or two..

the book that i am using as part of my training, the non runners guide to marathon training, focuses a lot on the mental blocks we create for ourselves because we fear we may fail.

from the very beginning they have been telling us to call ourselves runners, marathoners and i've been somewhat hestitant to do so..i mean, i had JUST started running. 3 miles was all that i had ever run. i'm not a runner. remember, i have brains, that's what i'm good at NOT running.

but slowly, each week, i'm believing more and more that I AM A RUNNER! of course, how could i not be? i do my 4 runs a week, i typically look forward to it. i don't procrastinate them as i did jumping on the elliptical or recumbent bike.

on friday i bought myself a hydration belt and body glide. the point being that i'm doing more and more towards becoming duenneschen, the runner.

i've been running at the same metro park since i've been back. i'm beginning to see some of the same people everyday. we smile, say hello. i've recently begun to wonder how they see me.

do they see me as this young, fit, runner whose choosing to be out there at 7 am? or do they see me as this overweight woman whose lumbering along?

100th post

oh man... i think i've made it big...i just got my first spam comment...dun dun dun....

ok...as much i hate the word verification thingy, i just may need to enable it!

security

i'm sorry but don't you stand behind me and curse that we have to go through another security checkpoint because your gonna miss your fucking plane!

do you live under a rock or do you think your special because you carry an American passport and feel that you don't need to be screened?!

for all i care, you can fucking strip search me and all you other stupid idiots who think added security is a joke.

i'm sorry but i have no patience or sympathy for you if you decided to show up late to the airport under the current circumstances.

in my opinion, the security i experience at DTW is pretty bad. i don't feel safe boarding a plane heading overseas. the security is not only light but the guy checking my bag is trying to flirt with me. i dont think he checked my carryon once. i'm not saying its only DTW, hell it could be any airport that isn't New York's LaGuardia, JFK or Newark, LAX or D.C.'s Dulleth, Reagan or National.

on my return flight from Germany, not only did we have to go through 2 security checkpoints, both times frisked. every carry on luggage was thoroughly inspected. oh yes, it took me nearly an hour to get through both.

what i don't understand though is why i can have matches on board but not my lip gloss?

aug. 4

is not only the day of my uncle's birthday but also the day where i got so humilated that i took drastic measures, and a year later here i am 20 lbs lighter.

i am actually sort of in awe. i've changed a lot in a year. physically ive lost 20 lbs. not exactly what i would have wished for myself but i'm quite happy with that. i could instead weigh 214.

i think the most drastic changes that have occurred for me though have been since i"ve started my marathon training in june.

it's crazy what sort of thoughts run through your head as your feet are hitting the pavement. i'm coming to terms with my body. it's not even about the number. more so about the shape. it seems so simple but is so complicated. i've always tried being a shape that i will never attain. even when i weighed in the 140's, i had breasts, hips and an ass. i always will. i'll never be like my friend l. who resembled a ruler. tall and straight. it gets easier though. i spend a lot of time in front of the mirror. it seems as if the more i truly see myself the more ok i am with myself.

i'm really torn..to weight watcher or not? throughout my entire time in the D, i didn't gain any weight. i didn't lose any weight and i didn't count points, i ate plenty of carbs and enjoyed chocolate and ice cream in moderation. i don't know how to continue, but i'm not done. i think the journey is only not taking off.

although i feel extremely peaceful with my situation, i'm also pissed off as hell. pissed off at R.'s uncle who felt it was ok to tell me i got fat. mad at my mom who thought it would be fun to draw attention to the fact that i was going up for the 4th time that day right when everyone became silent and then as a typical fat girl had to decide if i was going to sit down and admit defeat or look them all in the eye and say fuck you, i'm choosing to be fat!

pissed off at all the posers, liars and self-centered people in my life! seriously, chill the fuck out, be yourself, be honest and for once think about someone else besides yourself!

i can't emphasize enough how training for this marathon has changed me. i'm confident again. i know i can accomplish unthinkable things, and above all it's teaching me how to respect myself. i'm tired of being taken advantage of, walked over, used.

it's stopping NOW.

weekends

for some strange reason they have more meaning for me here...

there is just something special that i feel when i wake up friday mornings. i swear to god the birds chirp louder than they do on any other day.

you already feel the excitement when you step foot in the street because typically the women (and sometimes the men depending on their age) are on the street sweeping it. a lovely, familar sign to that the weekend is beginning. it sounds weird when i say sweeping the street/sidewalk but if you don't weekly take care of the sidewalk/street that your house is adjacent to, your an outkast. a loser who doesn't respect himself nor the rest of the street enough to pick up the cigarette butts that some stranger decided to throw right on your stoop.

the bakeries and butchers are typically fuller too because you sure as hell don't want to be caught there on saturday morning when all the procrastinators decide to do their shopping. you see, stores here close typically between 7 and 8 during the week. on saturdays they close at 2. and on sundays they are completely closed! a lovely idea, isn't it?

fridays and saturdays tend to be the only days where all 4 lanes are open at the supermarket, and still theres a line at each one of them! oh and lets not forget the beverage store, theres only 1 cashier!

although the water is safe enough to drink from the faucet, the majority of people still buy mineral water. i'd say its more of the rarity to drink from the faucet. water is definately an added expense to the monthly bill. typically a box, contains approximately 12 bottles (ranging typically from 3/4 of a liter to a 1.5 liters) and these range from 2,50 to 6,00 euros. the beverage store contains not only water, but also soda, juice, beer, liquor; it's considerably cheaper to buy it from a beverage store than from the supermarket.

sundays are truly a day of relaxtion. men typically go to früh schoppen, direkt translation früh = early, schoppen = half pint, but it's a gathering of a group of men who typically share something in common. for my grandpa he goes to the soccer clubs' restaurant and the other guys at his table are ones he knows from the soccer field, so basically it's a place to exchange gossip and drink at 10:30 in the morning. and then around 1, they go home to their wives have lunch and the afternoon is spent bike riding or just enjoying time with the family.

also, no house work or anything gets done on sundays.

for the past 2 weeks opi decided that his time would be better spent with us at Schön Busch (the metro park that has a little castle in the middle of it, with pond and everything). during the summer they have live bands, and if your not there by 11 o'clock. good luck getting a seat! it's not only that there are a lot of peop´le at the beer garten where the band is, but there are people everywhere! laying out on the grass in nothing but bathing suits, friends playing frisbee, joggers, families going on walks, you frickin name it!

it's so rare that you see family actually spending time with another in the US. not doing anything, but enjoying each others company.

and perhaps thats why weekends are magical to me here. we don't do anything but enjoy the day. although, i've tried to make changes so that i can recreate the same feeling that i experience while i'm here back at home, i haven't quite achieved it yet. one of the MAJOR goals i plan on tackling when i get back.

toilets and bathrooms

the first paragraph may be TMI, if so please skip to the 2nd paragraph :)

i'm an irregular person, if you know what i mean. because it happens so infrequently i'm somewhat obsessed with it. by that i mean, i like to look at it. i know i know, it sounds weird but i think it's important to know whats going on with your innards but whatever. the point is, when my grandparents renovated their house 12 years ago their interior decorator suggested that they install one speciality toilet. one with a shelf, so that when they have to take in pooh samples to their doctor that it doesn't fall into the water but on this little shelf. honestly, i think the interior decorator just wanted to add additional costs but whatever i LOVE this toilet!!!! i mean, i even walk up the 20 stairs, to our 2nd floor, just to use this lovely thing. is this weird? oh well...if it is, that would only be normal since i'm quite unique myself...;)

public toilets are such a thing over here. i never really payed attention to this before, it was just normal until pb pointed it out. i swear to god he has to go to the bathroom at all times of the day so he knows of every bathroom within a 50 mile radius of where we are. typically, you can use any restroom without having to pay or buy something.

public restrooms here, as well as some private ones for example ones of restaurants, you have to pay to use them. it's not that you have to pay; it's more that you leave a tip for the cleaning ladies. usually there is a little bowl with a note saying that if you use the bathroom it would be nice if you left 20 or 50 cents. there are some places such as the train station or so you where you may have to pay a euro or so to even gain access.

pb was a tad outraged. i guess i can see why, why should you tip to use the restroom if your already spending money at the restaurant or mall but i left him with this thought.

first off, who seriously wants to clean toilets? i sure as hell don't even like cleaning my own toilet. i couldn't imagine doing it for strangers.

secondly, the toilets are spotless. they are clean and theres always toilet paper. i can't imagine how some of the toilets would look like if there weren't cleaning ladies.

thirdly, yes, those ladies deserve an extra 20 cents for making our toilet going experience a plus!

it could be like in france, where all they have is stalls with a hole in the ground. imagine trying to use one of those and NOT peeing on yourself!

cost of living

i always thought that cost of living was expensive over here. why? well, because my grandpa said so.

for this post, i'm having the dollar equal a euro. i know i know, its not really one to one but for this sake, it's close enough!

with pb being gone, i took over the responsiblity of shopping and holy shit. yes, a lot of germans hated the euro at first. why? well, for the most part their salaries were reduced in half and the price of goods remained the same. totally understandable since half of their paycheck typically goes to taxes.

lets see...i only eat boston lettuce because i think it tastes the best. now, there are only about 3 places where i can buy it from. kroger at about $3 a head, costco where i get 2 for $3 or at the farmers market where i pay $1.30 a head. here, a head of boston lettuce is $0.50. uuuhhh...come again!

a liter of milk is $0,50. 3 liters equal a gallon. so, i if i were to buy to 3 liters i'd be paying $1,50. shit, i sure as hell don't pay that much for a gallon of a milk not even when its on sale! oh, and why does our milk typically last 3 weeks and here it only lasts a couple of days? i don't even want to know what in the hell they put in their to make last that long!

i bought some frozen fish today, you know that kind you can get from costco or sams club, they sell it in one big bag but it's individually wrapped inside it. there are typically 7 HUGE pieces. well, they sold it here in only 2 pieces, 2 normal pieces at a total of 7 ounces.

a bag of chips over here the size of our $0,99 bag is a 1.70. not only double the price but this bag is the standard size of chips that they sell over here. oh, and, the aisle in which they sell ALL the chips and pretzlels is only 1/4th the size of any of our aisles.

there are no carbohydrate fears over here, bakeries are booming. bread/brötchen are a staple in their diet here and why is that these people aren't fatter than us americans?

i'm not a conspiracy theorist but i wonder if perhaps this is a bigger ploy by our government who are in alliance with Lays and Coca Cola, while our poor mid-western farmers can't get a big enough lobby together for their cause.

it's a shame that what we really need in our diets, the vegetables, fruits, fish/meat are so outrageously priced that we have to resort to eating junk food. the reality is when you only have $2 in your hand, your not gonna get a whole lot from a grocery store but a bag of chips and pop sounds pretty decent.

on a final note, the store in our village sells not only tofu and soy milk but even soy cheese and stuff. not all my type of food but i know this, that i can't get the majority of that stuff in the city that i live in. granted, i do live in a hick town but even if i were back in dearborn, the grocery store closest to my house is considered an inner city store because its the closest to detroit, doesn't carry that either!

honestly, i love my little village but this is not the place where peolple are daring and try stuff like tofu. my grandpa had chicken breast for the first time ever this past week when i made it for him! how is this possible?!

do we accept this mediocricy and pay out of our asses to live healthily? seriously, the prices need to drop or else the obesity epidemic will only get worse.

hidden agendas

i've been in a funk and have had no desire to write. strange because typically i'd fill a post with random bs like in my last post but it's gotten worse...

when i started my marathon training, i sort of stopped 'caring' about the number on the scale. weird, right? especially for someone who weighs themselves multiple times a day but i did. i mean, as long as the number was within a few numbers of the original weight, i was golden.

you see, i started a new obsession....the obsession with my mile time. you know, how long it takes me to run one etc. i became obsessed with it the way i was/am obsessed with my weight. i pushed myself to extremes that i probably shouldn't have, at least not yet. when i realized that some of the times i had been running couldn't sustain me for the longer durations, so i miracously stopped caring just like that (wtf?! how does that happen and i why can't i be that way with my weight?!)

so now i'm back to the obsession with my weight and i realized that i was upset. upset about the fact that in one weekend (4th of July weekend) i gained all the weight back that i lost in june. it's august and i still haven't lost the weight from that one weekend. what pissed me off even more though was that i realized that perhaps why i considered even doing this marathon is to drastically lose weight! not drastically but yes i thought perhaps the weight would definately drop off a whole lot faster than i had been since i started this life style change.

yes, i've lost a little of the weight that i put on but seriously nothing to what i expected. i hate being here and feel like i'm tiptoeing around the food.

yet at the same time i have this greater feeling of not eating everything that i want sucks but at the same time i have this little inner peace of knowing that THIS time i will lose the weight because i am choosing not to eat it, and i've made a very concious effort of asserting the fact that i NEED to run.

it's hard to tell people of changes that one makes because to them they may seem like little things when in actuallity they are major developments in ones journey. it's hard right now understanding that the scale isn't budging even though i am making major life decisions.

i've been reading Overcoming Overeating, a book i definately recommend to anyone who hasn't read it yet, anyways, i don't want to get too deep into it rignt now but the authors theory is that we translate our actual problems into thoughts/obsession of us being fat because we 'know' how to react to those thoughts whereas we might not be able to deal with our actual problem.

i think i am going through that right now...i'm desperately trying to figure out what in the hell i'm supposed to do with my life because when i get back i have to find a job and i can't imagine doing something i hate. not only that but i need to reclaim my life. when pb and i got serious, i sort of gave up on me and what i had planned. i'm not happy, i want to reclaim my happiness not only for myself but also that my relationship flourishes again because right now it's pretty dull.

i just wish it were all easy...