New Year's Revolution

Happy New Year, Everyone!!

I had a dream last night. I have a lot of dreams now that I'm on the CPAP machine and am actually getting all the way to REM sleep. The dream was simply this: I am a stone statue of myself as I am now, big and round and immobile, sitting next to a lake. It's dark and stormy and cold. Suddenly a humming sound riding a shaft of light comes tearing through the sky, illuminating the top of the statue's head and causing the whole statue to vibrate. As the sound gets louder and the light brighter, the statue cracks down the middle and with a huge thunderous bang, an iridescent winged merman flies up, does a Greg Louganis triple spin, and plunges into the lake, causing a perfect shimmering ripple in the water.

Man, if ever there was a wishful thinking dream, this is it.

Every year seems to hold promise. I honestly love the idea of renewal and rebirth that fills the air every New Year's Day. And every year I think, "This is it, this is the year I pull it all together and do what's right for me. This is the year I leave the shackles behind and rise, rise, rise."

So it's no surprise that I feel that way again today, that I can see the possibilities, that I can believe that I hold in my hands the tools of change, and that I deserve the effort and time it will take to make a lasting transformation in myself.

It is possible.
It is possible for me to love myself.
It is possible for me to forgive myself.
It is possible for me to accept myself.
It is possible that a fundamental shift in attitude can change everything.
It is possible that love, acceptance and forgiveness are transformative.
It is possible for me to be transformed by love, acceptance and forgiveness.
It is possible for me to love, accept and forgive myself.

I believe that it is possible.
I believe that I can love myself.
I believe that I can forgive myself.
I believe that I can accept myself.
I believe that a fundamental shift in attitude can change everything.
I believe that love, acceptance and forgiveness are transformative.
I believe that I can be transformed by love, acceptance and forgiveness.
I believe that I can love, accept and forgive myself.
I believe that I can love, accept and forgive myself.

I deserve to believe in myself.
I deserve to love myself.
I deserve to accept myself.
I deserve to forgive myself.
I deserve to make a fundamental shift in attitude in order to change myself.
I deserve to be transformed by love, acceptance and forgiveness.
I deserve to love, accept and forgive myself.
I deserve to love, accept and forgive myself.

I believe in myself.
I love myself.
I accept myself.
I forgive myself.
I am transformed by loving, accepting and forgiving myself.
I love, accept and forgive myself.
I love, accept and forgive myself.

And so a new year begins.

Moving to Poolside for 2008

I've been scouting out this one building at my apartment complex for six months, waiting for an apartment to come available, and it just did! The apartment is directly facing the pool with mountains beyond! I'm totally stoked - the main reason I moved here in the first place was to have access to the year-round-heated pool, but I'm just far enough away from it in my current place to come up with an excuse every day for why I couldn't swim. Mostly it was about being embarrassed about going out to the pool - "What if there's a gang of intolerant teenagers hanging there?" goes my scaredy-cat brain. From this new apartment, I'll be able to look out the window and see who's at the pool, then it's just 20 steps until I'm IN THE WATER!

I move a week from Friday.

Happy New Year!!!

Ticket to Ride - a Ski Lift?

Karen Carpenter works me, that's all.

Oh My God!

This is making me wet my pants for some unknown reason. Kristen Chenoweth at the Drama Desk Awards performing with a chihuahua. I especially love when the camera pans to the audience and the sea of 90-somethings aren't even paying attention. Oh my God! And poor Kevin Spacey has to follow THAT? No wonder his career is toast.

Meet My New Boyfriend

He's got everything I'm looking for in a boyfriend - lots of pucker power, the stamina to keep at it all night, and a very long hose.

Plus he's into bondage. Oh, and he's got teal accessories - very Southwesty.

We even met cute. I got a call last Monday at work - there was a last-minute cancellation at the sleep lab; could I come in that night to test out various CPAP machines? Shore could! So in I went, freshly showered and cologned and armed with brownies for the delicious Patrick. Patrick wasn't working that night, dammit, but the scrumptious Victor was at the helm and delightedly devoured the brownies. (Lots of very good looking sleep techs there; makes me think the hiring manager is gaygaygay.) All night long, when Victor hovered over my face to adjust things, there was the delicate scent of chocolate and walnuts on his breath. I'm talking heaven, right? Yumm!

First we tried on various masks and ended up with this one, a top-of-the-line miracle of modern plastics technology, with a complicated but effective double-decker gasket and a comfortable harness. Then we tried various levels, patterns and styles of forced-air pressure, and voila!! I SLEPT! I slept five hours!! I accommodated the mask no problem and had vivid dreams (evidently, when you've been deprived of REM sleep for a long time, there's a REM-rebound effect where you can expect your brain to catch up on the vivid dreaming!). In my first visit to the lab, I logged a total of 12.5 MINUTES of REM sleep the entire night. On this occasion, almost two full hours of REM.

I guess the biggest surprise was how quiet the machine was. The only sound is when you inhale, there's a little bit of an asthmatic wheeze, otherwise it's silent. I wouldn't call the mask comfortable, but it didn't prevent me from dropping off and staying asleep, so it's a champ in my book!

Did I feel more energetic and rested the next day? Damn tootin'! I'm kinda bummed that I have to go back to non-sleeping while I wait for the machine to arrive sometime this week, but when it does, I plan to log some major sleep time, like 12 hours a night.

Victor said that a patient of his, a woman who weighed over 300 pounds, started on the CPAP machine and dropped 75 quick as a wink, just because she was sleeping and feeling rested and more energetic. I did some research online and they say that when a person is sleep-deprived, their "I'm hungry" hormones increase and their "I'm full" hormones decrease, feeding the vicious cycle. Wow, a bed partner that's good for me!

My dreamy new boyfriend - I think I'll keep him!

Quote of the Day

"Richard Avedon once told me not to worry that I was fat. He said, "You look really great fat." And, in a way, he's right. If you want to lose weight, good, but you shouldn't do it because you think the house is burning down. If you're giving in to peer pressure, it won't work. You can live very happily in this world overweight; being thin is optional."

- - Isaac Mizrahi