The Hunger Games

My name is Madigan and I have an oral fixation.  Before any of you menfolk get over excited, oral fixation doesn't mean what you want it to mean.  It means that I chew gum, bite my fingernails, and eat.  This has been my biggest obstacle to losing weight.  I've spent my life allowing my cravings to get bigger and bigger while completely neglecting the development of self-control.  As a result, my willpower is that pale, scrawny kid who gets shoved into lockers most days.  And now, all of a sudden, I'm expecting him to stand up for himself and fight back.  Basically, I keep sending Sheldon Cooper up against Bane.  Spoiler: Sheldon doesn't do very well.

With Comic-Con just seventy-one days away, my diet and exercise routine must reach ludicrous speed.  There is a Slave Leia costume hanging on my bedroom wall, taunting me with it's equal potential to be incredibly sexy or incredibly unfortunate.  I know that I can get into shape in no time at all, if I can keep delicious food out of my mouth and exercise every day.  Unfortunately, I don't live on a deserted island covered with spinach and treadmills.  I live in a house with people who love ice cream and bread and fried things.  I work with people who celebrate birthdays and holidays with cake and Filipino food.  I get home from eight hours on my feet and an hour of sitting in traffic and the last thing I want to do is an hour of vigorous physical activity.  Long whine short, THIS IS HARD.

This is me.

 I'm not sure how much I weigh right now.  According to the scale in my bathroom, it's somewhere between 150 and 220.  I'm starting to suspect that my scale might not be entirely accurate.  I think I'm somewhere between 170 and 175.  Considering I started at 230, that's amazing.  However, by itself, the 170 region is still intolerably fat for my height and body type.  It's all in my stomach, which is exactly where it needs to not be in two and a half months.  It can't be a good thing that I'm secretly hoping that what I refer to as my "beer gut" is actually a tumor. 

So, Sheldon Cooper needs to step up his game against Bane.  I need to start saying no to food that's bad for me.  I need to stop being such a little bitch and get on the damn treadmill when I get home from work.  I need to do more sit-ups in the morning and less eating during the day.  I need to realize that, while I look significantly less disgusting than I did this time last year, I'm still not terribly attractive whilst naked.  Or whilst clothed, for the matter.  I need to remember that when my friends tell me how good I look, it's by comparison to how I used to look.

Hey look... someone captioned a picture of me from last Summer!

This is the plan:

Fall out of bed.
Lay on the floor for a couple of minutes, very nearly falling asleep despite the uncomfortable position.
Do a whole mess (a very scientific measurement, I know) of sit-ups and crunches.
Eat non-fat yoghurt and a bowl of Crispix with non-fat milk.
Check Facebook, Tumblr, e-mail, Words With Friends, and Draw Something.
Stay in the shower longer than necessary.
Realize shirt is inside out.  Fix it, go to work.
Work for a few hours.
Eat lunch, which I brought from home, consisting of spinach, carrots, tomatoes, red wine vinegar, and chicken, turkey, salmon, or an egg.
Work for a few more hours.
Have 90-calorie Fiber One bar.
Work some more.
Drive home, slowly, surrounded by other commuters.  Try to refrain from eating another Fiber One bar that's just in my bag next to me and they're so delicious and OH GOD I NEED ONE RIGHT NOW.
Change out of my uniform immediately upon arriving home.  Go directly to bedroom, do not stop at fridge, do not collect snack food.
Dinner, which will be boring as hell, comprised of some type of lean protein and vegetables, followed by non-fat pudding because fuck you, I need chocolate.
Treadmill and sit-ups or horrible Jillian Michaels video.
Crawl into bed, turn on TV, fall asleep.
Rinse and repeat.

I'm going for non-fat everything, working under the notion that if I don't give my body any new fat to burn, it will have to burn what already exists on my body.  I'm not sure if that's a sound dietary theory, but it makes sense to me, so I'm going to go with it unless it backfires horribly.

But this is entirely contingent upon me being out of the house for most of the day.  It'll work really well on the five days a week I spend at work.  But, Madigan, what about your days off?  Well, internet, my days off are spoken for.  I intend to spend them almost entirely at bartending school in Riverside.  I will be out of my house, away from a kitchen full of things to put in my mouth out of boredom, and I'll be learning a valuable new skill: getting people drunk and acquiring their money. 

This will be me. Except female. And without all the Scientology.

 

Wanderlust

Words would fail to fully describe my crazy adventure.  So, here's a whole mess of pictures.  Also, for extra fun, and because I'm too lazy to write entirely new clever things, anythings in italics is either a Facebook status or an excerpt from my travel journal.  Enjoy!

Devon says Philadelphia smells bad.  I would like to test that theory. 

Just landed in Philadelphia for my 8 hour layover. I demand a cheesesteak sammich!

I wish I had more than hours to spend in this amazing city. At least I got answers to the most important questions: where should I drink & what beer do I try?

Note: Try to find Yards Brewing Co beers in California. Brawler was quite delicious.

First Class can suck it... I have a couch. (The other two seats next to me on the flight from Philadelphia to London were vacant.  A dose of Benadryl later, I was sleeping my way across the Atlantic.)

This is a life-size LEGO Harrod's man.

That coat never saw the light of day again.

 










 I would like to state for the record that Welsh people are adorable.

A shrine to Ianto. This is only important if you like Torchwood.

A Dalek. This is only important if you like Doctor Who.

This is only important if you're ever a zombie in Cardiff.

This isn't that important.

On a personal note, my grandfather was Welsh.  He died ten years ago, when I was an obnoxious teenager.  He was really a wonderful man and, as Roberto and I sat in a pub in Cardiff, drinking Welsh beer, I could only think about how much I wish my grandfather and I could have known each other as adults.  I would have loved to tell him about this trip over some good beer.
  
St Patrick's Day Eve is a thing in Dublin. Madigan is a drunk person, despite the Madigan's Pub on O'Connell Street giving me exactly zero free drinks.

Zero free drinks.

Zero free drinks at this one too.

Amin.

Caution: blurry when drunk.

Jo.

A very drunken Irish man hit on me while a lovely Australian women complimented my tights.














Things I learned tonight: British theatre audiences don't applaud during act breaks or do standing ovations, Hungarians can be creepy fangirls too, and Patrick Stewart may be a million years old, but I'd still hit that. Okay... I already knew that last one.

We're on a train to Scotland that left from King's Cross Station.  Yeah... we're basically on the Hogwarts Express.

So, basically... I'm going to marry a Scot so I can live in Scotland and be happy. This is my new favorite country.

PS- Edinburgh has police boxes. Blue ones. On the streets. For reals.

So, so, so, soooo much more terrifying than the London Dungeon

This is where JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter books.

Even though I have (to my knowledge) no genetic claim to Scotland, it was the place I connected with most.  My lineage is Irish, Welsh, and German, but none of those countries ever really made me feel like I could live there.  For some reason, a reason I can't quite pinpoint or begin to explain, I felt like I belonged there, like I had found some part of myself that had been missing for 26 years.  Sad as I was to leave, I was overcome with the knowledge that I'd be back one day.  Hopefully, it won't be just for a vacation.

Legoland Windsor > Legoland California. Just BTW.

Their Big Shop is better than my Big Shop.

Storm Troopers guarding the castle.

 Thorpe Park is pretty cool.  It's basically Knott's Berry Farm, but British.

Bria is fantastic. (from my journal, the first day I met her)

Saw The Ride is amazing and terrifying and wonderful.

We went to a pub quiz tonight.  We probably would have won something, if the other teams hadn't flagrantly cheated.  One of Roberto's friends was hosting a pub quiz, so we went.  All the other teams had at least seven people and at any given time, someone on each of the other teams was surreptitiously checking their iPhone for answers.

I don't want to go. (Facebook and journal, several times.)

My vacation has been over and I've been back to real life for a few weeks and, to be perfectly honest, I'm not stoked about it.  I had been somewhat melancholy about the state of affairs in my life for some time, but I attributed it mostly to my impending vacation and the general need for a break from my job.  Then, upon my return, I was even more unhappy, but I attributed that to the undeniable fact that it sucks to go back to work after being on vacation, especially one that was so amazing.  But, while the standard soul-crushing depression of returning to real life did eventually pass, a certain dissatisfaction still nested in the back of my mind, just barely making enough noise to be noticeable.  I think I've figured out how to appease this din of displeasure, though.  I am currently employed by a company that has locations throughout the world and, more to the point, the UK.  My current job doesn't exactly translate to other locations, so I must acquire other skills and drastically alter my current position.  To that end, I plan to attend bartending school in the very near future.  The amusement park at which I work will soon boast a hotel.  That hotel will, I am told by people who know these things, feature a bar.  I want to work at that bar.  To be more accurate, I want to work at that bar long enough to move to another hotel bar, more specifically, one in the UK.  Why am I so desperate to go back to the UK?  Because, in the simplest of terms, it's where I belong.  I spent two and a half weeks traipsing around the UK and the Emerald Isle and any lingering feelings of affection for the country of my birth, any remaining shreds of pro-America jingoism, any opinion, however small, favoring the good old USA, have all disappeared.  I won't say that I hate this country because I don't.  It's a great place and there are a whole lot of places in the world that are worse.  But there are plenty that are better, too.  I just don't think I was meant to be an American.