JT Loses: tBlog Be Damned

well, maybe not damned.

2005-03-31T09:03:00.000-06:00

Okay, okay. I wimped out. It was getting too hard to cross-post and I'm hopelessly sucked into the community at tBlog. So I'm not completely abandoning this blog, but I think the only people reading it were following me from tBlog anyway.

So I'm still writing almost daily at tBlog. Come visit me there, won't you?

2005-02-28T12:55:00.000-06:00

Penelope Cruz as the Martian Girl, er, presenter at the 2005 Oscar ceremony.

2005-02-28T12:54:00.000-06:00

Lisa Marie as the Martian Girl in Mars Attacks!

why i'm losing, part II

2005-02-09T13:30:00.000-06:00

(continued from here)

At the end of my senior year in high school, my parents got an apartment downtown and sold our house. So I spent my last summer "at home" in the middle of the Gold Coast of Chicago. I dated a little and worked for my folks in their studio, then went off to the University of Illinois in August. I couldn't wait to be on my own. I shared a two-bedroom suite in a private dorm with three other girls, and we all went through sorority rush together. I pledged Sigma Delta Tau like the good Jewish Princess I was, and went to parties at the frat houses with my new friends. Life at school was strange for me -- on the one hand, I was a sorority pledge in a hot house, and on the other, I was a drama geek. As a theatre major, I was expected to live, eat, breathe and sleep at the Krannert Center, where almost all of my classes took place. The theatre department frowned on the Greek system, because it took our focus away from our work. I packed my partying into the Friday and Saturday nights, instead of heading to O'Malleys on Tuesdays and Kam's on Thursdays and Sundays. So, you're thinking, this is where the Freshman 15 comes in, right? Well, not exactly. Some time during my first month at school, I attended a party at the Sammy house with my roommates. SAM, as some may know, is a big Jewish frat. I knew many of the guys there, and all of them were wasted beyond belief. My version of partying was always pretty tame -- I never liked getting drunk because it meant losing control, and I was way too prissy to do any drugs. So I wasn't drunk when I ran into "Name Withheld," a former football player from my high school (who I'd tutored through high school Business Law).

NW was very drunk and really friendly to me, and I remember being flattered that such a popular guy would pay so much attention to me. He and a few of his friends walked me and my roommate back to our place, and they all settled down to hang out. Someone put music on, and NW laid down on my bed. I remember thinking "G-d, I hope he doesn't throw up on my bed," when suddenly, one of the other guys said "I think these two want to be alone."

I stammered "no!" but everyone else cleared the room, and one guy in particular (whose face I still see in nightmares sometimes) leaned in, grinned maniacally at me, shut off the light and slammed the door. I leaned forward to get up and turn the light on when NW grabbed me. I'll spare you the dirty details, but my night was not pleasant. And so began the downward spiral of my freshman year in college. I tried to go talk to someone at the counseling center, who (1) wanted me to leave school and move back home, and (2) yelled at me for not calling the police. What you have to realize is that this was 1988.... people weren't really talking about date rape and sexual assault, and I was not at all promiscuous. The idea of telling my parents what had happened was almost worse than the assult itself. So therapy didn't help me.

Most of my freshman year is very hazy. I have a few memories, but it's almost all repressed. I dropped out of SDT on the night of our pledge dance, and some of my former "sisters" never spoke to me again. NW told everyone he slept with me, which people believed until they found out the truth. One day I stood up during a studio class and my knee gave out; I spent half of the rest of the year on crutches and in physical therapy, dealing with chondomalatia. So I couldn't dance, couldn't run. Didn't feel comfortable socializing. The only comfort I had that year was food.

I didn't realize I had gained weight until I went home at Thanksgiving to visit and buy a dress for our winter formal. Suddenly, 10s didn't fit, and I had to get a 14. I blamed it on my bum knee and the fact that I couldn't run (which, along with the original StairMaster, had been my primary form of exercise, about three days a week). My mother lectured me about my eating.

I had auditioned at the end of the year to be re-admitted to the theatre program, but was let go (along with everyone else who had pledged a fraternity or sorority house). It destroyed me, but even though my dad offered to let me transfer to another school, I didn't want to lose my whole freshman year in credits. I dreaded going home for the summer after my freshman year. I fought with my parents all the time, and was terrified that my mother would find out about what happened to me. However, my parents refused to let me stay on campus for the summer, even to take classes. I finally said I'd come home, but only if my mom found me a female therapist and didn't ask me any questions.
That summer was sort of restorative for me. I went to the shrink once a week, and spent my days interning at Channel 7. I auditioned for a play at a city theater, got the part I wanted, and then dropped out. (Now I knew I could act; that was all I needed to know.) Every afternoon, I went to the East Bank Club and swam for an hour or two, trying to build my strength up without putting additional stress on my knee. My body toned well, but I didn't lose an ounce.

I went into my sophomore year of school weighing probably 175 pounds. I thought I was gargantuan, but I was toned and curvaceous. On a whim, I sent a few funny things I'd written to the Features editor of the Daily Illini and promptly forgot about it. So when Dan Bernard called and offered me an interview as a humor columnist, I was shocked. I went and met him, and was offered the job. Dan molded me, teaching me journalism basics and introducing me to the DI lifestyle. We all lived in the newsroom, feeding off of silly AP wire photos and playing chairball on our rolling desk chairs, using oranges and pica poles for balls and bats.

I signed up for intramural fitness classes; every Monday through Thursday afternoon, I took an aerobics class followed by a hips/abs/buns class. By winter break, I was tight as I'd ever been, but I still hadn't lost a pound. So, I joined Weight Watchers for the first time, and boy, did I hate it. I tried all the tricks, I went to all the meetings, but it didn't fucking work. I got sick of it and dropped out after a few months.

My sophomore year was when I began gaining notariety as a columnist. First, the New York Times found me and interviewed me on sexual attitudes on campus. Then, a column I wrote goofing on midterm exam cheating landed me a slot on ABC News Nightline, with my idol Diane Sawyer interviewing me and two tight-assed academic deans (from BU and Stanford, I think). After that, I couldn't show my face outside my room or the newsroom; teachers were cracking down on academic dishonesty, and my peers were pissed. I stopped going to my exercise classes (because, frankly, I was worried for my own safety as threats made me change my phone number and have it unlisted!).

I was actually glad to go home between my sophomore and junior year. I spent it, again, working out and working for my parents. When I got back to school my junior year, it was in an apartment with a senior I found on the Jewish house grapevine. I spent most of my free time hanging out at the DI, working as the first female Campus Scout (an honored weekly humor column always written in the third person). My best friend at the time was Terri McGovern, who was one of the few female sportswriters around. She and I would work at adjacent desks and giggle about cute guys in the newsroom. One guy, Tim, was especially cute but a little inaccessible.Terri and I called him "G-d in human form come to save the female race."

I was active my junior year until I came down with mono, around the middle of my first semester. I battled that shitty illness for months, dropping out of the majority of my classes while I sweated out the fever. My second semester, I had to gradually up my workload because the mono really wiped me out. One day, in the newsroom, I was joking around with Tim, forgetting to be shy around him, and ended up offering him a ride back to his frat house. We sat in my car for almost two hours, talking, and then he asked me out. Score!

I don't remember being especially self-conscious about myself with Tim. This really cute, popular, smart guy liked me! Tim was a senior in Electrical Engineering, a leader in his house, and an avid soccer and baseball player. He had several job offers way before he graduated, and excellent grades though he made schoolwork seem effortless.

During my senior year, Tim proposed and I accepted. This was not necessarily welcome news to our families; I was Jewish, and Tim was not. But damned if I wasn't going to make this work! Since graduating, Tim had worked for Schlumberger, going out on oil rigs. He was stationed in Layfayette, Louisiana. It was a horrible situation -- he would be gone for as much as a month at a time. So even if I moved out there to be with him, what would I do? The area was economically depressed. I didn't know where I'd be able to work, and I'd be alone almost all the time. Eventually, Tim ended up leaving Schlumberger and taking a job instead at the power plant in Northern Indiana, just about 45 minutes outside of Chicago. He found us a 2-bedroom apartment, and I moved there straight from my college apartment the day after graduation.

My weight rarely came up with Tim; I was still fairly fit though not pleased with my body. He didn't really have issues with it since he could see I was physically fit, and liked my curves besides. In Indiana, where I worked as a news reporter, I joined the local Y and started taking aerobics again. Tim bought us a NordicTrak, which I tried to use but never really liked. I kept it together as best I could through a turbulent year of living together, until finally we broke up on Mother's Day, 1993 -- just a few months prior to our planned September wedding.

(To be continued again)

ready for fat tuesday?

2005-02-08T14:42:00.000-06:00

I didn't think so.

warnings of the st. valentines

2005-02-08T14:41:00.000-06:00

Check out this marvelous post by Manolo on how to properly gift your loved one for Valentine's Day. I know most of you guys (and some gals, I'm sure) can't stand VD (or VD, for that matter). However, here's my take on it.

I don't give a big fat hooeyfuck* if it's all commercial. (*That's for you, Dougie.) I don't care if Hallmark created it to improve their sales in the dead days between Christmas and Easter. Here's the thing: For about 21 of my 34 years, I was single. Every Valentine's Day was a misery for me. Oh, my dad would lovingly bestow a bag of heart-shaped chocolates on me, and when I was a teenager he took me shopping a few times to buy me really cool shirts or jackets (I still have one of the jackets he bought me; the other, an Aussie duster, sadly got destroyed in a taxicab door). But Valentines from significant others were few and far between.

There are definitely some attached people, even women, out there who will say they don't need their S.O. to give them anything on VD. That's all well and good. I bet they're all involved with people who surprise them with romance on a regular enough basis that it doesn't matter.
But DH, G-d love the guy, is definitely romance-impaired. It's hereditary, or learned, I don't know, but the guy's idea of romance is updating my Windows registry or something techie like that. So Valentine's Day is mandatory for him, as is my birthday, our anniversary, and Mother's Day. If, someday, he becomes the kind of husband who surprises me with little romantic gestures for no reason, I may lay off the Valentine's Day Mandate. But for now, assume that DH is required to gift me with something, however token, to show his love for me.

Oh, and because every female who knows I'm married will ask what he gave me, and hell hath no fury like single friends who can't live vicariously through their married ones. :-)

He told me not to get him anything, but I couldn't resist this.

why i'm losing

2005-02-08T07:56:00.000-06:00

I just realized that I entitled this blog "JTLoses" but I really haven't talked at all about the actual losing part. My weight has been an issue for me as long as I can remember -- long before (if you look at pictures of me growing up) it really should have been. I wasn't a fat kid... I did have chubby cheeks and there is at least one baby photo of me looking like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, but now that I've had kids I have seen that's a fairly normal and brief phase of babydom.

As the child of a commercial film director and photographic illustrator, I actually did some modeling and acting as a kid. I took ballet from an early age, piano, and voice. I didn't play sports well but I had crappy eyesight and, we learned later, a complete lack of depth perception that well explained my failure in the Pigtail League.

Somewhere around 11 or 12 years old, I stopped growing taller. I don't think anyone realized what was going on. I kept gaining weight as if I were growing, and I was long-limbed in general, so nobody noticed. Then, when I was 13, my family moved from where we lived in the Cleveland suburbs to the Chicago area. Somehow, my medical records got lost in the shuffle. At Highland Park High School, I had a terrible lack of confidence that was only partially explained by being three or four inches taller than most HP princesses, and therefore feeling like a behemoth. At that point in the mid-80s, weight was really monitored by those stupid charts at the doctor's office, and the idea that you should weigh 100 pounds at 5 feet tall, and you were allowed an extra 5 pounds for every inch above that.

At 5'5" and 15 years old, I definitely weighed more than the 125 lbs that theory allotted, but I wasn't a fat girl. (Of course, I still thought I was disgusting.) I was somewhere around a junior's size seven. My mother, who did plenty of fashion shoots and was gorgeous from the time I can remember, was happy to help me try to lose weight. She encouraged/nagged me to exercise, and paid for me to see dieticians, nutritionists, and even go to Diet Center. When I was 16, I did Diet Center with her. Hot water with lemon every morning, five bland cardboard crackers with a plain salad for lunch, etc. I got down to 122 pounds or so, and then promptly became ridiculously sick. I vaguely recall my mom coming in to find me in bed on a Saturday afternoon, deliriously terrified that the squares on my duvet were out to get me. My temperature was around 104. I was in bed for probably a week, but I do remember getting up during that time to weigh myself, and celebrating when I spent one weak day at 117 lbs.

Needless to say, that weight loss didn't "take." When I graduated from high school at age 18, I wore a size 10 and weighed about 145 lbs. I had long legs, a high but defined waist, and just edged over my 34Bs. Little did I know that would be the high/low point of my figure's history!

fuck the new york times

2005-02-01T07:03:00.000-06:00

So, parenting blogs are all expressions of our self-obssessed insecurity, eh?

Listen up, NYT assholes, listen good.

My blog is not about insecurity, or narcissism. It's a way for me to think out loud, to connect with other people, and to record what goes on in my world for me. I don't know or care how many people read it. Would I love to be Mimi or Heather or Leigh Anne? Yes, if only because they're funnier and more consistent authors than I. And sure, it must be kind of cool to have hundreds or thousands of people drooling at the keyboard, awaiting your next missive or witty bon mot. Does that make me insecure and self-centered?

Okay, maybe a little.

But I hate this stupid genre of stereotypes. IS YOUR KID A TWIXTER? DO YOU MOMMYBLOG? IS YOUR PRIEST FUCKING BUNNIES? Suddenly, a negative spotlight wielded by bored fools with nothing better to do is thrown upon a group of people, who may or may not deserve it. And somehow, even though the stories are expected to be "balanced," the group being typed comes out sounding like fools. (Okay, except the bloggers in this article, most of whom I would like to buy a margarita.)

2005-01-27T09:45:00.000-06:00

Jacob gets comfy on Dave Barry's lap. That's Ridley Pearson in the Peter Pan hat. Danny thinks they're all nuts. And he's probably right.

happy birthday

2005-01-27T09:24:00.000-06:00

My dearest Jacob,

Five years and twelve hours ago, you entered the world. You cried just enough to let everyone know you were there, and then peacefully watched everyone make a fuss over you. To this day, you still like everyone making a fuss over you!

What are you into, now that you're five? Well, the same stuff really you were into yesterday when you were still four. You have the entire CTA train system memorized, down to the last stop and emergency announcement. You're a terrific artist and like to make up comic books. You love it when I ask you to help me cook, and you take such pleasure in being big enough to help out.

You're an incredibly smart and curious child, who seems at his happiest when learning something new. You sometimes can get frustrated by things that are too hard to do, but you're almost always willing to try, which is all we can ask of you. And then, when you break through some barrier and do something by yourself, it's a genuine celebration.

This morning, we drove you to school and talked about the big cake we brought for you to share with your classmates. You said you wanted Danny to come to celebrate your birthday in class with you. It reminded me of when I picked you up at school yesterday and you pointed out that the teacher had given you two smiley-face stickers -- one for you, and one for Danny because you wanted to give one to your brother. You can't know at this age how incredibly sweet that kind of thing is; the fact that you want your baby brother to share in the smallest good fortune with you.

That's probably the thing that I love the best. The unexpected, little loving generosity. It's a snapshot of your general good nature that I hope will still describe you when you're 15, and when you're 50.

Happy birthday, my first-ever baby boy. I wish for you many, many more happy celebrations.

Hey, I Can Write Propaganda Too!

2005-01-26T09:31:00.000-06:00

When I call Maggie Gallagher an ass, please understand that it also stems from jealousy. I wanted to be the next Mike Royko, and I'm still bitter about it. And no, I'm not as funny as Royko (especially in the blogosphere, which is just brimming with writers who don't encounter stage fright) and who knows if I would have made it anyway. But it still pisses me off.

So this columnist was paid by the Bush administration to push Shrub's limited vision of what marriage should mean in the United States. Okay, fine. You want to take money to write that shit, that's your business. But to push that agenda in a newspaper without telling anyone? That's really wrong. When confronted, Gallagher said "Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it? I don't know. You tell me."

Since Gallagher is not the first and I suspect she won't be the last, let me in my tiny world tell the rest of you journos: you are lucky to have your jobs. People read what you write every day, and your words have strength you may not comprehend. But, as Uncle Ben said, "With great power comes great responsibility." Please wield your pen-as-sword wisely.

And if you won't, then at least fucking tell us you're puppets for Bush.

D is for Danny

2005-01-26T09:10:00.000-06:00

So far, this week has been chock full of baby sweetness. Jacob is thrilled to be back at school after a week of being out with terminal sniffles. He's had two three-star days* in a row, and I'm pulling for a third. Danny, meanwhile, is still running on all cuteness cylinders.

At the risk of sounding like Bad Mom, I have to admit my youngest son is just easier. Jacob, who turns five tomorrow (holy shit), is brilliant and handsome and funny, but definitely a more complicated kid. He is fully capable of debating me on any subject, procrastinating, complaining, etc. He has an incredibly strong sense of right and wrong, and he's vocal about it. He, like his mom, likes to be in charge.

Danny, at two-and-a-half, is a jolly little fellow. That's the word we use for him -- jolly. He's so freakin' happy to see us. He loves to hug. He loves butterfly and eskimo kisses, and snuggling with me in Big Bed (the name we inadvertently gave Mommy And Daddy's Giant King-Sized Bed). He loves the cats, and he loves his brother, and he loves the nanny, and he definitely loves my parents. He has a particularly strong bond with my dad -- not surprising, since Danny supposedly looks just like me as a baby.

At this age, Jacob had already begun having difficulties with us. He had an 18-month speech delay, which frustrated him to no end. We had him evaluated at around 26 months, just to make sure everything was okay, and decided to go with speech therapy. I was pregnant with Danny and concerned that the speech delay would cause even more problems for Jacob when he suddenly became A Big Brother And Therefore No Longer The Empire Of The Universe. Speech therapy helped, but we still dealt with fairly typical toddler tantrum behavior from Jacob.

Danny rarely resorts to tantrums; somehow, this kid just always gets his way, or doesn't get as pissed off when he doesn't. It's funny to me; Danny will just matter-of-factly ask for what he wants in his little adorable-tot voice, and it's like he's got me hypnotized. I'm in Jewel with him, doing a quick shop as the blizzard hits, and he decides he wants cake. Not the slice of cheese or corned beef offered to him in the deli, but cake. Cake, cake, cake.

We don't buy cake, unless it's someone's birthday. And I'm not normally a total pushover about what the kids want me to get at the store; even Jacob understands when I say "No, not today." So you can understand how weird it is when I just turn my cart into the baking aisle and let Danny pick out a cake mix and chocolate frosting. It was so easy to justify -- Danny asked for it. It's a blizzard outside and therefore we probably won't leave the apartment for the next 48 hours. Kids love cake. Daddy likes cake. Yes-we-should-make-a-cake.

Same thing happens in the morning. I have to go to work. I have a really tight schedule because I absolutely have to be at my desk for a bare minimum of 8 hours per day (not 7.9) and I have to commute to the burbs for work and I have to pick up whoever's at preschool by 6 pm at the absolute latest and I have to get the kids asleep by 7 pm. But Danny will just look at me, putting my watch on, and say "No. Mommy down." And, like the properly trained Mommybot I am, I move directly to my bed where the Littlest Prince is ensconced and sit down next to him so he can tuck his sweet little toddler body into mine. Suddenly it's just not so important for me to get gas on my way to work or take 15 minutes to grab a drab salad to gobble at my desk. Because the Baby Wants More Snuggles, and damned if he's going to miss out.

I'd say Danny is spoiled, but he seems to understand when we really do have to leave, or take a nap, or not buy the giant dancing BooBah, and is usually distractable. But I tell ya, the kid is fucking edible. Paul Reiser said it perfectly... it's hard to explain the need to physically chew on your younguns, until you have one. Then, the only way to express how much you love them is to actually eat them.

*I'll explain later.

2005-01-26T09:09:00.000-06:00

Danny's First Day of Preschool - 9/3/04

2005-01-21T16:03:00.000-06:00

The desktop on my work computer -- the boys announcing one of the myriad bridges on Cape Cod. July 2004.

kiddie killer

2005-01-20T10:55:00.000-06:00

I know, MLK day isn't topical four days later, but I couldn't decide how to blog this. My kids go to a Jewish non-profit preschool in the city. This is Danny's first year, and he goes two days a week. Jacob is on his third year, and he goes five days. On Wednesdays, the kids have music class, and I happen to be a big fan of the teacher, local and celebrated children's musician Susan Salidor.

Apparently, Susan has a song about Martin Luther King, and each year does a program on him. So, as Jacob's teacher Hattie explained to me, they talked about Dr. King and his message, as well as the fact that he was shot by "a bad man," which "made G-d very sad." After this program, Jacob went back to his classroom and drew a giant picture of a black man wearing a crown and festooned with tons of red and black gashes. Next to Dr. King (get it? crown?), was an expressionless man shooting a gun. The red and black gashes, Jacob said, were the bulletholes and stitches. Hattie was monstrously impressed with Jacob's artwork and hung it proudly in the classroom.

Filled with an awkward sort of kid-pride, I called DH. "Really? They told the kids how Dr. King was killed?" he responded, in shock. Relieved, I commiserated with him. Yes, by all means, tell children how this incredible man helped a nation begin to change things that were terribly wrong. But to tell 2-5 year olds that another man killed him?

I couldn't decide if I was being too sensitive about the subject, so I decided to wait and see if Jacob raised it at all. It didn't take long. On Monday, Hattie called to tell me that Jacob was being corrected by another teacher, and he responded, "Well, I'm going to kill you."

Probably I should explain that, while Jacob displays some fairly typical oppositional behavior (as the shrinks call it), he's generally a really good kid. He's very bright, imaginative and expressive. He also knows the basics of right and wrong (as well as any kid his age could, I suppose). We limit his TV and movies to non-violent, age-appropriate subjects and programs. So, for my almost-five-year-old to threaten to kill a teacher (because she dared tell him to stay on his cot and be quiet during naptime).... well, that tells me something funky is going on.

Am I making too much of this? Don't know... all I know is, I will be careful to ask Jacob's kindergarten teacher (and Danny's preschool teacher) about the way they approach Dr. King next year.

2005-01-19T15:57:00.000-06:00

JT as new mommy (with 3-week-old Jacob)

good-bye, city life

2005-01-18T01:01:00.000-06:00

I have migrated. I don't yet know if this is permanent, or as permanent as anything gets here in VirtuWorld anyway. But tBlog has been kicking my ass and it's driving me batty. So let's give good old Blogspot a shot, shall we?

Welcome to my world. I'm JT. I'm a married mom of two little boys, ages two and almost five. My husband, whom I shall refer to as simply DH*, and I live in Chicago with the anklebiters and two cats, named SCSI and GUI. Obviously, we're geeks (the tech kind, also). DH is a freelance web developer, and I'm a QA analyst.

DH and I met on IRC in 1995, and in person about a month after our initial chat. Three months later, he had moved from Philly to Chicago to be with me (aww), and ten months later, we were married. Wow. Hard to believe it's been almost 10 years since we met. In the meantime, we've each changed jobs a few times. We've also moved three or four times within Chicago, and this year we'll be moving again to the 'burbs so our children can go to a good public school (instead of a private school where we'd spend $17,000 on kindergarten, or a public one where the majority of kids don't pass to the next grade). We've bought and built a townhome, been laid off, sold our home and gone back to apartment living. We were lying in bed with our son Jacob, watching the news, when the 2nd tower was hit on September 11th. We've lost my grandmother, DH's father and a few other friends and family members.

I've been pregnant three times and had two kids, the latter two events being probably the hardest and most exciting days of my life. I didn't much like being pregnant, but I love having kids and I'm willing to do it again. (Really want to try for a girl one of these days...) I'm not the most patient, nor the best, mom, but I love my boys and try to have fun while teaching them right from wrong as best I can.

I had a hard time coming up with a name for my blog since most of the easy ones are taken. I decided on JTLoses because on May 26th, 2004, I had a Lap-Band implanted around my stomach, and I'm in the middle of trying to lose around 100 lbs. I don't have a solid goal because I'm really not sure where my body will decide it's done. Frankly, I'd be happy to be a size 10 for the rest of my life, but if I can drop down lower, peachy. At the very least, I'd like to say good-bye to plus sizes forever.

So hopefully my web friends will find me here and stick around, and with any luck, I'll meet some new ones. Thanks for checking out my blog; hope you enjoy the show!