I'm feeling more positive about things because my therapy appointment went well yesterday, and today I am going to see Step Up. As you should know, I love cheesy dance movies, and it is also free popcorn day. I checked out the nutrition information for movie theater popcorn, and if you don't want your life ruined, don't read the following: there are 630 calories and 50 grams of fat in a small buttered popcorn from Regal Cinemas. My sparkpeople page says I need to eat no more than 60 grams of fat in a day. Luckily for me, I only can stand to eat a little bit of popcorn. I usually eat one or two handfuls, and the most I can eat if I haven't had lunch beforehand is half a bag. Mandy is more screwed by the information because she always eats the whole bag, but she is going to get unbuttered.
So I started really doing the diet on Sunday where I am trying to eat 1500 calories or less. I have not really changed what I eat, but I am just making sure to stay under. So far I am pretty happy about how it is going. Both Sunday and Monday I was around 1200 calories. The biggest disappointment was discovering how high calorie thai food is and looking at the Baja Fresh website. If you eat at Baja Fresh you better check it out, because I realized that I can no longer eat any of my favorite things. Even a bean and cheese burrito is nearly 1000 calories. WHAT?!?! I didn't think it was HEALTHY but I didn't think that nearly every item on the menu was around 900 calories either. Ugh. Anyway, we'll see how this goes. I just want to eat better, and tracking the calories is pretty easy with the sparkpeople page. I also have been doing really well with drinking 8 glasses of water almost every day for the past week.
I ended up having an okay weekend. My friend Cassandra was up for a visit to see Sleater-Kinney, but I ended up feeling kind of left out a lot of the time. I spent the entire day with her and her friends on Saturday and I just felt bad and out of it most of the time. I think it would have been better if I had time with just her, but that was kind of impossible.
Anyway, I thought that I was going to go to lunch with her and her friends, but she ended up calling me right when she arrived to the restaurant. She said she thought it would take a while to be seated, but they were seated right away. So it took me awhile to get there and when I got there they were done, had paid the bill, and the restaurant was closing anyway. So that kind of sucked because I didn't have lunch and had to wait another four hours to eat. So then we went around to some shops and then we drove to the friend's house where they were staying. I left my car there and we all drove to the Doug Fir and then downtown in a cab from there. We went to Powell's, and then finally I asked if people were hungry after a while, and most of them weren't but we went to Ringler's and I ate while they had drinks.
I actually didn't enjoy the band that much either, sadly, because I didn't like most of the songs. Eddie Vedder was the special surprise guest star, and unfortunately I am the opposite of a Pearl Jam fan. They are on my top five most hated bands of all time (no offense to any Pearl Jam fans). It was fine, though, because he did an anti-Bush/Cheney song that made everyone happy and then a duet with Janet, the drummer for Sleater-Kinney. I do have to say that I love her (she is also the drummer for Quasi, which is another show that I went to with Cassandra in the past). The band did play the two songs that I wanted to hear, but again I felt sort of separated from Cassandra because of the group of people we were with. I could tell I wasn't really the only one who felt a little out of it, so at least that was something. The thing that sucks is that Cassandra has a fiance now who she lives with and she is totally in love with him, which is great, but she has changed from an "I" to a "We." I do admit I am a jealous person in general, but I just really felt like I would have liked a little bit more attention from her--she lives with him and sees him regularly, but she only sees me once or twice a year. I felt the same way when I visited, although that was better because we had some alone time. I also felt like maybe I was coming off in a negative way and was a big downer and that it was my fault that she didn't talk to me more. So anyway, that sucked. I actually gave her the address to this site a long time ago, but I am pretty sure she doesn't read it. If she does, maybe it will spark a conversation between us. Anyway, it just sucks when people are in a relationship and that changes them. It's to be expected, but it still makes me sad. I have gone on three vacations with her in the past, but now I don't have her as someone who I can go with because she would go with him. It also isn't helpful for me to be around a happy couple when I am in a state of miserable aloneness either, but that is my issue and I need to get over it.
So the next day I had already had plans to go to The Bite with Chad and we were going to see Snow Patrol. It was cancelled, but we decided to still hang out. Cassandra asked if I wanted to hang out again during the day, but I couldn't tell if she really wanted to or not, and she knew that I had these plans with Chad, too. So, since I was kind of miserable hanging out with the group the day before, I didn't go. One of the things they were doing was going to NW 23rd for shopping, which I HATE because of parking and because of the vibe and all of the stuff can't afford. I see no point in going into cute little shops with adorable clothes that are 50-90 dollars for a t-shirt. I am sure you have a NW 23rd in your city--it's like the chichi yuppified hipster place, and it includes such stores as Urban Outfitters, Kiel's, and Pizzacato, which is like gourmet pizza with goat cheese on it, which is good, but not my thing.
So I ended up spending Sunday with Chad. We didn't actually do anything in particular, but I had a great time with him. I think we were both wavering on that being the last time we see each other, blah blah. What's new there. So anyway, we'll see how that goes.
As I mentioned, I had therapy yesterday and that went really well. My therapist is young and pretty and seems nice. One of the differences in her being a psychologist, I think, is that she listened a bit more and talked a bit less and also actually said the stereotypical, "And how did that make you feel?" more than once. I was actually pretty into that. The first session was a bunch of questions to get to know what I was doing here and I think that I got a lot of issues out already. One was about feeling judged and whether or not that is me projecting it onto other people (for example, my last therapist). Another was feeling guilty about even being at therapy, because I have a lot less problems than a lot of people so I should be able to handle stuff on my own. I almost cried twice during our conversation--once because of my dad stuff and another time about feeling rejected and abandoned. Anyway, she asked me about what I got out of my last therapy and she asked a lot about Justin and Chad. The best part, that made me feel the best about her, was when we talked again about caring about what people think about me and that I felt like I was a big disappointment to my last therapist every time that I went and I hadn't ended things with Chad. We talked about whether that was me projecting my disappointment with myself onto her and I said that I had even just been doing it with her when I was describing the situation--I kept thinking what she must be thinking about me and how ridiculous I am for being in this on-off thing with him. So she said that if I am feeling judged or wondering what she must be thinking, I can always just stop and ask her. She then told me what she thought about the situation with Chad--I don't remember all that she said, but it made me feel a lot better. Basically she said that I am obviously really close to him and he continues to pursue me, which is something that I hunger for, and that in many ways I feel accepted by him as a person. So even though the relationship is not how I want it to be, he is fulfilling a need for me and it is hard to give up. She said that is where I am right now and she is not going to shit on me because I do that enough to myself. Yes, she said shit. It made me laugh. But that made me feel better because I constantly beat myself up over why I can't seem to stop and I don't understand why I don't stop, but she articulated why it is that I continue. Not that it makes it what I want to do or what I should do, but it is what it is right now.
Anyway, another thing she said was that she doesn't really use positive affirmation stuff, which I like because I don't think it helps me. I do try to avoid saying negative things to myself when I catch myself doing it, but it doesn't seem to help me to go, "I am a good person who deserves more than this." over and over. I know that but I can't seem to believe it, so what's the point in saying it if it isn't connecting or making a difference?
So hopefully this will work out. She seems pretty good.
I have less than two weeks of vacation left. Are you kidding me? UGH! Um, what am I going to teach next year? SCARY! :)
