Hey Old Elizabeth, what are you doing here?!? I have often wondered what it would be like if we could hear each others thoughts. Like a mix of What Women Want and Pop-Up Video, giant word bubbles would pop out...bloop!...and the people around us would instantly know our deepest, darkest and sometimes most delightful secrets. Today, I'm so glad mind reading is impossible. Because if people knew what I was thinking, they would a)run for a strait jacket or b)move silently and speedily to the other side of the room, so as not to provoke a sudden charge from the Elizabeast.

That's what I will call her from now on...the Elizabeast. My arch nemesis. Who just happens to inhabit the same rent-controlled co-op I do. Only, there is nothing cooperative about her. If you've ever worked out with a trainer, or watched someone work out with one...well, there is an exercise where the trainer wraps a resistance band around his or her ridiculously whittled waist and runs...full speed...in the opposite direction you are running, or allegedly running. It's hilarious to watch, actually, as one person's legs (mine) are furiously moving. And going absolutely nowhere. It's a strange feeling, moving against the resistance, but a great workout in the end. Thus goes my relationship with the Elizabeast.

Last night, the Elizabeast worked me up into a full-blown panic attack. It started small. "Elizabeth, school starts in a couple of weeks. How are you going to fit in the workouts, the meal plans...the blog you've started?" Then she reminded me of the all the school dances I've got to coordinate at the beginning of the year. And the two jobs I'm working. And the full-time care of one 16.8 pound Shih-Tzu. Just when I was starting to hyperventilate, she delivered the final blow...three houseguests coming for extended visits over the span of three months. "And," she said, "you've got Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up. You'll never be able to juggle all of this. Give up now and no one gets hurt."

No Christmas present for you, Elizabeast. Coal, maybe.

For some people, the word anticipation has a positive connotation. The anticipation of Santa on Christmas morning, the anticipation of a wedding, or a new baby, the anticipation of Jesus coming for another visit. For me, "anticipation" is the new f-word.

I didn't think I was a catastrophic thinker. I used to think I was a glass-half-full kind of girl. But going from "We're closing the air seal doors now" to "We're going down!!!" is not a far stretch for me. Put me in a real emergency situation and I'm the calmest one in the crowd. But give me a slightly overwhelming to-do list and 45 minutes to work myself into a frenzy and I'm a Mentos and Coke rocket (If you don't know what this looks like, just YouTube it. That's me). Here's a list of my most notorious freak outs:

1. For the first 12 years of my life, any situation that involved my mom leaving. When I was five, I went to a day school that was being remodeled. We would often move from room to room as the remodeling progressed. I was SO SURE my mom wouldn't know where to find me and would, after a brief but unsuccessful search, go home to interview replacement children. Maybe we'd see each other at a 7-11 years later and she'd say "Oh, yeah, I remember you," as she waited in line to pay for her Slurpee. PS...somehow, she always found me. PSS...the day school was very glad she found me, as I would have been crying all day at the thought of having to go home with daycare worker.

2. The thought of nuclear war. Of course, this is a fear shared by the entire world. But my mom explained it to me just before going to a Friday night football game (per my incessant questioning, I'm sure, after seeing something on TV). There I was, in my 6th grade pep squad uniform, paralyzed with fear, watching the sky for impending doom. "What are all these people doing at a football game?" I wondered. "Don't they know the sky is falling?"

3. The time I finished my part of a high school Key Club meeting, stressed and starving, only to find that a pack of wild and ravenous teenagers had descended upon 20 pizza boxes (and my lunch), leaving nothing behind but pizza crumbs and empty soda bottles. "Where's the Coke?!?" could be heard at the Central Market across the street. PS...there was a whole unopened litter sitting right next to me. Oh, did I mention? I was the advisor, the voice of reason. 

And any situation that involves:

Air travel, car travel, car scratches, scratches of any kind, missplacing my cell phone, missplacing my wallet, holidays,  to do lists, waiting in ridiculously long lines, and line cutters who cut while I'm waiting in ridiculously long lines

So where does this kind of overreaction come from? Could it be from my mother, who just yesterday burst into the room after realizing I'd saved my username on her BofA homepage, convinced it somehow blocked her from ever accessing the site again while sending her account information into the black hole of cyberspace, never to be seen or heard from again? Or maybe my grandmother, who once convinced the entire family to kill the lights and hit the deck so we could catch the nighttime prowler who was circling our house? There we were...the four of us, on the floor in the middle of the night...nothing but our eyes and the tops of our heads showing as we peered out the window. Only to realize an hour later that it was our own white Oldsmobile she's seen. Hmmm...perhaps.

But if I have any hope of breaking free from the fat, the frumpy and the family freakouts, I've got to exorcise the Elizabeast. Maybe I'll find a mentor, like my friend, Chris. AKA the calmest person I've ever met. She just lost her brand new iPhone in a tragic parrot incident. Facing the possibility of going on vacation for three weeks without a cell phone, or paying $500 for a new phone (both options that would require me to be hooked to a tank of oxygen), she calmly picked up the land line, spent an hour-and-a-half talking to a representative from...wait for it...Lubbock, Texas, and voila...a new iPhone is being FedExed as we speak.

Interesting. Perhaps there's something to be said for this mysterious thing called calm. Maybe Cesar Millan hit the nail on the head...a calm assertive state of mind is the key. The key that opens the door to every good thing (and every place I want to go). Do you think if I could fit myself into a Saint Bernard suit, Cesar would rehabilitate me?

I'd like to send a shout out to Willoughby Jones, who is one year old today. Happy b-day, pup pup! Thanks for loving me just the way I am!

It's the final countdown (Ahhh...a big-hair-band reference. Hey, Europe, what are you doing in my blog?). A little less than six days left on my Lubbock trip. My mom and I dragged ourselves in the sweltering heat to our favorite new place...the lazy river, at my beloved alma matter, Texas Tech. Tech's student recreation center is the second largest in the nation and they've just added a "leisure" pool...which is really a huge complex consisting of lap pools, a hot tub, various slides and diving boards, a cafe run by obnoxiously rude student workers, and a manmade lazy river that whisks you around the perimeter of the whole place. Only it wasn't so lazy yesterday.  It was more like a sea of floating freshman. 25,000 students turned out to get their swim on before classes started today.  

So, I finally elbowed my way through the student bodies to find the last two deck chairs, sandwiched between the edge of the river and a group of scantily clad (and dripping wet) boys. I say boys because, next to them, I felt like Grandma Yetta. But the proximity to said boys allowed me to engage in a favorite pastime, eavesdropping. The mysterious, cryptic and chlorinated society seemed to be speaking a language from planet Kashyyyk. But, from what I could make out, they were talking about girls. More specifically, "chicks."  

Ahhh..."chicks." Never has a word had more implied meaning and less satisfactory a dictionary definition. Dictionary.com defines "chick" as 1) a young chicken, 2) a child or 3) slang, often offensive, a girl or young woman. But say it to a woman within earshot and she'll likely have one of two reactions.  If she insists on going dutch on dates, majored in Women's Studies in college, or read any part of The Feminine Mystique, well...you know what her reaction is going to be. Then there's the other woman, to whom "chick" is the ultimate compliment and station in life. 

So, it left me questioning. Am I a chick? Have I ever been one? The kind that men discuss amongst each other and pine for? In their secret societies with their secret hats and handshakes? As I pour over the pages of my own romance novel (or self-help manual) and wax sentimental about my sweethearts past, I am faced with a glaring reality. With the exception of a couple of beaus, I have been the one pining and pursuing. (I even ran one guy down in the street...but that's a story for another day).

One of the most common complaints among overweight women (and men, I'm sure) is feeling invisible to the world around them. Well, amen sisters (and brothers). But come on, wearing sweats, socks with sandals and the fat-girl-given-up uniform is NEVER going to be secret-society-worthy. I might as well be wearing a sign that says "Stay away or you'll be sorry." And as much as I would love to blame the little fat fairies for force feeding me a sleeve of Girl Scout cookies and then throwing me out onto the streets dressed in God-knows-what, I've got only one person to blame.   

So will I ever be a chick? Am I prepared for the level of chickness that comes with losing 60 pounds and shedding baggy jeans for little black dresses? I don't know. But I can't help but think that my future partner-in-crime and I are going to look back on this blog and laugh. Laugh at the idea that I ever questioned my chickability. And maybe, just maybe...he'll show me the secret handshake.  

Ok...ok...so I was never a farm girl. I grew up in university town with 250,000 people, grocery stores the size of small college campuses, and Sonic drive-ins on every corner. But the frumpy part is true. And there is a cotton farm within 15 miles of any point in Lubbock, Texas.  So, technically...

At home on 2818 Maxwell Drive with my mamacita AND retired grandparents, I was gleaning my fashion sense from the Golden Girls, my conservatively dressed legal-secretary-by-day-mom-by-night mom, and a grandmother who had long ago turned in her gloves, hat and silk stockings for an apron and sensible shoes. I adored and idolized them, and if they were wearing the Team Jones uniform, I wanted one, too! But what might look stunning on two Jones family matriarchs and four retirees in Miami doesn't exactly translate to a teenager's wardrobe. One summer, I actually wore a bright yellow terrycloth short set with...wait for it...panty hose and open toe sandals!!! They were sheer toe, but you get the whole, horrific picture.

That was in middle school.  Here is a list of the 10 most atrocious crimes of fashion I've committed since then:

1. Sweats to Mr. Womack's Economics class every single day of senior year

2. Stirrup pants, which I still secretly love

3. Peg leg pants, you know, where you roll up your jeans so tight at the bottom you look like a denim MC Hammer.  Can't touch this? Believe me, no one wanted to.

4. Baggy jeans.  Butt flat as a pancake.

5. Pink frosted lipstick

6. Broomstick skirts that covered every inch of the gams on my 5'4" frame.  They actually skimmed the floor when I walked.

7. The "uniform." Some of you are like "uniform?!?" "What in the world is she talking about?!?" And the rest of you are nodding your head in collective agreement.  The uniform is the universal sign of fat-girl-given-up. It means having five pairs of flowing Chico's pants and wearing them to work EVERY day. Oh, and then the same t-shirt and cotton capri pants on nights and weekends.  

8. A bandana-red-denim-vest-skirt-outfit that Kara swears I used to wear but don't remember. I think she has mixed up the crocheted bunny vest (yes bunnies) with fringe (yes fringe) and the bandana red capri pants.   

9. High-wasted shorts that went to the knee.  See photo below.

10.  And...brace yourself, people...socks with sandals.  

Gotta run to the dentist but I've got photos and a legitimate explanation to share when I get back.  Stay tuned.

Later that afternoon...

Good news! The dentist says I'm in no danger of losing any teeth. Phewww...sometimes I have nightmares about that very thing. New, darling dentist. With kind eyes and a sweet smile and lots of compliments about my "pretty teeth." Great! Good teeth, big hair and Fred Flinstone feet. Well, that's half the battle right there. Take that, fat! You haven't gotten the best of me.

So I promised you photos: 

And an explanation. Ok, I know that there are entire movements dedicated to the wrongness of wearing socks with sandals. In my defense, I only do it when I'm walking the pup pup in my own back yard or, in the case of this photo, when it's so freakin' cold in San Francisco that its socks and sandals or hypothermia. I'm sure some of you would choose hypothermia.

SO NOW WHAT? At the risk of sounding cliché, that was then and this is now. As Nina says it, it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me, and I'm feeling good. Although I still consider The Golden Girls my TV family, I think Bill and Giuliana and Sex and the City are more the look I'm going for. I will never pay $500 for a pair of shoes or be a slave to the latest trends. But I look at these woman, at how comfortable, confident and free they are in their own skin, and vow to walk a new walk. And I will...just five more appointments to go!      

Mama said there'll be days like this.  Well, not my mama, but someone's.  Days when it feels like a dog-eat-dog world and you're wearing Milk Bone underwear.  It's Day 7 of the project .  No sooner than I announced to the universe that I was going to be kicking butt and taking names, guess who came to visit?  She whose name must not be spoken but every woman knows all too well. Once a month, she arrives unexpectedly.  And all I want to do when she comes is sleep and eat vats o' chocolate.  I cried for an hour after watching The Time Traveler's Wife and had to keep reminding myself that time travel isn't real and Eric Bana is never going to have to roam the streets alone and naked.  I half-heartedly dragged myself to the gym, then the pool, but felt like a slo mo Stay-Puft marshmallow man, sweet on the outside, ready to wipe out an entire city on the inside. At this point, the only thing I'm looking forward to is watching Ruby confront her therapist on Sunday night's show.                 

On top of that, I'm on a two-week visit home to Lubbock. Ahhh...TEXAS.  The geographical love of my life. The place of my birth.  My home emeritus.  And the scene of the crime.  if you pull up the carpet in the guest bedroom of my parents' house, you'll be able to see the chalk outline of me holding a Diet Coke in one hand and a box of Mallomars in the other.  

I cannot remember a time when our pantry did not stock two things: Dr. Pepper and Tostitos.  I was raised to believe that nachos were the overlooked food group.  My mom has actually packed bags of Tostitos in her luggage when traveling just in case there is not a store within walking distance of her hotel.  I'm not kidding. And when I walk into my parents' house, no matter how many big girl pills I've taken on the airplane, I am immediately 12 again.  I follow my mother around like a little duckling, quacking my first duckling pleas for just a taste (or several plates) of Tostitos with melted cheese (organic cheese, of course, because it's healthy).  

And, in the Jones household, we pray to the god of chocolate on a daily basis.  Don't laugh, it's very sacred.  My mom and I run across the street to our Texas-sized grocery store to score our chocolate fixes. Me, I'm off the real thing...trying to wean myself, you know. So I've opted for sugar free or "made with fruit sugar." Meanwhile, my intestines are screaming "Oy vey (yes my intestines speak Yiddish), enough with the Aspartame already!"

What will happen when the family meets the new me?  When the baby duckling quacks for a plate of salmon with pesto and pine nuts over corn chips and cheese?  Will we still have the same bond, speak the same language, swim in the same duck circles?  And what happens when the waterfowl uncle flies in for the holidays?  Will he be quick to make fun of the duckling and her useless efforts to make a better life? Maybe it will be like Somewhere in Time, when Christopher Reeve travels back in time to find his soulmate, only to be sucked back into his own dimension when he finds a modern-day penny in his coat pocket.  Oh, that's right, time travel isn't real. But in many ways, losing weight and finding oneself is like traveling between dimensions, trying to find a happy medium between the place you once were and the place you aspire to be. Maybe Rod Serling will show up and narrate me out of this.