only bringin' me down

It's been over a month since I posted anything. Not that I haven't started posts and then deleted them...

This time of year always makes me feel very lonely - the cold weather, the early darkness. I love it, but it makes me sad. Which has added to the ease of my current weight gain. I think that I'd rather eat and not exercise and stay fat because it's a tangible reason that I can point to as a reason that I'm single. Nobody wants to date a fat girl, right? THAT's why I'm single and not dating and lonely a lot of the time. There's a sad comfort in setting expectations low and I'm really struggling with that right now.

But it's starting to bleed over into other aspects of my daily life and I really need to do something about it. I don't like the extra weight. I don't like the way I look in clothes. I don't like teaching classes and being up in front of people when I'm preoccupied with how uncomfortable my pants are or whether my gut is obvious in my shirt.

The thing is, I don't know what it's going to take to snap myself out of what has been developing over the majority of my life.

So, I'll just change the subject.

My sister's children are still on their way to becoming horrible men. Thanksgiving was an exercise in restraint for me - restraint from killing them both or causing serious bodily harm to them. My younger nephew (who just turned 14) thinks that the rules never apply to him and believes that if he tries to get physical, that he can scare everyone into leaving him alone to do whatever he wants to do. My older nephew (who turns 16 in a few months) thinks that he knows everything and should be able to have whatever he wants, whenever he wants, even if that means stealing it. Oh, and he's only broken a rule if he gets caught - and it's only a bad thing if he gets caught.

Not that my sister doesn't have her share of the blame - she's a bad role model, she coddles them, and she makes excuses for them all of the time. And she did marry a current fugitive from justice (see his wanted poster at http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/fugitives/cac/poteat_ja.htm - call ME, then the FBI, if you see him).

But that doesn't mean that their behavior is "excusable." No, they have my parents as role models in their DAILY lives. They also know right from wrong - they just don't care.

Thank goodness my cats can't cause that kind of frustration.