But..... the.....
Cat came back.
He wouldn't stay away.
He was sittin' on the porch
The very next day!
The cat came back.
He didn't want to roam.
The very next day
It was Home Sweet Home!

Sorry about that. No reason, it's just been stuck in my head all morning. I sang it to Matt three times before we managed to get to work, and anyone who's ever met me in person will tell you that my singing voice - especially a capella - is not something you really want to hear first thing in the morning. Or at lunch. Or in the afternoon. Or... Well, you get the idea.

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Now that we're down to less than two weeks (ha ha ha) until we close on the house, I've started doing a daily update over on the House and Home page. I'll try to not ramble on too much over here. But I'm not making any promises, because boy are we irritated. Also, I was blithely packing books last night, and my second bag split from top to bottom as I was putting it in the stack, which made me wonder if I'm going to have to go back and double-bag all the bags we've already packed. Someone shoot me now.

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I recently finished reading Wake Up, I'm Fat! by Camryn Manheim. I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to read this book, but Mode had printed a chapter from it a couple of issues back, and I'd enjoyed it, and Amazon had it for a substantial discount, so what the heck? I dropped it into an order of books I was placing anyway.

Wow, what a great book. It wasn't like the usual "inspirational" books in that it didn't try to tell me how I should go about aquiring self-confidence. It just told the story of Camryn's journey, and made me feel like I have companions on this journey. I have to take the steps myself, and no one can tell me how to do that - like walking, I have to try and fall until I get it right - but people are cheering me on.

And it didn't necessarily have to apply to fat people, either. Here's an brief excerpt from the section on her one-woman show:

... With no other space available, I performed from the stairs to an audience of seventy-five invited guests seated on folding chairs in a hallway. Through a light mist of soot and dust, the reading ran three hours.
I had no expectations. I had hopes, but no expectations. No one besides Cindy had heard the material, and a huge part of me was asking "Who gives a shit?" And as I write this chapter, I find that question once again echoing in my mind. I was asking people to come and listen to me for three hours, blab on and on about the hardships of being fat and feeling inadequate. I could see how it might be relevant to my fat sisters, but would it resonate with anyone else? And I discovered, much to my surprise, the answer was yes. While all my life I had been saying to myself "I suck because I'm fat," others have been saying to themselves "I suck because I'm short... I suck because I'm gay... I suck because I'm bald... I suck because I'm poor... I suck because I'm in a wheelchar..." Ad infinitum. Everyone can find a reason to hate themselves, which they use as an excuse to keep themselves from moving forward. I sure had.

There's a whole chapter I want to quote, too, but I won't fill up my journal with it. If you want to read it, go here.