An Apology and a Summation

So um. I'm kind of embarrassed about my blog post from yesterday morning. It was yet another one written in the midst of a panic attack. And I realize that losing weight takes time. I have to force myself to not to wish I could lose weight as fast as I did in freshman year, because that was anorexia and not a diet. The last thing I want is to have it control my life again. I don't want to be afraid of leaving the house because I'm afraid I'll be pressured into eating, I don't want my hair to start falling out in clumps again, and I don't want to stop getting my period for months.

So enough of that. Work actually hasn't been terrible yet. I've been mostly sitting around in various locations around the Park, whether it's the office, the beach booth, or the camping booth. I haven't had to wash too many bathrooms, and they finally stopped making me pick up garbage. I can't lift that shit.

I even really enjoy working the camping booth. It's a horrible shift, for sure, 12:45-9:15 on a saturday. But I like being alone in the camping booth with a book, some crossword puzzles, and my music. I like getting to sign in and talk to campers and see where they are all from. One hipster from Brooklyn offered to buy my old Fahnestock shirts, and I instantly regretted throwing them all out at the end of last summer. But at least now I know to sell them to Buffalo Exchange at the end of this season.

Last night, mom and I took a walk on the Dutchess Rail Trail. It reminded me a lot of the bike trail on the Cape. So this morning I came back for a run, and I was surprised at how I managed to run the majority of the distance. I only had to walk for a little less than a quarter of the time. Go me!

FmL

So after seriously, seriously strict dieting since the day I got home (cutting down to 18 points a day, which is something around 1600 calories) I finally got the nerve to weigh myself. And I have gained two pounds. I don't understand. Why am I bothering to diet if I'm just going to gain weight? Now I'm up to ten pounds heavier than when I left for Italy. I thought that by coming home and just not eating gelato and pasta every day would help me lose weight. Nope, apparently cutting calories and working out every day actually makes you gain weight! Surprise!

Fuck this shit. I'm getting my thyroid checked. Maybe there's something wrong with me. It does run in the family, after all. And for now I'm eating 12 points a day.

Fahnestock Chronicles Entry no. 3: In Which She Finds Out That She Does, After All, Like Being Busy

There were just three of us Seasonals (as we call ourselves) on today. The campground is still deserted except for some through-hikers on the Appalachian Trail, which means that it stays (fairly) clean. Usually, this time of year means that we sit in the office doing absolutely nothing until late June, and although that means I get a lot of reading done, it also means that I start to feel like my soul is sinking into this abyss of Nothingness. But today we had several tasks to complete. Three actually. It was like a fairy tale, where the heroes have to complete three tasks of increasing difficulty before earning the reward. Except in our case, the tasks weren't things like "spin all of the straw into gold," but "rake all of the mulch that is piled up outside the playground onto the playground" and the reward wasn't the hand of the princess but the ability to go home.

So our first task was the daily one: clean bathrooms. It was by far the easiest, because as I said earlier, no one camps this time of year. Our next was the aforementioned raking. This was slightly more difficult. The playground is small. Tiny, in fact. It's hard to really consider it a playground. But they ordered 200 feet of mulch, which, piled up outside of the playground probably reached higher than the slide. Even I, who can't back up a car, who tries to put circular containers inside square ones, and who constantly has bruises on my hips because I can't tell where my body ends and door frames begin realized that this was a little off. There was just far too much mulch for that little space. But we did our best, shoveling and raking until our hands hurt (and sides. I did enjoy knowing that I was getting a core workout, because I haven't been to the gym since last thursday) and the mulch was overlapping the slide and ladders. Yes, it still spilled over the sides. But no one will EVER get hurt on that playground now. Our third task was to paint the women's bathrooms at the beach. Although I haven't painted much, I discovered that I'm quite good at it. Painting works well with my perfectionism.

I realized that although I still haven't finished my book, I enjoy being busy far more than not. It makes the day go faster and I really feel like I do something at my job, instead of wasting my life. And I'm off tomorrow and friday! I'm going into the city overnight to see Sonia and Maddy and get dinner with my Firenze Friends. I'm so excited. Knowing that I'm going to the place that I really do consider my other home makes me so happy.

Also, I've totally been MIA over the past week. It takes a lot for me to want to leave the house after work. Usually I'm tired and numb and all I want to do is sleep. But force me to, please. I won't do it on my own.

And in other, totally unrelated news, everyone should run and listen to something written by Osvaldo Golijov. He's this Russian-Jewish-Mexican composer who writes glorious Latin music that even non-classical people would like. Listen to St. Marks Passion. It's life changing.

Fahnessotck Chronicles no. 2: Oh the Things That You'll Find

This time of year is slow at the Park. Neither the beach nor the boat rentals are open on weekdays yet, there aren't many people in the campground, and there honestly just isn't much for us to do most days. However, today our Esteemed Assistant Manager decided that it was an excellent day to send the three summer-job kids (including me) to this trailhead on Route 9-D which apparently had a lot of garbage to be cleaned up. However, he didn't mention that this garbage must have been there for years. It was to the point where the bags were buried under the ground. In fact, there were several bags that I couldn't even get to because the roots of a tree had grown right over them. The weather wasn't bad, though, and the garbage was so old that anything able to decompose had already, so nothing smelled. In fact, it became kind of interesting to keep track of what we were finding, like the buried treasure of Things People Throw Away. Among these, we found:

- A computer keyboard from the Windows 95 era or earlier
- A sneaker
- A bag of bones (animal, and clean, so they'd been there a while)
- A bedframe
- A sandal
- Tires
- A bottle that looked like a soda bottle but with thicker walls and a child-proof top. It was filled with liquid, which made me wonder if perhaps it was toxic, hence the Top of Death
- A very large vertebra

I'm not sure what makes people decide to dump their trash by the side of the road instead of giving it to the garbage collector or driving it to the dump. It's not difficult, nor is it terribly expensive or far away.

Fahnestock Chronicles Entry no. 1: Prehistoric Man Walks Among Us

Yesterday, someone demanded to know what his state taxes were doing if not paying for the beach parking fee. Which is $7. He looked like the former Army-man type, early to mid 30s, clean-shaven, muscular, with one of those square, flat topped haircuts made famous by every 1950s sitcom bully or gone-to-seed gym teacher who calls the unathletic kids 'faggots.' I felt like responding "bailing out Citibank," or "well, no one is making you come to the beach," but naturally I chickened out and just shrugged and raised an eyebrow, trying to hide my probably obvious dislike (my face shows all of my emotions as I feel them, but dislike and incredulity show particularly well). But really? You're going to complain about a $7 parking fee? Most state parks require and entrance fee plus a parking fee. And he continued to ask me after I said I didn't know!

Prehistoric Man: "But seriously, where do they go?!?"
Prehistoric Man's Wife: "Come on, honey, she doesn't know that"
Prehistoric Man: "But I want to know!"

What did he honestly expect me to do? Say, 'Oh, just one second, let me get Governor Patterson on his cell. In fact, we can conference call him right from the beach booth! Then you can tell him all of your issues with having to pay that hefty, wallet-lightening $7 parking fee. I'm sure he will be sympathetic. In fact, he might make EVERYTHING free for you! Groceries! Your (poor, poor) child's college education! Governor Patterson surely won't think you should pay for anything!"

What. On. Earth.

Today, while cleaning out my closets (parts of which I haven't touched in at least 10 years) I found an old Keepsake Box, aka an Old Cardboard Tea Box That I Filled With Random Crap. Inside, among old plastic necklaces, that black stationary designed for those terrible Milky pens that always stopped working in the middle of writing something important, and imitation Revolutionary War coins, dice, and pencils (I was SUCH a Revolutionary War geek back in elementary school), was a small tin heart shaped box. I remembered that box very well, and I remembered putting something in it when I was really little. So I opened it up. Suddenly, there was brown powder all over my bedspread, and the smell of old, stale coffee grounds filled my nose.

I was the strangest child EVER.

Random and Perfunctory Thoughts

I'm still waking up at 6:15 every day. The time change messed up my body clock, I think. Since I already get up early, coming back to the US just made my body want to get up earlier. Although I've always been rather fond of being awake during the daytime hours, it's getting slightly ridiculous. I have nothing to do with my time this early in the morning. The gym isn't open yet, my friends aren't awake (and soon won't be here at all), and it's too early to blast music and clean shit.

Last night Lauren had her barbeque, which devolved from a traditional "cook burgers and hot dogs and eat on the deck then maybe make s'mores in front of the fire pit" to "the boys are mixing keystone, vodka, lemonade concentrate, red bull, and pineapple juice to make 'The Force,' getting really shitty and talking about rugby." Rather entertaining, until the Rugby Talk began and I decided to go home. This is a shout out to Mitch, who told me to go home and write Witty Things about him. Ummm....Witty Things, Mitch, Witty Things.

So most of my friends are abandoning me beginning this weekend, going off to do Meaningful Things with their lives in various parts of the country while I stay home and work at Fahnestock, and in my spare time making bread that I won't eat. I've decided that when work starts, this blog is going to take on an alternate personality called "The Fahnestock Chronicles," where I entertain my wide, wide audience with tales of my work day. "The Fahnestock Chronicles" sounds so mysterious and full of adventure, like The Chronicles of Narnia or the Spiderwick Chronicles or Whatever-Ripoff-Of-LOTR/Chronicles of Narnia/Harry Potter-Lazy-Authors-Are-Writing-These-Days-To-Capitalize-On-A-Trend-Without-Making-Any-Significant-Impact-On-Good-Children's-Literature. Unfortunately, The Fahnestock Chronicles (I'm tired of typing quotation marks, and if that bothers y'all you can go suck it) will probably veer off in very non-mysterious, non-adventurous directions. I'll try my best to be all David Sedaris in Holidays on Ice about it though. Things like "Today, someone shat on the picnic table on campsite 28," or "We found a hypodermic needle in the back bathroom this morning," or "A crazy Appalachian Trail hiker tickled my foot today while I was reading Anna Karenina in the beach booth" do offer good possibilities. It'll be my masterwork.