The Dork Lord and I have finally gotten around to investigating this wacky Mad Men show you are all so fond of. And, naturally, we are now so fond of it, too. So fond, in fact, that I stayed up way past my bed time two nights in a row during Daylight Savings Terror Week, subsequently sleeping right through my morning workouts. Only for you, Don Draper. Only for you. Oh, and also you, Joan. Because, I won’t lie. You’re a total effing knock out.

Which is not to say I never felt fireworks or butterflies. I did, and do. Real Love is full of delicious surprises, even in the middle of all the sameness. But the pining and the agony and the suffering for love baloney? I miss it all about as much as I miss my junior high gym class.  But tell that to my twenty-five-year-old self. No way. She lived for that shit. Mad, mad love. I bet, though, if you told her Real Love makes the bed every single morning while you’re at work, she’d buy in. She was foolish but not a total idiot.

It’s gorgeous out today, I’m fairly caffeinated and this afternoon, I’m headed down to Austin for my sister’s bridal shower. On top of that, I’ve finally reached the point where all of my clothes fit. All of them. I can walk in the closet and say, “Hey, I wanna wear that there article of clothing,” and then actually wear it. Without, you know, sumo squats or weeping. It’s been at least a year since that happened.

For those who were asking about the artificial sweetener thing – no, it’s not because I’m pregnant, you hesh up! I quit because, even with all of the work outs and eating properly and missing wine oh-so-much, I wasn’t really getting anywhere as far as the scale was concerned. So, I did some reading and discovered that artificial sweeteners can send your body all the wrong signals, interfering with hormone production and such and I decided I didn’t want anything to do with that. So I quit. Two weeks of real sugar in my coffee and yogurt and the pounds came right off. We’ve emptied our pantry and fridge of anything fake and it feels really satisfying. Ok. Not anything fake. I’m having a really hard time parting with my I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray. I know, I can’t believe it’s not cancer. I know, I know. BUT I LIKE MOIST TOAST. And I will employ a whole stickabuttah to achieve it. Whatever, though. The spray butter sits in the fridge right next to the organic ketchup and I’m sure that’s got to do some good. Healthy by association. Organic osmosis!

Oh, hey. I’m here. And I’m having Office Space moments at the pace of oh, about six per hour. You know that scene where the beat the ever-lovin’ hell out of a fax machine? I came scarily close to doing that to my desk phone yesterday afternoon. Instead, I gritted my teeth, developed a swell little anger headache and went home. I was asleep on the sofa in minutes and didn’t even so much as twitch for the better part of two hours. And I’m normally a thirty minute napper. See what you’re doing to me, job? SEE? Next up is eating my feelings and it’s taken me almost six months to lose the boyfriend weight, so back off! I just feel so frustrated and undervalued some days. I know we’ve all been there, but honestly, isn’t a terrible, terrible shame that we all know what that feels like?

On the brightest of the bright sides, my little sister is getting married next weekend! Oh, man I am so excited. To see her wedded. To see my family. To snorgle the babies. To have a reprieve from the daily grind. My niece doesn’t stand a chance against the Omm nomm nomm-ing that is coming her way. And I hear that my nephew now says, “Dammit,” which as we all know is a gateway swear. I’m perfectly willing to help him out with the rest of the obscenity catalog and will invest my time thusly. Swearing at seventeen months. I couldn’t be prouder.

I, for one, was afraid Friday would never happen. It was one of those weeks where I was looking for some little evil magical dude with whom to make an ill-advised deal simply to get out of my current situation. Oh, you want my firstborn, the keys to my car and the password to my bank account? DONE! Now, uh, let’s get on this straw-to-gold business. I could use a nap. But, aside from taxing, the week was a good one and I’m feeling hopeful about the future. Totally effing tired, but hopeful. And that’s not a bad place to be.

Did you know that if you “quit” artificial sweeteners, you get withdrawals? I did not. Until the night sweats (getting up to change my pj’s twice a night was awesome for the sleep quality factor) and the gnarly headaches. I read something that said the process could take as long as two weeks. Two weeks? At day two, I was ready to mainline some Splenda. All better now. If I lived in Walnut Grove, none of this would have even been necessary. Seriously, most days, I’d rather worry about bears and locusts than all my first world whiney crap. But then, what would I write about? The Long Winter’s already been taken.

“I’m still here. Snoring.”

He grinned, smacked me on the tush and headed down the stairs. I finished my mascara clean up and thought, “Whatever. I totally suck less than the dog.”