Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 5: My Food Pyramid is All -itos

Alright, so the title is pretty misleading; I actually haven't had an -ito (Dor, Frit, or the rebelliously-oddly-spelled Chee) in weeks if not months. But the class of foods so uniformly labeled as "bad" by anyone who cares about that sort of thing doesn't really have a clever label, so I went with humor over accuracy. I hope you'll forgive me.

But in the exaggeration, there is some truth. My diet (by which I mean long-term eating habits, not some hyper-restrictive list of acceptable foods which is inherently a temporary measure) is incredibly limited because of a wonderful little quirk I have. When I put food (or drink) into my gaping maw, if it doesn't taste good to me, my gag reflex responds rather forcefully. If conditions are just right, I actually will hurl. This hasn't happened in many years, mostly because I'm not fucking stupid enough to put shitty-tasting food in my mouth.

Unfortunately, this means that trying new foods is a scary proposition. All of a sudden, ordering that wonderful-sounding-but-unfamiliar dish at a restaurant turns into a nightmare in which I have to apologize to the wait staff, the hostess, the busboy, and all the other diners while simultaneously trying to look suave wiping puke off my chin. It would make for a very funny scene in a movie, if it were not actually my life.

To complicate matters, this is not just an issue of tasty/un-tasty. I also dislike strong flavors, in all foods except those I grew up eating (even in those exceptions, I find it hard to name a food with a "strong" flavor, unless that flavor is fake cheese or fried). To me, nearly all flavors are strong flavors. My taste buds are apparently hyper-sensitive (or TOTAL ASSHOLES), so something as simple as a pepper will send me fleeing from a plate. Anything remotely spicy (including normal amounts of black pepper) is completely out. Most herbs and spices are also out, which is the main thing that makes food taste like things. I dislike any and all condiments, unless you count salt. Yes, even ketchup, that thing that everyone likes (especially picky children), is horrible to me.

Think of all the genres of food you like to eat. Sushi, pizza, chinese food, wraps, frozen yogurt, paninis, burritos, vindaloo, tacos...yeah, I don't eat any of that shit. Well, that's not true...I do eat plain fried rice from chinese food places. But so help me god, if they put any fucking egg or weird stuff in there, I'm *out*. Of course, this pickiness is not just limited to take-out. Food that one might cook in one's own home is subject to the same rules. If I went through every single cookable item that I like to eat (excluding obvious analogs, like various cereals or shapes of pasta or something), I think I could make it through in about 2 weeks before I had to repeat a dish. And that's being generous and including things that only need to be heated up, like Spaghetti-os.

If you made an Amber Food Pyramid, which I so happened to make, it might look like this:
It's a bleak picture, to say the least. If I'm trying to have a healthy meal with multiple components (instead of, say, an entire box of rice-a-roni with nothing but a huge glass of milk), I end up repeating foods on almost a daily basis. I like 4 salad vegetables (iceberg lettuce, cucumbers without the peel, carrots, and lighter-colored celery....yes, four things that taste like almost nothing), plus corn. For fruit, I like pineapple and watermelon almost exclusively in terms of fresh things. I will also happily eat an apple, but only without the peel, and I'm too lazy to deal with that whole situation, so apples enter my diet in juice form only. I eat raisins, especially paired with bran, so I guess that's another fruit if we're being technical. I will drink orange juice, but I strongly prefer it paired with pineapple juice because, you guessed it, orange juice has too strong a flavor (and too much acidic pucker-factor) for me.

I think the two areas in which I enjoy the greatest variety of foods are cereals and snacks. Of course, all the cereals I like are just variations on a theme: sugar grains. Frosted Flakes is an excellent example. I love the flakes, but I mostly love them because they are frosted. Flaky Flakes wouldn't be nearly as appealing to me. So even though I can happily cruise the cereal aisle and fill a shopping cart with 20 different boxes without even nearly exhausting my options, it's really all the same thing. The snacks are more varied, since there are genres: cheesy, salty, sweet, crunchy, chewy, and so on. But really, there are two categories: sugar and salt. At least, that's how they are separated in my brain, and on my tongue.

The social and psychological consequences of this food "issue" have always been far more dramatic and pertinent for me than any health concerns. Going over a friend's house for dinner in high school was potentially traumatic. Even the super nice parents who understood my pickiness and crafted entire meals around my needs didn't make me feel better, they made me feel worse. The last thing I wanted, and the last thing I still want, is for someone to have to go out of their way because of my food psychosis. Even if the work is very limited, and even if it's something I wouldn't think twice about doing for someone else, I feel incredibly self-conscious and guilty that they had to make special food because of me. If you don't understand what I mean when you read that, I don't know that you ever will.

Even when I was really young, it was obvious that this was going to be an obstacle for me. You see, I don't like pizza. I've tried it, twice actually, just to make sure I wasn't just trying shitty pizza. I don't mind the flavors....in fact, pizza smells great to me and I'm happy to be around it when people order it. But all that cheese...blech. That texture is just too much for me. And yes, I know, I could get a pizza without cheese like the vegans do, but that seems a) stupid and b) depressing. Anyway, as you might imagine, this pizza problem was rather unfortunate for a young child, considering every fucking birthday party and child-filled gathering on fucking EARTH is a pizza party. Seven-year-olds are not quite as polite or forgiving as adults when it comes to food quirks, so I've heard "why aren't you eating? Don't you like it? Everyone likes it." more than once. Though, to be fair, as a 27-year-old, I still regularly get "you don't like pizza?!?!??!" from people my age and older, so I guess it's not just kids that do that. (Oh, and replace the word "pizza" in this paragraph with the word "bread", and it's the same thing.)

You know those commercials for bladder medications with anxious, paranoid people trying to find bathrooms in public places because they gotta-go-right-now? That's how food is for me basically whenever I leave the house. It's not that I'm always hungry or that my hunger is unpredictable like an overactive bladder...but, if I don't know where food is and how I can get it, I'm nervous. I have never traveled internationally (well, okay, I went to Toronto on a music trip in high school, but they still had a McDonalds), and even if I had the money and time to do so, I don't know if I would. I don't want to sample the local cuisine and wander around a new city. That sounds fucking terrifying and awful to me. If I go somewhere in unfamiliar territory, I start harassing people to plan the next meal well before I'm actually hungry, because I'm relying on other people to get me to acceptable food. Before Dan and I were even close to booking the cruise that we're taking in 2 days (w00t), I thoroughly researched the food on the cruise line and specific ship we're taking to make sure that I would be taken care of. It requires a lot of time and energy to be this picky about food, and I'm much happier when I have total control over my own food and all variables can be accounted for.

But even when that's the case and I'm in the green, food-wise, it's still difficult to stay healthy. Yeah, I take a multivitamin to help make up for all the nutrients I'm short on. But in terms of eating things that are beneficial to my body more than they are harmful, well that restricts my already-small list of foods down to a truly pathetic number of items. Even many of the things which I consider to be better-than, if not great, still have their draw-backs. For example, I like white rice....a lot. It tastes like nothing, basically, and with a little margarine and salt, it's a lovely side dish. But the nutritional profile of white rice is basically empty calories. It's like drinking a soda. There is almost no nutritional benefit except taking in carbs with basically no nutrients and no protein. Of course, whole grain rice is chock full of nutrients, but if I liked whole grain rice, then I'd fucking eat it, wouldn't I?

This is the story with lots of other foods. I drink 1% milk like it's going out of style, which is great, except for two minor issues. Yes, it's low in fat and high in calcium and vitamin D, and full of protein. All of that is great. But milk also has significant levels of sugar (lactose, from galactose and glucose) and salt. Of course, these are naturally-occurring parts of animal products, and MUCH healthier for you than the processed, added sugars and salts in shelf-stable prepackaged foods. But if I'm trying to reduce my sugar and sodium numbers, milk is fighting against me, not with me. Even if the stuff I'm getting from milk is "better" sugar or "better" salt, it's not like they cease to exist or don't need to be processed after I ingest them. So if I have a cup of milk in my cereal (which I drink at the end, of course....how else am I supposed to take the vitamin?), a large glass of milk with lunch (2 cups) and a large glass of milk with dinner (2 cups), that's more than a quarter of my calories for the day (mind you, this is only the supplementary beverage!), more than a third of my daily sodium, and a stunning 141% of my daily sugar. I don't care how natural and good and healthy the sugar in milk is....it's still too much. So yes, even milk is an asshole.

I could go on about individual foods for pages and pages. Frankly, unless you're talking raw veggies, basically all food has some horrifying drawback. Fruit has too much sugar (again, the "good" sugar), and if it's in juice or otherwise prepared/canned/packaged, it probably has added refined sugar too. All grains, whole or otherwise, have been assassinated by Atkins and his cult of grumpy, tired, constipated followers (or, more accurately, people who misunderstand the phases and ultimate goals of low-carb diets, and just know that "you can't eat bread"). Almost all proteins (i.e. animals) are moderately high in fat, depending on which animals we're talking about and which cuts you're eating. A big fatty steak is certainly a long way from skinless chicken breast, but the vast majority of meats are relatively fatty and are supposed to be consumed in moderation. Dairy is also usually fatty, with the fat content directly proportional to the deliciousness. I prefer 1% milk, and I don't eat much cheese, so this isn't a huge problem for me, but most dairy is still considered a treacherous food...sure, it'll provide you with wonderful vitamins and nutrients, but look out, it's trying to fatten you up! Oh, and there's a whole category of foods like soy and tofu and legumes and shit, but I don't eat those, so I'm going to ignore the lot of them, you patchouli-smelling motherfucker.

So here I am, about two or three hours out from having eaten breakfast, and I'm already starting to plan lunch. I could eat a chicken breast, a hamburger (no toppings and no bun), white rice, egg noodles, or pasta with red sauce. Those choices are the same for dinner tonight, and lunch and dinner tomorrow. These have also been the choices all week. No wonder I used to get take-out once or twice a week and get fast food for lunch at work. What a fucking boring, tiny list. But of course, the suggestions to expand and vary this list are all lost on me. "For a fun switcheroo, why not have spaghetti squash instead of pasta?" "Try preparing your chicken breast in a tasty veggie stir-fry for a healthy addition of flavor!" "For a protein-rich, low-fat alternative to skinless chicken breasts, go for trout or salmon." No, thanks.

I don't know that there's really an answer to this rather convoluted quandary. I have genuinely considered seeking counseling and/or hypnosis in order to get to a point where I am okay trying new foods, or at least comfortable eating foods I don't love. But I don't know if that's physically possible. My taste buds are so over-sensitive and my gag reflex is so strong (I gag every time I brush my teeth....so, yeah), I don't know if I'll ever be able to chew, swallow, and digest a food I don't like the taste of. It's such a simple thing that it seems everyone else is capable of. "I don't really like it, but I'm hungry, so I'm going to eat it." It's such a foreign, crazy concept to me, and yet so useful. If I were born in the 1930s, I would have starved as soon as I got off the teat. "Old bread? It smells bad, I don't like it. Potato soup? It smells bad, I don't like it. Eggs? It smells bad, I don't like it."

It kind of disheartening, knowing how little I control of my own body in this regard. I can't "make" myself eat, say, alfredo sauce. I will puke. It smells awful to me, and even being near it makes it hard for me to want to eat even my own food. Why is fettuccine alfredo stronger than me? How can it, and so many other foods, so easily defeat me? It's frustrating, to put it mildly. And unfortunately, I don't really know any other adults who are in this boat with me. I do know a few picky eaters, with whom I have bonded over our shared food eccentricities, but those people almost universally have staple foods that socially include them rather than exclude them. They love breads (sandwiches, subs, etc.), pizza, and beer. I don't. And I can see it affecting the people closest to me. Dan hasn't gone out for "ethnic" food since...god, I have no idea. Yeah, he could go by himself, but that's lame and sad. We go to Sunset Cantina/Grille more often than almost anywhere else because they have such a huge menu that he can have the variety he wants while I can get chicken fingers and curly fries every goddamned time. When a large group of people gathers for food, I am the limiting reactant, in chemistry terms. In those cases, you're only as well-fed as your weakest link, and I'm definitely the weakest culinary link.

Hilariously enough, a book I've been reading lately emphasizes viewing food as a source of sustenance and not something to be obsessed over or regulated every second of every day. It talks about developing a healthy relationship with food that is not so lackadaisical that you eat whatever you want all the time regardless of nutritional value but not so restrictive or obsessive that you count every calorie every day for the rest of your life or make ridiculous claims like "I will never have another piece of chocolate ever." Basically, the mantra would be something like, "Food gives my body energy to function, and I should do my best to choose foods that do the best job at that, but I should also allow myself to vary my foods and eat things that sacrifice some of that efficiency for other tangible things like flavor and enjoyment." Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Hmph.

Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 4: Battling Unexpected Negativity

I mentioned in an earlier post (more like fixated on) how much easier it would be to stick with a fitness plan if I were totally isolated. Living, eating, and existing in solitude would make for a lonely life, but I would essentially only have to face one struggle: me versus me.

In recent days, I have found myself encountering an unexpected foe: Dan. I'm not talking about the "oh, he likes to be sedentary" stuff, where his natural state is counterproductive for my rejuvenated ("You hear that? Rejuvenated. He was juvenated before, lost it...and got juvenated again. Rejuvenated!") enthusiasm for a healthier lifestyle. And it's not as though he's secretly switching out my 1% milk for whole, or fucking with my scale's calibration...nothing nearly that intentional or direct. In fact, what he is doing, he probably doesn't even realize. Dan has never been extremely conscious of the emotional effects of his words and actions (look for my next investigative series: Is Dan a Cylon?), and it always seems to confuse him when I tell him that something he did made me upset. In fact, on those relatively rare occasions, he gets defensive and takes the (unstated) position that essentially any negative reaction I am having is either a misplacement of feelings or an overreaction, or a combination of the two. It's a pretty good mindfuck, and I'm 90% sure he doesn't realize he's doing it. If it is a coping mechanism to help him deal with people who are inherently more emotional than he is, which I think it is, it's hard for me to think of a more subtly damaging one.

But I digress. Now, Dan would have to be blind, deaf, and mostly retarded not to have noticed how much I've been exercising in the last month or so, and how much I've been using the food scale for that matter. He's working his normal schedule and I'm at home, so he doesn't often see the work being done, but when he asks what I did that day, I tell him, including any exercise. So he knows. Let me relate to you a brief exchange we had (paraphrased). For reference, the cruise I refer to leaves on August 14th, and this conversation took place around July 27th or so.

Amber: I'm trying to work out and do as much as I can before the cruise.
Dan: *sour face* Isn't that kind of...like...isn't is not going to really matter? Since the cruise is so soon?
Amber: *momentary surprised silence* Yeah, well, isn't that kind of go fuck yourself?
Dan: *arches eyebrows, walks away confused*

Of course I understand what Dan is saying. My clothing size is not going to change drastically over the course of fewer than 20 days. Even if I tried some extreme diet plan and never got off the elliptical, I would still only drop like 10 pounds, which would be unhealthy for such a short amount of time (unless we're talking water weight or something). So I understand where he is coming from. Objectively, unsentimentally, technically, he makes a good point. Working out and eating right for a little over two weeks, in the long run, is not going to have a huge effect all by itself. In order to see the kind of changes I want to see, I would need to maintain this for 6 months or more, and that's just to lose the weight initially; to keep it off, I would have to incorporate many of these habits into my life everyday forever. What's 2 weeks in the scheme of forever?

What Dan didn't understand, and probably still doesn't, is that a lot of the work I've been doing recently has been mental and emotional. Getting myself into the mindset of long term health and forming healthy habits. Working on the emotional eating side of the issue and trying to extricate my biological needs/urges from things like "yay for good news, I want chocolate!" and "oh no, bad news, I want chocolate!" Making my health and wellness (which right now almost exclusively means weight loss and proper nutrition for a more active lifestyle) the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about before bed has been difficult, and it's a big change for me, and not without its challenges.

I have been, almost always successfully, fighting back against all the pessimistic, negative, hurtful things I think to myself when I think about losing weight. I'll never get to a healthy weight. My metabolism won't let that happen. If I don't start dropping pounds soon, I'm not going to have the willpower to stick with this. I'm not going to have time for this when school starts back up. Keeping "skinny clothes" around in the closet isn't a symbol of hope, it's a reminder of repeated failure. I'll never fit into that awesome bomber jacket I bought on sale despite it being a size too small. Nobody is going to want to see me in a bikini on the cruise, and I don't particularly want to be seen in one. It's so pathetic that most naturally-skinny people would cry if they had to go up to a size 10, but I've got size 10 shorts hung up as my goal. By the time I lose any significant amount of weight, assuming I do, it's going to be winter and I'll be wearing big bulky clothes anyway, so it won't mean as much to be thinner. Losing weight will mean losing boob fat, which means I'll go down a cup size; my boobs are the only thing I like about my body right now. I'm going to have to work against this my entire life, and I don't know if I can do it.

I could go on like this for pages. I know you know I could.

But when these thoughts crop up, I eat some veggies. Or put in TurboJam (I know I bring it up a lot...it really is that good. Come over sometime with your yoga pants and I'll indoctrinate you). Or write a blog post. Or meditate. Or go for a walk. Anything except put in a movie and eat junk food, which is my default response. I have been working very, very hard to identify the sources of these feelings, work through them, and find healthy responses to them. It has been incredibly challenging.

So then when Dan says what I've been trying NOT to think for the last month, it kind of fucking destroys my soul. To hear my own venomous negativity come out of his mouth, in a matter-of-fact, amused-by-my-naivete tone...it's hard to explain the effect of that. The hardest part to reconcile is that I know he wants me to be healthier. He has never been judgmental or negative about my weight in terms of attractiveness or anything (though, when I bring it up first, he does carefully say that he wants me to be a healthy weight so that I don't have a heart attack when I'm 32...at least he goes with tact on that one). He has only ever wavered between supportive-but-not-that-helpful and oblivious.

So in order to put his reaction in our conversation into the same person who wants nothing but the best for me, I have to fill in the blanks with some rather unsettling and/or disappointing assumptions. Maybe he doesn't understand that his objectivity came through as negativity. Maybe he doesn't understand that there is an emotional component to my weight. Maybe he thinks my effort is temporary (which wouldn't be unwarranted) and thinks I'm being foolish to expect results in the short term. Maybe he doesn't think I can do it. I don't know. But I don't want any of those "maybes" to be true, because none of them paint him in a particularly good light.

A more amusing but similarly demonstrative exchange occurred last night, when a friend of mine responded to my "hang out?" inquiry. He was already with another mutual friend of ours and they were planning to go out for dinner. He asked if I wanted to join, and I told him that I was trying not to go out to eat as much and that maybe we could hang out after. He said okay. After dinner, he texted me to see if I wanted to join them for JP Licks.

Sigh.

Even if I begged off earlier because of money and not nutrition, JP Licks is like the most expensive fucking ice cream around (okay, maybe not as bad as Coldstone, but at least those bitches will put a whole Kit-Kat in there). Yeah, $7 is less than I would have paid at dinner, but it's still more than I paid for the ice cream in my own freezer that I still haven't eaten. They ended up skipping JP Licks altogether (you're welcome) and coming over to hang out, but by then it was like 10pm, and my normal bedtime is between 11 and 12. Not the most comforting social experience when I'm trying to believe that my new goals won't interfere with my friendships.

While the aforementioned friends were at dinner, I expressed my sadness to Dan that all anyone ever wanted to do socially was go out to eat. He asked, again matter-of-factly, "what else is there to do?" I wanted to shake him and cry, "Are you fucking serious?!?" but I didn't want to put myself out there, not after his comment the other day. My friend Jen came over Tuesday and Thursday of this week. We went on a walk both times, did TurboJam both times, then parted so we could each rinse off the unattractive sheen of sweat we had acquired. At neither occasion did one of us suggest going out to eat. Or ordering in. Or even eating the junk food already present. To answer Dan's question, here are all the things I can think of off the top of my head that I'd like to do: go to the movies, watch a movie at home, lay on a blanket outside and read, go to the beach, go to a pool, go to an amusement park, go to a water park, go to a state park, drive someplace and look at the stars at night (I have mentioned this desire to him many times yet we have never gone; I am psyched to be able to do this in the middle of the ocean on the cruise), window shop at the mall, take a class (there are too many subjects I'm interested in to name them here), or just sit around and talk. None of these activities necessitates a meal. None. Some of them would probably last long enough that we'd have to eat, but the eating is not the center of the activity, nor is it the purpose for gathering. Yet Dan, and apparently most of my other friends, find it impossible to think of just one thing that doesn't involve shoving fried food into our faces. (And yes, it has to be junk food. If you don't already know about my weird pickiness issues, look for the next episode.)

I hesitate to talk to Dan about this for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I have great difficulty initiating uncomfortable conversations (or, at least, ones I presume will be uncomfortable) and I would honestly rather not talk about something than have a painful conversation about it. It's not a healthy way to approach communication and it's not going to strengthen our relationship by any means, but in my head, I would rather live with tension for days than have a 20-minute conversation where someone might get mad. God forbid. Additionally, I have not had mainly positive results when approaching Dan with the aforementioned types of conversations. Of course, there are many factors in this issue (the nature of the conversations being negative to begin with, how I approach Dan/how he perceives it, et al), but honestly, Dan's own communication and interrelation issues make it very difficult to approach him about things because, well, he does get mad, or at the very least, extremely defensive. He sees disagreements as things one wins or loses, not things that people work out together to a mutually satisfying conclusion. I think he is so uncomfortable with the feeling of being in the wrong (whether he is being "accused" or "blamed", or if he just feels that way) that he allows his perceptions and feelings to become tangible "evidence" that he uses to make a case for whatever we're discussing. I don't think anyone has ever accused Dan of being too ready to compromise or not interested enough in arguing, so I don't think he'd disagree with me entirely on these points.

Where was I? Ah, yes. Another reason I don't bring this shit up with him is that I worry about the fallout. I doubt anything obvious and certainly not anything disastrous would come from such conversations. But I do worry about Dan talking to me awkwardly and being unsure how to proceed, trying to insert himself into my wellness goals without really understanding them and certainly not joining them for his own health, or avoiding talking about any of it altogether in order to avoid hurting my feelings accidentally. If all my meals are designed for a specific purpose, and my activities are altered and scheduled for that same purpose, how does one have an open and communicative relationship while not incorporating the reality of those changes? It's like the Dursleys trying to talk to Harry about Hogwarts and Voldemort without mentioning magic.

Finally, and perhaps most abstractly, I worry that Dan will never really be able to get me. What I mean is that....I am, sometimes unknowingly/unwittingly, a total participant in everything around me. I empathize with people unintentionally. When I'm talking to someone (or watching someone in a movie) who's making a sad face, I make a sad face. I don't do it on purpose. I automatically put myself in that person's shoes, and then I express what I imagine they are feeling. I don't mirror their expressions; it's not quite so autistic. I'm not aping, exactly. It seems like I feel everything, I have to relate to people on that level. I've never had any difficulty taking another's perspective or imagining the reactions of others to different situations; I always do it. When I see someone ahead of me trying to get on the T and they're fumbling with their bag, trying to find their T pass, I realize that the driver must see this all the time and get annoyed that people didn't extricate their passes when they saw the T coming. I assume that they must hate it, so I do too. I do the same thing in basically every situation I'm in. It can be exhausting, but it's how I interact with the world. It's also why I cry when I watch sad movies. It's not that the situations are sad, which does pull at my heartstrings, but it's that the characters are sad. If they start to cry, I'm done for. Music does the same thing. I can be profoundly affected by music in a way that is sometimes embarrassing (if only internally, since this is not something I share often). If a singer sings a mournful tune, or even if an instrument plays something sad (in D-minor, for instance, which is the saddest of all keys), I feel that. Deeply and completely.

So interacting with Dan, who seems so numb to everything, especially compared to how I feel, is pretty challenging. Food isn't an emotional issue to him because very few things qualify as emotional issues for him. It's not that he can't feel or anything; I've seen him be sad, frustrated, joyful, excited, nervous, and all the other things one would expect to see in someone. But if his emotional state were a number line, he would rarely stray very far from the zero in the center. He is even almost all the time. I don't know if it's a strength that things don't "get to him" or if it's a weakness that he's so closed off. Maybe it's both, or neither.

But I do know that this gulf between how we each operate can make communicating about emotional issues incredibly challenging. I can't expect him to empathize with me or feel what I'm feeling, nor can he expect me to be objective or to "take myself out of the situation". I'm in it, that's the deal. It's like we're shouting at each other from two distant mountain peaks, both eager to communicate but also frustrated with the other person for not yelling loud enough.

It's hard for Dan to understand this, I think. Much like it would be hard for him to understand how a very specific moment (our conversation about my cruise-related exercise) really represents a piece of a whole host of other intertwined and messy issues that are much larger than this conversation (and yet, the conversation is still important to address specifically). I suspect it would also be hard for him to understand that this post isn't really about him. It is, but it isn't. That's why I'm not announcing this post via social networking. If someone wants to read it, that's all well and fine, but the main point of all this was the writing. The publishing gives a sense of accomplishment and purpose, yes, but frankly my darlings, this one is for me, not you.

I'm tired. It's past midnight now. Dan's already in bed, as rare as it is for him to beat me to it. I don't this post is a very good piece of writing, but I also don't think it needs to be. It was helpful to write it. I hope I still feel that in the morning.

Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 3: Working Around the Stupid Bullshit (i.e. Life)

It has become exceptionally clear to me that I will pounce upon any and every opportunity to be healthtarded that presents itself. This impulse is served by both internal and external forces. Internal forces are difficult to ignore (c'mon me, let's do that thing we love - nothing!) but also have the fewest consequences when they are ignored (fuck you, me...I'm going to do something, with or without you!). External forces, like life, are a little trickier. They are also difficult to ignore, but unlike the internal forces, sometimes shit actually happens depending on what a person does.

For example, this past weekend we had Dan's sister and her family over. She has a 3-year-old son, so whenever he is involved in any plans, we basically just try to keep up and prevent him from accidentally killing himself every two minutes. He is of the rare ilk that cannot often bear to sit in front of the television for long periods or otherwise be stationary. He requires movement, and more importantly, he requires being outside. It was 92 degrees out this Saturday, but goddammit, this kid wanted to be outside. He has no concept of heat stroke or, you know, death, so he fidgeted endlessly while his mother sunscreen'd him, then proceeded to work his way through a huge playground like I work my way through a plate of rice-a-roni. Thankfully, when we had spent over an hour at the park and his naptime was approaching, he did not throw a shit-fit when we left the playground, and we happily returned to the house, where we watched some of Cars and waited for the child to finish his tiny servings of various random foods (this kid is about as picky an eater as I am, which would be amazing, except he's 3, so that shit is normal). When he finally fell asleep, we had about two hours to kill before he would require us to go do more things.

These two hours could have been spent doing anything in the house that didn't make noise. I could have easily stolen away to hop on the elliptical and listen to my amazing workout jams via headphones without disturbing anyone. I could have done some high-intensity (but nearly stationary) ab work. Shit, the kid's not mine, I could have left the house and gone for a very, very sweaty walk. But instead, I did what everyone else did: I rested. I engaged in conversation not based on repeating a three-year-old's observations of the world around him, watched some programming not appropriate for children, and ate the grown-up lunch. I knew that from about 4pm to 8pm, I would be on again, and I would need all the energy I could muster. So I rested. That evening, after the child had rather maturely announced that he was tired, so we should pause Cars and finish it in the morning (I shit you not, he clearly and casually stated this intention, then marched into the bedroom...it was fucking hilarious), the events of his nap time pretty much continued into the evening. We watched a movie, talked, and eventually I read a little Harry Potter and went to sleep. The next day, we did the same shit again, only after the family left in the afternoon, I was basically comatose for the rest of the evening. I had no plans, no requirements, no commitments, nothing. I sat, laid, and plopped. Not necessarily in that order.

Now with an entire day of retrospect, I can still say that I was not overestimating how absolutely exhausted I was by the end of the whirlwind 30-hour visit. But I look back at the activities and I wonder why the hell I was so tired. On Saturday, I stood in the shade at the park with my desperately-panting dogs. That evening, I went to the library and colored. Sunday morning, I slowly walked around the Museum of Science. There was no triathlon to be run, just some casual family activities. Granted, I'm not used to trucking around my ass trying to keep up with the ADHD-like behavior of a toddler, but it really wasn't that difficult. In fact, I enjoyed all of it and was happy throughout.

But examining things closer, it becomes all too clear where my exhaustion came from. It wasn't that I was tired from being active; I was tired from being social. Interacting with other humans is so incredibly tiring for me, you would not fucking believe it. I can't really explain why, nor can I justify why a small list of people do not make me tired when they're around (these are, naturally, those closest to me). I don't know why it's so difficult for me to just be with people. It's fucking exhausting. If I know that I have social plans on a Saturday, I will consciously avoid making plans Friday night, just because I know I can't book back to back like that. It doesn't work for me. Even if the two events are inherently different - say, a family dinner for one and some friends at the movies for the other - I still feel so drained after the first event that I find it difficult to power through the second.

Thankfully, a few things are exempt from this. Work doesn't count. The structures of my job and the blessed ability to isolate outside of class time make it easy to recharge in small bursts, and teaching actually energizes me as opposed to drains me. Of course, there are plenty of instances in and around teaching that are huge energy sinks, but the actual instruction, collaboration, and discussion-leadership in teaching is a source of energy for me. So work doesn't tire me out. But basically everything else where I'm interacting with people does. Which kind of sucks.

Dan loves being social. He doesn't need it desperately, but he truly enjoys it, much like I imagine most normal humans do. If he doesn't leave the house for an entire day, he gets cabin fever pretty acutely. I don't understand this feeling, nor does he understand how I can stay inside literally all day and be fine (happy, even). Now I know where his nephew gets it from.

The problem with being exhausted from extended social circumstances is that they happen all the time. That's life, son. It's much easier for me to get into exercise and push myself to do work or get moving if I'm isolated. When I have social commitments scattered throughout my schedule, those become my periods of activity, and I use the remaining free time to recover from the social events. If I go out to lunch with friends on a Saturday, I am much more likely to nap, watch a movie, and/or sit around on the computer for the rest of the evening than I am to suggest going out again or even just being active around the house. I went out; I'm tired. That's how that shit works.

There is another insidious feature of social engagements that I've mentioned briefly before: everyone, myself included, always needs to eat shitty food when we get together. Hey, want to grab lunch this week? Why don't we make a date for that restaurant we both love? Why don't we go celebrate by horking down 1000 calories? No one ever offers to bring offer a nice salad or to join me in preparing a delicious home-cooked meal. That shit does not happen, ever. People do that at home, if ever, so when they go see friends, they want to use that time to indulge. Which makes sense. Unfortunately, it adds up pretty quickly if you have more than two friends, which I'd like to think I do.

I'll give you an example. Tuesday of last week, I had a chicken finger date with two friends of mine. We met up at Kelly's Roast Beef. It was fucking delicious. I got the kid's meal, but it doesn't matter, it's still pretty bad for you. Then, Thursday of the same week, I made plans to meet up with another friend; she suggested going out for lunch, but I talked her down to coffee. I don't even drink coffee, but a "cold beverage on a hot fucking day date" sounds a little geh. I had a Coke, which isn't the worst thing in the world, especially compared to another bout of Chicken Finger Influenza (tastiest. illness. ever.), but it's still a soda I wouldn't have had if I had stayed home. By myself. Like a healthy person...right?

Then we get to the weekend. Dan's family arrived Saturday morning and left Sunday afternoon. In that time, we managed to order in chinese food, italian (for me, chicken fingers, of course), and then BBQ (fried chicken for me, of course). We could have prepared food at the house, but again, that's the shit you do in your own domicile. They don't come to Boston very often, so we all felt the impulse to eat our way through many restaurants, some favorites and some new experiences. So we did. I did what I could with the meals I selected (ate smaller portions, took the skin off the fried chicken, drank milk or Pepsi Max instead of full-calorie soda) but I was still doing the exact fucking opposite of everything I've been running my mouth about. So when they left on Sunday and all I could bear to do was rest some more, I (understandably, I think), felt rather shitty about myself and did not have a very positive start to the week.

But this is the bullshit that happens all the time. And if I can't find a way to deal with it, then I lose. I lose at whatever this thing is I'm trying to do. As much as part of me would enjoy being the fitness-nut hermit that lives on a craggy mountain precipice, I know that it's not plausible nor healthy to isolate myself to the point of becoming asocial. I like these people whom I choose to see, which is why I choose to see them, so I have to find a way to incorporate the social element into the life I want to be living. If it's hard to do this shit with just Dan around, how the fuck am I supposed to make it so that my entire social circle is on board with my fitness and wellbeing goals? "Oh, I'm sorry guys, I can't go out to eat for another two weeks because of my eating plan. Do you want to go for a walk instead? I have Slim Fast snack bars in the cabinet for when we get baa-a-a-a-ack!"

On a side note, the Double Dutch Chocolate ones are actually really good. They're not candy bars - let's not be rediculos - but they're pretty good.

But yeah, it's hard to figure out how to be social and not derail all the shit I'm trying to do. Of course, as a friend-of-my-brother's-and-former-childhood-tormentor-turned-facebook-friend pointed out to me, it's not all or nothing. You can't approach this shit with the black-or-white mindset, because that sets you up to fail. Going to Kelly's last week didn't "ruin" anything. Ordering out this whole weekend, while unwise, didn't "ruin" anything either. They were negatives that should be accounted for in other ways, like other meals being healthier or workouts being harder/longer. But to determine how to make the negatives be less common...that's a tricky one. And it's something I'm still working on.

I'd probably write more, but Gus has been slowly working his way into a position that makes it very difficult to type. His body is against my leg with his entire head wrapped around the side of my monitor so that I have to move the Firefox window just to be able to see what I'm typing. He is looking soulfully into my eyes as I write this. Okay...he can haz attenshunz. Night all.

Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 2: Living with a Skinny Kid

First off, thanks to the people who actually contacted me personally after reading my last post. Who would have thought you could use the internet to connect with people?

Today I'd like to talk about an issue that has become increasingly pressing over the last year. As many of you know, Dan and I bought a condo last year and moved in together at the beginning of last summer. For the most part, it's been a lovely journey through commitment-ville and relationship-town, and we actually get along rather well, which I suppose is important if you're going to cohabitate.

If you have had the incredible misfortune of never having met Dan, he's basically a super tall Harry Potter. He's like 6'3" or some preposterous height, he wears glasses, he's got brown hair...all he's missing is a lightning bolt scar and Ralph Fiennes as a mortal enemy. Anyway, for all that vertical mass, he's like 165 pounds (for reference, this puts him on the lower end of the "healthy" weight range, if we're talking BMI).

The problem here is that Dan has all the same shitty habits that I do, but for whatever reason, his body reacts by ignoring all the calories and inactivity, and just kinda...staying skinny. It's not that he eats a lot, he just eats incredibly bad food. He has bread for entire meals on a relatively regular basis, eats snacks before dinner when he gets home from work, and spends every waking moment either on the couch or in front of the computer (and this is after being at a computer at work all day). The most vigorous physical activity I've ever seen him do is play pool. He will admit, so I don't feel bad stating it publicly, that he is a truly, impressively lazy person. This, of course, means that he is not at all muscular, but I don't think he really minds that.

So, basically, I have a partner in crime who will eat junk food and order out for wings and stay on the couch with me watching Firefly allllll day, except I will gain five pounds and he will go on looking exactly the same. And don't get me wrong...this isn't an "it's not fair" kind of thing. Different people have different metabolisms and reactions to food; shit happens. His mom's relatives all pretty much look like Dan: taller than average, skinnier than average. My family...well, my size is not a surprise to anyone who has met my family. I'm not bitter about my genetic profile versus Dan's. It's just how it is.

No, instead it has simply become increasingly apparent how unhealthy our household dynamic is. I don't have enough passion and strength to cry, "no! I will NOT get T. Anthony's with you!" because, well, T. Anthony's was probably my idea, and I tend to get rather grumpy when having to make food decisions (as many of you are all too aware). And I like eating dinner with Dan, but my incredibly limited palate (again, another issue for another day) means that we only really have like 5 meals in common, which get old pretty fast. I love pasta with red sauce, but how many times a week can you have that before you go crazy? Keep in mind, too, that I'm making my own lunches now that I'm home for the summer, so I'm getting sick of all my food options twice as quickly as normal.

I tried to involve Dan, at his request, in my weight loss goals some years ago. We had a particularly emotional conversation wherein I essentially told him that feeling fat and horrible makes me not want to bone. Well that got him invested, let me tell you. Unfortunately, and not that it's his fault, Dan doesn't really know how to provide support in the way that I need. I don't like being policed and monitored, so having him watch me look at food in the cabinet was not working for me. He's one of those objective, left-brain people I addressed in my last post, so it's hard for him to understand the emotional, subjective side of this whole issue. He can identify the issues, project possible solutions, and create action plans to implement those solutions. He does that all day at work. But that's not really what I need, so at this point, he is on the outside looking in, wondering WTF is going on when one day I'm working out for two hours and the next I'm eating french fries.

Maybe if he were a picky eater with weight issues and bad knees who wanted to shed a few pounds, then we could work together. But he's not a picky eater, and he doesn't want to lose weight. So basically, we're doing two different things and if I'm going to make any progress, we have to be living two different lifestyles. Which sucks, because we live together and like spending time together. And unless I want to start preparing elaborate healthy meals for us every night, we're going to end up eating separately almost all the time, because half the meals we both enjoy come in styrofoam boxes. That makes me kind of sad.

But at the same time, it's not fair to me if all of the things he likes to do are actually hurting me. I like doing them too, which is why we do them together, but I also like going for walks. And shit, I even like doing Turbo Jam, despite the fact that it kicks my ass. I'm one of those people who gets delightful endorphin rushes from exercising (I know everyone is supposed to feel that way, but most people I know feel like puking, or napping, or eating after exercise); that's one reason why it's even sadder that I'm still fat. I like physical activity. But I also like sitting around. And Dan does, too. So we do that together. And it ain't healthy. Really, it's bad for both of us; just because he's skinny doesn't mean he's in shape. But I'm not the boss of him and it's not my job to keep him healthy. I have enough to worry about with my own body.

I suppose I could try to get him to exercise with me, but I know he wouldn't want to and wouldn't enjoy it. The Venn diagram of foods that we both like and foods that are healthy would basically just be two distinct circles, so a shared healthy menu is out, too. If all of our meals and all of our activities are different, then did he just become my roommate? Blech, this sucks. Stupid skinny kid.

Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 1: What a (Fat) Girl Wants

Hi, my name is Amber, and I'm a fat girl.

Hi Amber.

And yeah, I said it..."fat." People act like that word is the n-word of body shapes. Euphemisms may make people feel better (I could be husky, plump, curvy, heavy, big, or whatever else) but as any writer will tell you, often the simplest words are the best. Those same writers (and Billy Crystal in Throw Momma From the Train) will say that you should write what you know. Well, this I know.

I've been fat for almost as long as I can remember. I wasn't one of those 70-pound kindergartners who ends up in background shots for news stories about childhood obesity, but by middle school I had started plumping up like baking bread. Coincidentally, that was around the time I discovered that Mountain Dew and Doritos were FUCKING AWESOME.

Since then, it's been a steady rise with a few brief excursions down to "not as fat" land. By the start of college, I was in the 170s. I actually lost weight my freshman year because Nico and I occasionally dragged each other down to Case Gym at 8am to zone out on a recumbent bike for a half hour before our 10am classes (Jesus Christ, just typing that reminds me how fucking awesome college was. 10am is the start of the day? Holy hell.). Given that I'm barely 5'4", I should be between 110 and 145 lbs, give or take (though I seriously doubt I'd look normal at 110lbs). Right now I'm around 193, with a BMI over 30. As the Wii Fit so cheerfully tells me every time I do the body test, "that's obese!" Optimistically speaking, I need to lose about 50 pounds. That's a lot.

That's not to say that 193 is the heaviest I've ever been, though; for a good portion of the last 12-18 months, I've been between 195 and 198. To most, the difference between 193 and 198 may not seem like much. But 193 is basically 190, and 198 is basically 200. Remember the episode of Sex & the City where they talked about their scary ages? Well aging doesn't scare me. I'm comfortable being 27, and I'm fine with the looming spectre of 30. Treating time like an enemy doesn't go well for people. But 200 pounds is my scary weight. For whatever reason, if I hit 200 pounds, the world fucking ends. So when I got on a scale after a long estrangement and saw the unforgiving digital read-out pop up 198.2lbs, something happened. The high E string broke. Twwwiiiing!

If I had started consistently exercising and eating better at that point, well, I certainly wouldn't be writing this post, would I? "But Amber," you say to your computer screen, "if you freaked out when you saw your weight and you're not functionally retarded, why didn't you just do what you needed to do and get down to a healthier weight? You know what to do and you have the means with which to do it, so what gives?"

That's the question, dear friends. For anyone who's never been a fat kid, it probably doesn't make sense. This must be especially perplexing for you left-brain people out there. And trust me, I know. Objectively, anyone who is medically capable of losing weight and is able to exercise should be able to trim down. This is especially true if the person has the means to afford fresh food, the desire to be skinnier, and an unparalleled passion for raw cucumber. Why the hell wouldn't this person already be at a healthy weight, much less be actively remaining fat?

Remember what I said before about the Mountain Dew and Doritos? Well, that goes for a lot of other things too. The things that make you fat are FUCKING AWESOME. Sitting on the couch all day is awesome. Chinese food is awesome. Those little Dove squares with the "indulgent"-type sayings printed on the inside of the wrapper are awesome. I had one after lunch today. It was fucking delicious. It is genuinely difficult for me not to go get another one (or 8) right now, knowing that they are freely available in the kitchen. I'm not hungry, I just want one.

And this is the real crux of the problem, at least for me. All the positive visualization, Excel spreadsheets, and determination in the world don't make me not want chocolate. Or soda. Or chicken fingers, god I fucking love chicken fingers. I actually have a date to go eat chicken fingers tomorrow. At like 3 in the afternoon. I don't even know what meal that is. But I'm already pretty excited.

I digress. The point is, I still want all the bad food and the bad habits. I enjoy them, on a very basic and fundamental level. Fried foods = happiness. Sedentary lifestyle = happiness. Chocolate = happiness. Like many children in the 80s, I was rewarded for accomplishments with a trip to McDonalds. The kids' meals are appropriately named. Those meals did genuinely make me happy. But, like some children of the 80s, I continued to equate food with happiness, and not often the healthiest food either. Sure, veggies make me happy too, but they're not exactly filling or readily available on the go (that's a whole 'nother topic for a whole 'nother day).

So now that I've got 20+ years of emotional dependence on food under my belt (har har), I find it a bit difficult to decide to stop eating fried foods, for example. I can decide to keep less of it in the house, which does work in some short term situations, but I'm a grown-ass woman now. I can just go to the store. And shit, the walk back from the CVS is uphill, so I can even justify whatever shitty candy I purchase there with the 50 calories I burn on the walk to and fro'.

In order to be healthier and lose any substantial amount of weight in the long term, I have to want to do the things that I often don't want to do, and I have to not want to do the things I so completely DO want to do. I know, a lot of auxiliary verbs, not the clearest sentence. But I think you get my point. I have to invert all the current ratios of food and activity. Ordering delivery or going out to eat three times a week has to become a once-a-week-or-less thing. Making plain chicken breasts in a skillet has to become a more-than-once-a-week thing. The amounts of time that I spend on the couch versus on my feet need to be reversed. And, in a very basic sense, I don't wanna.

That isn't to say that I can't, or even that I am not currently trying to do that. I have exercised more in the last two weeks than I did in the 6 months preceding that period. Of course, that sudden increase in activity also practically paralyzed me, so then I had to go back to the couch to rest up, so that back-fired a little bit. I have DVDs of Turbo Jam, 10-Minute Solutions: Pilates, 10-Minute Solutions: Blast Off the Belly Fat, and Jillian Michaels - 30 Day Shred. I have Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus, and even a Zumba Fitness game for the Wii (I've never done Zumba before and this game is fucking impossible to play if you can't already do the moves). I have some horrible contraption called 3D Abs, and another called Leg Magic. I have a twist board that I think I've used once. To top it all off, I have a $600 elliptical machine. I'm one week into a month membership at The Ring Boxing Club (hence the fucked up muscles and rest time) and in August, I have 5 90-minute Zumba classes with Jackie, both of which I got through Groupon. Considering the arsenal of machines, workouts, and classes at my immediate disposal, I should be basically jacked, or at least "beach-ready," right? Yeah, right.

I don't think I can possibly explain coherently why I'm still fat. Except maybe to say that I still really like doing and eating all the things that made me fat in the first place. I'm in love with the idea of being skinnier, healthier, and all-around happier. It does motivate me to make some smarter choices. It's motivating me to go into school tomorrow to help move furniture around and do other physical labor that I'm not being paid to do; it may seem altruistic on the surface, but really it's just a workout that has some real purpose. I think maybe if my job were to dig ditches or help people move then I'd be in much better shape because the exercise would be built in and have an actual goal associated with it. One of the most jacked Ninja Warrior All-Stars delivered water to office buildings; if I could even lift a single Poland Spring jug, that'd be something, and this guy just skips up multiple flights of stairs with the things.

But for now, my exercise is fragmented, unconnected, and unincorporated into my reality matrix. Getting on the elliptical for a half hour might give me a sense of accomplishment and boost my energy for the day, but it's completely separate from everything else that day. It need not come before or after anything else, no one else cares whether I do it or not, and there's no immediate consequence if I don't bother. During the school year, it's much much harder. Do I really want to wake up at 5:30am to work out before I have to go try to shove knowledge into 50 unwilling brains? I'm tired just writing that. Do I really want to come home, drop my bags at the door, and change into work-out clothes so I can use my last remaining minutes of energy to run in place (or kickbox in place or whatever else)? I even take multivitamins with caffeine in them to help get my ass in gear, but I don't think anyone told my body that the caffeine was for exercise and not obsessive internet gaming.

The fact that I find it so difficult to get into good habits over the summer is pretty depressing. My whole idea was that I would have the summer, about 9 weeks in all, to get going with this whole exercise-and-better-eating thing (I don't like to use the word "diet" because that implies a finite starvation plan), so that by the time September rolled around I would just have to make some adjustments and keep it going. The fact that my time would be limited would be less of an issue because the workouts would be integrated into my lifestyle. I'd already have momentum and I'd be used to the healthier habits, so it wouldn't seem like such an impossible chore to exercise after work or to eat leftover chicken and rice for lunch. IT WAS A GOOD PLAN, GODDAMMIT.

Of course, I am just now entering my 20th day of vacation. It's still the first chunk of summer, so using the past tense might be jumping the gun a wee bit. But it's hard not to get dismayed. In the past, I've been used to a quick loss of 5 or even 10 pounds because of all the water weight I'm carrying around in case I get lost in the desert, I guess. But according to that damned Wii Fit, I'm down about a pound in the last 3 weeks. I know that there are so many factors in play and that my body could be healthier without being lighter, but it's disconcerting. Healthy weight loss is like 2 pounds a week, and I'm not even close. Part of it, I'm sure, is that I'm still sitting on my ass too much and much of my better-eating work is undone by all of the dining out we've been doing recently. Everyone is available and wants to hang out, and for whatever reason, this always means going out to eat. I guess I should be happy in one sense, since we're all in such comfortable financial places that we can afford dinner out more than weekly, but it's really not helping me. Trust me, it's delicious, but at like 1500 calories per meal, I should be fasting for a day after that shit.

I feel like I'm at a crossroads, and it's one I've been at before. I can choose to keep doing what I've always done, maintain these unhealthy habits, but also be tortured by the desire for a thinner body and a healthier life. I know there are a lot of people out there who are happy-fat; these people don't care how many calories are in a milkshake because it tastes good and they are going to have one. With the incredible depth and breadth of knowledge the internet has given me, I can no longer be blissfully ignorant; happy-fat is out for me. My other choice is to actually try, all the time and really hard, to do what I know I should do. There are no good reasons not to do the latter, but I can think of lots and lots of weak, shitty reasons not to. It's hard. I don't have time. I'm too tired. I don't wanna.

Perhaps my underlying fear is that I really can't do it. That all the effort in the world won't amount to jack shit, and I'm going to be fat no matter what I do. I have enough biology and chemistry working against me where I worry that it's a real possibility. Perhaps even scarier is the idea that I could actually get to a healthy weight and be in a much better place, but that the work required to get and stay there is more than I am actually willing to do. I'm not in the mindset right now where I would literally do anything to be thinner. It should be clear by now that I wouldn't do anything...I didn't put down that Dove chocolate after lunch, did I? I didn't get my ass on the elliptical today, even though my muscles are finally starting to calm the fuck down, did I? Maybe instead of asking myself Can I? I should be asking myself Will I?

That's a good fucking question.

Microupdates will be the death of us all

If I had been diligently collecting data for the last year, which I should have been, I suspect the data would suggest a direct correlation between Amber's Facebook activity level and Amber's lack of blogging. When one is able to update her friends about every stupid little thing that happens on a daily basis, what is the point of full-sized entries such as this one? Sure, blogging is about more than just journaling for the public, but not for me! That's basically all I use this thing for, and when I can say little witty assessments of my daily life via Facebook, the blog becomes less and less useful.

Even so, my little orange B bookmark taunts me, sighing, well, I suppose Amber is too busy to blog today. Her fake crops, fake cafe, fake zoo, fake pet, and friends she never actually talks to will be so upset if she isn't around to care for them. Guilt trips rarely work with me, but orange B is right. WTF am I doing on Facebook all the time? Other than keeping up with people I otherwise wouldn't talk to, there is really very little use for that blasted site. If I reach level 80 in all those games, what happens? Fucking nothing happens. Little digital fireworks go off, I'm allowed to get a new fake dog or plant a new fake crop or buy a new fake shirt or cook a new fake dish. Nothing that happens actually matters to anyone anywhere on Earth.

Now, of course, I knew this when I started playing these games. As my favorite web cartoonists would say, "it's a great way to fill bars." Given my love of The Sims, Rollercoaster Tycoon, and that blasted Animal Crossing game I played religiously throughout college, I am no stranger to pointless simulation games with no end and no actual victory. The problem with the Facebook games I have been playing is that I began playing to waste time in a mildly amusing manner. But given the games' design, that you must return and play for brief intervals several times a week or even every few hours, it soon became a new requirement in my day. It was not a way to fill the void; it was a way to remove the void completely. I stopped watching TV sans computer, because I could be getting so much "done" in these games. While lecturing in class, I would slink over to the computer to see if the Tikka Masala Kabobs were done yet. And though I never actually forked over real money to buy fake items in these games, I began to see why a person might do that, despite it being fucking stupid.

The real problem arose when I started unwittingly procrastinating with these games. Now, I'm not some always-working freakazoid who has never put off writing a paper or lesson planning. I do that shit all the time. But I always know when I'm procrastinating and when I'm not. When I was playing stupid Facebook games, it felt like I was getting necessary work out of the way before I could start that other stuff...you know, college and my job. When you're playing four or five games and the flash load times are excessive, making the rounds could easily take 20 minutes or a half hour. Doing that twice or even three times a day means that I was spending at least an hour doing nothing every single day instead of doing the actual work I was supposed to. Granted, browsing Failblog and Cuteoverload wasn't a super-constructive use of my time either, but those are brief excursions with no penalty for non-participating. The Cuteoverload puppies don't die if I stop going to the website for a week, you know?

Imagine if I spent at least an hour a day doing something awesome. If I spent an hour a day doing aerobic exercise, I'd lose probably 2-3 lbs a week. If I spent an hour a day volunteering at a homeless shelter, I'd be helping a few dozen people in the shitter feel less shitty. Hell, if I spend an hour a day getting more sleep, I'd be in a better mood all day and less reliant on caffeine just to make it through school. In fact, playing these Facebook games is probably the worst possible use of my time that I could have designed, other than, say, putting tape on a kitten's paws or farting aerosolized anthrax.

This is not to say that I have now awoken from some cult-ish nightmare and I have seen the error of my ways, never to play a useless Zynga game again. I still have Farmville and Cafe World on my Facebook profile and will play them on occasion, but I certainly don't have to. The thing is, if I let my crops die for two weeks and then I come back, I still keep my level and my money. Nothing bad actually happens. It's like the reverse Peter Gibbons. "If I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra shares, I don't see another dime. Now where's the motivation in that?" Except for me, it's more like, "if I play these games intensely for many months, all I do is end up neglecting the parts of my life that affect me and other people. So why go crazy on these games?"

Anyway, that's a much longer rant than I anticipated for that topic. I guess my issue is that I've been spending more time on the internet over the last year or so, but less time actually enjoying myself. I don't even know what to do with myself half the time because I've gotten into a Facebook-game-dealchecking-moregame cycle which, when I am out of games and deals, leaves me with no direction. How is it possible to get so bored so quickly on the internet? It's the fucking internet. I used to spend more time on Wikipedia on a daily basis than I now spend on any text-based website. Have I learned all there is to know from my peers? No. So why have I stopped reading? Well, for one, I'm terribly lazy. Clicking boxes in a sequence is a lot more brainless than actually taking in information and storing it in my brain. If I wanted to work that hard, I'd...well, I guess do work. That didn't really go as well as it sounded in my head. Do you see what has become of me?!?

"Me Fail English? That's unpossible!"
So today was the last day of final exams for all students and the last day for seniors (underclassmen take exams at the same time but then have three weeks of school left...not a perfect system, but the school is too small to do it any other way). This week has been really rough, but today was a fucking nightmare. The day began innocently enough: seniors giddy and pretending to study but really talking about plans for later, students going around to see if they owe work (and hence seeing if they will have to stay after the exam), a few students quizzing each other on material before the last exam begins. Following the first test, things went to shit.

Many of the students did not owe any work, meaning they were allowed to leave, but they hung around anyway in the hopes that their friends would be finished soon. We had to shoo away at least 5 or 6 students who should have left at 11am but were still trolling the halls at noon. Students who had missed two or three 90-minute exams from earlier in the week decided to try to cram them all into today, harassing teachers to get them started on exams while the teachers were trying to help other students. Students whom we hadn't seen for weeks on end came in to try to get Bs and Cs in classes they are currently earning low Fs. Seniors who had seemed to do their best to fail all year attempted to order teachers around rather than asking politely for missing work or for help on exam topics.

The best part came around 3pm, when my least favorite student ever (and I mean out of the 150+ students I've had, ever) suddenly realized that she was about to fail at least one if not several classes for the year, and not graduate. Instead of getting sad, or just going home (as others had done), she threw the angriest and scariest tantrum I've witnessed in person. She went from room to room, yelling profane statements regarding her feelings for the school, her classes, her teachers, and anything else she could think of. She disregarded requests and, later, demands that she leave classrooms and check her shitty attitude.

The program director was on his way out the door for a weekend trip when this started brewing, and as soon as he left, she really kicked it up a notch. After kicking several chairs, slamming every door she could find (literally going from room to room to slam various doors), and wishing harm upon the math teacher and the school, she finally stormed out. Despite serving "at-risk youth" at my school, I have never encountered someone who so flawlessly blended disrespect, entitlement, wrath, and complete detachment from reality. I guess this is what psychopaths are like. If you've seen any of the Celebrity Rehab or Sex Rehab shows on VH1, she is Kari Ann. Not kidding. She is exactly Kari Ann.

The icing on the cake, really, is a piece of news we received just before Kari Ann went Chernobyl. One of our former students, a gang-involved young man who dated and impregnated another one of our students (one of my "best and brightest" as Dean Eastman would say), died last week. This is the first time a student of mine has met serious harm, much less died. Did he get shot or stabbed by a rival gang member? Maybe OD on drugs? No. It was a totally random accident. It's a fucking waste. Now he has left a dependent girlfriend and a 2-year-old child without a father. The math teacher didn't know him and the history teacher pretends to be all nonchalant about shit like this, although I know it hit him, so I don't know what to do with my feelings here. My first instinct was to attend services, send flowers, send a card, do something to help out the family, but is that even my place? I was their English teacher for a year, two years in the girlfriend's case. Do I even get to be upset about this, given what they are going through? Is expressing my profound sadness and sympathy the right move here? I don't really know. I've never been a grieving teacher before and I don't know how it works.

Sigh. I've run out of things to say. Fortunately, since I started writing this post, the weekend has improved my spirits and I was able to get some delicious Kelly's at the new location in Allston. I am ten days into a renewed effort to reduce my risk of heart disease and back boobs, and so far I feel I'm doing really well. I'm 2.4 lbs down, eating a lot better (kid's meal at Kelly's, lest you worry), less caffeine dependent, and saving a lot of money by skipping the fast food lunches. Also, Dan and I are closing on a condo on Corey Rd. in Brighton on June 21st, which is also the first day of Summer, my mom's birthday, the due date for the DemiDec workbook, and Nico & Jeremiah's anniversary. Quite a day, eh? I have 16 days left with students and 19 days left total for the school year, and my summer online course starts on Tuesday. Oh, and I'm adopting a pug pretty much right after we move into the condo. So...a bit busy in the coming month. But a pretty good kind of busy, I think. We'll see how this affects my blogging tendencies.

The Beast Approaches

I was lulled into a false sense of security, believing that the closed classroom door was somehow an impenetrable barrier that my nightmares could not cross. Annoyances, idiocy, mild disturbances...I knew these could enter but I had grown so accustomed to their presence that I hadn't given my defenses a second thought. Adding to this complacence was the fact that it was halfway through our second meeting, a time when the roster and seating arrangement should have been entirely static. When the door creaked open whilst we were discussing the desperate tale of a slave girl, my eyes were greeted with a horrific sight.

The Beast stood at least six feet tall, broad at the shoulders and square in the jaw. Its bulging frame was poorly restrained by the unisex white undershirt tucked fiercely into the khaki capri pants. The Beast's muffin top strained for freedom, stretching and pushing at the fabric of the unwitting shirt-victim, billowing over the two-sizes-too-small short pants. As my eyes traveled up the hulking figure, I was horrified to find sagging orbs hanging nearly to the waistline, accentuated by the taut cotton covering. Two chins later, I discovered, to my great dismay, a wispy salt and pepper mustache speckled onto the Beast's upper lip. Said 'stache did nothing to mask the deep trenches of wrinkles that surrounded its mouth like tiny spokes of a wagon wheel.

The most terrifying feature of this thing did not become apparent until it began to approach the rear of the room, where (until this moment) I had been seated with relative comfort and safety. The Beast had moist, thin hair of the same color of its mustache. The hair had been parted in the middle and pulled back even tighter than the aforementioned t-shirt, constrained to two small pigtail-style buns at the base of the Beast's neck. As I gaped in horror at the sight before me, it opened its mouth and began to speak of signing up late, being on the new roster, and, pain of all pains, intending not only to remain but to return weekly. Not only was the content of this brief conversation scary beyond all measure, but also was the Beast's low and rasping voice, indicative of years of smoking, drinking, or both. The teeth, revealed only for short periods and not completely, were not white but a strange melange of grey and yellow.

I had yet to process the strange assortment of visual and auditory information when I realized the Beast was heading directly toward me. I stiffened, hoping that a lack of movement or breath would somehow disguise my presence. Thankfully, it passed, but my relief was short-lived. It took a seat directly behind me and then, as if to cause me the greatest possible discomfort, pulled its squeaky-wheeled chair up to within a foot of my own seat. I imagined I could feel the Beast's breath on the back of my neck, and though I am fairly certain this was a creation of my own, it still haunts me as though it were indeed reality.

The rest of the class seemed oblivious or otherwise indifferent to the Beast's presence, as if enormous trolls were known to roam these parts and occasionally join classrooms for a spell. They continued to discuss the story of the slave, citing pages from the novel and even engaging in conversation with the cursed creature. Each time it was addressed, the Beast would inhale a great breath, filling its massive lungs with the stench of my fear, and respond with remarkably syntactically-correct prose. It had undoubtedly spent many months, possibly years, living in the human world and attempting to pass as one of us. From what I can tell from the reactions of those around me, the Beast's plan was working.

Even now, as I reflect upon this incredible encounter, I count down the minutes until the next appointed time when I am to share a room with the Beast. It lurks in my mind, breaking into even my most peaceful thoughts and spreading a sickening fear through my heart. I know not whether I would be able to slay the Beast, as both my physical strength and intestinal fortitude would likely be insufficient for such an epic battle. Were I more like the great Odysseus, slaying monster and god alike, perhaps I would find the strength within and conquer that which scares me most. Given that I am far from Odysseus and his heroic brethren I must instead strive to survive the next few months with my body - and my sanity - intact. God help me.

Harry Potter 6: A Snippy Book-to-Film Review

**If you don't realize this will contain spoilers for everything about Harry Potter, you deserve to have the plot ruined for you.**

My first reaction upon seeing the credits appear at the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was, "Jesus, that was fast." Of course, not literally, given that the movie clocks in over two and a half hours (like its predecessors). But, for those who enjoy the most literal translations from text to film as I do, covering more than 650 pages in 153 minutes makes those minutes go by rather quickly. As has always been the case in these movies, excluding the first, the time Harry spends away from Hogwarts is trimmed down to the barest of minimums. Conversations between students, especially those who aren't of the main trifecta, are typically cut out or replaced with leaner, more to-the-point versions. Inner turmoil that spans dozens of pages of inner monologue is turned into a pensive look or heavy sigh.

While all of these changes make fanboys such as myself give our own pensive looks and heavy sighs, they typically do not harm the plot or overall feel of the movie. They detract from some of the depth of the original text, but that is to be expected with any adaptation, especially one with such lengthy and exposition-heavy source material. You can't just judge a movie based on how much is missing. There are, however, some cuts that are simply silly or unjustifiable.

The rushed beginning just sets a weird tone for the movie, at least for me. As has been the case for most of the films, the kids are back at Hogwarts within the first 15 or so minutes of the movie, while in the book Harry doesn't reach the steps of the castle until the bottom of page 161. 25% of the book becomes less than 10% of the movie. That's effed up. Without the exposition, asides, conversations, inner monologues, lengthy descriptions, and all that go with those, there is essentially no tone set for the story. Yes, we get it, London is grayer than usual. Diagon Alley is practically deserted. But why? I'm sure people can work out for themselves that "bad things are happening" in the world, but without the Ministry leaflets and shuffling parents and anxious families, it doesn't feel the same. Would it have been so hard to put a "U NO POO" sign on the Weasley storefront? And by the way, I still haven't forgotten that they never bothered to explain the founding of the shop and their start-up funding. Blergh.

When they get on the train, there are finally some things that go alright. Harry eavesdropping on Malfoy, while not as informative or incendiary as in the book, is an interesting scene and one of the only times Malfoy gets to say anything in the movie. For someone with such a key role in the climax of the film, you'd think they'd have bothered to give him more than 6 or 8 lines. And I'm not exaggerating either. He spends most of the movie frowning, looking withdrawn, or weeping like a little bitch. On the train, it's Luna that finds Harry instead of Tonks, which doesn't really change anything but leads to a personal problem I have with the cuts.

*deep breath*

WTF, movie makers?!? Are you so heartless that you seriously could not spend 20 seconds on the faltering romance between Tonks and Lupin? I know it wasn't addressed in the last movie, but Jesus, all of a sudden she's calling him "love" or something and we're just assuming they're together? Their turmoil is so interesting and so simple to throw into the story, and yet it went the way of the Marauder's Map in the third movie. Glossed over, morphed into something less complicated. Gah.

*exhalation*

That, of course, is just my personal preference. While their subplot is undoubtedly interesting, what with Tonks losing her transfigurative powers and changing her patronus, and Lupin going underground with the werewolves, it's not necessary to move the main story along. And boy did that story move. Once the students got to the school, the Fall-Winter-Spring progression was at a breakneck pace, as has been the case since at least movie #4. The Apparation training and tests, which helped to create a timeline and decent pacing in the book, are totally absent from the movie. Outside of the side-along version with Dumbledore towards the end, nobody under 25 Apparates anywhere. I don't know if, in the next movie, there will just be some throw-away line like Hermione says, "hey, it's really fortunate that we were able to learn how to Apparate over the summer, eh?" but we all know that would be bullshit. Or rather, it's going to be bullshit, since it's most certainly going to happen like that. Mark my words.

One thing I didn't particularly understand was an addition to the plot at the Burrow. Or rather, complete replacement of the scene at the Burrow. Over Christmas break, in the book, everyone enjoys a relaxing time at the Weasley residence and spends most of their time talking about the ominous events our in the world or otherwise complaining about Fleur Delacour. Except that apparently Bill and Charlie no longer matter, Fleur isn't with Bill or otherwise doesn't matter anymore, and Christmas wasn't exciting enough. In the movie, there are about two minutes of a calm evening before Bellatrix and Fenrir show up, trick Harry into chasing them, are forced to abort their unexplained mission, and then blow up the Weasley house. I'm not kidding. It's probably a total of three minutes long. They show up, lure Harry out into a random corn field, then leave and set fire to the Burrow on their way out. Why? WTF? What does David Yates have against the Weasley family? Worse still, this seems like a bit of mischief and not at all a planned assassination attempt. It wasn't exciting, and it wasn't necessary at all. For all of the cuts that appear to have been made in the name of expediting the plot or only keeping that which progresses the story, why does this addition matter?

Even more than this, I am annoyed by changes to the Malfoy Mission subplot. In the book, Harry suspects Malfoy of some misdeed, and we are left to wonder to what extent he is just obsessing. We know, for example, that Malfoy has been given a task by Lord Voldemort and that Snape has promised to aid him, but the nature and extent of this task are unknown to us until the plan comes to fruition at the end of the book. In the movie, however, we see Malfoy looking specifically at the vanishing cabinet at Borgin & Burkes right at the beginning, then at the vanishing cabinet in the Room of Requirement not long after that. We see what room he's using, for what purpose, and even those unfamiliar with the plot should be able to figure out how the cabinets work WAAAAY before the big reveal should have taken place.

Along with this change comes a shift in the way this plot connects to Harry throughout the year. Instead of being chastised (most often by Hermione) for obsessing over Malfoy and not focusing on his studies (which, btw, are entirely absent...it's like they're not even in school), Harry is made to seem only occasionally interested in Draco's actions. It seems like he cares what Malfoy is up to when there's not a lot else going on. Sadly, this also leaves no room for my absolute favorite line in the entire series of novels: "I need to know what Draco Malfoy is doing inside you." That's what she said.

When Malfoy's plan finally works and the Death Eaters enter the school, perhaps the foulest crime of all is commited. There is NO battle. None. No teachers, students, aurors, or ANYONE is involved in any kind of skirmish. If Harry hadn't been present for the Death Eaters' arrival, I would say no one would have even known anything had happened until morning. It was a stealth operation and it was REALLY FUCKING BORING. None of Harry's friends took the Felix Felicis potion to avoid being hit by spells, no Order members arrived to fight the Death Eaters, and Bill isn't mauled by Fenrir Greyback. Of course, since Bill and Fleur and Charlie are all apparently the lesser Weasleys, that isn't a huge loss to the movie, but it certainly matters to me. Bill's injury is the event that sets up the reveal of Tonks' refused affections for Lupin (which doesn't take place in the film, so needn't occur). Overall, this scene was cut so short and had so little an effect that it barely needed to have happened at all. If you're going to have Malfoy working on a plan for two hours of movie time, at least give the boy a chance to have a big finale with it.

An omission that only bothered me a little but still bears mentioning is the lack of mention of the Minister of Magic. Though the appointing of a new minister appears as a headline on the Daily Prophet, Rufus Scrimgeour as a character doesn't appear, Fudge and Scrimgeour don't meet with the "other Minister", and Scrimgeour doesn't meet with Harry to try to "convert" him to be on the Ministry's side. Without this conversation, Harry does not get to proclaim that he is "Dumbledore's man, through and through", which I always thought made the last 50 pages of the book matter a whole lot more (and give additional meaning to his turmoil throughout book 7).

The relationship between Harry and Dumbledore seems strange anyway. They are clearly closer than student and headmaster, but Michael Gambon's portrayal of Dumbledore has never tickled my fancy; specifically, I never got the sense that Dumbledore of Azkaban and on had the same churning history and goofy personality as that of the novels' and even of Richard Harris' Dumbledore. The Dumbledore of The Half-Blood Prince doesn't strike me as someone who might have "acid pops" as his office door's password. Of course it is a waste of space to lament to replacement of actors, given that both the original actor and the character are dead, but it still leaves something to be desired, at least for me.

Given this emotional void, I would have really liked to see Dumbledore's funeral. His notoriety/fame/reveredness in the magical community has been toned down to nonexistence in the movies, so it would have meant something to see wizards and witches from the world over paying their respects. But instead we got a wand-light vigil. Which was touching, but insufficient. I planned to cry at the end of this movie and didn't. I cry at both books five and six, and god help me I wail throughout half of book 7, and yet I have never shed a tear at one of these movies. This is from the person who will cry at almost any work of fiction. I've cried for episodes of CSI and ER for chrissakes, and this beloved tale of a wizard can't squeeze a single drop from my ducts? Shameful.

There is one subplot that I was glad to see go, however; the whole Gaunts thing was a great backstory with no bearing on anything. As academically interesting as I find Voldemort's family history, it really doesn't matter for any reason. Once Dumbledore can explain the origin of the black ring, the whole Gaunt family becomes moot. Sure, it would have been interesting to hear about Merope's love for a muggle who despised her and left her while she was pregnant, and it would have been interesting to hear about her death, and it would have been interesting to hear about the teenage Tom Riddle's journey to his hometown to kill his father's family and blame his crazy uncle, but these are anecdotes to me. If they had been included in the movie, I might have lobbied for their replacement with more substantial scenes.

Speaking of lobbying for more substantial scenes, how much of Lavender do we need to see before we get it? Yeah, okay, she loves Ron and Hermione's pissed. Check. I think we got that after about 15 seconds. Did we need to devote so much time and effort to pound that baby into the ground? As much as that stuff provided some desperately-needed comic relief, I found myself getting quickly annoyed with Lavender's frequent appearances in favor of missing plot points concerning Ginny, Quidditch (again underused and underrepresented compared to the book), Slughorn, Voldemort, Dumbledore, or even Hagrid. He's in the movie for like 10 seconds, and at the end we're led to believe he could be dead until he appears at the scene of Dumbledore's death. I think Yates has a grudge against Hagrid just like he does against the Weasleys.

There were other very minor things that I missed or disliked but can't take too much issue with. The Dursleys are absent from the movie, but I didn't really miss them...though I would have liked to see beverages gently assaulting them on their heads. Madam Rosmerta isn't really seen, nor has she been placed under the Imperius curse. Stan Shunpike hasn't been arrested nor has Mundungus Fletcher been stealing Sirius' things. Well, technically they're Harry's inherited possessions, but since the issue of Sirius' will is never addressed, we don't know that they belong to Harry. How they intend to square that with the threesome's use of 12 Grimmauld Place throughout the beginning of the next movie remains to be seen. Knowing this director, they'll skip directly to camping. Goddamned cuts.

Overall, I found this movie to be lacking in the same way that 4 and especially 5 were. Some cuts were brutal, others didn't make sense, and some additions were confusing and annoying. As films, they work fine and I'm sure will be more enjoyable to watch now that I've gotten this out of my system, but I still find them to be rushed and too focused on streamlining the plot down to the bare essentials. I find myself disagreeing on what those bare essentials are and I'm annoyed that half of the omissions from the movie dictate what cannot possibly work in the remaining two films. While I enjoyed book six, it is not my favorite; book seven, however, is tied for the top spot (with either book 3 or 5, depending on the day). If they fuck up these last movies, I'll lose it. I swear to god.

Questions:
☼ How will the next movie open, if the Burrow is destroyed and Bill & Fleur are not getting married?
☼ Will Harry sever ties with Ginny before leaving on his mission or will they just pine for each other the whole time?
☼ Will Lupin and Tonks have a baby?
☼ Will Mad-Eye Moody, Lupin, Tonks, Fred, Dobby, Hedwig, Crabbe, and Colin Creevey all die in the next movies?

Predictions:
☼ At least two or three of the deaths listed above will not occur. Dobby and Colin Creevey come to mind, and possibly Crabbe. Given Dobby's excision from the movies since book 2, the writers may be conjuring a different deus ex machina to get our folks out of the Malfoys' basement.
☼ The Dumbledore-Grindelwald story will be trimmed almost into nonexistence. Dumbledore's sexuality might be hinted at (more than in the books, anyway) but will not be overtly revealed.
☼ The scene at Bathilda Bagshot's house will be WAY less cool than it is in the book. It will seem like far less of a close call.
☼ The frequent issues of wands being broken, lost, replaced with inferior ones, and disobeying their owners will be pushed to the background or forgotten. Harry's wand might break but it will not be the heart-wrenching loss it is in the book.
☼ The exposition-heavy trip to the Lovegood residence will be replaced by a 2-minute conversation about the Hallows. There will be no explosion.
☼ The Kreacher subplot with Regulus' locket will be trimmed down significantly or cut. This is in line with the removal of house elves and SPEW from most of the movies.
☼ Scenes at 12 Grimmauld Place will total less than 20 minutes in the films.

If all the above predictions come true, the pair of movies could still be excellent, but I'm still hoping for a closer adaptation given the freedom to work within two lengthy movies. Imagine the shit that could have made it into The Half-Blood Prince if there were another 2+ hours.

On that note, I think I've said all I needed to say. I hope, after this, I can begin to enjoy the movie. It wasn't that bad, you know.

Charactonyms in the Harry Potter series

Charactonyms, or character names that reveal the traits of their respective characters, are standard fare for children's fiction. The same is true for the Harry Potter series of books, which contains dozens of charactonyms, as well as objects and concepts with similar naming qualities. Beyond naming the main characters with such deliberate care, J.K. Rowling took the same measures with minor characters, artifacts, spells, and nicknames. Although some of the charactonyms are glaringly obvious, many provide further insight into how Rowling envisions her characters and their inner natures.

Perhaps the most obvious charactonym in the series is Malfoy, specifically Draco. Draco is Latin for dragon, and Malfoy is derived from the French for "bad faith" or "unfaithful". As if being named Draco weren't clear enough, his last name begins with a word that means "bad" in half a dozen languages. Lucius, Draco's father, has a name that means "bright", but is also related to Lucifer. Lucius' wife, Narcissa (née Black), is clearly named after Narcissus or narcissism itself, implying the qualities of self-infatuation and egotism. According to the epilogue in Book Seven, Draco and his wife have a son named Scorpius, which settles in neatly to the family's typical name scheme. Given their surname, it is no surprise that the Malfoys come off as flawed, even evil, monsters.

Although less certain than the etymologies of the Malfoy family names, Voldemort's name carries with it intriguing possible interpretations. In several languages, parts or the whole of the name mean "dark wizard" or "evil", with "mort" meaning "death". In French, "volee de mort" means "flight of death". His given name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, has several potential meanings, many of them negative. Marvolo, his middle name (and the name of his grandfather), is likely based on the character from Twelfth Night named Malvolio, a servant who craves power and shuns others for being less "pure" than he is. Malvolio is teased and tortured throughout the play by the other servants in the household, and Malvolio swears at the end of the play that he will have his revenge. This vengeful nature, along with humble beginnings, may be the closest connection to the man who would later take the name Voldemort.

The negative names continue even into the muggle world, particularly with the Dursleys. Although their first names do not have necessarily bad connotations, the last name comes from a town in England that Rowling once visited and hated. (Knowing how universally hated the Dursleys are, Rowling suspects she is not popular in the real-life town of the same name.) Most of the other muggles in the books, which are surprisingly numerous, have generic or neutral names. This lackluster series of names could be due to the fact that most of the muggles play minor roles in the books, or just because one doesn't find many "Dedalus Diggle"s outside of the wizarding world.

Within the wizarding world, there are many younger wizards with carefully-chosen names. Hermione Granger, one of Harry's best friends and later Ron's wife, was given a unique first name that, according to Rowling, was chosen specifically to prevent many young girls from being teased (given the uncommon nature of the name). Hermione comes from several legends and texts, including Shakespeare, and typically refers to a strong female character with relationship issues; in one case, Hermione is believed to have cheated on her husband (like Ron believed she was cheating with Harry in Book Seven) and another Hermione was sought by two men simultaneously (like Hermione Granger was sought by both Viktor Krum and Ron). Granger is another word for farmer, which might be an allusion to Hermione's muggle origins.

Harry's other best friend, Ron Weasley, has a more direct purpose behind his first name. Ronald comes from root words meaning "advisor to the leader", which is often Ron's role in the books. He supports Harry in nearly every case, and though his advice is not always cool-headed, he tries his best to stand by Harry and help him through the various challenges they meet in and out of school. According to Rowling, the last name Weasley, a clear reference to a weasel, was chosen specifically because Rowling had always had a fascination with the creatures and felt they were maligned. She connects this misperception with the assumption that redheads are somehow unlucky or bad in some way, a sentiment with which she also disagrees.

Rowling's choices for other members of the Weasley family often include Arthurian legend; indeed, Arthur, the head of the family, is named after King Arthur. Ginny, whose full name is Ginevra, is named after Guinevere and Percy, full name Percival, is named after a knight of the round table. Fred, George, Bill, Charlie, and Molly (a Weasley by marriage) have common English names with less glamorous histories, though many famous figures from the past share these names.

As generic as some of the Weasley names are, they are bizarre compared to Rowling's plain choice for her protagonist. Harry James Potter, the titular character of the series, has very little history attached to his name (at least, specifically). Harry comes from the name Henry, whose root means "ruler of the home". James comes from the name Jacob, a character in the Bible who is the second born of twins and whose name means "holds the heel". Potter, a common English surname, was likely chosen because of its generic nature and possibly as an homage to Beatrix Potter, the famed author. Compared to Harry's friends' names, which are steeped in history, Harry's is simply plain.

The names of Harry's teachers at Hogwarts tend to be far more interesting than Harry's own. Minerva McGonagall, for example, is named after the Roman goddess of wisdom (many of Rowling's choices for names are inspired by or directly taken from Greek and Roman legends, as well as constellations). Alastor Moody, in addition to being often moody, displays the qualities noted by the history of his given name: Alastor means "defender of mankind" or "avenger". Aurora Sinastra, the astronomy teacher, has both a first and last name dealing with stars and their movement. Septima Vector, Hermione's arithmancy teacher, is defined by his subject as well; arithmancy is essentially numerology, and Septima contains the prefix meaning "seven", while Vector is a mathematical term. Charity Burbage, the muggle studies teacher, is constantly advocating for equality and fair treatment of muggles (which, some would argue, is quite charitable of her).

Professor Albus Dumbledore (full name Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore) has an origin story for each of his names. It is believed that his names taken together may represent the British Isles. Albus could be the male version of Alba, an ancient name for Scotland. Percival, as we know from the Weasley family, is the name of an Arthurian knight. Wulfric, meaning "wolf power", may trace its origins to the same roots as those of Beowulf, the legendary British warrior in the epic of the same name. Brian is the name of an Irish high king, though many believe that this name was chosen to function as a humorous "straight" name compared to Dumbledore's other more ridiculous names. Finally, his last name is an old English word for bumblebee, chosen because Rowling can see him "flitting about the castle humming to himself." Although the individual names do not necessarily reveal a great deal about Dumbledore, his lengthy and grand-sounding name certainly lends itself to his incredible reputation and larger-than-life character.

Possibly the most obvious teacher name is that of Remus Lupin, Harry's third year Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Remus is the name of one of the two wolf brothers that founded Rome. Lupin comes from the root word meaning moon. Even though the plain meaning of the name is never addressed in the books, Hermione eventually discovered Lupin's identity as a werewolf; one can only hope she at least got an inkling of an idea from his name. The only other prominent werewolf in the series, Fenrir Greyback, likely gets his first name from Fenrisulfr, a large wolf in Norse mythology.

Like Fenrir, several "bad guys" in the books have pointed charactonyms. Dolores Umbridge, for example, is hit twice with negative connotations: "dolor" means "pain" and the English word "umbrage" means "insult". Severus Snape, who is one of Harry's worst enemies for the bulk of the series, gets his first name from the Latin word for "stern" or "severe". "Snape", a verb in English, means "to rebuke or be hard upon". Given Snape's frequently harsh and overly-strict treatment of Harry throughout Harry's time at Hogwarts, these names seem appropriate.

There is one bumbling teacher, however, who also deserves mentioning. Gilderoy Lockhart, Harry;s second year Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, gets his first name from the word for "gilded", or covered in gold. This term is often used to refer to a worthless item that has been covered in a layer of gold to make it appear more valuable; considering Lockhart's sole skill, that of bewitching wizards to steal their memories and claim their adventures, he does seem to be "gilded" in a manner of speaking.

In addition to this vast list of characters, several objects or concepts were clearly named in a deliberate fashion. The term horcrux, meaning an object into which a wizard has placed a piece of his soul, seems to have its origins in two French words meaning "outside" and "essence". Hogwarts, the name of Harry's school, is said to come from a plant called "hogwart" that Rowling saw, though it is also possibly from the movie The Labyrinth, when David Bowie's character mistakenly calls his goblin servant Hoggle by the name of "Hogwart". The four houses in Hogwarts are obviously named, with the snake-related house being called Slytherin and the raven-related house being called Ravenclaw. Perhaps even less creatively named, Diagon Alley just simply a split of the word "diagonally", though pronounced differently.

In addition to houses and objects, many spells in the series are permutations of Latin or obscure English words. Spells like "obliviate" for memory removal, "aguamenti" for producing water, and "expelliarmus" for disarming an opponent all come from clear English or romance language origins (oblivion, agua, and expel arms). Others, like "wingardium leviosa", are dolled-up versions of English words, in this case "wing" and "levitate". The summoning charm "accio" is from the Latin for "I summon". More than half of all the known spells in the series come from Latin roots. The most-feared killing curse, "avada kedavra", gets its origins as the original pronunciation of the "real world" spell abracadabra. Rowling says that her research noted it meant "let the thing be destroyed", which, for the killing curse, means the casting wizard's opponent.

Like the bulk of the of spells, many of these terms get their names from English and Latin origins, although there are a considerable number with different histories. Several constellations and celestial bodies are turned into names (Sirius, the dog star, for one), and Roman and Greek figures are transmuted into teachers and parents. Though some names take their origins from mundane sources (Granger), others have more obscure and interesting histories (Voldemort). Despite the wide range in backgrounds and etymologies for the names and terms used in the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling clearly took a great deal of time to add depth and dimension to the characters that she (and we) have loved so well.

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[Many thanks to harrypotter.wikia.com for being so incredibly nerdy and exacting.]