The funniest thing about riding the NY subway is the overwhelming waves of misanthropy that people can inspire in you for no particularly good reason. There was a woman on the subway this morning, who I have seen before, and both times, I have found myself disliking her with an unreasonable intensity. Maybe its the way, her eyebrows arches and her head tilts in this quizzical way suggesting the she is evaluating everyone on the subway car. The first time I saw her I was fascinated by the manner in which she was applying make-up, with careful precision on the subway, to an already much made-up face. This morning though, I believe it was the gold brocade sandals that she was wearing without socks. Its cold here in New York in March and I found myself thinking, this is why they have those silly rules about white shoes after Memorial Day. So people don't have to see each other's bare feet when its cold outside. I was also fascinated and disgusted by the way her toes contracted to grip the sandals on her feet, which reminded me of my own bad luck with shoes like that.

OK, enough about this poor woman, who is probably very nice and interesting and has perfectly legitimate reasons to wear gold brocade sandals in March.

An update, or introduction really to the weightloss content of my blog: Last year I lost 32 lbs. I went to Weight Watchers, sucked up the slogans and marketing and flip chart exhortations, and counted points, picked salads, planned snacks so I wouldn't be hungry, earned activity points. All the things that you do when you do Weight Watchers. And amazingly, in a reasonably short amount of time, it worked. Lately, I have been trying to lose an extra six pounds but without really ringing all the bells and blowing all the whistles like I was before. I was counting my points for a couple weeks, but didn't really count them on the weekends. I was trying to eat lots of fruits and vegetables and cottage cheese, but also eating pizza and beer and wine. I went and weighed in on Wednesday, and I am just the same weight I was before. So Wednesday and Thursday were days of passive aggressive eating, just to spite, um, myself?. Just to act out. So the idea is that since I gave myself a little lattitude, and said bollocks to all of it, now I can get back to the mode I was in before, and start work on that six lbs.

The thing about being the size I am (8), which is a perfectly good size for someone my age and height to be, to stay there, I believe I need to think about food all the time. What might I want to eat if I go to that restaurant? What should I order that would be healthy? Will I need a snack before the end of the day? What can I eat instead of the cookies that will certainly be at that meeting? What are all the very good reasons for not eating the bag of Milano cookies while I watch the Daily Show? When I was a size 14 I never thought about food in the way that I do now. And I enjoyed it not thinking about food or worrying about what size I was. But her I am, one bowl of granola w/skim milk and and orange into the day.

By the way, for all my spite of Weight Watchers, I am a lifetime member. Ha.