The diet pill is wearing off...

Just a little song title from L7 to start your morning.

What I didn't say during my rant yesterday about losing weight, is what my weight loss goal is. I don't want to have a 28" waist. I really just want to be able to comfortably get into my Wranglers (33", if I remember correctly) again. There was a time in my life that I thought I should have a 28" waist, but I've gotten over it.

I learned about weight loss goals from my sister, Kathy. Kathy, who 9 years older than me has been obsessed with her weight since as long as I can remember. My two role models for what a woman's figure should be like came from her, and from my mother who lived on cigarettes and black coffee (because she was 'too nervous to eat' if you need a refresher on that you can reference Autobiography). These two women were always there to let me know that I was getting fat, or that I was going to be as fat as my father. Of course they didn't stop to think that my father's gut was the result of chronic alcoholism, not an eating disorder. So with a little help b them I became convinced that I was horribly overweight, but as I found out years later; I was not.

On the bright side, my sister's obsession with her weight may have saved me from being a drug addict. Back in the day, diet pills were still over-the-counter speed, and at the ripe old age of 16, my sister was shop lifting diet pills to keep her weight down (not to mention starving herself). One day, I got off the bus from another thrilling day of second grade to find the ranch rather quiet. Mom and dad were off at some Artex convention, where mom would be receiving yet another crown for having the highest sales in the region. It was still early fall so the garage door was open, and the screen door was the only door closed into the house. As I reached for the knob, I saw my sister cross from the hallway into the living room. I only saw her for a second but I had seen enough to have my gut tell me I needed to hide. She had been walking on her knees, her eyes were glassy and not just from the sobbing she was doing, and she was mumbling words that I couldn't understand.

I was terrified and I was alone. My brother Jimmy should have been home, but I had no idea where. I hid in the garage, afraid to move and afraid to call out. Wrapped up tight in my suffocating, eternal terror I waited for someone to come rescue me. Eventually my brother came stomping into the garage, his red hair practically ablaze with his intensity. Without a word he ushered me quickly down the basement stairs. He quietly opened the door, got us both in, and closed the door behind us. "Kathy overdosed on her god-damned diet pills. Keep quiet and stay here." With that he ran up the stairs and into the house. I could hear his cowboy boots clomping through the house, as he did whatever it was he was doing. Finally I heard him clanging things around in the silverware drawer.

Eventually, he came down to get me and brought me back upstairs. I really didn't want to be in the house, but I was much more at ease with Jimmy around than being alone. After yelling at Kathy to stay the frak away from me, in a rare moment of domesticity, Jimmy made us both peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and returned to the table where he had instructed me to sit, and we played go-fish. I tried to ignore Kathy, who was still making her rounds around the house on her knees in between bouts of violently throwing up in the toilet.

While we played our game the phone rang. Jimmy got up from the table and picked up the wall phone from next to the door. It was my parents. He told them of Kathy's 'episode', and proceeded to tell them that he had hidden all of the knives because he was afraid that she would try to kill me (uh, Jimmy? what you're doing is not helping with that whole 'terror' thing).

Long story short, Kathy didn't kill me, and eventually she passed out and was back to her normal crazy self. And I never-ever wanted to do drugs.