“Girl, your pants are baggy!” my coworker Leslie said as I walked by.

“Yeah, I’ve lost a few pounds, and I probably need pants.”

“A few pounds?  Girl, you’re disappearing before my eyes!  You gotta get some new pants!  It’s time!”

“Okay, yeah.”

It was a warm, sunny day when Leslie and I took our lunch break and walked across the street first to Target so I could pick up a prescription.

“Hey, they’ve got a huge sale going on at Kohl’s that just opened and it’s right across the street.  Wanna go?”

I agreed to go even though I’m not that crazy about clothing stores, but maybe I could find a pair of jeans that would fit better.  That would be cool.  So we walked across the street towards Kohl’s and Leslie told me about how her mother loves Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and we should find some of those ‘cause they have them all different cuts.

As Leslie talked about the Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, a feeling of dread washed over me – that all too familiar feeling.  How do I explain to Leslie that I’m an overweight person and no way am I ever going to be able to wear those regular-cut jeans – no way!  I was used to it, been there done that for many years.

“My Mama just swears by Gloria Vanderbilt – and she likes the flares like you do!”

“Cool,” I said, feeling the heat on my face as I blushed.

So we walked into Kohl’s which took the place of Mervyn’s, and we were both amazed at how different Kohl’s looked and how many better deals they had.  I found the coolest pair of purple suede boots for only $30.  I knew those would cost like $100 at Nordstrom’s or someplace like that.

“C’mon let’s go check out the pants.  Follow me!”

I followed Leslie, but I was nervous – she was talking Gloria Vanderbilt – not those “stretchy” type jeans that I normally got.  We’re talking regular cut, low-rise and all that.  I guess I had just accepted the fact that I would always be overweight – even though I did box up all those old Size 18 jeans because they got too big for me.

I didn’t even like being in a clothing store that much.  I could feel the fluorescent lights burning down on me as I looked around at all the racks of clothing, most of them designed for someone who was thin.  I found myself dreading the whole ordeal and wishing we could just leave right now.

“Maybe we should head back,” I said.

“Noooo, you’ve gotta check out some jeans!  C’mon!  Ma’am where are your Gloria Vanderbilt jeans?”  A sales lady pointed to a whole shelf section with nothing but Gloria Vanderbilt.

I saw a sign that said “tapered” jeans, then I saw “boot cut and “flares.”  Yeah, now we were on the right track, but then the big question was – would any of these pants even fit me?

“Okay, let’s see.”  Leslie looked me up and down – Leslie who was so tall and thin and elegant looking without an ounce of fat on her.  “What about a Size 12?”

“Hahahaha!” I laughed.  “In my dreams!”  I grabbed a pair of Size 16’s hoping for the best, and Leslie threw a pair of Size 14 jeans on top of the pile.

“Try those on too, and I’m going to be waiting right outside!”

“All right, I’ll do it.”  I slowly walked into the fitting room and found a free room.  Okay, here we go, I thought, sucking in my stomach the best I could to at least squeeze into the Gloria Vanderbilt designer Size 16 jeans that were on sale for only $17.99.  Okay, pull them up – wait a second here.  Something must be wrong – these were obviously mis-sized – these are actually too big for me, no way.

Maybe they’re sized bigger, I thought, grabbing the Size 14 jeans and pulling them up next – and miraculously, they fit.  But they not only fit, they weren’t snug – but a little loose.  It seemed too good to be true.  I walked outside and showed Leslie.

“Those look real nice on you!  I like them!  But, I think I was right.”

“What?”

“You need a size smaller.  Here!”  Leslie handed me two pairs of Size 12 Gloria Vanderbilt’s, one black and one dark blue.  “Try these on!”

“Okay, but there’s no way…”

I obediently went back and tried on the Size 12 jeans, pulling them up, holding my breath in and…and…wait a second, I can zip these and they fit!  They actually fit!  No way, I couldn’t believe it.

I looked at myself in the mirror with the cool new jeans and when I did, I felt like a teenager again trying on clothes.  Who is that person in the mirror, I thought?  That’s not even me anymore!

“Hello in there?”  I heard Leslie calling and I slowly emerged from the dressing room.

“I can’t believe it.  I wear a Size 12.  I just can’t believe it,” I kept saying over and over, and suddenly I could feel a wave of emotion sweep over me as if this huge load I’ve been carrying around for so many years had suddenly lifted and the floodgates opened.

“Yep, I knew it!  And you look soooo wonderful and hot!” said Leslie.

“I wear Size 12 – I haven’t worn a Size 12 in years…since before Megan…”

That’s when it all came back to me, when I realized that all the heavy weight I’ve been carrying is finally disappearing…it’s hard to explain what my kids and I have been through for the past twenty years – the pain, the struggle, finding our way and starting over a few times.  “I can’t believe this,” I said, choking up.

“Well I can believe it.”  Leslie hugged me while I cried in the dressing room at Kohl’s.

A lady with short blonde hair emerged from one of the other dressing rooms and said, “Congratulations!”

Then we all laughed.

I bought both pairs of jeans today, Size 12, Gloria Vanderbilt.  Leslie and I high-fived each other as we walked across the street and back to work.

I'm sitting here at work and I didn't get much sleep either...I was on the phone ‘til like 3:00am!!! hehehe, what’s up with that?  Megan kept walking into the living room saying, “Mom, why aren’t you in bed asleep?”

And when I walked into work this morning bleary-eyed 'cause I didn't even get a chance to drink coffee before arriving, I found a lone shoe sitting on my desk right next to my computer.

What the heck?  Where did this weird-looking obviously worn shoe come from?  It's a black suede moccasin-style shoe.  There was no accompanying note, nothing.  Just a shoe.

So I sent an email to the entire office asking, "Did anyone lose a shoe?" -- something to that effect.

People wrote back asking if maybe Cinderella left it?

Finally, I got an email from my coworker Vikki whom we borrowed a suitcase from for my trips to Maui and ..New York.. and Megan's trip to ....Colorado.....  She said that it was Megan's shoe that got left in the suitcase.  that was like last July!  I mean, like I didn't even recognize the shoe.  who'd have known?

..am still recovering from the FABULOUS Beatles Fest that I attended all weekend in ....San Francisco.....  Imagine being surrounded by hundreds of Beatles fans from all over and meet Beatles fans as well as the people from world-class Beatles tribute bands from all over the world -- and I even got to meet Caroline and her mom there on Saturday evening!!!!  That was cool...  Hey, Caroline, what'd I tell ya about those Sun Kings? hehe!

at least I know I'm not alone -- Beatles Fans Unite!

And stay tuned for fabulous photos of the Beatles Fest (of course on my computer at home and I’m at work now) and of other exciting musical adventures happenin’ right here where I live.

“Something bad has gotta happen! Make them suffer!” Floyd Salas shouted in the classroom, pacing back and forth. He shouted often, not just because he was passionate about all this stuff, but because he was hard of hearing as well – but this poor new student probably didn’t know that. I knew it because Floyd and his wife Claire were my good friends. But in the classroom I was still the student and Floyd would always be my teacher. It would never change over the years.

He’d yelled at me several times – “You’ve got good stuff here! This is fun gossip – put it into FORM! Use the five-point plot plan!!!”

I don’t know how many times Floyd would yell at me about the five-point plot plan. I knew it by heart. You start with a problem/conflict, then there’s the first crisis, and then the second crisis, the climax and the conclusion. We talked about it in my graduate creative writing classes even – at least variations of it, but always pretty much the same.

One time Floyd ran right up to me and looked me right in the face and yelled, “Don’t forget the five-point plot plan!”

But do I remember the five-point plot plan when I first awake in the morning and stumble to my computer to write? Nooo, of course not. I just pour the words on to the white screen and hope for the best. Later, I can think about the five-point plot plan and picture Floyd yelling about it in the classroom – or hear all my wonderful teachers offer their input. Sometimes my muse is stubborn. She doesn’t like form much – she’d much rather just go with the flow. She’s just a kid, that muse of mine, and she doesn’t like structure or that a word, what is it? “Authority.” So I have to keep feeding her with all this knowledge about five-point plot plans and rising action – over and over again until she gets it right.

“Make the main character mean – he doesn’t hit his kid just once and feel bad – he does it several times and then he feels bad! Make lots of bad stuff happen! What you don’t want to write, we wanna hear!”

In Floyd’s weird way, he got it right. I was reading over Aristotle’s Poetics the other day for my teacher’s aid stint I’m doing in my master’s program – I’ve gotta read all the same stuff the students do. And even though Aristotle wrote Poetics at least a couple thousand years ago, he kinda got it right when he said something to the effect that everything that happens in your story, each part of the story, must be a part of the entire story – that is, if you can take a part out and it doesn’t change the story, then you don’t need it. Aristotle thought plot was the most important element needed in a poem (which were stories back then – no novels or movies, just verse and made into plays).

Guess things haven’t changed too much in a couple thousand years.

 
The golden road outside my friend Paula's house near Placerville, California...where I was early Sunday evening...

There’s a golden touch to the leaves outside my kitchen window, and on Sunday when I visited my Dad and my long-time friend Paula whom I knew from high school up in Placerville, I could see the gold all around – it’s fall, I thought – my favorite time of year, a time of beginnings and sometimes ending.  We had a good visit with my Dad -- and now I'm more grateful than ever that my Dad is still around, that he still remembers the past before I was born...and still comes up with new stories about our lives that I hadn't heard before.  Visiting Paula, who lives up the street from my Dad, is yet another blast from the past.  We've been friends since we were 15 years old.  and whenever we get together, even if we haven't seen each other for months, it's like all the years melt away and we're young girls again playing duets on guitars -- which we actually did for a little while.  Then, in honor of Mary from Peter, Paul and Mary, we sang, "Leavin' on a Jet Plane."

After we played guitars, we sat out on Paula and Mike's back patio, hanging out, watching the beautiful fountain...listening to a radio station Paula said she loved called 93.1 classic rock hits of the 70's.
 
I stayed for quite a while, and as I drove down the road from Paula and Mike's house, I just had to stop and look at all the golden shadows...realizing that fall had arrived -- before heading back to my Dad's place where Megan and Josh had helped Dad by cleaning his bathroom and kitchen.  We visited until around 9pm.  As we hugged and said good-bye, I realized that I had to get up to Placerville more often to see Dad.

So we got into the car, me, Megan and Josh, waving good-bye once more to my Dad as we took off down the road, 93.1 classic rock music blasting on the radio all the way through Sacramento and deep into the bay area before the station finally began to give out...all of us singing along to the music so varied, all from the 70's, from Hotel California to Al Green's Let's Stay Together to Steve Miller Band's Rockin' Me Baby and all music in between.

Who would have known, though, what would happen next... 
It was lunchtime yesterday when Melissa called – my older daughter, the stable strong daughter who always consoles everyone in times of crisis.

“Mom, I need you…”  Her voice was cracking as if she’d been crying.  I hadn’t heard her sound like that since – I don’t know when, probably since she was a teenager.

“What’s up, where are you?” I asked, already concerned, thinking vaguely she was calling from her home in San Francisco.

“No, I’m here – in Mountain View on Calderon and El Camino, you know, close to the Jack in the Box and the mortuary.”  Melissa’s voice broke up.

“Okay…”

“I need you to come get me and take me to Tracy’s house – I need a ride!”

Melissa sounded 14 again, when she first started high school, the years just melting away…that was 12 years ago, 1997, but there was something wrong.

“Okay, what’s up?”

“It’s Tracy’s Dad.  He died and Tracy found him, and I just came from the memorial…and…I couldn’t ask for a ride from Tracy.”

“What?” I didn’t know Tracy’s dad well, but a sea of emotion washed over me with her words…Tracy found her dad?  What the heck?  Somehow I knew I needed to leave work and be there for my daughter, for Melissa, for Tracy.

I could hear Melissa softly crying.  “It’s okay.  I’ll be there in just a few moments, okay?”

“Okay,” Melissa said, sounding like a kid.  She and Tracy had been friends forever, since they were both 14, and I’d driven Tracy home so many times.  Now they were roommates in San Francisco, only Tracy hadn’t been home for a couple of days…

I got out of work for lunch as soon as I could and drove down El Camino Real – Melissa and her friend Denise both stood on the corner of El Camino and Calderon on the right side of the street – just like old times, I thought.  How many times had I picked up assorted kids from somewhere on El Camino Real at any given hour?  Melissa wore all black and so did her friend Denice – just like old times too when Melissa went through her gothic phase.  The girls jumped into the car and I turned the corner and headed for Tracy’s house, almost on auto-pilot because even though I hadn’t been there in years, I still remembered where the house was – one block past Bryant Street, on Grant Road, and then make a right and then a left on to a cul-de-sac. 

“I just can’t believe this,” Melissa blurted out.  “I wondered where Tracy was when she didn’t show up – then figured she was visiting her parents down here…her mom was gone on vacation and her dad was at the house all by himself – you should’ve seen him!   Mom, he wasn’t even old.”

“I’m so sorry,” and I really was – poor Tracy to find her dad like that.  I knew they were a close family.

Melissa took out a beautiful card with Tracy’s Dad’s photo on the front, and she began to read…

Leaves are fallin' all around, time I was on my way
Thanks to you, I'm much obliged for such a pleasant stay
but now it's time for me to go, the autumn moon lights my way
for now I smell the rain, and with it, pain
and it's headed my way
Aw, sometimes I grow so tired
but I know I've got one thing I got to do

I recognized those words instantly – the lyrics to Led Zeppelin’s Ramble On.

Next thing we knew, Melissa and I both sang the words in unison as I drove down the road and then we both burst into tears…

“That was Tracy’s dad favorite song.”

By the time I pulled into the cul-de-sac where Tracy lived, we were already a mess…I parked and walked into Tracy’s family’s gorgeous house I’d pulled up and dropped Tracy off so many times at, but had never been inside.  I wanted to offer my condolences to Tracy.  I’d practically watched her grow up and I knew this was hard on her.  People milled in and out and smiled nervously, but they were all so nice and gracious.  And then I saw Tracy’s mom –

Me with Tracy and Melissa right before Melissa moved out with Tracy (August 2008) and her boyfriend to their house in Twin Peaks -- it's probably 2am here

 
buh-bye say Tracy and Melissa when I said, "Finally, you've got your place in San Francisco, yaaayyy!"
 

 
Fat hangs on for dear life.  It doesn’t want to leave.  All the pain, the suffering, the stress, the struggling, indulging and denial lies deep within the recesses of the fat on my body.  Sometimes carrying around extra weight is like a burden – a heavy load…one that I’m ready to get rid of.  Yet it doesn’t dictate who we are.  The year before I left ....Germany.... with three kids, $200 and seven suitcases, I lost 80 pounds.  I got rid of the fat and I felt great – better than I had ever felt.  I was probably in the best physical shape I’d been my whole entire life.

It’s not like my life just suddenly got better when I lost all that weight – in fact it got worse.  My marriage completely fell apart and I ended up alone, a single mom with three kids living on welfare in ..Newport.., ..Oregon.. – longing to get back to ....San Francisco...., the place I still considered home – the place that still resides in my heart.

Sometimes I wonder if the fat didn’t slowly make its way back to my body as a protection, and a burden – a burden so heavy that I had to carry it with me everywhere…

It’s like finally all the heavy burdens that I’ve been dragging along with me for I don’t know how many years is finally beginning to shed, little by little, one step at a time.  It doesn’t happen overnight, like I wake up one morning and I’m automatically 50 pounds lighter, but rather over a period of time.

A few weeks ago, I hit the scale at the HMR Weight Management clinic I attend each and every week, and I had finally gotten under 200 pounds, something I haven’t been able to do for many years.  It’s hard to explain how I felt – happiness, mixed with anger and guilt, wondering how I’d gotten myself into this predicament in the first place, how I managed to add so much fat to my body – and who am I to buy all the entrees and the shake mixes each week, week after week, when there was a time me and the kids had nothing to eat but Top Ramen, when I didn’t even have enough money to buy them meat…

The guilt seeps in, dancing with the fat – battling one another.  Each of them wants a place, but they’ve gotta go, somehow, some way.

All these well-meaning people say stuff like, “Well, it didn’t get there overnight, you’re not going to get rid of it overnight.”  Sometimes I want to throttle those people. 

I just can’t write about this…it’s so painful.

Sometimes I just want to give up and forget the whole thing – like when I was in San Francisco last weekend and I drove past so many nice restaurants and I thought, I could stop at one and eat a real meal…not just order lettuce or a salad.  I could have a glass of wine even though I’m not supposed to on the HMR Weight Management plan.  Hardly anyone truly understands…how do I explain it that I must keep trying.  I can’t stop now.

It’s painful for me to write about fat – on so many different levels.  Fat is the burden that I drag along with me wherever I go, whatever I do.  Carrying extra fat is like all the paper that constantly surrounds me here at work.  I have to get rid of it when I’m done with a project, throw it all into the blue recycling bin, wondering what really happens to that paper that supposedly gets recycles, wondering why I’ve got so much fat on my body.