Oh good, she's complaining. Something new.

I am officially putting myself on food probation. It's like academic probation, but instead, when I eat too much, oh you know, ice cream topped with cake and a pie - I get kicked off the school soccer team and can't play in the championship and everyone gets mad at me and makes "Thibeaux is a Quitter" buttons that they wear every day. Just kidding, I'd never make the soccer team, I'm terrible. Absolutely zero eye-foot coordination. Other things I am bad at as a result of this: dancing, freestyle walking and dodging land-mines.

I've struggled with weight issues my whole life. Because let's face it, I'm never meant to be a skinny girl. I'm like two and a half skinny girls. No, I'm like if one skinny girl ate a moderately skinny girl. That would be me at my best. But when I was growing up, I watched too much TV and played sports and wanted to be popular and this is the solemn swan song of my teenage years. Bottom line, I wanted to be someone I was never going to be. So I did what any awkward, uncomfortable girl in the mid-nineties, early 2000's did, I overcompensated with humor. It was my own personal mission statement that I would use humor as a defense mechanism to mask my insecurities about myself and how disappointed I was every time I looked in the mirror until I was no longer disappointed. We all see how well the "until" part worked out.

I think the part that really sucked about my everlasting struggle with my weight was when I realized that all those stupid doctors and fitness instructors and nutritionists were absolutely right. There was no magic pill, no spell I could cast, because I think if there was, even Crabbe and Goyle would have figured it out, to instantaneously change my appearance. Growing up helped, of course. I'm much better as a young adult than I ever was as an adolescent. And of course I was never overweight enough to consider some kind of surgery, forget you National Institute of Health and your weight minimums, so I was simply stuck in the middle, not skinny enough, but not fat enough to get stapled, between the proverbial rock, and a hard place. The rock being my love of the couch and affinity for cake, and the hard place being my dislike of the concept and patrons of "the gym." It was also extra annoying because none of the easy foods, like frozen pizza or Kraft mac and cheese, are actually good for you. And being the sullen, rebellious teen I was, my parents couldn't even make me talk to them, let alone eat "healthy." I chalked their forced multi-colored meals up to parental tyranny and I stormed the castle in the form of Jack In The Box 99 cent tacos and Zebra Cakes.

Author's Note: upon scanning my Microsoft Word "Symbols" for the cent sign, because I didn't want to write out the word "cent" for no particular reason, I was mystified that while they offer the ohm symbol, there is not a cent symbol to be found. Now, I, being an audio engineer, might have a use for the mathematical term in which resistance is measured, but I cannot say that the general public needs to write "The speakers are rated 500 watts at 8 ohms" more than they would need to write, "There's the new store in town, everything is 99 cents."

It's been a lot of ups and downs, but at the end of 2009, I was finally within earshot of my ultimate weight goal. And if I'm being honest, I really deserved it. Not only did I spent 10 or more hours a week at that stupid 24-hour fitness voluntary torture warehouse, but I turned down cake. I turned down cake and french fries, and answered the question, "baked potato or salad?" with the s word more than once. It sucked. But finally getting to buy clothes you like in sizes that don't make you die inside is a reward. And finally looking like you fit in with your brothers who are essentially pipe-cleaner sized people is a reward. And not getting Kevin Smith-ed on any particular Southwest flight is a reward. And like any "formerly fat kid who found the light," I made a solemn vow: I will never look like that, again.

So that is why, my dearest friends, I am putting myself on food probation and mandatory sweat factory sessions. Because I'm too poor to buy new clothes, so the ones I've got simply have to fit. Even though I resent the gender bias when it comes to appearance and the demand for perfection, because it's not enough that I have to do the same work as you jackasses, it's not enough that I have to pretend like I care about other women's rights, but I have to look put together and flawless, and I have to shower every day while doing it. Call in Batman, we have an injustice only a seksi vigilante can handle. No, even though I resent it, I buy into wholeheartedly. Plus, Eleanor 2.0 owes it to original Eleanor to stay the right shape. Original Eleanor turned down delicious, flavor-filled carbs and suffered through tasteless "could have come from my backyard" salads for Eleanor 2.0.

But my battle cry will always be, as it has always been, I hate the gym.