I did it! Kind of! Reasons for crappy quality stand-in-ness elucidated in the youtube video.

1. But why?

2. You don’t *look* depressed.

3. There’s no reason for you to be depressed! Your life is great!

4. My Aunt Ida had depression and she said that all she had to do was tantric yoga every morning for three days while using a vitamin C suppository and she’s never had a problem since. Maybe you should try that.

5. Don’t take any prescription medications for depression. The drug companies are lying to you.

6. Don’t go unmedicated. Depression is a chemical imbalance and always needs to be treated right away with prescriptions.

7. Have you tried vegan/paleo/gluten-free/soy-free/fruitatarian to solve your depression?

8. Everyone has depression these days.

9. Oprah said…

10. JUST SMILE.

Allie: I’m at Whole Foods spending all the money.

Shalini: Whole Foods, my wallet can’t handle you.

Allie: My wallet can’t handle it either. I don’t know why I stopped here. I think there was a ray that sucked my willpower away. Because I’m damn sure not going to an additional store. So $90 for butter is just the way it goes.

Shalini: Yeah, I know the feeling. Pick up an $18 cracker to go with the butter.

Allie: I should have brought you with me!

Shalini: No! Every time I shop there I end up spending almost exactly $200. I don’t know how.

Allie: But without you I might spend $175 and that is clearly not right.

Shalini: Clearly.

Allie: So is it irony that I just spent $154 at Whole Food but I’m having a Subway sandwich for dinner?

Shalini: Yes. Yes it is. I hope it’s something especially GMOd, like a meatball sub with a side of antibiotics.

Allie: I didn’t want to spend the $.25 for the side of antibiotics. What can I say? I’m a cheapskate.

Shalini: The flavor’s in the antibiotics!

Allie: “The flavor’s in the antibiotics!” really ought to be *somebody’s* slogan.

Shalini: We should email Monsanto!

Allie: Thanks to the NSA, they probably already know.

Before I decide to eat “healthier” meals and snacks:

After?

Thing 1: I’m posting outfits every single day (or close to it) at tumblr.  A miracle occurred because for the first time in many, many weeks I didn’t think of dresses as the single most awful thing I could put on my body and I wore one.

This one, specifically:

It wasn’t so bad. I’m not posting where I get anything, but if you want to know, just email/message me. (This one: thrift store.)

Thing 2: I’m on a diet. Except I’m not calling it a diet. I’m calling it not having heavy creamer in my seven cups of coffee (shhh, coffee is therapeutic) and eating pie for lunch and Doritos for breakfast because I’m sad and I deserve Doritos for breakfast. No one deserves that, least of all my tummy rolls. So, not a diet so much as a return to sanity. Still, I’m limiting myself to three desserts a week (OH WOE SACRIFICE). I might grumble a bit because I’m a spoiled brat.

Thing 3: I am giving up on the Office Crush book. When I started the blog, and then when I wrote the novel for it, I was a different person than I am now. I think I’m a better writer (but that’s just my opinion) now, and whenever I go in to make edits on it, what I want to do is change it completely. Which doesn’t really work when people want an ending to what happened before. I struggled with this decision for a long time, but it’s time to move on.

But! If you want to read my last draft of it and find out what I thought would happen, I’m happy to email it to you. As I said, I’m a better writer now, so I…disavow all association with it? Nah, not that strong, but please don’t hold me to strict standards. It’s not in top shape, is what I’m saying.

Wow, I’m really a salesman! Well, with that, email me at readingandchickens at gmail if you want a very unwieldy Word doc of it.

UPDATE: Actually, if you want to read it, you can view it right here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzTId9mR-NS-OFNMSXdaeEN1Y3M/edit?usp=sharing.

My kids will not take a decent photograph anymore, so the “last” day photos are from May 2013.

Oh, wait, there’s this gem from last night:

That’s what a newly-minted tiny third grader and giant kindergartner look like. Also, why they will not have any photos when they’re older of this time in their lives. (But I’m glad their lice haircuts are growing in.)

His parents didn’t have the heart to tell him that a slutty enzyme was about to break up the Sucrose Family for good after their meal.

I finished my lunch and put my tiny plates on the floor for the dog to lick. Why am I using tiny plates? I thought to myself. The tiny plates used to be reserved for snacks and little kids. Now they were for me.

The dog didn’t come to lick the tiny plates. The dog was asleep, snoring. The dog had epilepsy and arthritis and lupus. If the dog were a person, the dog would be a financial strain on taxpayers paying for Medicare.

I folded the laundry and I applied for a job. I tweaked my resume. I mowed the lawn and I cleaned the chicken coop. I thawed some meat for dinner and chopped some vegetables. I read part of a pretentious novel that was, despite itself, really well-written.

I walked to my laptop and opened the Word document that contained a draft of my unpretentious novel, 101,981 words, 351 pages. I looked at a few paragraphs and deleted them. 101,345 words. 350 pages. I looked it over again. I pressed “select all,” and then I held down the delete key.

I thought about one of my first nights in Seattle, when I’d made dinner for me and Gregg for the first time. It was something pathetic, ramen and salad, but it was more than I’d ever done before at 21, almost completely alone in a new city.  I ate my dinner, and then I ate Gregg’s, with nothing left to do. He came home two hours late, with a story. “You’ll never guess who I met!” he said with a huge smile on his face. “We were chatting in a half-circle and then who walks up but Steve Ba–”

“I don’t care! I don’t care!” I cried and stormed into the bedroom, forever ruining a perfectly good tale with my tantrum. I wasn’t almost completely alone in a new city.

I sat at my blank Word document that used to be a novel and thought about what I’d really like to do with my life. “I’d really like to bake bread,” I said to no one. The boys were at school for another hour; Gregg was at work; the dog was epileptic and arthritic and old and asleep. I cleaned the bathrooms.

“What about writing?” I asked myself again. “What about librarianship?” I clicked my empty inbox. No new line edits. No interview requests.

I went to the kitchen and baked a loaf of bread. I checked my email. Still empty. I took a walk and watched the other stay-at-home moms running and gardening and enjoying each other’s company with their freckled, muscled shoulders and lean bodies. I wondered what was wrong with me as I flipped a page of my pretentious novel and walked on, knowing that I didn’t want to be them and that everything I ever wanted was in 2D, flat on the page, in my hands.

I walked back home, unlocked the door, and sat in the swivel chair at the desk. I put down my pretentious novel near my abandoned coffee mug and another tiny plate. I reserved some books at the library website, and then I opened a new Word document only to look up at a clock and realize it was noon, time to pick up the preschooler.

I closed the document. “Do you want to save changes?” the program asked me. I clicked, “No.”