Book lists and being a little SAD

The charmingly-named Bunnyslippers asked if I would link to past year-end book review posts. Who are you, Bunnyslippers? I feel like I should know you. In any case, yes, yes I WILL link to past year-end book review posts.

Huh. There aren't as many as I thought.

Books read in 2010 post here.

Books read in 2011 first post here, second post here, third post here. (Last year was the first year I started dividing them into two-star, three-star and four-or-five-star posts).

So, it's February. Honestly, I think January wasn't the worst one ever. Which is mostly good, and a tiny bit bad, because since I wasn't absolutely mired in despair I was frustrated with myself for not doing more, but I didn't really fell well enough to do more, but I felt well enough to be pissed at myself for not doing more... yeah, it was a whole idiotic cycle. I joined Weight Watchers Online because my doctor said Weight Watchers is a worthwhile program but the thought of going to meetings made me want to kill myself with hot dogs sharpened into stakes. It does seem like a really sensible program, and I think the fact that it makes you aware of what you eat is great, because it's really easy to lose track, but I hate that it's made it all about numbers again. At the end of January I was briefly depressed that I hadn't lost very much weight, and then I stopped and slapped myself around and said, dude - you lost weight. In January. Quit being a putz. So then the day before my weigh-day I find myself either trying to shave points to maximize the likelihood that I'll get a lower weight the next morning, or downing half a wheel of brie out of spite. Yeah, no food issues here.

My husband is doing it with me, which opens up a whole other can of worms. It's nice to think it would be a mutually supportive thing, but honestly, all I want to do it stir heavy cream into all his food. Men lose weight faster anyway, and he's generally pretty thin, and that's NOT THE POINT, his father had a heart attack at sixty and he does need to be making healthy choices, but all I see when he eats a doughnut is him thinking "well, we'll do this together, but you're the only one who really needs to", and then I have to forcibly restrain myself from dripping turkey gravy into his mouth while he's asleep. I promise, I'm working on it.

I've hit a bit of a roadblock in CPAP usage. I usually wake up in the night and look at the clock and take off the mask if it's five a.m. or later, because then I know I've worn it for five or six hours. But for the past week or so I've woken up at three a.m. or so and realized I've already taken off the mask without realizing it. And getting up still feels like pulling myself out of quicksand, with weights on my ankles and carrying a basket of wet towels.

Then there's the fact that now it's February, and I think, yay! January's over! I will feel instantly better! Yes, NOW! No? Okay, NOW. Wait for it, wait for it...um, now? And then I remember that this always happens in February, because somehow my serotonin and dopamine levels don't respond to flipping a calendar page. Stupid neurochemicals.

Anyway. My husband reminds me periodically, and kindly, that January is to be survived, not conquered, and gives me permission to go to bed early and read or watch movies on my ipad. I started rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and after Eve watched part of one episode with me when she couldn't sleep one night she started watching it on her own. Except she was just flipping through Netflix and watching random episodes, which may or may not have resulted in me becoming unreasonably irate and hollering "you're watching Buffy ALL WRONG", but in any case she's watching it in order now.

Yeah. Whiny Wednesdays for the win.