The Awful Truth

My work has done a great job of recognizing all the long hours I put in after the October fires. Left and right I've received tons of official and non-official pats on the back from all levels. I'm appreciative of the praise especially since I did work 12-14 hour days for 4 months straight but I must admit I'm not one for the limelight and sometimes like to do the dirty work from the shadows. A month ago my picture went up on the front of my agency's website as an employee profile. I wasn't a fan of the picture but I had no one to blame since several times I was asked by the PR peeps to pick out a picture but refused because I didn't want to be all high maintenance and request a pro looking action shot of me doing my job (which I have several). That's the bad part of me being the "it" girl of the moment (which I realize that this is my 15 min of fame and it wont last much longer). Everyone at work has known me since I was the 20 year old intern who was reliable but often came to work slightly hungover from the frat party the night before. I don't want my coworkers to think I've forgotten my roots or worse yet to think that I did all the work after the fires by myself. I have a wonderful staff of 12 plus a myriad of coworkers from across the state who came down and spent time away from their families to help me out. Anyways, I try really hard to not be the drama queen in the center of all the attention.

Today a very glossy, very professional looking "magazine" type thing came off production that will be sent to several very big wigs in my agency's National HQ. My picture is plastered across the magazine on about 5 different pages (of the 10 pages total). And in every single photo I look fat. Like really fat. Like WOW. I didn't realize I had gotten that big fat. I could blame it on the PR person who did the layout but in all honestly it's not that the photos are unflattering. I think it's that I really look as bad as the pics portray. This magazine should be something that I cherish but instead it's something that I am really not proud of because of the way I look.

I know that its not really about the photos, it's about the story within the magazine but let's not kid ourselves. That's like saying men subscribe to playboy for the articles and not the hot chicks. The big wigs that receive the magazine are all very busy people and wont have much time to actually read the text. They'll flip through it and be greeted with me looking like a lard-o. I've seen my face on other agency promo material and several times been pleased with how I look. This isn't me just being hard on myself because I don't wear the standard SoCal size 2. This is me being hard on myself because once again I've let my weight get out of control and I'm really embarrassed of the way I look.

Clothes, Woes, Boys, and Toys

Weight Loss
When Dave and I first began our healthier lifestyle resolution we elevated the challenge by adding weekly goals and rewards/punishments. Going in to this I though "no problem!" since I am the Queen of Weight Loss and Dave is Mr Never Touched a Gym in His Life as well as the Baron of Taco Bell. Dave has always been athletically built and good at sports but beyond that has never had to try to stay fit therefore I thought I had an advantage to this whole challenge. I was born from the womb short and round and I've had to battle my figure my whole life.

Well, I greatly underestimated the competitive nature of my spouse. Had I known that all I had to do was issue a challenge I would have done this much sooner in order to motivate Dave to work out daily. Not only has he joined my gym and gone daily for 45 minutes but he has also completely revamped his eating habits (gone is fast food) as well as given up soda! This is huge coming from the man who used to drink 5-6 cans of coca cola a day. As of Week 1 Dave had lost 7 pounds and I had lost 3. Week 2 was tampered when we took a mini-vacation to a local snow resort and I re-gained the 3 from week 1 plus one I had lost in week 2 (total of 4 pounds). Dave regained 2 pounds. I'm really trying to make this healthy lifestyle something that I can do everyday for the rest of my life and evidently the vacation eating part of my lifestyle needs some tweaking.

Dreams of Our Fathers
Sunday night I had numerous dreams about boys I had dated in the past. Last night I dreamt of several scary wars in which I was forced to do battle. The boy dreams I enjoyed mostly because they involved lots of necking and heavy petting. The war dreams not so much. In one dream a tank was firing rapid succession at me and the ammo was oranges. It is citrus season here in Cali and obviously I have eaten one too many oranges.

Working Girl
I'm still insanely busy and working 12 hour days plus weekends. Luckily Dave is gone for work this week which allows me to work late into the night without feeling guilty. Now that it has been 3 months since the fires I am starting to get real tired of this schedule. Taking this past Monday off for our mini-vacay was refreshing but I can't keep doing this same schedule. Starting next week I am going to focus more on me and work only 9 hour days plus Saturdays. Dave is super motivated to do the gym thing and I'm going to make time to go to the gym with him as soon as my day has ended (4pm).

In other news, a National news crew is coming out next week to film our fire recovery work. I really would have liked to be much thinner but am trying not to stress over it too much. What am I saying? I am stressing over it big time! (to further clarify I am stressing over my weight not the national news part).

Shiny Toys
I got the new Sirius Stiletto 2 last week and I LOVE it. I'm already a big fan of Sirius but now I can take my Sirius with my when I go to the gym or out hiking! It's super small (about the size of a video IPOD) and light weight too. Now I am just waiting for the arm strap that I ordered to come so that I can stop treating it like a delicate flower.

Breaking Point

On Friday I gave four media interviews. Two of them were over the phone interviews for newspapers, one was for the local ABC affiliate, and the other was an in person interview for a regional news radio program. I sucked in all of them.

Previous to Friday, my media resume had consisted of two different experiences. In the first I shot a 15 minute fluff piece for a special that aired on PBS. It took a whole day to shoot the piece during which I was ordered to walk here, walk back, pretend to explain something to someone else, smile, play dead, etc. Most of the piece was going to be pre-written voice over work so the amount of questions that I had to spontaneously answer was minimal. Plus I had 2 public affairs specialists on-site watching my every move on camera, therefore I never felt nervous since I knew if I fumbled my words they would both pop up and feed me lines.

In the other previous experience I was emailed a list of questions a week before hand so that I could formulate my response. The whole time I was being interviewed I pretty much read my response verbatim and then afterwards handed over my written answers so that everything could be transcribed correctly.

Lesson Learned: I do well when someone holds my hand.

During the phone interviews I was given no advance warning. So in effect they went something like this:
Me: *drawing a map, rocking out to Coldplay, probably thinking about what I will eat for lunch*
Phone: Ring, Ring!
Me: What up? (Just kidding! I answer the phone like an adult)
Phone: Hi, My name is Debbie Downer from Serious Newspaper and I have a few questions for you.
Me: *fumble response, drool, bang head against computer*

The TV interview was worse since my State Head Honcho left it up to me to present for 10 minutes in front of a packed press conference during which everyone else who presented was the head of their federal or state agency. Actually, I am thankful for him giving me the opportunity to present since it shows that he trusts and respects me plus he was by my side the entire time so it's not like he fed me to the wolves. Point being: it was a massive press conference, lots of tv cameras and reporters, and angry people who have lost everything in the fires. As soon as everything ended I was happy as a clam since I had been nervous to the point of throwing up but as soon as I got up to the podium I was overcome by the ghost of George Washington and magically became this poised speaker. Bottom line was I rocked.

Then a news personality sweeps me to the side as I'm limping off the stage and drags me to a corner so that they can get a one-on-one interview. Have you ever had a giant camera stuck in your face while someone asks you difficult questions? Not easy. I ended up stumbling through the entire interview while at the same time shadily shifting my eyes back-and-forth toward the camera man since he was standing mere inches from my face. Thanks dude. The radio interviewer dragged me away as soon as the TV person had chewed me up and spit me out. At that point I didn't have much left in me.

I think I'm gonna need media training since my agency has pledged a bazillion jillion dollars towards fire recovery work on private lands and I have a feeling that there will be more interviews in my future. Today has already been nasty crazy and I am just about ready to hide under my desk and cry until everyone goes away and leaves me alone.

He is Playing SoCom, I am Listening to Hum

Surprise, surprise. I decided to honor part of the 3 day weekend and only go to work one of those days. The other days I've been running around trying to catch up on my personal life. All the fun stuff like bills, grocery shopping, dropping off dry cleaning, and clothes shopping. Also, downloading my camera which I haven't done in far too long. Here is a picture catch up:

A few months ago, I went to Oregon to visit my best friend. Oregon was far more beautiful then I imagined it would be as well as far more rural. I miss her so much ;-(

About a month ago we went to the San Diego Chargers vs Oakland Raiders football game. Good game except the part where the Raiders f'ed up and lost yet another game. PS - Dear Chargers, when playing another Cali team please stop playing this song every time you score a TD. In that case it doesn't make sense!

Dave's office that we recently (2-3 months ago) renovated by laying ikea tundra laminate flooring. Cheap and relatively easy. Now if only I could find pictures to hang that Dave actually liked. The boy is PICKY when it comes to just above everything. Oh lucky me.

The view from our house on the first day of the fires (Monday). The nasty red color and smoke lasted for days.

Goodnight!

PS. Doing it old school: Hum

Destruction

Various pics that I have taken over the last week. I was out with a tour of congressional representatives when a fire began 300 yards away from where we stood. Luckily, a helicopter spotted the fire immediately and began dropping water buckets on the hot spot. We were so close to the fire that the helicopter was dropping water on us as it was flying overhead.

Trick

I didn't get home tonight until 8:45pm and unfortunately missed all the trick or treaters. As I was driving home from a meeting at 6:30pm and going over all the things I would need to do when I got back to the office, I became super disappointed because Halloween is one of my favorite holidays ever and we bought tons of GOOD candy for the kids (big snickers bars and pb cups, we have no kids and tons of disposable income). So I'm driving home and feeling sad that another 12 hour work day would ruin something I've been looking forward to for the past month but then as I entered the County line I looked to my left and right and saw the hills and mountains that used to be covered in lush landscape but has now been burnt to a blackened moonscape. It made me realize that there are those out there who wont have a home to trick or treat from. Thousands who will walk down a street where one home exists and another doesn't as they knock door to door. Many have lost their homes, many have lost their land, and I feel so proud to be part of an agency that is helping them restore what was taken from them. It makes these late nights and 7/11 meals so worth it as I realize that what I am doing is making a difference. For so long I've babbled on about how much I miss San Francisco. Yet, for the first time as I drove through the moonscape I felt an overwhelming sense of love for this County. For the first time San Diego felt like home.

Photo Credit: San Diego Union-Tribune