Felicitations #10
It’s time.
I don’t want it to be.
It’s the last thing I want to do.
But I have to take each one of my butt cheeks in hand and whisper:
“Goodbye to you.”
I wrote that poem for all of you. You’re welcome.
This past year of Covid has been, as you know from a lot of my writing lately, a mental boon for me. I’ve been able to unplug and reacquaint myself WITH myself. I’m surer of what I want to do with my time and my creativity, and I’ve reprioritized my life in a way that I believe will lead to better health and happiness.
I’m not looking to rush into it, but I am excited about getting back into some areas of my life I’ve abandoned. Which means….girl you gotta lose some of that new, chonky booty.
I’ve gained 12 pounds since last March. It’s the most I’ve ever weighed outside of being pregnant. To be honest, if I wasn’t a public figure (of a sort) I would be SO VERY fine weighing what I weigh now. I actually like myself this way a lot (hi bigger boobies!) and, even more, I like eating whatever the heck I want! Hell, a few newsletters ago I proudly showed off my cupcake belly, which I still think is suuuuper cute. But I know that if I want to go back and do any acting whatsoever, I gotta at least get myself to a place where the camera isn’t adding another ADDITIONAL 10 lbs. So I’ve decided to bite the bullet, at least up until my birthday at the end of the month, and diet and exercise so I can take some new acting headshots to “get back in the game”.
Plus I literally can’t climb one flight of stairs without dry heaving, so…health stuff factors into this decision as well. Le sigh.
I have a very complicated relationship with eating. Well, I dunno how complicated it is: I love it. It gives me life. I love imagining what I’m going to eat next. Sometimes I’ll start planning what I want for the NEXT meal while I’m EATING a meal. I will definitely travel 45 minutes for a croissant. In fact, the only reason I travel is to visit new bakeries. (Check my posts from Paris a few years ago, you’ll see this is 100% true.) I follow 200 people on Instagram and I think 100 of those are food-related accounts. Is it a problem? Of course not. Maybe? I dunno. Whatever! Everyone has to have a hobby, guys!
Am I being defensive right now? Probably.
I think it’s because, when I was a lonely homeschooled kid, the only thing I could depend on was that my mother never cooked, so we would eat lunch out pretty much every day. The world was like our own personal “Cheers”! Every waiter in Biloxi, Mississippi knew our names! This food-gathering excursion was sometimes the ONLY human contact outside of the house I got during a week. So naturally, food isn’t only about FOOD for me, it’s about experience and human contact and ESCAPE. Plus…all dem yummies.
This dynamic came into BIG play for me over Covid. I felt trapped, therefore I ate! And it wasn’t all bad. I got to know my kitchen for the first time in my life. I would start poking around in my cabinets and…what’s this? A waffle iron?! I didn’t know I had one of these! Let’s waffle everything! Can’t go to the movies? Get a Whirly Pop and start slinging that melted butter for TV time every night! I started cooking more and more and, more importantly, I got comfortable enough in the kitchen to experiment with cooking. I love it now! It’s creative and fun and then afterwards, ALL THAT EATING!
I also used the excuse of “supporting local business” to eat out a ton. LA is flush with home bakers doing popups from their houses, so why SHOULDN’T I order authentic homemade Indian roti or weird Georgian empanada-type things from someone’s kitchen 45 minutes away, I mean “LET ME OUT OF THE HOUSE! I NEED NEW FLAVORS IN MY MOUTH STAT!”
Basically I fell into a pattern of behavior of food relieving boredom. And I realize it’s a bit unhealthy at this point and I have to cut the cord. I’m not doing anything extreme, believe me, I don’t have the discipline for Keto or Crossfit. I’m just going to cut back on eating sugar and carbs for a month and TRY to work out 3 times a week with an app called FitOn. (I read that over again and thought, “WOW that’s WAY too much.”) The willpower it will take…shudder. But the deadline of paying for headshots in early July at least gives me a benchmark for this phase of self-deprivation!
So, to memorialize the last year of buffet living and start the “new Felicia lifestyle” off right, I want to post a few thank yous to some of the highlights of my last year:
Thank you biscuits. I made you every weekend and you lit up my life. I’m sorry I never got around to making my own jam to spread on you.
Thank you community, for giving me subs on twitch in order for me to buy these artisianal Tesla engineer-designed chocolate chips from San Francisco that were optimized for melting. They indeed made very pretentious and fabulous cookies.
Thank you “Spatchcocking”, which is a technique where you make your chicken look very wanton when you bake it. You’re crispy and delicious. I can’t quit you, sexybird.
Thank you, pie. You were a good excuse to eat more fruit.
Thank you mango covered key lime cheesecake. You took 4 hours to make and pissed me the hell off with your complexity, but I love the memory of your sweet sweet cheese in my mouth. NEVER AGAIN THOUGH!
Lastly, thank you sprinkles. For being sprinkled on so many cakes by my daughter. It was…a lot of sprinkles. Actually, I need to take her to the dentist now that I think about it.
/end dedication.
Goodbye sugar! And flour! And butter! I knew you well…sob. So many memories. I…I’m actually tearing up right now. Honest!
(I made it clear that I’m only quitting desserts for 4 weeks, right? Sooooo, this whole post is kinda pathetic. Sorry. Eat a cupcake for me tho. <3)
INTERESTING LINKS:
Weekly Recipe: Healthy(er) breakfast muffins that are yummy too!
In order to settle a lawsuit, an ancient Greek magically cursed people. Wut?
Want to make Mud Balls as a hobby? It actually looks amazingly therapeutic!
There’s a new tiny handheld gaming system with a crank about to be released. Yes, I will be pre-ordering.
PERSONAL LINKS (Also Interesting):
New episode of Undressing The Witcher covers episode 3. This show is even better on the second watch!
Check out my Twitch streaming schedule. As always, I stream 4x a week.
It’s summer. Not much else is going on lol. Writing a TON though! Your liking this newsletter is really encouraging me to put the words out, thank you!
Lastly, please subscribe to this newsletter so you get it in your inbox every week.
See you in two weeks, and on my Discord channel in between for chatting and friendship! <3
oxox
Felicia
This eating lifestyle sort of describes my last 40 years. I do a lot of justifying why I eat what I do. Somehow I explain the variety of basically unhealthy foods as making me more worldly and able to converse on diverse gastronomic topics.
I keep telling people I'll go anywhere with you to see whatever it is you want to see, just make sure there's a good restaurant for me to try when we're done. And I also use pie as an excuse to have fruit!! I feel like I'm in such good company.