If you must wear fox to the opera, Dame Fashion says 'Dye It!'

So. As I was saying, I bought some black leather pants today. They're nice, and I got a good deal on them because they came from the consignment shop down the street. I can't believe how good these pants look on me, I mean, they're perfect. Great gosh-a mighty, as Little Richard would say. (You would too, if you saw me wearing these pants.)They look so good that I might see about somebody taking a picture of me in the pants, and then posting it here. (Don't count on that, though, I'm not exactly thrilled about the idea of having my image on the 'net ever again.)

It is still a little strange to me that the best-fitting pants I own are size 8. On the other hand, I'm kind of getting used to being this size, meaning small. Er. Smaller is what I mean; I still do not feel small. because if I felt small, where would I have to go from here? Where am I going? That's easy. I'm going back to the Pilates studio.

I've been doing the exercises with a video for a few days, and I think I probably need to spend some time with a trainer to get more benefit from the stretching. My abdominal muscles are still pretty screwed up from all the surgery, and I'd prefer not to hurt myself. I decided that it might be a good idea for me to head back to classes after I sent an e-mail to a friend explaining how I didn't think I needed to. Go figure.

What Pilates is supposed to do is make me stronger. I wouldn't mind if it shaped me up a little, as well. I need to be stronger, but I want to be in better shape. It doesn't make sense to me to have lost all this weight and then not try to improve from there. I saw a photograph of myself and a couple of friends from May of 1997. All I could think was how fat I looked back then. I mean, I wasn't huge, but I was larger than I am now.

The thing is, I've reached the point where my the size I think I am and my actual size are about the same. So you see, I have to have somewhere to go from here; I don't know how to operate without somewhere to go, and I'll be damned if "where" turns out to be straight into a bag of potato chips in front of the teevee.

before - after