Harry Potter and the Super Big Gulp

Today was really uneventful but I'm going to tell you about it anyway.

Class this morning was marine biology. We finally watched a video of a tiger shark destroying a sea turtle. I got a C on my exam, then went to meet Micaela in the Woodbury Campus Center. We caught up a bit, it was nice to see her, but I had to get to my eye exam. It was a follow-up appointment for my contact fitting, and listened to the Moth podcast the whole way there. Although I was at Maine Eye Center for an entire hour, only ten minutes was with the doctor. Totally worth the wait, right? During my ridiculously long wait, I did find out that in a survey of Travel and Leisure readers, Portland, Maine ranked in the top five cities in the country for safest and best beer, though something seems a little off that those two categories are together. 

I left the Maine Eye Center, which is over by Denny's. I chose this optometrist due to it's proximity to my old apartment in the St. John Valley. Normally, when I go back to that neighborhood, I get a pint and a sub from Pizza Villa. But, since I'm trying to cut back on that sort of behavior (drinking alone, during the day), I decide to skip it. But it's almost 2, I've only had coffee all day and am totally starving. Other than the Villa, I think there are two options, McDonald's, or Kim's. Joe Ricchio indicates that Kim's is one of the top ten things to eat in Portland, but sometimes I get minor anxiety going to a new place for the first time. But why I never made it there the eight months I was living two blocks away- still a mystery.

There's little deliberation. I get a McChicken, a cheeseburger, and a small order of french fries. This is similar to an order that I make at Wendy's, sub the cheeseburger for the jr. bacon cheeseburger, and the McChicken for the cripsy chicken sandwich. The price is about the same for both of these orders, but the Wendy's experience is much better. 

So, I'm walking down St. John Street, McDonald's in hand, on my way to the bus, and someone beeps and waves to me from a black Subaru. I don't know who was in the passenger seat waving, but I believe the only two people I know who own that car happen to be the two owners of a certain bowling alley I recently stopped working at. Great, so it looks like I'm unemployed,and eating fast food between turning tricks on St. John Street. 

The bus is on time,  I get home pretty quick, and alternate between reading blogs and gchatting for the next few hours. I was feeling compelled to see a movie on my very limited budget, since it's Super Bargain Tuesday. I couldn't decide between the new Zach Galifinakis, but I also couldn't ignore the nagging desire to see the new Harry Potter. So I went to 7-Eleven and picked up SUPER Big Gulp:

When I Google imaged the Super Big Gulp, I also learned that there in a Super Big Gulp there is: Sugars, total: 128g, Calories, total: 512, Calories from sugar: 512 (38 oz soda + 6 oz ice) source, http://womenonwellness.com/sweet-poison/. I, of course, knew this, and got diet. Heh heh.

So I decide to go to Due Date, it's alright, I laugh a few times. It was mostly forgettable, and my bladder was busting, so I waited in line at the bathroom. On my way down, I walked into a busy lobby, and open doors to the Harry Potter movie.... and I snuck in. Oh, and as my foot crossed the threshold, I reverted to my 17 year old self.

Do I need to get out more?

The Doppelganger

Occasionally, I get mistaken for this blonde girl who waits tables in town. She's about twenty lbs smaller and dresses better, so, I take it as a huge compliment. She's actually waited on me before, and I wonder if she knows that people tell me I look like her all the time, and what she thinks of this. And just the other day, I was at Pizza Villa, and I saw a Bradley Cooper doppelganger. If you knew anything about the clientele at Pizza Villa, you'd understand that this is really weird. Between this encounter at the Villa, celebrity doppelganger week, and the recurring doppelganger references on How I Met Your Mother, I decided to write about it.

A couple of years ago, I had a doppelganger in Portland. It started out with a mistaken identy at Shay's, in Monument Square. I was going there occasionally that summer- they had $5 bourbon lemonades served in mason jars, but the people watching was priceless. The bartender asked me if I wanted a Jim and Coke, which was weird, because although not opposed to the idea, I'd never ordered that before. I don't really name drop alcohol. Weeks later at Rosie's, where I'd consider myself something of a regular, once, the waitress asked me if I wanted a Sam Adams, which I'd also never ordered there. I kind of looked at her funny and said no, but thank you, and ordered a Hooker Brown. (Not until recently did I occur to me that the beer is called HOOKER and that's weird.) Then, when she came back for my food order, she asked if I wanted the buffalo wings with blue cheese sauce. Hold on. No way. Blue Cheese sauce is WICKED GROSS. Sam Adams, honest mistake, but there's no way I'd EVER eat blue cheese sauce. And it's not the sort of thing that someone just suggests off the menu, this was obviously a case of mistaken identity. Confirmed one morning about a week later at the office when Michelle came into work and said, "I saw Amanda's doppelganger on Wharf Street last night. She had the same purple tights and everything. I had to look long and hard before I realized it wasn't her." I looked at her really confused, and remembering NO! I wasn't in the Old Port that night. Holy shit, I have a Portland doppelganger. Really, hopefully, we never meet. What if we have to fight to the death?

This was not the case with my friend Betsy, especially because in a fight to the death, she'd probably win. She worked at a bank in Westbrook for a while, and I went in frequently for my job. Much later, we become friends, and she told me this story.

I poke fun, but Westbrook isn't that bad. I imagine that regulars at the coffeeshop there are the same regulars as at the bakery and the grocery store and the bank. I worked in Westbrook for three years, and despite the commute, the occasional encounters with crazy Westbrook people (remember that guy who showed me his colostomy bag?), and limited lunch options, I liked it. Betsy was a teller, and every so often someone would come through her line and say that they saw her at Hannaford, and that she didn't say hello back. She's really friendly, this sounds like a very uncharacteristic thing for her to do. And she realizes that no, she wasn't at Hannaford at the time you specified. Occasionally, someone calls her Megan, with absolute confidence. She's thinking, no, you're not even close, and I have a nametag. These numbers weren't adding up. One guy finally says, "You know, there's a girl named Megan who works at Hannaford who looks just like you." Betsy's like, whoa, well, I have to see this girl. Personally, I'd be terrified. So, she boldly walks into Hannaford for a bottle of seltzer, or whatever, on her way home that night, and asks the cashier if there is a girl named Megan working there who looks like her. Again, I'd be terrified. The cashier pages Megan, she comes to the front, and she asks Megan if she ever gets called Betsy. Megan says, yeah! with a 'how did you know' sort of tone in her voice. Betsy responds, well, I'm Betsy. As if this wasn't weird enough, there is one extremely distinguishing difference between the two: Megan is unmistakably cross-eyed.

Oh, and Darcy made this for me:

I'm Getting Fat

Everyone knows that in the winter, it's normal to put on a few pounds, like we're hibernating. You wear wool and flannel and parkas, the gluttony of the Holidays. It's perfectly acceptable, even animals do it. I've been extremely fortunate, and my weight hasn't fluxuated very much at all, except for two specific occasions. There are two specific times in my life when this has happened, and surprisingly, it's been weightloss, not gain. When I had my first seriously devastating break-up, and I survived on coffee for about a week- my body didn't know if it was hungry, nauseated, nervous, so I barely ate anything. Then there was the time that I moved out of my mother's house for the first time, relying on myself to do groceries and prepare my own food. Most college freshman put on a freshman fifteen, I lost the freshman fifteen. Friends visited and grew concerned about my nutrition, rightfully so. Money, and therefore food shopping, was an bit of an issue. I can remember eating a sandwich made of cinnamon raisin bread, fluff, and cucumbers. Maybe I was delusional, but I think I liked it?  Don't tell my mom this, but once or twice, I went to sleep hungry, assuming that it would be gone in the morning.

This winter, however, a number of things have changed. Barely noticable to the naked eye and those around me, but proven by a dress I wore to a wedding last year no longer zipping, I put on *gasp* five pounds. My apartment is a lot farther away from everything, so I've been taking the bus a lot more. I could not resist a Tony's molasses donut for breakfast, then I'd eat a delicious Rosemont Bakery ham and cheese croissant for lunch, plus a various mix of assorted coffee drinks throughout the day. Vegetables? What vegetables. Possibly in some veggie cream cheese on my bagel. I was (well, still am,) drinking a lot of cheap beer, and eating at Pizza Villa all the time (ham Italian, no onion, no olives, no oil, plus pineapples or a meatball sub, since it's cheap, and a block from my house. This is a big one: I rounded the corner of my twenties, which means, maybe my metabolism is finally slowing down.

Anyway, there's a really easy way of dealing with this, or so I thought. It was only a matter of time before I shed this winter weight, and in the meantime, Spanx. I wore Spanx under my jeans, under my tights, dresses, and sometimes after a long day, I'd pass out in bed with all of my clothes on, Spanx included. Beyonce wears them too:

But something bad happened. I think I abused the privilege of the Spanx. Here is a picture taken a few weeks ago from a nice morning hike up Bradbury Mountain that I took with Angela Pizzo. I asked Darcy if it was a difficult climb, and she said that I could go up the mountain in a wheelchair.

OH MY GOD, I'm maimed for life! I don't know when exactly I finally noticed this, and it's only on my left leg, but holy shit. Alright, well. A few things to consider: Since then, I've been cutting my donuts in half and throwing the other half away. I got sneakers to go on walks/jogs/the gym. There's a gym at USM that I can use for free, although I don't even know how it works. When my budget allows, I'll order a vodka soda, with it's low sugar content, over a cheap beer. There are precious few weeks before beach weather rolls around, and I don't intend on spending the summer in a baggy t-shirt to hide my Spanx scar.