Which brings me to the conspiracy surrounding my attempts to get fit enough to be happy about wearing a regular old cover-your-ass bathing suit now. We are going to Hawaii for our tenth anniversary and I would like to look like I did ten years ago. Since that ship has sailed, I would at least like to feel reasonably sane in a two piece. That doesn’t seem like much to ask, does it?

So then explain why are there troops of cookie pushers at the grocery store when I go. And if I attempt to exercise some discipline by declining their offers of Samoas and Thin Mints,  the mothers of said cookie dealers shoot me evil disparaging looks. Really, I don’t see you buying all little Ashley’s cookies so she and her troop can go to Six Flags. Yeah, don’t look at me that way. You won’t keep this crack in your house either.

And then Starbucks has to turn on me too. They had plenty of snacks that I had already made peace with, but now they introduce candy coated cake on a stick. And like any good drug dealer the first one was free. I need my coffee people, but tiny salted caramel brownies? Little whoopie pies?  That is just unkind.

Lastly, apparently we as a society have developed a need for cupcakes so extreme that they have employed trucks to drive around the city hawking them. Can’t make it to the bakery on your lunch hour, slim? No worries, we will bring the frosted fat pills to you. You will recognize us in our cute pink truck with the line of ladies outside (the guys are all over at the meatball truck).

So far I have dodged most of these bullets, but I am only human. How is a gal supposed to slim down after a long winter of bulking up against the cold when everywhere she looks are sweets that call her name? The good news is there is considerably more fabric involved in any bathing suit that I am likely to wear on our upcoming vacation. And thankfully for anyone who happens to be at the pool where I will be, my sad not-thong-worthy bottom will be completely covered.

Then came the second reduction income, really just an adjustment to the first. I began to panic. I admit there were tears and not just about letting the cleaning lady go. But I had a plan. Time to put on my big girl panties and get a full time job that pays actual money. My bonbon-eating life of leisure was coming to an end (’cause two part time jobs is kind of like that). No problem, right? Except for that little recession thingy and those annoying unemployment hoozits. Oh yeah, those things.

While I have had prolonged job searches in the past, this time is different on many levels. This time I am old(er) and it has been some time since I worked in the industry I want to return to. This time I am sending out emails (I said it has been some time, didn’t I?) without contact names with which to follow up. This time I have emailed my resume out a bazillion times for positions that I am confident that I am qualified for and I HAVE NOT RECEIVED ONE RESPONSE. Seriously, not one single response. That sound you hear is my self esteem crashing to the ground and shattering.

So I did what any rational person would do, I checked my spam blocker to see if my settings were too high (the 2010 equivalent of checking to make sure your phone still has a dial tone). They weren’t. I checked my spam folder and found only spam. Then last week I decided to check my home voicemail because, while it is my cell phone number that is listed on my resume, well, I don’t know why actually. Just hoping. And there was a message from a professional sounding person asking me to call him back. I didn’t even listen to the whole message. I sat in traffic, congratulating this person for seeing past my patchy resume and realizing that I was quality people. What a visionary. I began planning the interview in my head; I was overcoming objections and explaining my experience all the way home. When I arrived at home and listened to the message in its entirety, I discovered that I was overdrawn in my checking account.

To add more insult to injury, I busted out all my best interview attire (for the interview that I may get someday) and it appears that I have, in fact, completely let myself go. I fit into none of my suits, the nicest of which still has tags on it. And to be clear I am not a doughnut or two away from fitting into these things, I am a three to six months of Jillian Michaels away. I took the suit with the tags on it to a tailor who politely suggested that I take up running by the lake as there was not enough excess fabric to accommodate my newly enlarged ass. The crunching you hear now is someone in steel toed boots stomping on my shattered self esteem.

I have heard from others, both younger and with better resumes, that this is the most difficult job market they have encountered. I know it is not just me. I also know that my wonky resume isn’t helping and my age may be working against me. But most importantly I know that I will eventually find a job that pays well and that I enjoy. The sound you hear now is me sweeping up the shards of my self esteem in a dust pan. With a patience and faith and a sense of humor, I can put it back together.

Bob (he’s just so cute) saw what he thought was an “article” on what he thought was WebMD’s website. The story claimed that a housewife had discovered a new and uniquely successful tooth-whitening product. The “article” claimed that, just for the low, low cost of shipping and handling, a sample of the two tooth-whitening products would be shipped to you. That seemed benign enough. What could go wrong? Gladys had discovered the dental fountain of youth and she was willing to share.

Now, I don’t fault a guy for wanting white teeth. I am a big fan of white teeth. I do, however, fault a guy for missing the fine print. And I kind of want to fault him for not noticing that this was an advertisement and not an “article” because, really, how often does an “article” in the Wall Street Journal, for example, try to sell you something?

You see where this is going, right? Bob unintentionally joined not one, but two tooth-whitening clubs. While the original charge was minimal, the ongoing charges were about $100 a month each. With the click of a mouse we were potentially down $200 a month. But our teeth would be super white, you say. In theory that would be true, except that the product was actually the same tooth-whitening product that our dentist gives us only in a strength that would require one to have granite teeth to withstand.

After a few phone calls the damage was mostly undone. We ended up down about fifty bucks and one shipment of tooth-whitening acid. Then this morning I found another charge, this one for a company that protects your identification. How is that for irony? A company that protects your identity whose business practices include signing you up without your explicit knowledge. Yeah, I totally trust them with my identity. I said as much to the representative who tried to talk me out of canceling our membership.

I fully expect more charges to appear, but I have always been crazy diligent about checking our bank activity. Now I am kind of curious to see which other clubs Bob has made us members of. Oh, and Bob may or may not have lost his debit card privileges, at least where the Internet is concerned.

I have been going to the same stylist for about ten years, so this behavior is not really new to her. This was one of my longest stretches, but I have never been good at hair that required regular upkeep. I checked in from time to time for the occasional bang cut but only because they really wouldn’t be bangs anymore if I hadn’t. The downside of having gone to my stylist this long is that with her years of experience, her prices have risen. I suppose I could go to another stylist, but that at this point that would require a therapist and potentially an attorney. We’ve been through too much together: we have gone from renters to owners, single to married and now she is a mom.

So because one can’t cut and color one’s own hair (anymore) I had to wait until our domestic budget had an available surplus. Once I recovered from the scorn of the other stylists and had the averted the judgmental glances of the other patrons, I sat back and let my gal do her thing. And her thing is really transforming. The upside of waiting six months to have your hair cut and colored is that you leave feeling like you have just shot an episode of Extreme Makeover, Goat Herder.

Sunday in a most unusual method of seduction, Bob let me know that my high school boyfriend was on television. He  thought I might want to check him out (it’s a sports thing or Bob would have no idea who this guy is). It is strange enough to see current pictures of high school friends that I have fond memories of on Facebook. It is down right creepy to see my prom date on live TV. It made me wonder for the zillionth time why he was my boyfriend at all. He was cruel as it turned out, but odd at best when we were dating. I knew very little about his family except that he hated his sister and not in a sibling rivalry way (red flag?).  The only thing that we had in common was proximity, but it would never have occurred to me that I might go without a boyfriend in high school. I thought he was safe and not unattractive so I went for it. The fact that my approach to high school dating was not unlike that of a prison inmate’s method of choosing a companion is just a disturbing bonus revelation. As for Bob, he does very well when compared to the men of my past especially the high school variety, so while unusual his method was not unsuccessful.

In other news my chin appears to be pregnant. I am not sure how far along it is, but it is definitely showing. How do you decorate a nursery for a baby chin and more importantly WHY IS MY CHIN GROWING ANOTHER CHIN?

Lest my vanity get too far out of control, my New Year’s Intention to get in better shape has so far resulted in a five-pound weight gain. I would like to tell myself the fairy tale of “The Muscle who weighed more than The Fat”, but I think it may have more to do with the 26 large bags of peanut butter M & Ms that have found their way into my hands since the first of the year. Hey, maybe there is a relationship between the M & Ms and my pregnant chin.

Lastly ever since the economy began to suck the disposable out of my income I have been cutting back on the salon visits. I haven’t colored my hair in about two inches of gray. I have been debating whether or not going full on salt and pepper would make me look older than I am. I am almost convinced that the gray looks like highlights, that is if anyone intentionally highlighted their hair with gray.

So the hat trick that is my self esteem today: I am a chubby, graying babe with nice case of adult onset acne. The upside: I am pretty sure I could still get laid in high school or prison.