My will power is slipping and it isn't getting any better. I'm so good at home and on the weekends. I know what I can eat and what I can't and what I really shouldn't and, at home, I'm very, very good about it. My problem is work. Work is junk food central. This week, it's been cake for one of my co-workers' birthday which was Monday, with mini muffins, Starburst jelly beans, peanut M&M's, barbecue potato chips (I nearly made the "potatoE" gaff! Ack!), and double chocolate Hershey kisses. I'm only human and I'm getting complacent. 23 lbs and I'm acting like I've got it licked, like I have no more work to do and the rest of the weight will just keep coming off, so it's okay to have those jelly beans and a mini-muffin. It's okay to scarf down that piece of cake. I need help. Serious mental help! ARGH!

I can do this and I will do this! I just have to remember that I am a work of art in progress. Slow and steady wins the race. What other cliches can I throw in there? Magically everything works out for the best in the end. I think that's about it for now.

Okay, I just couldn't wear the dress for the work thing.

I have this fabulous silk, 50's style black with tiny taupe polkadots dress. I bought about six months ago because it was fabulous and silk and on sale and it was tax free week, and although it fit me very ill indeed, I just had to have it. Now that I've lost 23 lbs, it fits like a dream. My current connundrum is this, I have this fabulous dress and I was saving it for either dinner with the Boy, Easter Sunday, or some other spectacular reason to wear it. Tomorrow night I have a work function that frankly I don't even want to go to but I have to for solidarity and all of that rot and I was thinking I might wear it to that but, frankly, it just doesn't seem special enough and I have this horrible fear that I might spill something on it and ruin it, thereby ruining it for dinner with the Boy or Easter Sunday. But I don't really have anything else to wear as the Bank powers that be have deemed that we must wear black. What a pain. Good night all. Hopefully the solution will present itself in my dreams.

I'm doing better over the death of my beloved kittie. He's gone. The shock has depleted, but the guilt remains. It will be there for a long, long time. I keep thinking that I should have known, I should have done more, I should have taken him to the vet sooner, I should have, I should have, I should have... the list is endless. All of my friends keep telling me that I couldn't have known, that maybe he couldn't be saved, that maybe there was something more serious and that the outcome would have been the same. My mother thinks that his sinus infection had gone into the bone, I think perhaps it went systemic, but it's all the same- not much you could do, Ann. It doesn't make it any easier. I miss his little face, but what's really pissing me off the most is this stupid weather! It's so terribly cold and the ground is frozen, so I can't even bury him, yet, and it sickens me that my kittie, Jack, is in a box, in my garage, a frozen corpse because there's nothing else to be done yet. I can't put him to rest. It's upsetting me greatly.

On a far happier note, last night I spoke to Trisha and on the same day my cat died, March 9th, her new baby neice, Angelina Marie, came into the world. And that makes me very, very happy. She didn't want to tell me because I was so upset over Jack, but I'm glad that she did. I needed good news and that is certainly good news.

On a side note, why is it that the day that one looks less than one's best, is the day that the guy that one has a crush on comes intto the bank! Oh the humanity!

I had taken some pictures of my cat, Jack, which for some mysterious reason, won't attach to this post. I took them a couple of days ago with the intention of posting them so that everyone could see my lovely baby boy. He died this morning. Today, I am devasted in the shocking loss of my beloved kittie. Anyone who has pets knows what I'm going through and anyone who is as crazy about animals and cats, in particular, as I am will understand just how much I love that sweet little guy. He was sick, but I had no idea just how sick and when I was at the Vet's with him on Saturday, the vet didn't seem alarmed, just said give him his antibiotic, his eye drops and if he doesn't get better, bring him back. If he wasn't better by Friday, I was intending bringing him back. I went to bed at midnight last night, very late for me, and I was sitting in the chair with, just holding him and petting him, and although he didn't seen right, I just thought he was tired. I had no idea how tired. At five to one in the morning, his father, Rowan, began calling, and I yelled him and told him to stop. Now I know, he was trying to tell me that something was wrong with Jack, that Jack had died. I miss my little guy already. I miss his little face and his jiggly little butt when he would run down the stairs. I knew something was wrong, last night I just kept watching him breathe, but put I him down on the chair and went to bed. When I came down this morning at quarter to seven, I called his name and he when he didn't come, I went to look for him, and saw him dead on the floor, so terribly cold. I can't explain the dry, gut-wrenching sobs that came out of me as I just kept screaming over and over again, "NO! NO! NO!" and then sobbing hysterically, I called my brother, Geoffrey. I take back every bad thing I ever said about my brother, Geoff. And my parents are flying home today, so there's no way for me to warn them what happened until they are here. God, I miss him! My little man. My sweet, sweet Jack.

I have to say that I am a very happy me, as of late. Work still makes me crazy and I'm waiting to hear about grad. school, which could take months, but I'm just good right now. Of course, by making that statement, I do realize have just made myself a target for the universe, but I sincerely hope that doesn't happen. I'm feeling really comfortable in my own skin and that has never happened before, where I'm getting truly happy with myself. It feels really good. Usually, I'm the first to rip myself apart but why? Society does that enough and I say screw society. I am not their cookie cutter image of what is beautiful and wonderful but guess what, I think I am anyway. Tomorrow this could all change but I've been going through so many changes lately, physically and emotionally that I feel I've really grown as a person and I've grown into someone that I love, inspite of all my flaws, but flaws are what make us all individual works of art and that is a beautiful thing!

Every once in a while, I get the urge to just go and chop off my hair. I don't know what it is but all of the sudden it's like, "Go. Cut off hair. NOW!" This morning after taking my cat, Jack, to the vet, I got that urge. So, I did. I had been planning on chopping it after the weddings anyway, and I also wind up doing radical changes to either my hair style or hair colour or both around the time of my birthday which is in 17 days. I will be 27 in 17 days. It just seems wrong somehow, but this year, I'm planning on going all out! Partying it up right! The last few I could have cared less, but this year, I don't know it's different, I actually feel like celebrating the fact that I'm alive! Back to my hair, it's gone, not Sinead O'Connor gone, but shorter than it was! I think I do this because I feel that your hair holds a lot of energy. Most of your cells replace themselves I think every six weeks or so, so if something bad happens or whatnot, most of your cells from that time period are killed off and shed and the energy from the event, tragic or wonderful, chaotic or blissfull, is gone. But your hair, stays as long as you have it. I feel that I'm actually wearing past events that I need to get rid off, carrying that around with me everywhere I go, and frankly, there were some experiences that needed to be let go of, like my experience in NYC. I had to let that go, let that anger go. Strangely enough, every time I do this, I always feel better and lighter and it does seem as if whatever I was carrying with me is gone. It's a theory anyway. So, now I have the Julia Stiles hair cut from the Bourne Supremacy and I freaking love it! Welcome to the new me!

I have a superpower. I have the ability to make kittens fall asleep by singing to them! This also works for human babies as well. Today, on my lunch break, I drove home to check on our latest litter of kittens. There are four of them in the current litter, three girls and a boy and they are just *SO* cute! Well, when I went home, I went into their room and they immediately got real loud meowing at me! They feel that it is unfair that I won't let them out of their box and let them get into everything, but really, it's for their own good. They're trying so hard to climb out now. It really is funny. So, they were yelling at me, so I hunkered down and was laying on the floor and I started to sing. My magical singing powers kicked in immediately. They stopped meowing at me and they're little eyes started to close and off to dreamland they went. I find that for this feat, "Baby Mine" from Dumbo and "Eidelweiss" from the Sound of Music work best, just in case anyone else would like to try. Ciao!

I feel myself slipping. I've been a very good girl, food wise that is, for about two months now. I've lost around 19 pounds in that time, and I'm very proud of myself for managing that, as it's no mean feat, but lately, the last week or so, I've been not so good. I've been allowing myself some candy and other things that I'm not supposed to have on my low carb diet. This is the danger point for me, I know and recognize it. I get to this point where I start getting cocky, thinking that I can start going to back to *some* of my bad habits, I start slipping and before long, I fall spectacularly off the wagon! And it takes me months, sometime a year before I try to hop back on, often times weighing more than I had before I started. It's a vicious cycle. But, there is a light at the end, because this time, I know, accept, and admit my faults. I know where my trouble areas are and I can work past this. I'll keep y'all posted on my progress. Accountablilty is a good thing! I need you to keep me accountable!

Okay, am I the only person in the universe that finds it ironic that "in Living Color"s Wanda won the best Actor Oscar? Ten years ago, who'd a thunk it?