Los Angeles Waltz

“What would be your biggest challenge working here?” the Los Angeles bureau chief asked me.

“Um, I don’t think I can drive and Blackberry at the same time,” I answered.

She laughed. I knew it was a good line, but behind it there was truth I’ve spent the past several weeks avoiding thinking about too hard. I don’t like Los Angeles and never have. I can’t imagine being unable to walk anywhere (never mind all the fabulous shoes I could wear without a second thought because, um, I wouldn’t have to walk anywhere). I’d probably have to work 10 times as hard as I do now, the Blackberry would never stop going, and the stakes would be much higher.

Why did I even open this can of LA worms? Sometimes I wonder myself. The reasons are complicated, and at this point I can’t really imagine moving there full-time. But I may do a “rotation” there – provided I can get reassurance that it isn’t a de facto move.

The LA question is a partial explanation for my lack of posting over the past three weeks. Too much to think about coupled with extreme lack of Internet access (besides the trusty Blackberry) and time, even though much of this trip was meant to be vacation. This post is really just a placeholder/note to say I’m still putting one foot in front of the other, sometimes even quickly. (So many weight loss blogs end not with a bang but with silence, don’t they? You check back and check back and finally you just know that the blogger is on a gaining streak… That wasn’t, for the record, my reason for lack of posts.)

I had one binge – after the wedding of an old friend (erm, friend-with-benefits). The binge, however, was not rooted in our checkered history, but rather in the fact that I was the only single person at the entire wedding, and that I was home from a Saturday evening wedding by 10:30 p.m. because my table (all old friends of mine) had to get home to relieve babysitters. Sigh. (I’ve decided if I binge one more time I will investigate some booster-shot-type binge-eating therapy.)

On the plus side, I managed not to turn the trip into one long binge. I like to joke that I eat my way across the US, ticking off foods I must consume and relegating friends to drinks or coffees when they won’t eat what I want to eat, and I enjoyed things like an overstuffed corned beef sandwich, Mexican food, a Publix cupcake, and a black-and-white cookie without bingeing, though the urge was always there in the background. I exercised nearly every day and came home weighing about the same (maybe a pound or two less – my scale is acting funny) as I did when I left. Plus, I bought a handful of size 8 clothes -- enough that even I have to admit that that may be my size, instead of downplaying it and thinking said designer or brand must just have generous sizing.

I just got back to the office yesterday and already I’m swamped. But more from the trip – or maybe just more, full stop – coming.