why not take all of me

when i got home last friday night, almost the first thing my mother said to me when i got out of the car was "you look like you've lost some weight since the last time i saw you." (one of the first things i said, therefore, was "it's been, like, three weeks." okay, five, but whatever. "or maybe, who knows, i've been in the car all evening just wasting away." i mock my mother sometimes; it works for us.)

but the thing is that i'm not entirely convinced she's wrong. the scale at my parents' house gave me a couple of pounds less than last time, but whatever -- two pounds isn't a big deal, really. but today when i got dressed, my clothes felt a little looser than i'm used to feeling them. my tights have a lumpy seam that customarily presses a mark into a spot above my navel, and this was much less true today than it has been lately. i generally feel like there's less of me around the middle, on the hip, and in other glad-to-have-less sorts of places. (not a lot less, of course. but enough that i can notice.)

and where i'll be living in oxford will be a good half-mile from the main college site and the linguistics department. with any luck, all the walking i'll have to do every day will get me back in the shape i was in when i was in edinburgh, and this time i won't fuck it up.