I don't think I've showered in a few days.  I've been picking my scalp, then smelling my hands, then eating whatever I find under my nails.  I'm pretty nasty when it comes down to it.  I get into these grooves of writing, very rarely, where it's almost all I can focus on.  I haven't left the house, or these same clothes in days.  And I'm loving it.  Sitting Indian-style on my office floor, going through boxes and reading old letters, going back to such comforting times, hearing their voices and laughs in their midnight letters to me.  Apparently on a camp field trip to NYC, I walked the streets of South Street Seaport "Flamboyantly eating a frozen banana.  Oh, Klein!"  And it makes me miss Adam Lis, and his exclamations and sighs and the way he'd kick the ground and snap his fingers and promise to do it all better next time.  "Be patient with me in this young love, Stephanie Tara.  You are the one for Adam!"  My scalp and I are having so much fun with it.  I'm surprised my leg hair isn't long enough to braid yet.  At least my breasts are still leaking, which makes up for it.

Despite my decision to stop breastfeeding about a week ago, I still sit here dribbling.  I stopped for selfish reasons.  Because I'm lazy, certainly, and not just the idea but the actual act of having to feed or pump every few hours, no matter where I was eventually drove me mad, or at least to the refrigerator seeking comfort.  People have sworn by breastfeeding for their weight loss, and truth be told, it's the reason I was so determined to do it.  Yes of course for the beans too, but even before I was pregnant, I was certain I'd breastfeed them until they could all but unbutton my shirt and get it themselves.  Because I heard it burned three hundred calories, that you could eat whatever you want.  And I'm sure that's true with some people.  Not for me.  Of COURSE not for me. 

I wasn't producing enough milk for two babies.  And I'm not sure I even had enough for one, but the upkeep, the constant pumping… three months plus was enough.  And enough with my excuses.  Bottom line: I went to buy a cabbage at the market and I felt like the unibomber.   Talk about guilt, my God.  Sunglasses, hood pulled up.  The whole look.  Me.  Bad mother.  Fat mother who cares more about fitting into her clothes than the health of her children.  But really, that's not true.  Not with their doctor telling me he can't tell the difference between breatfed babbies and the formula-fed kids.  And they were breastfed. But it is fucked up that I wanted to stop because I wanted to lose weight.  Oh welcome to the complicated life of MOOSE.  And I tried walking, tried the gym when I could.  It wasn't working.  For whatever reason my 156 lb. body wouldn't let go of the extra 30 lbs. it lobbed on.  And now, I'm working on it, again, as I write a book about working on it.  Good times.