shut-in

...and we are still here.
The whole country is in shut down; 90% of the time I think this is a pneumonia that spreads a bit more then a flu, and it will never hit healthy people like us.
That it is handed badly, and that this complete quarantine is an absurd situation.

Than I hear about someone I know, someone young and fit and healthy, who is in Intensive Care and I wonder.

After a while I revert to my initial thinking because the alternative, the possibility that this will destroy our civilization is too dramatic even for a drama queen like truly yours.


Positive things:
since I'm crashing at my parents, I can go for long walks in the woods next to the lake. Spring is amazing, there's plenty of flowers growing in the woods, sunny and warm weather - mixed with the quarantine, this means you get to enjoy all the above in a very private way. I love it.

Negative things:
economy went down the drain two weeks ago - it will take us 5 years minimum to recover
as such, I'll never find an easy way out from my current job
my mom keeps cooking and I keep eating. I probably gained 10 pounds already

dirty

Extreme ways are back again, extreme places I didn't know
I broke everything new again, everything that I'd owned
I through it out of the windows and came along
Extreme ways I know move apart the colors of my sea
Perfect color me

Extreme ways that help me, they help me out late at night
Extreme place I had gone, but never seen any light,
dirty basements, dirty noise, dirty places coming through, extreme worlds alone, did you ever like it then?

I would stand in line for this,
there's always room in life for this!


Should I buy the superb loft I just visited?

Should I quit my job and run for parliament (I actually could make it, and this opportunity will not present itself again). I hate politics, but dear Lord, I'd love to have a grated lifetime salary for the rest of my life, and all for sacrificing one or two years.

Can I just go to sleep and wake in three months (skinny)? pretty please?

I think I'm dumb

PS - yes, the Nikita show was the one starring Peta Wilson. I don't know if I would recommend it - I loved it, but the desperate sadness and hopelessness it transmitted were quite strong triggers.

Nikita

This is the story of someone who almost always (some exceptions, granted) put her job ahead of everything else, including dieting.

How did this happen?

At school I was not exactly a teachers' pet. I was a rebel, I would only study/paid attention to classes I cared for, and those were few. Neither was I good at studying I'm afraid, although I found out this only once in university.

Then, university was almost over and I needed money. In this country, you don't have student loans. My parents were no longer paying the bills (mind you, I think that was fair), and I needed a salary - desperately. Rent and groceries were not coming for free.

I had a couple internship gigs, and then I was hired by the company I currently work for.
I do financial due diligence - basically, when you want to buy a company, you come to see me. You pay my firm a fee, and I'll dig through all the financials of the company you want to buy and outline all issues/hidden gems.

This job I started and 22 and I sometimes feel it has eaten away my life.
Back in the 90's there was a TV show called Nikita (yes, there was a remake about 8/10 years ago).
The original Nikita looked a bit like me, only, she looked very deep while when I gaze like that I just look like an idiot. Anyways, that show reflected the total lack of control I had over my life since I started this job.

From the very beginning, I was cautioned to find something else as this job was unsustainable (for a woman especially of course they thought and said). This I could not do.
Since then, I changed employers often (eventually returning to the origins), I vanished in another country for year, I changed email so often, lost touch with almost everyone. But I have many friends working with me.
Although sometimes I look around: there were 90 in my team at the beginning of the year, and only 56 are left, but we must go on - meeting the goals is my prison.

And when I think the wind is blowing, freedom (partnership) will soon come - I suddenly remember the goals will be even harder.

We are so fucking crazy that in some countries we call each project a "special mission". How much Nikita does that sound to you?

Les Allemands etaint chez moi, ils me dirent: Resigne toi! mais je n'ais pas peur. J'ai repris mon arme
J'ai changé 100 fois de nom, j'ai perdu femme et enfant, mais j'ais tant d'amis: j'ai la France entière...

Safe in my own skin?

After Dubai, it was one week in Montecarlo.
Same client, who operates restaurants and night venues. Never seen so many Ferraris and Lambos in my life.
It was like the world was spinning and it was mostly populated by supercars, diaphane hookers, musicians and singers dressed like the 70s were now, dwarves (yes, dwarves), shishas, 30 liters bottles of Dom Perignon. And in the morning at their offices trying to figure the business, while my head experienced troubles addying 2 and 2.

Carrying around 10/15kg more than all the other girls tends to be depressing. I don't care that most of the girls were hookers, that is not the point. And in the end, how different are we?
I don't have sex with clients, but truly I still have to make them feel successful, smart, powerful and brave. I sell them my skills and knowledge in principle, but practically I sell my time. My time away from home, away from what I care.

The saddest part is that I am totally aware that I'll have to work all my life, and I'm also aware this work/life balance is unsustainable even in the short term. I can no longer manage it, blame it on the age, on the responsibilities it doesn't matter. I just can no longer manage it.

And I tried, I tried quitting, I tried working in a corporate and where did it lead me? If fucked up my mind in first place, and the other consequences, the real ones are/were unspeakeable. Vivien is dead and there is no going back, and I'd rather not even considering that kind of adventure again.

Old habits die hard

I seem to be back to years ago in terms of hectic life.
I left on Sunday morning for Amsterdam and came back last night. On Saturday I'm off to Dubai for a week, then it'll be Montecarlo for another week. work work work work work.

Don't get started with how much fun this is - it is not. I'm too old for this shit.

Meanwhile my husband is also back to his old habits, and on Monday night he claimed he was at home, then disappeared from the world, went out, got shit faced, lost his mobile and faile to show up at a client meeting on Tuesday morning. His team started calling me but I was in Amsterdam and had less news about his whereabouts then his team.

So not looking forward to a good old fight tonight...

What if?

Be careful of what you wish for, my brain whispers me. I know the brain is right.
I seems that, maybe, if everything goes well, blah blah blah, I may be promoted to non equity partner in two months. It's the step before making it.



Allow me a flash-back.
I started working in this specific Big4 when I was 22. I was the youngest, the silliest, the hottest, the skinny bitch who knew nothing but was willing to work VERY hard. I was assigned to a senior manager that we'll call from now on Humbert (Lolita?). He was very demanding, and in the beginning I went home crying a lot at night. Over the following months, B. broke my heart, and although everything seemed a nightmare, Humbert came to appreciate me and supported me at work.
When, not even having spent one year in the firm, I moved to the French office, everyone was angry with me at work, but before I left Humbert called me into his office and encouraged me to keep in touch and to make the most of the experience, and promised I could come back at any time.
Surely neither of us thought that I would come back working for the firm some 12 years later! But that's what happened about one year ago. The firm welcomed me back, and is willing to bet on me. I'm good, granted, but I'm also aware that they need to make female partners, and not many are well positioned as me and my two friends at work to make it :-)


So what am I afraid of?
i) my targets will spike - I know that this year (ending June 30) I'll end up exceeding by far my targets, but I'm cautious about how I can deliver more. Truth is, Humbert (who is now senior partner) is helping me a lot with my sales target. He will keep doing it - if he can. Should the internal political situation change however, his support may no longer be meaningful

ii) will husband be proud enough for me and not feel belittled? This may sound stupid, but hey, this is Italy. My man made it to equity partner - in a Tier 2 firm. Will it be okay for him to have a wife who makes it in a Tier 1 firm?

iii) as much as I want to make it, I know that the partner's daily job is something I like less than my current daily job. I wasn't born to be a salesman, I'm more into the operating part of the job.

iv) Matt, a friend who's one year ahead of me in the process (he'll get promoted to equity partner in June) is now 140kg. That's 308lbs for you Americans. He only uses food to sooth himself, while, let's face it, I am more creative. I (ab)use a mix of a bunch of stuff, most notably wine, pain killers, food, running (less and less these days), and to a much lower extent, drugs. But you guys already know my point: is this sustainable?

Long story short - I'm already planning to rent out Just Cavalli private club to throw the promotion party. I just need to lose weight. And I'm seriously considering a Liposuction.

I'm invincible, yeah I win every single game
I'm so confident, yeah I'm unstoppable today

There is a light and it never goes out.

…and if a double decker bus, crashes into us, to die by your side, it’s such a heavenly way to die.

And if a ten ton truck, kills the both of us, to die by your side – well the pleasure and the privilege’s mine.

Take me out, tonight, oh take me anywhere I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care

I don’t want to die fat. But I’d rather die while my husband still loves me. I’m so afraid he will get over me.

So many expectations on me.

Mine: get skinny, make it to the partnership at work. I don’t feel anyone supports me in those.

Husband’s: who knows what he expects of me? Get more fit, surely, Probably a kid, which I don’t want.

Mom’s: children. Stop working as much as I do. Gah

Dad’s: make him get younger (not joking). Do more things with him. Bring him to Nepal again. Oh dad, I'm so worried about you! But I also need to make my marriage work. 

How can I possibly make everyone happy? And myself?

Lucy at the gym

Do you remember that ana song?

Lucy at the gym
she's there everytime I go
and I don't go that often
so she must live at the gym.

This is how my coworkers talk about me, lately.
I currently have two subscriptions to two different gyms. At one I go with Husband in the morning; at the other (next to the office) I go over lunch break.
I'm training 7 to 9 times a week. Running, swimming and HIIT/Tabata. Fuck I even got a Personal Trainer.
I have about one month to waist (hopefully by mid March I'll have a new job): let's make the best of it right?
Also it's the only thing restraining me from losing it completly at my current work.

Keep on Lucy, keep on working working.....

All I needed...

I failed and I knew I would.

I failed and I know why I did.

Forgive me, my readers, I know I also failed you. But know that I know why I did fail, I’ll find the right way.

At least I still lost some, and I woke up at 123.4lbs.

The thing is this: I need a fasting song. A song that inspires me and that I can listen to when I feel tempted.

I had a song last week. I didn’t have a song over the last two days. Now I know which song will be my fasting leit motiv this time, my mantra if you prefer.

It’s gonna be an old song, Moby’s “Extreme ways”. Extreme ways helped me before, and it’s going to help me once again.

I started over this morning, by hitting the gym. I’ll try to go on until Friday night.

Fasting. “I would stand in line for this, there’s always room in life for this!”

I don't need anything else.

I love you all people.