I have been ngelectful.

Of this blog.

I could claim "life", "busy", etc ... but the reality is, after the emotional rollercoaster that was New Orleans - and documented moment by moment on this blog - I think I just felt like I had nothing left to say. For a while.

I really was pretty depressed for a while upon returning home. But after the Labor Day weekend, which ended up being a five-day weekend for me, my head finally felt like it was screwed on straight. I don't know what exactly it was - maybe it was the sleep, or the time to myself to absolutely do nothing, or the four hour Spike Lee documentary (which I had to watch in three parts because I couldn't handle it all at once) ... but I finally felt the fog lift and my mind clear.

For the first time in like a year.

The clarity was amazing. I was a whole new person at work. Or at least, I was the person I was pre-Katrina.

Isn't that odd, to have SUCH a profound effect on my life for so long?

(Just as a side note: I found the documentary incredibly moving. I'm glad he made it. Do I think he had a political agenda? Sure. Did I think he left some things out? Absolutely. Did I marvel at the absence of, say, Harry Connick, Jr or Patricia Clarkson? You betcha. But people are angry and frustrated and it gave them a national voice. That's got to be a good thing.)

So. Moving on ...

How does one move on? I'm still wrestling with my friends scattering around the country. In fact, I'd argue that I've put it out of my head since I've been home.

My dad doesn't want to hear the word "Katrina" any more. I understand where he's coming from, but at the same time, he has to realize that it's the root of every complaint he has. His rent, for example, is going up $75/month. The man is on a fixed income, people. That's a HUGE increase. His option? Find a new apartment. Yeah. Good luck with that. Prices have gone so sky high that he has no CHOICE but to stay where he is.

But I can't help him. I can't fix it. What are his options? Moving here, where he cost of living is even worse? Moving to Detroit to be near his inlaws, where he'd freeze from October to April? Moving to a strange place, alone, in his 80s?

I always make it clear when people ask that my father's life was not destroyed in the hurricane. Unlike so many people, he was merely inconvenienced. And that holds, of course. But the inconvenience seems to grow a little more every year.

Anyway. I had committed to doing a blog NOT Katrina-related, and here I am, again.

So briefly, I'll touch on one other topic.

My pants.

I have a blog reader - and for all I know she's my only regular blog reader (ok, there are maybe five of you) - who has, the last several times she's seen me, asked me to PLEASE go back to blogging. "Write about anything," she said. "You could write about your pants, and I'd read it."

While I promised to keep her name out of it - THIS TIME - I said, just for her, I'd blog about my pants.

Not because I think I could make any topic interesting. Far from it. No, it's just that with my whole diet thing, I have a lot to say about pants.

Who, I'd like to know, came up with sizes?

NOTHING in my closet fits. Too big, too small, nothing is that perfect Goldilocks "just right".

The biggest pair of jeans have made their way to my top shelf, to (hopefully!) never be taken down again. But, ya know, I'm a woman so I'm going to keep them just in case. :) But the jeans I have in rotation ... they're all HUGE. I mean, it's great for being able to show off the weight loss ("see? These were tight on me a year ago!"), but I don't have a pair that actually FIT me yet. The gulf between sizes is apparently huge.

The good news is, I took down my size 4 courdoroys about a month ago and tried them on, just to see. Six months ago, I couldn't even get them on. Three months ago, I couldn't zip them. Now, I can actually put them on AND get them zipped. I doubt I could breathe for a long period of time, but I figure that's progress. I'm hoping to waer them this winter.

I have other size 4's on my shelf, waiting patiently to return to regular wear. Maybe this year?