I already know I'm going to get slammed by violation on tolls blown through during my move here. I have the i-pass transponder the Illinois DOT uses, because over the last ten years I traveled through Illinois, going to, or through Chicago often enough to make it worth having. Although the balance I had in the system dropped under the $10 auto-refresh threshold after my day after Thanksgiving run to Chicago, the e-mail informing me that the credit card I had on file was expired, and it failed to add funds didn't arrive until after I moved,, going through gates worth approximately $6-7 in tolls. I didn't see the e-mail until a couple days further on. I made a good few attempt to get in touch with the IDOT folks, but their customer service phone line is pretty much useless; rather than putting someone on hold if no one is available to take the call, it seems like you're just given a busy signal, and expected to call back or something. Bottom line, here's hoping the violation fees aren't too ludicrous.

That's not necessarily the toll I was speaking of in the title, though, what with the holiday eating getting out of hand over the past week. I did a mid-day weighing today, and saw a number 9 pounds heavier than the last weight I took in Wisconsin, ten days ago. I'm not sweating it, what with a) it coming in the middle of the day, b) after a heavy lunch, c) while I was full of crap (literally), and d) with a few other, less scatological reasons involved. But it's a reminder how easily the weight can go on, as set against the knowledge of how much effort it takes to get rid of.

The fact of the weight loss over the past year gives me a certain level of confidence (tempered, of course by the paranoia mentioned often in this space about how I'm afraid the thinner me is the reality rather than the reality) that whatever portion of that excess is real will be dealt with, once I do join a gym, once the holiday and its more frequent temptations pass, et cetera. But, it's definitely a sobering thought to realize that however imperfect a measure, it's easily possible to change weight, and not for the better, by nearly ten pounds in ten days.