[Heart] Note...to Apples

If in one of those annoying, get-to-know-your-friends emails--hugs or kisses? seconds or dessert?--I were asked fruits or vegetables, I would definitely go with veggies. If I didn't love meat and fish so much I'd be a vegetarian. Not that I don't like fruit.

In fact, I love watermelon and can eat it all summer without getting sick of it and grapes often make appearances in my fridge--finding their fate in my curried chicken salad or cheese plates. But I can go all winter without a piece of fruit, much to the distress of my mother, unless the orange juice in my mimosas counts as fruit.

In between the daily treat of watermelon in the summer and those fruitless days of winter I fall in love with apples. Every year. There's nothing like biting into a cold, crisp, sweet but slightly tart apple: nature's perfect fall food. And even though I have to cut the apple first because it hurts my lips, I [heart] apples.

Excuses

Actually, I won’t make excuses, but I will explain my absence. Yes, it has been a few days. More than a week, even. In a weird way it makes me happy that some of you are thinking, Where is she? What the heck? Not that I want to upset you in any way, it’s just nice to know that you look for more, that you’ve made a daily habit of reading my posts, and that a week away is uncharacteristic of me.

That being said, I didn’t have writer’s block. In fact, I don’t believe in “writer’s block” anymore. There was a quote I came across years ago by a famous author (his name and the exact quote escape me now) that essentially dismisses the notion of writer’s block, and says that inspiration is the act of getting your butt in the chair, sitting down to write. I have been making my best efforts to do just that, despite teaching and otherwise living. Writers write. They don’t make excuses about writer’s block.

That being said, I wish I could say I flew off to London for the long weekend and decided to take a few extra days abroad, chunneling over to Paris. Or that I got a great deal on a ticket to California, and Jill and I took off for some R&R at her timeshare in Palm Springs. But I’ve got nothing glamorous to share. Remember, I’m a teacher. We give up all rights to spontaneity September through June.

As you know, I don’t have any kids, so I can’t use the sick kids excuse. Not that if I had kids I’d want them to be sick, but I am fascinated by how easily people with children can get out of anything—baptism, wedding, backyard barbeque. Even if the responses have been sent and the bride and groom have committed hundreds of dollars for their meals, mention your kid has a fever and you’re all set. No one might ever suspect you’re lying. I, on the other hand, often feel like the only acceptable excuse would be that I am on my death bed. Even then, since I don’t have children to tend to, it would probably be expected that I get my childless, sick ass off my bed and get there. In fact, something similar did happen a few years ago. I didn’t attend a potluck surprise 40th for an old friend because I was in the throes of an allergic eczema attack—my eyelids pink and puffy and peeling—and (go figure) was not in the mood to attend this party in said condition, by myself. And I couldn’t call to say so without giving away the surprise. On Monday I had an email from the caring nurse, mother, and wife of this friend, asking what happened. When I replied her response was pretty much “oh.” No hope you’re feeling better, or glad you’re okay. Clearly, she didn’t believe me or didn’t think it was a good enough excuse. This incident created a somewhat bitter divide between me and them, and exacerbated the one that I think exists between breeders and non-breeders, but I digress.

I wasn’t jet-setting, nor was a nursing a sick child or a case of writer’s block.

I had a furlough day on Friday and a long weekend to follow. Over the weekend, I went away for a couple of days and came back Monday not feeling very well and have not been feeling well since. All the while, my computer at home is still temperamental. Trust that, even when I am not at the keyboard publishing posts, I am writing in my head or longhand in my notebook and there are posts in the hopper and I’ll catch up.

So let me get right to it.

(Thanks for noticing I was gone, Mo.)

Voodoo

Somewhere someone has a voodoo doll of me. Last night s/he kept throwing me against a wall, then decided to stomp on me, do a little dance. I swear. Take that, Ms. K, I couldn’t go snowboarding because of my detention. They took my X-box away! It’s so pathetic, and I can hardly tell the story (again) without laughing at myself. My colleagues in the science department were in tears as I told them during lunch.

After school I went home quickly and changed, and then went to the gym. After that I stopped by my parents’ for a few minutes to visit before heading down the street to my nail salon. I stopped at the grocery store on my way home for salad bar for dinner, as I was craving a salad that would not require any slicing or dicing or protein preparation on my part. I went home and ate it. And the next thing I knew, I ached from head to toe.

How sad! How inexplicable! I considered that maybe I was flu-ish but I didn’t have a fever. I hadn’t been in a fender bender, although I remember feeling that way after being in one years ago. I certainly did not recall being run over by an eighteen-wheeler. And 45 minutes on a treadmill should not render such a result.

I just needed a good 800 milligrams of ibuprofen…but I didn’t have any in the house! And I hurt too much to go out and get some. Seriously. Instead, I got out the Icy Hot and rubbed it on the tops of my feet and the back of my neck. I wondered if it would work on my aching hips. For God’s sake I wondered if I should rub some on my a*s, as that almost hurt, too. I covered up with my fleece blanket and did nothing until I went up to bed at 9 o’clock.

This morning I was good as new. Rested. Feeling perfect.

More evidence that someone is practicing voodoo on me. No?

Happy Birthday, Blog!

My first post about my sincere love of arugula sat in the hopper (my drafts) for months. I had chosen a name and a design for my blog but let it sit while I figured out if that’s what I wanted to do, then mustered the courage to start, to put myself out there and share my writing.

I needed to get in the practice of writing daily, and I thought blogging might be a good experience. If I started a blog it would be a place to get rid of the autobiographical/non-fiction stuff in which I have seen first time authors get bogged down—thinly disguising their lives as fiction. I was over my initial distaste for blogs as being narcissistic. Everyone was doing it, it seemed, including my friend Amy, and I knew of bloggers who were actually discovered, now making their livings writing—like Molly Wizenberg, aka Orangette, blogger turned contributor to Bon Appetit and now author of A Homemade Life.

Eventually I got inspired to write about pork products and flowers and grammar and patent leather shoes and with a few pieces written, I thought maybe I had enough to share, maybe it was time to click publish and let people know that I had done so.

I crafted an email and selected some recipients from my email address book, those who have been supportive of me as a writer, and those who might be interested in reading my musings (not necessarily the same people). And October 7 I did it, I clicked publish and included a link to my blog in that email.

There were months I didn’t write much, and months I decided to share my blogging life with more people—again, not necessarily one and the same. The last few months have been writing much more regularly, even as I get to that novel that is yet to be written start to finish. But I have been at it a year, with a regular group of readers as far as I can tell. I haven’t been discovered yet, but I haven’t given up hope.

I thank you for reading and for staying with me through this first year!

Oh, My Goodness! How'd That Happen?

or The Slow and Steady Decline, part 2.

When I was in graduate school, my friend Tamara and I attended a job fair at one of the shmancy hotels in Boston. Before heading over we thought we might grab a cup of coffee (and have a couple of smokes) at the dining hall (that tells you how long ago that was). On our way in, I fell. Just out of nowhere took a spill on the steps leading to Bartol Hall.

Funnier than the sight of me falling on the stairs, in a skirt, and ripping my stockings in the process (an expensive commodity for someone on an RD’s salary) was my composed response. I, Queen of Expletives, said “Oh, my goodness! How’d that happen?” Tamara couldn’t stop laughing she was so put off by my not saying What the f**k?! Those months of student teaching at Stoneham High had apparently taught me to control my language in front of students, and I was exercising great restraint even in front of college students who were walking in and out of the dining hall.

Tam and I still laugh about that, and still use the expression “Oh, my goodness. How’d that happen?” to demonstrate disbelief, or when something catches us by surprise, or any other time it remotely applies to the situation. We take poetic license just so we can laugh at it all over again.

Lately I’ve been having a lot of those How’d-That-Happen moments, most of them related to being in my mid-forties. I don’t mean to infer that just getting to be in my mid-forties is a miracle in and of itself, although, come to think of it, there may be a little truth in that. Clearly, I have an angel on my shoulder who co-pilots my life. And I am in the company of many with similar good fortune. (I think our angels are all friends, too.) What I mean is that one minute Friday afternoons brought on a Woo Hoo! and were celebrated in groups, with cocktails. The next minute Friday happy hours are spent supine on the couch, with bed time following close behind.

Deanna and I, in our weekly Sunday phone calls, share changes we’ve noticed in ourselves, like our hair having less body (foil highlights no longer providing that extra texture for long), and wonder aloud if they are related to being perimenopausal. When we share the same (dare I say) symptoms, we figure they must be. On our girls’ weekend in Vermont, there were three different versions of a daily pill case. Weren’t those only for old people? I have been in the company of friends as they experience hot flashes and am bracing myself for my first, wishing my friends the good grace of their angels getting them out of the way. Clearly, it’s not going to pretty. (Remember, I don’t blow dry my hair all summer because it’s too hot. Even in air conditioning.)

A year to a teenager can be interminable, especially if the prom is at the end of it. Time stands still during a 30 minute detention or a week of being grounded. They are incredulous [insert image of eye roll here and thought-bubble filled with “yeah right”] when grown-ups around them say “time flies!”

It was a lifetime ago that I was one of those teenagers. Now I’m a grown-up who knows that not only does time fly, but “the older you get, the faster time flies.” Now, could you pass me the Tums?

The Elephant in the Room

I struggled with whether or not even to write this, to go there, that place where so many get stuck, the vantage point from which so many women (men, too, but women especially) derive their self-esteem, or the spring from which they nourish it, which is all too often dry.

Weight.

I’ve gone there before in these pages but not in the context of I’ve lost weight; I’m happy to have done so as I’m trying—both of which are true. My first month at the gym has been successful: I have lost ten pounds on the treadmill. But before you get mad at me for valuing this accomplishment, let me explain.

I have never been thin. Ever. I do have a memory of being my most fit in graduate school, but even then, I was only “thin” for me. Never by society’s standards have I been thin. I am a full-figured woman, and in general, have made peace with food. I don’t consider food my enemy, secret contraband to be eaten out of eyeshot of anyone whose attention I might be trying to garner or keep. (See previous posts). I think society places too much value on thinness and bombards us with unrealistic and often unhealthy images of women.

It bothers me when parents play Food Police and in this day and age don’t understand that what they create, especially with their girls, in their effort to keep them slim, is future women who will treat food as contraband and sneak it, maybe even purge it once they do. At minimum, they will struggle with food. And probably, therefore, they will struggle with weight as well. Especially since these same Calorie Cops most likely celebrate and reward their kids with food. Confusing, isn’t it? Now imagine being 8. Or 10. And a little overweight. One day you’re getting the death stare for wanting another piece of bacon at breakfast, and the next you get to go out to a special dinner for getting good grades on your report card.

That was not the case for me. In my case, I think my struggle with being weight came from being sedentary (I was not an athlete) and knowing, once I was overweight, that it was frowned upon in society. Which fueled my being overweight. I guess way-back-when I was one of those people who snuck food, who’d go to a high school party and not eat a single potato chip, afraid of what I thought people would say, and I’d go home starving. If I could go back, I’d have participated in sports. But by the time I was in high school I was already too embarrassed to try.

Eventually, fascinated by eating disorders and including obesity in that list, I did research in graduate school and wrote papers and got good and pissed off—vowing to fly in the face of the world’s warped values—as, ironically, I got into shape.

Some twenty years later, I have never gotten back to my highest weight ever, which was the beginning of my senior year in college, when I was 21. Nor have I gotten down to my lowest weight ever, which happened at 25. My weight has fluctuated in the decades that have passed, but I eat in public, and I enjoy good, healthy foods as much as I enjoy junk food on occasion. And I don’t punish myself for eating it. My greatest victory is that I have not based my opinion of myself on how much I weigh. I am smart and successful and loving. I am attractive and I dress well—even if and when my clothes have a W at the end of a number.

My efforts at the gym come from my recognition that menopause is knocking on my door…I am getting older and my metabolism is slowing and I need to keep my heart healthy and muscles and bones strong.

But if I continue to be successful at the gym, which I intend to, won’t it be nice to have an excuse to buy new clothes? And rather than go up a size, I’d can buy them in a size smaller. Even if they still have a W at the end.

[Heart] Note...to Halibut

I am so over salmon and I’m sick of shrimp. I cannot resist halibut, however. If it’s on a menu, I’ll order it. If it’s in the fish case at Costco, I’ll buy it, even though it’s $10.99 a pound. I love it, love it, love it. It tastes the way it looks—fresh, simple, pure. It’s easy to prepare and when I eat it I feel like I’m doing something good for myself.

I really [heart] halibut.