I just love the way that sounds. I like the way it rolls off my tounge, the nonchalance with which I say it, as though I might move to New York or I might go backpacking through the Himalayas, it just depends on which way the bohemian wind blows. Most of all I love the way people get that excited look in their eyes, like "man, I wish I could do that." I find myself bringing it up for no particular reason, sharing it with perfect strangers, finding any reason to fit it, however awkwardly, into conversation. I actually got dressed up to go to a play not because I wanted to see the play, but because I had gone to college with half of the cast and just wanted to casually mention to them that I, say it with me, "might be moving to New York."
What's with that? Am I so insecure I have to use geography to justify my existence? Is the possibility of living in the Big Apple supposed to be my entre into another, more exciting. and glamorous life in the eyes of my peers? Or is it just the exilaration I feel being able to finally admit to myself and those around me that yes, I do want to leave the comfort of my midwestern onclave and try my luck in the biggest city of them all? I tried for so long to deny that I wanted to live in a place like New York, tried to pretend that it wasn't important to me whether or not I ever made it in one of the toughest cities in America or was able to tell my children that once upon a time I hung my hat in the city that never sleeps. But once the seed of the idea was planted, once a series of events came into being that made it seem not only possible but probable I realized it was just fear all along. After I hung up with Melissa and was laying in bed, there was an absolute moment of clarity that came over me in which I realized that this whole time, at least since middle school, I really had wanted to live in New York, and that at some point I had tamped that desire down, trying to starve it to death. I hadn't wanted to go because I was afraid I would fail, that I couldn't hack it, that ultimately I was more wheat fields than skyscrapers. What brought on this fear? At what point did the little girl who was taught she could do anything start to believe there was an addendum to that statement, that I could do anything but x,y, or z? And what else is on that list? What else have I been suppressing deep down, telling myself I don't really want because admitting that I do want it might open up a potentially painful can of worms? That's a scary question, but one that I think is important to ask. What have I not given myself permission to want because the wanting is too hard?
I think part of it comes from growing up in Kansas. Despite the healthy ribbing and outright contempt I often express towards the 'Ta, I'm proud of my Midwestern and even my Southern roots. But with that environment comes a certain stoicism and pragmatism, and to an extent I think that living in the Midwest breeds a self-affacing quality into people, as though we must be humble, must not attempt to aspire too far or get "too big for our britches". I don't know if that comes from the cold, or the solitude, or the Teutonic/Scandinavian sense of character-building deprivation, but it's there. Ultimately it's as much our own doing as it is the doing of the coasts, we let them make generalized assumptions about those of us occupying flyover country. We play into their hands by voting Republican so fucking much and trying to put "Intelligent Design" into the state curriculum (Kansas, I'm looking at you).
I'm shaking off the fear and embracing uncertainty. Convention and routine haven't been working out for me too well lately, and to continue pursuing that direction would seem to be madness. I'm sick of feeling afraid all the time, of worrying that my life is passing me by while I try to make up my mind about who I want to be when I grow up. At this rate by the time I figure that one out it will be too late, so I might as well just do what makes me happy from moment to moment. I believe that the Universe (God, Fate, what have you) has a path for me, and as long as I continue to listen to that still, small voice I'll be able to find it. Where did Mary Tyler Moore go after leaving Minneapolis?
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Note to Blog Readers
I accidently disabled comments for the past 2 months without knowing about it. Sorry. Please comment again, I have fixed the issue.
Also, I have a flight out to NYC scheduled for Sept 30th... so exciting! This doesn't mean I am definitely moving... it just means I am definitely considering moving. Then you can all say you have "people" in New York!
eek!
Also, I have a flight out to NYC scheduled for Sept 30th... so exciting! This doesn't mean I am definitely moving... it just means I am definitely considering moving. Then you can all say you have "people" in New York!
eek!
Thursday, September 14, 2006
New York, New York????
My friend Melissa who I met during the Cornerstone Institute last summer in California just invited me to come out and live in the extra room in her apartment in....New York City.
New York City.
She said it to me, said, "come out and live in our extra room for $500 a month (which is like obscenely cheap for NYC). You belong on the East Coast." Of course immediatly I said no, I can't do that.... but as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized that it wasn't true. I could of course do that. Of course I could. Now is the perfect time, actually. I don't have a job I'm in love with, I don't have a significant other to worry about leaving, I could even possibly have someone take over my half of the lease.... I have my friends, who are incredibly important to me, but that's about it.
What's stopping me? And why does this idea excite me so very, very much? The thing that has always stopped me from going out to New York is that I didn't know anyone and I didn't have any place to live. Or a job, but you can always find a job. Hotels and banks are almost always hiring, and I have experience in both of those fields. But now, suddenly, those two other criteria were met. I have some money saved up, enough to make the move, I could sell my car and make even more, because who the hell has a car in New York?
It would be an adventure of the truly first class, and the more I've been thinking about it the more I realize that if I don't do it, I may feel disappointed in myself, as though I had somehow let myself down and been a coward. I'm usually pretty well-thought out, a planner, you might say, but suddenly I don't want to plan. Suddenly this feels like the break in the clouds I didn't know I was looking for.
Am I moving to New York?
New York City.
She said it to me, said, "come out and live in our extra room for $500 a month (which is like obscenely cheap for NYC). You belong on the East Coast." Of course immediatly I said no, I can't do that.... but as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized that it wasn't true. I could of course do that. Of course I could. Now is the perfect time, actually. I don't have a job I'm in love with, I don't have a significant other to worry about leaving, I could even possibly have someone take over my half of the lease.... I have my friends, who are incredibly important to me, but that's about it.
What's stopping me? And why does this idea excite me so very, very much? The thing that has always stopped me from going out to New York is that I didn't know anyone and I didn't have any place to live. Or a job, but you can always find a job. Hotels and banks are almost always hiring, and I have experience in both of those fields. But now, suddenly, those two other criteria were met. I have some money saved up, enough to make the move, I could sell my car and make even more, because who the hell has a car in New York?
It would be an adventure of the truly first class, and the more I've been thinking about it the more I realize that if I don't do it, I may feel disappointed in myself, as though I had somehow let myself down and been a coward. I'm usually pretty well-thought out, a planner, you might say, but suddenly I don't want to plan. Suddenly this feels like the break in the clouds I didn't know I was looking for.
Am I moving to New York?
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Gobsmacked by the Cosmos
My Horoscope for Today: Those of us born under the sign of Cancer the Crab are sometimes pathologically self-sufficient. We can dole out love in abundance but be conflicted about asking for and accepting the love we need.
Ouch. That's cold. But I guess if the Universe can downgrade Pluto from Planet to Dwarf Planet, it can wound me too. Is that my problem, poppets? I don't know how to ask for love? So I run from it and seek it's polar opposite emotions, anger, fear, lust?
Comments and suggestions would be appreciated.
Ouch. That's cold. But I guess if the Universe can downgrade Pluto from Planet to Dwarf Planet, it can wound me too. Is that my problem, poppets? I don't know how to ask for love? So I run from it and seek it's polar opposite emotions, anger, fear, lust?
Comments and suggestions would be appreciated.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
5 Years and a Day
Today is the day after the 5th anniversary of Sept. 11th, and it just so happens to be the primary elections for Minnesota. I can't think of a better way to commemorate the event then by exercising my right to vote. I hope you all join me.
At what point will this date just become another day? At what point will the wounds be at least scabbed over or enough of us be dead for it to be a dim memory, like Pearl Harbor Day is now? It's hard to imagine that will ever be the case, but in some strange way the certainty that it will provides some small measure of comfort. Not that we will forget the lessons learned on that day or in the aftermath, but that in some way the pain will lessen and we'll be able to examine it from the outside. I hope to live to see that day, so that I can see the men and women who have used September 11th as a buzz word and a campaign slogan villified as they should be.
We all have our "where were you on 9/11 stories", and there isn't much point in rehashing mine. I do remember that just a few months earlier I was lamenting to my father that my generation had no unifying event like Vietnam or the Civil Rights Movement to identify us coheasively and take us out of our little navel-gazing Paris-hilton obsessing bullshit. I didn't mean this, however. This was not what I signed on for. None of us signed on for the 3000 men and women dead that day, the additional 3000 American soldiers dead unnecessarily in Iraq, or the literally countless numbers of dead civilians we've been racking up like points in a video game in Afghanistan and Iraq. I sure as hell didn't sign on for the most partisan and duplicitous government since Nixon's. I didn't sign up to see Toby Keith use the American flag as a backdrop for racism and hatred, or the American government detain and torture people without due process of law, or our civil liberties chopped up into bits and served back to us as "Freedom Fries". I didn't sign on for the diversionary tactic that is the Iraq War, for the killing of innocent civilians who had nothing at all to do with the fight that was actually brought to our door. I didn't sign on to see the nation I love turn the clock back to the era of McCarthy and in a perverse twist, define patriotism like the communists did back in the day: blind obedience.
I could blame the government, but the people get the government that they derserve (vote!). Sure the government has a share in the blame; Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rove, they whole sinister lot of them are evil to the core of their shriveled black beings, but ultimately we are the collective idiots that put them in power, either by ambivalence, actually voting for them, or not getting the truth out there. I don't want to believe that my countrymen would willingly put these jackals in power if they knew the truth. I may not know the full truth, but I do know that you don't throw good money after bad, and you don't throw American dead bodies on top of other American dead bodies. The President keeps saying we are safer..... how can we be safer when we are at a two-front foriegn war, an internal domestic war for all intents and purposes, and 3000 people who weren't dead three years ago are now very much not alive? We cannot be safer when no other country has our back (and no, Georgie-Boy, Poland does not fucking count); we as a country took the collective goodwill of the nations of the world and literally pissed all over it in attempt to define ourselves as the "don't-fuck-with-me" nation of the New Millenium. We are at present the national equivalent of a steroid junky- so big we are beginning to destroy ourselves from the inside while simultaneously ramping up the hysterical aggression. That sort of behavior is why pitbulls get put down, and eventually we will too. In our quest to fight "terror", we have become terrorists ourselves. Or doesn't it count when the death toll is made of foreign civilians and our own national values?
I don't have any pearls of wisdom with which to end this rant. In the face of tragedy, disappointment, and outrage I think human beings have a need to fill in the gap with meaning and eloquence. In the case of September 11th we should resist that urge. Sometimes the dead shouldn't be covered up with flowers and poetry. Sometimes atrocities should be left as gaping wounds, much like the hole in the ground still left where the World Trade Center once stood. At a certain point you can no longer bury the dead. You have to face them. I can only hope that soon our nation will be ready to stop running from ourselves and hiding behind the guise of "the war on terror", and face the uncertain, but honest, future.
At what point will this date just become another day? At what point will the wounds be at least scabbed over or enough of us be dead for it to be a dim memory, like Pearl Harbor Day is now? It's hard to imagine that will ever be the case, but in some strange way the certainty that it will provides some small measure of comfort. Not that we will forget the lessons learned on that day or in the aftermath, but that in some way the pain will lessen and we'll be able to examine it from the outside. I hope to live to see that day, so that I can see the men and women who have used September 11th as a buzz word and a campaign slogan villified as they should be.
We all have our "where were you on 9/11 stories", and there isn't much point in rehashing mine. I do remember that just a few months earlier I was lamenting to my father that my generation had no unifying event like Vietnam or the Civil Rights Movement to identify us coheasively and take us out of our little navel-gazing Paris-hilton obsessing bullshit. I didn't mean this, however. This was not what I signed on for. None of us signed on for the 3000 men and women dead that day, the additional 3000 American soldiers dead unnecessarily in Iraq, or the literally countless numbers of dead civilians we've been racking up like points in a video game in Afghanistan and Iraq. I sure as hell didn't sign on for the most partisan and duplicitous government since Nixon's. I didn't sign up to see Toby Keith use the American flag as a backdrop for racism and hatred, or the American government detain and torture people without due process of law, or our civil liberties chopped up into bits and served back to us as "Freedom Fries". I didn't sign on for the diversionary tactic that is the Iraq War, for the killing of innocent civilians who had nothing at all to do with the fight that was actually brought to our door. I didn't sign on to see the nation I love turn the clock back to the era of McCarthy and in a perverse twist, define patriotism like the communists did back in the day: blind obedience.
I could blame the government, but the people get the government that they derserve (vote!). Sure the government has a share in the blame; Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rove, they whole sinister lot of them are evil to the core of their shriveled black beings, but ultimately we are the collective idiots that put them in power, either by ambivalence, actually voting for them, or not getting the truth out there. I don't want to believe that my countrymen would willingly put these jackals in power if they knew the truth. I may not know the full truth, but I do know that you don't throw good money after bad, and you don't throw American dead bodies on top of other American dead bodies. The President keeps saying we are safer..... how can we be safer when we are at a two-front foriegn war, an internal domestic war for all intents and purposes, and 3000 people who weren't dead three years ago are now very much not alive? We cannot be safer when no other country has our back (and no, Georgie-Boy, Poland does not fucking count); we as a country took the collective goodwill of the nations of the world and literally pissed all over it in attempt to define ourselves as the "don't-fuck-with-me" nation of the New Millenium. We are at present the national equivalent of a steroid junky- so big we are beginning to destroy ourselves from the inside while simultaneously ramping up the hysterical aggression. That sort of behavior is why pitbulls get put down, and eventually we will too. In our quest to fight "terror", we have become terrorists ourselves. Or doesn't it count when the death toll is made of foreign civilians and our own national values?
I don't have any pearls of wisdom with which to end this rant. In the face of tragedy, disappointment, and outrage I think human beings have a need to fill in the gap with meaning and eloquence. In the case of September 11th we should resist that urge. Sometimes the dead shouldn't be covered up with flowers and poetry. Sometimes atrocities should be left as gaping wounds, much like the hole in the ground still left where the World Trade Center once stood. At a certain point you can no longer bury the dead. You have to face them. I can only hope that soon our nation will be ready to stop running from ourselves and hiding behind the guise of "the war on terror", and face the uncertain, but honest, future.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Knee-high Boots and the Meaning of Accomplishment
On sunday I engaged in a little retail therapy to recover from the weekend, mostly done at Target thank you very much. I found the Holy Grail of chunky-calved girls everywhere, the knee-high boot! And I found it in black and in brown! And in suede! I gotta tell you, before the boots I was feeling pretty shitty about myself. The night before I had gone out and done something so monumentally stupid and yet so clearly what I wanted that I had to be both punished and congratulated. So I punished my wallet and congratulated my closet with my two new pairs of boots. What was it that I did, you might ask? Well, here's a list of things, and you see if you can make out what it was:
Vodka Gimlets
Co-workers and soon to be ex-coworkers.
More Vodka Gimlets
Rides home
I have this horrible habit of putting my mind to something that I have no business putting my mind to and being able to pull it off with little to no effort on my part. But only when it's hooking up with completely inappropriate people or causing my enemies to have unexplained cosmic accidents (like getting laid off from the police force or breaking a limb) or getting everyone that I hate at work to quit or move to a different department. Never anything for the good of mankind or the curing of diseases. Why can't I use my power for good instead of evil? Why was I drawn bad?
Wait, i'm not Jessica Rabbit. I wasn't drawn bad.
I guess ultimately the lesson here is that I can really only accomplish things with Maciavellian expediency when I don't have a dog in the fight. When I have nothing to lose and really, nothing to gain either, that's when i am up to the challenge, when the gloves can come off and I pull no punches. When there are no stakes except my own internal narrative, I perform beautifully. So why can't I take that devil may care attitude and translate it into the rest of my life? Why can't I regard the LSAT with the same savoire faire as a Saturday night at the bar? Why can't I laugh off the pressures of paying my bills on time and in full in the same why I laugh at some random guy who hits on me? The easy answer is that it matters more, but does it? Does it ultimately matter any more? Are all things equal? Should I be able to go through life putting my mind to every task ahead of me with the same determination and yet lack of pressure that occasionally blesses my mental doorstep?
Should is probably the wrong word. I don't know how to turn off the caring. I don't know how to say that all things are equal, because I don't know if I believe that. I do know that every so often (and by every so often I mean about once a day) I want to shrug off the societal constraints of modern life and just do whatever the fuck I want- run away and join the circus, travel the world, take this very decent and well paying job and shove it, you know, the usual. Is it that I am selfish and morally bankrupt? Is it that I want to run away from responsibilty? Or is it that I want to do as Thoreau did and "live the life I've imagined", which in this case involves me doing whatever I want whenever I want. I suppose it could just be me being 24.
The problem with this is that there are consequences. I'm not Paris Hilton, there isn't infinite amounts of money available to me. If I drop off the face of the planet for a while and bum around Europe, I'm still going to have to get a job eventually. If I sleep with everyone that I want to, inside relationships or out, there are still emotions and other messy ugly stuff to contend with. The only way to live a truly independent existence is to live it independent of people. That way the only one you are hurting is yourself.
But is independence worth the loneliness?
Vodka Gimlets
Co-workers and soon to be ex-coworkers.
More Vodka Gimlets
Rides home
I have this horrible habit of putting my mind to something that I have no business putting my mind to and being able to pull it off with little to no effort on my part. But only when it's hooking up with completely inappropriate people or causing my enemies to have unexplained cosmic accidents (like getting laid off from the police force or breaking a limb) or getting everyone that I hate at work to quit or move to a different department. Never anything for the good of mankind or the curing of diseases. Why can't I use my power for good instead of evil? Why was I drawn bad?
Wait, i'm not Jessica Rabbit. I wasn't drawn bad.
I guess ultimately the lesson here is that I can really only accomplish things with Maciavellian expediency when I don't have a dog in the fight. When I have nothing to lose and really, nothing to gain either, that's when i am up to the challenge, when the gloves can come off and I pull no punches. When there are no stakes except my own internal narrative, I perform beautifully. So why can't I take that devil may care attitude and translate it into the rest of my life? Why can't I regard the LSAT with the same savoire faire as a Saturday night at the bar? Why can't I laugh off the pressures of paying my bills on time and in full in the same why I laugh at some random guy who hits on me? The easy answer is that it matters more, but does it? Does it ultimately matter any more? Are all things equal? Should I be able to go through life putting my mind to every task ahead of me with the same determination and yet lack of pressure that occasionally blesses my mental doorstep?
Should is probably the wrong word. I don't know how to turn off the caring. I don't know how to say that all things are equal, because I don't know if I believe that. I do know that every so often (and by every so often I mean about once a day) I want to shrug off the societal constraints of modern life and just do whatever the fuck I want- run away and join the circus, travel the world, take this very decent and well paying job and shove it, you know, the usual. Is it that I am selfish and morally bankrupt? Is it that I want to run away from responsibilty? Or is it that I want to do as Thoreau did and "live the life I've imagined", which in this case involves me doing whatever I want whenever I want. I suppose it could just be me being 24.
The problem with this is that there are consequences. I'm not Paris Hilton, there isn't infinite amounts of money available to me. If I drop off the face of the planet for a while and bum around Europe, I'm still going to have to get a job eventually. If I sleep with everyone that I want to, inside relationships or out, there are still emotions and other messy ugly stuff to contend with. The only way to live a truly independent existence is to live it independent of people. That way the only one you are hurting is yourself.
But is independence worth the loneliness?
Saturday, September 02, 2006
My New Weight Watchers Meeting is Next to an Old Country Buffet
Seriously, that's just bad comedy.
Not that I would ever eat at an Old Country Buffet, but still... Welcome to America! The land of excess, binging and purging and a guilt-based diet culture. I should take a picture and submit it to the New Yorker. I just think it's cruelty, really, because a lot of people with weight problems also have budget problems, and enjoy a low-priced cornucopia in the vein of OCB. To me, that's the major problem with weight in this country, we make it too damn easy and affordable to put it on, and way too expensive to lose it. It's easy enough to say "eat less, exercise more", but when you live in Minnesota and working out requires a membership to an indoor gym 9 months of the blessed year, weight becomes a class issue. Fat used to mean affluence, but now it signals a lower standard of living, someone who doesn't take care of themselves and has no self control. That's an oversimplifacation of the situation, and it's quickly becoming an epidemic in this country. Our kids are sedentary and unhealthy, and our adults feel powerless to stop it. I have a suggestion:
Calm the fuck down.
Now let me unpack that for you, and trust me, I know whereof I speak. It's one thing to listen to Susan Power's skinny ass go on and on about "the insanity", but real madness is listening to someone who's been thin their whole life talk about weight loss. I'm not saying some who is thin can't have adequate perspective on maintaining a healthy weight and lifestyle, of course they can and do, but I'm talking about losing. And you can't understand losing if you've never lost, and never had to. What we really need is women like Wendy the Snapple Lady talking about weight loss. She hasn't been very successful, but at least I can appreciate her perspective. The nice thing about Weight Watchers is that everyone that works there has had a sustained weight loss for like, decades. I can trust them. So the first part of my CTFD theory is stop listining to over-pumped fitness gurus who do nothing more with their days then work out. You will learn nothing from them short of how to feel woefully inadequate, and that ain't gonna help, sunshine.
Next, stop with the low fat/fat free foods. I know this sounds radical, but seriously, fat tastes good, and if you are enjoying what you are eating, eating less of it isn't going to piss you off half as bad as it could. Also, keep in mind that some of that flavor must be replaced, and what replaces it is usually sugar, which your body turns into fat at the end of the day anyway, so you're screwed. I'm not talking about skim milk, but I am talking about fat free cheese. That's fucking card board, and cannot be good for you. Look at the label. If you can't pronounce half the ingredients, let alone know what they are, do not under any circumstances swallow it. Calm down, take a breath, and remember what your mama told you: was it, "eat processed soy product melted on your egg substitute and suck it down with some fat free bread while you are at it?" I'm betting not (and fat free bread? Seriously, how much fat is in a slice of whole grain bread, like .5?). I'm pretty sure it was something along the lines of "eat your veggies and drink you milk". Eat food, not food product. We get so excited about the next big low fat-no fat-food type thing that we forget that food's principle point is NOURISHMENT, not weight loss. When did we forget how to eat food in this country? I was in the supermarket today to buy some salad dressing, and all but the organic granola-eating-hippie salad dressings had high fructose corn syrup as the primary ingredient. When was the last time you wanted to pour some Karo syrup on your tossed greens? Yum. You know what's a no fat salad dressing? Balsamic vinegar. Lemon Juice. Even Soy Sauce. If you seriously don't want any fat, don't fill that void with the magic of modern chemistry. That's what gave us the A-bomb.
The third component of the soon to be pattented CTFD Theory of weight management is to slow down. Stop making life so f-ing stressful. We do it to ourselves, and we know it. We don't have to do everything, it is entirely permissible to sit on our asses watching bootleg copies of the Closer. But, while doing that all important ass-sitting, we can also be cooking a normal, food-only dinner, comprised of normal things like fish, vegetables, rice, whatever. The point is, when we are stressed out we make poor choices about everything. Our food choices under pressure, like a deadline, are the dietary equivalent of the complete fuck-up you walk out of the bar with at closing time. Your judgement is clouded by the time crunch, and what seems like a perfectly sensible decision at 2am makes your stomach turn a couple hours later. This nauseous feeling is true for both boys and greasy fast food.
Of course I started this all talking about the obesity epidemic with our children, and I think it's coupled with an overall epidemic of eating disorders, whether over or under. We do not have a healthy relationship with food as a nation, and it is quite literally killing us. I, like most American females, wish they would publish a list of the publicists, personal traners, chefs, clothing consultants, designers, etc. that help make our celebrities what they are. If they could just do that, I think I would get exhausted just looking at the list and feel sorry for the poor, beautiful creatures. But publishers don't do that, and so our daughters are growing up thinking it's perfectly possible, and in fact necessary to look like Jessica Simpson. We don't value health in this country, we value aesthetics, and if you don't fit into that aesthetic, well, hopefully you are smart. I don't understand how we got back here, obsessing about our weight and comparing ourselves with magazines, hoping a boy will notice us. What happened to Women's Lib? Even feminists these days are participating in strip aerobics and buying Us Weekly. And I guess that's their choice, but I feel that I know or know of far too many women my age who are just biding their time in their careers until they can nab a husband, and it makes me feel dirty.
What does that dynamic have to do with weight? Well ultimately what we are telling ourselves is that only thin people are worthy of love. I cringed inwardly at the moment in Little Miss Sunshine when Olive's father (played so on-spot annoying by Greg Kinnear) tells her that ice cream will make her fat and if she's fat she can't be a beauty queen. I cringed today when I was at Weight Watchers and saw an anorex-ercising mom bring in her daughter. The daughter was tall and maybe a little overweight, but clearly solid and in excellent shape. I overheard them talking, and the daughter was swimming 3 hours a day as the captain of the swim team! Why the fuck was she there? I hated that mother. I felt like smacking her I was so angry on behalf of that girl. What was it going to take for the mother to be proud of her daughter? What clothing size equals love? What did the scale have to say before she could be happy with the beautiful young woman she had raised, apparently in-between trips to the treadmill? So when I say Calm the Fuck Down, ultimately what I really want is for people to take stock of what is important in their lives. I think when they do that, really do that, their weight might become much less important, and once we stop obsessing about it, we just might be fine. The chatter isn't going anywhere, but no one says you have to listen.
Now, just file with entry under "if only Hala could take her own advice." I'll keep you posted.
Not that I would ever eat at an Old Country Buffet, but still... Welcome to America! The land of excess, binging and purging and a guilt-based diet culture. I should take a picture and submit it to the New Yorker. I just think it's cruelty, really, because a lot of people with weight problems also have budget problems, and enjoy a low-priced cornucopia in the vein of OCB. To me, that's the major problem with weight in this country, we make it too damn easy and affordable to put it on, and way too expensive to lose it. It's easy enough to say "eat less, exercise more", but when you live in Minnesota and working out requires a membership to an indoor gym 9 months of the blessed year, weight becomes a class issue. Fat used to mean affluence, but now it signals a lower standard of living, someone who doesn't take care of themselves and has no self control. That's an oversimplifacation of the situation, and it's quickly becoming an epidemic in this country. Our kids are sedentary and unhealthy, and our adults feel powerless to stop it. I have a suggestion:
Calm the fuck down.
Now let me unpack that for you, and trust me, I know whereof I speak. It's one thing to listen to Susan Power's skinny ass go on and on about "the insanity", but real madness is listening to someone who's been thin their whole life talk about weight loss. I'm not saying some who is thin can't have adequate perspective on maintaining a healthy weight and lifestyle, of course they can and do, but I'm talking about losing. And you can't understand losing if you've never lost, and never had to. What we really need is women like Wendy the Snapple Lady talking about weight loss. She hasn't been very successful, but at least I can appreciate her perspective. The nice thing about Weight Watchers is that everyone that works there has had a sustained weight loss for like, decades. I can trust them. So the first part of my CTFD theory is stop listining to over-pumped fitness gurus who do nothing more with their days then work out. You will learn nothing from them short of how to feel woefully inadequate, and that ain't gonna help, sunshine.
Next, stop with the low fat/fat free foods. I know this sounds radical, but seriously, fat tastes good, and if you are enjoying what you are eating, eating less of it isn't going to piss you off half as bad as it could. Also, keep in mind that some of that flavor must be replaced, and what replaces it is usually sugar, which your body turns into fat at the end of the day anyway, so you're screwed. I'm not talking about skim milk, but I am talking about fat free cheese. That's fucking card board, and cannot be good for you. Look at the label. If you can't pronounce half the ingredients, let alone know what they are, do not under any circumstances swallow it. Calm down, take a breath, and remember what your mama told you: was it, "eat processed soy product melted on your egg substitute and suck it down with some fat free bread while you are at it?" I'm betting not (and fat free bread? Seriously, how much fat is in a slice of whole grain bread, like .5?). I'm pretty sure it was something along the lines of "eat your veggies and drink you milk". Eat food, not food product. We get so excited about the next big low fat-no fat-food type thing that we forget that food's principle point is NOURISHMENT, not weight loss. When did we forget how to eat food in this country? I was in the supermarket today to buy some salad dressing, and all but the organic granola-eating-hippie salad dressings had high fructose corn syrup as the primary ingredient. When was the last time you wanted to pour some Karo syrup on your tossed greens? Yum. You know what's a no fat salad dressing? Balsamic vinegar. Lemon Juice. Even Soy Sauce. If you seriously don't want any fat, don't fill that void with the magic of modern chemistry. That's what gave us the A-bomb.
The third component of the soon to be pattented CTFD Theory of weight management is to slow down. Stop making life so f-ing stressful. We do it to ourselves, and we know it. We don't have to do everything, it is entirely permissible to sit on our asses watching bootleg copies of the Closer. But, while doing that all important ass-sitting, we can also be cooking a normal, food-only dinner, comprised of normal things like fish, vegetables, rice, whatever. The point is, when we are stressed out we make poor choices about everything. Our food choices under pressure, like a deadline, are the dietary equivalent of the complete fuck-up you walk out of the bar with at closing time. Your judgement is clouded by the time crunch, and what seems like a perfectly sensible decision at 2am makes your stomach turn a couple hours later. This nauseous feeling is true for both boys and greasy fast food.
Of course I started this all talking about the obesity epidemic with our children, and I think it's coupled with an overall epidemic of eating disorders, whether over or under. We do not have a healthy relationship with food as a nation, and it is quite literally killing us. I, like most American females, wish they would publish a list of the publicists, personal traners, chefs, clothing consultants, designers, etc. that help make our celebrities what they are. If they could just do that, I think I would get exhausted just looking at the list and feel sorry for the poor, beautiful creatures. But publishers don't do that, and so our daughters are growing up thinking it's perfectly possible, and in fact necessary to look like Jessica Simpson. We don't value health in this country, we value aesthetics, and if you don't fit into that aesthetic, well, hopefully you are smart. I don't understand how we got back here, obsessing about our weight and comparing ourselves with magazines, hoping a boy will notice us. What happened to Women's Lib? Even feminists these days are participating in strip aerobics and buying Us Weekly. And I guess that's their choice, but I feel that I know or know of far too many women my age who are just biding their time in their careers until they can nab a husband, and it makes me feel dirty.
What does that dynamic have to do with weight? Well ultimately what we are telling ourselves is that only thin people are worthy of love. I cringed inwardly at the moment in Little Miss Sunshine when Olive's father (played so on-spot annoying by Greg Kinnear) tells her that ice cream will make her fat and if she's fat she can't be a beauty queen. I cringed today when I was at Weight Watchers and saw an anorex-ercising mom bring in her daughter. The daughter was tall and maybe a little overweight, but clearly solid and in excellent shape. I overheard them talking, and the daughter was swimming 3 hours a day as the captain of the swim team! Why the fuck was she there? I hated that mother. I felt like smacking her I was so angry on behalf of that girl. What was it going to take for the mother to be proud of her daughter? What clothing size equals love? What did the scale have to say before she could be happy with the beautiful young woman she had raised, apparently in-between trips to the treadmill? So when I say Calm the Fuck Down, ultimately what I really want is for people to take stock of what is important in their lives. I think when they do that, really do that, their weight might become much less important, and once we stop obsessing about it, we just might be fine. The chatter isn't going anywhere, but no one says you have to listen.
Now, just file with entry under "if only Hala could take her own advice." I'll keep you posted.
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