As you can tell from looking through the lack of posts on here, I have remained pretty mum about my divorce. And that is how it should be. The demise of a marriage is a sad thing, a crummy thing, and nothing that should be taken lightly and discussed at length in the same forum where one discusses dresses and giving blow jobs to Minnesota Twins catchers. Moreover, I find myself incredibly busy in my new role in life, and most of the time, there simply isn't time to properly maintain the blog and keep everything rolling--I am quite honestly moving from the time I awake at 5 until the time I pass out on my laptop, drooling and talking nonsensically, sometime around 10.
But there is something to say, I feel, something we all need to say and discuss as we struggle to make sense of the events in Newtown, CT, events that cannot be explained by even the most brilliant among us. And while I do believe that gun control is a very, very necessary thing, I think it is more important now to remind you, my friend, that mental illness affects us all. And not just on the nightly news. Not just in the face of an overwhelming tragedy. Not just in the dead eyes of a disturbed teenage boy, remembered by all as a portrait of evil.
You know someone, I guarantee you, who struggles with mental illness everyday. Maybe it is not them, directly. Maybe it is someone in their family. A parent who doesn't act the same as they had. A child whose moods can no longer be chalked up to simply being at a difficult age. A husband who doesn't get out of bed anymore.
I look at the face of Adam Lanza's mother on the computer screen and I wonder: Did she know? Did she have a fraction of an idea? How did she handle it? Did she know what to do? These are questions, of course, that no one can answer, and that really, we have no business knowing. But I wonder because I have been her to a smaller degree.
--
There are arguments you have with yourself when you live with a mentally ill person. Whether you should confront the latest thing that has gone undone, the latest behavior that seemed odd or out of place. If you should call a doctor......Again. "What is normal, anyway," you say, with some degree of conviction. You justify and you lie and you make excuses. You spend days on message boards, looking for confirmation of the feelings that rise up in you and bite at your throat. You don't find it. Because the people who post on message boards, in many cases, have found their caretaker niche. They have nice stories and medicines that work. You have bills. And kids. And more bills.
I left (or, more appropriately, asked him to leave). I did. He was (is) sick, but I reached the end of my rope all the same, and let go. I did. I felt guilty and I cried and got mad at myself in a way that I can't even describe. Imagine the worst pregnancy heartburn you ever had and now imagine it all over your body. That is how I felt. But I was mad too. Mad at the world, mad at my husband, mad at the people in happy marriages on cereal commercials who had breakfast with each other. Out of bed. On their way to jobs. FUCKERS, ALL. I just wanted normal, I would tell myself on so many tear soaked commutes, sobbing openly to some Avett Brothers song or another. When did normal become so unreachable? When did it become a goal?
--
One day I was driving through town to work. A police office was posted
near the elementary school, motioning traffic forward. He motioned me
forward. But I sat there, with my eyes glazed over, thinking of what I
had and lost, what I was left with, how unfair it all was. The police
officer yelled to me and angrily smacked the hood of the car. And I
burst into tears and said aloud, "Don't you know?" He didn't. He
didn't give a shit.
I told myself that no one gave a shit. The truth is, no one knew. Big difference. I had done a damn good job of making it appear as if everything was fine. I had smiled and invented. I had dressed nicely and dressed my kids nicely and treated my marriage as if it were a golden thing made of Cat Power ballads and chocolate truffles. Since things have fallen apart, so many people have shared with me that they knew on some level, but they had not known how to approach it with me. I wish that they had. That is not to place any level of blame on them. I openly take responsibility for the facade I had erected. But I look back and realize that I would have done anything just not to feel so alone. Even for a moment. Because mental illness, no matter what side you are looking at it from, is a lonely place.
--
When the Aurora shooting happened, I received several texts to the tune of "That could be [my ex husband]." We had recently separated, and it was hard not to agree. The brilliant mind coupled with the on edge personality. The inability to connect. The lack of any visible success in the mainstream world. The obsession. I tell myself that it could never happen to him. By turns he is a very loving person, I say, and this is overwhelmingly true. But. I have seen his eyes turn to flame, I have heard the comments, and I'm not going to lie: there is a part of him that is very, very frightening.
I do not think my ex husband will kill anyone, and I wish him so much good stuff. He is my children's father, after all, and in some parts of my mind, he is still the geeky 16 year old who liked swing music and The X Files on Sunday nights. But every day that I wake up and my mind does not immediately wonder what kind of day it will be--what cruel reality that I have to hide today-- is an amazing gift. An amazing, amazing gift.
There is guilt there. I am sorry that I could not do more, sorry that things were lifted out of my hands. I would not go back. I would never go back. And perhaps that is the thing that scares me the most: that it was so easy to walk away.
--
The second he sat the breakfast plate in front of me, I choked up. I was sitting at the table in my nightgown, fiddling on the iPhone that he gave me. He sat it down and told me to eat and I stared at the tortilla and eggs and hummus and sriracha and how cute it was and the tears welled up. And he looked at me strangely, balancing his own plate on his strong fingers, and said, "What?" And I said, "You fixed breakfast." And he smiled and said yes and sat down and we ate and I couldn't help but feel that yes, this is what normal feels like.
--
Please be kind, gentle reader. Be kind to those around you. You don't know what their day holds. You don't know who in their life is gone, what they fear, what battle they are facing. Listen to your friends. They may need help, and they may not know how to ask for it. And especially, if you or someone else is going through this, reach out. Don't be like me. Tell someone. You don't deserve to be alone. No one does.
It is sad that no one thinks of mental illness until we get a villain on our TV screens every night--someone to place all of our fears onto. We should think of it so much more. There should be more clinics, more accessible doctors, more money, more time, more help. But mostly, there should be more understanding, of everyone involved. And no one should hide.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Coming Clean
I am getting divorced.
There I said it.
I have thought about how to say that on here for months. As you can probably guess by reading anything that I have written from, say, fourth grade on, I thought of many flowery ways to say it, ways that extolled my continuing admiration for my now ex-husband, ways from a Hollywood publicist's notebook. And while I do respect my ex husband for his many talents and because he is the father of my children, I refuse to say more than that. I'm not going to lie to you anymore, nor will I lie to myself.
I don't really like him at the moment. Cause, see, he tried to break into my house. And as a general rule, I tend not to really be friendly with people who try to commit criminal offenses against me, my property, and those that I love. JUST AS A GENERAL RULE.
I understand that this is a shock to many people, as I have done a damn good job of making things look rosy. Part of you, during a divorce, wants to say that everyone else is unhappy too, that there is no truly happy marriage, that by putting the shellac on your personal pig of a union that you were only playing along. And that is not true. Some marriages, as I see it, are really quite lovely. I wanted mine to be. I wanted that so hard that I was willing to lie, to my family and to myself, and create a reality that just wasn't there. I invented jobs that didn't exist, kindness that was nonexistent, a life that wasn't mine. And I regret it. I hurt myself enormously, I hurt my children, and I may have even hurt some of you.
My life has not been great during the life of this blog. I have not had much money, I have scrimped and scraped and paid for a lot of gas with nickels. I have worked and I have cooked and I have tried to be happy and tried to make others happy and I have failed in many ways. I will say, however, that this blog allowed me to create a reality that I enjoyed and that got me through the day on some days that I don't think I would have made it through otherwise.
But things are so much better now. This is not because I am getting divorced--it is because I am taking charge of my own damn life and that of my children. I have a career now, a wonderful one that makes me nerd out and revel in my own nerdery, and all for the good of an institution that I adore. I have a neat apartment and all my glasses match. I have a new macbook named Ignatius who seems to always know when I need to breakdance to Peaches and Cream. I have a family that loves me and has my back, even at times when, for their own personal good, they should not. Most amazingly, I have kids who amaze me everyday--this morning, Alice rolled over in bed and said, her damp curls pressed in unruly curly-q's around her head, "Good morning, beautiful mommy!" TELL ME THAT IS NOT AWESOME.
And, strangely, I have myself, and I am getting to know me. I am learning things--I like laying in my bathtub and listening to bluegrass. I like yoga. I have a nasty habit of trying to pick fights with people for no real apparent reason other than just because I want to and well, I need to change that one. And I didn't know any of these things six months ago.
The other thing I am learning is just how important it is not to judge. I'll admit--I used to judge people who got divorces. They didn't try hard enough, I would think, they gave up, they wanted a wedding and not a marriage. But the truth is, you just don't know. Shit happens. Wacky shit. Some of it can be prevented; some of it cannot. And, as a friend of mine eloquently told me not long ago, life is too short for that shit. Being happy is kinda important. And I refuse to judge people who are just trying to find that small degree of happy, even if they are going at it in a way that is totally different from the way I do it. I am trying to just do me, and not worry about the extraneous opinions and worries.
So, saying all that, and knowing that I am inviting all manner of judgment, because, well, gentle reader, you did not just say that you were feeling less judgemental, in fact, you may indeed be Judgy McJudgerson herself, in which case, you are SORELY judging my misusage of the comma and probably readjusting your pearls and pursing your lips, I will share another important bit o' news. I have someone new in my life. A DUDE. He's calm and responsible and smart and he vaccuums. He is a little bit of my happy.
And if someone had told me that, had said all this stuff to me about their divorce and new bf and whatever, had laid it all out to me six months ago, I would have rolled my eyes and said something stupid that I had not one damn clue about. But I have learned, folks, that you can't predict what will happen, and no matter how careful you are, no matter how much distance you try to put between, no matter how you arrange and schedule, some things just don't work on a time table. And when I look at him, knowing how slow and careful we are and he is especially, cause shit, ya'll, boy is slow like molasses in just about everything, I know that there is something going on that is so, so out of our control.
And, of course, it helps EVERYTHING that we live a good distance apart. I FREAKIN HATE SIMPLICITY AND EASE, DON'T YOU?!?! DIFFICULTY AND STRIFE 4 LYFE.
I am trying to be here. In the moment. I am trying to be a better person, a better daughter, a better friend, a better mother. I don't know where the blog fits into that right now. But I do know that I got some stories to tell. And telling them...well, it makes me feel good. And I've had too much time to not feel good, you know? So we'll see. And also...I have come up with some sweet ass outfits to wear to work. Maybe today not so much. But in general...yeah. And seriously? LEOPARD PRINT HEELS FTW.
Today, I realized something about myself. I want a normal life. A normal guy, normal kids, a normal car, normal dogs, a normal job. That is not something that I wanted in college, and something I beat myself up for in my dramatic post-college years. SELLING OUT, I think is what the kids are calling it these days. But it is something I am ok with now. And I'm willing to make normal as pretty as I possibly can.
I appreciate you for reading. Many of you are friends and I love and respect you all. I hope that you will continue with me on this journey.
There I said it.
I have thought about how to say that on here for months. As you can probably guess by reading anything that I have written from, say, fourth grade on, I thought of many flowery ways to say it, ways that extolled my continuing admiration for my now ex-husband, ways from a Hollywood publicist's notebook. And while I do respect my ex husband for his many talents and because he is the father of my children, I refuse to say more than that. I'm not going to lie to you anymore, nor will I lie to myself.
I don't really like him at the moment. Cause, see, he tried to break into my house. And as a general rule, I tend not to really be friendly with people who try to commit criminal offenses against me, my property, and those that I love. JUST AS A GENERAL RULE.
I understand that this is a shock to many people, as I have done a damn good job of making things look rosy. Part of you, during a divorce, wants to say that everyone else is unhappy too, that there is no truly happy marriage, that by putting the shellac on your personal pig of a union that you were only playing along. And that is not true. Some marriages, as I see it, are really quite lovely. I wanted mine to be. I wanted that so hard that I was willing to lie, to my family and to myself, and create a reality that just wasn't there. I invented jobs that didn't exist, kindness that was nonexistent, a life that wasn't mine. And I regret it. I hurt myself enormously, I hurt my children, and I may have even hurt some of you.
My life has not been great during the life of this blog. I have not had much money, I have scrimped and scraped and paid for a lot of gas with nickels. I have worked and I have cooked and I have tried to be happy and tried to make others happy and I have failed in many ways. I will say, however, that this blog allowed me to create a reality that I enjoyed and that got me through the day on some days that I don't think I would have made it through otherwise.
But things are so much better now. This is not because I am getting divorced--it is because I am taking charge of my own damn life and that of my children. I have a career now, a wonderful one that makes me nerd out and revel in my own nerdery, and all for the good of an institution that I adore. I have a neat apartment and all my glasses match. I have a new macbook named Ignatius who seems to always know when I need to breakdance to Peaches and Cream. I have a family that loves me and has my back, even at times when, for their own personal good, they should not. Most amazingly, I have kids who amaze me everyday--this morning, Alice rolled over in bed and said, her damp curls pressed in unruly curly-q's around her head, "Good morning, beautiful mommy!" TELL ME THAT IS NOT AWESOME.
And, strangely, I have myself, and I am getting to know me. I am learning things--I like laying in my bathtub and listening to bluegrass. I like yoga. I have a nasty habit of trying to pick fights with people for no real apparent reason other than just because I want to and well, I need to change that one. And I didn't know any of these things six months ago.
The other thing I am learning is just how important it is not to judge. I'll admit--I used to judge people who got divorces. They didn't try hard enough, I would think, they gave up, they wanted a wedding and not a marriage. But the truth is, you just don't know. Shit happens. Wacky shit. Some of it can be prevented; some of it cannot. And, as a friend of mine eloquently told me not long ago, life is too short for that shit. Being happy is kinda important. And I refuse to judge people who are just trying to find that small degree of happy, even if they are going at it in a way that is totally different from the way I do it. I am trying to just do me, and not worry about the extraneous opinions and worries.
So, saying all that, and knowing that I am inviting all manner of judgment, because, well, gentle reader, you did not just say that you were feeling less judgemental, in fact, you may indeed be Judgy McJudgerson herself, in which case, you are SORELY judging my misusage of the comma and probably readjusting your pearls and pursing your lips, I will share another important bit o' news. I have someone new in my life. A DUDE. He's calm and responsible and smart and he vaccuums. He is a little bit of my happy.
And if someone had told me that, had said all this stuff to me about their divorce and new bf and whatever, had laid it all out to me six months ago, I would have rolled my eyes and said something stupid that I had not one damn clue about. But I have learned, folks, that you can't predict what will happen, and no matter how careful you are, no matter how much distance you try to put between, no matter how you arrange and schedule, some things just don't work on a time table. And when I look at him, knowing how slow and careful we are and he is especially, cause shit, ya'll, boy is slow like molasses in just about everything, I know that there is something going on that is so, so out of our control.
And, of course, it helps EVERYTHING that we live a good distance apart. I FREAKIN HATE SIMPLICITY AND EASE, DON'T YOU?!?! DIFFICULTY AND STRIFE 4 LYFE.
I am trying to be here. In the moment. I am trying to be a better person, a better daughter, a better friend, a better mother. I don't know where the blog fits into that right now. But I do know that I got some stories to tell. And telling them...well, it makes me feel good. And I've had too much time to not feel good, you know? So we'll see. And also...I have come up with some sweet ass outfits to wear to work. Maybe today not so much. But in general...yeah. And seriously? LEOPARD PRINT HEELS FTW.
Today, I realized something about myself. I want a normal life. A normal guy, normal kids, a normal car, normal dogs, a normal job. That is not something that I wanted in college, and something I beat myself up for in my dramatic post-college years. SELLING OUT, I think is what the kids are calling it these days. But it is something I am ok with now. And I'm willing to make normal as pretty as I possibly can.
I appreciate you for reading. Many of you are friends and I love and respect you all. I hope that you will continue with me on this journey.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Ch-ch-ch Changes
HELLOOOO 4.6 readers! The blog will be going private today. If you are still interested in following my exploits (and well, I've got some serious stuff going on), please email me at morgan (dot) kiser (at) gmail (dot) com and I will be glad to add you to a list of approved readers. That is, unless you are a robot. Or a zombie. Or a fire-breathing robot zombie.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
First World Problems: Cooking on Your Vacation
I have wanted to share these thoughts for a while now because seriously people? COOKING IN A VACATION HOME BE HARD. No, not hard like distilling your own water from a dirty puddle or hard like making your own shoes out of tires and your own flesh. Not hard like trying to feed your family with food stamps or wading through a pile of medical bills because you did something like break your leg whilst being uninsured. I get that. In fact, I've had a few sentences of this typed on here since I left for vacation because I thought it was a worthy subject, one that might help one of you guys with a real issue that you may have. But then I started seeing a lot of comments on other sites from what I like to call, "The PRIVILEGED! Police." If you haven't seen this, bless your heart. You've been doing something worthwhile with your life. Basically, The PP is the most politically correct group of internet commenters ever, like if the ACLU knocked up Jezebel and then Jezebel had the most amazing at home water birth while listening to music purchased from that feminist bookstore from Portlandia. The Privileged! Police would be the product of that water birth. And what they do is hang around websites and when someone makes a comment that reflects certain benefits they have received in life and perhaps does not show as much empathy for someone else because of this, (being white or able bodied or with a home are all common signs of "privilege"), they call the person out. And really, that's a noble pursuit in many ways. We all do need to be reminded (tactfully) that just being born healthy and in a society or community that values our lives is kind of like hitting the lottery, only you win it everyday, all day.
BUT. But. Some people take it a little far. Not all the people. Some people. Just as with everything. So instead of having a reasonable conversation about things, you end up with a lot of people just using "PRIVILEGED" as a code word for "JACKASS." And it gets almost comical. But still...all I could think about when writing this was "PRIVILEGED."
And, yes, I am. I grew up in a white middle class family. My mom was a wonderful mom who taught me how to cook and to value education above all things. I had clothes growing up, and I never went hungry. I went on vacation every year, usually to the mountains with my dad and the beach with my mom. We were never rich by any stretch of the imagination. And I DEFINITELY am not wealthy right now (my student loan companies would be happy to tell you that). But I do understand that I have more than others. And that any personal things that I might have now have come from being born with all the benefits that I laid out above.
So this is a long way of saying, I get it. But I'm writing it anyway, because well, there are maybe some other jackholes out there who might want to talk about cooking in a vacation house.
(Which makes me wonder...say Mitt Romney wants to buy a new car elevator for his 15th house in La Jolla. Where does he go for that information? Are there car elevator blogs out there? Do they have "PRIVILEGED!" disclaimers? God, I hope they do, otherwise commenter FREEGANJILL from Poughkeepsie is going to lay into them SO HARD.)
ANYWAY...one time on my honeymoon, my husband and I decided to stay in and fix dinner together. We had lived together for a while before that and well, had two kids already (because we'se sinners, y'all), so there was none of this beginners-learning-to-live-alongside-each-other stuff. We were a finely oiled machine in the kitchen in many ways. We were at the beach, so we went to the market and bought these lovely shrimp, OMG I still remember how gorgeous those things were. I decided to whip up some pasta with fresh tomatoes to go along side. So we're cooking and we're laughing and we're drinking wine and we're sunburnt and it's all sweet, kind of like that scene in Annie Hall with the lobster except the shrimp were most certainly deceased. And I remember it like it was yesterday: Matt goes, "Your pasta's done." And I say something like, "Ok, get the colander." So he looks around and says, "There is no colander." And I laugh because GOD WHO DOESN'T HAVE A COLANDER. That's like not having a toilet paper holder. Or sheets. It HAS to be there, I think. MEN. They just cannot find things, amirite? I start looking for the colander myself. And yeah, it's not there.
And this is how I learned that if you have some boiling pasta and need to drain it, a newlywed (buzzed) husband holding a kitchen towel over the sink is a really sorry way to do it.
These are the problems one runs into when you attempt to cook a proper meal in a vacation home. Peeling nonstick pans. Plastic mixing bowls that were stained with marinara sauce sometime during the late 90's. The knives that God forgot. And all this is not to say that the owners of rental homes are some kind of negligent bunch. I imagine it is crazy hard to keep up with all of your crap because we as humans? We suck. We fuck up stuff for the pastime. Especially when it is technically not ours to start out with.
Therefore, it is best to come prepared. And this year, after many years of trying, I think I finally managed that. And here's what I did.
First, I got a really, really cheap open top plastic tote thing from the dollar store. You don't want anything large, but you do want an open top so that you can just throw stuff into it before you leave and when you pack up to go back home--you don't want to have to diligently pack, you want to be able to throw. And then I made myself a kit. You'll want to think of a few meals you might cook ahead of time, even if they are easy things like breakfasts and sandwiches. And obviously, you are only putting in things that are non-perishable. Here's what I came up with:
1. Cast iron skillet--large. This is my kitchen workhorse, so I knew I could make breakfast in it (eggs, bacon, pancakes) and then if, worse comes to worse and we can't use the grill because of rain, I can sear a mean steak in it. Try to think of a pan like this that you use often and take it. I can guarantee you right now that the pans the rental has will be absolute shit. No one puts their All Clad cookware in a vacation rental, you guys. And no, you do not want to bring your whole set. You are on vacation. One pan will work fine.
2. Microplaner.
3. Two decent knives wrapped in kitchen towels--one with a serrated edge and one more like a chef's knife. Most rentals will have steak knives because I guess they assume people eat steak on vacation. Yummm, steak.
4. Olive oil.
5. Salt and pepper. At the beach that my mom and I go to, we always go to the grocery store first thing after arriving on Saturday, and the S&P section is always raided. Bring your own. There is no sense in buying extra. Save that cash for ice cream.
6. Lemons. That's what the microplaner is for, incidentally. Lemons are multi-purpose--they taste great in a marinaded, can go in your drink, can be zested into pancake mix, put on an apple to preserve it once sliced, or even used to clean up the kitchen and microwave. Plus, they are cheap. Grab a couple.
7. Cinnamon.
8. Homemade spice blends. This was the real A HA! moment of my packing. If you want to do "serious" cooking while on vacation, you'll need spices. But who wants to do serious cooking? And really, who wants to purchase all the spices you'll need just for a teaspoon of this or that? We picked out a couple of blends ahead of time, stirred them up and packed them in empty spice jars to take with us. For our needs, we decided on an espresso steak rub (yummmm, steak), my husband's BBQ rub and a Jamaican spice blend. And think outside the block with it. I discovered that the bbq rub was really tasty on very thinly sliced red potatoes that were then coated in cooking spray and then roasted in the oven. The Jamaican spices added some fun to burgers and grilled pineapple rings.
9. Cooking spray.
10. Charcoal and lighter fluid if you intend on grilling, and you know you do. (We stayed in a cabin once that had a gas grill on a closed in patio next to the hot tub and that was AWESOME, but most places just have the traditional "camp" style grill like you find in a park. It will definitely get the job done.)
It might seem like a lot, but this was all super easy to round up, and a lot easier and cheaper than shopping for it once on vacation.
Now, once you are there, you really don't want to spend your entire vacation cooking. And you really shouldn't. Steaks and burgers are great choices because they don't require a lot of clean up or ingredients and taste really, really good. In the past, I have even brought a couple of things to get my mind, and my shortcuts, working. Homemade cinnamon bread (my Sam's favorite) is a tasty snack to have on hand, but makes really good french toast for Sunday morning. Also, bringing a BIG premade sandwich is a great thing to have on hand: you can bring it with you and then once you arrive, you don't have to worry about going back out to dinner or to the store and can step it up with the relaxing already. My mom makes a great one on a big Italian bread that has ham, turkey, veggies, Italian dressing and marinated artichoke hearts. You make it the night before you leave, wrap it in plastic wrap and aluminum foil, and then tote it in a cooler the next day. It just gets better as it sits. Gabby's favorite is this blend: roast beef, sliced sharp cheddar, tomatoes and thin red onion slices on a hard French baguette with a sauce made from mayo and Dijon mustard. Same general idea on that one. Once you arrive, you just slice everyone off a hunk, serve it up with chips, and VOILA. Dinner is served.
Now some will read this and say that this defeats the purpose of vacation, that a vacation is about relaxation and eating out. And I get that. My mom and I have a TYPED LIST of the restaurants we HAVE to hit next week while we are at the beach. But here's the thing: some nights you just don't feel like getting dressed to go out for dinner. And your kids don't either. And the big difference between you and them is that if you feel a little sluggish during dinner, you'll be fine. Your child, however, will morph into Charlie Sheen on a three day coke bender. So staying in and fixing something simple is INFINITELY better than that scenario. And this is even discounting the ever popular financial motive to cook-in. For my family of 5 to eat in a full-service restaurant, we're looking at dropping at least $75. To eat burgers off the grill at the cabin: considerably less.
And I reinterate: you don't have to make it fancy. Full confession: I used packaged pancake mix on our trip, the kind you only have to add water to. I don't think I've EVER done that. And while I made considerable jokes about our chemical laden breakfast, it was really good. Everything tastes good when you're on vacation!
Also? Check for a colander before you make pasta. Third degree burns are forever.
(No, Matt did not get a third degree burn. He did get splashed a little, but that was nothing compared to the sunburn he got from laying on the beach like a slug and reading Harry Potter. Ah, young love!)
BUT. But. Some people take it a little far. Not all the people. Some people. Just as with everything. So instead of having a reasonable conversation about things, you end up with a lot of people just using "PRIVILEGED" as a code word for "JACKASS." And it gets almost comical. But still...all I could think about when writing this was "PRIVILEGED."
And, yes, I am. I grew up in a white middle class family. My mom was a wonderful mom who taught me how to cook and to value education above all things. I had clothes growing up, and I never went hungry. I went on vacation every year, usually to the mountains with my dad and the beach with my mom. We were never rich by any stretch of the imagination. And I DEFINITELY am not wealthy right now (my student loan companies would be happy to tell you that). But I do understand that I have more than others. And that any personal things that I might have now have come from being born with all the benefits that I laid out above.
So this is a long way of saying, I get it. But I'm writing it anyway, because well, there are maybe some other jackholes out there who might want to talk about cooking in a vacation house.
(Which makes me wonder...say Mitt Romney wants to buy a new car elevator for his 15th house in La Jolla. Where does he go for that information? Are there car elevator blogs out there? Do they have "PRIVILEGED!" disclaimers? God, I hope they do, otherwise commenter FREEGANJILL from Poughkeepsie is going to lay into them SO HARD.)
ANYWAY...one time on my honeymoon, my husband and I decided to stay in and fix dinner together. We had lived together for a while before that and well, had two kids already (because we'se sinners, y'all), so there was none of this beginners-learning-to-live-alongside-each-other stuff. We were a finely oiled machine in the kitchen in many ways. We were at the beach, so we went to the market and bought these lovely shrimp, OMG I still remember how gorgeous those things were. I decided to whip up some pasta with fresh tomatoes to go along side. So we're cooking and we're laughing and we're drinking wine and we're sunburnt and it's all sweet, kind of like that scene in Annie Hall with the lobster except the shrimp were most certainly deceased. And I remember it like it was yesterday: Matt goes, "Your pasta's done." And I say something like, "Ok, get the colander." So he looks around and says, "There is no colander." And I laugh because GOD WHO DOESN'T HAVE A COLANDER. That's like not having a toilet paper holder. Or sheets. It HAS to be there, I think. MEN. They just cannot find things, amirite? I start looking for the colander myself. And yeah, it's not there.
And this is how I learned that if you have some boiling pasta and need to drain it, a newlywed (buzzed) husband holding a kitchen towel over the sink is a really sorry way to do it.
These are the problems one runs into when you attempt to cook a proper meal in a vacation home. Peeling nonstick pans. Plastic mixing bowls that were stained with marinara sauce sometime during the late 90's. The knives that God forgot. And all this is not to say that the owners of rental homes are some kind of negligent bunch. I imagine it is crazy hard to keep up with all of your crap because we as humans? We suck. We fuck up stuff for the pastime. Especially when it is technically not ours to start out with.
Therefore, it is best to come prepared. And this year, after many years of trying, I think I finally managed that. And here's what I did.
First, I got a really, really cheap open top plastic tote thing from the dollar store. You don't want anything large, but you do want an open top so that you can just throw stuff into it before you leave and when you pack up to go back home--you don't want to have to diligently pack, you want to be able to throw. And then I made myself a kit. You'll want to think of a few meals you might cook ahead of time, even if they are easy things like breakfasts and sandwiches. And obviously, you are only putting in things that are non-perishable. Here's what I came up with:
1. Cast iron skillet--large. This is my kitchen workhorse, so I knew I could make breakfast in it (eggs, bacon, pancakes) and then if, worse comes to worse and we can't use the grill because of rain, I can sear a mean steak in it. Try to think of a pan like this that you use often and take it. I can guarantee you right now that the pans the rental has will be absolute shit. No one puts their All Clad cookware in a vacation rental, you guys. And no, you do not want to bring your whole set. You are on vacation. One pan will work fine.
2. Microplaner.
3. Two decent knives wrapped in kitchen towels--one with a serrated edge and one more like a chef's knife. Most rentals will have steak knives because I guess they assume people eat steak on vacation. Yummm, steak.
4. Olive oil.
5. Salt and pepper. At the beach that my mom and I go to, we always go to the grocery store first thing after arriving on Saturday, and the S&P section is always raided. Bring your own. There is no sense in buying extra. Save that cash for ice cream.
6. Lemons. That's what the microplaner is for, incidentally. Lemons are multi-purpose--they taste great in a marinaded, can go in your drink, can be zested into pancake mix, put on an apple to preserve it once sliced, or even used to clean up the kitchen and microwave. Plus, they are cheap. Grab a couple.
7. Cinnamon.
8. Homemade spice blends. This was the real A HA! moment of my packing. If you want to do "serious" cooking while on vacation, you'll need spices. But who wants to do serious cooking? And really, who wants to purchase all the spices you'll need just for a teaspoon of this or that? We picked out a couple of blends ahead of time, stirred them up and packed them in empty spice jars to take with us. For our needs, we decided on an espresso steak rub (yummmm, steak), my husband's BBQ rub and a Jamaican spice blend. And think outside the block with it. I discovered that the bbq rub was really tasty on very thinly sliced red potatoes that were then coated in cooking spray and then roasted in the oven. The Jamaican spices added some fun to burgers and grilled pineapple rings.
9. Cooking spray.
10. Charcoal and lighter fluid if you intend on grilling, and you know you do. (We stayed in a cabin once that had a gas grill on a closed in patio next to the hot tub and that was AWESOME, but most places just have the traditional "camp" style grill like you find in a park. It will definitely get the job done.)
It might seem like a lot, but this was all super easy to round up, and a lot easier and cheaper than shopping for it once on vacation.
Now, once you are there, you really don't want to spend your entire vacation cooking. And you really shouldn't. Steaks and burgers are great choices because they don't require a lot of clean up or ingredients and taste really, really good. In the past, I have even brought a couple of things to get my mind, and my shortcuts, working. Homemade cinnamon bread (my Sam's favorite) is a tasty snack to have on hand, but makes really good french toast for Sunday morning. Also, bringing a BIG premade sandwich is a great thing to have on hand: you can bring it with you and then once you arrive, you don't have to worry about going back out to dinner or to the store and can step it up with the relaxing already. My mom makes a great one on a big Italian bread that has ham, turkey, veggies, Italian dressing and marinated artichoke hearts. You make it the night before you leave, wrap it in plastic wrap and aluminum foil, and then tote it in a cooler the next day. It just gets better as it sits. Gabby's favorite is this blend: roast beef, sliced sharp cheddar, tomatoes and thin red onion slices on a hard French baguette with a sauce made from mayo and Dijon mustard. Same general idea on that one. Once you arrive, you just slice everyone off a hunk, serve it up with chips, and VOILA. Dinner is served.
Now some will read this and say that this defeats the purpose of vacation, that a vacation is about relaxation and eating out. And I get that. My mom and I have a TYPED LIST of the restaurants we HAVE to hit next week while we are at the beach. But here's the thing: some nights you just don't feel like getting dressed to go out for dinner. And your kids don't either. And the big difference between you and them is that if you feel a little sluggish during dinner, you'll be fine. Your child, however, will morph into Charlie Sheen on a three day coke bender. So staying in and fixing something simple is INFINITELY better than that scenario. And this is even discounting the ever popular financial motive to cook-in. For my family of 5 to eat in a full-service restaurant, we're looking at dropping at least $75. To eat burgers off the grill at the cabin: considerably less.
And I reinterate: you don't have to make it fancy. Full confession: I used packaged pancake mix on our trip, the kind you only have to add water to. I don't think I've EVER done that. And while I made considerable jokes about our chemical laden breakfast, it was really good. Everything tastes good when you're on vacation!
Also? Check for a colander before you make pasta. Third degree burns are forever.
(No, Matt did not get a third degree burn. He did get splashed a little, but that was nothing compared to the sunburn he got from laying on the beach like a slug and reading Harry Potter. Ah, young love!)
Monday, June 18, 2012
Shorts Story
I have written about shorts before and I guess I should just a post a link to that and call it a day, but I have a whole lot more to say on this subject. Mostly because of an unfortunate video.
My husband, you guys, is Clark Griswold. Vacations and Christmases are things that he takes very, very seriously. He plans our family vacations according to this "Five Year Plan" that culminates with us taking our lovely brood to Europe (I'm thinking this may be more like a seven year plan or a ten year plan). He plans and he plans and he plans and we always have a lovely time, no matter where we go. This year, as I mentioned earlier, we went to a cabin in Gatlinburg, if for no other reason than to recover from the last two years where we have done massive, walking-intensive, historically themed vacations. Our biggest goal was to relax...and rest...and relax some more. I wanted a hot tub, and my husband wanted a theater room. And that was what we got. Matt planned even more stuff for the cabin--renting 90's comedies to introduce to the kids, buying a vast array of popcorn. And he made a fun DVD of our past vacation exploits to show the kids when we arrived--basically just photo stills set to music.
So we got there and while the kids were running about, getting excited about the wonders of our home for the next week (we live in a single level house--the fact that our vacation cabin was 3 floors was all the excitement they needed), we loaded the homemade DVD into the theater room's player. I popped some popcorn and we pulled them away from the pool table and video consoles and had a family viewing of vacations past. It was really fun--seeing how much the kids had grown and reliving lots of fun memories. Matt had interspersed lots of funny comments, so we laughed like fiends at inside jokes. When the video was done, the kids were playing around with the little menu thingie and we found some assorted actual videos we had taken. And there was a lovely video from two years ago that featured us playing putt-putt.
I was wearing a dress.
A dress that I thought looked really adorable on me and was super comfortable and cool.
And although I didn't do it, somehow someway, I came really, really close to flashing my underwear at my husband when I was leaning down to get my ball (REPEATEDLY). Which means that there was almost video taken of my fluffy white ass.
Moral of this story: sometimes, although dresses are divine in the summer, you really just should wear a pair of shorts.
You guys, I love dresses. I do! If I had my druthers, I would have done little over the last month but sit at my work computer and order dresses. It is truly all I want to wear in the summer because most are work appropriate (especially in the summer months when I [and everyone else] can really get away with more) and weekend appropriate and NEARLY everything else appropriate. But there are times that you just need a good pair of shorts. I KNOW. It's screwed up. It is a fact that I ignored for nearly 10 years. But shorts serve their purpose so well.
This year, I ponied up for two pairs because there are two weekend days and I really only wear shorts on the weekend. I am open to another pair--I really wanted a sailor-type style J.Crew Factory was selling, but I didn't order online while I could and then the B&M Factory store didn't have them, and then, well, I'm always partial to a pair of crisp white shorts at the beach (where I'm going next week!). But two pairs pretty much serves my needs very well, especially considering I still wear dresses and skirts, even on the weekends. I always buy a pair of J.Crew 5" chinos, so this year I decided to get them in neon pink. And guys? So much fun. I love those things. I've been wearing them with a chambray shirt, but they are also really cute with simple v-neck tees. And I also got these, because why the hell not? Printed shorts are cool. I pretty much told myself I was keeping them even if they made me look like I weighed 800 lbs because I liked them that much. Luckily, they do not.
Now, if you really need a shorts primer, you can go back to that link above and read all about it because I wrote it last year, and well, there ya go. Here is the corollary to all that:
1. Don't overspend on white shorts. I mentioned above that I love the look of white shorts in the summer time, and I really do. BUT. White shorts are....white. White like the snow, white like Connecticut, white like a virgin. And, like all of the things above, they are easy to taint. I find that I have never been able to wear a pair of white shorts longer than one summer. They just get too stained. And I have thought about this a lot, because I have had my white jeans definitely longer than one season and they show no stains of any consequence and really, what I think is that when you wear shorts, you are doing more things that invite dirt. Things like meandering along trails and eating barbecue and chasing kids and eating drippy ice cream cones on the boardwalk. Darker hues hide the evidence of all this in a way that white just can't do. So get some fo' cheap. My pairs the last two years have been from Old Navy, and they usually work out just fine--no see-through, decent material, a quality purchase for the 15 or so smackers you'll pay for them. You might also find a good pair at Target. A couple of years ago, their Merona brand shorts were made of really nice material and my mom and I happened upon them when they were on sale for $10. And there are always 4th of July sales to think about if you don't want to go too cheap.
2. Don't go too big on top. I love the look of a pair of shorter shorts (4 in. or shorter) and a blousy, flowy top of some sort. It seems like a good balance, you know, and I see it in fashion magazines all the time. It is also something that looks horrible on me. It makes me look big all over, like I might be an offensive lineman stuffed into a pair of chinos and stranded at a barbecue. And I don't think it is just me. This is a really hard proportion to get right. I see a lot of people who look lost in swaths of fabric up top, which makes them look bigger and well, hotter. And not hot in a good way. Hot in a "HAND ME MY CHURCH FAN, BERTHA." way. Although peasant tops are great on some folks, we just all ain't Marianne Faithfull, if you know what I'm a-sayin. When all else fails, girls, shorts and a fitted, quality t-shirt is not a bad combo. It usually hides that which you would like to hide, flatters assets like boobs and shoulders AND has the added benefit of being cool. Even a nice ribbed tank top in a pretty color can compliment your shorts well. Basically, what I'm saying is that less is more and simple is better and blah blah blah, I'm boring myself.
3. Don't try to make them more than they are. I was very tempted to type here that you really shouldn't try to formalize your shorts in any way because that is a skill best left to the true fashionistas among us, but then I remembered seeing someone pull it off. For my mom's graduation, a friend of my mom's attended in white city shorts with a really pretty floral print Ann Taylor cardigan and a fitted empire waist camisole underneath. She wore sparkly flat sandals and nice jewelery and pinned her hair up. The look was classy, appropriate, and much, much nicer than 90% of what I saw other people wearing to the event. That is an example of someone making their shorts work in a totally different place--she could have just as well worn the same shorts to a barbecue or over her bathing suit. In some ways, the key to this is to treat your shorts like they are a nice skirt and accessorizing in the same ways. But like I said. This is tricky. Unless you have just the right pair of shorts, you're going to look like an idiot. I feel like if you are doing anything where you would need to worry about all this, you could just wear a dress. And you were going to do that anyway, right?
And let's remember the principal rule from my original shorts post: NO1CURR. Of course, I am paraphrasing, and maybe it's a bit harsh, but well, everyone else is so caught up in their own body flaws during the summer, that it is helpful to remember that no one else is worried that you didn't lose that last 5 lbs. and no one can tell that your legs have caused you more sleepless nights in your 29 years than you ever would admit to publicly. To them, you just look like a happy person enjoying her summer. And if they are the type to notice that you are perhaps not as thin as, say, Gisele Bundchen, well, you don't need them as a friend anyway. Come sit with me, dear. I'm sure if I know that meanie I can think of someone mildly related to them that once gave someone a blow job in a funeral parlor (TRUE FACT: I do know of someone who did this, and now you all want to know who, don't you???), and if I don't, I can just make something up.
As an addendum, if you are truly shorts phobic, and really, you shouldn't be, but if you are, I will let you in on my favorite new secret purchase. This charming skirt from Old Navy, currently $15 in store. I'm wearing this sucker RIGHT NOW, you guys. I had wanted a chevron dress for a while but couldn't find one that I really liked that wasn't full out maxi, so when I saw the skirt this past weekend, I knew I must try it. And I really, really like it. These type of cheap, flowy skirts usually put me on the one-way express train to Frumpsylvania, but this one has the nice print which brings the eye inward, and yes, does make you look thinner. And the top is a roll-down style waist which means you can tinker a bit with the length AND the waistband is big enough to sort of "control" your tummy. I'm not kidding! It totally does. And it is super comfortable. I originally thought I might just wear it over my bathing suit, but guys, this thing looks really cute on, and yes, I am wearing it right now in the office, albeit with a jacket and my "dressy" sandals. And like I said, you can get away with a lot in the summer, at least in my office, where, because of vacation schedules and such, I go whole days without seeing anyone of any consequence.
I just won't be wearing it to play putt-putt.
Which I am exceedingly good at.
Anyone wanna play? I'll wear the shorts this time!
My husband, you guys, is Clark Griswold. Vacations and Christmases are things that he takes very, very seriously. He plans our family vacations according to this "Five Year Plan" that culminates with us taking our lovely brood to Europe (I'm thinking this may be more like a seven year plan or a ten year plan). He plans and he plans and he plans and we always have a lovely time, no matter where we go. This year, as I mentioned earlier, we went to a cabin in Gatlinburg, if for no other reason than to recover from the last two years where we have done massive, walking-intensive, historically themed vacations. Our biggest goal was to relax...and rest...and relax some more. I wanted a hot tub, and my husband wanted a theater room. And that was what we got. Matt planned even more stuff for the cabin--renting 90's comedies to introduce to the kids, buying a vast array of popcorn. And he made a fun DVD of our past vacation exploits to show the kids when we arrived--basically just photo stills set to music.
So we got there and while the kids were running about, getting excited about the wonders of our home for the next week (we live in a single level house--the fact that our vacation cabin was 3 floors was all the excitement they needed), we loaded the homemade DVD into the theater room's player. I popped some popcorn and we pulled them away from the pool table and video consoles and had a family viewing of vacations past. It was really fun--seeing how much the kids had grown and reliving lots of fun memories. Matt had interspersed lots of funny comments, so we laughed like fiends at inside jokes. When the video was done, the kids were playing around with the little menu thingie and we found some assorted actual videos we had taken. And there was a lovely video from two years ago that featured us playing putt-putt.
I was wearing a dress.
A dress that I thought looked really adorable on me and was super comfortable and cool.
And although I didn't do it, somehow someway, I came really, really close to flashing my underwear at my husband when I was leaning down to get my ball (REPEATEDLY). Which means that there was almost video taken of my fluffy white ass.
Moral of this story: sometimes, although dresses are divine in the summer, you really just should wear a pair of shorts.
You guys, I love dresses. I do! If I had my druthers, I would have done little over the last month but sit at my work computer and order dresses. It is truly all I want to wear in the summer because most are work appropriate (especially in the summer months when I [and everyone else] can really get away with more) and weekend appropriate and NEARLY everything else appropriate. But there are times that you just need a good pair of shorts. I KNOW. It's screwed up. It is a fact that I ignored for nearly 10 years. But shorts serve their purpose so well.
This year, I ponied up for two pairs because there are two weekend days and I really only wear shorts on the weekend. I am open to another pair--I really wanted a sailor-type style J.Crew Factory was selling, but I didn't order online while I could and then the B&M Factory store didn't have them, and then, well, I'm always partial to a pair of crisp white shorts at the beach (where I'm going next week!). But two pairs pretty much serves my needs very well, especially considering I still wear dresses and skirts, even on the weekends. I always buy a pair of J.Crew 5" chinos, so this year I decided to get them in neon pink. And guys? So much fun. I love those things. I've been wearing them with a chambray shirt, but they are also really cute with simple v-neck tees. And I also got these, because why the hell not? Printed shorts are cool. I pretty much told myself I was keeping them even if they made me look like I weighed 800 lbs because I liked them that much. Luckily, they do not.
Now, if you really need a shorts primer, you can go back to that link above and read all about it because I wrote it last year, and well, there ya go. Here is the corollary to all that:
1. Don't overspend on white shorts. I mentioned above that I love the look of white shorts in the summer time, and I really do. BUT. White shorts are....white. White like the snow, white like Connecticut, white like a virgin. And, like all of the things above, they are easy to taint. I find that I have never been able to wear a pair of white shorts longer than one summer. They just get too stained. And I have thought about this a lot, because I have had my white jeans definitely longer than one season and they show no stains of any consequence and really, what I think is that when you wear shorts, you are doing more things that invite dirt. Things like meandering along trails and eating barbecue and chasing kids and eating drippy ice cream cones on the boardwalk. Darker hues hide the evidence of all this in a way that white just can't do. So get some fo' cheap. My pairs the last two years have been from Old Navy, and they usually work out just fine--no see-through, decent material, a quality purchase for the 15 or so smackers you'll pay for them. You might also find a good pair at Target. A couple of years ago, their Merona brand shorts were made of really nice material and my mom and I happened upon them when they were on sale for $10. And there are always 4th of July sales to think about if you don't want to go too cheap.
2. Don't go too big on top. I love the look of a pair of shorter shorts (4 in. or shorter) and a blousy, flowy top of some sort. It seems like a good balance, you know, and I see it in fashion magazines all the time. It is also something that looks horrible on me. It makes me look big all over, like I might be an offensive lineman stuffed into a pair of chinos and stranded at a barbecue. And I don't think it is just me. This is a really hard proportion to get right. I see a lot of people who look lost in swaths of fabric up top, which makes them look bigger and well, hotter. And not hot in a good way. Hot in a "HAND ME MY CHURCH FAN, BERTHA." way. Although peasant tops are great on some folks, we just all ain't Marianne Faithfull, if you know what I'm a-sayin. When all else fails, girls, shorts and a fitted, quality t-shirt is not a bad combo. It usually hides that which you would like to hide, flatters assets like boobs and shoulders AND has the added benefit of being cool. Even a nice ribbed tank top in a pretty color can compliment your shorts well. Basically, what I'm saying is that less is more and simple is better and blah blah blah, I'm boring myself.
3. Don't try to make them more than they are. I was very tempted to type here that you really shouldn't try to formalize your shorts in any way because that is a skill best left to the true fashionistas among us, but then I remembered seeing someone pull it off. For my mom's graduation, a friend of my mom's attended in white city shorts with a really pretty floral print Ann Taylor cardigan and a fitted empire waist camisole underneath. She wore sparkly flat sandals and nice jewelery and pinned her hair up. The look was classy, appropriate, and much, much nicer than 90% of what I saw other people wearing to the event. That is an example of someone making their shorts work in a totally different place--she could have just as well worn the same shorts to a barbecue or over her bathing suit. In some ways, the key to this is to treat your shorts like they are a nice skirt and accessorizing in the same ways. But like I said. This is tricky. Unless you have just the right pair of shorts, you're going to look like an idiot. I feel like if you are doing anything where you would need to worry about all this, you could just wear a dress. And you were going to do that anyway, right?
And let's remember the principal rule from my original shorts post: NO1CURR. Of course, I am paraphrasing, and maybe it's a bit harsh, but well, everyone else is so caught up in their own body flaws during the summer, that it is helpful to remember that no one else is worried that you didn't lose that last 5 lbs. and no one can tell that your legs have caused you more sleepless nights in your 29 years than you ever would admit to publicly. To them, you just look like a happy person enjoying her summer. And if they are the type to notice that you are perhaps not as thin as, say, Gisele Bundchen, well, you don't need them as a friend anyway. Come sit with me, dear. I'm sure if I know that meanie I can think of someone mildly related to them that once gave someone a blow job in a funeral parlor (TRUE FACT: I do know of someone who did this, and now you all want to know who, don't you???), and if I don't, I can just make something up.
As an addendum, if you are truly shorts phobic, and really, you shouldn't be, but if you are, I will let you in on my favorite new secret purchase. This charming skirt from Old Navy, currently $15 in store. I'm wearing this sucker RIGHT NOW, you guys. I had wanted a chevron dress for a while but couldn't find one that I really liked that wasn't full out maxi, so when I saw the skirt this past weekend, I knew I must try it. And I really, really like it. These type of cheap, flowy skirts usually put me on the one-way express train to Frumpsylvania, but this one has the nice print which brings the eye inward, and yes, does make you look thinner. And the top is a roll-down style waist which means you can tinker a bit with the length AND the waistband is big enough to sort of "control" your tummy. I'm not kidding! It totally does. And it is super comfortable. I originally thought I might just wear it over my bathing suit, but guys, this thing looks really cute on, and yes, I am wearing it right now in the office, albeit with a jacket and my "dressy" sandals. And like I said, you can get away with a lot in the summer, at least in my office, where, because of vacation schedules and such, I go whole days without seeing anyone of any consequence.
I just won't be wearing it to play putt-putt.
Which I am exceedingly good at.
Anyone wanna play? I'll wear the shorts this time!
Thursday, June 14, 2012
My Uncle Tony
*I was on vacation last week, and I have some happy, vacation-y posts that I plan to write because who doesn't love hearing about someone else's trip??? (Answer: EVERYONE.) I haven't had time, however, to get all of my vacation photos on the computer yet, and what's a vacation post without photos? (Answer: Mercifully brief.) Stay tuned.
This morning, I read an article about xoJane staff member, Cat Marnell, leaving her position at the online magazine. If you follow anything from the xo community, you know Cat. She's the drug addicted one, the girl who writes about beauty products while high on angel dust. It makes for some interesting, if not voyeuristic, reading. I actually discovered xoJane through Cat's article about the death of Whitney Houston, an article I found to be interesting, well-written and thought provoking. Now, granted, I find it interesting because I'm the same girl who has a TiVo season pass to Intervention. Something about addiction and the troubles related to it just "gets" me. My husband says it is because I'm a masochist. And maybe I am. I like seeing people in turmoil, maybe because it validates feelings of hopelessness, loss, etc. that I also feel. BIG ENGLISH MAJOR FEELINGS.
So I watched Cat tumble. I follow her on Twitter, and I clicked on all the articles and read all the stories and watched them make less and less sense. I watched her get a second chance in a line of second chances, I watched people crop up in comments, saying things that were adoring, praising her and her exploits in ways that were just plain worrisome. And I thought about her, and wished her the best. But most of all, I thought about my Uncle Tony.
No one ever gave my Uncle Tony a second chance.
When I was a kid, I was scared to death of my Uncle Tony. He was tall and he laughed all the time. LOUDLY. He was much younger than my dad, so he came unencumbered with a wife or with kids for me to play with. He was just him. And whenever he walked in my grandmom's front door, I hid behind her recliner. She even served me a couple of meals back there.
Uncle Tony was just a string of things really--a string of failed jobs that never materialized, a string of women who came around for a Christmas or a birthday and were never seen again. A few had kids--one had a daughter, exactly my age, who was of mixed race. She was the first even vaguely black person I had ever talked to or spent time with. I remember praying at night that he would marry that woman because I was entranced with her daughter's hair. He moved around a lot. I don't think I ever visited his house or knew exactly where he lived. My dad never talked about him that much and he never came to family cook-outs or anything. As a young child, I never realized this was odd. Uncle Tony was just different.
As I got older though, I realized just how much fun Uncle Tony actually was. He was the master of the prank gift. My grandmother subscribed to the National Enquirer, a fact that my grandfather LOATHED and constantly made deprecating comments about. One year, Uncle Tony purchased every single National Enquirer when it hit the newstands and then wrapped them all up in a big box with a bow on Christmas. He gave the box to my grandfather, who opened it up to great conster--hmm, no. Basically just a whole lot of cussing. Merry Christmas 11 year old Morgan! It's no wonder I never met a fucking swear word I didn't fucking like. Under the big pile of newsprint, however, lied my Uncle's real present to my grandfather--a bottle of Jim Beam. And that tells you a little something more now than it did when I was 11. At any rate, far from being the kid cowering behind the LaZBoy, I grew to love any moment when my dad and his two brothers were together. The jokes were insane. Every Christmas Eve, I got tucked into my bed with my sides literally aching from all the laughter.
But the thing is, I grew up. My grandfather died, I graduated from high school and moved away. I called my grandmother, like clockwork, every Sunday. She would give me little news bits about Uncle Tony every time I called. He didn't grow up. He continued to bounce from place to place and job to job. He came to live at a house my grandparents owned, where an old aunt had once lived and died. He went on disability. He totaled his car. He lost his license. And then, well after I moved to California, he moved back in with my grandmother. She was happy with this arrangement, as she made no bones about the fact that he was her baby and had always been her favorite. I don't know how he felt. How would you have felt? I can't imagine it was good.
One Sunday I called my grandmother. It was a great sunny Northern California day. I had tutored that morning, teaching some kid whose parents made more money in a year than my grandfather ever saw in his life about World History for $195 a pop. Being footloose and fancy free after my 9:00 lesson, I had driven around the coast a little before coming home as kind of a "You're awesome for being out of bed on a Sunday" present to myself. I picked up some deli salads at the store and then headed home. It was early Fall, and we sat on the couch and ate and were getting ready to watch the baseball game when I made the call. I chatted with my grandmother for a while and she told me about her assorted health problems, which was always the basis of these Sunday conversations. Then she said, "Hold on. Tony wants the phone."
I don't think I had ever talked to my Uncle Tony on the phone before. I thought she must be joking. But sure enough, he came on the line. He quickly told me that he had watched a Cal football game on TV the day before as it has been broadcast nationally. We had watched the same one--my husband was, and is, a huge Cal football fan. He then asked "Do you live in those hills?" I answered that I did. He asked if I could see the water. I answered that I could. He sighed loudly and said, "I do believe that is the most beautiful place I've ever seen."
This really affected me, so much so that I remember all the peculiarities of that day, of the conversation. I lived a life, one that while I enjoyed, I did not appreciate. I focused on my own worries, about the bills, about if my shoes were ok, if I had budgeted enough in gas money this week. At that point in my life, my Uncle Tony literally had nothing. His voice carried that across the 3000 plus miles that separated us. I felt guilty about what I had and took for granted, and I felt his monumental sense of loss and what he could have had and did not.
Ten months later I was packing up my life in CA, preparing to move back to the East Coast. I was sweeping up the bamboo floor in my daughter's room when the phone rang. It was my stepmother. I immediately thought that my grandmother had passed, but it wasn't that. It was Uncle Tony. He had died, in my grandmother's carport. She said heart attack, but she knew better and I knew too. Somewhere along the way, I picked up that he was a drug addict. No one ever told me, but I saw. A slurred word here and there. A rolled eye. An Oxycontin bottle in my grandmother's kitchen. So I knew. He wasn't even 50 yet. And he was dead, in a car, on a hot summer day.
I want to give you a big poignant thing about my Uncle's life, about how he helped someone or impacted a life in some amazing way. But I can't. Here's the truth: he was a drug addict. His whole life. He was a faceless, sad Appalachian statistic, one of the many, many people who struggle with drugs in my corner of the world. He lived and he died as a drug addict. He was not glamorous; he was the opposite. He was not a parent, he was never married. He did not know the joy of rolling around in bed and sticking your ass out and knowing that someone on the other side would wrap their arms around you subconsciously. He left behind a TV set, and that was it.
I read about Cat and her world in New York with clubs and friends and all night parties. It is a world that I cannot even pretend to know anything about. I think I enjoyed reading her stuff because it taunted me with that life--a life that I, shackled to responsibility at such a young age, never even got a glimpse of. And while I want her to get better, it smacks me coldly to think of all the people on Twitter, telling Cat that she is a "rock star" and pledging their adulation. She is not a rock star. She is a drug addict. Like my Uncle Tony who most people would have been happy to ignore had he walked up the same aisle as them at the grocery store.
Addiction is something I live in fear of, if I am completely honest. I know that it is in me, somewhere, to have addiction issues. Sometimes I think I watch Intervention and its ilk just to give me enough of a jolt to where I will not go down that road. When my cousin moved into my grandmother's house after my grandmother left for the nursing home, she found countless liquor bottles my grandfather stowed in the wall and that, presumably, my grandmother never found. Behind the old washing machine was a veritable wall of flat vodka bottles. There was one particular bottle of Jim Beam she found that was almost shoulder height on her 8 year old. Yeah, addiction issues: we haz em. I keep an old picture of my grandfather that I found during one of these clean outs on my bedside table. The inscription on the back reads "Old Drunk Jack at the Scott County Fair."
(Of note: We also found a certificate given to my Uncle Tony when he graduated high school, congratulating him on never having missed a day of school, from first grade on. He never even missed a minute of school--no early check outs, no tardiness, no nothing. Mull that one. It's a sad thing to mull.)
So here I sit, writing this, about a girl I will never know and a man I barely knew. I feel sad. Maybe that is why I am writing this. There is certainly a rather D.A.R.E. undertone to this article, and maybe I mean that, and maybe I don't. I literally do not give a fuck what consenting adults do in their spare time--if you like drugs, fine. Your thing. Do I want my kids to use drugs? HELL NO. I guess I implore you to try to keep that which will destroy you in check. And no matter who we are, we all have something like that. I dare you to say you do not.
And I write for Uncle Tony because he can't tell his story. He doesn't have thousands of captivated tweeps, waiting to RT with glee. But his is a story that is repeated millions of times over this country, and it is no less tragic because he is not thin and blonde.
This morning, I read an article about xoJane staff member, Cat Marnell, leaving her position at the online magazine. If you follow anything from the xo community, you know Cat. She's the drug addicted one, the girl who writes about beauty products while high on angel dust. It makes for some interesting, if not voyeuristic, reading. I actually discovered xoJane through Cat's article about the death of Whitney Houston, an article I found to be interesting, well-written and thought provoking. Now, granted, I find it interesting because I'm the same girl who has a TiVo season pass to Intervention. Something about addiction and the troubles related to it just "gets" me. My husband says it is because I'm a masochist. And maybe I am. I like seeing people in turmoil, maybe because it validates feelings of hopelessness, loss, etc. that I also feel. BIG ENGLISH MAJOR FEELINGS.
So I watched Cat tumble. I follow her on Twitter, and I clicked on all the articles and read all the stories and watched them make less and less sense. I watched her get a second chance in a line of second chances, I watched people crop up in comments, saying things that were adoring, praising her and her exploits in ways that were just plain worrisome. And I thought about her, and wished her the best. But most of all, I thought about my Uncle Tony.
No one ever gave my Uncle Tony a second chance.
When I was a kid, I was scared to death of my Uncle Tony. He was tall and he laughed all the time. LOUDLY. He was much younger than my dad, so he came unencumbered with a wife or with kids for me to play with. He was just him. And whenever he walked in my grandmom's front door, I hid behind her recliner. She even served me a couple of meals back there.
Uncle Tony was just a string of things really--a string of failed jobs that never materialized, a string of women who came around for a Christmas or a birthday and were never seen again. A few had kids--one had a daughter, exactly my age, who was of mixed race. She was the first even vaguely black person I had ever talked to or spent time with. I remember praying at night that he would marry that woman because I was entranced with her daughter's hair. He moved around a lot. I don't think I ever visited his house or knew exactly where he lived. My dad never talked about him that much and he never came to family cook-outs or anything. As a young child, I never realized this was odd. Uncle Tony was just different.
As I got older though, I realized just how much fun Uncle Tony actually was. He was the master of the prank gift. My grandmother subscribed to the National Enquirer, a fact that my grandfather LOATHED and constantly made deprecating comments about. One year, Uncle Tony purchased every single National Enquirer when it hit the newstands and then wrapped them all up in a big box with a bow on Christmas. He gave the box to my grandfather, who opened it up to great conster--hmm, no. Basically just a whole lot of cussing. Merry Christmas 11 year old Morgan! It's no wonder I never met a fucking swear word I didn't fucking like. Under the big pile of newsprint, however, lied my Uncle's real present to my grandfather--a bottle of Jim Beam. And that tells you a little something more now than it did when I was 11. At any rate, far from being the kid cowering behind the LaZBoy, I grew to love any moment when my dad and his two brothers were together. The jokes were insane. Every Christmas Eve, I got tucked into my bed with my sides literally aching from all the laughter.
But the thing is, I grew up. My grandfather died, I graduated from high school and moved away. I called my grandmother, like clockwork, every Sunday. She would give me little news bits about Uncle Tony every time I called. He didn't grow up. He continued to bounce from place to place and job to job. He came to live at a house my grandparents owned, where an old aunt had once lived and died. He went on disability. He totaled his car. He lost his license. And then, well after I moved to California, he moved back in with my grandmother. She was happy with this arrangement, as she made no bones about the fact that he was her baby and had always been her favorite. I don't know how he felt. How would you have felt? I can't imagine it was good.
One Sunday I called my grandmother. It was a great sunny Northern California day. I had tutored that morning, teaching some kid whose parents made more money in a year than my grandfather ever saw in his life about World History for $195 a pop. Being footloose and fancy free after my 9:00 lesson, I had driven around the coast a little before coming home as kind of a "You're awesome for being out of bed on a Sunday" present to myself. I picked up some deli salads at the store and then headed home. It was early Fall, and we sat on the couch and ate and were getting ready to watch the baseball game when I made the call. I chatted with my grandmother for a while and she told me about her assorted health problems, which was always the basis of these Sunday conversations. Then she said, "Hold on. Tony wants the phone."
I don't think I had ever talked to my Uncle Tony on the phone before. I thought she must be joking. But sure enough, he came on the line. He quickly told me that he had watched a Cal football game on TV the day before as it has been broadcast nationally. We had watched the same one--my husband was, and is, a huge Cal football fan. He then asked "Do you live in those hills?" I answered that I did. He asked if I could see the water. I answered that I could. He sighed loudly and said, "I do believe that is the most beautiful place I've ever seen."
This really affected me, so much so that I remember all the peculiarities of that day, of the conversation. I lived a life, one that while I enjoyed, I did not appreciate. I focused on my own worries, about the bills, about if my shoes were ok, if I had budgeted enough in gas money this week. At that point in my life, my Uncle Tony literally had nothing. His voice carried that across the 3000 plus miles that separated us. I felt guilty about what I had and took for granted, and I felt his monumental sense of loss and what he could have had and did not.
Ten months later I was packing up my life in CA, preparing to move back to the East Coast. I was sweeping up the bamboo floor in my daughter's room when the phone rang. It was my stepmother. I immediately thought that my grandmother had passed, but it wasn't that. It was Uncle Tony. He had died, in my grandmother's carport. She said heart attack, but she knew better and I knew too. Somewhere along the way, I picked up that he was a drug addict. No one ever told me, but I saw. A slurred word here and there. A rolled eye. An Oxycontin bottle in my grandmother's kitchen. So I knew. He wasn't even 50 yet. And he was dead, in a car, on a hot summer day.
I want to give you a big poignant thing about my Uncle's life, about how he helped someone or impacted a life in some amazing way. But I can't. Here's the truth: he was a drug addict. His whole life. He was a faceless, sad Appalachian statistic, one of the many, many people who struggle with drugs in my corner of the world. He lived and he died as a drug addict. He was not glamorous; he was the opposite. He was not a parent, he was never married. He did not know the joy of rolling around in bed and sticking your ass out and knowing that someone on the other side would wrap their arms around you subconsciously. He left behind a TV set, and that was it.
I read about Cat and her world in New York with clubs and friends and all night parties. It is a world that I cannot even pretend to know anything about. I think I enjoyed reading her stuff because it taunted me with that life--a life that I, shackled to responsibility at such a young age, never even got a glimpse of. And while I want her to get better, it smacks me coldly to think of all the people on Twitter, telling Cat that she is a "rock star" and pledging their adulation. She is not a rock star. She is a drug addict. Like my Uncle Tony who most people would have been happy to ignore had he walked up the same aisle as them at the grocery store.
Addiction is something I live in fear of, if I am completely honest. I know that it is in me, somewhere, to have addiction issues. Sometimes I think I watch Intervention and its ilk just to give me enough of a jolt to where I will not go down that road. When my cousin moved into my grandmother's house after my grandmother left for the nursing home, she found countless liquor bottles my grandfather stowed in the wall and that, presumably, my grandmother never found. Behind the old washing machine was a veritable wall of flat vodka bottles. There was one particular bottle of Jim Beam she found that was almost shoulder height on her 8 year old. Yeah, addiction issues: we haz em. I keep an old picture of my grandfather that I found during one of these clean outs on my bedside table. The inscription on the back reads "Old Drunk Jack at the Scott County Fair."
(Of note: We also found a certificate given to my Uncle Tony when he graduated high school, congratulating him on never having missed a day of school, from first grade on. He never even missed a minute of school--no early check outs, no tardiness, no nothing. Mull that one. It's a sad thing to mull.)
So here I sit, writing this, about a girl I will never know and a man I barely knew. I feel sad. Maybe that is why I am writing this. There is certainly a rather D.A.R.E. undertone to this article, and maybe I mean that, and maybe I don't. I literally do not give a fuck what consenting adults do in their spare time--if you like drugs, fine. Your thing. Do I want my kids to use drugs? HELL NO. I guess I implore you to try to keep that which will destroy you in check. And no matter who we are, we all have something like that. I dare you to say you do not.
And I write for Uncle Tony because he can't tell his story. He doesn't have thousands of captivated tweeps, waiting to RT with glee. But his is a story that is repeated millions of times over this country, and it is no less tragic because he is not thin and blonde.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
How My Stupid Skin is Making Me Healthier
I am pale. Ghastly. Usually by this point in the summer, I have applied enough self tanner to get a relatively nice glow on, something that, while not permanent at all, would at least be maintainable. But not now. I am the color of a sheet.
And why, you ask? Oh, because my skin decided to declare war on me. Fucking skin.
I have always had relatively sensitive skin. My mom can still rattle off a list of things that broke me out as a small child (most notably heartbreaking of which was Mr. Bubble bubble bath which was the stuff rose colored dreams are made of), and I've never been one for heavy fragrances or scented products at all. Well, except for the time that I decided--DAMN THE TORPEDOES!--that I would wear Bath and Body Works Sun Ripened Raspberry in all of its manifestations at one time. I think I was about 14. Around the same time, I also found out that I am HIGHLY allergic to all Origins products because they have some kind of fruit acid in them that turns me into Lobster Boy. College was marked by my discovery that I am insanely allergic to Tide, and couldn't even use a washing machine after someone had used Tide powder in it, as the residue was enough to cause a week of misery. ANYWAY, I use Almay Skin Relief Body Wash and coconut body butter and during the summer, I use self-tanner. And none of this has ever given me a problem.
A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I planned a little getaway for ourselves. We got a hotel room with a whirlpool, bought some champagne and ahem, some stuff, and worked out plans with my mother in law so that she could watch the kids. In preparation, I went ahead and bought a box of L'Oreal Sublime Bronze Tanning Towelettes, and decided to do the ole double dip where I used my gradual tanner as lotion and then added the extra oomph of the tanning towels. I used them a couple of times in pretty quick succession. Yeah, it smelled. Matt complained about it, as he always does when I use self tanner. But ultimately, I guess he decided not to say too much because he didn't want to dare come between a girl and her horrible body image.
But then I woke up with hives down both of my arms. At first, it was mostly confined to my upper arms, but by the time I got to work, it had spread down to my inner elbows and there was a patch on my right ankle. All of these little TAN bumps running down my arms, all these little TAN bumps that itched like crazy. I scratched and scratched. Matt begged me to go to the doctor, but I decided against it because it was a rash that I've had multiple times before--I'm not new to this go-round. I layered Eucerin calming cream over it, and a little bit of calamine lotion. Still. It itched. Actually, that's not giving you an appropriate feeling of what it was like...hmmm...GOOD GRAVY IT WAS LIKE A MILLION FIRE ANTS BITING ME...GAHHH.
We went on our trip. I brought my gradual tanning lotion with me, but Matt begged me not to use it, and since I was feeling romantical, I relented. That and the fact that all of the scratching had made my skin start peeling so the tan was coming off in sheets. ATTRACTIVE. My upper arms looked like I had some kind of horrible skin disease where I was literally molting. I wore a cardigan over my dress when we went out to dinner and called it a day. Love is blind, ya'll.
Still, the itching did not totally go away, despite getting some better. We washed our sheets several times, thinking that it was something there because it always seemed worse in the mornings. I started confronting facts that I was either allergic to self-tanner or chocolate, and to be honest, I couldn't imagine a day without either one. I sulked. A lot. Matt stayed on me though about laying off the tanner until we figured out what it was. And then one night, after dulling myself with Benadryl and going to bed, only to wake up at 4:00 a.m. with my mind racing, I realized that it was my robe. My fluffy robe hadn't been laundered since I broke out and was the thing I put on directly after tanning. If anything was coated in it, it would be the robe. I washed the robe in hot water, hoping that was not really it, but within a day, it was over.
So, somehow, someway, I am allergic to that particular cocktail of self-tanner. Which means that that very day, I was on the internet, looking at Kiehl's Tanner, which MUST be better for me, RIGHT?!?!
I have refrained though. My legs are horrible, yes, but the stuff really does smell and is it worth putting Matt through all that? Is it worth the obvious streaks that appear sometimes despite my best intentions? Maybe not. It is not the paleness that I abhor so much, it is just that I think the tan makes my legs look thinner. And does it really? Or is it all in my head? And is it worth breaking out in hives for something that very well could be all in my head?
So on Monday I went running. And then again this morning. Running is the goddamn worst, and I don't care if you love it. It's horrible. But it works, and it is free, and if you play it right, you get to listen to good music while you're doing it. So I'm back on that horse. I am doing C25K again, because it has seriously been that freaking long, and I was surprised that it wasn't totally horrible this morning. Ok, yeah, it was horrible. But not as horrible as it could have been. It was just mildly torturous, not "MY FACE IS GETTING EATEN OFF BY A CANNIBAL" torturous. I gave myself a little victory hop when it was over before I remembered that GOD I FUCKING HATE RUNNING.
I am not totally back on WW, but I'm trying to be mindful while eating. I'm trying to convince myself that there is no moderation in eating only vegetables for lunch. I want to be healthy, I really do, so I am trying. Did I eat a bowl of the celebratory dirt cake I made for my kids last night? Damn right I did. But today is a new day and the blueberries I had this morning were damn good. And it is Berry Almond Chicken Salad time at Wendy's! FUCK YEAH BERRY ALMOND CHICKEN SALAD.
I am a work in progress. A pale, fluffy work in progress. But maybe it'll stick this time.
And why, you ask? Oh, because my skin decided to declare war on me. Fucking skin.
I have always had relatively sensitive skin. My mom can still rattle off a list of things that broke me out as a small child (most notably heartbreaking of which was Mr. Bubble bubble bath which was the stuff rose colored dreams are made of), and I've never been one for heavy fragrances or scented products at all. Well, except for the time that I decided--DAMN THE TORPEDOES!--that I would wear Bath and Body Works Sun Ripened Raspberry in all of its manifestations at one time. I think I was about 14. Around the same time, I also found out that I am HIGHLY allergic to all Origins products because they have some kind of fruit acid in them that turns me into Lobster Boy. College was marked by my discovery that I am insanely allergic to Tide, and couldn't even use a washing machine after someone had used Tide powder in it, as the residue was enough to cause a week of misery. ANYWAY, I use Almay Skin Relief Body Wash and coconut body butter and during the summer, I use self-tanner. And none of this has ever given me a problem.
A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I planned a little getaway for ourselves. We got a hotel room with a whirlpool, bought some champagne and ahem, some stuff, and worked out plans with my mother in law so that she could watch the kids. In preparation, I went ahead and bought a box of L'Oreal Sublime Bronze Tanning Towelettes, and decided to do the ole double dip where I used my gradual tanner as lotion and then added the extra oomph of the tanning towels. I used them a couple of times in pretty quick succession. Yeah, it smelled. Matt complained about it, as he always does when I use self tanner. But ultimately, I guess he decided not to say too much because he didn't want to dare come between a girl and her horrible body image.
But then I woke up with hives down both of my arms. At first, it was mostly confined to my upper arms, but by the time I got to work, it had spread down to my inner elbows and there was a patch on my right ankle. All of these little TAN bumps running down my arms, all these little TAN bumps that itched like crazy. I scratched and scratched. Matt begged me to go to the doctor, but I decided against it because it was a rash that I've had multiple times before--I'm not new to this go-round. I layered Eucerin calming cream over it, and a little bit of calamine lotion. Still. It itched. Actually, that's not giving you an appropriate feeling of what it was like...hmmm...GOOD GRAVY IT WAS LIKE A MILLION FIRE ANTS BITING ME...GAHHH.
We went on our trip. I brought my gradual tanning lotion with me, but Matt begged me not to use it, and since I was feeling romantical, I relented. That and the fact that all of the scratching had made my skin start peeling so the tan was coming off in sheets. ATTRACTIVE. My upper arms looked like I had some kind of horrible skin disease where I was literally molting. I wore a cardigan over my dress when we went out to dinner and called it a day. Love is blind, ya'll.
Still, the itching did not totally go away, despite getting some better. We washed our sheets several times, thinking that it was something there because it always seemed worse in the mornings. I started confronting facts that I was either allergic to self-tanner or chocolate, and to be honest, I couldn't imagine a day without either one. I sulked. A lot. Matt stayed on me though about laying off the tanner until we figured out what it was. And then one night, after dulling myself with Benadryl and going to bed, only to wake up at 4:00 a.m. with my mind racing, I realized that it was my robe. My fluffy robe hadn't been laundered since I broke out and was the thing I put on directly after tanning. If anything was coated in it, it would be the robe. I washed the robe in hot water, hoping that was not really it, but within a day, it was over.
So, somehow, someway, I am allergic to that particular cocktail of self-tanner. Which means that that very day, I was on the internet, looking at Kiehl's Tanner, which MUST be better for me, RIGHT?!?!
I have refrained though. My legs are horrible, yes, but the stuff really does smell and is it worth putting Matt through all that? Is it worth the obvious streaks that appear sometimes despite my best intentions? Maybe not. It is not the paleness that I abhor so much, it is just that I think the tan makes my legs look thinner. And does it really? Or is it all in my head? And is it worth breaking out in hives for something that very well could be all in my head?
So on Monday I went running. And then again this morning. Running is the goddamn worst, and I don't care if you love it. It's horrible. But it works, and it is free, and if you play it right, you get to listen to good music while you're doing it. So I'm back on that horse. I am doing C25K again, because it has seriously been that freaking long, and I was surprised that it wasn't totally horrible this morning. Ok, yeah, it was horrible. But not as horrible as it could have been. It was just mildly torturous, not "MY FACE IS GETTING EATEN OFF BY A CANNIBAL" torturous. I gave myself a little victory hop when it was over before I remembered that GOD I FUCKING HATE RUNNING.
I am not totally back on WW, but I'm trying to be mindful while eating. I'm trying to convince myself that there is no moderation in eating only vegetables for lunch. I want to be healthy, I really do, so I am trying. Did I eat a bowl of the celebratory dirt cake I made for my kids last night? Damn right I did. But today is a new day and the blueberries I had this morning were damn good. And it is Berry Almond Chicken Salad time at Wendy's! FUCK YEAH BERRY ALMOND CHICKEN SALAD.
I am a work in progress. A pale, fluffy work in progress. But maybe it'll stick this time.
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