crack-nips

S. and I had a good talk about sabatoge and food last night. She'd made turkey brats and vegetarian baked beans and corn on the cob (the last of the season--man was it good)--you know, pretty basic pedestrian food that reminds me of the backyard barbeques of my youth. This meal, in itself, was in no way bad, or evil. Really.

When I went to make up my plate, I did not grab a bun. (I knew S. had bought whole wheat buns with me in mind--she'd take the plain jane white ones over wheat any day.)

"You're not having a bun?" she asked, a slightly stricken look crossing her face, her brow furrowing.

"Nope," I said.

"I'm sorry," she replied.

I was a little confused.

"For what?"

"I feel like I'm not helping you in your efforts," she said.

"Why, because you bought buns?"

"Yeah," she said, sighing.

"You ARE helping me!" I replied. "You cooked dinner and I really appreciate it..."

"The beans are no fat!" she said, triumphant.

"Yes, honey, I know. Really it's okay." I kissed her cheek. "It's o....kay."

I don't give her enough credit sometimes. Sure, when I got home, there was an opened package of cheese-nips on the counter, and yeah, I plunged in and tasted their crack-like addictive goodness, but then I said, aloud, "these are like crack" and she said "I know" and we laughed, and for the love of snack foods, they're just crack-ers!! It's not like she took them out of the cupboard, opened them, and thought "now we'll just see who is serious about losing weight...she won't be able to resist!" No, true to form, she was eating them herself and simply didn't put them away. And in I walked, crampy and cranky, and holeeee those nips were like magic on my tongue.

I might think her behaviors around food and eating are mindless and without regard to consequence. But I'd be wrong. S. may not let on, but she's also my wife, and she chose to marry a woman who has downright obsessive tendencies around food. She knows me and she loves me anyway. I'm the only one holding the bag. I'm the one left to suck all the orange from my fingers, though I'm sure she'd oblige should I ever ask.

excuse me, but could we kill the projector?

DISCLAIMER: though I am loathe to use premenstrual syndrome as an excuse for overly wrought, emotionally hyperbolic behavior, I feel a need to say here that the following words should probably be taken with a rock of salt, because any moment now my uterus is gonna shed its lining and in the meantime, I feel like Chicken Little.

That said...

I keep finding little signs of midnight/1 a.m. eating on the part of my wife. I am always in bed earlier than she and usually up earlier, and when I pad into the kitchen in search of the french press and jar of coffee beans, the day too is just waking. I have a ritual: make coffee, straighten kitchen, get paper, read paper, etc. The night before last, I found an opened jar of Bubbies pickles on the counter. This, in itself, bugs me, because my wife has an unnerving habit of leaving things out when they need to be refrigerated. So I won't be feasting on any of those pickles now, because I am convinced that during their stint on the counter, they grew bacteria that my gut will wholeheartedly reject. I also found an opened bag of cheese nips on the coffee table. Then this morning, I noticed a bowl that looked like it once contained cottage cheese.

None of this signals the end of the world, I know. It's HER deal if she wants to eat at midnight and then go directly to bed. But.

My family always ate late. My fathers M.O. was come home from work, concoct a martini (or two) that could inebriate a horse, hide behind the newspaper and drink until dinner. After consuming a meal that could have fed four people (minimum three huge servings), he would plop back down into his permanent indentation on the couch and channel surf while finishing the rest of the martini that he'd put in the freezer to keep cold while he ate. Maybe an hour later he'd go to bed. It was about 9 p.m., or closer to 10.

Have I mentioned before that my dad tips the scales at 300+ pounds? Have I whispered that my greatest fear is that my fate will be the same as his? That I have no control over it? That genetics will dictate my life and thus I too will grow to a hulking mass of flesh whose only true comfort is a pan of mac-n-cheese, smear after smear of goose liver pate on crusty french bread, glass after glass of cabernet to wash it all down with.

I try to eat my last meal of the day no later than 7:30. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. Work, life, phone calls, dog walking, exercise...it all can get in the way. I know it's better for me to eat earlier. It's better for everyone, really. My wife, on the other hand, is all about responding to the earliest pangs of hunger. Or eating when bored. Or eating without thought to what is going into her mouth, like those times I would catch her with a bag of chips, watching t.v., her hand reaching into said bag without looking, one after another after another going into her mouth. She doesn't do it much anymore. We talked about it once, and she admitted that it wasn't the best thing. Now I think she reserves her little forays with food for when I'm in dreamland. (There was a time, when she was still eating a fair amount of fast food, when she would bury the evidence--logo-stamped bags--at the bottom of the trash so that I wouldn't know she's macked on a double cheeseburger and onion rings earlier that day.)

When I mentioned this morning that I saw her bowl of cottage cheese crustiness, she looked guilty. "It was just cottage cheese," she whimpered. "You really shouldn't eat so late, honey," I countered, trying not to sound annoyed. "But I was hungry," she said.

There. I want to scream SO WAS I!! I went to bed hungry. I do that sometimes. It's the nature of the beast, and what happens when your body is trying to adjust to less calories. I've been woken up in the middle of the night by a stomach that is twisted and growling from emptiness. I would eat a piece of bread and go back to bed. S., on the other hand, gets a little crazy when she's hungry. We still don't know the source of this issue, but it can really escalate quickly. Hence her leaving things out when they should be put back in the fridge. She is so frantic to stave off the hunger that nothing else matters. Truth be told, it annoys the hell out of me. What is a few more seconds to put the lid on the jar and put it back where it came from?

When it came right down to it, I was doing my little projection dance again. I've been stressed at work, my body feels run down, and yesterday I ate two pieces of pizza in about 5 minutes. My entire family, critical eyes and all, will soon descend on my home and I will have to work like a dog to keep myself from becoming unhinged. My wife is overweight. I am overweight. My fat is a badge of shame. I look at the love of my life and she reflects that shame right back.

And so it goes.

always striving always striving always striving always striving always striving always striving always striving always striving always striving always

I'm gonna make this quick because I've gotta head out to caterland.

I've been thinking about "goal" and the how maintenance feels so different, and how I've held on to this notion that I need to keep on losing weight. And it seems to me that I'm attached to that idea of losing because it feels like motivation, like if I don't have a goal of losing I will lose my focus altogether. But lately, I've had this realization: maintaining takes work. Enough work. It's not thrilling and full of self-congratulation, but it should be. Not gaining is worthy of a pat on the back. But why do I need to hold onto the idea that I might shave off another 5 pounds because I like that number better? So I'm letting go of that right here and now. I'm committing to staying at goal. I'm also committing to improved fitness, to having regular activity even more deeply ingrained in my life.

I weigh 170 lbs. My goal is 170 lbs. I intend to maintain this weight of 170 lbs. I am not lacking anything at this weight-- my betterment is not contingent upon being (weighing) anything less than what I am right now. Oh, and my booty is rockin' at 170, which is what life is really all about. A fine, shapely place to lay down one's burdens.

damn, maybe I am

I'm attempting to gather myriad scattered thoughts related to the notion of being seen.

Recently I've been emailing back and forth with a friend who, like me, struggles with issues of appearance (outward) and how it sometimes only serves to fan the flames of acqusition...how on one hand there's the love of shopping, the joy of finding a deal, the way it feels to put on a dress or jacket or cool pair of pants and get that extra jolt of confidence. Damn, we say to ourselves in the mirror, I don't look half-bad.

On the other hand, there's this uber-consciouness of the consumerist aspect of things. How we know that money-things-don't buy happiness. We know that there is more value (and greater health benefits) in peals of laughter born from a simple gathering of friends than from the fruits of a shopping spree at the new Macy's. At the end of the day, the clothes are wrinkled and the make-up smeared, but there's more to see and do and feel. There should be a Day of the Naked. Wouldn't that be NUTS!? One day out of every year the ultimate nightmare comes to life: everyone is naked. Imperfections see the light. No one can hide behind their stupidly large Chanel sunglasses, their Boss suits, their Juicy couture jeans. Some would walk proud. Others would take cover in their basements, shivering under the old kitchen table. But to be label-less. Equal.

What I've been thinking most about is how the critical eye that was such a part of my upbringing has wormed its way into my (sub)consciousness so much that maybe, just maybe, my struggle with weight is about the fear of being seen more. I have broken my mother of her nasty habit of commenting on my weight/clothing within five minutes of getting off the plane(she now waits at least an hour, though she still does things like touch my abdomen and say "you look thinner right here") but I know her. I see her look me up and down when she thinks I'm not looking. I can feel it.

What, then, if I was truly thin? What if I dropped forty-plus pounds and could go shopping at any-damn-store-I-pleased and could announce to all that I was now a size 12? Would the fragments of self-hatred that are such a part of my emotional canvas fall away like so many pounds? Or would I find myself terrified of the next encounter with an acquaintance, their stares as they try to place me, the shock and surprise when they realize it IS me? Talk about the microscope. Maybe I wouldn't care. Maybe the very fact that I am lighter would transcend the literal plane and enter a spiritual one in which I fully participate. Embodiment? Would I finally, finally, love this body? Or is losing weight just one small battle in a war that has no real victor?

I'd hate to think that I'm one of those people who uses excess poundage as a means to keep the world at bay. But...but damn, maybe I am.

Nine Eleven

Divine Capacity

The struggle of a man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. – Milan Kundera

Forgetting: that is divine capacity. –Friedrich Nietzsche


Transfixed in front of Lively's
computer monitor, a mere three of
millions in the same boat, we listen
to streaming broadcasts from CNN.
The coffee pot overflows
but no one notices
until an acrid smell
rouses us from our posts. Everything’s burning.
There’s talk of leaving,
the inability to concentrate.
We stay.

Shannon's husband
has business near the Pentagon.
She falls apart when he calls,
saying he's stranded
in his car but otherwise safe.
It's noon on the east coast.
Clock hands turn to heaven.
Laura says Did you see the cloud of smoke
from the original explosion?
It was the face of Satan, I swear.

Horrific images stick to the brain
like post-it notes cemented to the cerebrum
traveling between hemispheres
on an overwhelmed tract. The gyri
and the sulcus fold in and up and down,
gray hills heading for the deep grove.
Signals. The images are blurry,
take hours to load.

Forget instructive reminders of meetings
to attend or conference calls or lists
of items to be picked up at the grocery.
Forget before. Horror relayed
through the brain stem:
planes crashing into buildings,
buildings burning and falling,
men and women tearing up Nassau Street,
suit jackets half-off, empty arms
flailing behind them. Firemen
and emergency rescue workers
scaling tangled mountains of steel,
concrete and glass. Cheeks raw
from wiping tears, stoic sons and fathers
crumbling under the weight of waiting,
mothers and aunts interviewed
on various news shows
describing what kind of person
Joe or Ann was, is,
will always be.

And then it rains. The images smear,
corners pull up, the notes curl. Outfitted
with a mechanism to go on, to forget,
the mind lessens the initial wince:
hours in labor, a back in spasm, watching
a jet careen into a 110-story monument
to money and power. Watch the same scene
over and over. Tell the same stories, different
every time. A phone rings with irrevocability.
The rain falls harder. Trip and fall
then look back again, see people
scrambling like quanta on the lip
of a concrete universe, hear the rumble
and roar of landmarks giving way.
Twist the lens to lose focus,
turn off radios and televisions and pull
the curtains. There’s hope in shadow,
shamed by this demon of insignificance
come knocking on blame.

Just before midnight, Lively calls,
says he can’t sleep, how about meeting
at a bar downtown,
how about settling
for what comes easy—
rocks in the glass,
a cork leaving the bottle,
another long, grateful pour
and the burn before the buzz.
Without hesitation, we’re out
and into the deluge,
we wade the numbing mud.

forgive me mutha, for I have sinned

I've had a rough couple of days. bad food. not a lot of it, but just crappy enough to feel ungrounded from this thing they call Healthy Living. There was some snacking. Some snacking on cake, which requires coffee with which to wash cake down. So cake, and some other little treats, like a couple bite-sized brownies and a few maple mini-eclairs of teh devil, and I'm scratching my head right now, wondering how I could make such poor decisions. It's odd that the two days of bad eating at work were the two days I didn't ride my bike. I think it more than coincidence, and yet I don't have the full explanation-- yet. My day at home was fine-- clean eating, perfect tracking-- I was trying to make up for the black-out that was my time at work. And then I went to work again, somewhat exhausted (this is part of it, no?), for a long, stressful shift (another part of it, no?). I'm now thinking that I need to bring my own food to the job where one of the big perks is that food is provided. Or I need to go back to doing (my version of) CORE-- where I know (and act upon) what is allowed and what is not (or must be counted-- and I hate counting when I'm on CORE). So that's the big confession. And I want to exercise today and I'm really beat from that long day at work. So at some point I'm just gonna set out on the bike and see where I wind up, and I'm not gonna be so damned dogmatic about how many miles I get or how long I'm out, because at this point, it's about moving. It's about moving and feeling good and not being the exercop I sometimes am...and maybe it's about forgiving without forgetting.

breaking the fast

I remember vividly the day I learned the meaning of breakfast. It was on a windy, cold, Ohio autumn day, colored by purple-edged maple leaves sticking to streets and sidewalks and soles, and I was in home economics class at Taft Junior High, circa 1983. We'd begun the cooking portion of the class, and the recipe of the day was quiche. These were the days when the phrase "real men don't eat quiche" still packed a wallop. But my family ate quiche. My father ate it; he even prepared it. Quiche Lorraine was his favorite. In cooking class, we were about to prepare a "Denver" quiche, replete with onions, green bell peppers and ham.

Breakfast, we were taught, came from the idea of "breaking the fast," meaning that your body had been asleep many hours and not taking in nutrients, so when you awoke, you needed to replenish your physical "engine". I thought this a fine idea. Any excuse to replenish my engine at any time of the day was a fine idea in my book.

I can still see those quiches coming out of the three ovens that comprised the kitchen area of our home ec classroom--their brown-tinged goldenness, the pieces of ham sticking out of the top like mosaic tiles haphazardly thrown into wet cement. The frozen pie shells we'd used for crusts were perfectly scalloped on the edges, and errant shreds of cheddar sprinkled the divets like confetti. It was beautiful. I was hungry.

I swear, every single morning when I'm munching my Go Lean cereal with soy milk or noshing on a sandwich of two 97% fat free waffles with one tablespoon peanut butter and one tablespoon apricot preserves, I hear the words "breaking the fast." I always eat breakfast. Given the copious amounts of coffee I consume (copious is, in my precariously-perched-on-the-edge-of-rot-gut world, about two cups, maybe three), I can't afford to not eat breakfast. Plus my brain needs the energy. I don't think well on an empty stomach. If it's empty, I can only think of what I'm going to put my stomach. Forget attention span. Forget anything resembling contributions to the team effort. Without food, I am a mindless, food-obsessed shell of a human.

I've found just the right foods that will carry me from approx. 8 a.m. to noon without crashing. Fiber comes first, followed in quick succession by protein and then calories. For breakfast, I have to eat at least 8 grams of fiber and at least 6 grams of protein in order to make it through until I fuel up again. It's good to know these numbers. I am surprised that I actually adhere to them. After all, knowing that it's good for me and that I will feel better isn't always enough of an impetus for me to actually do anything about it. Ain't that the kicker. Always has been, always will be. Postponing immediate gratification in exchange for lessons begrudgingly learned is one of my greatest struggles. But at least in the breakfast department I'm maintaining some kind of consistency.

Now onto breaking the bread.

a little something to gnaw on

I just read two separate little blurbs about how research shows that eating breakfast within one hour of waking/rising is highly beneficial to metabolism, weight loss/maintenance, etc. The idea is that you give your body a nice little kick (not unlike starting a motorcycle, really) and then it purrs along, taking in 4 more meals or so throughout the day. They also say that you'll have "used up" that first meal within about 2.5 - 3 hours.

All this time, I've been proud, happy, pleased that I DO eat breakfast, but I'm gonna admit, right here and now, that I have this weird thing about eating in the morning. It goes like this:

Go as long as you can without eating breakfast because (choose one)

a) the longer you wait, the more time will have passed, which means there will be less time in the day to eat, which means you will actually eat less, because you used up eating time by waiting (nevermind the bit where you can, in one sitting eat a bunch of crap and cancel out all that monk-like piety of the mini-fast).

b) if you wait to eat until right before you set out on your bike, you'll have better access to the calories you just consumed, thus kicking ass on the way to work, gettin there faster (over-rated), feeling like a power princess. (this one, may or may not be true, but it occurrs to me in writing it, that there might be other options)

I'm not big on diet craze advice, but I am wondering about the timing of my meals, and breakfast, in particular. So I'm gonna try this eating within one hour thing.

Here I go.

behold! the power of cake

working in catering is a bitch.

it's the exposure. it's the opportunities to have a weak moment and a whole lotta crap nearby. I worked a gig last night that featured Fried Coconut Prawns (beer battered, on a skewer, like a little prawny lollipop), Shiitake Potstickers (the healthiest thing), and this crostini I came to call The Devil's Jeweled Crown: baguette topped with a smear of remoulade (as per industry standards-- fat barrier), a seared, butterflied scallop, a square of bacon, then a chunk of fontina cheese. These things were then tossed in the oven to get melty and sent on out to the public. We all had a sample of two (or three). It was all wrong and it was delicious, and I'm convinced that the combination of scallops and bacon has some deep seated origin other than the parallel placement of vowels. Like maybe there's some evolutionary link, and when you have the two together it's like pork finding its ocean-mama. Or maybe it's the salt. Oh, let the decadence continue: Caesar Salad, Halibut with Remoulade, Fabulous grilled summer vegetables (I must admit that these were my best looking platters of the season), Ravioli (butternut or spinach) in Sage Cream Sauce, and don't forget the Beef Tenderloin in Red Wine Sauce.

It was a fairly typically indulgent buffet menu, and I'll admit to getting hungry and trying some veggies and a little beef, too. But the essence of evil was the dessert: Pineapple Upside Down cake. It even looked evil. And I was hungry. And so I had a piece (it was about 9pm). And after I ate said evil (yet tasty-- it had rum in it for god's sake) cake, I realized there was no way I could call up my sweetie and ask for a ride home (I'd biked in).

And so I set out into a very surreal night (the annual bumbershoot festival was happening just blocks from the catering job) first filled with the sounds of Kanye West and all these people talking loud on the street, and then bad drivers and lots of taxis, and as I got further from Seattle Center, it just turned into desolate streets, the usual landmarks hidden in the night, my bikelight illuminating the street some 20 feet ahead of me.

I rode fast. I rode hard. I was huffing and puffing but I felt strong, and all the while I felt the power of cake. Cake power is like a hot poker in the ass-- it's like corn-syrup for blood-- it's like snorting lines of confectioner's sugar. Last night, cake power was good shit, a direct hit.

It made me wonder if I had tapped straight into that mighty cake qi, those rings of pineapple symbols of golden wheels, those pecans the nuts of my nuttiness.


Cake. How can something so wrong feel so right?