October 19, 2010
Food.
I have a love-hate relationship with food.
I love to eat it, it hates to leave me.
In particular, food hates to leave my waist, hips, thighs, arms, feet, hair. . .
My entire life I've had to deal with food and weight issues.
Weighing too much has been the one constant thread running through the tapestry of my life.
The very large tapestry.
Brief periods of weighing just enough.
Very brief periods.
Name a diet, I've tried it.
Name a weight-loss remedy, I've done it: speed, not eating at all, not eating anything resembling a carb, eating just grapefruits. . .
Exercise.
I genuinely like to exercise, but, I have trouble with balance.
Meaning, if I exercise I want to exercise as much as I want as long as I want, and other things, like, oh, work for example, end up not being given equal and fair treatment.
As a faculty member, I am granted access to a nicely appointed gym for $5.00 a month.
Naturally, I should jump through hoops of fire for such an opportunity.
I have.
It's called the PhD.
I did go the gym at my university.
I wanted to take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity to trim down my Reubenesque figure into something a little less Reuben and a little more Kate Moss.
To the gym I'd go, carrying my gym bag full of toiletries, towels, hair dryers, shampoo, conditioner, happy with the knowledge that I was doing something good to me and good for me. . .
On the treadmill I'd be, mind blissfully blank, endorphins chugging along nicely, daydreaming about walking along the English moors, or through a small village in Ireland on my way to the pub for a pub lunch and a Guinness. . .
I don't even like Guinness, but I'm all for authenticity. . .
And, without warning, I'd be plucked from dreamy musings by some muscle bound, athletic, sporting youth, high energy protein drink in one hand, journal article or assignment clutched in the other.
Wondering if he could "ask me something."
I envy women who work out and manage to look like their not working out. Perfectly highlighted hair smoothed back into a nice, tight ponytail, that bounces jauntily along to the latest dance beat pouring into their ears through almost invisible ear buds attached to an ipod touch, while they breathe normally and dab at the almost imperceptible glistenings of moisture on their foreheads with plush towels, modelling the latest, expensive name brand athletic wear, and designer footwear.
Me, I sweat like a overwight farm worker who smokes four packs a day, my hair sprouting a frizzy cloud around my face because it refuses to stay in the ponytail elastic, while wearing my 10 year old track pants with the paint stains and the 7 year old t-shirt with the bottom threads unravelling, wiping myself off with paper towel, trying to keep up with the 80s dance beat on my Walkman in my 15 year old sneakers.
And you want to talk to me about an assignment????!!!!!
No more gym for me.
Not even at $5.00 a month.
I love to take Frankie and Tikka for walks.
However, again, I am not good at balancing. I can't seem to figure out how to take them for a walk and work and do all the other things I have to do in a brief, 24 hour period.
Unless I want a starlight walk at 5.00 am, or a moonlit walk at midnight.
I prefer my walks when there is some light. I'm too clumsy to enjoy walking in the dark. I can fall during the light of day.
Why set myself up for failure by walking after midnight.
And the dogs would more than likely end up in some sort of entanglment with a woodland creature twice their size.
At least Frankie would.
Tikka would probably shake her head and say f*** that.
Two years ago, right around this time of year, I woke early on a Saturday morning and thought it would be lovely to sneak out of the house, just me and the dogs, for a meander down the Thatch Road.
By this time, I had managed to procure an ipod shuffle, as Keith had upgraded to an ipod that is not a shuffle and not a touch and I can't remember what the hell it is.
Ear buds precariously perched in my ears, (because along with all of my other physical faux pas, I don't have ears that gently or willingly embrace ear buds), I am singing my heart out, loudly, because its 7.08 in the morning and there isn't a soul to hear me, in spite of the cars lined up in parking lot and down by the riverside.
The dogs are too busy jumping in and out of the Saint John river to listen to my wailing rendition of Don't Cha by the Pussycat Dolls.
"Don't cha think your girlfriend is hot like me. . .don't cha think your girlfriend is a freak like me. . ." keening through the morning stillness like an Irish banshee with an ingrown toenail.
Happy with my crazy caroling, I march along, arms moving, feet pounding, warming up so my scarf is loosened and my mitts are stowed safely in my coat pocket.
And then, out of no where I feel this thing whiz by me with enough speed to create a smidgen of a breeze.
Synapes began firing as a result of the exercise and fresh air and within a blink of an eye, I knew who all those people were, whose cars were parked in the Thatch Road parking lot.
I had briefly wondered how come there were so many cars in the parking lot, and no one but me walking along the road.
But I like it that way.
No worries about having to apologize to dogless walkers for Frankie's volatile and outrageous behaviours, trying to convince them that he really doesn't want to go for their jugular, even if his body language indicates that would be his action of choice.
It was hunting season.
As I have no interest in the senseless slaughter of moose, deer, ducks, I never pay attention to whether or not hunting season has, yet again, been foisted upon us.
I have to believe these hunters weren't shooting at me because of my singing, although that may be a plausible theory.
No one should sing the Pussycat Dolls unless they are in a dark, noisy club buzzing on margaritas.
Especially Don't Cha.
They weren't shooting at the dogs, because as big as they are, they are no wear near the size of a moose.
It could be that in my haste to leave the house alone, without another bi-pedal being accompanying me, that I neglected to consider the time of year, and therefore didn't think of putting on Stephen's Day-Glo mesh orange vest thingy with the X across the back in electric neon yellow tape.
So, theoretically, these hunters, who had been up before the crack of dawn (as an aside, you have NO idea how much the phrase, "crack of dawn" has been maligned and misused in my presence) and therefore saw 7.08 in the morning as closer to lunch time than breakfast, making it appropriate to imbibe in some alcoholic libations, which may have stymied their ability to ascertain whether or not the figure moving along in the bushes was actually a moose trying to mate, or me singing.
A moose with a bad voice and ear buds, no horns and walking on two legs, but a moose nonetheless.
Never have the dogs heard me beckon for them in such a harsh tone as we hightailed it out of there before these hunters could decide if I should be taken out for my singing or because I was a moose making mating calls.
Back in my bed, snuggling up against Stephen, still somewhat rattled about my misadventure, dogs sleeping soundly on the floor beside me, I wondered how I was going to tell Stephen I was almost shot because drunk hunters mistook me for a moose singing the Pussycat Dolls.
Food. . right. Got a little off track there for a minute.
I'm reading a book given to me by Stephen's mother.
As a birthday present.
Subtle.
It's about food.
And weight loss.
Her two favorite topics of choice when she is around me.
She has been known to sneak weight loss magazines and books into my luggage after I've packed for the drive back to New Brunswick.
Or send me recipe books compiled by Weight Watchers.
I think she's trying to tell me something.
So, the book suggests considering your relationship with food.
I have considered my relationship with food.
In fact, if thinking alone could guarantee weight loss, I'd be thin by now!
I will say this: if Stephen keeps making the most delicious cabbage soup I've ever had, complete with two different kinds of beans, kidney and baked, I may have bigger worries than weight.
And much, much smellier. . . .
Title Lyric: I Just Want to Go Hunting by Ted Nugent
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