At the risk of depressing everyone around me … this song won’t leave my head. It takes me back to my teens when almost all I ever thought about was running away. Problem was that I lived in the country, and running away would likely result in my dying of exposure in the woods or an open field. When I was very little, I did run away … to my neighbor’s house. I think my mother found it amusing in a way (like, “really, Marie, how can I take you seriously when you just crossed the yard, but then you’re only six”).
But this time of year, I tend to reflect on my place in the world and the fact that, even as an adult approaching her “golden years,” sometimes I still want to run away. I do often wonder “how did I get so jaded.”
I am very happy to announce that I met my 50,000 word goal in Camp NaNoWriMo! And how did I meet such a lofty goal, you ask. Why, by frequently combining blog posts with my novel writing, such as I did here and here.
And here I go again! This post is rather long, but if you’ve read my and John Howell’s latest Top Ten List on losing weight, then you should be able to breeze through it.
I have to admit that editing this third book in my series will be very interesting since it contains a book review, a guest blog, a revised fairy tale, and now this riff on our Ten Top List. Hope you enjoy ;)
Fat Cat Sleeping
An excerpt from The Widow’s Club: Guilty Until Proven Innocent
Maggie took a sip of her hot chocolate and turned on her laptop. She wasted no time in heading to her favorite blog, Fiction Favorites by John Howell. She loved his blog and now his Monday morning post of “top ten things not to do” list. It was a collaboration with some other blogger, but she hadn’t bothered to visit the other blog. She was plenty satisfied with Fiction Favorites.
She needed a laugh, she needed some distraction from Mary’s anxiety, Melissa’s disappearance, and Randy’s unknown whereabouts. Their lives were becoming more like a poorly written soap opera. She clicked her way to Fiction Favorites and almost shot hot chocolate through her nose when she saw the title: “Top Ten List of Things Not to do When Trying to Lose Weight.” Maggie had been fighting with her weight all her life. She had never been obese, just overweight enough to be self-conscious about her figure, particularly the waxing and waning of her waistline. This should be good, she thought, as she hunched over the laptop.
She read the first item in the list: “When trying to lose weight, do not go on a 24-hour fast and then a Chinese buffet binge just because fasting is the new “in” diet. The rapid transition from empty stomach to a stomach brimming with hot and sour soup, General Tso’s Chicken, spring rolls, crab rangoon, snow peas in garlic sauce, fried rice, and chocolate pudding can be explosive.” She stifled a giggle. She had actually done that once, and only once. She had been so starving when she got to the Chinese buffet that she filled up her plate at least four times. Nothing “explosive” happened, but she did wind up feeling like a beached whale all that night. Her husband Bobby had teased her about it for days afterward.
The next item was: “When trying to lose weight, do not mistake the South Beach diet for endless daiquiris and tapas at Miami’s South Beach. You’ll never get into that sleek little bathing suit if you do.” She smiled and glanced over at Mary, who was sitting on the couch and fiddling with her cell phone. Mary had been to South Beach with Christopher a long time ago. She wanted to ask her what tapas were, but Mary looked too distracted. Probably just a typo, Maggie thought.
She read on: “When trying to lose weight, do not sign up for your very first triathlon if your only familiarity with exercise is being able to juggle multiple remotes for your TV, DVD player and sound system. You want to lose weight, not your life, which you will likely forfeit in the first five minutes of the competition.” She snorted, but this time without getting hot chocolate up her nose. She used to tease Bobby about his dexterity in juggling all their various remotes. He could have turned it into an Olympic sport.
“When trying to lose weight, by all means, purchase a scale for weighing your food so you can be sure of the size of your portions. Just don’t bring it with you to restaurants and weigh the food served to you. At best, your friends will find the activity of watching you trying to weigh a dollop of mashed potatoes rather boring. At worst, your food will be in an unappetizing state after the weighing.” Maggie cocked her head while she read this item. Who would bring a food scale to a restaurant? Who would even think of it? Maggie guessed that this list, or at least this item, was written by the other blogger, someone with a rather tenuous grasp on humor.
She sat up straight and her face flushed when she read the next item on the list: “When trying to lose weight, do not buy spandex for casual wear EVER! No explanation is necessary.” Oh, really, she thought. No spandex ever? Why, she was wearing spandex at that very moment and it was very comfortable and not unattractive. Of course, they were leggings, black leggings, and she had a long black rayon skirt over them, so …. She moved on down the list.
“When trying to lose weight, do not try to curb your appetite with bottomless cups of coffee, bottles of diet pills, or any other substance. These have less to do with suppressing appetite and much more to do with making you so hyper that you never sleep, which, ironically, gives you more hours in which to eat.” Well, Maggie thought, this is more true than funny. She had tried diet pills herself when she was in high school. Talk about being hyper. She couldn’t stop talking. She would talk right over Mary until Mary finally lost her temper and yelled at her to “Shut the fuck up!” And they were in church at the time. During Mass for a friend’s wedding.
Maggie sunk down in her chair and peered at Mary over the laptop. Her cousin was gazing out the window, seemingly lost in thought. Probably worrying about Melissa or Randy or both, she thought. The memory of Mary’s outburst, in the church of all places, made Maggie feel reticent about sharing this list with her. Any other time she would read Howell’s list out loud to her, or his haikus. But this list was strangely unfunny. The list was pushing all the wrong buttons.
Still, she continued to read: “When trying to lose weight, do not take any diet pills that promise to block your absorption of fat (e.g., Alli). Yes, they do work, but they work at all the wrong moments–in the middle of a business meeting, during a long commute, or while you’re sitting in the window seat of an airplane with Chris Christie next to you.” She covered her mouth as she smiled at this item. The image of being stuck on a plane between the window and Chris Christie was too much for her. Never mind the idea that you have an urgent need to go to the bathroom. She remembered Bobby once telling her about a meeting he was in at the bank, when one of the loan officers suddenly jumped up from her chair and ran out of the room. They found out later that she had been taking Alli and made the mistake of eating potato chips with her lunch. She barely got to the bathroom in time. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t laugh at someone’s expense like that, but he said the look on her face was so funny, like someone had just poked her in the butt.
The memory of Bobby’s laughter made Maggie’s smile grow bigger, but her chin quivered as well. They were both quiet types, introverts, but he had had a wonderful sense of humor. His humor was much like John Howell’s and she thought that was probably why she liked his blog so much.
“When trying to lose weight, do not hire a trainer that looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s poor cousin and whose sales pitch is “I want to pump you up!” What you might get “pumped up” with may not be legal.” Oh, Bobby would love this one, she thought, as she bit her tongue to keep from laughing out loud. Whoever wrote this item had to be thinking of those characters on Saturday Night Live. She thought Dana Carvey was one of them. Bobby had loved those characters. John probably wrote this item.
Maggie scrolled further down the list. Just two more. She wrinkled her nose at the next one: “When trying to lose weight, do not take up colon cleansing. As with most of the items on this list, the result of too much of a good thing can result in frequent and expensive calls to your plumber.” The other blogger must have written this list, she thought. Really, John wouldn’t be so juvenile in his humor. Of course, part of dieting does involve changes to one’s input and output, as Bobby had liked to describe those particular bodily functions. But, really, she thought, the other blogger is just running out of ideas.
Finally, the last item. She almost sighed with relief: “Finally, when trying to lose weight, take a good long look in the mirror and ask yourself which is more important: fitting into those skinny jeans you wore in high school or feeling strong, healthy, and happy, even if you are a little soft around the edges.”
Maggie sat back in her chair. Well, she thought, that is kind of a nice way to end the list, given how difficult it is to lose weight. And being healthy is more important. But the last item was anti-climatic. The whole list reminded Maggie of her own struggle to lose weight–just 10 or 15 pounds. All the diets she tried. All the times that Bobby would tell her not to fret about her weight so much. He loved her curves. He loved her. But she did finally lose that 15 pounds plus another 10. After Bobby’s death. She had lost interest in eating then and for a long time, she only ate if food was put before her. She’d gladly put all that weight back on if she could just have Bobby back.
Maggie closed the laptop and looked over at her cousin. Mary returned her gaze and gave her a weak smile. “It’s Monday,” Mary said. “Any good lists on Fiction Favorites? I could use a laugh right now.”
I often claim that I have no regrets, that life happens and it all works out in the end. Like, if I hadn’t had that accident that nearly amputated my leg, I wouldn’t have received training for a new job and I wouldn’t have gotten a new job at the firm where I eventually met my future husband. Except I don’t really mean that. I do have regrets. Lots of them. And for that incident in particular (because the accident was in fact my fault), I always think that we would have met up some other way, if it were truly our destiny to be together. I’m a romantic but not so much of a masochist that I think I should have had to injure myself to meet the man of my dreams.
I don’t wallow in my regrets (at least not often), but I try to learn from them. Like, when I gained a chunk of weight because (in part) we had moved from an urban area where my feet were my primary mode of transport to the suburbs where the Almighty Automobile rules the streets. I didn’t make the necessary effort to keep my weight in check so while adjusting (badly) to the odd concept that I had to make time to walk, my clothes got tighter and tighter.
That weight gain was regrettable because there came a time when I needed very much to feel sexy and attractive, and I was anything but. Just roll me in flour …
Adding insult to fattiness, I’ve had to double-down with exercising and dieting. I’ve got my waist back along with a more presentable butt, but I still have a long way to go to get back to my pre-suburbs weight (if ever). At least I don’t feel as self-conscious in downward facing dog as I used to.
Lesson learned is that when the weight comes off, it must stay off. Think black lacy thongs. Not an attractive thought where you’re 20+ pounds overweight. So the weight is being shed slowly but surely, and one at a time the thongs are moving from the bottom of my underwear drawer to the top.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with my body hair. Except for the hair on my head, I hate my body hair. I shaved my legs for the first time when I was 12 and have nurtured a deep resentment toward my body hair every since. I am near neurotic about plucking errant hairs from my upper lip and eyebrows, but that pales compared to the disdain I have for the hair that sprouts below my waist. I have done everything short of electrolysis and the Brazilian wax. I am truly dismayed that my body hair has not diminished over time; rather, it’s done the opposite. Possibly due to a cruel twist of fate, the hair below my waist and on my face has thickened and darkened as if to say, “I’ll make a man out of you yet!” I fight back as best as I can without breaking the bank for weekly wax jobs. I draw the line at Brazilian waxes for the totally sensible reasons that I am (1) totally opposed to pain and suffering, and (2) at my age, I don’t think a hairless mons veneris would be terribly attractive, least of all to me who would have been the one going through the pain and suffering. And I have done some research (both visual and conversational) on pubic hair removal. Results are mixed. Women I’ve met who have had Brazilian waxes were usually happy to let their pubic hair grow back. Porn films I’ve surveyed (yes, really, I’ve watched porn just for the sake of analyzing the variety of hairy to hairless Venus mounds) reveal that some women apparently shave (mons veneris with a 5 o’clock shadow), some like to leave a little tuft of hair (aesthetics?), and some seem to have indulged in the full Brazilian wax thing. I’m trying to find a happy in-between …
The best thing about waxing is that, if one is disciplined (which I tend not to be), eventually the hair does thin and grow back more slowly and sparsely. At least, on my legs. My bikini area is another story. Since I don’t wear bikinis, I tell myself there’s no urgency to wax there. Of course, it’s also awkward and somewhat painful. The need to wax is all in my mind. I spend 95% of my time fully clothed (a bit less during the summer months when sleeping naked is necessary to sleep at all). I have a life partner who professes to love me as I am and never says anything disparaging like, “Really, couldn’t you at least trim around the edges of your panties?” But every time I drop my pants, I cringe at the dark hair curling up between my thighs. I’ve had some missteps with taming that hair: an infected hair follicle from incorrect waxing can be rather painful and scary. Shaving with a razor leaves razor burn and an almost unbearable itchy sensation as the hair grows back (as it does, rapidly). Shaving with an electric shaver is fine for a quick deforestation, but it only lasts for a few hours. Who cares? Who cares except me?
If it weren’t for the scars on my thighs and lower right leg, I might not care at all. When I was 23, I severely injured my lower right leg. Now it is disfigured and the skin on the front of my thighs look like a peach-and-white patchwork quilt. Adding insult to injury, hair grows on only half of my lower right leg, the half that was not injured, the half that was not skin-grafted. So, unless I tackle the hair on the rest of my body, I look and feel like a freak. So there it is. You’d think I’d be over it by now, but, no, not even close. Recently I called my partner from the mall crying because, when I was trying on shoes, I got a glimpse of my leg in a mirror and saw it’s ugliness. I see my naked leg every day, sometimes several times a day, but seeing it in a mirror, seeing it as other people must see it, is always a kick in the stomach.
So I obsess and curse the hormones, genes, whatever, that cause my body to sprout hair where (in my opinion) it has no place being. And I keep waxing.
Marie at 1 Write Way 