My Tent on The Beach

I have great potential to be a small person, I think.  It’s something I’ve known about myself for awhile.  A consequence of my rabid perfectionism. A sign of my ultra-competitiveness. A character flaw.  I can be a very gracious winner and a very, very sore loser.  I used to hide it better; it used to be that which would stoke the fire to go back to the drawing board, never lose, conquer or else.  Now, I find my energy wanes faster than it used to; my resolve can be less and less.  I lose more than I used to and I take it less well, in fact not well at all.

Perhaps this is the place of life in which having kids would be helpful.  There’s little room to look like a selfish ass when little eyes are on you.  But, like Charles Barkley, there are days I say I’m not paid to be a role model.  Today is that day.  I’m tired of doing a lot and getting no recognition.  I’m tired of being the hard worker and being rewarded with more work.  I’m tired of being the one to bend and never break.  I’m due for a break.  I’m breaking.  That’s it.  I’m broke.

Of course it doesn’t mean that tomorrow I’ll be un-broke.  It’s not a forever smallness; in fact, I think at the opposite end of the scale I’ve found an incredible well of patience that I never knew existed.  And maybe these two go hand in hand…when my patience has completely run out, when I’ve thrown everything I have at a problem and the problem ceases to loosen its hold…I’m just gonna throw a big, fucking tantrum about it.  I used to apologize for that.  But I’m tired and broke and I’m going to act like I’m three.  Do you ever see an unhappy three year-old?  Not really.  They either have what they want or they’re in the process of getting it–loudly.

Is it selfish? yes. Is it immature? Yeah, I guess.  But I’ve been an adult my entire life…I don’t recall ever having the luxury of selfishness…I’ve always been called on to take the high road, to be the bigger person, to take the responsibility because I could handle it when others could not.  I’ll just say this…living in Chicago has taught me many great lessons but none greater than the lesson of Lower Wacker Drive.  This street runs under the city, directly below Wacker Drive (and incidentally is where they filmed the Batman movies).  Anyway, you can get clear across the city in nearly half the time if you take LWD.  Is it gross down there? yes.  Do I want to live down there? No.  Does it get you from point A to point B faster than any other route? Yes.

Sometimes, the low road is the right one.  It may not be pretty and frankly it stinks but it’ll get you where you’re going in half the time.  It’s not always the answer but it sometimes is just the answer you need even if you might get choked by the exhaust.

Well, well.  In completely typical fashion, Chicago’s gone and gotten all hot and humid, once again banishing any hopes for a nice sliiiiiiiide into summer.  I’m not sure why I still hope for that; I’ve lived around the Great Lakes my entire life and somehow I’ve never really experienced the change of seasons as something gradual.  Whether spring or fall, it usually begins and ends with a seasonal line drawn in the sand.  Yesterday could’ve been 65 and rainy; today you wake up and it’s 90 and renders all clothing hot, wooly, wet blankets.  So today, I’m caught in the “it’s so hot it I’m nauseous” feeling of late August and a little worried that it’s only June 23.

Thus, I’m going to blame a couple of my own lazinesses directly on the swoon.  This is why life in the deep South in general feels so leisurely–the heat actually causes (maybe forces) life to slow down.  Also, it drives you to drink and it’s well established that alcohol slows everything down too.  So why haven’t I written here in awhile?  Clearly…it’s the swoon.

But I’ll also say this (whether or not the swoon is to blame here I don’t know): This time of the year becomes intensely boring for me.  Summer scheules annoy the hell out of me; they’re too flabby.  To be clear, my schedule is always flabby, so I rely on the schedules of others to be my “schedule corset” if you will.  Now, we’re all a little flabby around the schedule and it’s bordering on what I may describe as just “stupid.”  No purpose, no momentum, no desire for either purpose or momentum.  Ew.  I’ve had very little to think about, write about, or describe in what seems like weeks.  I saw a lot of people last week, had a lot of conversations, was out and about.  Did any of them really make a mark on anything? No.  It was oddly non-descript “business as usual.”  I felt like I missed a lot of opportunities last week and yet I never stopped moving.  Maybe ultimately I was uncomfortable with all of that and decided not to reflect on it…I don’t know.

This also might be the calm after the storm.  The past couple months have been intensely taxing; I can’t believe I’m gonna say it but I’ve never been that stressed out in my whole life (and I’m always stressed out).  No, no.  This was stress at all new levels.  Now a lot of that has dissipated whether for good or for bad.  I’m wondering if I just don’t know how to deal with non-stress.  That would be sad…and also a real paradox.  Maybe I’ve overdosed on yoga.

All I’m saying is this: a little snap in the air, a cool fresh breeze…and I think life happens a little more freely.  Slogging through this wet blanket…makes me just want to give up on the day and watch tv.  Which is narcotizing, yes…but leaves very little to actually think about.

[Sigh.]

[Sweat.]

[Sigh again.]

"Oh the majesty of a frozen lake!"

Welcome to Chicago in February.  On days that I’m waxing eloquent, I would look at this picture and proclaim something like, “Oh the beauty!”  Today I’ve had it up to here (the imaginary equator line I’m drawing across my nose) with snow, cold, and days that usually look more like this:

The beginning of the end of my tolerance of winter.

It’s now the middle of the second straight cold month without a real holiday (I’m sorry…in no way do I count MLK, Valentine’s, or President’s Day as legitimate holidays as they bring with them no merriment or lighted shrubbery.), the novelty of the whole thing has worn off, and the snow left is brown and crunchy.  My jeans have salt lines running half way up my calf and my lips are hopelessly chapped. Even though it was sunny yesterday, I feel like we haven’t actually seen the sun in years, mostly because my skin, pale by most normal standards, is now become blue and translucent. Yet, all of this is superficial compared to the real reason that February starts to wear on me.

People are edgy.  I’m edgy. You’re edgy.  We’re all edgy.  My tolerance for mostly everything is low, low, low.  I’ve been snappish (some might say mean and I’m not totally in disagreement).  I find myself rationalizing not going out because of the weather which leaves me isolated in my tiny (relative to the rest of the world) apartment in my tiny mind without thinking about what’s going on outside of that.  I work especially hard to talk to new people.  In insulating my body (which also includes the growing layer of fat increasing 10-fold with each day), I’ve insulated my whole life.  It’s warm in here, yes, but it’s also testy and low-energy.

For me, there’s a mental shift when February ends.  I like March much better.  It’s 5 letters.  It’s one syllable.  Halfway through it magically becomes spring.  And then it’s winter again but in a manageable cycle of 3 days.  Of course, I’ll start ranting about the idiot college kids who break out the flip-flops pre-April, but that’s much more fun…and less gray.

February…don’t take this personally but we’re over.  It’s me and not you.

I can’t stop eating.

“It’s crazy,” I say sitting here, having just inhaled a donut after eating a sandwich and fries for lunch.  What. the. heck.  This has been going on for two weeks and I’m starting to get concerned.

Now, before you go hurling the fat-jokes around (which is something only I do…almost no one hurls fat jokes at me anymore…which is good because I’d kick ‘em in the nuts and then twist their nose), this is a novel occasion because I’m just that hungry.

There’s no doubt, I’m an emotional eater.  This is evidenced in my “soft” exterior which, I think, clearly corresponds to my consistently high levels of stress.  I will also claim with a serious face that I have an “athletic build”…I do, because working out nets me huge American-Gladiator-like muscles.  They look cool when I’m really toned, but they’re also mammoth.  When I’m working out I go from round to square.  What I wouldn’t do to find “slim” in there somewhere.  Anyway, this tendency plus the emotional eating has always equalled “Katie shops in the plus-size section.”  (Which was completely hilarious last week when I went shopping with a friend of mine…The Lady, for those who know her…who was particularly unembarrassed by plus size shopping.  Every store she walked into she would go up to the sales person and loudly…and I mean loudly…announce “My friend needs the plus size section…No the PLUS sizes.”  It was strangely comforting that she wasn’t apologetic about it. Meanwhile, I’m like diving behind any rack I can find wheezing in her direction, “Uh, yeah, okay let’s just go…” and the salespeople were like, “Why are you shouting?”)

Anyway, what I’m not used to is the hunger.  This is functional eating that’s going on here, not emotional, and it’s just always there.  When I eat, it makes it worse. Conundrum: When I don’t eat…it’s just as bad.  AHHHH.  Of course, anyone else would find this a fantastic problem to have.  I, however, am imagining the shoe-horning that’s have to go on to get into my favorite jeans…which are, everyone together now, plus size.

I’m trying not to freak too much and just enjoy the ride.  Maybe this is justice for those three or four months last year when, because of extreme horrible stress, I just didn’t eat anything (Cruel irony there: I’m wearing the same jeans today as I did then…all of that time I could’ve been eating jelly donuts everyday).  But I’m starting to worry about things like “cholesterol” and “heart disease.”

Maybe I’ll just eat this here Toblerone and contemplate it for awhile.