Quote

Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and sank unwept into oblivion.  With dim lights and tangled circumstance they tried to shape their thought and deed into noble agreement; but after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness; for these later-born Theresas were helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul.  Their ardour alternated between a vague ideal and the common yearning of womanhood; so that the one was disapproved as extravagance, and the other condemned as a lapse.

George Eliot, Middlemarch, Prelude

Back In The Kitchen

Okay, I don’t feel good – so why can’t I admit that to myself?  I woke up this morning and have been repeating over and over the though ‘No, you actually feel fine…good even…start your day and get out of the house.’  At the moment this just not true.  No I do not ‘feel fine’, I feel like I was run over repeatedly by one of those huge metro buses  – - hmm, how to explain…everything from my head, to my stomach, to my skin just feels like shit hurts.

 No it’s not a hangover.  Well not in the alcohol and drug sense of the word.  What I am wondering is if you can get a hangover from food.  Yes, I know that anyone can probably eat until they make their stomach hurt – but does their entire body hurt the next day?  This is a reoccurring thing with me and I find it utterly confusing.  I am not one for sugar/sweet indulgences but on occasion[<-- that was a lie, in reality it's quite often] I feel extremely hungry and compensate by eating a large amount of food.  [As a side note: I do try to stick with relatively healthy foods such as fruit, meats, lower fat items ...not that I am always successful...].  What I want to know about is the physical effects this has on my body the next day.  I once likened the feeling to having a bruise over my entire body. My skin becomes painful to the touch, in addition to the more obvious symptoms such as a headache and stomach pains.

 I can’t help but wonder if this is a typical response to overeating.  I do know that it has a disastrous snowball effect in that once I feel this crapy bad, all I want to do is comfort myself with food.  Yes I do know that it will not help and will make things worse – but this knowledge does not seem to be enough of a deterrent.  It might even be that knowing this makes me more prone to head back into the kitchen.  ‘Oh you don’t think you can feel any worse, well lets see about that,’ or ‘I know you planned all night to work out today but you don’t feel good, might as well eat instead…’.

 It’s odd watching myself say these things to myself, knowing they are compete nonsense, but being somewhat at their beck and call.  I do know the consequences of actions like these.  I was overweight in my teen years and while I am currently a slim looking 5′7 130 lb woman [<-- that wasn't easy] – the weight/FOOD issue is a constant battle.

[Another side note I find interesting:  My finance does not share in these struggles.  He is healthy, extremely fit, eats what he wants, stops eating when he is reasonably full, works hard, and usually feels great with the exception of some version of IBS.  Watching him, for me, is like a science experiment.  I look at him go about his day without the obsessions that plague mine and I take him as proof that no, everyone in the world does not battle with this as I do. 'Ahem, no Andrea, you are not the center of the universe...'.

It seems that the problem of obesity and weight in general - in the U.S. and possibly elsewhere - is, at least in part, derived by own own obsession with restriction and substitutions in the name of healthy living.  C has never had to diet.  He cannot conceptualize why anyone would eat huge portions of something - past their comfort level.  While he doesn't eat low fat versions of food because they don't taste as good, he does avoid eating fast food saturated in oil too often - ie. more than a couple times a week... If he is hungry - he eats, when he's full that's it.  He has no anxiety whatsoever in conjunction with food. (I am reminded here of something I heard in an AA meeting several years ago.  They said that an alcoholic is unable to waste alcohol - can't understand how someone could drink half a glass and be done with it.  Are we simply becoming foodaholics? <--this word is not found in my computer's spell check function despite the fact it suggests 'workaholic, shopaholic, and chocoholic'...  The 'clean your plate before you leave the table' gone horribly wrong?)]

Something Out of Nothing

I am sitting here staring at this blank page, WANTING to write something.  Nothing. I look over at the “Categories” column and the the word ‘inspiration’ that I put there at some time or another.  That’s it.  That’s what I feel like I don’t have.  Not that I am really complaining, it’s just that I only truly feel inspired to write when I am distraught over something – anything really.  Why is this?  Why can’t I WANT to write about the good times, the light-hearted, happy-go-lucky times?  Their banality is overwhelming.  Who the hell cares?

It’s this ironic?  I’m willing to bet that a large majority of us are tired of reading the same old complaining, irritable blogs – yet the only thing we write on is that which attempts to incite some pathos or another.

When my day goes without a major hitch I avoid my blog.  I don’t want to face it because in someway I have not experienced some blog worthy, traumatic, or contemplative event.  If I’m not distraught about something, how the hell can I write anything meaningful? <–How can I think this?  Whats wrong with the pleasant, day to day experiences?  If you think it’s their frequent appearance that makes me shy away from them, think again.  More often then not I can – FIND – something to complain about. [This search is not a conscious, purposeful endeavor yet I inevitably find something nonetheless.]

It is as if my nature is a brooder – a melancholy dweller on the trivial - and I can not accept the persona of someone who can just BE.  It’s the ’Oh wait, I happen to be in a good mood? Give me a second and I will come up with something that is bugging me’ idea.  How pathetic.

An Endless Production

So I sit here mindlessly waisting time as I push the ’scroll-to-the-next-random-blog-button’ over and over again. Why? Probably because I have a ton to read by tomorrow and an essay I really should be working on.  What’s driving me nuts right now is not the reading or the essay.  Well, I guess it is the reading – the blog reading – that’s getting to me.  As I click from one site to the next I am searching for something – anything really.  I just want to read something that is a part of the person who wrote it.  I want to read some insightful observation or a blatant honesty that will remind me of the vulnerability of the AA meetings I used to attend.  I want to read something that will make the day feel real.  Apparently, this will not be happening.  It feels like I am reading the same nonsense – or sense rather – over and over again.  Give me pain and struggle – but not of the everyday variety.  Give me something that hurts and feels real. 

 Have you ever had that moment when you are in a phone conversation, telling the other person something, and you realize that the responses you are getting are fake?  Filler or auto responses.  You hear the ‘un-huh’, ‘oh yeah…’, ’sure’s’.  Suddenly you realize that it all is a sort of production.  Your telling them something – their listening.  Why?  As I read through random blogs it is gradually dawning on me that they are all essentially the same.  Filler or auto blogs.  People writing because they haven’t said anything for a few days and they feel obligated to do so.  I guess this is okay, who am I to judge?  It just doesn’t make anything feel real…

A Quoter at Heart

I am a quoter.  Have always been and will, in all probability, always be.

 It doesn’t seem to matter what I happen to be reading, I will find passages that stick out so strongly I feel compelled to copy them down. Why do I do this? I’m not exactly sure – I don’t want to forget them but that’s not the whole of it.  It is as if they hold some key. Some deep meaning that I will need to be reminded of at a later point.  – - – Well, that sounds a bit confusing.  I suppose I have no precise idea why I am driven to copy them down.  Mind you this is always in my own scribbled hand – never typed. 

The result? My life has become inundated by tiny scraps of paper bearing interesting insights, philosophies, perspectives, and revelations of others. [No, no, a list would be too simple...] My life is so infiltrated in fact, by these jotted down glints on life itself, that they are rarely, if ever, revisited.  I have no distinguished place for them so they tend to travel with me – tucked into the bottom of my jean’s pocket, disintegrating in the depths of my purse, populating the pages of my organizer as I try to mark some relevant date or another.

All in all, they tend to stick around with me until their ink fades and becomes illegible, or they become indistinguishable from the various scraps of trash that also surround me - receipts and the like – that I eventually throw them out.