Who says you can't go home? Me, up until two weeks and two days ago. Despite my parents' and even a few friends' urgings to move back, live a block from work, avoid high gas prices and Philadelphia's gouging wage tax, I was firm on my need to live within city limits. If I couldn't walk to a bar and a grocery store from my apartment, I wasn't having it.
And then I saw some of the city's slim pickings. It turns out that a crumbling housing market means landlords can charge a lot more for rent, something I'm not currently able to bend to. Most apartments within my price range were either very far out from any sort of city life, or infested with things that moved.
Disheartened after one particularly sad apartment -- a trip I took with not at all helpful Mom ("Well, this is no Georgetown," and "You have to set high standards," set against "You kids are spoiled. You're too picky.") -- I sat down to discuss my difficulties logically with my dad. He suggested broadening my search to beyond city limits -- the Main Line in particular. I told him I would rather live at home for free than pay for an apartment from which I would have to drive everywhere. And he asked me, why didn't I?
I started considering it -- but of course I couldn't stand to live under my parents' watchful eye all the time. My dad's not-so-subtle hints to law school. ("She's going. Next year.") My mom's not-so-subtle hints to my weight. ("Why don't you just start with that? It's an awful lot of food on your plate...") But the option of the pool house emerged.
My family doesn't actually have a pool house. The nickname is a leftover from the favorite OC quote, "Don't say pool house!" When my parents moved in and commenced their major renovation of a decrepit house, they had to ditch the pool, which had become a health hazard and was providing a home to a family of ducks. The pool house, then, became the "back office," a place for my dad to meet clients after work hours. Once he opened a private practice only 5 minutes from home, that purpose dissolved, and it became just a storage facility for my parents.
Now, it is soon to be my apartment. I'm quite hesitant about living this close to home and living in the suburbs (not really my style, particularly all the driving), but I figure a) it will save me a lot of money, b) it's convenient to work, c) it serves as a good test drive of whether I actually could be happy living in the suburbs, and d) it allowed me to commit to buying the final "life changing" event -- details tomorrow.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Rage and Food Porn
My apologies for keeping (all two of) you waiting. Finally, here it is, momentous event #1: The Rage-Inducing Diet.
Let's start at the beginning, shall we? I attempted to ignore the signs -- the pants feeling a little tighter, my mother's hints, my sudden discomfort in bathing suits, and the fact that my weight is greater than what Bridget Jones sites as totally unacceptable in her movie Diary. But then came the proverbial straw: Marianne's Run The Chop Race. My dad and I run a 5-mile race every year over 4th of July weekend. The past few years I have been remiss in my race-running, but this year I stepped back up to the plate, mostly to prove to myself that I still could.
And I did. The race itself went fine. I didn't stop to walk, I kept a steady (if a little slow) pace, and I did not finish last. I even helped urge my dad along at times. I wouldn't exactly say I'm proud of how I did, but it wasn't terrible. What was terrible was the realization that the box I usually skip over, the one that asks if I want to be considered in the optional heavyweight class for men and women over a certain weight -- I qualified for that box.
I did, in fact, skip over it. It wasn't until about 0.5 mile that it dawned on me -- I could have checked off that box because I am indeed over that weight.
So the following Monday I went to the library (I would never pay money for such trash) and took out a diet book. The South Beach diet book to be exact. This is where I should mention that I basically eat three food groups in every meal: carbohydrate/starch (pasta, bread, potato, or corn), tomato, and cheese. Pasta with sauce and parmesan. Pizza. Nachos. Baked potato. Etc.
As I casually started to flip through South Beach and discovered that I could eat nothing from my first major food group for two weeks, not even fruit, I felt disbelief. When I arrived at the part where I was not to drink any alcohol, it reached full on rage. Just reading about the diet drove me to eat a sausage, potato salad, green salad, spinach and cheese dip, a mini-loaf of bread, and a piece of cheesecake.
After my revenge eating (revenge on what, I don't know), I woke up and found I really couldn't keep my pants buttoned. So I did the unthinkable. I gave the diet a try. My previous record for dieting having been 1 hour and 45 minutes, I did not have high hopes, but I tried. I made it through the first day, probably foaming at the mouth, muttering about foods I missed, and dreamed that night of pasta. The sun rose on Wednesday, and I pushed through again, angry the whole time. Wednesday night I dreamed of cookies. Thursday passed in much the same way, and I dreamed of wine.
It's entirely possible that I dream this much of food normally, but this was overpowering. This had reached the level of food porn, a term coined in Chile, a country known for its tasteless and occasionally even repulsive food. (Don't worry Chile, I still love you.) "Food porn" refers to the visions of food that dance before your eyes, open or closed, when you are truly missing good cuisine (or any cuisine at all). Food porn is a total tease. And it was all I could think about.
Friday I was embarking on a trip to DC. I had made it three days, 6 pounds, and I was prepared to go for the whole 2 weeks in order to fit back into my clothing. I even packed diet-acceptable foods to eat on my trip. That night, Cranston, Tim, and I went out to grab dinner, and Cranston suggested we go to Legal Sea Foods because I had never been. I was already starving when they quoted us a 45 minute weight time, so I was ravenous by the time they actually seated us, over an hour and a half later. When they sat the bread basket in front of me, I grabbed a roll, covered it in butter, and asked, who wants to split a bottle of wine?
I guess the lesson is: Be true to yourself and your carb-loving stomach. I suppose it wasn't so much of a life change as an affirmation of the way life currently is, and I like it.
Let's start at the beginning, shall we? I attempted to ignore the signs -- the pants feeling a little tighter, my mother's hints, my sudden discomfort in bathing suits, and the fact that my weight is greater than what Bridget Jones sites as totally unacceptable in her movie Diary. But then came the proverbial straw: Marianne's Run The Chop Race. My dad and I run a 5-mile race every year over 4th of July weekend. The past few years I have been remiss in my race-running, but this year I stepped back up to the plate, mostly to prove to myself that I still could.
And I did. The race itself went fine. I didn't stop to walk, I kept a steady (if a little slow) pace, and I did not finish last. I even helped urge my dad along at times. I wouldn't exactly say I'm proud of how I did, but it wasn't terrible. What was terrible was the realization that the box I usually skip over, the one that asks if I want to be considered in the optional heavyweight class for men and women over a certain weight -- I qualified for that box.
I did, in fact, skip over it. It wasn't until about 0.5 mile that it dawned on me -- I could have checked off that box because I am indeed over that weight.
So the following Monday I went to the library (I would never pay money for such trash) and took out a diet book. The South Beach diet book to be exact. This is where I should mention that I basically eat three food groups in every meal: carbohydrate/starch (pasta, bread, potato, or corn), tomato, and cheese. Pasta with sauce and parmesan. Pizza. Nachos. Baked potato. Etc.
As I casually started to flip through South Beach and discovered that I could eat nothing from my first major food group for two weeks, not even fruit, I felt disbelief. When I arrived at the part where I was not to drink any alcohol, it reached full on rage. Just reading about the diet drove me to eat a sausage, potato salad, green salad, spinach and cheese dip, a mini-loaf of bread, and a piece of cheesecake.
After my revenge eating (revenge on what, I don't know), I woke up and found I really couldn't keep my pants buttoned. So I did the unthinkable. I gave the diet a try. My previous record for dieting having been 1 hour and 45 minutes, I did not have high hopes, but I tried. I made it through the first day, probably foaming at the mouth, muttering about foods I missed, and dreamed that night of pasta. The sun rose on Wednesday, and I pushed through again, angry the whole time. Wednesday night I dreamed of cookies. Thursday passed in much the same way, and I dreamed of wine.
It's entirely possible that I dream this much of food normally, but this was overpowering. This had reached the level of food porn, a term coined in Chile, a country known for its tasteless and occasionally even repulsive food. (Don't worry Chile, I still love you.) "Food porn" refers to the visions of food that dance before your eyes, open or closed, when you are truly missing good cuisine (or any cuisine at all). Food porn is a total tease. And it was all I could think about.
Friday I was embarking on a trip to DC. I had made it three days, 6 pounds, and I was prepared to go for the whole 2 weeks in order to fit back into my clothing. I even packed diet-acceptable foods to eat on my trip. That night, Cranston, Tim, and I went out to grab dinner, and Cranston suggested we go to Legal Sea Foods because I had never been. I was already starving when they quoted us a 45 minute weight time, so I was ravenous by the time they actually seated us, over an hour and a half later. When they sat the bread basket in front of me, I grabbed a roll, covered it in butter, and asked, who wants to split a bottle of wine?
I guess the lesson is: Be true to yourself and your carb-loving stomach. I suppose it wasn't so much of a life change as an affirmation of the way life currently is, and I like it.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Coming Soon, to a blog near you...
Somewhat predictably, the first two years out of college have brought quite a bit of change. First the plan was to do T....F....A.... for two years, followed by law school. Then that plan got scrapped as the amount of time spent hiding under my desk exponentially increased as the days passed, and I decided to work for my dad for the remainder of the two years before, as planned, attending law school. Then I reconsidered my belief that I wasn't cut out for teaching, and took my latest job that I [gasp] postponed applying to law school for. Okay, not monumental changes, but for someone who a) plans her meals for the whole weak down to the afternoon snack, and b) follows through on plans to a T (what does that really mean, anyway?), these past two years were a fast life-lesson in curve balls.
Keeping on that theme, I start a three-day series of my latest life-changing events. Yes, it may be summer, but I can still find such occurrences. (Well... maybe you should put air quotes around "life-changing.") You'll laugh, you'll cry... stay tuned. Episode 1 starts tomorrow.
