Archive for the ‘eatin'’ Category

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Penny-wise, Pound foolish

2010/12/14

So, I’ve got weight issues. Rather, I’ve got eating issues that make me have weight issues. In high school, I was borderline anorexic. In my late 20s, I was actively bulimic. Now, in my early 30s, apparently I’m just getting fat. I mean, not like FAT fat, but fat for me. Which is really just a little bit pudgy, I guess, but it feels awful.

Nobody is ever unaware that they’re gaining weight, right, I mean, most people can just tell. But everything was thrown into stark relief last night when, searching for something to wear to a business meeting in New York this Thursday, I pulled on my trouser jeans and they wouldn’t button. Not even close. Which makes me think that my old dress pants ALSO won’t fit, since I bought them around the same time.

I freaked out, went to Marshall’s, spent over $200 buying everything they had in a size 4, got home, tried it all on, and still felt like a little redheaded sausage wearing someone else’s clothes. This is not a happy time, and my unhappiness over my appearance is bleeding over into the rest of my life. It’s hard to feel good when you look like crap, and it’s hard to feel like you look good when NOTHING GODDAMN FITS RIGHT ANYMORE.

I want to cancel my trip to NY, I want to curl up on the couch in sweatpants and cry. I don’t want to go back to my old cycles of restricting and purging, but my feelings about food are so complicated that it’s hard for me to do things any other way. And I know my family would rather see me healthy than thin, but, having always been thin, it’s impossible to feel OK about being healthy.

I think it’s time for a pair of really, really good shoes.

Posted in aberrant behavior, Depression, eatin', work | 6 Comments »

Cover Me.

2010/11/11

So hey, I just found out something awesome. Wanna hear?

Katsumi got a new job! Yay for Katsumi! But no wait, that’s not the awesome part! The awesome part is that, once we finally divorce, I’m no longer covered under his health insurance! WOW! Isn’t that awesome? I think so.

You know, or not.

I had this magical notion at one point that MA law mandated a spouse with coverage to cover the spouse sans coverage, until such time as that spouse remarried or obtained coverage on his/her own. Problem with magical notions is: they’re not real. This one time, I imagined I had a million trillion dollars and a dozen pairs of Manolos. That wasn’t real, either. Reality sucks.

But reality is this: Divorcing Katsu is going to cost much more than the court fee, my friends. I take five kinds of medication daily to keep me on-par, my diagnoses include multiple eating and mood disorders, and I’ve got one 5-week hospitalization under my belt. I need good insurance more than I need halfway decent wine or even middling vodka. Or cheese.

If anyone has some real-world advice, I’m absolutely all ears.

Posted in Depression, eatin', matrimony, meds, money, progress? | 1 Comment »

This day is not going well.

2010/08/25

I’ve been feeling really stressed lately. I have two high-test jobs with two high-profile producers, I’m actively seeking more freelance work, and I have no less than 4 weddings to edit. Plus I’m looking for an apartment, trying to find time for my friends, and I gained all this weight so none of my pants fit me anymore. The latter is unrelated to the former or anything else, but contributes to my discontent in a way that only weight gain can.

Each day, before getting out of bed, I check my email. Usually it’s just mailing list spam-crap, but today there was an email from my producer. It wasn’t a happy email. And it’s my fault that it wasn’t a happy email. If there’s one thing that makes me feel worse than wearing ill-fitting pants, it’s feeling totally inept, and so if he’s not happy then I’m not happy and nobody’s happy. So let’s take that as a start.

Then I had this job interview for some freelance work. I’m feeling like a fat slug, I have nothing to wear, it’s pouring rain, and my hair has all the bounce and body of a dead rat. Plus, I’m like, why would anyone want to hire ME? I can’t even do basic MATH, it’s a miracle I can even put my SHOES on in the morning without HURTING somebody. I sucked in my gut, buttoned my old trouser jeans, and resignedly pinned back my bangs. I looked like shit. No lie.

So the interview went OK I guess, and then I went to Starbucks to do some work, and got yet MORE bad news from the boss. So feeling less happy. Feeling a little panicked, in fact. Feeling, for the first time in months, like an Ativan might be in order.

Instead, I turned to retail therapy. There was an Urban Outfitters near the Starbucks, and Lo! A sale on jeans! Things looking up! Except for how they had no jeans in my new, bigger size. Except for how, en route to the Urban, I got a CALL from my producer. Still not happy. So I’m still not happy. Even if they HAD my size at Urban, I STILL would not have been happy. Work is more important to me than well-fitting clothes, you see.

But I was scheduled for a lunch date with Shanna and baby Hayden, and baby therapy seemed like not such a bad thing. She’d asked me to pick up some sandwiches for us, and a bag of chips, and I was all set to do that until the lady in the sandwich store yelled at me for not closing the refrigerator. So I forgot all about the chips, and felt like a huge asshole.

Then I had baby therapy and a beer, and I ate my whole huge sandwich and felt like a beast, and then I got my hair cut and realized I had no cash for a tip, meanwhile, I’ve gotten ANOTHER email about the work situation and things are NOT looking up but I still have to go to the post office and mail this DVD this client’s been asking about for like MONTHS and maybe I can bring the tip to her tomorrow before I leave for DC? Then holy shit I still have to pack and what do I wear and what do I have that fits me and at least my hair looks a little better now but SERIOUSLY JUST SHOOT ME IN THE FACE BECAUSE IJUSTCANTTAKEITANYMORE.

Aaah. Now I feel better.

Posted in aberrant behavior, car-ma, charming neurosis, Depression, eatin', meds, personal hell, tiniest violin, work, worst week ever | 5 Comments »

Yes Christina, there really IS a horseshoe in my ass.

2010/05/12

I had dinner with Katsumi tonight at a restaurant I would never frequent if they didn’t have the best chicken fingers ever. We drank beer, ate food, and it was almost like something that’s normal to do – sharing corned beef and cabbage with your soon-to-be-ex husband while listing and dividing all your tangible assets. My drive back to Franklin was silent and slow, mired as I was in a pensive rush hour. You can’t help but wonder, sometimes, why things happen as they do or what things you might have done to make the outcome better. You wonder why it all even matters in the first place. Dinners with Katsumi bring such existential questions to the fore and I don’t like it, particularly. So I reached into my pocket for my iPhone.

My iPhone is to me what the blanket is to Linus – constancy, comfort, stability, assurance. As long as I have my iPhone I am never bored, I am never alone, and I can always find the nearest gas station. It’s almost always in my hand. I sleep with it next to my bed. I’m addicted. Like, you know that commercial where it’s shot from the POV of a phone, and the announcer is all “your phone is the last thing you see at night and the first thing you see when you wake up”? They made that commercial about me.

Of course, my iPhone wasn’t in my pocket.

I’d been having a sketchy feeling lately about it, like I was poised to make some type of grave error, so I wasn’t that surprised when it wasn’t in my purse either.

I doubled back over the Pike and headed East towards Cambridge, to the restaurant with the really good chicken tenders. “You know,” I thought “if they don’t have it (which they won’t), if someone stole it (which they did), maybe it’s not the worst thing ever. I mean, I could live without a phone, right? It wouldn’t be so bad, maybe?” Even as I practiced stress-reduction techniques I’d learned last summer in the Bin, I could feel my blood pressure skyrocketing. I mean, I REALLY can’t afford ANOTHER new iPhone, and ALL my contacts are in there plus ALL my text messages, Jesus, and I’d JUST run out of Ativan.

It felt like I hit every red light on Memorial Drive and it took a dog’s age to find parking, so by the time I got back to the restaurant I was practically shaking with anticipation and/or separation anxiety. I walked in, stumbled through a crowd of people (likely all there for the chicken tenders), and asked the hostess if by any chance someone had turned in an iPhone? The question hung like wet mist as the girl appraised me for an endless second. I steeled myself for the inevitable negative answer, literally digging my nails into my palms, and she reached slowly into the front of the hostess stand.

“Here you go,” she chirped, holding it like a flower. “I’d just DIE if I lost mine, you must be so relieved.”

Sister, relieved is not the word. It doesn’t even come close.

Posted in aberrant behavior, boozin', eatin', matrimony, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

I’ll tell you everything, but I won’t tell you that.

2009/09/08

I’m supposed to go to my nutritionist this afternoon, and I really don’t want to. Why? Because I’m not gonna do a damn thing she says.

As I mentioned before, I’ve been struggling with bulimia for a number of years. Before I was bulimic, I was borderline anorexic, and even now I suppose I do tend to restrict my eating compared to a normal person. Given all this, my shrink was like, OK, go see a nutritionist, because you’re a fucking basketcase.

No, she didn’t really say that. But regardless, three weeks ago I pulled up to McLean’s, directions in hand, and headed up to the eating disorders building. The nutritionist, J, was nice enough. She told me all about protein bonding and asked me all about my disorder and she told me a little bit about food exchange and then told me to eat lunch. Maybe some chips and hummus or something. Because normally I don’t eat lunch (or breakfast, really), and lunch is a good thing to get into.

I left that first appointment feeling 1) confident I could do what she asked and 2) that she was an idiot. I tell her all this crazy shit about my eating disorder and all she can tell me is “eat lunch”? Like, come on, seriously.

Then there was the second appointment.

Oh god, the second appointment. Suddenly, lunch went from chips and hummus to this big fucking deal, and there’s sandwiches and soup and leftovers and getting some protein in there, maybe a quarter pound of deli meat rolled up with cheese? I started sweating. She was going over the exchange list and telling me I had to eat 8 units of carbs and 6 units of protein, plus 4 each of vegetables and fruits and 5 fats and I’m not really usually so weird about food, but all I could picture was being buried under a cornucopia of Thanksgiving dinner and oranges.

Then, to cap it all off, she tells me that she wants me to keep a food journal. a FOOD JOURNAL. I kept a food journal in high school to make sure I didn’t go above 200 calories/day before dinner and haven’t even thought of keeping one since. Worse yet, I’m supposed to SHARE MY FOOD JOURNAL WITH HER at the next appointment. So like, if I don’t eat a meal, she’ll know. Likewise, if I drunkenly binge out on sour patch kids and queso fresco, she’ll know that too. Showing her my food journal would be like videotaping my GYN appointment and streaming it into every American home, while reading bad poetry from when I was 18.

Needless to say, I did not keep the food journal. I will not keep the food journal. So there’s no point in me going to my appointment this afternoon. Right?

Right.

Posted in aberrant behavior, eatin', I enjoy being a girl, manifesto | Leave a Comment »

Fun is what you make it.

2009/04/27

Last Friday, not feeling in the mood to do a whole lot of cooking, I decided that instead of normal dinner Katsumi and I would have a “build your own chicken salad” party.

(It’s lame. I know. But that’s how things roll.)

(However.)

Katsumi has a long and golden history of interesting culinary adventures. Who could forget the “INSANITY TOAST”* of winter 2007, or his famed black-bean-and-clam chili**, eaten in my absence during KHW02?

* toasted french bread topped with black forest ham, cheddar cheese, and a mysterious spread that tasted like dill pickles but was actually a puree of carrots, mustard, mayo, garlic, and something else my mind refuses to recall.

** he’d flavored the concoction with dried taco powder and a fair amount of sriracha but didn’t wash the clams before adding them to the vegan chili / black bean / canned tomato mix… so every gelatinous bite came with a sandy surprise.

Given his track record, I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked when he spooned a full two cups of mayonnaise into his bowl of shredded chicken, or when he emptied half the bottle of hot sauce over the top. Onion, celery, and grapes seemed to add much-needed texture, the overdose of salt might give a little flavor, and I was edging toward halfway on board with the whole thing until he emerged from the fridge holding a jar of sauerkraut. Then I officially ran in horror.

So, perhaps, Friday Night Build Your Own Chicken Salad Party is not so boring after all, as long as you invite my husband and ply him with a 6-pack of Long Trail IPA. (ok, maybe kind of boring still. but hey.)

Posted in anecdotal, cookin', eatin', matrimony | Leave a Comment »

Perhaps it’s aptly named, then.

2009/01/27

Unsavory bathroom antics aside, it was kind of an angsty Sunday. Katsu got home from Shannoxx’s birthday party around 3 in the afternoon (I’d driven home the previous night at 1am, shuddering up 93 at 50 mph with my hazards on and a bulged-out tire… but that’s another story) and suggested that we go out for dinner and a movie. Great, I said, awesome. Boozin’, eatin’, movie. Fantastic.

We’d sort of gotten it into our heads to take another stab at Hungry Mother for our dining enjoyment. It’s a new-ish restaurant in the Kendall area, highly touted by food critics and relatively well-reviewed by the folks at Chowhound. Last time we stopped in, we were on a search for alcoholic libations but, sadly, their bar was full, which I thought was lame. Clearly, they need a bigger bar.

At 4:30 on Sunday, I thought, there’s no way their bar could be full. I’d neglected to account for the possibility that, at 4:30 on Sunday, their kitchen might not even be open. It was cold, so we went to CBC for a drink to pass the time. I kind of hate CBC. After one midsummer visit where my salad was filled with sand and another instance where our waiter pretty much left us for dead, the place just rubs me the wrong way. Katsu ordered some buffalo tenders, which pissed me off because dude, we’re about to go to DINNER, and then I ate a buffalo tender and got a big bite of tendon, which pissed me off because, ok, ew, gross. So when we headed back out to Hungry Mother at 5:15, my mood had gone from bad to abysmal.

The hostess at the door responded to our “table for two” request with a look that suggested we may as well try to pry open a can of tuna with our toenails, then stammered out something about having openings at 8:30, and just one seat at the bar, you know, right now. Sure enough, the two tables in our direct view had “reserved” signs, and, sure enough, seven out of eight seats at the bar were taken. Now, I assume that Hungry Mother has more tables upstairs, but regardless, it’s FUCKING SUNDAY. WHO IS BOOKED UNTIL 8:30 ON SUNDAY?? I stormed out in a huff – like, how DARE they not have avails for two this early on Sunday?- and we wound up eating at Tommy Doyle’s across the square. Which was pretty much just ok.

I may never know the truth of the food at Hungry Mother. But that’s OK with me. Now they’re on my shitlist, along with CBC, Border Cafe, and OM. Fine establishments in their own rights that I loathe for pretty much no reason at all.

Posted in boozin', city livin', eatin' | Leave a Comment »

KHW #7: Weird food, installment 3

2009/01/16

Some weird food is awesome. Road Meat in Costa Rica was awesome. Knoephla was awesome. Even the watermelon licorice was… kind of awesome… in it’s own bizarre way…

And then, some weird food is just straight up nasty.

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Footloose, on a solitary run for new and untested roadfood, I found this little gem in a supermarket down the street from out hotel. The box reminded me, somehow, of Toaster Strudel, so I tossed the it into my shopping cart. I had high hopes for Snack Toast. I thought it could be part of a deconstructed bruschetta, or a breakfast and lunch in one. (Perhaps not the blueberry version, but still.)

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Looks so innocent, doesn’t it, lying there placidly on my facetowel.

It’s a sleeper, let me tell you.

Train hunting the following afternoon, eyes on the prize but somewhat peckish, I fished up some Snack Toast from the backseat and snapped off a big hunk of the crusty stuff. And so like, I know I don’t drink the most water ever, but man, that shit … if you added twelve teaspoons of sugar to a blueberry flavored Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee, then dehydrated it, then threw in a pinch of yeast, that would be Snack Toast. Imagine chewing, then having to swallow, a full mouthful of sugary, straw-filled desert.

My only consolation was the fact that, unlike some people, I wasn’t standing outside in the freezing wind on the side of a highway bridge filming this trainyard.

Dilworth train yard

So there’s an upside to every situation, you see.

Posted in eatin', north dakota, work | Leave a Comment »

KHW #7: Weird food, installment 2

2009/01/14

So it was -20 when I went to bed last night, and it was -22 when I woke up this morning. it was -21 when I nearly fused the skin of my palm with the gas pump, and it was -15 when we scuttled off to dinner. Now, it’s -7, and guess what, it still feels fucking cold. So hey.

With weather like that, is it any wonder here that people eat food like this?

Kneophla

Let me introduce you to knoephla (pron. NEFF-luh), a gelatinous soup that is hard to pronounce, confounding to spell, and impossible to resist. I had it for the first time last April and was thoroughly offput by the mysterious potato dumplings: gnocchi-esque in texture, but about three times as large. April, perhaps, is not the month for knoephla.

January, however, most certainly is. I’d say that roughly 73% of my lunches this shoot have been knoephla-based. Knoephla may have saved my life, on more than one occasion over the last 16 days. It gives me sustenance, it gives me strength. If I don’t got the knoephla, I got nothing. And when I go back to Boston, I may need to enter a knoephla detox clinic.

I get my fix at Mom’s Diner (someone else’s pic of the interior is here), on Main Ave just before you hit downtown. They have great bacon, says Pusser, great club sandwiches, says Buckethead, great liver and onions, says Kimmer, and a fucking fantastic all-you-can-eat soup-and-salad-bar-combo meal, says I. After a morning running around in subzero tundra, there’s nothing like all you can eat soup bar… especially when the spread includes both knoephla and…

Pepperoni pizza soup

pepperoni pizza soup. Did you get that? PEPPERONI. PIZZA. SOUP.

WTF, AWESOME.

Posted in best week ever, eatin', north dakota, work | Leave a Comment »

KHW #7: Weird food, installment 1

2009/01/11

We spend a lot of time in the van, on these shoots. A lot of time driving from Fargo to the rez, from the rez to Grand Forks, from Grand Forks back up to Cando, or, most often, to nowhere in particular at all. (see: “train hunting” posts on Facebook) All this zipping around gets pretty dull, so it’s part of my job to keep the van well-stocked with a variety of boredom snacks. We’ve gotten by fairly well so far with experimental beef jerky, fruit leather, and a variety of raw nuts, but when the crew took a side trip to Scheel’s, home of the giant ferris wheel, I found myself overcome with a near-psychotic craving for sugar.

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Watermelon licorice. I hate licorice, normally. Like, I’ll eat a Twizzler if it’s around, but I won’t really enjoy it, and don’t even get me started on that tar-black anise shit. Nasty. Uch. But I was starving and exhausted, so as soon as we got back in the car I started shoving that shit in my mouth like it was free appetizer time at the Last Supper.

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Noxious, rubbery, weirdly flavored and completely addictive. I took this picture of specimen A on my pillow at our hotel in Devils Lake, and then I ate it. Then I realized I’d forgot to pack my toothpaste.

filler

On the drive up earlier that morning, we’d stopped at a gas station to put a wire on Robin and rig her car with lights. Gas stations in North Dakota seem to be a haven for strange food of all make and manner, so while the crew was at work doing work stuff, I prowled around in the convenience mart searching out a new taste adventure.

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Adventure: found. These things are about the size of skittles, look like diseased microbes, and taste kind of like Skittles. I really don’t like Skittles – I like them even less than Twizzlers – but I ate the whole bag of Chewy Nerds anyway.

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This was the only one left by the time we got back to Fargo. And I saved it specifically so I could take this picture and share with you the wonderment of the Chewy Nerd. Then I threw the Chewy Nerd away, because it had been rolling around the bottom of my purse for like two days and truly hadn’t been that appetizing to begin with.

Stay tuned, friends, there’s much much more to come.

Posted in eatin', north dakota, travellin' | Leave a Comment »

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