Quodlibets

Reasons I'm Doing the March NaBloPoMo

• I like lists.  No, really.  I plan on making every day a list.
• Why not?  It certainly energizes my blogging in November.  Why would March be any different?
• The prize!  Just kidding.  There's no f-ing way I'd win it.  I'm not lucky.
• After a hiatus, it seems like a good way to jump in.
• It seems like a good idea at this moment.  Ask me in 15 days if I still think it was.
• I like the idea of making the Monday updates lists.  (And yes, I am aware that I didn't post an update last Monday.)
• I'm not sure.  I'm compelled to do it and can't really say why?
• Kate said she'd do it if I did it.  Well, Kate, are you gonna?

Fattie Fatster

I've been reading a lot of the "fat" blogs lately--Shapely Prose, Pound(y), Big Fat Deal, etc--and what I cannot get over is how fucked up we are about this.  I certainly knew that I was fucked up about food and eating and dieting, but I really am astonished anew each time I realize that holy shit, most of us are, I'm not alone.  It may seem evident to you people out there, but I have a really hard time realizing that I am not alone in this epic body image/eating/dieting/working out struggle.  I shouldn't, because like any other group of women, my mom, my sister and I have all played this game.  But somehow their relationship to their own bodies has nothing to do with my own; and of course, I'm wrong, because it does. 

The fact of the matter is, I'm only recently beginning to throw aside all the guilt and rage and powerlessness that comes with feeling like an outcast, feeling like someone whose body isn't right, and I'm probably in an insufferable stage where I want everyone to feel like me.  And everyone doesn't.  In one of the comments at Big Fat Deal, somebody said something along the lines of:  "Oh, yeah, diets are wrong.  But there's nothing wrong with working out a lot and not eating everything you want to eat so that you can be healthier and look a little better."  My eyes almost popped out of my head and I wanted to scream.  Because hello?  That is a diet, and that isn't any healthier than what I'm doing. 

Feeling like that?  Like you want to eat things and you can't--that's disordered.  It's not natural for human beings to watch every single thing they put in their mouth, whether they want to believe that or not.  I do believe that when you start to stop thinking so damn much, you start to normalize your own diet where it needs to be.  I've said it before and I'll say it again:  some days you want brussels sprouts (and I have some in my freezer right now) and vinegared rice, and some days you want cheesy gooey pizza and a big plate of french fries.  Any sort of disordered eating that once held me in its grips is loosening up, because I never have to worry that I'm doing something bad.  I can literally eat what I want, when I want it.  And I'm telling you, I almost NEVER eat so much that I feel uncomfortable anymore.  I used to do it all the time when eating out, and every once in a while at a very expensive restaurant I stuff it in because it's so special and I feel like I have to, but I almost NEVER kill myself with food anymore.  It's an intense and heady thing.  I can tell you without hesitation that I used to do it all the time because I used to feel like I had to--because I knew if I was eating at home it would be Lean Cuisines and egg whites. 

And I'll tell you something else about eating.  I've been eating a bagel for breakfast every morning--I toast it and cream cheese it at home, and then port it to work--and I'm not hungry by 10 anymore.  In fact, I find that hunger isn't as big an issue in my life, ever.  I still get insanely hungry when I probably shouldn't, but because what I'm eating is more satisfying, I don't feel crippled by hunger.  It's heady stuff.

I will start bike riding again in the spring (when I won't freeze my fingers and toes off, and when I won't kill myself on icy, snowy paths), and if that brings about some weight loss, ok.  And if not, ok.  I'm not going to fixate on that stuff anymore.  I know that if I worked at a place that had a gym that was close to home (and wouldn't force a miserable commute on me; this is a choice I've made for myself.  I feel my quality of life will go down if I stay after work to work out, because I'll be so miserable from the commute.  And I can't afford to pay for a gym in the city; nor do I want to.), I'd start working out again in a heartbeat.  I do enjoy the elliptical, and feeling the adrenaline from a workout.  But I'm not beating myself up about it anymore, and I feel okay.  Some days are harder than others.  Some days I can't remember to stop hating my body.  But more and more, I can just shrug and sigh and it's okay. 

I want this for the people I love.  I want them to love themselves as much as I love them.  In fact, I imagine their wish for me is the same damn thing.  I hope the people who love me don't want me to starve and sweat myself down to a what, size 14?  That's about as low as I think I could go.  I was in a size 14 in high school, for god's sake.  Is being a size 14 really so much better than where I am now?  I just can't imagine them wanting me to torture myself to look a little bit skinnier.  And I certainly don't want that for them.  I support the decisions they make regarding their bodies, but I also don't want them to be disordered.  I don't want them to eat every bite thinking about guilt.  Or not eat every bite thinking about guilt.  It's no way to live.

And then there are those strangers who feel they should have a say in how I look.  They're f-ing everywhere; all you have to do is find a blog that talks about fat in a candid, serious, accepting way and there'll be people saying things like, "Lay off the ice cream, fattie." or "Get off your fat ass and walk somewhere, fattie."  It's shameful, but it obviously doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if we're disordered, it's coming from somewhere.  My life will be so different because I'm not a size 6, and I'm aware.  I'm aware that if I order dessert in a restaurant I might get looked at funny.  I'm aware that people might look at me with pity as I huff and puff away on my bike.  But I. DON'T. CARE. ANYMORE.  That is a problem for those people, those people who think that the size of your thighs is directly proportionate to how many servings of vegetables you eat in a day.  Again, that prejudice?  That's THEIR problem, not my own.  I can't change them, and I shouldn't have to.  (And I'm just going to say this once:  all those people who think fat people don't have the SECKS are insane, because everywhere I look, there's fat people in relationships.  With people who might just want to do THAT with them.  And believe you me, there are a lot of mean words said on the internets about fat people and the SECKS, such as:  "EWWW, fat people are gross and noone wants to sleep with them?"  It drives me up the wall, and it really exposes the selfish myopia of persons who don't care to sleep with a fat person.  That's quite alright, sirs, but perhaps you can understand that everyone is not you.)   

That was a tangent.  I can't remember now where I was going after that point.  Suffice it to say that reading all this fat blogging has me feeling both exhilarated and exhausted, and it's really been interesting.  It's really been a boon for my own train of thought about the issue.  Perhaps you don't think about these issues very much.  Maybe you  just don't care.  That's fine.  You don't have to.  Congratulations for being less disordered than the rest of us.  But I don't think this is something that the rest of us should stop thinking about.  I know I won't.  These sorts of rants may crop up from time to time, as it comes to a head within me.  Bear with me.

Excuse the food p@rn interruption

So last night, we made it to our lovely dinner with no problems (save a cab fare where bus fare would have been better).  It was so incredibly good.  I don't know too many people who don't really enjoy a meal at Frontera Grill, after all.  Every time I go, I think, "Can this possibly be as good as I'm remembering it?", and it is.  It's incredible.  I don't think I've ever had the same main dish there twice, in fact, and I've only ever loved them. 

Sam and I always start with the appetizer platter because it's so darn good.  It comes with cheesy, gooey empanadas, chicken taquitos, the best ceviche ever (last night's was Sunfish, YUM), guacamole (I'd gladly sell my belongings for some of this stuff), and jicama salad.  Last night, I decided that we were doing away with the jicama salad for once and for all, since every time we get the platter, we leave a big, heaping, untouched pile of it.  (Jicama is one of those things I just don't like, no matter how many times I try it.)  We had been planning on ordering sopes in addition to the platter, but the waiter asked if we wanted to substitute sopes for jicama, and the answer was "Yes please."  The sopes at Frontera are also always a revelation.  I don't know what Bayless and his team do to that meat, but it's so delicious.

For our main dishes, we had Carne Asada (him, eaten every single time we've been there), and a striped bass.  The bass came with a very winter-y sauce--tomatoes (canned, I think), olives, capers and raisins.  I don't normally like raisins, but there were only a few in the thing, and you could barely taste them.  The sauce was very tasty--almost like a puttanesca but spicier and less pasta-appropriate.  The fish itself was perfect; even Sam liked it.  The dish also came with spicy pickled vegetables that were so good, but almost too hot for me to eat.  I ate as many of them as I could before I melted.  The starchy side was rice, and it was tangy and garlicky and wonderful, especially mixed with the tomato sauce.  Sam's Carne Asada was standard, although very good last night.  He said the plantains with it were the best he'd ever had at Frontera.

I usually skip dessert at Frontera, and last night was no exception.  Sam though, got the Topolo dessert of the night--crepes filled with sweet plantains, covered in candied pecans, raspberry sauce, and goat's milk cajeta (caramel).  The presentation of the dish was delightful, but that's about all I can say for it, as I did NOT enjoy the  taste of the dish at all.  Sam ate it up, however, so it must have been ok.

Is it lame to say that I already can't wait to go back?  I feel that way after every meal at Frontera.

Things I'm Loving Right Now

• My new flannel Chicago Bears pajama pants.  I don't love the stinky Bears so much right now, but these pants rock.
• My new purse.  My dad's done it again.  Even though I pick out the purse, the purse is only good if he buys it.  From now on, he's going to be buying all my purses, even if I give him the money to do it.
• Sewing.  Oddly enough, my break from it has gotten me all excited to do it.
• Lemon Zinger tea.  You can start laughing now, when I tell you how much I LOVE this tea, and how excited I am to experience the full oeuvre of Celestial Seasonings teas.  I've never had any before, now, but cross your fingers for me, the tea isn't causing migraines.  Knock on wood.  Rub your rabbit's foot.  All that stuff.  I adore hot tea.
• Bagels.  Some days, the only thing I feel like eating for every meal is a toasted bagel with peanut butter or cream cheese.  We're out of them right now, and I think I'm partaking of the toasted carb family anyway, in the form of toast.
• The fact that all the ornaments are off the tree and stowed happily away.  All that's left to clean up from Xmas is the actual tree--a 10 minute project at most--and some odds and ends that are being "stored" on the dining room table.
• Our new router, which is password protected, and according to Sam, stunningly easy to set up.
• Which combines with the new Leopard operating system, which is okay, I guess.  There's some nice things about it.  As soon as Sam learns about Time Machine, I'll love it.
• My new Danskos.  Oh, I've read the preaching, and I've held out, but oh. my. god.  They are SO comfortable (immediately, too!) and I'm over the clunkiness already.
• Netflix.  This whole writers' strike thing, it's made TV a wasteland.  Everything is in reruns, and there is just nothing on.  We're going through probably 2 to 4 DVDs a week now, and that's unprecedented.  For us. 
• Football.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  But it's still fun.

Required Reading

Ah, it is time for another go-round on the food and weight issues carousel.  I don't have much to say this time, though, because someone else says is so perfectly.  Her name is Kate Harding, and her blog, Shapely Prose, is my favorite new reading material.  I can't get enough of her archives; I love reading what she and her co-bloggers write, and even what her readers have to say.  For those of you who have struggled with body issues (and what one of us hasn't, really?), and especially those of you who have shucked off diets and denial for good (as I have, I think), this blog is the place.  Kate Harding says the things I'm thinking, only in a much more eloquent way.  Do not be surprised if I do some more blogging about these issues, because this blog has me thinking about them more.

The wait commences

This entire entry is going behind the wall, so to speak, because I want to talk about these books I just finished, and I'm almost 100% certain my sister will want to read them too, and I just can't spoil them for her.  But I'm DYING to talk about them.  I don't know how interesting this will be to many of you, (probably not caring about vampires and romance and YA novels and stuff), but I'm going to write about it anyway because nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah, it's my blog.  If you're interested at all, click through.  Katie, don't you dare.  You don't want them spoiled, I promise you.  You'll just have to read them FAST so we can discuss them.  (Also, don't read this if you're anywhere in the middle of Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan series.)

I Hear a Symphony

Last night, my mom, sister and I went to see the CSO.  It was "Friday Night at the Movies" with John Williams, and while that's sort of orchestra light, it was also really, really enjoyable.  I think John Williams composes some of the nicest movie music out there, and let's be honest, are there very many people who wouldn't recognize "Superman" or "Star Wars"?  It was certainly more accessible for me than the other classical pieces we saw the last two times we went.  Honestly, the two things that got the biggest crowd response were the Star Wars pieces--the basic one, and the imperial march.  But everyone knew Indiana Jones and everyone knew ET and Jaws.  I personally also really enjoyed the selections from "Catch Me If You Can" because the vibraphone playing was fricking cool, and I also really loved "Sayuri's Theme" from "Memoirs of a Geisha".  That latter one was almost 100% strings, and that much string goodness sometimes brings tears to my eyes.  It was beautiful.

As always, I did watch the strings most of the time, focused as I am on their loveliness.  However, I spent a good amount of time watching the percussion.  The percussion section looked so young!  One of the guys looked like he was barely out of college.  I found that remarkable.  And the principal of the percussion section, Cynthia Yeh, had the abovementioned vibraphone solos during "Catch Me If You Can", which like I said, were very cool.

All in all, a very enjoyable night, and I'm kind of glad that I got to see John Williams conduct once in my life.

Football Sunday

Today we're fleeing the big city for a day of football and home-cooked food.  My mom is going to cook me a meal I haven't had in so long I can't even remember how it tastes, except that I remember that I like it.  A lot.  Also, my mom has that whole NFL Sunday Ticket thing going on, so that's a huge plus.  I love being able to choose which early game to watch.  And then, even more fortuitously, my team and my mom's team are playing each other this week in the whole FF thing.  And even more interestingly, it's the battle of #1 (me) and #2 (her) in our division.  If she wins, that could really shake things up on the top.  I think she's 2 games out of the lead right now.

Needless to say, today will be fun.  We'll have to see how much trash talking my mom can put up with/dish out, especially considering that somewhere around mid-week, she said, "You're going to kill me."  That's quite a hard bit of trash talk, mom.  Anyway, we'll see.  I'm hoping that I can come back to fighting form after last week's sad, sad loss.

So that's all I've got for today, but it's definitely fulfilling the post a day requirement.  And tomorrow is progress report Monday (I'm working on it!) and then Tuesday is "The. Year. In. Books."  It's kind of nice to have the next two days' posts lined up.  It's a relief, in a way.  I don't have to worry about being original again until Weds!  Yay!

Audiobook list

So, in the name of filling another day, I thought I'd go back and look at my book list, and then make a list of my favorite audiobooks that I've listened to.  In no particular order (chronological, if anything):

1. The Plot Against America -- Philip Roth.  Read by Ron Silver.  Ron Silver is a spectacular reader.  Unfortunately, he doesn't read much that I would be interested in listening to.  Still, this book was the right combination of thrill and literary fiction, and the reading made it worth it.  I would listen to all the books Ron Silver read if only they were remotely interesting to me.  I did actually listen to American Pastoral, by the same author and read by him, and that wasn't good.  But not because of Ron Silver.
2. Secret Life of Bees -- Sue Monk Kidd.  Read by Jenna Lamia.  I was VERY skeptical of this book due to its incredible amount of hype (it came out when I was working in the bookstore), but the audiobook was good.  Very good.  I definitely enjoyed this book as an audiobook more than I might have as an actual hard copy.  Sometimes, that happens.
3. Elsewhere -- Gabrielle Zevin.  Read by Cassandra Morris.  This is a YA book.  I would have loved this in hard copy, and I loved it in audiobook form.  It's about death, but in a good way.  One of those audiobooks I didn't want to stop listening to when the commute was over.
4. Company -- Max Barry.  Read by William Dufris.  I've bought other audiobooks read by this reader, simply because I enjoyed this one so much.   A lot of it was the demented portrait of corporate life that it portrayed, and a lot of it was the reader.  I didn't love the end, but I can say that about 60% of the books I read these days, so that's pretty much par for the course.
5. Lost and Found -- Carolyn Parkhurst.  Read by Blair Brown.  Anything Blair Brown reads is good (see Anne Tyler), because she's also spectacular.  But this book especially was just delightful.  A quirky concept (reality TV!  mother and daughter!  life's problems!  international travel!), and just stellar characterization and narration of those characters.  I've never re-listened to an audiobook, but this is making me want to.  This could well be my favorite of all-time.
6. Ten Days in the Hills -- Jane Smiley.  Read by Suzanne Toren.  Another great listen.  The book is based (loosely) on Bocaccio's Decameron, and it's frankly just enjoyable.  It's not really about plot or structure, but it was amusing nonetheless.  Another stellar, prolific reader, whose voice I enjoy so much I've often considered purchasing her audiobooks regardless of author.  In fact, I do own another audiobook by this reader, though it was purchased and listened to before this one.  But I was going to listen to Jane Smiley regardless of reader, so it was just a nice bonus.
7. Nineteen Minutes -- Jodi Piccoult.  Read by Carol Monda.  Jodi Piccoult is like crack for me.  I adore her books in a rushed, can't wait til the end kind of a way.  Listening to them can be torture, because you. just. want. to. know. what. happens.  And audiobooks take away some of the ability to rush through.  But Carol Monda is a good, solid reader (I also have listened to The Tenth Circle, by Piccoult, though I find this book better in general.), and like I said, I can NEVER go wrong with Piccoult.  I'm not sure I'll ever read another of her books again.  I may just audio them all.
8. God of Animals -- Aryn Kyle.  Read by Lily Rabe.  This was a hard one; the story is harsh.  But in the end, I couldn't resist the horses, and the lost little girl.
9. Love Walked In -- Maria de los Santos.  Read by Jennifer Ikeda.  I can't find the name of another narrator, but I SWEAR there are two.  Anyway, this was the subject of my rave of a few days ago, and it lived up to the hype, mostly.  I didn't love the ending (par for the course, again), and it seemed a little fantastical in places, but mostly just awesome.  Mostly just awesome.

That's really only a small snapshot of what I've listened to since I started at my current job.  I'll have numbers for you on Tuesday.  And just fyi, I do get all of my audiobooks as downloads from audible, not as the CD or tape version sold in stores.

Tweet tweet

Last night, my sis and I went to see The Sparrow, at the tiny Apollo theater.  What a good show!  It's such a fantastic little success story; a homegrown Chicago theater company puts together this show, it's a success in a tiny indie theater (The Viaduct) and Steppenwolf and Broadway in Chicago step in and provide the money and backing for a bigger production, and a more polished one (at least by all accounts).  And it's really good.  I mean, the story is weird, and the show includes some very strange elements (or, strange to me, who doesn't go to many plays), but it was just enjoyable.  Funny, too.

Kate said after the show that she didn't think it would have been as good had the music not been so good, and I think she's right.  I'm almost 100% sure that the music is all original, and it WAS good.  It had a slightly...Sufjan-esque feel to it.  I walked out of the theater singing Sufjan Stevens, if that's any clue (The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us!) as to how Sufjan-esque it really was.  The music (and laughter) really made the show.  A couple of times, though, I felt like Kate and I were the only ones laughing, and sometimes I felt as if we were laughing longer than some of the other people in the audience.  I think we have a similar sense of humor, and apparently the show was playing right to our particular sense of humor.

That, or the audience was a little bit too old to grasp some of the high school funniness of the show.  I'm not sure, though I read a review earlier yesterday that said the show does play best to those who vividly remember their high school years.  And Kate remarked, before the show started, on how surprised she was at how old the audience was (lots of older women), knowing the subject matter of the play.  But that's who goes to plays now, right?  Older ladies.  It's not meant to be derogatory, it's just a statement.  They're keeping the theater industry afloat.  And someday, Kate and I will be those older ladies keeping the industry afloat.

Anyway, that was a tangent.  I highly recommend The Sparrow; even if you don't like theater, this might be something you might like.  It's quirky and fun, and especially if you're a person who hates shows and has a partner who loves them, this might be one you could sit through to win some brownie points.