Off With Her Head!

I love living alone; I could never imagine cohabitating with anything more animate than my dear dust bunnies. Though I enjoy my luxuriously solitary lifestyle 99% of the time, it’s the odd 1% that sends me into a tizzy (see EEEEEEK a Mouse). My recent tumble into the dark abyss of endless tragedy was not the result of some illegal squatter, furry or feathered, but due to the fear that within the overnight hours my body would die in my bed, alone and cold.

FINE so I didn’t die, but who knows, I could have? Like the time I was certain I had shattered my knee cap and was alone, trapped in my apartment with no possible way of escaping the imminent doom of certain death. Who would ever know? How long would it take somebody to find my cold bloated body? Yes in retrospect maybe I shouldn’t have fallen asleep with an ice pack resting on my bruised knee thereby freezing the entire workings so when I awoke I was completely paralyzed, albeit temporarily. Hey I’m not an orthopedist; I’m a chick, alone…. dying in my one bedroom apartment, who knew the ice would FREEZE my knee.

Anyways, the other night after visiting my chiropractor Dr. Pico (yummm Dr. Pico) AND going to the gym I returned home to discover an odd kinda pressure behind my left ear. The low grade pain started slowly then spread into my jaw and left sinus. By the time the pressure spread to my teeth I thought I should do something, so being a woman of the new millennium I logged onto Facebook. Right? I mean how is that NOT the proper course of action when you think you are on the cusp of a grand mal seizure? Fortunately an old friend was online, fine he’s not a medical professional, but he is a Production Manager or TD or something …really does it matter, the guy knows how to fix things. He read my symptoms over the IM and quickly typed “You are NOT having a stroke, you probably have a pinched nerve” – whatever, what kind of help is he? He obviously didn’t understand that I was birthing an aneurysm through my head nugget hole. I asserted that I was truly on death’s door however my typing had become somewhat erratic since my vision out of my right eye had turned into a sunspot. That wasn’t good. So with no other option than to just embrace the end of my poor sad lonely life I signed off Facebook, crawled into bed, and awaited the cloaked hand of death.

Long story longer, the next morning I woke up. I still felt “odd” so after work I ditched the gym and returned to Dr. Pico. Once in the exam room Dr. Pico placed his powerful bear paws around my neck and sarcastically said, “Oh this is good” - hey buddy drop the snark, ok? Then an echoing crrraaaack, followed by Dr. Pico's diagnosis, “You knocked your head off!”. What the what? Yep it turned out I knocked my skull off to the side so I was pinching like everything on the left side of my neck. Turns out I was totally NOT dying….but I could have been, that’s all I’m saying.

Let’s Play Smut or Sass

This week my YMCA fitness classes have undergone a drastic change in participant demographic, we have GUYS! What the what? And I am talking CUTE guys, like tall stocky uncoordinated dude love muffins. This Y chromosome addition is a blessing and a curse. Blessing = adorable, curse = there is NO way I can flirt looking like a Hot Mess!

In addition to looking like a freak show, last night I really sealed the deal of presenting myself as an “untouchable” by opening my sass mouth and sharing with our co-ed class what MAY have been a bit inappropriate.

During class there are a few young ladies who talk/ respond to the instructor with humorous shout outs and heckles, and when I have an extra ounce of lung capacity I have been known to add my two cents, i.e. Instructor to class: “Are you feeling that in your LEGS yet?!!, Me: “Legs? I am feeling it EVERYWHERE!” – oh so Catskills of me. But last night as Perky Bottom (aka instructor) was flipping a new CD into the boom box she paused to inform us of the YMCA’s Valentine’s Day Dance (seriously, how cute is that?). After reading off the deets from the posting a women yelled out, “What’s the dress code?” and as Perky Bottom skimmed the flyer I helpfully interjected, “Sweaty or non- sweaty? Well really it should just be sweaty cause if all goes well you are gonna end up that way later in the evening. Hehehehe….” Yeah ya see that comment would have been sassy within a gaggle of women, BUT I think it read SMUTTY to our brothers in the back of the room. Ummm, predator much Gail?

Then as if that wasn’t enough, for some reason during “stretch” Perky Bottom got onto the subject of cupcakes. As us ladies tugged at our shins and chimed in with our reviews and preferences, mine being a 80 – 20 split of cake to frosting, Perky Bottom looked over at me and proclaimed, “I would lick the frosting off your cupcakes”…. and we are done.

Fingers crossed that my membership hasn’t been revoked for inciting lewdness.

I Love to Hate You

Welcome to the 2^nd full week of my YMCA membership where I believe I’m blossoming into a very well rounded masochist. I’ve belonged to gyms before and have always enjoyed it, sure I’m not a muscle head or a lithe aerobics master with boundless spring and energy, but I push my sweaty ass around laughing between my dying gasps of life. I can think of a bucket load of things that are so much worse than my gym time, actually after experiencing the ‘prep’ for my colonoscopy 2 weeks ago I have a whole new gauge as to what is really not THAT bad. However there is something about going to this YMCA that creates within me a wonderful cocktail of hatefulness and joy, and isn’t that the core of masochism?
Fun House Mirrors – I know there are mirrors created in this world to lull me into a false reality of my body proportions. There are retail dressing rooms equipped with such magical looking glasses that I’ve not wanted to redress for I felt as though I should be sharing this wondrous nakedness with the entire city - I’m a freakin’ Venus! However at the Y, these sadists have installed the reverse of those wonderful mental rainbow inducing mirrors. For the past 2 weeks of class I’ve been taken by surprised to see this woman in the mirror who is wearing my work out gear but is at least 4 inches shorter and totally round, WTF that is SO not me! I didn’t look like that when I left home. It’s odd though because when I look at the other women in the class then look at their reflections their representations are spot on….hmmmm must be the angle.

Perky Perfection – My instructor has the body of a graceful ballerina combined with a rock hard marathon runner. I am confident that her boundless energy can only be the result of a fist full of coke (please just let me live with that delusion) and if it wasn’t enough that she is perfectly perfect physically she is a professional pastry chef… right of course you are. However the other day there was a sliver of light when during our stretch she blurted out to the class, “Ughhh my skin is so dry, it’s disgusting”. For at that exact moment while trying to reach the tips of my fingers to my shins I thought, “You know what, my skin feels rather fantastic – I RULE YOU INSTRUCTOR!”

Random Gawkers – OK I get that this is the Y and because I’m saving cash I have to deal with crap that wouldn’t happen at a real gym that cost some bucks. Well I mean I am TRYING to get that this is the Y and unlike the gym where adults are there for one thing and one thing only – working it – at the Y I’m sharing the space with a multitude of users. Hi piano class! Howdy Chinese learners! Check it out, 7 year olds learning to play the recorder! Now if you all could just stay put in your classrooms and NOT loiter in the doorway of the studio gawking at my red faced sweaty mess we all could get along. Or YOU GUYS I can see your reflection in the mirror, stop leering through the window at the back of the studio and keep running the track! The other night a guy actually had the balls to stand at the front of the class checking us out (?) and after a few seconds the instructor said, “Are you here for class” he calmly looked at her and answered “Oh no, I’m not here for class” and remained leaning against the mirrored wall, well until the instructor pointedly told him to leave.

So that’s just a few of my observations from the past fortnight but oddly enough none of those bitterly annoying things appear to inhibit my level of enjoyment. I get a kick out of attending class and I feel better for it even if the process does tend to piss me off.

mas·och·ism gratification gained from pain, deprivation, degradation, etc., inflicted or imposed on oneself, either as a result of one's own actions or the actions of others.

My Life In The Fatosphere

If you are totally confused as to why I’m on this route – go back and read my last entry - now continue.

I’m fat, I’ve always been fat, it’s not what I am it is who I am. I’m assuming a good comparison would be people who are gay or blind, it becomes who you are, not what you are.

There hasn’t been a time in my life that I wasn’t fat. I remember several year ago Lu looking at baby photo of me in full happy Buddha glory and proclaiming, “Like your Mom was surprised that you would never be a size 6 ?” (btw – this was not a jab at me) Oh Mom…. I knew she meant well but she didn’t know what to do with a fat daughter. She herself was the daughter of a woman who triumphed in the fact that she never weighed over 98 pounds, even pregnant. Yes this was my Tab addicted chain-smoking tight-assed grandmother who grabbed my 7 year old thigh as I sat shivering in an over air conditioned car and hissed, “How could YOU ever be cold, look at this.” – then gave my squishy leg a squeeze.

Being fat my entire life has formed me into the person I am. At age 40 I could not imagine my life as anything (anyone) different. And would I want to? I don’t know. Sure if I magically dropped 70lbs I assume my life would be easier, but would I still be me?

This influx of self reflection is the direct result of my recent diagnosis, it’s so conflicting to know that even though I am NOW contented with who I am (the majority of the time), was it all an unfair joke of the universe to grow up in this body? I don’t think anybody who has ever been thin would understand this feeling. To them a body is something to be conquered, or changed, or controlled. Mine is not. Mine is like an annoying tagalong that finally became accepted into the tribe out of mere exhaustion.

Last night at the gym while I was losing a lung and ¾ of my fluids I wondered what does it feel like for the people who were once skinny and now fat? I think there is a difference between people who have always been fat and those who once lived the life of a skinny person and now have chunked up. Do they harbor self hatred for what time and age has done to them? Do they long for something that used to be? Is it like how I feel about the bags under my eyes and my bitchy gray hairs, it’s annoying, it’s not “me”, but we age and things change? Maybe they used to be school athletes and now they wish for the past, maybe that’s why they are fighting so hard, to get BACK something. I never had that something, my past body and my present body are one and the same, this is all I know. This is me, it neither makes me happy nor sad, it just is. Over the past 30 years I’ve tried to morph my body, but I’ve never experienced any outcome from my labors, oddly though I’m at ease with this non-result based physicality, or maybe I’m just living a delusional existence in my self created reality.

Now with my thyroid diagnosis and medication I wonder how or even if my body will change. I’ve googled extensively and it seems that the only thing that MAY happen is that I go hyper anxiety wacky (great) or bloat out my belly (hot). **Side note - Yet again my Masters in Childhood Education does NOTHING to help in my non professional internet medical research – one day I will find a use for that 40K piece of paper.** One would think that by shooting up my body with the thyroid hormones it’s been lacking for 30+ years I would somehow jump start the whole system, but strangely (from what I think I understand) your body finds a “home base” and even with the hormones my body will fight the change tooth and nail. Long story short - I’m a store house, not a burner AKA I’m built for comfort, not for speed.

A Turn in Another Direction

I know I’ve been absent from blogging, but you haven’t missed out on much. I turned 40, took a trip to Jamaica, the holidays, winter… blah blah blah. But now I’m back to blog about a new journey I’m undertaking. It’s personal (maybe too personal for the blog) and unlike my past bogging submissions may lack in humor (good lord I hope not). It’s gonna be all about me, my body, and my feelings towards it.

In the past I’ve sprinkled in some funny antidotes (see Too Luscious for the Hampton Jitney) about being a fat woman but now after receiving a medical diagnosis that may or may not affect who I think I am I feel that I need to journal the process.

Immediately after turning 40 I was diagnosed with, Hashimoto's thyroiditis or chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis. Hashimoto's disease is an autoimmune genetic disorder where your immune system thinks that your thyroid is an alien intruder and must be expelled from your body. The thyroid get’s really pissed off by this false accusation but it’s more of a fleer than a fighter so all it does to combat the attack is swell and shut down (see goiter).

Chances are that I’ve lived the first 39 years of my life with this disorder yet no doctor ever took a moment to diagnose me. As far back as I can remember whenever I submitted my body for a physical examination my various doctors would feel my neck, then pause and say with a grimace, “You have big glands”. I never knew how to react to this odd accusation except to say, “I hear that often”. The cycle of medical call and response was finally broken this past fall when at my new gyno she felt my neck, paused, tilted her head then before she could admonish me for my protuberances I proclaimed with a sigh and an eye roll, “I know I have big glands”. Shockingly she shook her head no and with a firm seriousness said, “Make an appointment with your GP, this isn’t your glands it’s your thyroid”.

At my NEWER GP’s office (side note - really why did I resist going to doctors on the Upper East Side for so long, it’s like a country club up here compared to the livestock convention in Queens), she took a feel and said firmly, “No that’s your glands, you just have big glands.” Ok….back to the drawing board. But miracles of miracles 20 min later upon completion of the physical exam my GP recanted her initial dismissal and suggested that I schedule an ultra sound of my thyroid because “Gynecologists are really good at sensing these types of things”.

Two ultra sounds and a few blood tests later my diagnosis was strongly confirmed, Hashimoto's disorder. There is no cure for the disorder; however I can treat the symptoms of my pathetically challenged thyroid with synthetic hormones for the remainder of my life, which I am.

So there it is, the first chapter of many to come. Yet again sorry that this will not be as entertaining as my “Temp Receptionist Stories” or my “On Line Dating Disasters” but sometimes I’m a little bit mushy and introspective and this is just one of those moments.

Maybe My Gays Have Ruined My Dating Pool?

I am still trolling the internets searching for my man cause as we all know I love to have a project, however I think I liked last Autumn’s project better - see painting my kitchen. No doubt it is a long haul however instead of becoming weary over the poor collection of first daters I have acquired I seem to be drastically lowering my expectations and standards as the months (years) fade away behind me. Case in point “Late Night Dater” (AKA - LND).

LND contacted me a few weeks ago in response to my OKCupid profile, his emails were well written and clever (even though he did begin our electronic correspondence by inquiring about the partial tattoo in view on my left breast) however because of his out of town travel, my cold, and then my jaunt out West we had to delay the ritualistic face to face “public cocktail” until late last week.

When LND called to set the date he informed me that he worked until 11pm so our date would be commencing at the witching hour – oh good grief. Really the last thing I want to do on a cold Friday night is drag my cozy ass out of my apartment after 11pm to meet a guy for a FIRST date – but one must do what one must do so I slapped on a coat of makeup, flat ironed my bangs, strapped on my heals and headed on out to the subway like a 23 year old bridge and tunnel kid (sans a can of beer concealed within a brown bag with a straw).

While on the subway LND was furiously sending off the texts, first informing me that he was so concerned about looking good for our first date that in his fervor he sliced his neck shaving and was very embarrassed about his oozing laceration. Then he texted to inform me that the bar I had chosen in LIC had a line and that it was at capacity. Bizarre, I didn’t know I frequented such trendy places, but I guess that’s what happens after 11:30pm on a Friday.

I arrived as the crowd was starting to thin out so it was just moments until we were seated at the bar. LND was awkward and nervous but gentile and charming. He’s cultured and highly educated but as he spoke all I could think was – really you were concerned about “looking good” for our first date!? Maybe it was a conscious decision to pull focus from his gnarled neck by sporting a faded and ratty gray (sic black) polo shirt with a collar that resembled two pieces of limp rotelli and jeans that sagged and billowed on the floor? Is this really what a grown man wears to work and to a date? How about a pair of (size appropriate) dark jeans, a clean T shirt and a V neck sweater – that’s all I need. Have some pride in yourself, and some respect for me. I pulled my tired ass out of my apartment at 11pm for HIM and dolled myself up. Maybe I should have just worn sweats and a stained T shirt, hell why even put on a bra or shoes even, slippers are so much more comfortable and really shouldn’t we all strive for comfort, one nation united under snuggies, or as I like to call them “the adult one-sie”. Really why even shower at all, let’s just let all social conventions go to the way side and be slobs.

Fashion aside I also got a strange vibe while we sipped our artfully crafted top shelf cocktails, well not strange, just… ummmmm….gay. YES GAY! I think I was on a date with a GAY GUY, unfortunately he didn’t have the gay dressing gene, only the gay voice and mannerism gene….. great, what the F am I gonna do with that? I mean if I’m gonna date a gay then I want me a finely bespoken butch (you know who you are), not a hobo swish.

At the end of the night, or early morning, I couldn’t tell if I was overtired or bored. He was really sweet and did all the right things, despite spilling my drink into my lap, but there was just….. nothing. Still I am open and available, good vibes….good vibes so when LND emailed for a second date I said “Yes”. Basically unless a guy is an axe murdered (or a hunchbacked little person with a limp – no really that happened) I will always accept a second date invitation cause sometimes guys need a second chance to shine (especially nervous ones).

LND suggested a lunch date, since his work schedule has him chained to a desk between the hours of 2pm to 11pm, and by chance he works just steps from my office on the Upper East Side – bonus bonus – not only am I on the UES but it is also home to MANY yummy critically acclaimed charming eateries. Quickly we exchanged emails confirming the date and time and cuisine, Chinese. Fantastic Chinese. I was certain he would then offer Tao or any other quaint Asian bistro as our second date local - but wow was I off. He is taking me to China Fun, FREAKIN’ CHINA FUN!!!! China Fun home to the $7.00 greasy lunch special, are you kidding me? This is how you use your second chance, this is how you court a 40 year old woman? Yet again this is NOT about money (the guy makes money) this is about respect and courtship and having a CLUE. There are a BILLION places on the UES he could choose that would be lovely and charming and NOT expensive but by selecting a takeout joint for a second date he is basically stating – you’re not worth a reservation, a cloth napkin or flatware.

So much to decide between now and Thursday, egg roll, soup or soda…. Hmmmmm?

(PS sorry for the lack of funny images, my computer is sad today).