Category Archives: Seriously

Hashtag fight WHAT?! (Special K got it all kinds of wrong.)

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I was scrolling through my Facebook feed one day (every day, all day, whatever…) and came across this sponsored post that Facebook thought I might enjoy:

Special K ad

Well, you thought right, Facebook! This does sound like something I might be interested in, doesn’t it?

Interested in because I want to rip it a new one!!

But it’s not ok to just rant about something. It’s important to do your homework. So in that moment (that angry, angry moment), I took a screen shot, saved the picture to my phone, and went on with my life until I had time to do some thinking, some reading, some more thinking, some writing, and some posting about it. That time is now.

–cue music–

Special K says they want to #fightfattalk because it “is a barrier to managing our weight…” Mmmm hmmmm…

You know what else is a barrier to “managing our weight”??? Things like television, internet, and print ads that suggest we subsist on nothing but cereal for 2 weeks so that we can lose weight, feel better in a bikini, go to the beach without a cover up, and “gain” other things when we “lose” the weight.

I call BS on this ad. BS on the whole of Special K, and by extension, the entire Kellogg’s brand (sorry, Michigan, I just can’t support this kind of behavior!).

And even if it weren’t for the irony of Special K’s ad campaign, I still don’t like the phrase “fat talk” because it implies that fat is bad. Always. And that to be fat is to be bad, to talk about being fat is to talk about being bad, and that the word fat should be banned from our vernacular entirely just like being fat should be banned from our lives.

No.

People can be fat. They can be thin. They can be skinny, obese, rotund, chunky, sickly, muscular, pale, flabby, large, small, tan, cross-eyed, etc, etc, etc… and all of those things are nothing more than physical descriptors. Not one of them has any inherent value attached to it. Yet, these are the hooks on which we tend to hang our self worth. Why? Well, that’s an entire book. A series, even. But to be sure, media campaigns like this don’t help. And we can’t forget what Special K’s actual purpose is:

To sell cereal.

Special K does not care if you engage in fat talk or not. They do not care whether you are fat or thin. They do not care about any of those physical descriptors listed above. All they care about is you buying their cereal. And if pretending to care about body image is going to help them do that, then by all means, they can pretend.

Not that I can blame Special K for that, really. I mean, it literally is their job to sell cereal… not to look after the mental health and emotional well-being of society. I get that. But maybe Tyra Banks, with her history of issues with body image and all her ginormous scope of influence, could recognize a marketing ploy and not lend her name or her very, very famous face (did you see her smiling… with just her eyes???) to a campaign that is downright damaging.

If you actually go to Special K’s Fight Fat Talk website (slogan “Shhhhut down fat talk”) I think you’ll see what I’m talking about. They suggest that you use social media to tag positive posts with #fightfattalk and they have a little tool that will allow you to scan your Facebook networks to see how common body-focused negative self talk (my phrase, not theirs… like I said, I don’t dig the notion of “fat talk” specifically) is in your social networks. But beyond that? The point of the site is clearly to sell you their cereal… not to improve anyone’s body image by actually promoting body positivity.

First up, a Google search for “Special K fight fat talk” is headed up by an ad for the Special K 2 week diet… you know, the one where you starve yourself on two bowls of cereal and a chicken breast per day.

Special K google search

So then you actually click on the site. It has numbers. Numbers. It says there are over 12.4 million “actual fat talk found online”… ummm, what? Instances of? Where is this number from? How was it curated? I just… I don’t… I can’t… ugh…

Special K website

And all that this site has about actually “fighting” fat talk is right there in front of you. That’s. It. Use our hashtag, eat our cereal, save the world, one sad lady at a time.

Because, you see, when you click on anything else– why they believe positivity matters, the Gains Project (Special K’s famous “What will you gain when you lose?” campaign that asks women to imagine how much better their lives will be if they just weren’t fat anymore…), the “My Special K Plans” link, the products, recipes, and articles. It’s all there to sell you cereal.

And like I said, I can’t really blame Special K for trying this tactic. It’s been working for Dove and body positivity is a hot topic right now… I just hope that women don’t buy into it.

Negative self talk is a problem for everyone, women and men, thin and fat. Fat, per se, is not the problem. Rather, it’s the notion that our identity hinges on something physical or superficial. That’s what we need to fight. And I don’t think we need Special K to help us.

#fightnegativeselftalk

#fightcorporatecomandeeringofbodyimage

#youareperfectexactlyasyouare

#manshouldnotliveoncerealalone

#fatisnotadirtyword

My Smile, My Choice

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I’ve been working on this post for kind of a while, but have been struggling at keeping it from turning into an angry rant. You see, I recently pinned a little saying on Pinterest that I think is so important and I have embraced it as something of a blog motto– a blotto.

Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
{The Art of Simple}

Buuuuutttt… I kind of want to talk about something that SUPER bugs me. So what’s a girl to do? Flip it, that’s what!  I did it when I talked about the 23 things a while back. And I’m going to do it again here. Get ready for this masterpiece!

—

When I smile, my whole entire face kind of goes with it and it always has.  When I was in high school, a friend once said, “Can you even see when you smile?”  The answer: not always.  My eyes get tiny when my cheeks go up, I can’t help it.

Smiling Eyes
Eyes… So… Tiny…

On me, not smiling when I’m happy just doesn’t look natural (seriously, I have wedding pictures to prove it).

stankowski_wedd397
Not smiling on my wedding day? Practically impossible.

But smiling when I’m not happy?  Don’t make me go there.

My smile is mine to give away when I please and I firmly believe that I am under no obligation to anyone to provide a smile on command.  If I’m not feeling it, I don’t have to do it.  And when people tell me to “smile” it annoys the pants off of me.

Don’t tell me to do it– give me something worth smiling about!  Then we’ll talk.  Or maybe we won’t, maybe I’ll just beam at you and we’ll call it good.

Either way, I think that the smile command has roots in the good girl, the pretty girl, the happy, compliant, silent girl.  And all of that is probably the reason for my general disdain.

A while ago, one of my coworkers was patted on the head and asked to be good (not literally, of course, but that was definitely the point) because of my “bad” behavior in the past .  I can’t help but think that if I had I been a man and behaved the way I did or had my coworker been a man attending the meeting after me, the message would have been very different… or perhaps not been conveyed at all.  She didn’t need to be told to be good or that I had acted badly. Instead, my actions should have been viewed as a product of an unfortunate situation– one that, if not repeated, would give no reason for anyone else to behave similarly.

Again: change the situation if you want a different outcome, don’t just offer up a meaningless command.

Asking our girls to smile for us is, in my mind, akin to asking my coworker to be a good girl as an adult.  That’s not really ok.  Because why would you ever want someone to be disingenuous?

Little girls need to know that it’s ok to express their feelings, even if not verbally, then at least on their own dang face. If we note a frown, perhaps we should be asking why. From there, perhaps we could work together on a solution, or maybe just offer a little bit of support.* But what good does telling someone to smile do except to suggest that whatever has caused them not to smile is somehow invalid?

So I guess what I’m promoting (because I’m promoting, not bashing, remember?) is this: the right of women everywhere to express their emotions on their face. If they’re happy, smiles are welcome! If they’re not, no one has any right to expect it, let alone ask for it. So who cares if you have “b****y resting face” as the kids are calling it these days– your face is your face, and I’m sure it’s lovely regardless.

And as Roald Dahl says: If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

Perhaps we need more good thoughts of which to think!

 

*Or you could try a really awesome joke. Here’s one of my favorites, my sister (the blood-related one, Sister Engineer) made this one up all by herself:

What did the robot say when I asked it to clean my room?

I don’t know, what?

No.

Good one, Ab. Pure gold 😉

Or if that doesn’t work– consider a little song, like this one my little brother made up (to the tune of You Are My Sunshine):

You are my dinosaur, my only dinosaur

You make me happy when skies are PURPLE

You’ll never know, dinosaur, how much I love you, dinosaur

So please don’t take my dinosaur away!

They both make me smile, anyway! (Literally smiling right now! And with good reason!)

When snowflakes fall…

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A rough couple of days around these parts.  My sweet puppy girl had surgery on her knee again today (her first knee surgery was back in October) and we’re in for another 4 weeks of recovery.  She’s a very high energy, snow loving puppy… so keeping her calm for four more weeks with snow on the ground is going to be a huge challenge.  And my heart breaks for the pain I know she’s going to have to endure all over again. I just feel so bummed out for her.

Snowy Pup

But while I was out shoveling four fresh inches of snow off our driveway, Frank Sinatra’s I Wish You Love kept running through my head:

I wish you shelter from the storm, a cozy fire to keep you warm,

But, most of all, when snowflakes fall, I wish you love.

My Curly girl is going to be bummed about all the snow and her inability to run, frolic, and burrow in it like she loves to do, but she will have all the love in the world, that’s for sure! Hopefully some snuggling, a sedative or two (this time around, we’re getting smart about this!), and a couple weeks of R&R will have Curly all fixed up.  And I suppose we can take her out for a snowy little snack every once in a while– the world is Curly’s snow cone!

Snowflakes

Thanksgiving 2013

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Every Thanksgiving, my Aunt Susan writes a letter about the things she’s grateful for and sends it far and wide to family and friends.  It’s amazing every year, but this year it was really something special, and I think it captures both the tragedy and the beauty of a really important moment in the entire history of this family to which I am lucky enough to belong. Such an important moment that I asked if I could share it with all of you, and she agreed.

Thanksgiving 2013

Here’s the setup to my widest, highest, deepest gratitude this year: Dad falls into the Venice canal, nearly drowns, lands helplessly in a hospital where he and my mom cannot understand the language or culture. Despite the dire, frightening adventure the ensued, a crazy up and down, live maybe-die maybe, topsy-turvy mess of decision making, as easy to navigate as the streets and squares of Venice, itself, I find myself at Thanksgiving swimming in a pool of residual nightmare, grace, and gratitude. Gratitude?!? Yes, absolutely, gratitude!

In this morass of emotion, I know I am so fortunate to be working for Howard who didn’t question my assertion that I needed to hop on a plane and be gone for an ambiguous amount of time. And fortunate to be married to and loved by Ed who didn’t question any of my insane requests, like paying my parents’ bills from his own accounts, or my more reasonable needs for him to speak softly and calmly to me across the distance any time of day or night when I panicked about my own limitations. I’m fortunate to have family and friends who understand the power of a random, personal message of encouragement sent just to me in the midst of the crazy story. And fortunate that my mom is wise, capable, open, loving, and determined.

But listen, the truth is I am most fortunate that I got the opportunity to witness something profound.

I have always known that my mom and dad’s love for one another is fierce and just between them, all their own, impenetrable by us kids, unfathomable enough, really, that I gave up thinking about it in the pursuit of my own grown up life, no doubt as it should be… but in this Venice thing, I was given a ringside seat to examine it all. It’s a rare thing to be given the opportunity to stop the manic spin of life to contemplate the very essence of that which makes it worth living. So rare, in fact, that most of use never get the chance – and so I wish to share this picture with you. 

Imagine a scene of a stark white room, gleaming floors, and tubes and machines hooked up to my dad who the doctors say do not have the odds on his side. It’s my mother’s job to bring him home alive or in a box. These are the only two actors in the story, because all the rest of the players are living different lives which will not be so much altered by the outcome. Sure there’s help, and people who wish for the best outcome, but the job really belongs to Mom and Dad. Luckily, these two have one powerful thing that tipped the balance: Love.

What love looked like from my ringside seat, was a zillion small and unrelated things – love is showing up – is insisting to the doctors who cannot understand you that you will be standing by that bedside longer than the hour they wish to grant you. Love is knowing that even if you don’t feel like it, it’s important to look nice, to put on the lipstick and dress with care and add the touch of jewelry, “because John notices things like that and it matter to him.” Love is being prepared to let him go, if that’s his path, but to stand and hold his hand and will him to stay bound to the earth even if he doesn’t feel like it. Love is doing these things even when he doesn’t appear to know that you are there. Love is weighing out if it’s more important to show up with a fever and hide a ferocious cough, or to stay in the hotel and hope like hell you’ll get better soon – and then deciding your presence is the most important thing and that his need is greater than yours; that being there is more consequential than any germs you are bringing with you. Love is acting well beyond your comfort zone on his behalf and insisting, even when you’d like to curl up in a ball and wait for sanity to return to the planet you inhabit. It’s as simple as gelato and as complex as the emotional landscape of a 47 year marriage.

I stood with my parents for hours watching them communicate with their eyes. Even when they finally could use words, the real flow was eye to eye, heart to heart, tear to tear, touch to touch. They know each other. They trust each other. They understand that when one needs, the other will deliver. They know what it is to love and to be loved.

So on this Thanksgiving, for me, it’s quite simply this: I am filled with gratitude for the gift of witnessing my mother pull my dad back from the razor thin edge between life and death with love. The gift of the invitation to think of all the complicated and simple ways that love exists in the world I live in and just how much that matters.

Take a moment. Look around your Thanksgiving table and pay attention to the familiar visible and invisible proof that you are loved. That you belong. That every single action you take matters to someone. Give and accept love like life depends on it. And know that I send you an abundance of mine.

With an overfull heart,

Susan

I cry every single time I re-read these words.  I cannot even describe the way my heart felt this spring– when I heard the news that my grandpa had fallen into a canal, that he was in an Italian hospital, that he was in the ICU in an Italian hospital, that my grandma was alone in Italy while my grandpa lay unconscious in the ICU in an Italian hospital, unable to even breath on his own.  My heart was simply broken.  And my family was in crisis.  But my Aunt Susan, my amazing Aunt Susan, got on a plane, went to Italy, and was there.  She was support, she was a lifeline, she was a witness to something really amazing.

Her message serves to remind me of where I come from– I come from love, a big family bursting at the seams with love, founded on love, and constantly giving of love.  My grandfather’s ordeal is proof positive that love is truly the most powerful thing on this earth– more powerful than disease, more powerful than distance, more powerful than accident or injury.  Love never fails.

And for that, for this family, for this boundless, unending, powerful and beautiful love, I am eternally grateful.

Wishing you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving filled with love.

And maybe a slice or two of pie and some leftover turkey for sandwiches on Friday… because it is Thanksgiving, after all.

Stew. For breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Seriously, , ,

I had an AFGO the other day.  (Another eFfing Growth Opportunity, for those of you unfamiliar with my genius dad’s brilliant catch-phrase.)  And I have been stewing over it ever since.  And not just stewing… I’ve also ruminated on it, mulled it over, worked myself into a frenzy, wrote and deleted angry emails about it, and given it major lip service.

(I tend to have a very hard time just letting things go… like you don’t!)

Was all of that stewing, etc, worth my while?  Probably not.  And I need to get over it.  So I’m going to blog about.  Because that’s what I do.

It boils down to an issue of respect, and ultimately, sexism, I believe.

I offered up a genuine concern to a colleague.  I was told I was wrong.

Fine.  Difference of opinion.  That happens and it’s ok.

(No, Michele, I am not talking about you. You can relax now.)

But then I received a phone call about the issue.  A phone called that started with laughter (laughter!!) over my concern.  My legitimate and professionally raised concern.

And it was then that my blood boiled.  BOILED.

Don’t worry, I spoke up.  I said that the laughter was inappropriate, belittling, and disrespectful.  I was quickly taken off speaker phone.  (In-ter-es-an-te…)  Many patronizing efforts were made to placate me, but I was already done.  Checked out.

I had already been accused of “throwing a temper tantrum” by this person once.  And I play by NIH softball rules–  you start with one strike.  (For those keeping score at home, that makes three.  OUT!)

I was invited to sit at the metaphorical table and I stood my ground while I was there.  Unfortunately, I was not respected for doing so and, having witnessed civil discourse related to several disagreements with other male colleagues, I have every reason to believe that the lack of respect stems from the fact that I am a woman.  Hence the boiling, roiling blood.

Sexism in the twenty-fourth and a half cent-ur-y!!!

I started college in 2001, grad school in 2005, and entered the professional work force in 2011.  You would think that after year 2000, sexism on campus and in the work place would be a thing of the past.

Ha!

I have experienced blatant and disturbing sexism in all three places.

In college, a professor told me that he didn’t know what I was getting so worked up about since I was only there for my M-R-S. (B-S, P-H-D in your face! Then the Mrs… thanks, MTU.)

In graduate school, I was told that I was doing female scientists a disservice by leaving the traditional academic structure.  (Still female… still engaged in biomedical research… still working toward the improvement of human health on a daily basis… but whatevs.)

And now, with over two years of professional experience and a track record of success under my belt, there are still certain members of the “old boy’s club” that take it upon themselves to remind me that I am somehow less.

Disagree.

With the exception of awkward conversations in the bathroom (because I’m the most awkward small-talk-maker ever), I think before I speak and rarely raise concerns unless I find them legitimately worthy of consideration.  I can understand why people might have been wary of me (fresh out of school and all that) at first, but I am good at my job and I have demonstrated that.  So I deserve to be treated as such.

(But then again, even if someone is new and fresh out of school with no proven track record, they are still a human being (even if it’s a lady!) and therefore deserve to be treated with a basic level of respect.)

I’m always going to have to work with some jerks, that’s a given.  And some of them are going to be men, also a given.

And so, I will continue to react like Jeffrey Tambor as Ed Singer in Muppets from Space:

DON’T… LAUGH… AT… MEEEE! (Start watching at about 0:46, or just recall the hilarity from your own mind.)

Perhaps you think I’m being overly sensitive, or that I’m some sort of “psycho” feminist, espousing the, as the bumper sticker says, radical notion that women are people too.  And that’s ok.  Might as well embrace it.

As my husband heard on Modern Family, and is now fond of saying to me, “harness that crazy into something positive.”

So my positive? Cathartic blog rant! Funny Muppet clip!  And another AFGO in my arsenal!

 

PS: Yes, “another AFGO” is, in fact, redundant.  Don’t care.

Mind, Body, Prison

Long-Winded Metaphors, Seriously, , , ,

First order of business– THANKS a million for all of your help on deciphering the 100% illegible inscription from Adam Bucko!  I’m pretty sure it’s “may you be the change,” but “may you be in charge” could also be right… and that little word after be seems to look a little more like in than the.  So, after pondering, I’m going to read the book, see if “in charge” makes sense, and then decide if that’s it or if he was quoting Mother Teresa.  Either way– thanks so much, friends!!  You’re awesome and someone’s about to get a book!!

Anyway, on to our regularly scheduled program.  Prison time!

———–

I read a really interesting article from CommonHealth the other day entitled “I’m Finally Thin – But Is Living In a Crazymaking Food Prison Really Worth It?” by Rachel Zimmerman.  It was a really good read and I loved her prison analogy.  Loved it!  So much so that I wanted to extend it to the other side, too.  Because it’s not just thin women that end up in that crazymaking prison… I think all women can.  And it’s not difficult to get locked up.  At least not in my experience.

So, let me tell you about life… on the inside.  (Do I sound hard?  Like prison hard?  That’s what I’m going for.)

Mind, Body, Prison.

When I’m trying to lose weight or maintain a lower-than-usual weight, those are times when I’m working toward parole and I’m so busy kissing the warden’s behind that I can’t do anything else.  My stomach growls and I spend hours in the gym, but it’s never good enough.  So much time is spent obsessing about food, and not eating it.

When I’ve gained weight and feel too fat, those are the times when I feel hopeless and certain that I’m in for life.  I’ll make a shank out of just about anything (cookies! candy! cake!) and I’m quick to use it at even the slightest provocation.  (Nom nom nom…)  Again, I’m obsessing about food, but the feelings are of finding more and then feeling guilty for consuming it.

My body is covered in prison scars and homespun tattoos– stretch marks from rapid weight gain and loss and persistent injuries as a result of over-exercise.

They say that people can become permanently institutionalized… unable to function appropriately in the real world.  And I fear that I share that fate.  I hope for rehabilitation, a chance to live happily on healthily on the outside.  But what does that take and how do I get there?

My institutionalized mind has two alternative answers for me.

The goody two-shoes hopeful parolee says that loss of a few pounds (or many…) will impress the parole board– a smaller pants size, careful control of caloric intake and demonstration that I am willing to eat nothing but leafy greens and crunchy carrots.

The prison yard gangsta says to forget about it because I’ll just end up back here anyway, searching the yard for another sugary, salty treat to turn into a weapon… and let’s get another tattoo while we’re at it.

So then what’s the real answer?  How do we reform the mind-body prison system?

I don’t know.  And at the moment, I’m the tough guy looking for a fight, about to start a dang riot.  And that’s a problem because people who just want to fight (read: eat) are rarely capable of looking for diplomatic solutions in the heat of the moment.  And, to be perfectly honest, the piece of me that hopes for an answer is really just looking for a way back in front of the parole board– in smaller pants.

I have pretty intense physiological and emotional cravings for, as the book says, Salt! Sugar! Fat!  (Really, good read, I highly recommend it.)  But I’m simultaneously dealing with a neurological and sociological obsession with thinness and unrealistic, mainstream beauty ideals.  But above all, the thing that my heart desires is comfort and to be out of prison, once and for all.

Orange really isn’t my color.  Even metaphorically.

 

 

Oh man, nerd alert.  I was re-reading this post and was concerned that I had used the word shank wrong because suddenly shiv was popping into my head instead.  So I googled it.  Don’t worry.  They’re both names for sharp, handmade prison weapons.  Whew.  I wouldn’t want to incorrectly label a handmade prison weapon.  Oh TV, thank you for giving me so much prison knowledge!

The Ugly Meet-ling

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I had to go to a meeting today.  It was a long meeting.  And it was an ugly meeting.

I already knew a lot of the people who were there individually.  I like a lot of those people individually.

But collectively?

Nope.

I had hoped for respectful dialogue and constructive criticism.  But it was more like this:

Angry Meeting

Angry.

Angry.  Angry.  Angry.

(That’s me in the pink, by the way… everyone in our office wore pink today to support breast cancer awareness and it was our pink challenge day, so I was SUPER pink.  Pink dress, pink tights, pink nails, pink jewelry, pink scarf (hand-dyed by my aNut!), and even pink bobby pins!  So yes, I really did stand out pretty much just like that… except that I wasn’t the only one with hair.  I just didn’t feel like drawing it on everyone else.)

There was nit-picking, items were mocked.  Mocked!  I wanted to shrink out of the room.

But shrinking wasn’t an option.  (If it were, I wouldn’t still be wearing a size 11 shoe.)  So I had to make a choice: keep silent, implying tacit agreement with the tone in the room, or sit at the table, lean in, and speak my mind.

I spoke my mind.  And by speaking my mind, I did NOT make any new friends.  But I couldn’t stand what I was hearing.

So I shared a little bit of love.

Angry Meeting Solution

I’d love to tell you that I won over the room.  That I lulled the angry masses into a calm and respectful group.  That sitting at the table and leaning in worked.

But it didn’t.  I was readily dismissed.  And I suppose sometimes it’s like that.  You can’t win them all, no matter how hard you try.  But at least my conscience is clear and I can rest well tonight knowing that I went to bat for what I thought was right.

Worth it.

My dad has a lovely little term for just such situations.  This is precisely what he calls an AFGO: Another eFfing Growth Opportunity.  Genius.  I recommend adding the word AFGO to your vocabulary, effective immediately.  I think you’ll find that life is full of opportunities to use it, and AFGOs really don’t seem quite so bad when you think of them that way.  After all, personal growth is a good thing.

Except when you have to buy new pants 😉

 

PS: I really wanted to use The Ugly Duckling as the title somehow, but I just couldn’t work ducks (or swans) in… so I had to settle for “meet-ling.”  Dang.  Better luck next title!

Gratitude for a Gentle Reminder

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While it is true that people in the Midwest tend to be exceptionally friendly, it’s also true that they are quite reserved and that it can be hard to build a relationship with people you only interact with peripherally.  As such, it’s taken me quite a long time to get to know the people I work near, but not directly with.  But two-and-a-half years later, I’m finally on friendly terms with lots of the people at the clinic and it is good.

After several friendly chats in the bathroom and hallway, I’ve found a lovely friend in one of the well-established and brilliant research scientists in the National Farm Medicine Center named Barbara.  Barbara loves to walk (seriously, like 8 miles a day), but recently fractured her foot and is slowly working toward recovery.  Likewise, I loved to run, but had tummy troubles that pretty much put a halt to that in recent months.  We really bonded over that… our shared loss of beloved physical activities.  (And yes, I did tell her all the gory details of my intestinal troubles— this is a good example of that overly quick intimacy I talked about yesterday.  Barbara is someone I really like!)

Hmmm… I like where this is going, but I’m going to have to back up just a touch to give you some context.  Get ready… I am about to spill my guts.

…

I am a binge eater.  I have a binge eating disorder.

You’re probably thinking, right, I know– I was pretty sure you said you were a woman.  But no, not just over-eating, not just an inability to resist something delicious.  We are talking about a truly life disrupting disorder of ongoing and epic proportions.  It’s not a pretty thing and something I have taken great pains to hide for most of my life.  (Literally, most of my life… like since I was 8 or 9.  This is a kind of big deal to me.)

One of the biggest triggers of my binge eating is, paradoxically, restriction.  And when I spend a lot of time restricting what I eat, either in the amount of food or the type of food, I tend to make a wild swing the other way and binge, binge, binge.  Sometimes for a day… sometimes for a month.

My second biggest trigger is, kind of pathetically, self-pity.  And sometimes I really spiral out of control when it comes to feeling sorry for myself.  Boo hoo, poor me, life is rough, and all that.

Unfortunately, all of my gastrointestinal issues and the lengthy process toward diagnosis has led to something of a perfect storm with respect to binge eating.

Following a series of rather unpleasant tests (see that poor me thing?  clearly I have a flair for the over-dramatic), I was diagnosed with EXTREME (!) lactose intolerance.  (Literally, the diagnosing doc used capital letters and exclamation points in my chart, Dr. Roy showed me… I’ve always been good at taking tests.  I blew this one out of the water!)  I’ve always known that milk and ice cream were off limits without lots of lactaid, but nothing wrong with a sprinkle of cheese, a pat of butter, a cup of yogurt, right?  Wrong.  In fact, even my allergy medication contained lactose!  What the what?!  (Yeah, I’m definitely the one that taught that age-inappropriate phrase to Emily… sorry!)

So, for an entire 1.5 weeks I was crazy careful about lactose– either none whatsoever or precautionary lactaid anytime there was so much of a chance.  And my stomach was awesome.  AWESOME!  For the first time in MONTHS.  I went for a couple of runs, my stomach felt great, no emergency trips to the bathroom, no awkwardness.

BUT– I felt super sorry for myself.  And I felt like I was being super restrictive.

So.  I came back from Mexico and went completely off the rails.  The result has not been pretty.  Lactose is definitely the culprit.

…

So, back to the story at hand.

I spent the better part of today binging.  On lactose-containing things, naturally.  Because that’s just how I roll.  My stomach hurt, my confidence in my ability to get past this binge was waning, and I was ready to head home and continue the vicious cycle with more food and more self-pity.  But, on my way out the door, I bumped in to no other than Barbara and we walked to the parking lot together– chit chatting the whole way.

Barbara was so thrilled that I had a diagnosis and that a simple avoidance of lactose was enough to allow me to run again.  She reminded me that running is something I love to do.  And she pointed out the gorgeousness of the season and the perfectness of the temperature for running.  And she was so right.

So.  Right.

So instead of going home and sitting on the couch with a big bowl of lactose-laced anything, I came home, laced up my running shoes, and headed out to pound the pavement for 20 minutes.

It was a brief run, but it was a good start.  The temperature was in the upper 40s and perfect and the skies were a bubbly, cloudy gray.  I ran past bright red leaves and a sweet puppy that wanted to play.  I ran past pumpkins on porches and jammed to Seth’s Road Trip Mix.

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Yep, I do love running.

Thank goodness for Barbara and her gentle reminder.  For her kind words and genuine interest in my life.  She gave me exactly what I need today in such a subtle way.  And for that, I am incredibly grateful.

 

PS: I make jokes… even about serious things.  It’s just what I do.  But binge eating disorder and any other eating disorder is a serious thing and professional help is required.  Don’t worry, I’m getting some.  And if you ever feel like you might need help, you should absolutely reach out.  For realsies.

15 Things Mindy Kaling Should Probably Know About Me

Awesome Things, Seriously, , , , ,

Subtitle: Why We Would Probably Be Besties if We Lived Closer and/or I Were More Famous

When I read the book Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg I was struck repeatedly with how important the words were in a professional sense.  I had more moments than I count of YES—how does she know what’s in my head?!  And yet, I don’t think Sandberg would love me in any kind of personal way.  I’m not really her type.

But Mindy Kaling?  I am definitely her type.

As I read Mindy’s book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) I felt over and over again a similar YES feeling, but this time, it was about the things that I feel in my gut.   And that was cool.  (No, not the physiological things I feel in my gut.  Sicko.) 

Even though Mindy Kaling is a petite Indian woman (who considers herself “chubby”—what?!) and I am a tall, un-petite, white girl with an extraordinarily square jaw, I think we would get along incredibly well.  And here are 15 reasons why.

1.  Because I get what it’s like to be bullied.  Especially because of your weight.  And especially when you think you’re doing it right. 

Take for example the LHS Homecoming dance my freshman year.  I was dressed to the threes (in retrospect, it only felt like the nines) in a forest green, high collared, shapeless dress and I had painstakingly “straightened” my hair.  (Yeah, my hair doesn’t really do straight…)  I had been nursing a crush on a track star for quite a while and was thrilled when he asked me to dance!

Sadly, the highest highs are often followed by the lowest lows and the phone calls started coming in the next day.  Several fat jokes to mutual friends later, word reached me.  But then he apologized (by note, because notes were all the rage in the late 90s…) and somehow became the hero.  A-hole.

I could go on, but it’s all kind of the same and you get the idea.  You know who else gets the idea?  Mindy.

Mindy related similar stories in her book.  She said, “How I continually found myself in situations where I felt I had to say thank you to mean guys, I’m not sure… bullies have no code of conduct.”

Truer words have never been spoken, future friend.

But more importantly, she also said, “Being called fat is not like being called stupid or unfunny, which is the worst thing you could ever say to me.”

Do you hear that US Customs Agent in Houston?!  By failing to laugh at a single one of my jokes (e.g., “What are you bringing back with you?” “Just a little bit of sun burn!”) you did call me unfunny, and that was not cool.

2.  Because I sweat.  A lot.  So other people that sweat a lot are not gross to me—they are kindred sweat spirits.

Pretty people always terrify me.  Mostly because I’m sure they are going to hate me.  But pretty people who sweat?!  We will get along just fine.  I have bonded with plenty of girls over pit stains or comparing notes on antiperspirants.

Sweat.  The great equalizer.

I know Mindy gets this, and I know she would want to be my friend, because she said, “How can you not make a best friend out of a girl who has seen the sweat-soaked pelvis area of your gym pants, daily, and who still chooses to spend time with you?”  Right, Stephanie?!

3.  Because high school was absolutely not the highlight of my life.  And it just keeps getting better.

Throughout her book, Mindy dispenses very little advice, but she does say this: “Teenage girls, please don’t worry about being super popular in high school, or being the best actress in high school, or the best athlete.  Not only do people not care about any of that the second you graduate, but when you get older, if you reference your successes in high school too much, it actually make you look kind of pitiful.”  Word.

In high school, I was an academic nerd, a band geek, an art weirdo, and the worst girl on the team (yes, every team).  But I was all in… and that’s the important thing to remember.  (Did you catch the New Girl reference?  Kayla?)

I do allow myself one bragging point from high school, though.  I was good at dissecting things.  Jealous?

4. Because when it comes to friendship, I value quality over quantity.

And so does Mindy.

“One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about.  We never needed best friend gear because I guess with real friends you don’t have to make it official.  It just is.”

Every friend I’ve ever had to try really hard for hasn’t been real.  The friends that just were… they just were.

Mindy is clearly going to be the exception.  This post is taking a considerable amount of work…

Also, Melissa and I totally just got best friend gear, so… perhaps I’m a big old hypocrite, but that’s ok.

5.  Because I can relate Harry Potter to pretty much anything.

Look at this paragraph:

“We clung to each other with blind loyalty, like Lord Voldemort and his snake Nagini.  I, of course, was Nagini. If you messed with one of us, you knew you messed with both of us, and Voldemort was going to cast a murder spell on you, or Nagini was going to chomp on your jugular.  It was such a good, dramatic time.”

Yeah, I get that relationship.  Excellent reference.

How better to make a point than with a Harry Potter reference?!  Did you read my post yesterday?  Harry Potter is where it’s at!

6.  Because I do not believe that being from the east coast legitimizes a-hole-ish-ness.

In my opinion, and please feel free to hate me for saying so, it’s true that people on the east coast are less friendly than those living elsewhere in the country.  (Granted, I’ve never been to Georgia, Alabama, or Arkansas… maybe people there are jerks?  I doubt it.  How can you be a jerk when you drink nothing but sweet tea all day?)  But how seriously obnoxious is it when people use that as an excuse for being a jerk to you?  Right, seriously obnoxious.

Mindy’s description?  “You know those people who legitimize their sarcastic, negative personalities by saying proudly they are ‘lifelong New Yorkers’?  She was one of those.”  This is my new favorite phrase.

7.  Because if I could eat anything I wanted, it would be 100% kid-friendly garbage.

I try really hard (no, really!) to eat as healthy as possible as much of the time as possible.  I enjoy eating things fresh out of the garden (and by “the garden” I mean other people’s gardens) and I like cooking from scratch.  But let’s be honest: if I could eat anything without consequence, it would be crap.  100% reeee-fiiiiined crap.  And it would be delicious.  I hate pretending all the time like, “Ewww Oreos…” and “Fruit Roll-Ups are soooo unnatural….”  Whatevs, give me a bag of Oreos and a box of Fruit Roll-Ups and I’ll have them polished off in 15 minutes.  Seriously.  Mindy agrees: “Kid-friendly food is the best, because kid-friendly simply means ‘total garbage.'”

Delicious, kid-friendly garbage.

8.  Because if I like you, I love you and I will get intimate real quick.  If you do not reciprocate, I will assume you hate me.

When I was younger, I hated it when people called me “Rach.”  Now, I love it!  LOVE IT!  But it can’t be forced, and I would never ask someone to call me that.  But when it organically makes it’s way out of a good friend’s mouth (Abby, Melissa, Ellen, Jess, I’m talking to you here!) it just feels so right!  (Was that the creepiest thing I’ve ever written?   Maybe.)

But seriously, when you’ve got that kind of natural intimacy with a friend right away, it’s going to be awesome.

I was totally comfortable asking Melissa to teach me how to cut up an avocado the first time I ever met her.

I made pancakes in Jess’s kitchen when she wasn’t even there the day after I met her.  And then emailed her to ask her about school supplies… for grad school.  (See?  NERD.)

Like me, Minday says, “I respond very well to people being overly familiar with me a little too soon.  It shows effort and kindness.  I try to do this all the time.  It makes me feel part of a big, familial, Olive Garden-y community.”

This post is overly familiar, Mindy is going to love it.  (Or get a restraining order.  Can you get one of those for the internet?  I hope not… it would be a bummer if I couldn’t follow her on Twitter anymore.)

9.  Because I’m ok with weird, non-mainstream kinds of things so long as they don’t hurt anybody.

Reiki?  Tried it.  Loved it.  Would totally do it again.

Acupuncture?  Tried it.  Hated it.  But I totally get why some people swear by it and that’s cool with me.

Mindy once worked for a tv psychic and I loved what she had to say about him: “If I had to testify under oath, I would admit, no, I don’t believe Mac Teegarden in psychic…  I am certain, though, that Mac Teegarden provided an enormous amount of comfort to people who had unexpectedly lost loved ones.  I don’t know if it was psychic, but it was cathartic, and therapeutic, and it helped people.”

An important point I feel I need to make here is this: I believe in ghosts.  100%.  And Ghost Hunters (NOT the International version– very important distinction here) is one of my favorite shows ever.

10.  Because I LOVE romantic comedies.  LOVE THEM…

Rom-com is definitely my favorite genre of movie.  Oh yes, I have taken a lot of crap for it and I spent some time being seriously ashamed (like after the night I made a big group of girls watch The Holiday and was made fun of mercilessly for it– I get it, Cameron Diaz is a terrible actress, but the Kate Winslet/Jack Black/older guy storyline just slays me and I can’t help it!).  In fact, the only thing that gets me through workouts on the elliptical (because running out of doors causes bathroom incidents, as we’ve discussed) are movies recorded off of Lifetime or the Hallmark channel.

Imagine my joy when I read this from dear Mindy: “I love romantic comedies.  I feel almost sheepish writing that, because the genre has been so degraded in the past twenty years or so that admitting you like these movies is essentially an admission of mild stupidity.  But that has not stopped me from watching them.”

Stupid or not, I love love!  And those movies make me feel happy!

11. … especially British romantic comedies…

Bridget Jones and Love Actually.  End of story.

Ok, not really end of story because Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Jane Eyre are also favorites of mine.  Granted, they are more British romances rather than romantic comedies.  But I have to believe that Mindy probably likes movie adaptations of Jane Austen too.

12. … and in British romantic comedies, Colin Firth is the best.  BEST!

Seriously, Mindy Kaling spent basically an entire paragraph on Colin Firth.  And that was when I knew knew that we would be best friends.

“All women love Colin Firth: Mr. Darcy, Mark Darcy, George VI – at this point he could play the Craigslist Killer and people would be like ‘Oh my God, the Craigslist Killer has the most boyish smile!’  I love Colin Firth in everything… But the role that makes me cry is Mark Darcy, from Bridget Jones’s Diary.”

OMG– I know!  “I like you very much.  Just as you are.”  I DIE at that line!  I just adore it so much!

But, Mindy, ponder this for a moment: the Colin Firth story line in Love Actually.  He learns Portugeuse for bonita Aurelia!  I think Jamie may just edge past Mark Darcy in terms of all time most romantic things ever.  EVER.  We should really get together to discuss.  Perhaps watch both movies back-to-back… just to be sure.

13. Because I hate “because you’re a woman questions” that wouldn’t even be questions if you were a man.

This is actually an important point that I think Sheryl Sandberg, Mindy Kaling, and I can all agree on.  We don’t ask male CEOs how they balance their home and work life, we assume that their wife is at home taking care of the kids along with whatever hired help they’ve got to work alongside them.  When a woman has a husband and hired help at home do the same thing, she is somehow neglectful and has mixed up priorities or whatever other insults get thrown around.

Similarly, Mindy laments being asked about women being funny:

“Why didn’t you talk about whether women are funny or not?”  I just felt that by commenting on that in any real way, it would be tacit approval of it as a legitimate debate, which it isn’t.  It would be the same as addressing the issue of “Should dogs and cats be able to care for our children?  They’re in the house anyway.”  I try not to make it a habit to seriously discuss nonsensical hot-button issues.”

I feel like she should maybe write that in a letter to Sheryl Sandberg so that Sheryl can pull it out of her pocket and read it word-for-word the next time a reporter asks her a dumb question like that.

Women are people, too, after all.  Some people are funny, some people are not.  Some people are good at business, some people are not.  I’m pretty sure in both situations “people” can be either women or men.

14. Because I get what it’s like to be a writer, and my productive-writing-to-screwing-around ratio is very, very low.

I had never really thought about this ratio before, but Mindy describes it well:

“I’ve found my productive-writing-to-screwing-around ratio to be one to seven.  So, for every eight hours day of writing, there is only one good productive hour of work being done.”

YES!

I write all day and then come home and write some more at night.  And I’d say that my ratio is probably about that at work.  (I try!  Seriously!  But things never seem to really come together except for in brief manic spurts!)  And blogging, well, some come easy and some, like this one, take DAYS.  Seriously, it’s disturbing how much time I’ve spent on this post.  This creepy, creepy post.  And yet my rapidly rising word count down below suggests that I’ve at least made some progress.

15. Because I hate arbitrary beauty standarsd, but sometimes I adhere to them and I reserve the right to choose which ones and to ferociously defend my right not to observe others.

Once upon a time, I refused to pluck my eyebrows and I was quite vocal about it– if a guy doesn’t like me because of my eyebrows then forget him!

These days, I have literally gone out to purchase new tweezers on a week long vacation because my eyebrows just couldn’t be trusted anymore.

Mindy talks about men waxing their chests and says, “… it just shows so much icky effort to conform to some arbitrary beauty standard.  And the standard in this instance is particularly inane.”

HA!  It’s true… even about my eyebrows.  But I do it anyway.  And men continue to wax their chests anyway.  (And thank goodness they do because seriously, that made for true comedic gold in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.)

So, I guess this post is actually kind of a book review.

Surprise!

I didn’t actually intend to write a book review, but as I approach the end, it seems that that’s exactly what I’ve done.  Mindy Kaling is F-U-N-N-Y funny.  And interesting.  And I feel like we have kind of similar writing styles, so obviously I found that charming.  And if you’ve been reading along with me here for a while, you might just find her charming too.

There are lots of comparisons out there to Tina Fey’s book Bossypants, which is also an excellent read, but they are both autobiographical and this may come as a surprise to you, but Tina Fey and Mindy Kaling are not, in fact, the same person, so naturally, the stories they tell are 100% different and 100% excellent.  I would highly recommend them both.

AND, since your DVR has an open slot now that 30 Rock is over, you may want to consider filling it up with The Mindy Project.

So, in conclusion, I think Mindy Kaling and I could be good friends.  Fingers crossed she reads this and we can plan a romantic-comedy-watching-junk-food-eating sleepover sometime soon.  (Or that she just doesn’t file for that restraining order… I’m good either way.)

 

The day I forgot my light.

Seriously, , , ,

I forgot my light today.  Literally and metaphorically.

Literally:  I deal with persistent depression and as the days get rapidly shorter, my symptoms tend to worsen as a result of seasonal affective disorder (SAD– such an appropriate name).  As we head toward fall and the weather cools, the days quickly get shorter here in central Wisconsin.  And with every early nightfall, I can feel myself becoming more and more down.  Down in the dumps.

(Whew… I wrote that.  Depression.  I told you.  Sigh of relief.)

Last year, the brilliant nurse prescriber that I see to manage my symptoms (seriously love her– and I don’t mind paying for friends, whether they teach me pilates or prescribe me drugs) suggested that I get a light box to bring some sunshine into my life from October through April.  (Mexico helps too, but insurance doesn’t seem to get it.)  It makes a surprising difference!  Surprisingly gradual, yes… but that seems to be the nature of all things depression.

I intended to bring my light box to work with me this morning.  But I forgot.  Which presents issues for my metaphorical loss of light…

Metaphorically:  The down-in-the-dumps feeling pretty much feels just like that to me… like I came to work without my light.  My inner light (cheesy, I know)– the glow that fuels my smile and my general drive to a be a friendly, positive person; the person you want to read blog posts from.  That light… it’s dim.  Instead I want to sleep.  I want to hide.  I want to crawl back into my hole and shut out the world.

Depression is a silly thing like that.  (And don’t get upset– I know depression is not in fact silly, it is a serious issue, perhaps what I mean is more some combination of silly, weird, strange, abstract, I-don’t-know-what…)  I think it’s probably different to everyone who experiences it and for me, it’s totally a dampening of the light– never as quick as an an on/off switch or burnt out bulb.  More like a slow dimmer, the changing of the seasons and creep toward winter, the gradual graying of the bright orange charcoals in a fire pit.  So subtle that I have a hard time noticing at first… and it feels like all of the sudden, the tears come easy and the motivation to do even the things I love seems to have disappeared.

I love to read, but I don’t feel like picking out a new book.

My stomach is finally ready to run, but it seems like a lot of work to change my clothes and lace up my shoes. (But seriously, putting on a sports bra takes an annoying amount of work, don’t you think?)

There’s a new Parks and Rec on the DVR, but I’m afraid that I  won’t be able to laugh.

I have a Mexican vacation coming up in a week, but all I can think of are the stressors between then and now.  (Come on, brain!  Pina-freaking-coladas!!)

So many reasons to be happy (30 minutes of Leslie Knope on the DVR and 5 days of Melissa in Cabo!!), but my brain chemicals tell me NO.  And as much as I want the normalcy, the happy feelings, they allude me at the moment.

The light also keeps my second track in the shadows and lets me see past it, around it.  Without the light, the negative thoughts creep into my brain and around my heart and it takes so much work to remember that they are untrue.  The insidious black threads of negativity color my thoughts and my feelings… and even though they are superficial and meaningless, they are pervasive.

Too fat.  Too frizzy.  Too boring.  Not good enough.  Just give up.  Be sad.

But this time, I say NO.  Rationally, I know that I will get back to normal, I will be happy, and my light will be restored.  I just need to fan the flames by taking the steps I know help– bringing my light box to work, for example.

And this time, I’m also going to try sharing this with you.  Because it’s true that misery loves company, and as sad as I feel for other people who struggle with depression, I find it encouraging to know that I am not alone.

So maybe you struggle.  And maybe I can be the miserable company encouraging you.  Crazy encouraging.  Crazy.

 

Crazy I can do 😉