The Old Lady

I think I’m old. I mean, when did this happen? I look at photos of myself, and there are wrinkles next to my eyes. (I prefer “crinkles” because it sounds a little less permanent.) I can handle the “crinkles,” but my idea of fun has changed. Today is Friday and I’m excited for the weekend because it means I can watch movies and exercise. I used to get excited for parties and meeting guys, but not now. I have time to cook soup and maybe even bake some cookies. Really. It’s just LAME! And pathetic and sad.

I’m not so old that I think digital things are for “the kids.” I’m on Facebook. But, other than finding friends and giving friends a cyber cupcake, I’m not really sure what I am supposed to be doing with it, but I’m on it, which brings me to my point. I was bored so I started scrolling through some “friends” photos on the site. I have friends of all ages, and this one happens to be in her low 20s.

Before I go on, I have to repeat, “Ya’ll, I’m old.” I’m old and farty. Ten years ago I would have thought her photos were so cool, and they still are if I was flipping through an album while sipping a beer in her living room, but they are online. Where people at work can see them. Her pictures aren’t exactly raunchy or even too out there. She’s posing with her girlfriends at a bar, martinis lined up in front of them, cleavage hanging out. She’s almost kissing a girlfriend in another. Apparently, she either goes to a lot of costume parties or likes Halloween a lot because she has embraced the slutty costume whole-heartedly. Again, there in NOTHING wrong with her photos. It appears that she is having a blast with her friends, but my beef is that they are online for co-workers to see. Set the privacy settings higher, for god’s sake!!!

Why do people want to so much of their live their lives on-line? (Remember, this is coming from a blogger who writes about her life online.) Don’t they know that employers might be able to see things like their photos? Under likes, she has porn. Again, that’s fine, but do you want everyone to know you like porn, or is it just cool to like porn now?

I graduated college a few years before it was cool to like porn (unless you were a frat boy) or be a lesbian. I’m sure there were women watching porn and LUGs at my school, but it wasn’t main stream. When did all of this change? And more importantly, when did I become someone who looks at the generation behind mine and says, why do they think ______ is cool?

It’s true. I’m officially old.

Back to the Kitchen

Weight has never been an issue for me. The only time I’ve ever been significantly larger than I am now (and I’ve been this size give or take 10 pounds since high school) was one summer during college that I spent in Nantucket. We didn’t have a car so we biked or walked everywhere, which would lead one to believe I would be the thinnest I ever was. I wasn’t. I was fit and fairly lean, but I packed on the pounds. I ate Ben & Jerry’s every afternoon, and washed it down with beer in the evening. Upon arriving back at the apartment in a drunken haze at night, I would make myself toast from locally made bread slathered with jam and butter. It was fantastic. And by August, I was the largest I’ve ever been. The pictures don’t really show it, but the clothes I wore were all 3 sizes larger than the ones I wore at the beginning of the summer. And still, by American standards, I was average – even trim. For reference, size 12 Gap pants fit. Snugly.

I was, for me, huge and a size 12. The irony is that today, because of all of the additives, high fructose corn syrup and cheap fast food, this is average for America. I’d even venture to say on the small side. Two-thirds of America is over weight. Recently, I saw photos of the rural poor in the United States. The thing that most struck me was the roundness of people’s faces. The soft double-chin that the husband and wife shared. The plumpness of their child. These photos contrasted dramatically in my mind with the ones Dorthea Lange took in the 30s. Her subjects had thin chests. Gaunt faces.

As recently as the 1970s, poverty was marked by thinness. Bones jutting out. Pronounced chins. Belts tightening the waists of too-large pants. Poverty today is plump. It’s fat. It’s filled with corn and corn by-products that people unknowingly eat all day. The meat we eat is fed corn even though cows can’t digest corn unless it is altered for their systems. All of the soft drinks we drink are filled with corn syrup. Ketchup, cereal, crackers. It’s hard to find a pre-made food that doesn’t have a corn derivative in it. Xanthum gum? Made from corn. And all of this corn and food processing are making people fat. It’s cheap now, but at what cost later?

I read books and articles on this plight, and no one has a solution that seems like it will work. The problem is that we are all used to the ease with which we obtain a completed meal. Changing our diets as a country means changing the way we live.

Recently, I decided that I needed to cook dinner every night except Friday and Saturday when we tend to go out. It is hard. I am exhausted from work, and usually just want to watch television with a bowl of cereal. The other night, I arrived home with a menu in mind. I turned on some music and started cooking. Twenty minutes later, when the tacos hit the table, I was relaxed, happy and hungry. My husband and I happily ate the healthy version of Mexican. We talked. We connected. I felt nourished.

Something to Ponder

I'm really starting to wonder what gene is missing in me that I don't HAVE to have diamonds and bridesmaid colors and all of that girly stuff.