I'm starting to feel older. Already when people ask me how old I am I tell them "26", even though that milestone is still two months away. Perhaps it's living alone, perhaps it's the serious conversations with my bosses about how to turn my job into my career, perhaps it's all the research about retirement funds I've been doing, perhaps it's having an immediate family member not immediately available to me, and perhaps it's the seriousness and marvelousness of my relationship with The Boy beginning to make sense in my brain.
I feel like I've matured rather significantly over the last six months or so, and I think it's because for the first time I'm actually taking my future seriously. When I graduated from NCC I had all the hope in the world (and none of the ambition) that things would fall into place. I was young, I had time. I've since seen that success takes work, and that I'm finally not-as-content enough to begin to put in that work. There have been a lot of late nights spent pondering what my values are, what I want for myself, and readjusting the image I've had for my life that has always been in the back of my mind.
It was, perhaps, growing up with my primary caretaker being my mom that led me to believe that I, too, would be an independent lady who had my own house and my own car(s) and my own life. My mom owns a toolbox and she knows how to wield the objects therein. She would go to work in the mornings, cook us dinner at night, drive us to gymnastics and piano lessons, and read stories to us before bed. She would go line dancing with friends sometimes. Whenever something broke in the house she'd either fix it herself or knew exactly who to call. My mom always had a plan and an answer for everything; at least it seemed to be so when I was a kid. My mom did whatever was best for herself and for us. This is the model of grownup life that I have fashioned in my mind.
It was also, perhaps, being exposed to the "Girl Power!" movement and the slow scraping away of the veneer of social expectations that made me feel obligated to be a strong, independent lady. The glass ceiling still exists, wage disparities are still significant, social expectations are still wildly privileged toward men and detrimental to women and as a socially conscious young woman I feel this overwhelming burden to contribute to the de-stigmatization of women in the public eye. On the one hand, I've largely succeeded. I went to college and I graduated from college with a degree and without a husband. I pay my own bills, people respect me for my intelligence and wit, I am the sole leaseholder on my apartment, and I can't cook worth a damn.
I never assumed I would get married, but I also never assumed I wouldn't. I mostly just figured that if it happened, I wouldn't let it interfere with my life. Obviously, I never spent much time thinking about it at all. The Boy and I are tiptoeing our way toward that goal, and now that it's more of a real possibility than ever before I'm finding myself reaching with one hand for a paper bag to breathe deeply into and with the other for something solid to keep me mentally upright. I love him more than I thought I was capable of and I couldn't be prouder of him, his accomplishments, and to have him by my side. He has become family and I can easily glimpse snippets of Future Us (most notably 90 year-old Us sitting at the kitchen table in the lake house he built as he asks me to help with the Sunday crossword and I snap at him that, for the zillionth time, I'm awful at those things. Pass the World Politics section, please), but I'm very suddenly unsure of what this means for myself and my bright, shiny, independent lady life.
Believe it or not, his life and his goals are important to me, and it very viscerally feels as if I'm betraying my gender by caring about someone other than myself, most especially a man. To compromise is to have a healthy relationship, but to compromise on even the smallest details of my Grand Life Design feels traitorous. I had this awful, panicky moment several months ago when he was pondering pursuing a job in Kentucky and the mere thought of going with him made me feel like a monumental failure. After everything my mom sacrificed, and how hard she worked, and how far society has come, and after all the expectations of greatness my loved ones have of me, I was going to bow down to the patriarchy and uproot myself and everything I know for a man.
I'm slowly piecing together what happiness looks like for me, but it's a much more difficult process than I originally thought. So many messages are directed toward young girls and young women these days that I'm not sure we even notice the impact they are having until the worst possible moment. I'm proud to feel so empowered, grateful to be aware enough to know I have options and choices and to know that I could, if I wanted to, shoot for the moon and write my name among the stars. I do wonder if a balance is needed when it comes to empowering girls, though. When being told I could be anything I wanted to be I'm not sure the best way to demonstrate that was with a big red X through the image of a wife wearing an apron vacuuming the living room. Someone has to vacuum. Especially when you live alone and the entire place is carpeted.
Navigating adulthood is hard, you guys. I'm enjoying my fully developed brain and stabilized body chemistry but the weight of the world has become quite the burden.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.
Thus sayeth the ever wise Margaret Atwood.
One mystery of childhood that I frequently pondered is why grownups' bedrooms were so frightfully boring. The walls were beige, or some pale blue, and other than maybe a wedding picture on a dresser top the only decorations were generic seascapes or perhaps a fake plant in the corner. The only form of entertainment I ever saw in grownup bedrooms were small TV's, so small they were hardly worth watching and always much too far away to be of any practical use. Their curtains were boring. The bed was always made. Clothes were always put away in a hamper, or else at the very least folded at the end of the bed. Why on earth adults would choose to live in such drudgery was beyond my comprehension.
For perspective, I always had wonderfully expressive bedrooms growing up. I blame the previous owners of the house I grew up in for fostering this tendency since birth. The room my loving parents placed Infant Cathi into had lime green shag carpeting and Pepto pink paint on the walls. The first time I was allowed to plan and decorate my room, I chose Aladdin as the theme. I had Princess Jasmine bedsheets and a reversible comforter (depending upon whether I was in a pink or purple kind of mood), I had a fuzzy, glow-in-the-dark Aladdin poster on the wall. I had Aladdin curtains. It was magical and I loved every inch of it. As a preteen I redecorated into a more moderate theme of "blue purple and green", but the room was alive. As a teenager I requested that all four of my walls be different colors, and I painted on the darkening shade that covered my window with cheap Jordasche nail polish and invited my visiting friends to do the same.
I now type this to you from the bedroom I share with no one, in the apartment that is mine and mine alone. The bedroom walls are a lovely and tasteful grayish-green that I adore. The only entertainment in here is my bookshelf full of fantasy novels. I currently have an 8-picture frame hanging on the wall for decoration which still has the stock photos in it. Beyond sleeping and going through the vicious cycle of "get dressed and throw clothes on the floor" and "be angry at clothes being on the floor, pick them up" I spend very little time in here.
You know why? I've unlocked the secret of grownup bedrooms. I wanted this place to be peaceful and distraction-free because I wanted my bedroom to be a place for sleeping and resting. It is no longer my refuge from the rest of the world, the only place I have to express myself and be surrounded by things I love because I have an entire apartment just for that.
Suck on that, children! Just wait until you grow up and have nine hundred square feet to do with as you please! For the record, I've personalized the rest of my space with Guitar Hero band equipment, posters of places I'd like to go, and a china cabinet full of my speech and debate awards in the place of china.
 |
| Stolen from luxury-idea.com |
For perspective, I always had wonderfully expressive bedrooms growing up. I blame the previous owners of the house I grew up in for fostering this tendency since birth. The room my loving parents placed Infant Cathi into had lime green shag carpeting and Pepto pink paint on the walls. The first time I was allowed to plan and decorate my room, I chose Aladdin as the theme. I had Princess Jasmine bedsheets and a reversible comforter (depending upon whether I was in a pink or purple kind of mood), I had a fuzzy, glow-in-the-dark Aladdin poster on the wall. I had Aladdin curtains. It was magical and I loved every inch of it. As a preteen I redecorated into a more moderate theme of "blue purple and green", but the room was alive. As a teenager I requested that all four of my walls be different colors, and I painted on the darkening shade that covered my window with cheap Jordasche nail polish and invited my visiting friends to do the same.
I now type this to you from the bedroom I share with no one, in the apartment that is mine and mine alone. The bedroom walls are a lovely and tasteful grayish-green that I adore. The only entertainment in here is my bookshelf full of fantasy novels. I currently have an 8-picture frame hanging on the wall for decoration which still has the stock photos in it. Beyond sleeping and going through the vicious cycle of "get dressed and throw clothes on the floor" and "be angry at clothes being on the floor, pick them up" I spend very little time in here.
You know why? I've unlocked the secret of grownup bedrooms. I wanted this place to be peaceful and distraction-free because I wanted my bedroom to be a place for sleeping and resting. It is no longer my refuge from the rest of the world, the only place I have to express myself and be surrounded by things I love because I have an entire apartment just for that.
Suck on that, children! Just wait until you grow up and have nine hundred square feet to do with as you please! For the record, I've personalized the rest of my space with Guitar Hero band equipment, posters of places I'd like to go, and a china cabinet full of my speech and debate awards in the place of china.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
We are made from the sharpest things you say
We are young and we don't care; your dreams, and your hopeless hair--we never wanted it to be this way for all our lives.
Back in June I spent a weekend at a youth leadership conference with Alex's parish acting as the token female chaperone, where it was made abundantly clear to me that I have forgotten what it is like to be a teenager. I'm not quite so far removed from the experience that I think dying my hair funny colors and wearing silly hats will help me relate, but I have forgotten what it feels like to be my own sun.
It's not that the kids at the conference were selfish and egocentric--this was a group of Good Kids at a church retreat learning how to be more effective leaders, after all--but all of their thoughts, emotions, worries, and joys were always of the most pressing concern. Each and every single one of the teens I got to know over that weekend were on their own, private adventure in which they were the main protagonist. Their hushed conversations during Mass were more like stage-whispers than actual stealth, they listened to their peers tell stories as they eagerly awaited the right moment to interject with their own anecdote or opinion, and the vim and vigor for life were undeniable in their eyes as they swept their gazes around the room.
They updated Facebook constantly on their verboten cell phones.
I'd forgotten how intense life could be, where I was fully cognizant that each and every single breath I drew was inextricably linked to my own destiny, and I'd forgotten how important my life could be. College and post-college life (I refuse to consider this The Real World, the bills aren't soul-crushing enough and my job is too fun to be reality) imposed both a sense of philosophical relativism and a practical awareness of the importance of others. It is with a combination of this more mature panoramic view and (thanks to reacquainting myself with music I used to love) a visceral reminder of teenage passion that I have read about the rioting in England, and found my reaction to be, above all, one of profound horror.
The media accounts of the four days of riots all seem to agree that the rioting was, by and large, perpetrated by youths, many as young as fourteen, and as far as anyone can tell, after the very first protest march to demand justice for the man who was shot by police, the violence, the looting, the fires, and the deaths were nothing more than sport.Five people are dead. Three of whom were young men trying to defend their neighborhood against the gangs of youth who were attempting to destroy their homes. A family whose apartment was burned down were almost killed when teenagers began throwing burning bottles at the car they were seeking refuge in. Hundreds of people are homeless, dozens of business owners have lost everything they have, and hundreds of people were hospitalized--mostly non-rioters.
I remember what it is like to want to be a part of something bigger, and I remember what it is like to get caught up in a moment. What terrifies me the most about what transpired in England is that I find it completely believable. My friends and I were good kids when we were teenagers. We generally did well in school, we were fiercely dedicated to a club, we didn't drink or smoke, most of us weren't having sex, and if we broke the law it was laughable misdemeanors, yet it doesn't take too much stretching of my imagination to imagine us getting sucked into something as epic as rioting. I don't believe that the majority of the young people out rioting in England are bad, sociopathic people. Some of them? Sure. But not all of them, and the idea that it can be so easy for so many normal people to cause so much damage, to be so callous and unthinking makes the breath catch in my lungs.
I don't know what there is to be done, I don't know if anything can be done to prevent something like this from happening again. I just know that I'm going to be very kind to the teenagers in my life.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back
Allow me to announce publicly how bummed I am that football is happening this year. I would have found a winter season without the obsession, misogyny, homophobia, and pseudo-aggression that accompanies the NFL quite refreshing; also it would have allowed me to successfully avoid buying a Bears jersey for work for the 5th year in a row.
My current quest to get myself an apartment is an unanticipated exercise in assessing my core values. Nothing really makes you pause and turn a puzzled eye inward like hearing the phrase "never again the hand-washing times!" leave your mouth. Despite living a whole entire quarter century without killing myself, getting a call from a debt collector, or setting anything/anyone major on fire, there's a number of things that have called for reexamination. For example:
My relationship with money
I've always known that I'm a saver, not a spender. When I get a paycheck (or organize my rubber band bank at the end of the night) my first and strongest impulse is to put it straight into my savings account so that I may gaze upon the pleasantly large balance and rub my hands together in diabolical glee. "Yes," I think to myself, "look at all my money. Tomorrow there shall be more! Good, good." I was also raised to be a bargain hunter, to do a lot of research and spend a lot of time so as to find the optimum mix of savings and quality. Now confronted with the outrageous overinflation of rent prices, I've discovered that I react with fist-clenching anger with no one to vent my righteous indignation upon other than my poor family (who, if you're Seester, aren't terribly sympathetic to my plight).
My relationship with others
The simplest solution to my residential tight-waddiness would be to get a roommate. Splitting exorbitant rent two ways would result in a completely manageable amount to be spent each month, and honestly not a lot of lost independence. However, ask me if I want a roommate and watch the involuntary grimace cross my face. Maybe it's the fact that I'm forced to be social all day/night at work and am thus spoiled for my personal time, or maybe I'm just finally owning up to the fact that I'm a crotchety, inconsiderate lady at heart, but the idea of having to share living space leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I've never really been good at sharing; it was something I did growing up under duress and even then not very well, let alone graciously, and now that I'm a Grown-Ass-Woman I'm making sure that I don't have to share if I don't absolutely have to.
My relationship with expectations
I have a lot of high ideals for myself, which are coming into conflict with the aforementioned tight-waddiness. Can I live with outdated appliances, a community laundry room, hand-washing my dishes, noisy neighbors, and ugly carpets? Of course. Do I want to? Oh hail naw. I'm twenty five years old, I'm doing fairly well for myself, and if I can afford not to live in some dump, then I won't. I find nothing glamorous in slumming it. "Luxury" costs extra money though. I'm still not sure which I value more.
My...relationship
Everyone who isn't my dad or my sister has asked me the question "what about The Boy? Why aren't you guys living together?" and to that, I say "mooooom stop bugging me about it!" This has actually required the most amount of introspection and list making, and is something The Boy and I need to discuss beyond him jokingly(?) bugging me to hurry up and find a place so he can come live a life of leisure with his Sugar Mama.
Other things I'd rather not talk about:
-Our nationally elected officials
-The economy
-"Why on earth would you come back here from the city???"
-My weight (yes I've lost some, please stop exclaiming over how noticeable it is, as it's making me feel fat retroactively)
-Gas prices
18 over par,
Cathi
My current quest to get myself an apartment is an unanticipated exercise in assessing my core values. Nothing really makes you pause and turn a puzzled eye inward like hearing the phrase "never again the hand-washing times!" leave your mouth. Despite living a whole entire quarter century without killing myself, getting a call from a debt collector, or setting anything/anyone major on fire, there's a number of things that have called for reexamination. For example:
My relationship with money
I've always known that I'm a saver, not a spender. When I get a paycheck (or organize my rubber band bank at the end of the night) my first and strongest impulse is to put it straight into my savings account so that I may gaze upon the pleasantly large balance and rub my hands together in diabolical glee. "Yes," I think to myself, "look at all my money. Tomorrow there shall be more! Good, good." I was also raised to be a bargain hunter, to do a lot of research and spend a lot of time so as to find the optimum mix of savings and quality. Now confronted with the outrageous overinflation of rent prices, I've discovered that I react with fist-clenching anger with no one to vent my righteous indignation upon other than my poor family (who, if you're Seester, aren't terribly sympathetic to my plight).
My relationship with others
The simplest solution to my residential tight-waddiness would be to get a roommate. Splitting exorbitant rent two ways would result in a completely manageable amount to be spent each month, and honestly not a lot of lost independence. However, ask me if I want a roommate and watch the involuntary grimace cross my face. Maybe it's the fact that I'm forced to be social all day/night at work and am thus spoiled for my personal time, or maybe I'm just finally owning up to the fact that I'm a crotchety, inconsiderate lady at heart, but the idea of having to share living space leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I've never really been good at sharing; it was something I did growing up under duress and even then not very well, let alone graciously, and now that I'm a Grown-Ass-Woman I'm making sure that I don't have to share if I don't absolutely have to.
My relationship with expectations
I have a lot of high ideals for myself, which are coming into conflict with the aforementioned tight-waddiness. Can I live with outdated appliances, a community laundry room, hand-washing my dishes, noisy neighbors, and ugly carpets? Of course. Do I want to? Oh hail naw. I'm twenty five years old, I'm doing fairly well for myself, and if I can afford not to live in some dump, then I won't. I find nothing glamorous in slumming it. "Luxury" costs extra money though. I'm still not sure which I value more.
My...relationship
Everyone who isn't my dad or my sister has asked me the question "what about The Boy? Why aren't you guys living together?" and to that, I say "mooooom stop bugging me about it!" This has actually required the most amount of introspection and list making, and is something The Boy and I need to discuss beyond him jokingly(?) bugging me to hurry up and find a place so he can come live a life of leisure with his Sugar Mama.
Other things I'd rather not talk about:
-Our nationally elected officials
-The economy
-"Why on earth would you come back here from the city???"
-My weight (yes I've lost some, please stop exclaiming over how noticeable it is, as it's making me feel fat retroactively)
-Gas prices
18 over par,
Cathi
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements
According to Blogger's wonderful ability to save drafts of entries the following are topics which have been on my mind but left abandoned due to lack of time or follow-through (in chronological order):
-Gunshots, more specifically how I heard them one night and did nothing about it, despite fancying myself to be the type of person who would call for help if she saw or heard something amiss.
-How much I truly resent having poor eyesight, illustrated by my blind, shuffling walk home from the hipster eye doctor one bright, sunny afternoon after my eyes were dilated.
-The appalling sexism evident in the re-opening of public examination of Chris Brown's assault of Rihanna after "S&M" was released, re: "Did you hear that song? She obviously liked being beaten up, Chris did nothing wrong, poor maligned thing!" (read as: raaaaaaaaaaaaage)
-Work ethic and a sense of responsibility, and how I have it, despite evidence that neither are requirements or even expectations at Erie St TGIF.
-My increasing itch to do better for myself when it comes to my employment because despite being happy in the moment, I'm quite frankly disappointed with how I think my job reflects upon me as a person.
-The great internal conflict I had to face when confronted with Alex's application for a job back in Kentucky, whether or not I was willing to uproot myself if he got the job and what it would say about me whichever way I chose.
-The sadness, ambivalence, and guilt that came along when my friend from high school, Kristen, passed away.
-City life, what I've learned, how I've changed, if I'm ready to leave.
This all, more or less, encompasses my last few months. My last day at Erie St. was Sunday which was almost disappointingly anticlimactic after eleven days of constant, busy shifts. I took a week off so I can slowly pack, and just enjoy my remaining time here on the Northside. Thus far I've been to the beach three times, slept in until I just felt like getting up, painted my nails, spent good time at good bars with some good friends I'm sad to be leaving behind, and less frivolously packed my dvds and books and swept up the living room. After the absolute nightmare that was my move into this apartment, I'm hoping to make the move out of it as pain free as possible.
Lots of Future Things are looming in my sights and tying my tummy up in knots, but I have faith things will settle down soon enough.
-Gunshots, more specifically how I heard them one night and did nothing about it, despite fancying myself to be the type of person who would call for help if she saw or heard something amiss.
-How much I truly resent having poor eyesight, illustrated by my blind, shuffling walk home from the hipster eye doctor one bright, sunny afternoon after my eyes were dilated.
-The appalling sexism evident in the re-opening of public examination of Chris Brown's assault of Rihanna after "S&M" was released, re: "Did you hear that song? She obviously liked being beaten up, Chris did nothing wrong, poor maligned thing!" (read as: raaaaaaaaaaaaage)
-Work ethic and a sense of responsibility, and how I have it, despite evidence that neither are requirements or even expectations at Erie St TGIF.
-My increasing itch to do better for myself when it comes to my employment because despite being happy in the moment, I'm quite frankly disappointed with how I think my job reflects upon me as a person.
-The great internal conflict I had to face when confronted with Alex's application for a job back in Kentucky, whether or not I was willing to uproot myself if he got the job and what it would say about me whichever way I chose.
-The sadness, ambivalence, and guilt that came along when my friend from high school, Kristen, passed away.
-City life, what I've learned, how I've changed, if I'm ready to leave.
This all, more or less, encompasses my last few months. My last day at Erie St. was Sunday which was almost disappointingly anticlimactic after eleven days of constant, busy shifts. I took a week off so I can slowly pack, and just enjoy my remaining time here on the Northside. Thus far I've been to the beach three times, slept in until I just felt like getting up, painted my nails, spent good time at good bars with some good friends I'm sad to be leaving behind, and less frivolously packed my dvds and books and swept up the living room. After the absolute nightmare that was my move into this apartment, I'm hoping to make the move out of it as pain free as possible.
Lots of Future Things are looming in my sights and tying my tummy up in knots, but I have faith things will settle down soon enough.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Born This Way
One of the biggest factors in my decision not to pursue even higher education is the fact that my least favorite part of educating myself was doing the research. No amount of scintillating class discussions, speech and debate trophies as tall as I am, or waived tuition can convince me that I want to spend any more time on doing research; which is, you know, 100% of what you have to do to create theses or dissertations. I can read the hell out of anything you give me, and even draw my own conclusions when reading articles and studies in conjunction with each other but the process of tracking down information is to me what picking socks up off the floor and making the bed is to an 8 year old. I don't wanna, and you can't make me.
I just finished watching the documentary "Fat Head", comic/author Tom Naughton's response to Morgan Spurlock's "SuperSize Me". The premise is that he found SuperSize Me to be over-the-top and laughable, and set out to possibly prove Spurlock wrong. Naughton's tone the entire time was one of ironic superiority, causing me to wonder if Spurlock gave Naughton a swirlie during an intermission at Sundance in the past, though I did find myself liking Naughton and the cut of his jib. I also recall enjoying SuperSize Me and liking Morgan Spurlock as well. Troubling. Now I (as well as most people, I would hope) approach media of all sorts, especially documentaries, with a healthy dose of skepticism. I'm not as stupid or gullible as advertisers and promoters wish we all were. Fat Head made a lot of questionable claims, but it's difficult to argue with Naughton's main conclusion: this is a free country and people are different. They make different choices, they have different values, and they have different preferences (though he does deliver this with a meaningful glance over his glasses after accusing I, the watcher, of choosing to sit on a couch eating Rice Crispy Treats instead of taking up volleyball).
All in all, I've drawn the shocking and controversial conclusion that Eating is Tricky and Bodies are Weird. Last year when I was doing my personal training and struggling with a high protein, low carb diet I lost around seven pounds (the goal was fifteen), lowered my body fat percentage, and was pleased with how flat my stomach looked. Unwilling to keep up all that hard work, I reverted back to my old habits with a vengeance and as predicted by statistics gained the weight back and watched my tummy flub return. Thanks to the fancy scale Seester got me for Christmas last year I am in possession of the knowledge that today, I am ten pounds lighter than I was two months ago and a full three pounds lighter than I was when I was doing with three months of intense (for me) diet and exercise last year.
I certainly didn't do it on purpose. Armed with the basic knowledge that in order to get less flabby I'd have to eat better and exercise more I settled instead for trying to love my body the way it was. My kitchen manager tried to fight me about the fact that I had lost weight when, after he admiringly asked if I had, I responded that I didn't know, I hadn't been trying. He insisted that I must have changed something (drinking less? stopped eating at night?), so I suggested it was because I stopped eating Friday's food since we weren't allowed to hang out at the bar anymore. He looked a bit wounded. He IS in charge of that food, after all. Alls I know is that I eat a lot of fried and carbohydrate'd crap, usually in one large sitting before I go to work, drink more beer than I probably should, and avoid anything that resembles exercise like it'll give me cancer on the spot. How I've lost weight is beyond me.
What bugs me, and what was highlighted after watching Fat Head, is that I will probably never know what it is that has caused my body to become slightly healthier. It clearly varies from person to person, and diet, exercise, and health are all extremely relative. This means that in order to figure out what my ideal mixture is I will have to do, you guessed it, research--all KINDS of research, since there is literally an opinion backed by a study or PhD or MD to support every single version of diet (or lack thereof), exercise (or lack thereof), and standard of health. I am way, way too lazy to bother with that nonsense.
I just finished watching the documentary "Fat Head", comic/author Tom Naughton's response to Morgan Spurlock's "SuperSize Me". The premise is that he found SuperSize Me to be over-the-top and laughable, and set out to possibly prove Spurlock wrong. Naughton's tone the entire time was one of ironic superiority, causing me to wonder if Spurlock gave Naughton a swirlie during an intermission at Sundance in the past, though I did find myself liking Naughton and the cut of his jib. I also recall enjoying SuperSize Me and liking Morgan Spurlock as well. Troubling. Now I (as well as most people, I would hope) approach media of all sorts, especially documentaries, with a healthy dose of skepticism. I'm not as stupid or gullible as advertisers and promoters wish we all were. Fat Head made a lot of questionable claims, but it's difficult to argue with Naughton's main conclusion: this is a free country and people are different. They make different choices, they have different values, and they have different preferences (though he does deliver this with a meaningful glance over his glasses after accusing I, the watcher, of choosing to sit on a couch eating Rice Crispy Treats instead of taking up volleyball).
All in all, I've drawn the shocking and controversial conclusion that Eating is Tricky and Bodies are Weird. Last year when I was doing my personal training and struggling with a high protein, low carb diet I lost around seven pounds (the goal was fifteen), lowered my body fat percentage, and was pleased with how flat my stomach looked. Unwilling to keep up all that hard work, I reverted back to my old habits with a vengeance and as predicted by statistics gained the weight back and watched my tummy flub return. Thanks to the fancy scale Seester got me for Christmas last year I am in possession of the knowledge that today, I am ten pounds lighter than I was two months ago and a full three pounds lighter than I was when I was doing with three months of intense (for me) diet and exercise last year.
I certainly didn't do it on purpose. Armed with the basic knowledge that in order to get less flabby I'd have to eat better and exercise more I settled instead for trying to love my body the way it was. My kitchen manager tried to fight me about the fact that I had lost weight when, after he admiringly asked if I had, I responded that I didn't know, I hadn't been trying. He insisted that I must have changed something (drinking less? stopped eating at night?), so I suggested it was because I stopped eating Friday's food since we weren't allowed to hang out at the bar anymore. He looked a bit wounded. He IS in charge of that food, after all. Alls I know is that I eat a lot of fried and carbohydrate'd crap, usually in one large sitting before I go to work, drink more beer than I probably should, and avoid anything that resembles exercise like it'll give me cancer on the spot. How I've lost weight is beyond me.
What bugs me, and what was highlighted after watching Fat Head, is that I will probably never know what it is that has caused my body to become slightly healthier. It clearly varies from person to person, and diet, exercise, and health are all extremely relative. This means that in order to figure out what my ideal mixture is I will have to do, you guessed it, research--all KINDS of research, since there is literally an opinion backed by a study or PhD or MD to support every single version of diet (or lack thereof), exercise (or lack thereof), and standard of health. I am way, way too lazy to bother with that nonsense.
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