Lose a Fatty

Narrative style inspired by too many episodes of The Golden Girls. Picture it. Pittsburgh. 2017. A young woman very close to middle-age but still in denial about it goes to a hip little independent bookstore to see her favorite lexicographer (yes, she has one) read from her new book. The weather? Perfect. The parking? Strangely easy. Her mood? Elevated. All is right with the world. The store is lovely and the girl easily spots the word nerd friend she's meeting near the front of the room. She sits. She talks. She gleefully laughs at the Dictionary Lady's word jokes. She tries not to laugh too hard because the crowd is small and the chairs aren't sturdy. She enjoys hearing the Dictionary Lady read the chapter of her book that's all about defining one word: take. Even though our middle-aged heroine read the chapter a few weeks ago, it's just as entertaining the second time around. (Defining "take" took the Dictionary Lady a full month!) After the rea

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls. Step right and enjoy this last post of my Lenten experiment. You're reading post 40. And while I technically went beyond Lent (it ended Wednesday night, I'm told by more religious folk than I), I consider #40in40 a success. Generally, we learn things from experiments, and I certainly did. So what have I concluded, you ask? Let me tell you. Writing is hard. I've always known this — after all, I write all day, five days a week. (In some form. Not always a ton, but words are put together and published in some manner nearly every day.) I've always hated people who think a glass of wine and moonlight lead to divine inspiration and words that magically appear on a page. Those people are fakers. Writers know, and now I understand more deeply, that developing ideas is hard. Not falling asleep at night and writing instead is hard. Trying to be interesting or amusing or emotional is hard. I don't have a big audience, but I also didn&

At the beginning of this Lenten blogging journey, I made a pie . It's only fitting, then, that my penultimate post be the goodies that I made for Easter today. Peanut butter eggs. Not bad for a first attempt. First, I decided to take a crack at making homemade peanut butter easter eggs. The result? Not too shabby. They look lovely, but the filling is only so-so. Next time, I think I'll just use my sister's buckeye filling recipe for the peanut butter part. Also, I used semi-sweet chocolate for the outside, and they may have been better with milk chocolate. But regardless, they're adorable and definitely edible. My mom also instructed my sister and I to "bring our favorite thing" to Easter lunch tomorrow. She's going to have all the real food handled, so I thought showing up with a giant tuna noodle casserole might be ridiculous. (I LOVE tuna noodle casserole. In fact, I think it's what's for dinner tonight.) I narrowed it down to stuffing (

(Read this post first.) A neat footnote to my previous post is that the Good Friday Jesus Christ Superstar tradition arose from the events surrounding the spring of my senior year in high school. Good Friday that year (multiple decades ago now. Sigh.) was also Ivy League decision-letter day. And, back then, Good Friday service began at noon and lasted until 3 p.m. Of course, we went. And our mail arrived around 2:30 p.m. So I had the entire service to wonder whether a thick or thin letter from Harvard would be waiting in our mailbox when I got home. Not only was I desperate to go to Harvard, but my boyfriend had received his letter the day before — and had gotten in. I felt like my whole future and our whole future depended on what sort of mail I had. I did not think about Jesus during the service. I thought about Harvard and Carnegie Mellon and Allegheny College. Where would I go if Harvard said no? What would the financial aid packages from the latter two schools look like and c

Every Good Friday, I bust out my Jesus Christ Superstar CDs and have a giant, possibly blasphemous singalong to what I consider one of the finest biblical musicals ever made. (Close second, same creator: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.) I think we can ALL agree that there is no better way to celebrate the tragedy and ultimate triumph of Our Lord and Savior's last week on earth than by belting lyrics like these at the top of your lungs. "What's the buzz? Tell me what's a happenin'. What's the buzz? Tell me what's a happenin'. What's the buzz? Tell me what's a happenin'. What's the buzz? Tell me what's a happenin'. When do we ride into Jerusalem? When do we ride into Jerusalem? When do we ride into Jerusalem? When do we ride into Jerusalem?" All against the backdrop of a bitchin' 70s disco groove. There's also my favorite song, "This Jesus Must Die," with gems like "What th

Because I cried the whole time I wrote the last post. I occasionally enjoy the symphony Where Beethoven and Gershwin speak peace to me. But my side mirrors quake And my windows all shake When I rap about A-dot-Ham's legacy.

I first met my oldest, now-19-year-old nephew when he was about four days old. I thought he was pretty cute. In one of those memories that stay with you as a Polaroid of when life was good, I remember my grandparents -- all of them still alive -- converging on my parents house on what was probably Labor Day weekend to meet this new little chapter in all our lives. He peed on my dad. He seemed to like me. All in all, I was pretty thrilled with the little dude. We'd go on to have a lot of good times, this kid and I. I sang "Little Bunny Foo Foo" a bazillion times to calm him down. I gave him cookies when maybe I shouldn't have. I walked into a room and caught him pulling himself up for the first time so he could inspect the fish in my dad's aquarium. I rocked him when he had colic. A few years after he came around, we both met his brother. We liked him too, but I think we both wondered what this meant for us. We stayed pretty tight. He learned to talk in a hurry

You're innocently minding your own business, driving to see some friends. You hear a song on the radio. "I know this band," your brain says. "I know it. Oooh, what are they called???" You keep driving. Meanwhile, your brain is working so hard that you can almost smell the smoke, but you're stopping at stop signs and watching for jaywalkers, so you're preoccupied. "YES!" It reports back. "THESE PEOPLE ARE CALLED THE CIGARETTE LIGHTERS!" <three blocks later, more sheepishly> "Wait. I was wrong. They're the Chainsmokers." Close, but no cigarette lighter.

"That mask. That heavy breathing. I can barely contain myself when he's around. He's so sexy." Said no one ever. Look, Vader has a lot going for him that some girls might like. That whole bad-boy-kills-people-with-his-mind thing can be very attractive to a certain kind of woman. But one thing I think almost everyone would agree on, though I can't say for sure, is that the mask ain't where it's at. Which is why I held off on getting a CPAP for years, even though I knew I needed one. At the time, I had huge concerns that my "bed partner" (as the medical professionals call them) would find the whole thing so off-putting that he'd be done with me in a matter of weeks. I finally talked to him about it and he said that he'd rather I be able to breathe than die in my sleep. So I jumped through all the testing and insurance hoops. I slept at home with a bunch of sensors taped to me. I slept in a sterile medical room with so many w

There's no terrible, worse kind of day When the bathroom's a staircase away. And your stomach is mad. And your knee is a cad. So you lay down in bed, where you stay.

Sweating. Cramping. Blah. At least I didn't vomit. Feel better today.

It's sunny outside but I'm inside. And I feel like my brain may have just died. My ear hurts like hell. I can't even spell. And now seems like a good time to imbibe.

This assignment is making me batty. I'm hungry and angry and catty. My words are a mess. I'm starting to stress. And my hair is disgustingly ratty.

"Look at where you are. Look at where you started." We're a week away from Easter and I'm something like 13 posts shy of achieving my 40 in 40 goal. Sigh. Rather than accepting that I'm a big ol' failure (Bitch Brain is working hard these days), I'm instead determined to somehow make this happen. Posting twice a day may cut into my online shopping time, but I'm determined to do it. The lesson here is that time does fly as you age. At the beginning of Lent, which this year started on March 1, it's easy to forget how quickly five weeks and change can go. Easter's late this year, but sometimes Lent starts in the heart of February, when I'm convinced winter will never end. And while in those years we still may have a chilly Easter, the early spring flowers have usually shown some signs of blooming, the grass is growing and the earth is coming back to life. It's a welcome transition but it happens fast. And this year, all the time I th

The ladies' locker room at the YMCA is practically wall-papered with signs saying "Shower Before Entering Pool!" A few months ago, they had a sign or two, which I promptly ignored. But since they have them all over the place now — wisely placed along the path one traverses to the pool, and then on the door to the pool itself — I started hopping under the water for a quick rinse before I plunge in.  Today, I was one of two women in the pool NOT wearing a full face of makeup. (There were like eight ladies total.) I had no idea that lipstick and eyeliner played such a huge role in getting a good workout. I've been doing it wrong all along, I guess, pushing hard through the water. Sweating. Challenging myself. I'd probably be way more successful in the water exercise arena if I sauntered into the water done up in foundation, blush, mascara, liner and whatever else constitutes a full face and just sort of floated around a bit. I bet my asshole knee would be all bett

Today I learned that I'm done tutoring until fall. I'd really grown to enjoy my sessions with the kids and thought they were developing a strong appreciation for writing and reading. But they're increasingly busy and will be traveling during the summer. I'm going to miss those little dudes. <Giant Sad Face> <Aside: If you need any writing services or a writing tutor for someone, I know someone pretty awesome who suddenly has a clear calendar and needs some cash.> Anyway, since it's National Poetry Month, I thought I'd share some poems I wrote during a tutoring session earlier this year. The seventh grader was tasked with writing a haiku, limerick, sonnet and epic poem on any topics he chose. He's a big fan of (1) picking a serious topic and then (2) writing all his poems about that theme. (We did a similar assignment during the election, with some amusing results.) He gets stuck in his own head too much, so I turned any poetry assignment li

Spring! Yay! My neighbor mowed my lawn today, and with the smell of grass in the warm air and baseball season in full swing,  I immediately felt compelled to do what all normal people do this time of year: stock up on spring beer. Most people I know like all the trendy pumpkin beers and stouts and whatnot that hit the shelves in the fall. Gag. That stuff is gross. But I love me some spring beer. The problem is that by the time it's actually sit-on-the-porch-swing-with-a-good-beer weather, the spring beers are gone and Octoberfests  are out. (I blame you, pumpkin drinkers, for fall beer creep. Calm the hell down and drink in season.) If you're a spring or early summer seasonal person, you have to think ahead, sometimes by a few months. So off I went today, to my favorite Giant Eagle, on a quest for Troeg's Cultivator, a delicious helles bock that's everything good about beer. It's sort of malty and a little bitter. It's rich without being heavy. It's th

Today, the universe reminded me in about 16 million different ways that, for the most part, we're all just doing our best to get by in life. Consider — The administrative assistant processing expense reports, knowing her father might be nearing his end in intensive care. The account representative making phone calls to collect past due funds who is terrified that her ex-boyfriend, who has grown increasingly violent, will be waiting somewhere, sometime to hurt her with more than just his words. The usually happy-go-lucky coworker who just ended a long-term relationship and is walking through the world shell shocked.  The woman busily checking websites, worrying about what addiction is doing to her parents. The scared, homesick serviceman. The quirky dude selling sporting goods who is desperate for a career change. I'm not one to preach, but humans live in groups for a reason. Sure, it might have started evolutionarily so we could physically protect each other and co

I'm in the running for my place of employment's "Outstanding Staff" award. It's kind of a big deal. OK. Not really. But it's an honor to be nominated and read the nice things someone wrote about me and submitted to the awards committee. Being beloved does have a downside, though. I received a few notes of encouragement today, which was lovely! But then a woman — who once yelled at me until I cried and then hugged me because I was crying and, I'm not kidding, started yelling at me again — walked into my office and came around my desk. Before I knew what was happening, she'd kissed me on the cheek and walked back out of my office. GAH! Just say no to workplace kisses! Later, I saw my boss and said, "Listen, it was super nice of you to nominate me for this award. And I do appreciate it. But Cheek-Kissing Lady just swooped in here and kissed me on the cheek. So please. Don't do anything nice for me ever again, OK?" He laughed and sa

Entitlement, thy name is Old Guy Swimming at My Gym. I love my YMCA's pool. It's not glamorous, but it gets the job done. And because it's not glamorous, it's not too busy. I headed back there today after a few months out of the water and it felt great to be moving again. I don't quite have my kick back yet -- my knee is still kind of an asshole -- so I mixed water jogging with other upper and lower body exercises to get an interval workout in.  Everything was going swimmingly (groan!) and I was working hard when this old dude showed up. I've seen him before. At least a year ago, he came in with big scuba goggles and, I'm pretty sure, spent the whole time checking out ladies' butts under the water. He's bad about personal space and sort of gives me the heebie-jeebies. Luckily, I've generally been in a lane when he was around. But today I was jogging in the big open space for water exercise when SPLASH, he jumped in to the pool right besid