Lose a Fatty

Tonight I whipped my spatula out of my icing bowl and ran into my living room just in time to join the Dear Evan Hansen cast in a spectacular singalong of "You Will Be Found." Yeah, I closed my eyes and danced and everything. Icing might have flown around the room. I never felt more alive. My officemate has been telling me lately that I need to find a thing to do. Something I love. And when I find the thing and do the thing, all the other things in life will fall into place. My officemate tends to be way more "glass is half full" than I am, but it did make me think: what's my "thing"? Sure. I like writing. But you do that alone. I also like reading, which one also does solo (unless one has a small child). I enjoy naps. Cooking. Going to the movies. None of these are big contenders for getting out of the house and meeting people. I used to be a crazy social person. I did STUFF. I went to meetups. I belonged to groups. I made new friends and learne...

It's no coincidence that I picked today as my alternate work-from-home day. (I had a class on Wednesday so I had to actually go to the office.) Anyway, it's Last Fish Fry Friday. Few things motivate me like fish and potatoes. So if you're reading this and you haven't yet indulged in that perennial Pittsburgh practice of gorging yourself on fish each Friday, make plans to hit your local parish TONIGHT. The end.

According to Catholics, Lent ends today (I think), but because I'm Presbyterian and mostly use Lent as a good time frame for reflecting and detoxing, I take my Lenten commitments the whole way to midnight Saturday/Sunday. So today I spent an inordinate amount of time looking at sweets at the grocery store, thinking about what treat I'll splurge on when the clock strikes midnight tomorrow night. Brownies? A piece of cake? Some chips and dip? The possibilities are endless. Any blog readers will already know this, but I didn't do so hot with my 40 posts in 40 days this year.  Sorry 'bout that. What I did do really well with was not eating junk food and not reading the equivalent thereof (i.e., Facebook). I should feel bad that I couldn't stick to my writing goals, but I'm actually quite thrilled with my success in the other areas. Giving up junk is HARD WORK, folks. It takes planning and cooking and, for me, and whole lot of will power. After a few rough weeks, ...

Today I had a root canal. And apparently, I lived to write about it. Root canals get a bad rap, I think. When my new dentist first mentioned the possibility that I might need one, I freaked out. I pictured some sort of "Little Shop of Horrors" sequel. My dentist did everything she could to prevent the root canal, but in the past few weeks, my symptoms worsened and it was pretty clear the tooth needed attention. They scheduled me pretty quickly and today I bit the bullet. Some things. The worst part is, by far, keeping your mouth open that long. It really starts to hurt and it's all you can think about. But if you have a good endodontist, they're upfront about that and they don't sugarcoat it. At least they stick something in your mouth to keep it open, so that helps. But your jaw will ache. For me specifically, I was convinced I was going suffocate on my own post-nasal drip. My head was lower than the rest of my body, so gunk ran and ran down the back of m...

A few weeks ago, my sister rescued me in a Dollar General parking lot after I blew a tire in a pothole and AAA never showed up. As I watched her loosen the lug nuts, I said "How are we even related?" She's so good at fearlessly fixing things, and has an amazing grasp on life's common sense elements. I'm not without common sense, but my takeaway from the same lesson she had from our dad about tire-changing is if you don't get the jack in the right spot, the car will fall on you and kill you. Meanwhile, she's all wielding a tire wrench thinger in the dark in her PJs, saving her little sister's ass. As I stood there feeling inadequate, I said "I just want to let you know that yesterday I wrote a thousand words about this really amazing woman originally from technology-free Inner Mongolia who now makes flat pasta that can change its shape in water!" She stopped lug-nut-loosening and looked at me with an eyebrow raised. "I'M JUST SA...

Almost every year, a foodie friend of mine hosts a St. Patrick's Day party and goes all out on the suds and grub. He brews the beer. He corns the beef. The whole shebang. Even though I'm a lot Irish, I'm not a huge fan of Irish food. (Although I do like the whiskey. Yum.) So while I always appreciate my friend's effort — along with the good conversation and the fun, nerdy folks he invites — I generally stick to soda bread and the veggie tray. Which, now that I think about it, explains all the years I had to be pushed to the car at the end of the night. Whiskey on an largely empty stomach is a bad idea. But I digress. This year, he went with more of a green food theme, which proved to be enlightening for this non-adventurous eater. Alongside the platter of corned beef and cabbage were a homemade pea spread with flatbread crisps, tabbouleh, and a baked rice pie filled with herbs and deliciousness. On top of that, friends of ours showed up with a homemade vegetarian ...

A while back, a friend had some problems with vertigo and needed to reschedule plans we'd made. "She's vertiginous ," I told another friend. "Nice word!" he replied. And it is. I like the way it rolls off the tongue. I like that it means dizzy OR inclined to pointless change ("inconstant"), which I should clarify is not the definition that applies to my friend. But while vertiginous is one of my favorite words, it's NOT one of my favorite feelings. Last week I started having some weird dizziness issues that made me feel like I was lurching about. Kind of like I was drunk but still in total control of my brain. I had plans to meet someone on Saturday, a few days after my wooziness began, and in a perfect storm of badness, I almost passed out. The room went to grayscale and my vision narrowed, and everything turned sideways. Luckily my friend grabbed my hand and reminded me to breathe, gave me something to focus on, and the incident pas...

I recently read an amazing book, " Baker Towers ," about multiple generations of a family during the coal industry's boom and subsequent bust in Western Pennsylvania. Reading it was like reading about my grandparents and their parents, and I had all kinds of feels at the end. Most of them were of the nostalgic kind — missing my grandparents, missing home, even though I'm just an hour away. Missing the kind of small towns I grew up around. What I don't miss, though, and what probably no kid from coal country misses, is the actual production of coal. Which leads to the disbelief and confusion I'm feeling by our new — here's that word again — nostalgia for "American manufacturing." Translation: coal and steel. I will argue with no person about their importance to our economy through the steel bust of the 80s. Yes. The America that we knew until the 1980s was built on coal and steel. But I can't wrap my brain around how anyone can listen to t...

Lent comes and goes and most folks don't notice. I grew up Presbyterian, and for us Lent is a somber time of hymns written in minor keys underscored by unspoken relief that we're not Catholic — ergo we don't have to give shit up. While it's not the protestant practice to sacrifice something during Lent, I do think it's a good time to engage in some sort of restraint. Like last year, this year I gave up Facebook. But I also added in sweets and junk food. A few weeks in, and my brain and body feel a little less toxic. But while Lent can be a time of self-reflection and sacrifice, everyone in these parts knows it's about one thing: FISH FRIES. Oh man, these Catholic parishes and their delicious, delicious fried fish. I grew up two houses down from a Catholic church, and every Lenten Friday afternoon and evening smelled like heaven (well, if heaven served fried fish sandwiches). I was actually invited to a fry tonight with the Pittsburgh Fish Fry Queen herself,...

A few weeks ago, my car fell victim to the gaping wounds winter left on local roads. Without any warning, I plunged into a pothole at about 50 mph. I immediately lost 20 pounds of pressure from my tire, made my way carefully to the closest parking lot and waited for help. That experience is fodder for a different post, but it all means that I was out in the wilds of the northern suburbs today to pick up my repaired car and, as is my wont, I got lost. Missed a simple turn, ended up on a road that had no place to safely pull over so I could consult my phone for help. When I finally found a gas station, I was a few townships north of where I needed to be. Sigh. Luckily I have a sense of humor, but it made me think about getting lost in more than one way. When you've been part of a pair for a long time, the "you" you used to be gets a bit lost. So when that pairing ends, finding the "you" you once were is a process. (I think for some people it's not. They'...

I have a lot of readers in Poland. My own family doesn't read my blog, but the Poles man, they are ON IT. I'm not sure why. But thanks, Polish readers. Hope I don't disappoint you.

You've read about why I love the Oscars and what I thought of this year's movies. So here are my picks for tomorrow's big five categories. Best Picture Three Billboards Best Actor Gary Oldman Best Actress Frances McDormand (This category is TOUGH! Wouldn't mind if Margot Robbie wins here, but she's a long shot.) Best Supporting Actor SAM ROCKWELL ALL THE WAY Best Supporting Actress Allison Janney Guy Who Deserves His Own Category Because He Was in Three Best Picture Nominees This guy. Michael Stuhlbarg had major roles in "The Shape of Water" and "Call Me by Your Name," and played the owner of the Times in "The Post." It's like this year's Oscar season couldn't have happened without him. He's the foundation upon which these colossal films were built. Shoutout to you, Guy in All the Movies. You chose...wisely.

Tomorrow's the big day for Oscar junkies, including me! I didn't get to all of them this year, but I saw six of the nine. Here's my take on them, in the order in which I saw them (oldest to newest). My Diet Coke scale is like stars -- one to five. "Lady Bird," Two-and-a-Half Diet Cokes I lived through age 18 and it turns out that I abhor reliving it via angsty movies. There's nothing wrong with this flick, per se. But I thought it was just OK. People yell a lot, there's awkward high school sex, people trying to be who they think they should be instead of who they are. I wish I liked it more, but I wasn't as enchanted by it as most. (Spent a lot of time thinking about the coffee and cookie I was going to buy at the amazing coffee shop up the street before I went home.) "The Shape of Water," Four Diet Cokes I expected to have a hard time being drawn into this narrative because I'd heard talk of how weird it was. I left the theater enc...

I've always been a sucker for a good movie. From the time I was a little girl, my mom would flip the TV to old movies on Saturday or Sunday afternoons. Oh sure, sometimes I'd complain because, god forbid, it was in black and white. But more often than not, I enjoyed the heck out of whatever we were watching. "The Best Years of Our Lives?" Amazing. "Anatomy of a Murder?" Thrilling. (Some other memorable ones include "I Remember Mama" and "Life With Father.") "The Elephant Man?' Way too early in my life to be appropriate. Also scared the shit out me. But I digress. My point is, the movies and I go way back. I went through phases in high school and then right after college where I was sort of out of touch with movies playing in the theater. I'd catch them when they came out on HBO or DVD. Most of the time I watched blockbusters and rom-coms only. But once I was out on my own, I became friends with a woman whose entire family...