After my last post on chubbiness ("Something Else"), fellow author Brenda Ferber posted in reply that her solution to worrying about her weight has been to adopt a whole new way of eating, "taking emotion out of the equation," and simply listening to her body and eating when she was hungry and not eating when she wasn't hungry. When I replied, with an anguished wail, that I don't eat gumdrops because I'm HUNGRY but because I LOVE them, she wrote back, "So eat them. Eat one or two. The whole bag doesn't taste any different from the first one or two and eating the whole bag just makes you miserable." (I'm paraphrasing here, but that is basically what she said.)
Hmmm. This is definitely something to think about.
Brenda's advice made me remember my college days. I was an undergraduate at a women's college, Wellesley, and we ALL ate out of emotion ALL the time. Sometimes there would be ice cream for dessert at dinner, and you never saw such a frenzy. First there would be screams and shrieks of uncontrolled delight. Then there would be a mad rush over to the ice cream table, with lots of pushing and shoving. We would grab enormous soup bowls and cram them full of multiple scoops of ice cream and eat the whole entire bowl before eating anything else. This, although there was plenty for everybody and actually ice cream night was quite a frequent occurrence.
Then I went to Princeton for grad school, living in the Graduate College. Princeton at that time was almost all men. We had our first ice cream night at dinner. I screamed and shrieked and ran over to the ice cream table. Then I looked around. I was all alone. The men were just sitting there eating their dinner as if - as if there was plenty of ice cream for everyone and ice cream night was quite a frequent occurrence!
So I have now spent two days eating the Brenda Ferber way. It isn't quite a fair test yet - is two days ever a fair test of anything? - because I had my strep episode on day one. But still I have to admit that the results so far are intriguing. I have a bag of my MOST favorite candy EVER, Hershey cherry cordial kisses, and I've been having two or three a couple of times during the day, fully savoring each one. Last night, at my Prindle reading group, I surveyed the snacks I had put out - fancy cheeses, crackers, Pepperidge Farm cookies, wine, lemonade, water - and I asked myself, "What do you really WANT to eat? Because you can eat anything at all that you want, you know." I decided that I wanted a couple of crackers with cheese, and two orange Milanos, and a small glass of wine, and a larger glass of water. And that was what I ate.
I think I'm going to keep on trying this new plan, Miss Brenda!
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Malingering
I'm never sick, so when I awoke yesterday with a terrible sore throat and lay freezing cold beneath a heap of blankets, unable to face any of the work-related tasks I had planned for the day, I wasn't sure quite what to make of my situation. If I wasn't sick, what could this be? Was I just MALINGERING?
I love this word: "malingering." I love that there is a word that means "to pretend or exaggerate illness, esp to avoid work." I love that so many people are tempted to do this that a word was coined just to describe this particular strategy of work avoidance.
I went to Kroger and bought a thermometer: a fairly disappointing one, I must say, as it promised to give me a result in 9 seconds and promised to have an actual alarm sound a warning if the temperature was over a certain point, and it did neither of these things. But it did say that my temperature was 101.4 That is not the temperature of a malingerer!
I made a doctor's appointment for later in the day, but when I got there, the thermometer there said I had no fever at all. How could this be? I have to say I doubted their thermometer more than I doubted mine. But the kindly physician did accept my self-diagnosis of strep without even ordering a throat culture. I felt so ill as I waited in line to get my antibiotics prescription filled that I thought I might faint away upon the floor.
It turns out that it was strep, or at least that within an hour of starting the antibiotics, all my symptoms were gone. I slept for 13 blissful hours and awoke ready to face a full and busy day of teaching, meetings, evening reading group. So I WAS sick, after all. Unless - would the symptoms have disappeared anyway, even without the medication? Could it be that all I needed was one day of . . . malingering?
I love this word: "malingering." I love that there is a word that means "to pretend or exaggerate illness, esp to avoid work." I love that so many people are tempted to do this that a word was coined just to describe this particular strategy of work avoidance.
I went to Kroger and bought a thermometer: a fairly disappointing one, I must say, as it promised to give me a result in 9 seconds and promised to have an actual alarm sound a warning if the temperature was over a certain point, and it did neither of these things. But it did say that my temperature was 101.4 That is not the temperature of a malingerer!
I made a doctor's appointment for later in the day, but when I got there, the thermometer there said I had no fever at all. How could this be? I have to say I doubted their thermometer more than I doubted mine. But the kindly physician did accept my self-diagnosis of strep without even ordering a throat culture. I felt so ill as I waited in line to get my antibiotics prescription filled that I thought I might faint away upon the floor.
It turns out that it was strep, or at least that within an hour of starting the antibiotics, all my symptoms were gone. I slept for 13 blissful hours and awoke ready to face a full and busy day of teaching, meetings, evening reading group. So I WAS sick, after all. Unless - would the symptoms have disappeared anyway, even without the medication? Could it be that all I needed was one day of . . . malingering?
Monday, November 7, 2011
Truckin'
Here's the bad system that I've fallen into regarding my writing.
I'll get an idea for a new book. I'll make some progress on this idea. Recently, I even got a contract for the idea. But then I'll turn against the idea. The idea seems so hopeless! So bad! So flawed from the get-go! Sometimes I have some smidgen of justification for turning against the idea: a passing expression of doubt on the part of an editor, an evening of tougher-than-usual critique from my writing group (no, from ONE PERSON in my writing group). I decide that I can't write this book. As my friend Ina says, "Just because you've begun a mistake, you're under no obligation to continue on in it." In the case of the recent book under contract, I even entertained the idea of canceling the contract and returning the advance. In the case of recent gropings toward a book series, I just put the idea away in my forget-about-it file.
But this is not a good system, at least for me. It really isn't. Here is what a good system would be.
Just keep on writing.
That's the system.
For the book under contract, I ended up doing this, and by page 50 I was in love with the book, and by page 150 I thought it might possibly be the best book I'd ever written.
So now for this new possible series idea, this morning I took it out of the forget-about-it file and read over what I have so far and discovered that it is not in fact bad. It is in fact good! Not great. But good. Flawed. But not irredeemably flawed.
And in any case, guess what, I don't have any other ideas right now that are any better. And I'm miserable when I'm not writing ("The Dread"). So I might as well write this as write nothing. And here's my prediction: I bet I'm going to be very glad that I did. So for now I'm just going to keep on truckin'.
I'll get an idea for a new book. I'll make some progress on this idea. Recently, I even got a contract for the idea. But then I'll turn against the idea. The idea seems so hopeless! So bad! So flawed from the get-go! Sometimes I have some smidgen of justification for turning against the idea: a passing expression of doubt on the part of an editor, an evening of tougher-than-usual critique from my writing group (no, from ONE PERSON in my writing group). I decide that I can't write this book. As my friend Ina says, "Just because you've begun a mistake, you're under no obligation to continue on in it." In the case of the recent book under contract, I even entertained the idea of canceling the contract and returning the advance. In the case of recent gropings toward a book series, I just put the idea away in my forget-about-it file.
But this is not a good system, at least for me. It really isn't. Here is what a good system would be.
Just keep on writing.
That's the system.
For the book under contract, I ended up doing this, and by page 50 I was in love with the book, and by page 150 I thought it might possibly be the best book I'd ever written.
So now for this new possible series idea, this morning I took it out of the forget-about-it file and read over what I have so far and discovered that it is not in fact bad. It is in fact good! Not great. But good. Flawed. But not irredeemably flawed.
And in any case, guess what, I don't have any other ideas right now that are any better. And I'm miserable when I'm not writing ("The Dread"). So I might as well write this as write nothing. And here's my prediction: I bet I'm going to be very glad that I did. So for now I'm just going to keep on truckin'.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Sister Act
My sister, Cheryl, is here visiting me in Indiana. Hooray!
Cheryl just started working as a tax specialist for a pharmaceutical company in New Jersey that is a subsidiary of Eli Lilly, which happens to be the largest employer in the state of Indiana, so she is out here for a series of business meetings at the huge Eli Lilly campus in Indianapolis. But first we are playing together in Greencastle, which itself happens to boast the site of Eli Lilly's first little homely drugstore, situated on our courthouse square, where the little eatery Treasures on the Square is now located. Cheryl always throws herself with enormous enthusiasm into any new endeavor, so she was eager to make a pilgrimage to this historic spot. So we had breakfast at Treasures on the Square as soon as she arrived yesterday, and then I took her picture in front of its charming front door.
The rest of the day was filled with happy sightseeing, including a drive around the backroads of Parke County where we saw EIGHT covered bridges, my biggest haul yet! Her stuffed bear Taddy has made friends with my stuffed rabbit Ruby, and it's altogether a wonderful visit.
There is nothing like having a sister!
Saturday, November 5, 2011
"Something Else"
Once when one of my boys was in high school, he had a disappointing grade on a history exam, so I brought this up for discussion with his teacher during parent-teacher conferences. "Do you have any suggestions for what he should do to prepare for the next exam?" I asked.
"He should do something else!" she said.
"Something else?" I asked timidly.
"Yes, something else! Because whatever he's doing now isn't working!"
Okay.
At the time I considered this to be exceptionally unhelpful advice from an uncooperative teacher. But I have to say that I've warmed to this advice as the years have gone on.
Take my weight for example, the creeping chubbiness on which I've posted before, and which, alas, has only gotten steadily worse since that post. What should I do about it? Well, SOMETHING ELSE! Because what I'm doing now - that is to say, eating every morsel of free food provided by DePauw University in general and the Prindle Institute in particular, supplemented by comforting feasts at the Blue Door Cafe, plus occasional lovely dinners, with free-flowing wine, at friends' houses - isn't working.
There is something about the clarity of this insight that is more helpful than I previously realized. Maybe I'll try something else, try NOT doing what I've been doing, and see what happens.
It just might work, after all.
"He should do something else!" she said.
"Something else?" I asked timidly.
"Yes, something else! Because whatever he's doing now isn't working!"
Okay.
At the time I considered this to be exceptionally unhelpful advice from an uncooperative teacher. But I have to say that I've warmed to this advice as the years have gone on.
Take my weight for example, the creeping chubbiness on which I've posted before, and which, alas, has only gotten steadily worse since that post. What should I do about it? Well, SOMETHING ELSE! Because what I'm doing now - that is to say, eating every morsel of free food provided by DePauw University in general and the Prindle Institute in particular, supplemented by comforting feasts at the Blue Door Cafe, plus occasional lovely dinners, with free-flowing wine, at friends' houses - isn't working.
There is something about the clarity of this insight that is more helpful than I previously realized. Maybe I'll try something else, try NOT doing what I've been doing, and see what happens.
It just might work, after all.
Friday, November 4, 2011
The Village Soothsayer
Yesterday contained one of the biggest treats of the semester for me: a class trip for my Rousseau course. We headed off to the Green Performing Arts Center across campus for a program focused on Rousseau's opera, Le Devin du Village (The Village Soothsayer).
Yes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, famous political philosopher (The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, The Social Contract) and educational theorist (Emile), who also happened to write the best-selling novel of the eighteenth century (Julie, or the New Heloise), was also a composer of some renown in his own time, who wrote not only the libretto but the score for an opera that was the toast of Paris upon its production in 1752. The king reportedly went around the palace singing the opening aria, "J'ai perdu mon serviteur," all day after the performance "in the vilest voice in the nation" and offered Rousseau a lifelong pension for its creation (an offer that Rousseau refused).
Yesterday my students and I, as well as other interested DePauw community members, had our opera extravaganza in the Thompson Recital Hall at the Green Center for the Performing Arts. I made some introductory remarks on Rousseau-as-musician; Misti Shaw of the Music Library presented a fascinating in-depth look at the war between French and Italian opera during the time period (Rousseau took the side of the Italians and was burned in effigy by the Paris Opera); Prof. Matthew Balensuela discussed Rousseau's influence on child prodigy Mozart, who wrote his own treatment of the opera (at age twelve, mind you!). And, biggest treat of all, Prof. Caroline Smith's voice students performed three of the arias for us, including the one that so pleased the king.
I think my students enjoyed it as much as I did. Who doesn't love a class trip? Thank you, colleagues and performers, for making this amazing outing possible.
Yes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, famous political philosopher (The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, The Social Contract) and educational theorist (Emile), who also happened to write the best-selling novel of the eighteenth century (Julie, or the New Heloise), was also a composer of some renown in his own time, who wrote not only the libretto but the score for an opera that was the toast of Paris upon its production in 1752. The king reportedly went around the palace singing the opening aria, "J'ai perdu mon serviteur," all day after the performance "in the vilest voice in the nation" and offered Rousseau a lifelong pension for its creation (an offer that Rousseau refused).
Yesterday my students and I, as well as other interested DePauw community members, had our opera extravaganza in the Thompson Recital Hall at the Green Center for the Performing Arts. I made some introductory remarks on Rousseau-as-musician; Misti Shaw of the Music Library presented a fascinating in-depth look at the war between French and Italian opera during the time period (Rousseau took the side of the Italians and was burned in effigy by the Paris Opera); Prof. Matthew Balensuela discussed Rousseau's influence on child prodigy Mozart, who wrote his own treatment of the opera (at age twelve, mind you!). And, biggest treat of all, Prof. Caroline Smith's voice students performed three of the arias for us, including the one that so pleased the king.
I think my students enjoyed it as much as I did. Who doesn't love a class trip? Thank you, colleagues and performers, for making this amazing outing possible.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
November New Life, Day Two
I had a little setback yesterday, on day one of my new life. I did have a lovely French toast and hot chocolate breakfast at the Blue Door Cafe, with just ONE piece of French toast because of the new slimming plan, and I did have a lovely walk up and down Seminary Street, as part of the same weight-loss project. But I just found myself consumed with a restless agitation, the vague feeling that despite all my brave new resolves my life was spinning out of control, with lots of pending decisions that need to be made and might be made wrongly, though as for that, whatever I decide isn't going to matter all that much either way for the rest of my life. But still.
I bumped into my friend Deepa as I was heading out to find some slimming food to eat for lunch, and told her what I was feeling, and she said, "Oh, I feel that sometimes, too. I call it 'the Dread.'"
I felt so much better once it was named, pinned down with a label. Oh, it's just the Dread. People are bound sometimes to be shadowed by the Dread. Life has so much flux and uncertainty in it, so much doubt about what to do next, and how to do it and why. Of course, this is going to lead to the Dread!
So now my November new life has to have some provisions for getting past the Dread. As I learned in a wonderful talk some years ago by writer Laura Deal, "activity is the antidote to anxiety." So I got up early and walked up to the Prindle. I'm going to write the book review on the stunning collaborative effort, Keywords for Children's Literature, edited by Philip Nel and Lissa Paul, which I've been assigned to do for the Children's Literature Association Quarterly. I may take a mid-day walk around the quarry rim - more slimming! And as the biggest source of the Dread in my life right now is not having a new book project that I feel good about, I'm going to take my little notebook and sit for a peaceful hour in the Bartlett Reflection Center, right next to the Prindle Institute, and just THINK.
Dread, begone! Claudia's new life is here!
I bumped into my friend Deepa as I was heading out to find some slimming food to eat for lunch, and told her what I was feeling, and she said, "Oh, I feel that sometimes, too. I call it 'the Dread.'"
I felt so much better once it was named, pinned down with a label. Oh, it's just the Dread. People are bound sometimes to be shadowed by the Dread. Life has so much flux and uncertainty in it, so much doubt about what to do next, and how to do it and why. Of course, this is going to lead to the Dread!
So now my November new life has to have some provisions for getting past the Dread. As I learned in a wonderful talk some years ago by writer Laura Deal, "activity is the antidote to anxiety." So I got up early and walked up to the Prindle. I'm going to write the book review on the stunning collaborative effort, Keywords for Children's Literature, edited by Philip Nel and Lissa Paul, which I've been assigned to do for the Children's Literature Association Quarterly. I may take a mid-day walk around the quarry rim - more slimming! And as the biggest source of the Dread in my life right now is not having a new book project that I feel good about, I'm going to take my little notebook and sit for a peaceful hour in the Bartlett Reflection Center, right next to the Prindle Institute, and just THINK.
Dread, begone! Claudia's new life is here!
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