Why hello there! Welcome back. You thought I'd left forever, I'm sure. Sometimes I questioned it myself. But there are too many good ideas rolling around in this gal's head for me to stay away for that long. So here I am.
Oh, you'd like to know where I've been? What's happened since that lonely little post earlier this month? A lot actually. Some fun things, some foodie things, some big scary what the crap am I doing decision type things. And I promise to share. November is a new month, and I'm absolutely planning to be back.
Why November? Why not now, you ask? Well, not now because today is a very special day.
Halloween? Oh, why I suppose it is Halloween. But no, that's not it. You see, around here on the 31st of October, we celebrate Chris' birthday. So, while many of you are drinking punch and eating candy while dressed as vampires or ghouls or slutty versions of basically any and everything, we will be spending a quiet evening at home and enjoying Chris' traditional birthday dinner.
I’m a little lost these days. This is a difficult thing for me to admit, especially here where it would be all too easy to omit the details about how I’m faltering lately, to chalk up my absence entirely to cheery days spent canning. I’d be lying if I turned around and told you that there wasn’t immense happiness and satisfaction in the days I spent filling all those jars, but I’d also be lying if I didn’t now explain that canning has been a means of escape for me during the past month as well, a way to focus my teeming mind on something small and pleasant.
I didn’t mean it lightly when I said that it had been a vacation.
I've been away for a while, I know. I have every intention of telling you all where I've been and what I've been up to--and I will, very soon--but there's something else that's been on my mind and that I need to put out there.
I've already been pretty vocal about my desires to change the way I eat, to be more conscious of how/where I get my food, and that I think it's important that everyone starts making these kinds of changes. It seems sometimes that there's a fine line, though, in the world of food writing. It's the line between communicating these things in an effective (and affective) manner and obnoxiously preaching...most often to the converted. I'm going to go not so far out on a limb here and say that most food writers are well aware of the crisis and are already taking steps--like shopping at farmers' markets, buying humanely raised meats and local, seasonal produce--to affect their own change. Standing up and raising your voice in favor of revolution can feel a bit awkward when those around you are shrugging their shoulders and saying, "Yeah, we know."
But, at the risk of sounding completely adolescent (and I sort of am in all of this, I'm still finding my place in it), I've decided to open up a little further. I think it can be helpful to hear the same thing again in a new way, in a different voice. Sometimes changing a few words around can make someone see a piece that was never quite clear before and suddenly the whole picture looks different. Still, dear reader, feel free to venture away at this point and return for my next post, if you'd like. No hard feelings.
I've been thinking a lot lately about consumerism and priorities. What do we spend our money on and why? What are we really gaining when we make a purchase? What is the larger impact of these choices?
I feel like I've been away from here for a month. This past week was madness at work, so many things have happened, and all I've really wanted to do is write. It's funny how one's sense of time's passing can be so contextual. Days at work felt rushed and chaotic, like there weren't enough minutes to accomplish everything that just absolutely needed to be done. Yet, at the very same time, with the days and hours speeding by, the time since my last post seemed to stretch on and away from me, looking like weeks becoming months.
But here I am. Safe and sound in the languid hours of a lazy Saturday. And I want to talk about movies.
I saw two movies within the past week that I'm sure nearly everyone who loves and lives food has seen or will see. It's been a very long time since I've walked out of a theater feeling different for the experience, but both of these movies affected me deeply. Honestly, I feel changed.
So come along with me while I share with you my very different experiences with two very different films. I'm warning you, this isn't likely to be brief.
I realized something recently, and I’ve been feeling pretty guilty about it. So, I included some pretty pictures from my day that will hopefully make us both feel better.
Of late, this is has been the eager recommendation from many of my closest friends:
"You should start a blog!"
Several months ago, however, it was all I could do to keep from rolling my eyes at the mere mention of the word. Blogging was something I never fully understood, and I operated under the assumption that it was no more than a pointless exercise in narcissism. How could what is essentially a publicly accessible diary serve any other function? Who really cares what I have to say?
But, as is the case with most misconceptions, I formed all of these ideas before I'd ever actually read a blog.
And here I am now, writing my own. Who'd-a-thunk?
- - -
Nearly four months ago, sometime around mid-January, I found myself stretched out stiffly on a hospital bed, crammed into a narrow and busy hallway in an NYC emergency room. After nine hours on my back, x-rays, a CT scan, and three different doctors, I was discharged without even a fraction of an explanation for the excruciating pain that caused me to drag myself there in the first place. The male nurse that pulled my IV out before handing me my walking papers had said unhelpfully, "It was probably just gas." I smiled politely and nodded, resisting the urge to lunge at him screaming. I'd lost count of how many times and to how many different people I'd explained my symptoms since walking in the door, and didn't care to run through my entire history yet again. The lack of communication coupled with this ridiculous game of Musical Medical Care Professionals is just one of the many problems with our health care system, but I digress....
I have had stomach pain for longer than I can truly remember, and by now I know the difference between gas pain and the pain that I was having that day (considering I've had plenty of both over the years). In trying to relate my story to friends, or even in recalling it to myself, I find I have difficulty nailing down exactly when the pain began. Five or six years ago seems to be right--I know it's been that long at least. It was always a sharp and somewhat constant pain, like an intense cramping or slicing from the inside out. I felt full, bloated, like I couldn't pull my abdominals in without pressing against the sharp point of whatever was poised within my stomach. And, likely touching on the edge of TMI for those of you who are conservative or don't care to know me quite that well, I was always constipated. I'd go days, sometimes a week or more, without being able to go to the bathroom. It became bad enough that, on one occasion, I actually threw up because my body simply couldn't hold anything more.
"Didn't you go to the doctor?" I'm sure many of you are asking. Nope. As difficult as it may be to believe, I thought this was normal.
