It looks like the end, but it's not

I am compelled to evaluate everything. I come by it naturally. My ancestors survived by constantly evaluating their environment for threats. Is that a snake or a stick? Is that a tiger or is that just the pattern of dappled shadows among the trees? My compulsion to evaluate everything is hardwired into my DNA. I can’t not. That is what a compulsion is.

Evaluation leads to judgment. Judgment almost always leads to resentment or despair. Rarely does it lead to self-administered attaboys. Whatever happens to me, in me, around me, or by me, I have a continuous stream of chatter in my head: this is pretty good, this isn’t so bad, this is bad, this is really bad, this is the worst. 

My scale is a little skewed. I'm missing the points on the positive end of the scale, the ones that might be marked this is fabulous, this is fantastic, this is the best. I can’t bring myself to type exclamation marks. Consider them implied.

I’m so used to settling for mild resentment, I can’t let myself feel anything above that point on the scale. A good day for me is when I achieve neutrality. When my brain turns off the evaluation wheel and just listens to the wind.

Tethered to the wreckage of the future

I should be editing right now, but my head hurts. When I start thinking I should do a find-and-replace to swap out every other word with shut up!, I know I need to take a break. Lately I've been obsessed with waffles. Now I know which carbs are waffle-friendly (hint: not coconut flour or rice flour, but kudos to oat flour). However, carbs are not Carol-friendly. It's confounding how fast pounds come back when I start eating carbs. I fear if I want to keep wearing the Levi's without the scoche more room, I'm doomed to a life bereft of bread. And pasta. Pancakes. Waffles....

The last paper I edited was a dreary treatise on the causes of terrorism in Palestine. In the last few paragraphs, the author made a half-hearted attempt to propose a solution, but you could tell it was whistling in the dark. I am beginning to understand why we don't want certain Middle Eastern parties to have nuclear weapons—it's pretty clear that if they had them, they would feel compelled by their god to use them.

That's kind of how I feel about carbs in the house: if carbs are there, I have to eat them. It's a compulsion, all right, although I doubt it comes from any god I would want to believe in.

I'm dreaming of carbs as the solution to what ails me because I can't face the excruciating reality of facing my fears. What fears? Well, thanks for asking. Here's the short list: Fear that my mother is disintegrating. Fear that I will lose her before I'm ready to let her go. Fear that she will outlast me and hog the parched bit of life I have left. And now I can add fear of getting fat to the list. Argh.

My sister politely scoffed at the idea of me moving in with our mother. Ah, she knows us too well. I can't stop remembering that day I brought my laptop over to Mom's and worked on a spreadsheet of her finances while she prepared and ate a piece of toast. By the time she was done eating that buttered blackened crunchy stinky thing, I was quite willing to throttle her. I am dreaming if I think we could coexist with one refrigerator. Or that I could pare down my already parched and puny life and cram it into one spare bedroom. It's not much, but it's all I got.

Days are numbered. Do you realize that? We learn that as we get older. It's a concept that can't be explained to young people.

Speaking of young people, I heard on OPB that the Millennials outnumber the Boomers. 100 million of those nasty little upstarts, compared to only about 75 million of us Boomers, and dying off daily. Oh, alas, alackaday. Boomers are no longer the center of the playground, no longer the heart and soul of rock 'n' roll. Even no longer the target market for wrinkle creams and liposuction. At some point, what is wrong with us Boomers can't be fixed or hidden. All we are good for is caring for old decrepit dried up parental husks. And keeping our Gen X children and Millennial grandchildren afloat (but I never had any of those, thank god.) Then we settle in our parents' retirement homes like old beat up worker bees. Some of us won't find a cell to call home and will have to flail around on the ground until someone takes pity on us and plucks our ragged wings. I can do that for my mother, but who will do that for me?

Oh, sorry, that's a little melodramatic. Speaking of beat up worker bees, there's a middle-aged bearded guy standing on a corner up by the gas station. He holds a sign that says Postal worker. Please help. I wonder what that is about? Does he need help because he is a quasi-government employee? Is it a veiled threat that he could go postal on my car at any time? I wonder what my sign would say, were I to write something with a marker on a dirty piece of cardboard. Yard sale here, probably.

Endings precede beginnings. Everything ends, but new things begin. I don't always see the potential in an ending because I'm caught up in trying to fix my past or control my future. I think coming to grips with my mother's mortality and with my mortality is a phase. Once it passes, I can get down to the business of living. Finally. If there's any time left.

Coming off a bender

While my sister was in town for a long weekend, the centerpiece of her visit was food. When I contemplate that statement, I wonder what images it inspires in your mind? Do you picture family feasts, home-cooked spreads, gourmet meals at local five-star restaurants? I mean, it's not often my sister comes to town. My older brother actually drove in from the coast for the occasion, so the entire family (all five of us) was all together, an occurrence rarer than a lunar eclipse. It would have been a perfect time to celebrate with fabulous food. That is not what happened.

The only one who knows how to cook in my family is my sister. I doubt it occurred to her to consider cooking a meal to celebrate the get-together. It certainly never occurred to me, because that isn't how it's done in my family. Cooking was our mother's job, and because she despised cooking, we grew up with canned green beans and hamburger patties.

Our idea of social food is Chinese take-out. My older brother has food allergies. I'm not supposed to eat sugar (among other things). My sister and mother eat like tiny birds. My younger brother will eat anything as long as it isn't from the vegetable family, and my father the compulsive overeater has gone to the all-you-can eat buffet in the sky. Even though we all have our preferences, food is still the center of the social time.

Food is a family thing, even when some family members have food issues. Or maybe that is where some family members get their food issues, I don't know. Just like money is a family thing, food is one of the sticky threads that snags you in childhood and trails after you the rest of your life, no matter how far you run. In my family, it doesn't matter how you feel, but it matters a lot how you look. People notice how you eat. Everyone notices if you gain a few pounds.

I picked my sister up from the airport on Thursday evening and delivered her to Mom's condo. As we pulled up to the back parking area, there was our scrawny mother talking with two older women. Mom stopped waving at her mini-roses and started waving at us. The two neighbors, who held two tiny yappy dogs on leashes, became the audience for the minor family drama that ensued.

Mom introduced us to the neighbors. We shook hands and petted the tiny dogs. I retrieved my sister's suitcase from the boot of my old Focus and started dragging it toward my mother's back door.

My mother grabbed my sister in a hug, gleefully saying to the two women, “This is my skinny child!”

I thought perhaps the neighbors looked a little uncomfortable, but I didn't stick around to find out. I rolled my eyes and kept moving into the house. I heard the subtext, loud and clear, though: This is my skinny child (and there goes my fat child!).

We aren't known for social grace in my family. My sister is the anomaly: She conducts herself like a princess wherever she goes (she's been to Europe, after all), but the rest of us are tooth-picking, armpit-scratching, conversational disasters. (Which could explain why my sister prefers Europe). We're all well-educated, but I fear we still exude a slightly sour aroma that indicates we hale from the wrong side of the tracks. No matter the Ph.D., my collar is blue and probably will be till I die. I mean, you can take the girl out of the public school, but... know what I mean?

I'm a chip off my father's block, so food has a special hold over me. This is why I don't buy anything but fish, chicken, turkey, and vegetables. If there is anything else in the house, I will eat it. Going out to eat is like taking an alcoholic to a bar and saying, oh, it's okay, just this once, have a beer. Live a little!

“I need to gain a few pounds,” my sister said as we perused yet another menu. Meanwhile, my mind was running in circles: Salad? I don't want any stinking salad! Could she tell how much I wanted the chocolate cake? (Or the french fries? Or the wheat bread? Or the cheesy pizza?)

“You only live once,” she said, as if she read my mind. At that point, she might as well have had little devil horns coming out of her perfect blonde hair. And a cute little pitchfork aimed at my bulging belly.

The rest of the weekend was the typical culinary nightmare. I get why my food-allergic brother avoids social situations. It takes monumental willpower to turn down food when you are out to eat with the family. It's just not done. Food is love. (And if you aren't feeling the love just then, you can focus on your food.) Food is the glue that holds family times together. If you don't eat (just a little bite of this amazing Belgian chocolate!), then you aren't on the team. You are undermining the team experience.

Clearly, I have no willpower. I know that. This is not news. As I wait for the wheat, sugar, dairy, soy, and corn starch to clear out of my overloaded system (the five fingers of death, according to Dr Tony the nutty naturopath), I reflect on powerlessness. My mother loaded me up with leftovers (week-old glop in a Chinese takeout carton, an unopened box of wheat-filled, sugar-laced granola), which I (eventually) tossed into the trash, but not after once again trying (and failing) to demonstrate that I can live life like a normal person.

As I recover from this bender, I wish I could say that I won't jaywalk again. But even on a good day, my mind is trying to kill me. Sugar may be a slow death, but it's death all the same.

The chronic malcontent is feeling nasty, brutish, and short

I've known that I have obsessive compulsive tendencies for a long time. When I was in first grade, I looked down on classmates who ate crayons, but I repeatedly bit the hard little buttons on my cardigan sweaters until they cracked. As I got older, I fell into the habit of ripping my cuticles until they bled and tearing my fingernails down to the quick. In seventh grade I went through a period where I pulled out my eyelashes.

I always knew those behaviors were socially unacceptable and felt a pervasive sense of shame about them, but I was never able to control my obsession. My parents would chastise me—Stop picking!—but weren't inclined to discover what compelled me to engage in such obvious self-destruction.

Now I know I'm in good company. Dermatillomaniacs are legion. Just Google skin picking. You'll see forums full of shattering admissions from self-mutilators who are practically weeping with relief at finding out they are not alone in their insanity. Some of them have disfigured themselves by pulling out their hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes. Others have torn apart their fingers and endured life-threatening infections. As self-mutilators go, I'm not very high on the charts. On any given day, I may sport only one band-aid on a finger. In times of high stress, I may have two or rarely three.

These are times of high stress. As I get closer to finishing my dissertation, I think about disaster (shootings, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis). I think about death (illness, injury, insanity). I think about old age, if I live that long (dementia, stroke, nursinghome). It's not enough to stop me from going to work or the store or the gas station. I forget about it while I'm not thinking about myself. (Hint, hint.)

How do you cope? Do you overeat? Do you drink? Do you cut yourself, or sleep too much, or bury yourself in video games? Why is it so excruciating to be present sometimes? Am I the only one? Do you ever feel too twitchy to inhabit your own skin?

Then something wacky happens, like my one and only niece goes and has a baby, a charming little fellow with a lively eye. Something changes. There's a flavor of something I hardly ever taste... could it be hope? Then I laugh, wondering what kinds of obsessions he will have, coming from this wacky family, and I can see the comical side of surviving in times of high stress. We do what we can. We do what we must. It might be nasty, brutish, and short but it's all we've got.

Am I comatose yet?

Yesterday I started feeling a bit under the weather, even though the weather is as good as it gets in the Pacific Northwest in early September: clear, warm air, cool breeze, just scraping the bottom of 80° before skidding back down to the upper 50s. It wasn't the weather that made me sick. I suspect food.

Ever since I started eating organic I suspect food for all my ills. Yesterday after breakfast I felt overcome with a wave of fatigue. I assumed my regular thinking position, and when I woke up my neck was so stiff I couldn't turn my head to either side. I felt like the Tin Man. Oil can! Oil can! I suddenly felt compelled to head for the bathroom, just in time for a particularly noxious and exciting gastrointestinal event, the details of which shall remain thankfully undisclosed. Wow, I thought to myself. I'm dying!

Quickly I opened up Google and typed in I'm dying. The symptom checker for Web MD popped up. I clicked on it and began stabbing various options, searching for a diagnosis. Female. Check. Over 55. Check. Abdominal? Neck? Wha-? Okay, here we go: meningitis! I knew it, I'm doomed. Are my fingers feeling tingly yet? Maybe a little. Am I feeling the onset of a coma? I dunno, how can I tell, I always feel like I'm on the verge of a coma.

Food has always been my nemesis. From the time I walked around the house with little donuts stacked up on all my fingers, food has had power over me. Mom used to reward me with my very own box of Ho-Hos. (Mmmmmm, Ho-Hos. Do they still make them?) I learned that food could be a good friend, probably by watching my father find his comfort in food. After I moved to Los Angeles I went off the deep end, living to eat, counting the minutes until my next meal. After awhile that got tiresome. Then I met a man who didn't mind my chunky ass, and the food compulsion gave way to other compulsions.

Now I've given up every food that used to bring me pleasure: pizza, lasagna, ice cream, crackers, potato chips, oat meal... sugar, wheat, corn, dairy, bread, rice, pasta, tofu, soy milk, rice milk, lentils... for god's sake. What's left, you might ask? I'll tell you what is left: Vegetables. Chicken. Eggs. Fish. Fruit. Water. I eat to live now. I sure don't live to eat. When I find myself craving ice cream, I picture a parfait glass filled with layers of gravel and dirt with green antifreeze and motor oil poured on top. Pretty. But not very nourishing. I suppose if I learned how to cook I could make things tasty. But who cares. It's only food, just calories to convert to energy so I can function.

A half hour after googling my symptoms, I was still alive. Ho hum. I went to bed early, slept for 10 hours, and today I feel fine, a little watery, a little stiff, but very much alive, so probably it wasn't anything serious. Probably just a touch of food poisoning. It was most likely either the salmon I ate on Saturday or the fancy restaurant food I ate on Friday night. I'd like to blame the fish, since I hate to eat fish—I only eat it because Doc Tony says I must in order to stay healthy—but I'd rather blame the restaurant food. I felt a little dizzy after I ate it—usually a sign of a food additive, like a preservative or flavor enhancer. But the dizziness went away, and I felt fine on Saturday.

I'd like to say that eating at restaurants is worth the risk of food poisoning. The older I get though, the less willing I am to spend three days suffering for an hour of gastronomic pleasure. It's gotta be good company or really delicious food to risk the possibility of a negative outcome. Friday night it was worth the company. Plus I wanted to check out the new cafe in my 'hood. Ok. Now that I know the menu, I have no problem abstaining. What food is worth the risk? I'm not sure. Potato chips, maybe. Mmmmmm, potato chips.

Time for dinner. Lettuce, roasted beets, carrots, avocado, pan-grilled salmon, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Sounds good? Every day, for the rest of your life? Hey, it could be worse. My allergy-plagued brother had to survive on turkey, rice, and water for years before his immune system rebounded. I'm lucky. No sugar, oh, poor me.