SECOND THOUGHTS

I’m shaking my head again.

 

I’m fuming, I’m frustrated.

 

I am so tired of the Second Amendment protecting guns, not people. I’m astounded that classrooms of schoolchildren, churchgoers, mall browsers, grocery shoppers and concert attendees put their lives at risk, doing normal things while killers slaughter them with AR-15s and other firearms. It floors me that walking about while toting a gun is considered an equally normal thing. I’m incensed that LGBTQ carnage didn’t stop with the Pulse massacre in Orlando. I’m deeply troubled that five more people have been gunned down in a gay bar, this time in Colorado Springs. 

 

All of this, it seems, is just the cost of preserving the hallowed Second Amendment. Guns are as sacred as the Bible in the God-blessed United States. It’s pure insanity.

 

Once again, NRA members and NRA-funded politicians will say it’s people, not guns, that are at issue. It’s unchecked psychoses and neuroses. Let’s demonize people with mental health conditions if we must; anything it takes to keep guns at the ready in case of emergency.

 

Drag story hour protesters

“Emergencies” like last month when protesters crowded around a gay bar in Oregon, objecting to a drag queen story hour. Yes, reports are that protesters felt a need to carry guns. Drag queens are scary apparently. This warps and contorts the concept of peaceful protest and assembly. It’s blatant intimidation. I can’t even get my head around the fact someone would take a gun to a protest of any kind. Signs and yelling aren’t enough to make a statement. Gotta pack the gun. This is legal. This is America.

 

There are 20 million AR-15 guns in the United States. That’s just an estimate. There isn’t a gun registry in the U.S. Only six states have any kind of gun registry. So 20 million…ish. How is any kind of screening measure going to get it right in processing that many gun sales? If only 1% slip through the cracks, that means 200,000 of these ultra-destructive weapons are in the wrong hands. Even if 0.1 percent of AR-15s get in the hands of people who weren’t or couldn’t possibly be properly screened, that’s 20,000 guns in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. How is that acceptable? How does that instill a sense of safety? The answer, to gun advocates is to buy more guns. Fight fire with fire.

 

Love guns, not people.

 

That’s what it comes down to. 

 

When grade one students were wiped out at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut ten years ago, I thought that would finally be the turning point. Americans would come together when their youngest citizens are no longer safe in a public school classroom. 

 

Nope. Alex Jones denied it ever happened. It was a ploy, he said. Actors pretended to be parents of dead kids. How heinous is that? And yet that’s what had to be done. People needed to latch onto conspiracies and fabrications instead of reflecting on how to balance gun rights with public safety and in lieu of grieving the loss of children and supporting the parents whose grief will always be with them.

 

Again, insanity.

 

Worse: depravity. 

 

Banning books seems
a greater issue than
banning assault weapons.

Now lockdown drills are standard procedure in schools. School nurses are a thing of the past and instead we have police or security guards in place. When I was in high school long, long ago, I heard about drug-sniffing dogs checking out student lockers. Talk now is about weapons detectors. If someone is shot in a school, the focus is on faulting security systems—the people, the checkpoints—instead of looking into gun control legislation that might make schools, churches, malls, grocery stores, concert venues and bars safer. The concept of limits on guns for the sake of the greater good is flatly rejected. What could possibly be greater than the Second Amendment?

 

The LGBTQ community must not be complacent when hate is spewed at school board meetings, in state assemblies and in Congress. We must push back—hard—on politicians and candidates who foster fear and hate to fill campaign coffers and get their base to the polls. The old playbook of portraying queers as freaks and perverts must be shredded. Our dignity is at issue but, more immediately, our safety is at stake. There are vulnerable, hateful citizens who hear the rhetoric of “respected” or at least elected officials and see it as a call to arms…and worse.

 

Political activism is embedded in LGBTQ history. It must continue. Take a break from posting gym selfies, get informed and make your voice heard. I don’t want to read about “the next Colorado Springs” and yet I know there will be another tragedy if nothing changes. 

 

Retweet this post if you think it’s worthy. Write your own or tweet your thoughts. Speak up when you hear misinformation. Question people who defend access to assault weapons. We must do all we can to stop the insanity. 

 

 

 

 

  

TOO MUCH GINGER (Part II)

 Too much ginger?

Apologies. This was supposed to be a humorous post. I don’t know what it will turn out to be now. Anxiety has a way of taking over everything.

 

A couple of nights ago, I had a miserable sleep. It wasn’t much in terms of a sleep at all. Call it a miserable, prolonged awakening in lieu of sleep. I blamed pumpkin pie. It’s a seasonal scapegoat. (Really, when was the last time you ate pumpkin pie in February?) I figured I’d eaten too much pie over the course of the evening, but there were other possibilities too, if I broke the pie down into the particular ingredients. (This is the kind of thing I do during unwelcome, prolonged awakenings.) I’d gone heavy on the ginger which probably wasn’t great on the stomach. Too much nutmeg and cloves as well. The pie shell’s expiration date was two years ago, the egg whites’ Best Before date was five weeks ago, maybe six, and it’s possible both the pumpkin puree and the sweetened condensed milk were outdated, too. Maybe this was the type of pie TikTokkers eat on a dare after they get bored swallowing cinnamon. (Yes, I’d been overly generous on that spice as well.) I wasn’t, however, in the mood to make and post a video at three in the morning after wrestling pillows and sensing that dark circles had settled under my eyes. They’ve taken up permanent residence, but surely they were undergoing a fresh paint job for that football player look, only sad and scary.

 

Pumpkin pie probably didn’t deserve my late-night or next-day wrath. I’ve had four nights in a row with sleep taunting me. 

 

You sure you want it? 

 

Isn’t flopping, tossing pillows and wrestling with sheets and blankets much more fun?

 

All that movement burns calories, you know.

 

If sleep taunts, anxiety bullies. It’s been having great fun at my expense. I’ve been downing aspirin to subdue a headache that keeps popping up, today crossing over into the migraine zone. My stomach has been busy shooting pain and clenching innards to cause constant discomfort. My brain won’t slow down.

 

Sometimes there is no clear cause for an anxiety visit. It just shows up. No call ahead. No text. Quite rude, in fact. I’m here. You’re gonna want put on a pot of coffee. Maybe one of those big urns. 

 

This time, however, I know why it’s here. Evan and I are off on another trip, this time for three weeks. While I always get excited about travel, there are always a few matters that give me the worries beforehand. As I mentioned in my prior post, the one where I viewed pumpkin pie as a nemesis (sorry!), I don’t have a big enough suitcase for either the length of travel or the weather variability, with current temperatures ranging from a low of -15 in northern Colorado to 95 in Miami. I’m going suitcase shopping tonight.

 

The bigger issue is that I’ll be meeting Evan’s parents on this trip. It’s not just going to be a pleasant lunch at the Olive Garden wherein I search for more intelligent, conversation-extending ways to say, “Mmm, breadsticks!” We’re staying with them for a full week. And not just any week, for those of you familiar with the American calendar. We’re there for Thanksgiving, a much bigger to-do in the States than in Canada. Bigger than the Fourth of July, bigger than Groundhog Day—seriously, Hallmark, why haven’t you exploited that?—sometimes bigger than Christmas. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, star billing goes to the one your grown children show up for. Evan’s Colorado visit makes Thanksgiving the big one for 2022. 

 

That would be big and stressful enough since the boyfriend of nine months—Me!—is in tow and, good god, he’s a vegetarian. “But it’s Thanksgiving! He’ll at least have a little turkey, right? What do you mean he won’t eat the stuffing if it’s cooked in the bird? What the hell is mushroom gravy?”

 

If too much ginger is at play, the ginger is me, a big redhead who likes a few blond highlights. Call it a hunch, but I think they’re really excited I’m crashing Thanksgiving. 

 

But there’s the Open House first. I got the invitation on a group text. “Come say hello to Evan and James!” Evan later texted that his mom had selected “green jade moss and grass” for the color theme. My colors. I had to ask if he was serious. He wasn’t but my sense of humor suffers rapid decline when anxiety lurks. And Evan may need to learn when it’s the right time to joke around.

 

Open House, no joke.

 

Evan’s mom has stated she’s invited all Evan’s friends, but Evan insists they’re her friends. No matter to me. A houseful of strangers sounds like all kinds of fun. I’m an EXTREME introvert, by the way. 

 

Among the guests are Evan’s stepbrother and wife, driving in from Wyoming…or maybe the tip of Argentina. I don’t know. I’m only hearing half of what Evan says at this point, which happens to be the half that included him saying, “They’re MAGA people. But nice.” Hopefully there’s a hat rack in the front hall for them to hang their red caps. I will politely excuse myself to go to the bathroom if they mention Mar-a-Lago, the My Pillow Guy or start an impromptu rally, chanting, “Build that wall!” I may have to lie and say I’ve got overactive bladder syndrome. And diarrhea. 

 

Often at house gatherings, I drop to the floor and play with the dog. I’m in luck when it’s a slobbering golden retriever that rolls over and insists on a three-hour tummy rub. “Yes! Yes! Who’s a good boy?!” The nifty thing is that Evan’s mom is partial to miniature schnauzers like me. She’s had four, I’ve had three. But none of them will be available for a paw shake, much less a belly scratch. They’re all dead. Making the boyfriend’s mother cry is not cool at an open house. 

 

So…no dogs to keep me occupied. Evan’s parents have two cats now. I love all animals, but some not as much as others. Cats are clearly in the “not as much” cat-egory. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) I admire cats from afar after getting scratched up by neighbors’ felines as a kid and cat-sitting a devil cat for one very long week in my thirties. “Yeah, I think she’s possessed,” my friend said after returning from his trip. No chance I’m going to crouch down and allow two Himalayans to draw blood from my face and arms during my big debutante affair. My sudden screams may cause a lot of troublesome red wine spillage.

 

Speaking of wine, Evan told his parents I don’t drink. He clarified by tagging on the word “much.” Critical add-on. But his brevity had already incited panic in his mother. “No turkey? No alcohol?! Is your boyfriend a mannequin?”

 

I drink. A glass, sometimes two. No one’s going to mistake me for a hardcore partier. I would think that’s a positive, especially at an open house. Wouldn’t want to break the Waterford crystal or Evan’s second-grade pottery collection, a charming set of ashtrays displayed on the living room hutch. (I too made ashtrays in elementary school. Such were the seventies. Did Philip Morris fund our arts programs?) If I have to, for the sake of making a good impression, I’ll allow generous pours to refill my wine glass and then dump the Chardonnay in the bathroom sink when I’m making another of my runs to duck out of a conversation about guns in churches. 

 

I just double-checked the open house invitation on my phone. It’s four hours which initially makes me think, FOUR HOURS?! Damn. But then I feel thankful. There’s an end time. That’s something. Seems like I’m shifting to glass-half-full territory. May there be no spills, no overconsumption causing me to diss about Melania and no serious cat scratches causing me to bleed too profusely. After a week of meeting the parents and half of northern Colorado, I’m sure I’ll enjoy sunny southern Florida. I’ve had melanoma but worries about skin cancer are nothing when put in the big picture of the trip that lies ahead. A sunburn might make cat scratches blend in nicely.

 

But then, Evan did say I needed to pack high fashion clothing for going to dinner with his client in Key West and more trendy, arty wear for when we hit Miami to see his best friend. There’s a fancy schmantzy weeklong art gala that’s in Miami while we’re there. Events galore!

 

WHAT?! 

 

So, once again, I should apologize for disparaging pumpkin pies. They probably don’t cause restless, sleepless nights of tossing and turning. Any correlation with unrelenting tummy aches and constant migraines is likely coincidental. It seems there may be other factors. Still, I’m not going to pack my Ativan. Even if it helped me refrain from heated MAGA debates, kept the wine steady in hand and allowed me to make nice with the kitties for a few minutes, I don’t think I’d make a great impression if I curled up on the living room sofa and finally fell into deep dozing during my big debut. 

 

I’ll handle all of it. Or I won’t. What’s three weeks anyway? 

   

 

 

 

 

TOO MUCH GINGER (Part I)

I keep telling myself it’s the ginger.

 

I’ve been awake since 3:30 this morning, my stomach feeling like everything in that vicinity had a scrum with a cheese grater. For the next few hours, I shifted every which way, a pillow constantly readjusted to numb that feeling of having multiple organs sliced and diced. If I’d been more alert, I’d have gotten up and searched for the hot water bottle, but I have no idea what cupboard, box or drawer it’s been since my July move. I figured by the time I found it, I’d be too wide awake to fall back asleep. I suppose I was delusional, too. Falling back to sleep was never going to happen.

 

Since my boyfriend, Evan, and I live in different cities, we try to call each other before going to bed on the nights we’re apart. “I love you,” “Sweet dreams,” and whatnot. It’s possible there was too much whatnot in last night’s call.

 

But I did put an awful lot of ginger in the pumpkin pie I made on a whim yesterday evening. Three times what the recipe called for. A quick Google tells me ginger can lead to “heartburn, diarrhea, burping, and general stomach discomfort.” Okay. My side effect beats diarrhea. If I had any say in it, I’d have gone with burping though. Might have offered a flashback to my early teens when we made a game of chugging Barq’s root beer.

 

In five days, Evan and I are off on a three-week trip. Maybe it wasn’t the ginger or last night’s call. Earlier in the day, before Evan drove back to Seattle, we’d talked about packing. It’s going to be challenging for both of us. For Evan, that’s because he’s a clothes horse. While I care about what I wear, Evan takes it eight or nine levels beyond me. Every outfit is a fashion statement. There are layers and accessories. He’s the kind of person Bill Cunningham of The New York Times would have photographed if they’d crossed paths on the street in Manhattan. My packing concerns are more practical. Our trip begins in Colorado and Wyoming where temperatures will be below freezing with possible snow on the ground, but then we fly to Key West and Miami where temperatures will call for shorts and swimsuits. I need clothes for daily workouts as well, with what I wear for a run in northern Colorado differing radically from my beach jogs. All I have is a carry-on since my suitcase didn’t survive the ordeal of first being lost and then severely damaged when I went to Iceland and Sweden last spring. 

 

Three weeks of all-weather wear! I suppose I can fit in time to buy a suitcase today. If that means a better night’s sleep, it’s definitely worth the money I hadn’t wanted to spend. My stomach will be so relieved.  

 

My mind’s drifting back to yesterday’s pie. In my waking hours, there are times when I dream of making pumpkin pie. Usually, I put up enough resistance, but it’s such an easy dessert to make. I cheat with a ready-made crust so all I have to do is toss several ingredients in a blender, pour the liquid in the shell and stick it in the oven. Sometimes my daydreaming about pumpkin pie comes when I’m in the grocery store. It takes willpower to resist adding certain items to my basket. When canned pumpkin puree or sweetened condensed milk is on sale, I set aside willpower. I tell myself these are wise purchases. Huge savings! Dad would be proud.

 

But it’s not like I pull out the can opener as soon as I get home. I’ve got that bag of caramel popcorn (also on sale or at least twenty cents cheaper than at Safeway). It’s quicker to pig out on that instead. The canned goods go in the pantry; I forget about them. Societal norms dictate that pumpkin doesn’t even appear on the dining radar until the beginning of October since that’s when Thanksgiving is, at least in Canada. For some, pumpkin ideation begins a month earlier, but I don’t go to Starbucks anymore and, besides, I don’t want pumpkin coffee any more than I want banana bread. Stop playing with your food, people! 

 

It's possible that several ingredients in last night’s pumpkin pie expired long ago. The carton of egg whites was only five weeks out of date and I figured that any of its badness would be baked out after fifty minutes at 375 degrees. I keep missing Canadian Thanksgivings, including this year’s, due to travel so it’s quite possible both the canned pumpkin and the sweetened condensed milk were past prime, too. I didn’t want to look for stamped dates since pumpkin pie had risen to a must-have craving. The condensed milk was still its regular creamy color. Last time I opened one, it had turned a butterscotch hue, forcing me to trek to the store for something more current. (How do I go years between pumpkin pies and then find myself blindsided by the most urgent need to feast on one?) The pie shell had a “Best Before” some month in 2020 but that just seemed silly to consider. So, yes, maybe it was an ancient puree that upset my tummy. Or a combination of that, trip packing worries, too much ginger, stale graham cracker crumbs and egg whites gone green. I’d also been overly generous with the nutmeg and cloves. It’s not a COVID thing, but my taste buds have always needed extra everything to wake them up.

 

There’s also the fact that I may have eaten too much pie in one sitting. Actually, it wasn’t one sitting. Pumpkin pie became dinner, dessert, snack time and then the target of a fridge raid just before bed, the annoying beeping sound the door makes when it’s been open too long finally ending my extended grazing session. I swear there was still some pie in the tin when I turned in for the night. How much? That’s an awfully personal question. I’d rather disparage my intelligence and say I’ve always been bad at fractions. Two-thirds? One-fifth? What’s the diff?

 

Today I’ll just have to slog my way through, downing a few more oat milk lattes than usual. For the moment, the stomach is behaving. If I get a bad sleep tonight, I suppose too much coffee will be to blame. Surely none of this restlessness is due to the fact one week of my trip involves staying with Evan’s parents whom I haven’t met and all the hoopla leading up to our arrival which he mentioned on the phone last night…

 

No, no. It’s the ginger. Google already confirmed that. I’m overthinking this.

 

TO BE CONTINUED…

 

SINGING A DIFFERENT TUNE

I was eleven when it dawned on me I didn’t have to listen to my parents’ music. It had served me well enough. They had a hi-fi in the living room, encased in a lovely wooden cabinet as was common in the seventies and I would slide open the door that hid the shelf that stored albums, scanning through them in search of something contemporary amongst my dad’s classical collection. Favourite album: “Close to You” by the Carpenters. I loved to sit on the step leading down to our sunken living while listening to Karen’s glorious voice sing what I wanted to be my future wedding song, “We’ve Only Just Begun” and that tune about someone with captivating beauty, “(They Long to Be) Close to You.” 

On the day that you were born, the angels got together
And decided to create a dream come true,
So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold 

  and starlight in your eyes of blue.

That is why all the girls in town
Follow you, all around,
Just like me, they long to be
Close to you.

 

At first when I sang along, I suppose I just sang what Karen sang because that’s the way the song went. I knew she was singing about a guy. In time, I thought more about the words coming out of my mouth in an unintentional off-key harmony to Karen’s perfect pitch. A heavenly guy with throngs of girls in tow. “Just like me, they long to be close to you.” Sometimes I thought it was funny; other times, it just made me feel funny. 

 

Richard and Karen grew up outside of L.A. and the very white dude, with blond hair and blue eyes may have been a California surfer, but I only knew of the Golden State from “The Brady Bunch” and “Adam-12.” I imagined a handsome prince instead. Oh, dear. I was beginning to feel very funny.

 

I made the necessary adjustment. I changed “girls” to “boys.” Presto! A blue-eyed blonde as the centerpiece. Using fairy-tale magic, I’d turned the prince into a princess. “All the boys in town follow you, all around. Just like me, they long to be close to you.” Whew. I still felt funny, but I was working on it. Presumably, it would take time for gender reassignment lyrics to stick.

 

My entry into pop music, a realm I continue to love, came in sixth grade, when Cam Millar stood up at lunch and said, “Raise your hand if you like Elton John? Whoever doesn’t isn’t cool.” Hello, peer pressure. Naturally, I raised my hand. Elton. He was the guy with goofy sunglasses, right? I went home and asked for an Elton John album for my birthday, his “Greatest Hits” from 1974, still an amazing collection. Beyond the sunglasses, there seemed to be something funny about Elton, too. Something about his lyricist, Bernie Taupin, drew my attention as well. I suppose I was still working through my own funny feelings. 

 

Listening to Hamilton, Ontario radio station CKOC—clearly none of the broadcasting authorities had dyslexia—on my A.M. transistor radio proved to be a great way to be cooler (or so I thought) as I got to know all the songs by, not just Elton, but ABBA, KC & The Sunshine Band and Barbra Streisand. Surely memorizing all the lyrics to Diana Ross songs would get rid of funny feelings, once and for all.

But then pop music introduced me to Andy Gibb and Rex Smith, triggering more funny feelings, not so much about what they sang but based on their photos gracing the sleeves of the 45s I bought. Hair, I told myself. Clearly, it’s just hair envy. I’d buy some Vidal Sassoon shampoo and puff up my hair with a pick and a gob of mousse. Maybe my big hair could be as dreamy as theirs. I regularly checked their photos, strictly for hair comparison’s sake, of course.

 

I hadn’t yet realized how badly I sang so I continued to belt out pop tunes I played on my brand-new stereo. My family and a few unlucky friends hid their horror while I made songs like “You Light Up My Life” and “Can’t Smile Without You” more grating than they already were.[1] Still, I became more self-conscious, if not yet about my vocal (in)abilities, then about what others might intuit from the lyrics I sang.      

 

Some songs were safe, if plain weird, like “Muskrat Love” and “Disco Duck (Part 1)[2].” (Some parts of the ’70s are hard to explain. Too much Tang, I guess.) I could also sing “Car Wash” without a thought as my parents fretted about my career aspirations. Butchering the lyrics to “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band came naturally since I didn’t have a clue what they were singing and there was no internet to check myself. (Seriously, who or what was little Early-Pearly and what’s a curly-wurly? Maybe writer Bruce Springsteen was taking in more than Tang.) 

 

Singing along to songs by guys was also worry-free as I attempted to hit the notes for “She Believes in Me” by Kenny Rogers and “She’s Always a Woman to Me” by Billy Joel. However, I gravitated to the songs women sang so singing often required revisions. Over time, I became much more adept at pronoun gymnastics. Sometimes I made the adjustments while other times I decided the changes would be clunky or just too much to consistently carry off. Donna Summer and I sang “Will you be my Mr. Right?” in “Last Dance” because a change to Mrs. Right seemed nonsensical. I’d never heard that expression. Did guys just not care as much? As well, I had too much fun belting out Sheena Easton’s “Morning Train (Nine to Five)” to bother with alterations. It was chock full of he, his and him. 

My baby takes the morning train
He works from nine to five and then
He takes another home again
To find me waitin' for him.

“My baby” might be surprised and disappointed to find me at the end of the workday. Clearly, I’m no Sheena but then who is?

 

And flash forward to 2022. I’m not going to do the math. It’s not hard. It’s just hard to take. (Cue Al Stewart’s 1978 ditty, “Time Passages.”) My, how far we’ve come from the days when Elton sang about “Little Jeannie” and “Nikita,” Barry Manilow sang to “Mandy” and George Michael sang “Everything She Wants.” In the past month, “Unholy” topped the US and British charts, the first Billboard Number 1 by someone who identifies as nonbinary (Sam Smith) and someone who is trans (Kim Petras). No chance though that I’ll be singing along to its inane lyrics, alone or in public. (“Mummy don’t know daddy’s getting hot at the body shop, doin’ somethin’ unholy.”) Still, as they say, it’s somethin’.

 

I don’t sing aloud when others are present anymore. A friend’s cutting critique not so politely put a stop to my sing-alongs. Simon Cowell would have been nicer. What’s done is done. Karaoke bars are safer to visit, I suppose. Still, I mumble-sing in my home as music plays from my laptop. 

 

Yesterday I listened to YouTube as I did abs on my exercise mat. The online channel has a knack for knowing what I might like to hear after my chosen tune ends. It played a soulful song I wasn’t familiar with, the male voice sounding better than most. As I continued to do sit-ups, the singer sang, “He tears me to pieces.” It startled me. Did I hear that right? And then: “She don’t know you like me. She could never love you more than me.” I glanced at the screen and made a mental note…Omar Apollo singing “Evergreen.” When I finished my workout, I listened again, a video with the lyrics on the screen. My ears weren’t mistaken. A man singing about a man. (According to Wikipedia, Apollo is openly gay.) The song was a modest hit on the Billboard chart, missing the Top 40, peaking at number 51. So far, it’s hit the Top 40 in the UK, Ireland and Australia, its greatest success coming in the Netherlands where it reached number 4. The various videos of the song have more than ten million views on YouTube. 

 

Recently, the music channel reacquainted me with an English band called The 1975 which first garnered international attention with the song “Chocolate.” Their songs are catchy, but I’ve never really gotten into them until their new album, “Being Funny in a Foreign Language,” was released in the past month. I listened to several songs and the lyrics made me listen, having something to say beyond generic fare designed to appeal to (or not offend) the masses. On the lead single, “Part of the Band,” lead singer Matty Healy sings:

I fell in love with a boy, it was kinda lame, 

I was Rimbaud and he was Paul Verlaine

In my, my my imagination.[3]

Healy sings of a woman, too, letting listeners speculate about his possible bisexuality or a total ambivalence about sexual orientation. The song hasn’t received a great deal of airplay, not likely due to boy talk but perhaps more on account of its frankness in mentioning heroin, cocaine and ejaculations. Still, the video has received about five million views. 

 

Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Same but different. While other people get worked up over pronouns they and them, I’m still taking in how he and him are popping up and evolving in pop music. How lovely to have a singer killing me softly with his song, no lyrical adjustments required.

 

 

---

[1] Full confession: I like “You Light Up My Life” and “Can’t Smile Without You.” I just know I’m not supposed to admit it. Alas, peer pressure persists.

[2] Good grief, is there a “Disco Duck (Part 2)”? Turns out, yes. Mercifully, it’s an instrumental. I’m not providing the link. If you must go there, you’re on your own.

[3] Rimbaud and Verlaine were 19^th-century poets who had a torrid, sometimes violent affair. Rimbaud didn’t seem to hide his homosexuality while Verlaine struggled with it, marrying a woman and often getting intoxicated whereupon he would become violent. 

EXERCISE RULES

“You’re always so happy after a run,” Evan said this morning after I poured a cup of coffee and we chatted a few minutes upon my return. “I think it’s the dopamine.”

 

“Maybe,” I said. Likely not. Endorphins, dopamine, other body rushes triggered from a workout…I’ve heard people talk about them, made up things to justify a fitness class in lieu of another hour of doomscrolling on the sofa. “I obsess over exercise all day until it’s done. I’m happy when it’s over.”

 

“I wish I had your disease,” Evan said.

 

“No, you don’t.”

 

I know Evan was joking and I took it as such. There’s a lot about my eating disorder he doesn’t understand, but this was not going to evolve into another prolonged Q&A, thank goodness. I’ll leave the information dump here instead.

 

Not everyone with an eating disorder is obsessive about exercise, but I met several while in treatment programs and it came as a relief that I wasn’t the only one ruled by workouts. The year 2019 was my most intense attempt to tame my eating disorder, attending weekly supervised meals and outpatient programming before spending a quarter of the year undergoing live-in interventions, first in an ED ward at a hospital and then in a group home. I gained a few insights but no pounds. Really though, my weight isn’t in a harmful range, as confirmed by cardiologists and internists after some initial concerns. 

 

In hospital, I wasn’t allowed to do any exercise at first. I knew this prior to admission and fretted about it aplenty but then surrendered to the program and its attempts to distract me by required participation in No-Impact Adaptive Yoga and Arts & Crafts (I turfed the painted flowerpot and the first-grade-caliber greeting cards I made for no one). When I received increasingly longer passes to leave the hospital, I was still not allowed to exercise. I was supposed to take the bus whenever I stopped by my home and do things non-exercisers do…perhaps some of that aforementioned doomscrolling, readily available with Trump still in the White House. I’d report back my compliance each time I returned to the hospital ward. The fact I’d race-walked home and fit in a quick gym workout or jog on the seawall was my little secret. And, yes, as with this morning, I was happier after having done it.

 

In the group home, the dietitian and occupational therapist allowed me to exercise some. We went back and forth, the negotiations seeming more intense than what they were used to. I think they knew they’d have to give me something or I’d just lie about sitting on park benches, policing people who tried to get out of picking up their Rottweiler’s poop. Big dog, big poop. How did they not know that when they adopted it as a cute, little pup? Every week, I reopened our negotiations, pressing for more time and more options. I’m convinced the dietitian grew to hate me. My desperation may have made me sound combative, even aggressive. Still, I settled on allowing more blank spaces on my calendar, working out three days in a row and taking the fourth off. There were time limits as well, but I blew those off. Getting every fourth day off from exercise was radical enough.

 

I will concede that my body needed the more frequent rest days, given that every workout remained extreme in terms of intensity and duration. I enjoyed having more days when I didn’t have to think about a looming fitness routine, when I could agree to meet a friend for coffee without worrying about it cutting into gym time or a bike ride, when I could read without constantly checking to see how long I had before heading to the pool for the allotted time to swim lengths.

 

I don’t know what triggered it—COVID boredom perhaps—but in June 2020 I reverted to my old ways, insisting on six days of working out each week. I exercise when I'm sick. I exercise when I'm injured. Even with international travel, I haven’t strayed once from this expectation. I’m not sure if I could say this is a choice or that this is about commitment, discipline or some deep belief in the benefits of exercise. Without dopamine or endorphins, it’s not about pleasure. It just is. It has to be.

 

It's not entirely true that once my daily workout is done, it’s out of mind. I move on to thinking about how my workouts will look for the upcoming days, frequently checking my weather app to see when I can slot in outdoor activities (e.g., hiking, running, cycling) and when I should plan on a gym or swim workout instead. I’m not sure if Vancouver truly has difficult weather patterns to predict or if somebody just does a poor job of it, but I frequently have to readjust plans as weather updates change and then change yet again. It’s stressful for someone who has to schedule exercise and absolutely cannot just take a rain check on it. 

 

At present, Evan and I are exploring the northwesternmost corner of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. I climbed out of bed before daybreak to fit in a run before a day of beach walking, a road trip to Neah Bay and a short walk/hike to Cape Flattery, the northwestern corner of the contiguous United States. Lovely activities but not enough calorie burning. Run done, I can enjoy them now at a leisurely pace, the next day’s run not until tomorrow morning. Unless it rains, as is more likely in this area which is a short drive from the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park. Please let there be a gap in the rain. Plan Bs are so tricky on the road with no bike and no gym or pool nearby.

 

But happy. Yes, I am indeed feeling that. Maybe it comes from relief. Run done and a lovely day of new adventures ahead of me with my partner. I’ll do my best to put pesky thoughts of tomorrow’s fitness aside. That’s another sort of workout.