The First Snowfall

Image via Wikipedia

Woke up this morning and saw the white carpet of snow outside.  I feel like this should be mentioned, esp. in Montreal.  Had a lot to do today and I did not get a chance to have my traditional hike up Mt Royal with a camera and hiking boots.  Instead, I ended up getting my guitar checked out and restrung, running in a local park, and napping while my laundry tumbled.

So, winter is here.  I know that this is nothing special, but I always wonder about what the new year will bring and what I will fail to do in the next twelve months.  Best thing is going back to see the family and getting away from the gorillas that I share space with for most of the year.

Now, time to think of gifts...

Money, Money, Money...

I knew there was someone to blame for my being broke:
http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/moneysense/107/why-youre-poorer-than-your-parents

Thou Shalt Not Condom...

I should say that this is a good sign.  The Pope, meaning the Catholic Church, has decided that there are cases where condoms are useful.  Not for anything fun, of course.  Only in special cases, like blocking the transmission of disease and other cases. 

So, I guess the Church is growing up.  I guess I should be happy that they have accepted a certain piece of technology that many Catholics now accept anyway.  I guess that this makes things all right.  Right?

Forget it.

I did not think that I could hold this particular Pope in contempt any deeper than the contempt I have now.  I never thought that the Catholic Church could be even more pathetic.  How many lives have been ruined because the Church held to primitive beliefs about reproduction and sexuality? How many people died because of the transmission of diseases that took their lives?  How can anyone in the Vatican look at themselves in the mirror without feeling shame?

It is too little far too late...

A Loss in the Family

I have just heard that a dear friend of my family and the entire Dominican community of my hometown has lost a long battle against cancer.  I had known her my entire life and I cannot believe that she is gone. 

I have included this picture from Dominica because it reminds me of peace and calm.  I think that I will have to think of this place for a long time...
Peace...

An Epiphany...of sorts...

I just had a very busy week (nothing new there) and discovered that the apartment I thought would be mine is now promised to someone else that the landlord now has a crush on (more of the same?).  I opened a cabinet and my favorite mug fell out and shattered.  I dropped off a card at a mailbox and stepped in a huge unseen puddle; I marked papers for my students and realized that they like to repeat all of the mistakes I have pointed out; and I am about to do another assessment for another school for very little pay and no promise that things will work out and they will actually be able to do the tests.

A silver lining: I have found an old notebook with an outline for a long narrative based on an incident from my past (with a lot of fiction involved).  And that is a goal: finishing that thing and getting it published.  I am sick of leaving so much unfinished work around on my flash drives and notes.

Sounds like something worth a few more blog entries...

The Contestant

This is an important day for me.  No, not the day after Diabetic Shock Day (appropriately called the Day of the Dead).  It is the deadline for the CBC Literary Awards.  And I may actually avoid writing and rewriting another story to send into the void

Yes, I have stopped doing a lot of things that have caused me harm, and literary contests where I have to pay for the privilege of being rejected and then read all the other so-called better writers in magazines and journals that I am now subscribed to because of my entry fee is a long and damaging relationship that I can do without.  I still write - cannot give up the vice now - but I want to be caught out as an unacknowledged talent who made it past the slush pile of an editor's desk.

So, time to do some serious rethinking about who I want to write for and how I want to be recognized.

I'm back...

 A short message: I am exhausted, overworked, lonely and annoyed.  But I am still here.  Sweating blood for my pay is not all bad.  I have seen the full range of human behaviour in my lectures and private classes and it will provide plenty for my writing.  And that leads to this: I am re-entering the CBC's contest and sending in at least three other pieces for the end of the month. 
Before the battery on me dies in this cafe, I remind you of the following: Keep Reading!

How far I have fallen...

Exhausted?  Check.
Overworked? Check.
Missed another opportunity to enjoy my birthday?  Absolutely...check!

I should not be so cynical about the last few weeks.  My birthday passed on the 25th of September and I got the expected cards and some gifts from friends and relatives. The night was a no-go because the friend I planned to spend it with got strep throat and could not make it.  My lectures are getting easier (even without having a planner or textbook for kids who would rather surf the web than write a paper or listen to my advice).  And then there is this: I joined a dating web site.  I never thought I would, but when I read about this one, I had to join.  Alikewise is based on the idea that you can date and find your true love based on their reading habits.  I had always suspected this to be true but did not know how to work with this principle.
I realized that my roommates were doing better than me, and they had jobs where they moved furniture and worked the cash register for customers buying flower pots and garden hoses.  So sad...


Wish me luck!

Above the Edge

I am now on the third draft of that play.  Also, it has become easier to get this kind of work done...because I did get that laptop/notebook.  Bought it from someone on Craigslist and it was barely used (her planned trip did not go through).  So I am tapping away.
I am also thinking through my fingers.  I have delayed working here because of that other work I do.  Teaching at a college can be fun but it eats you alive sometimes.  Also, I wonder what some of these students actually want from their courses.  An easy "A" might be the answer.  Not on my call.  Only good thing is that I am making some extra money now and could afford the laptop.  Also have some other plans; mainly investing.  I have heard of E*Trade and am curious about how it works online.  More homework for me.
So a lot going on.  Also the birthday on Saturday (more on this to come)...

Exhaustion and Rejuvenation

Forgive the gap between things.  Between preparing lessons, looking ahead at what I want from the next few months, and trying to finish up other work, I have not had the time or energy to really settle down to write here or anywhere if it did not involve long-delayed projects.  I have at least two more people to visit to check out new laptops and this will finally give me no "real" excuse not to finish my other work with essays, poems and stories.  Yes, I am going to enter the same contests that I always enter every year.  And again, I expect to be disappointed.  Not with them, but with my inability to get recognized.  It just goes on and on.
At least the rough draft of the play is done.  I have it saved and ready for a read-through.  That was a pressing concern.  Just need to make sure it is stage worthy (and I have a stage in mind).
Will keep you posted...

A Look Back at a Summer in Montréal

What I learned...
1) Never challenge a security guard at Osheaga, even if it is the last night and everyone is trying to go home (big mistake).
2) Not having a bad girlfriend is worse than having a bad girlfriend.
3) I should have spent more time in the cafés around the city (no money, but I could have sat with that cold coffee and stretched out the daylight).
4) Contract teaching is eating my soul.
5) I should have played my guitar more often (still have the electric in Montréal and I just played a Gibson SG at the St-Laurent street fair).
6) Friends are more valuable than anyone cares to imagine.
7) I am getting a new laptop in two weeks.
8) I need a new laptop today.
9) I should move.
10) I should stop spending so much time on blogging during the last weekend of August.

A Trip to California (Part Nine)

So, would I go back? I would like to take my own family on such a road trip. I would also like a place in the sun that did not belong to dead earth, dead heat and a mentality that avoided intellectualism and deep thought. California belongs to Californians (at least of one generation); America belongs to anyone brave enough to cross it, live it and enjoy it (even an adolescent coming to terms with his new life without a father). I am so grateful for my mother’s gift of travel and discovery.

A Trip to California (Part Eight)

I was almost killed at one point. This happened on my first night in Jennifer’s home. We were sleeping in a spare room, a room that I think was reserved for the husband (Jennifer had her own set up with a bed designed just for her needs and with other apparatuses for more mobility). The house was a one-floor mansion with sliding doors in the living room leading to the front yard and the back yard. I remember that those doors were opened with the screens locked in place and the curtain slightly open. It was still humid (the temperature was 38 Celsius) and we all decided to go straight to bed after such a long trip. But there was one thing I forgot to do before turning in: use the facilities. I had seen the bathroom when we were shown around the house and knew that I would have to walk across the living room to get there. I was quiet as I stepped along the floor, but I still managed to startle Jennifer’s husband. This remains my sharpest memory of the stay; not Disneyland; not the ugly malls we visited; not even the man-made lake we visited where I was made acquainted with a large group of Nathalies (as fake and as irritating as that lake). Remember, I was just a child in a new country that I did not really understand. Nothing else lingers in my memory like that moment.


His hand clearly held a gun. There was some light in that living room and he woke from his sleep with his hand on the barrel of what looked like a weapon Clint Eastwood would have been proud to use in his next Dirty Harry film (they were still making them then). When he saw it was me, he dropped his hand, screwed up his face and asked what I was doing. There was no doubt about me needing a bathroom break now. And there was no apology. I did not mention this to my mother for the rest of the trip and nothing more was said after that night.

A Trip to California (Part Seven)

This section will cover our stay in California. After three days in a van, a part of me expected a real revelation in that well-known state of the union. I knew Hollywood and Disneyland; Ronald Reagan was president and I knew it was his home state (at that age, he was my first real experience of an American president, so I was well-informed). I had heard of Los Angeles, San Francisco, the redwoods, UCLA, the 1960s counterculture, Laurel Canyon (through references to it in the same era’s music and art) and its idea of celebrity and glamour. Very little of what I knew became any sort of reality.


We travelled through the desert of Death Valley to more desert in southern California. Ontario was a dry and burned out and spare town in the middle of expanses of dust and dirt. I never forgot how the patches of dirt were strange next to all of those expensive homes. Front lawns were a true rarity (they seemed to belong to every fourth home). After our stay, we travelled through Los Angeles to reach the airport to take us home, the vision was just as bleak (more so with the poverty and the haze of bodies). This return trip passed us through East LA and I remember it as a film of sepia and human traffic on every available space on the sidewalks and roads.

A Trip to California (Part Six)

There was one thing we did on the road that still surprises me. The white nurse in our van was sitting in the front passenger side and noticed a black hitchhiker. This was in the Midwest and it made me wonder how he ended up in an area where he could have been picked up and jailed as a vagrant. There was some argument about stopping the car for him (not a general vote, but not much support on the nay side). There were six of us, if I consider myself as a potential combatant (Natalie alone could have talked him to death), and that was also on mind. But we still wondered about what would happen for the rest of our trip.

He was very dark, thin, and tall and had a friendly and open look. He told us that he was trying to reconnect with family (or friends; he was not precise about this). He had spent some time in the Midwest with people he did not know very well. Stuck without any money – he had been dropped off by another car a few hours earlier – he was tired but not worried or stressed out. I do not remember talking to him for too long or too often – he napped in the flat area at the back of the van with his small satchel around his chest – and I realized just how silly my concerns for our safety were. He was exhausted and, as my mother discovered, very hungry. She told me later that she had seen him take a doughnut from a box of them that we had with us (I never saw this happen, but I would not have blamed him if I did). I liked having him there. He seemed to be another sign of America’s greatness for me: we trusted him and he trusted us; and we were both on this journey to the West. He only stayed with us up to Nevada (Las Vegas or Reno was his stop), and I regret now that I have no photograph of him (even his name has stepped out of my memory). I hope that he is well and living with a real roof over his head.

A Trip to California (Part Five)

That was a lesson. I would see beautiful wheat fields in the Midwest, but I would also eat the worst Chinese food of my young life in the same setting. I would see Salt Lake City at night from a high mountain pass (easily one of the most beautiful sights in the world; those salt rings in the moonlight are remarkable), and I would pass through Las Vegas in the daytime (the ugliest sight for a dreamer of casino fortunes and stage shows). This was right and fair. Whenever I hear a critic of America preach in Europe, Asia or Africa, I have to wonder and ask out loud: Have these people ever visited and travelled across that land? Do they know what America is really like when they step away from its movies, music and other advertising? It is a country that does not deserve the criticism it receives from total strangers. We slept in that open space when we could have stayed in an inn or a motel and I never lost the feeling that we were like the original pioneers who had to risk our lives to see what that great bulge of land - Jack Kerouac’s wonderful phrase - had to offer. Of course, the internal combustion system and A/C did not hurt either. But we were still out in the rough and raw places of a great and frightening place.

A Trip to California (Part Four)

There was a different world outside of that ride. Once we stopped for breaks and explored where we were, I realized just how different things could be. Soda and candy that I knew back home were still available, but the packaging was different (much smaller, bigger, or with features I never considered before – ex. Pull-off tabs for soda cans). I was given a book to read and noticed immediately the difference in price (about a dollar lower than back home). We once stopped at a convenience store, bought some groceries, and saw a father enter and begin to scream and gesture at his son. The boy had run away from home and the father wanted him to come back immediately. No one in the store moved, except my mother, who took me by the hand and led me outside. But I will never forget that moment or the man. He had a rough beard that was very close to his face, a trucker’s hat, shorts and a dirty t-shirt. The anger we felt pulsing from him was palpable, as if it had its own energy and purpose. The only adults I had seen angry with children in public were teachers and the parents of my cousins and relatives, and their anger did not even approach what I saw in that store.

A Trip to California (Part Three)

I felt it when we crossed the border. That sounds ridiculous, but I did feel something when we crossed the Peace Bridge into New York. It may have been the heat or the thrill of being in a strange vehicle on a road trip to a place I did not know, but I remember a sensation of pressure in my head and on my body, like I was changing atmospheres. I know now that this was also a sensation of fear. What would the trip in this van, with at least four people I did not know, involve? Would we be safe in America (a concern that would be a real problem for me in California, as I will explain eventually)? Did they have the food I liked to eat, the TV shows I liked to watch? I only half understood my own feelings at the time.


You notice the usual things on the road when traveling in a new place: the people and their behaviour, the different types of buildings, the amount of space available to those people and their buildings, the type of weather and the temperature, and so on. It was a warm and dry summer. And America seemed to be full of all of the same things I could find in Canada: the space, the housing, and the people. None of this was different from the point of view of a car seat. The package was the same. And a part of me was disappointed that things were not as strange as I had imagined they would be.

A Trip to California (Part Two)

I think the decision to head to California with them was something my mother planned well ahead of their arrival. She never said a word about driving back with this other family during their stay with us. The plan was a tit for tat one: they had been shown hospitality by us, so why not let them return the favour with some time at their place. We were to share the space in their van for a few days, stay at their place for a few more days (about a week), and then take a flight home from Los Angeles. My mother had an urge to get ourselves out into the world to see different places. I always thought, and I still believe today, that this was to make sure that my memories of that year did not include just a holiday that everyone celebrated with a complete family and the cold irony and misery of not having even that during a time of the year devoted to miracles and second chances. She wanted me to have more.


Was I excited about the trip? I suppose I was. When you look back at moments in your childhood, it involves a strange pairing of exaggeration and denial. The summer of 1984 began with us living in a new place, and the possibility that we could lead new lives. I remember the music I listened to, the toys I played with, and even the clothes I wore as special and unique to me. That is what children do. Their worlds can seem so completely self-contained that other realities no more exist than any other fantasy seen in movies, comic books or TV programs (again, all unique and special for and to me). For all of these reasons, I am very glad that my mother decided on that trip. I had been to the Caribbean to visit family – our last trip had been to bury my father on the island of Curacao – but I had never left my home country for a place where I knew no one; where I had no familial or cultural ties. It was the first time I was exposed to an environment I only half-knew through its powerful and impressive media. It would be a very direct experience of our neighbours to the south.

A Trip to California (Part One)

The year is not completely clear to me, but I do remember the right moments. My father had passed away at the end of 1983, a few days before Christmas, and my mother went through this loss with a determination to live her life as fully as possible. We moved not too far from our old place into a larger home with a larger backyard, basement and more rooms. My own room was the smallest one and had obviously been used for a baby boy (the bottom half of the wall was wallpaper with Paddington Bears in different poses). I did not care about how childish the room was or looked; it was a new place and a new start for us. And there would be more.


In the summer of 1984, a close friend of my mother came to visit us. Jennifer had worked with her in a nursing home for many years before she was seriously injured in a car accident and confined to a wheelchair. I wonder now how she was able to make her way around our new home so easily (there were many levels separated with stairwells). She had a very advanced wheelchair with a motor and a lever to control her motion. Her husband, whose name I cannot remember, was a strong man who helped her when he could. They also had a nurse who bathed and fed her. Finally, they had a younger daughter. Nathalie was a nightmare for a slightly older boy who had a growing interest in girls but no way of approaching them beyond awkward gestures and silly comments.

They now lived in California, in a city called Ontario. It was in the desert, not too far from the heat and aridity of the famous Death Valley area. I did not think it strange at the time that we had guests with such divergent backgrounds: Jennifer was black and West Indian; her husband was a black American with a deep southern accent; the nurse was a white woman who sounded like someone from the Midwestern states; and Nathalie was pure California to me, or what I would think of that state (I had not yet seen the film “Valley Girl,” a 1983 release, but I could guess what it would be like). The fact that they were now in another Ontario was a pleasant symmetry that would stay in my mind as we returned to their place in the West.

Mick Jagger, My Father (Conclusion)

Most records of the band’s touring and work schedule shows them far removed from the great white north. Well, that does not prove anything, either. I look at my mother and that nervous smile on her face and think about the time she told me that my father took me to the islands to visit my relatives soon after I was born, and I got so sick that he vowed never to bring me there again. Was there something in my genetic makeup that would not allow me to bear the weather, the food, the change in climate? A little goat’s head soup may have been just what I needed. At least, that’s what Mick would have wanted.

Mick Jagger, My Father (Part Four)

I know what you may be thinking: it is just a coincidence that Mick and the boys ended up naming their ’73 release after a meal enjoyed by my family. What about the albums that followed? There was 1974’s “It’s Only Rock and Roll” and then “Black and Blue”. This is a fair critique which I can easily dismiss. The former album has an album cover that still resonates with me; not for Guy Paellart’s painting technique – it looks like it was brushed onto black velvet – but for the posture of the band. Put a baby in Mick’s arm and you have as near a reproduction of the early photograph I mentioned, the one where my face is obscured next to my nervous mother. Then there is the latter album, the one where they covered their first reggae song, “Cherry Oh Baby”. Why this sudden urge to connect with a different black musical idiom? There is a lot to be said for covering one’s tracks.

Mick Jagger, My Father (Part Three)

I have seen photos of my family from the early seventies. One in particular I found odd: my brother is standing next to my father, who is holding me facing away from the camera. My mother is standing beside him and seems a little nervous. Why? I could never find anything in that photo to get a reasonable answer. I had to dig a little deeper and look at some of the later pictures. I am in the Caribbean with my mother and brother at the airport. I am sitting on my grandmother’s couch in her home. I am on the beach, running with my mother and trying to avoid the surf. This last photo was a vital clue to my links with the prince of rock and roll’s dark side.


I moved like Jagger. I had the lips and eyes of a satyr and a love of music that my parents would begin to question and fret over. I also noted how bad the Stones became after 1972. Could it be that the trauma of discovering that he was now the father of a soon-to-be big-headed first-generation born West Indian in the Golden Horseshoe led to a dropping off in the ability of Mr Jagger to compose with Keef? Was it something that he could only deal with unconsciously? This makes the most sense to me, because it does not seem logical that any group of musicians from England would show any interest in soup made from the head of a goat. There must have been some unconscious reason to explain this sudden interest in a West Indian staple (far better curried than in a soup, by the way).

Mick Jagger, My Father (Part Two)

Most fans of the group feel that the band peaked between the years 1965 and 1972, a run that included “Aftermath”, “Let It Bleed”, “Get Yer Ya-Yas Out!” and “Sticky Fingers”. After this string of raw genius, the band became more corporate, more protected after the disaster of Altamont, the drug busts and the loss of Brian Jones. These incidents could only force the band to back track and see if they could still come out swinging.


Lester Bangs wrote a great review of “Goat’s Head Soup” entitled “1973 Nervous Breakdown” (a reference to an earlier hit by the band and their general state of mind after the aftershock of the sixties). It stood out to me, reading it many years later, noting that it referenced the year I was born (no commentary on my mental state at the time is available). I arrived after the sixties; after Altamont, the Beatles, the rise and fall of the counterculture, Trudeaumania and the dashed hopes of a generation. I did inherit disco, Watergate, OPEC, pet rocks and the years that fashion forgot. I also had Mick in my blood.

Mick Jagger, My Father (Part One)

This all began with very intense research. When I was fourteen, I earned enough money to go out and buy a copy of “Exile on Main Street” by the Rolling Stones. I knew what I was looking for and why that particular album had to be in my collection. According to Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the top 100 albums of the last twenty years, this was the best album ever released by the band. It was described as sludgy, grimy and a true representation of their love of blues and country music.


Importantly, I listened to it on vinyl. Do you remember vinyl? Those black discs covered in grooves hypnotised me and made me feel that music truly was mysterious (gleaning sound from them seemed like the ultimate form of magic meeting technology). It was true that the album’s sound was not great (most basement recordings are like this; Dylan had the same problem) but it worked on me. It was first introduction to an entire Stones album and I feel fortunate that I was wise enough to start with a masterpiece.

Years later, I found “Goat’s Head Soup”, their next release after “Exile” and experienced the strangest sort of disappointment. It was not the individual songs that bothered me or the album cover (if Mick wanted to cover his face in a veil, it must have been a fashion statement in line with the times). Not even the sound production that was so clean it sucked out the energy from the songs aggravated me. What bothered me was coincidence.

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• All roads lead to Rolling Stones' 'Main Street' - Chicago Sun-Times (news.google.com)

In The Belly (Part Six)

So, we fear food and do not consider it a serious problem. It seems to be a contradiction, perfectly suited for our relationship with food. We cannot give up what we love, even though it is killing us. We laugh at one fat man, yet refuse to mock the person in the mirror that we cannot stand.


How we will get through this is a mystery that I cannot solve.

In The Belly (Part Five)

Do we believe that the overweight body reflects an inner failing? Again, this may be another belief that we do not want to confront. We are forced to deal with a million surface impressions every day. Food is a part of this. No one gets a Big Mac that looks like the one on a poster or in a TV commercial, but there is always the promise that maybe, just one day, you will get that perfect sandwich. This is like a child who expects a perfect gift on their birthday even though she has received nothing but hairbrushes and stationery. How can the psychological effect of all of this longing not have an effect on the body? Eating will not fulfill this particular visual desire, even if we are told the following:


“You deserve a break today.”

There is an unpleasant truth behind this. We do feel that we deserve a break. And if we do not get it now, it may not come later. Again, longing and a sense of fulfillment that is hard to satisfy. It has to be damaging.

In The Belly (Part Four)

Let’s go back to the idea of food as an issue not taken seriously. When my brother made his comment about why he ate so much, we laughed. It was the family and we were in the kitchen while my mother was preparing dinner. The comment was sharp, to the point, and too honest not to make us laugh.

I also heard this comment:

“You’re watching the Food Network: Porn for Fat People”

This was an announcement made before a sketch on the comedy program Mad TV. They were satirizing a television marathon devoted to egg recipes (quite nauseating and funny), and I wondered about that introduction. It seemed inaccurate. Porn is porn for fat people. I doubt that there are higher numbers of people with weight problems who watch that network than pornography (I would wager that there were heavier viewers for Fox or TNN), but I understood the joke.

Fatness has always been a staple of comedy. I believe that jokes are a way of telling a truth that we may not want to accept, even if we know it in our hearts. A fat man chases a thin man and falls down, trips on something, or is blocked in some sort of passageway by their own girth. How many films from the birth of Hollywood (from the early silent movies to today’s blockbusters) have used fatness as its own punch line? Laurel meets Hardy; Abbott had Costello; John Candy, John Belushi, and Artie Lange all played the part (the latter’s memoir is even called “Too Fat to Fish”).

Life in a Day

Just thought I would mention this project.  Check it out!

In The Belly (Part Three)

I closed the first part of this essay by stating that we are afraid of food. I still believe this, even with my recent suggestion that we enjoy getting our fix. An addict is often fully aware of the damage they are doing to the body and mind while enjoying a particular high. In the film, “Supersize Me,” Morgan Spurlock decides to go thirty days eating three meals per day only at McDonald’s. He does become sick, gain weight, and threaten his long-term health with his experiment. But he also confesses that he feels better while eating the meals he buys (an interesting counterbalance to the depression he feels after these same meals are done). An addict needs that high to last if they are not to feel the crash. But how can it last without more and more of the same junk to fill that hole? Again, it is a cycle with its needs and rules.

I note that it is not just the food itself that gets us. The packaging of convenient food that may not be very good for us has only existed for the last two hundred years (the time canned food was introduced to the public). With the rise in advertising and a more literate and demanding public, companies began to be known worldwide for the same exact product. When I had French fries in a McDonald’s in Tokyo, it tasted exactly like the ones I had in Canada. Consistency is the key. People have to be drawn back again and again to the same goods. In Spurlock’s film, the various budgets of brand-name food companies are compared to the much more natural food sold by other distributors. There is no contest here. The sexier and brighter the product, the more it is pushed and bought by consumers. And doesn’t giving a sexy look to a product we know we should not be enjoying also motivate millions of men to enjoy pornography (as addictive as potato chips if we are being honest)? It is another bad gift in an attractive package and we cannot give it up.

We sell food the way we sell cars, new technology, celebrities, and, it must be said, the West. America is not just the best advertiser of goods in the world; it also knows how to read its populace. Bigger and brighter sells, and the noise people get on TV and other media will always be there. Food is just another item on a long menu.

In The Belly (Part Two)

In her biography of Oprah Winfrey (unauthorized, of course), Kitty Kelley mentions an incident in the media star’s life when she ordered two pecan pies from room service in a hotel and ate both of them alone. This story has gained more coverage in reviews of the book that any of the new information about her difficult childhood or possible affairs with other television celebrities. What seems to bother people is the fact that she did it in stealth when so many other facts about her life are public knowledge, including her gains and losses of body mass.

I feel for Miss Winfrey. I have had my own problems with weight and can say that I do not know how I would handle being judged by such a large and vocal public. She is probably the most powerful and well-liked figure in the media right now, which may take care of this one problem. But we still see her on television. The body has to tell truths that the brain cannot always handle. So what can be done about this? You can say that we are all human and are prone to many weaknesses. Also, society has learned to accept such faults (if we even do see them as faults). There are societies and at least one magazine devoted to the obese lifestyle; seats are now larger on airplanes and in certain makes of cars; governments discuss the problem at the highest levels; and no adult who wants to retain a high standing in society describes a person as “fat”. That person is now “heavy” or “overweight;” even “big-boned.” Yes, political correctness has brought us these terms. But like most politically-correct terms, ugly truths are masked out of politeness, never a good thing when a problem is so much a part of how we live and behave.

We have more information about healthy eating, just in time for a rise in the number of obese people. We are told that we have to more active, yet we have more distractions in the home and in our lives to keep us sedentary. We have government agencies encouraging us to feed ourselves and our children the right types of food, and we are still not able to shake the bad eating habits that we have developed. And, despite all of this, it is not an issue that is taken seriously.

I once watched a program on the Discovery channel that profiled people who were severely overweight and attempting to do something to change their lives. A woman who could not leave her room under her own power said something that stayed in my mind:

“Food was my best friend.”

Let’s consider that for a moment. This woman, when much thinner, was attractive, lively, had a devoted circle of friends. She found that this was not enough and turned to something that is not illegal to own, readily available, and convenient. A drug addict needs only one contact in order to get their fix; all you need is your local convenience store to get deeper into the cycle of fat and unhealthy eating. And I am also thinking of a response made by my brother when asked why he ate so much:

“Because it’s there.”