Category Archives: Christmas

First Day on My New Feet

Posted on 27 December 2008 | 1 comment

Back in November sometime, I had this weird illness that we think was mono. I had a sore throat, my mouth had lesions inside it, and my tonsils were nearly touching each other.Whatever illness it was made me so sleepy I could’ve slept for ten to twelve hours a night. I didn’t have time to sleep that much, so I stopped running to conserve energy. Running just wore me out beyond belief.

Today was the first run I have been on since I got sick. I figured out that after taking a month off when you are just getting into shape to start with, I need to essentially start over with my training. I am square one. Can I share with you how much that pisses me off? Well, Rick, I’m pissed off, as Cartman would say.

I have also gained weight since then. I think I have put back on what I lost over the summer. And, yes, that pisses me off as well. I know a good fat studies scholar would not be pissed off about gaining back a mere twenty pounds, but I am no such scholar. I can see what is wrong with our cultural constructions of body size, but I know what feels right on my body, which is hovering around 200 NOT 220.

I also know that hovering lower than that feels even better, so I am running again. Maybe the weight range has nothing to do with it. Maybe I feel better because I know when I am running—or even walking a lot—I am taking care of my body. I am not letting it sit around gathering dust and fat cells, while I stuff my face with Christmas treats or while I write seminar papers and read too much.

Sometimes I think I would have made a good groundskeeper. I should have gone to Purdue and majored in turf management. I could be working at some golf course in Texas right now, riding my lawn mower, writing in my spare time, and going to the beach on the weekends. For that matter, I could have just left the US right after graduation and moved to Ireland. I could have been backpacking around Europe for the last ten or fifteen years.

Instead of doing that, though, I have been making pizzas, being a barista, teaching little kids, pastoring youth, being a graduate student, or teaching college students. Essentially, I have been a part of the rat race. I am a part of the rat race. I will remain a part of the rat race. I wonder how much of my life is consumed with thoughts of possessions or money.

On another little tangent: I think I am losing my mind. Well, at least I am losing my memory. I won’t elaborate, but if another wonderful memory loss episode happens, I promise I will share it. If I remember.

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Posted in Christmas, Fat, Just for Fun, Reading, Running

Christmas comes but once a year.

Posted on 26 December 2008 | Leave a comment

Yesterday was Christmas.

My grandma came to my parents’ house with my Aunt Zoe and Uncle Fred. They also brought my cousin Bart.

My grandma sat demented on the couch for most of the day. She picked her lip until bled when she thought they weren’t coming back to get her. At four o’clock she began to panic. Would she make it back to the nursing home in time for dinner? She picked her lip some more.

She said that Becky talks nasty and wouldn’t sit on the couch with her.

She didn’t like the pictures of my mom that her college roommate had given to her. They were of my mom and her friends being silly in their dorm rooms in Painter. Studebaker was the same in the sixties as it was in the nineties when I lived there. It looks different now.They finally remodeled.

My cousin Bart still annoyed my brother. He still gravitated toward me. He didn’t change a bit in the 10 years—give or take a couple—that he was in prison. Now he sells Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door. I did learn how to make moonshine in a trash bag with commisary oranges and a loaf of bread. He said it tastes like hell but it’ll get you there. I wanted to ask where it took him behind those bars. I didn’t. I might one day.

The rest of Christmas was good. My family has given up buying gifts from the stores for each other. I like it. I got several bags of different types of Christmas treats, “Momma Sandy’s” dry oatmeal mix, a tie-dye shirt made by the special ed. students at the middle school where my mom teaches, a photograph taken by my brother of a viaduct with writing on it, and a candle-box with four candles and a cedar front made by my father.

The saying in the photograph is something like “Generosity isn’t measured by how much we give, but by how much we keep.” That pretty much sums up how I feel about it. The things we keep sort of point out what we aren’t willing to give up. My brother runs past that saying every day. I would like to run past it, too.

Finally, I was saddened to hear that Eartha Kitt died yesterday, but how fitting that the woman who began the Santa Baby tradition would die on Christmas. Eighty-one years is a long time to spin on this ball of dirt, and as long as she got a sable under her tree, I am sure she didn’t mind checking out on the holiday that catapulted her stardom that one last grand notch.

kitt

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Posted in Christmas, Grace, Personal, Relationships