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Sweet Relief, Sour Aftertaste

April 6, 2015 in Food Matters, Past Matters, Spirit Matters

Yesterday marked my sixth week without white flour or sweeteners of any sort. I’d act triumphant except I’m still having a hard time without those crutches. When people talk about addictions, they’re usually referring to booze or drugs, maybe gambling or sex. But just because my monkeys are gentle, unavailable men and white sugar doesn’t make them any less lethal—-only less overt. Addictions by definition are corrosive.

I’d known for a while that I had to eliminate sweets and what we used to call “junk food.” The pounds were creeping on, as were wide swings in blood sugar and moods. Like with all addicts, the old doses weren’t doing the trick anymore. I’d begun chewing Bubble Yum in between fixes, and white sugar had changed my palate so drastically that I couldn’t even taste anything else. Case in point: I considered fruit a mockery of the hit I craved. Continue Reading →

Rain and Rubies

March 14, 2015 in Past Matters, Style Matters, Weather Matters

You know you’re a writer at heart when you’re relieved it’s raining. I’d have complained to the high heavens had it snowed but a sunshiney Saturday would have made me feel just as bad, if also foolish. All I want to do is curl up with another Helena Rubenstein biography and write a section of the larger project gathering dust on my desk. If my city were still the Audrey Hepburn movie it’s been all week long (radiant smiles, radiant sun), I’d have felt too much pressure to carpe diem to actually carpe diem as I wished. Now if I venture out at all, it’ll be to catch that Helena exhibit one more time before it leaves the Jewish Museum March 22. Purples and reds; Polish rubies and art deco ivories; a rainbow of self-portraits and silks. What better weapons to stow in the imagination’s arsenal? Anyway, I am the scion of another enterprising Polish Ruby (my great-grandmother Masha Rubenfire ruled boudoirs rather than vanity tables), and I like to think she and Helena live in the same tree, impatiently shaking fruit at we grown children stumbling through this world without them. Tucking that bounty into my skirts is the only properly grateful thing to do.

All We Ever Wish For

February 18, 2015 in Age Matters, Cat Lady Matters, City Matters, Feminist Matters, Past Matters, Sabboytical

It was one of those days that just kept going and going, and the whole time I had to be on in a very public, TV lady sort of way. By the time I headed home, it was late, and my sense of humor–already eroded by the Winter That Will Not End–had evaporated. Still, when a woman on the subway platform pointed out she had the same hat, I couldn’t help but smile. It’s rare to find another adult who’ll wear the blue-dyed rabbit fur I refer to as my Muppet bonnet. The two of us struck up a chat while her boyfriend–tall, broad-shouldered, with a knitted brow–stood by, clearly not thrilled that his companion’s attention had been diverted. I knew his type well, had made the mistake of dating men like him when I’d been naive enough to conflate size with stability. After a bit it came out we all had been at the same event, and she and I compared notes while he continued to glower. Talking to her while he steamed reminded me of the conversations my mother used to have with female neighbors in the 1970s, all of them talking in lowered voices while glancing over their shoulders lest their husbands catch them lollygagging.

Finally he burst out: “I don’t judge.”

If I’d hadn’t been so fried, I would’ve let his comment go. I saw the quick hunch of her shoulders. Instead, I said, “You can have an opinion without judging.” Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy