“I’m sorry; I’m sorry. I won’t say another word, I promise. ” I slide his plate back over to him . . . after I decide against licking it.
“What else is on your mind?” he asks gently.
“Other than imagining myself hurtling to the ground in a flaming metal shell and landing on a desert island with Kate, Jack, Sawyer, and Locke, and . . . Hey! Come back! I promise to stop.”
Reluctantly, Fletch returns from the living room, but now he’s got his laptop with him. He’s working from home today because he wanted to spend a little more time with me before I left. I bet he’s regretting that decision right now.
“I am never discussing plane crashes with you again. Or bread,” he says.
“I can’t—”
“Not pumpernickel, not rye, not seven grain, not hot-cross buns. Understood?”
“Bread is all I think about.”
“You must stop Atkins. Every time you’re on it, you make everyone around you crazy and you gain back more than you lost.”
“This is the last time, I swear. I need its quick success before I go tomorrow. When I get back on Saturday, I’m going to start cooking meals from the Weight Watchers cook-book. ”
“Sounds reasonable. I went through it, and I like a lot of what they suggest. Are you going to join, too?”
“Ugh. No way. The last goddamned thing I want to do is sit around and listen to people talk about their feeelings about birthday cake.”
“Yet you’ve discussed nothing but your fear of death and donuts around here for the past three days.”
“Oh, please; this is totally different. Remember when I went to Weight Watchers when we lived in Lincoln Park?” I ask.
Fletch taps something out on the keyboard of his BlackBerry.
Mmm . . . berries.
“Not really, no.”
“About ten years ago? Remember? I wanted to shake off the twenty pounds I’d gained since graduation?”
“Not ringing any bells.”
“I went because my friend Terri in New Orleans was doing Weight Watchers at the time and she really liked it. Remember? She dropped quite a bit of weight and was still able to go out for drinks occasionally, so I thought, Hey, sign me up. I went and it was kind of ridiculous. Seemed like everyone in the meeting blamed their weight on someone else, and the entire discussion centered on how evil it was when someone had a birthday at work and brought in dessert. I only went the one time.”
He snaps his fingers. “Yes! I vaguely remember you flailing around the apartment afterward, screeching, ‘Cake, cake; oh, God, not cake!’ ”
“The meeting was a Janeane Garofalo bit come to life.”
“And you’re ‘above’ all of that?”
“No, I want to see what I can accomplish on my own. Weight Watchers seems like a last resort for people who can’t control themselves. And that’s not me.”
“Five minutes ago I thought I’d have to wrestle a sticky plate away from you.”
“I can control myself—when I choose to. I’ve simply chosen not to.”
“If you say so. But it seems like the sooner you seek help, the easier the whole process is going to be.” Fletch’s cell phone rings, and he glances down at the display. “Sorry, I’ve gotta take this.” He walks into the den and shuts the door.
Whatever. I’m doing fine, and I see no need to employ any sort of help. I gained the weight on my own, and I can lose it on my own. Besides, my immediate concern is, what happens if my plane crashes and I live and I don’t have a blow dryer and everyone on the island thinks my stupid natural curl makes me look like Hurley?
I eat and drink my way from Morningside Heights to Tribeca. There are no carbohydrates left in Manhattan when I finally leave the island. And when I try to fasten my seat belt on the plane on the way back, I struggle for five minutes before I can click it into place.
Whatever weight I lost over the past few months has found me again.
Sigh.
Jen’s Life Lesson #301: Never watch food commercials when dieting.
Every time I see an Olive Garden ad, my Pavlovian response is to drive to their nearest location as quickly as possible. This is shameful on so many levels—first, there are eleventy billion better, more authentic67Italian restaurants out there; second, many of them are within city limits, and third, the fact that we’re in this car headed to the one in Schaumburg means I’m totally off Atkins. A-fucking-gain.
I’m never, ever going to make it out of the induction phase.
I wish I could quit you, Olive Garden.
What’s worse is, I’m contemplating everything I’m about to stuff in my mouth, so I’m really not tuning in to whatever it is Fletch is saying.
“. . . which is so wrong, because a true pilsner has a pale body and a crisp, dry finish, not sweet,” says Fletch. “So Joel says, ‘A sweet finish? And you call yourself a microbrewer?’ ”
“Wait, what? Joel68is back? I thought he was in Iraq until this fall.”
“He is. I was talking about an e-mail I got from him. Were you even listening?”
No, I was thinking about breadsticks.
“Yes, of course! Joel. Beer. War. Yes.” Joel was on leave over New Year’s, and he and his wife came to our house for what was supposed to be a classy dinner party but eventually turned into a bourbon-fueled, mildly homoerotic wrestling match. My pretensions were painfully short-lived as I was forced to host in a pair of sweats, having grown too fat for all my pants. By the time Fletch challenged Joel to a duel at four a.m., wrasslin’ seemed like the most appropriate way to welcome in the New Year. But before stuff got too boozy, I totally grilled Joel about his confidential assignment in Baghdad. You’d think five kinds of cheese would loosen his tongue, but not so much.69
“Speaking of Joel, I saw this story on the news about an organization that sends care packages to combat troops. And they don’t just send them to Iraq and Afghanistan—they also ship them to places like Djibouti and—”
“Wait, where?”
“Djibouti, and I had no idea we had troops stationed there. Anyway, they ship candy and books and—”
“Where on earth is Djibouti?”
“The Horn of Africa, not that far from Yemen. So I was thinking—”
“Oh, my God, Fletch. Fletch!”
“What?”
“Ask me where Djibouti is!”
“Pardon?” With an eye on the rearview mirror, he passes the slower drivers. Which, according to him, is every single person on the road.
“I said, ask me where Djibouti is!”
“I’m aware of where it is. I just told you; were you not listening again, or can you not find Africa on that big blue ball on a stick we keep in the den?”
“Please ask; I promise it will be worth it.”
“No.” Zoom, zoom; eat our dust, other motorists.
“Just play along for once in your life.”
He grips the wheel more tightly and squares his shoulders. “No.”
“Please! I won’t commandeer a bite of your dessert if you do, I swear.”
Through clenched teeth, Fletch asks, “OK, Jen; where’s Djibouti?”
“In my pants!”
I spend the next ten minutes braying like a jackass, rendering further conversation impossible until we get to the restaurant.
Having yet to learn a thing about moderation, I stuff myself with breadsticks dipped in Alfredo sauce, calamari squeezed with lemon and doused in chunky marinara, chicken Roma with a thick dusting of freshly grated Parmesan, cheesecake, and about fifteen Italian orange cream sodas. I take in enough calories to sustain an African village for a week. Oy.
Shortly after we get back in the car, I begin to whimper.
“Now why are you complaining?” Fletch asks. “With all this traffic, I’m not speeding. Look.” He gestures toward the speedometer. “I’m not even going forty.”
“Your driving is fine,” I moan.
“Then, what’s the matter?”
“I a
te too much,” I wail, unbuttoning my pants and pulling down my zipper. “And now my Djibouti hurts.”
After the setback at the Olive Garden, I decide to give Atkins one last chance after reviewing the Weight Watchers cook-book. I’m guessing Dr. Awesome wouldn’t approve of this way of eating, but I’m desperate for some real progress. If I had a tiny bit of tangible success, I know I’d be motivated to eat better and exercise more. As it is now, I’m so sapped of energy that I haven’t even been to the gym in a few weeks.
Fletch has had a rough week in the office, so I decide to humor him by ordering dinner from his favorite rib joint. Ribs, especially those covered in sugary barbecue sauce, are an Atkins no-no, so I pick a green salad covered with grilled chicken. Yawn.
When the food arrives, I’m upstairs cleaning the bathroom, so Fletch assembles our plates. The house rule is, we eat at the kitchen table unless we have delivery, and then we get to have dinner and watch television. Woo! When I sit down next to Fletch, the smell of barbecue wafts up to greet me, and there’s no less than two pounds of food piled on his plate. “Mmm, something smells incredible. What did you get again?”
“I’m having the rib sampler—there’s baby backs, spareribs, and rib tips.” He gestures to each cut of meat with a giant half-eaten bone as he names it, and it kind of looks like he’s playing the drums in the Flintstones’ band. He also has a huge chunk of cornbread and a giant pile of French-fried sweet potatoes on a side plate because he has so many ribs, the sides wouldn’t all fit. “Want to try some?”
“Um, I probably shouldn’t . . . but it smells so good.” Here’s the thing—I’m a huge fan of barbecued ribs, but I’m also incredibly fussy about them. Seems like everywhere I order them they’re too spicy, too tough, or too fatty. Maybe there’s too much cartilage or they’re so stringy, I get tired while chewing them. It’s rare that I ever happen upon the correct juxtaposition of meaty, tender, and slightly sweet, but not for lack of trying. I’m always so excited to get them, yet I’m perpetually disappointed.
I prepare myself for another letdown as I sink my teeth into a spare rib. The meat falls off the bone the second it hits my mouth. The sweet sauce has the perfect amount of heat—not too spicy, but with enough of a red-chili-powder kick to wake my every taste bud. It’s delicately smoked and juicily perfect; I can tell exactly how low and slow it has been cooked. This easily ranks in the top ten. “This is transcendent,” I tell Fletch, placing the rest of the rib back on his plate.
“Go ahead and finish it. There’s plenty more.” he says.
But I can’t. If I have one more bite, then I will go in the kitchen and toss back the pound of meat that’s still sitting in the take-out container. I desperately want to roll around in that damned barbecue sauce, but if I do, then I’m going to go out of ketosis and I’ll have to start the induction phase again.
I open up my salad and begin to eat it instead. Suddenly the crisp bed of romaine is far less appealing than I imagined it would be. I stab a bite with my fork and reply, “No, that’s OK. Thanks, though.”
I continue to stab, chew, and shoot angry glances at Fletch’s glistening pile of sweet, sweet meat.
Stab. Chew. Glower.
Stab. Chew. Glower.
“Um, Jen? You OK?” Fletch asks.
“I’m fine.” Stab. Chew. Glower.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Stab. Chew. Glower.
“Jen, if you want ribs, have ribs. There’s a ton of them,” he reasons. He sounds exactly like I did in college when my best friend, Andy, was trying to quit smoking. I knew it was much healthier for him to be a nonsmoker, but he was such a bitch that I finally convinced him we’d both be happier if he just smoked already.70
“That’s the thing,” I reply. “I’ve had every single thing I’ve wanted for dinner for the past three years. Maybe if I’d had a salad once in a while, I’d have earned my own slab of ribs right now.” Stab. Chew. Glower.
“Want me to eat in the other room? Is this torturing you?”
“No. I’m fine. I’ll just enjoy my salad. Mmm, lettuce-y!” Stab. Chew. Glower. I watch as he takes a bite of his cornbread and a giant drop of golden butter plops onto the ottoman. “That bread is literally dripping with butter,” I accuse.
He’s quiet for a minute, and I see him surreptitiously trying to wipe the excess butter off the sides of his mouth. “Your, um, salad looks very nice. What kind of dressing did they give you?”
“Boring bleu cheese.”
Stab. Chew. Glower.
Stab. Chew. Glower.
Fletch hands me the television remote. “Here; you can drive,” he says.
“Wow, thanks!” I reply. “Is this you throwing me a proverbial bone because of my stupid salad?”
“No. I can’t work it because my hands are covered in gooey, delicious barbecue sauce.” To emphasize his point, he sucks the sauce off each finger and smacks his lips.
I shriek, “Evil! You’re evil! What an evil thing to say!”
He shrugs. “I figured if you’re going to be passive-aggressive and scowl at my food the whole time, I’ll one-up you by being aggressive-aggressive.”
Yikes. You see? This is what not having carbs does to people.
“Oh, Fletch, I’m sorry,” I backpedal. “My salad is fine. The chicken is grilled nicely, and there are whole chunks of bleu cheese. The cheese is nice and sharp, and the bacon bits are chewy and not crunchy. The dressing is thick so it doesn’t sluice through the leaves. Actually, it’s kind of a great salad. The thing is, even if this is the best salad in the world, it’s not a barbecued rib and it never will be and it makes me sad.”
He smiles. “It’s okay.”
“No, really, it’s not. You might not want to be so quick to forgive me, because somehow I’m still mad at you even though you didn’t do anything.”
He frowns at me and takes a purposefully enormous bite. We finish our meal in a thick silence (except for all the intentional and prolonged finger licking), and afterward I go upstairs to replace the towels in the bathroom.
While I fold the fluffy white cotton fabric and place the squares neatly on the bars, I realize that not only am I still hungry, but also I’ve made Fletch mad. The only reason I picked at him was because I wanted some damn carbohydrates. Dinnertime is usually one of our favorite opportunities to connect and really talk without distraction, but ever since I started this diet, our meals have been rife with tension because I’ve been unhappy with whatever’s been on my plate. Christ, he’s already under enough stress at work—the last thing he needs is to catch a bunch of shit from me just because I’m not having Tater Tots.
Is this what I have to look forward to as I try to live a healthier life? Complaining about my meals and thus ruining it for everyone around me while they try to eat their ribs?
Sure, I can be a stress eater and have been known to snack out of boredom, but the thing is, I truly love and appreciate good food. Dining is one of my greatest pleasures. But right now I feel like I’ve been denied every flavor that makes life worth living, and I’m cranky and unsatisfied, and I’m taking it out on the one person who could use a little extra compassion right now. I really have to wonder why I’m even bothering to try to lose weight.
So far it’s just not worth it.
from the desk of the logan square- bucktown neighborhood association
Dear Mayor Daley,
Can you please include better fast-food joints in your plans for urban redevelopment in the Logan Square- Bucktown area? As is, there are no decent hamburger places for miles and miles. There’s no Rally’s, no Checkers, no Jack in the Box, no Hardee’s, no Carl’s Jr., no Red Robin, no In-N-Out Burger, and no Culver ’s ButterBurgers. For God’s sake, we don’t even have an Arby’s.
What the hell? Did we lose a war or something?
Also, I called 911 last week because one of my stupid neighbors was working on his forty-year-old hoodless purple Plymouth and kept driving it around the block at seventy
miles per hour. When I called the police, they were very rude. They kept asking me what the license plate number was, and I kept telling them I couldn’t see it because they were driving by too fast. I gave them the car owner’s address, but apparently that wasn’t good enough. They asked, “How are we supposed to identify the vehicle without a plate number?” And I replied, “It’s the only forty-year-old purple Plymouth with no hood making seventy-mile-an-hour laps around the block.” They never came, and now I’m pissed. Please fix.
BTW, a really good hamburger would probably go a long way toward unruffling my feathers. Think about it.
Best,
Jen Cognito, Association President
CHAPTER EIGHT
Gentlemen, Start Your Cheesecakes
"Wrong. No. No way. Uh-uh. Over my, and by extension, your, dead body.”
"I’m presenting this as an option.”
Fletch has just gotten home from work and has joined me in the guest room, where I’m working on my first piece of fiction. He sits down on the bed across from where I’m positioned at my computer.
“Well, stop thinking about it, because it’s out of the question. You probably just had a bad day and your judgment is off,” I reply. I cross my arms to emphasize my point.
“We have the cash reserves,” Fletch counters.
“Yes, and they’re in case the unthinkable happens, and not because people at work are mean and you want to quit.”
“You’re oversimplifying the situation, and you know it.”
He’s right. He was hired to be a high-level business strategist, inking long-lead-time deals with CEOs. However, the company is in such a panic for instant sales and cash, they’re having all their sales executives do entry-level stuff like make cold calls to IT directors, exactly the kind of work Fletch did ten years ago when starting his career. They also eliminated bonuses.
“I know; those asshats lured you away from your very secure, albeit boring, telecom job with promises of fat bonuses and complete autonomy, and now you’re reporting to a high school grad about how many ‘dials’ you made today.”
“Exactly. That’s why I want to give notice.”
“Don’t you see?” I ask. “They’re trying to drive you out, not because of your poor performance, but because they made bad business decisions. If there was ever a shadow of a doubt they weren’t going to be economically viable for the long run, they should have never rallied so hard to get you to join the organization.” I take a quick breath and try to return my voice to a less shout-y level. “The thing is, if you quit, they don’t have to give you a severance package and they don’t have to pay unemployment.”
Such a pretty fat: one narcissist's quest to discover if her life makes her ass look big Page 9