Laying Waste to Holiday Goodies, Finally

In the food realm, I have been practicing just eating when I eat. It’s kind of amazing that with a lifelong focus on food and what was eaten or not, in this amount or that, and whether I was good for eating it or bad (in the pre-OO era, mostly I was bad), there have been mighty few moments of actually being present for the experience, let alone enjoying it.

Since the outpouring of reminders from my OO friends, I have been just eating when I eat, and trying to notice and appreciate at least a bite now and then. This makes it considerably easier to stop when my stomach says it’s had enough.

I went out to dinner at We Be Sushi with a friend a couple of weeks ago (the one nearer 16^th St.). What I had was really wonderful, but I noticed I was absolutely stuffing it in, as if there would be something very shameful about being observed enjoying eating.

I realized later that part of the problem there was that my chopstick skills are so poor that I always have to put a whole piece of sushi in my mouth, but Lisa C. confirmed this week that that in fact is proper, though she said pieces of sushi in America can be larger than they are in Japan.

I have a nascent zit just about where a dimple is on my left cheek. Each is enhancing the effect of the other, so when I’m smiling, it looks like I have a really deep dimple, and when I’m not smiling, it looks like I have a major zit.

It reminds me of when my fairy godmother, Ben, invited me to a gathering at his house a few years ago, on a day when I had perhaps the two worst skin eruptions I have ever had. They were enormous and just ghastly looking.

Later that day Frank picked me up and we went somewhere in his car. In that era, we would say to each other now and then, with the friendliest of feelings, “May God smite you with a sty.” When he saw me, he said tactfully, “God did smite you.”

Earlier this week Lisa C. and I had a splendid lunch at Medicine in the Crocker Galleria. We both had yuzu lemonade (that’s a Japanese citrus fruit), of which Medicine’s version is marvelous.

Yesterday I was thinking that usually, around this time in December, I feel I have eaten way too many sweets, what with the boxes of See’s candy and barrels of Almond Roca that tend to wash in, but none of that has happened this year, so I was pleased when my coworker brought in some tasty homemade chocolate-chip cookies.

After I had my way with them, she said, “I’m glad you didn’t feel constrained by dietary restrictions from having some cookies,” but I’m pretty sure she meant, “I’m glad you didn’t feel constrained by manners from eating all the cookies.”

One year at this time I was working in the building management office at 120 Montgomery. We received an unbelievable amount of candy. I remember my coworker asking me one day, “Wasn’t that a two-pound box?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t we just get it 45 minutes ago?”

“Yes.”

I have been inspired lately by my pen pal, Mily, who is always sending these emails saying, “We did this fun thing and then we did that fun thing, and tomorrow we’re going to do this other fun thing.” Then I go to Flickr and see a photo of her doing something fun that she didn’t even mention!

It occurred to me that I could do more fun things, but then I thought, “Naw, I can’t, because I’m not a we.” But then I remembered that I probably will always be an I, which doesn’t mean I can’t do fun things.

At a gathering at Paul and Eva’s once, some of Eva’s friends said that it had been great to turn 50 because it imparted a sense of urgency: that if you thought, “Maybe I’d like to do such-and-such,” you knew you’d better go do it without delay.

Lately I have been planning days as if I were planning an outing with a favored companion: “Let’s have lunch here and then go to a movie and then stroll by the bookstore.” Then I go do that by myself, and it’s fun.

I am very generously supplied with first-rate phone friends, email friends, and friends that live somewhere else, but what is in somewhat short supply is in-person friends to go to the movies with—the ones I have are fantastic, to be sure—so I have been reviewing my address book (i.e., printout of a database) to see if I’m overlooking anyone, and I also have concluded that it may be time to make some new friends.

Thus I am very pleased by the in-person return of Tina, who is the wonderful variety of new friend known as the old friend.