May 2006 Home May 2 2006 12:54 PM When I was managing the kitchen of the big tourist restaurant the handy man was from Nicaragua. The kitchen was remodeled a few times during the time I was there. We always worked with a guy who owned his own sheet metal business. Gruff. Hard working. He built and installed shelves and covered the wall with stainless. One morning the handyman, the metal guy and I were talking and he began a diatribe about how "these foreigners that were taking away our jobs..." There was a moment when he looked at my face and didn't see the agreement he was looking for and then looked at the handyman's face and he must have realized he was standing in a room full of people from Mexico, Central and South America and he just stopped. The reason he felt so comfortable talking to us was that we were all friends. Not great friends. The kind of friend you are when you work together day after day. I think he temporarily forgot where he was and who he was talking to. At the risk of making my own generalization, he was one of those guys who listened to AM talk radio. Yesterday was pretty amazing. In the morning Democracy Now did a thing about the history of May Day beginning in 1865.
I think about how much blood was shed so that people could have an eight hour work day. And now, in white collar professions, people often work more than that because they know they won't be promoted if they don't. And immigrant labour too often operates outside the rules all together. The bosses still want the profits at any cost to the well being of the worker. I think Bill Maher said something about it not being true that Americans won't do certain jobs but it is true that they won't work for two dollars an hour. The issues are so convoluted. The guys who owned the big tourist restaurant wanted to train people to move through the ranks rather than hire line cooks. Why? It was cheaper. In some ways it was good because the guys learned and got kitchen creds. I've seen many of them in kitchens all over the city. But it was exploitation.
May 4 2006 3:34 PM I saw Billie Jean King on Tavis the other day. I remember her from back in the day and she is very cool but my awareness of her is dim. I'm not and never have been a sports person. I'm glad she does the work she does for women who are interested in sports. She says that women's organizations only get 7% of charitable dollars.
Fighting obesity. When I was a ... girl ... gym class was the worst. My uniform never fit. I was always being asked to do things I had no interest or ability in and no one wanted me on a team since ... I had no interest or ability. There were things I did want to do. I was always willing to swim. From the minute the pool opened in the summer I was in it. I was always willing to walk. We had no car and lived in a very hilly area. I was always willing to dance. Hours in my room with stacks of Motown forty-fives. I know there were/are fat kids who were afraid to dance in public or be seen in a bathing suit but I wasn't one of them. I had some of those issues when I was in my teens and even as an adult. A gym suit with buttons that popped every time I moved was much worse than a bathing suit. And there was this weird faulty reasoning about me being fat because I wasn't interested in sports. If I had been thin, or average sized I might have just been a kid who didn't like sports. When you attach "obesity" to every cause you end up teaching self hate. I often think about how much self doubt I have hard wired because I was being told something that wasn't exactly true. Something in me knew it wasn't true. Thankfully. I read an article by Alice Waters, one of my favorite people. It was long enough ago that I don't have a link but she also used the fighting obesity thing. I never have any trouble with anyone wanting to help kids learn about food but why, oh why, must the obesity thing always be in the mix? Kids who will never be fat benefit from movement and good food. So why not talk about food and exercise and celebrate diversity in body size? It's so hard when the people who are doing the good work use the size of my ass to make their point.
May 8 2006 12:20 PM Kristina came up for the weekend. We ate and ate and ate and talked and talked and talked and went to book stores and book stores and book stores. It was just the best. Her generosity is overwhelming. I am usually suspicious of the term over-eating. But we felt like we were over eating. When I thought of what we actually ate it didn't seem like much. We split everything and we ate small plates. But lordy! I am feeling like I might be digesting for the rest of my life. Not that I'm complaining. I would happily do it again. When I was cooking for M & K portion size was never right. One night everything was too big and the next not enough. It was exasperating mostly because the conversation happened before anyone ate anything. It was always based on the first look at the plate. After a lifetime of dieting I think Mom's measuring ability is permanently skewed. We went on a road trip together when I was in my early twenties. We were sitting in the car all day and they stopped for three meals. That was the first time I realized I needed to have a time every day when I felt like my stomach was empty. Too much food felt bad. When you're fat the assumption is that you eat a lot all the time. "A lot" is a subjective thing. I've watched people eat plates full of food that seems heaping to me and, concentrically, people say they were full after a few bites. Their physical size had little to do with it. There is a part of me that always believes I am eating too much. This weekend I ate a lot. I loved every bite. It felt restorative. Being with such a good friend felt restorative. I can't imagine that there was anything unhealthy about that.
May 15 2006 10:30 AM Yesterday I clicked between the two CSPANs. On one there was a guy with what might be characterized as a perspective of the right and on the other a guy from the left. What defines right and left can be argued. The guy from the left was not that radical by my definition. Listening to the guy from the right made me tense and angry but the other guy was boring. Tense and angry almost felt better but I decided to turn them both off. I make myself listen to people with whom I do not agree in hopes of learning. Both of these guys were in heavy ideology speak. Low on information. High on rhetoric. I can and will listen to the rhetoric of the left with less tension. Most of the time I want information. Usually the weekends on CSPAN is BookTV. And often I am listening while I play with my dolls. I'm really a boring player. My goal is keep everybody happy all of the time. So, for example, I keep all the family aspiration Sims in one area of the town and all the romance aspiration Sims in another. Quite provincial of me, I know. There are exceptions. Popularity Sims, learning Sims and money Sims aren't negatively effected by an affair. I have a learning Sim who had a child with a romance Sim. His wife never knew and probably wouldn't have cared as long as she didn't catch them in the act. The wife is also a learning Sim. Their oldest son married the oldest daughter of the romance Sim and moved in with them after college. I didn't even think about the connection until after they had moved in. Quite the soap. There was one family Sim who had an affair with a romance Sim in college before he met his wife. Once he met his wife he stopped seeing the hoochy. I call my romance Sims hoochies. It's a long boring story to explain why I let this happen. I am the one doing the clicking. They both went on in their adult lives to have children. Sometimes a Sim will just stop by to visit. One night the hoochy, who was very pregnant at the time, stopped by to visit the family man. His wife was at work. His baby was about to wake up from a nap and need attention. Here was a moment rife with complex story telling possibilities. I didn't have anything to do with the hoochy coming over but I could have used it. But no. He took care of his kid. She went home. Later in life his youngest son became a teen and I made him a family Sim. But after I did I thought I missed a drama opportunity. I could have made him a romance Sim, had dad introduce him to the hoochy mama and ... wouldn't hat have been a family legacy? It's kooky. I know. I get my complexity from CSPAN and act out my fifties moralism in a computer game. My reaction to the game always surprises me. I'm so square. Sometimes I just need a simple world in which everyone can be happy. I haven't done much documenting of my new Sims but I did take a picture of a family barbecue. Eldest daughter returned to the home of her ageing parents to meet her youngest brother. Sweet, huh?
Yesterday I turned it all off and read more about Gertrude and her brother. Leo spent time in Paris learning to paint. I would like to that.
May 27 2006 12:49 AM I want to apologize to everyone on my blog roll. I'm pretty sure not everyone on my blog roll stops by to read me but for those of you who do ... I am sorry. I have not been reading. And, clearly, I have not been writing. Blogging is such an act of faith. I'm not saying I feel obligated to read but do feel like I'm neglecting my relationships when I don't. I had a bad reaction to some medication, which wiped me out for awhile. The pool finally reopened and I've been in the water ever since. I'm feeling much better. And. Now. For some news. I have a job. Oh, but it is just so kooky! I will be doing software testing for the Sims! Isn't that wild!?! The job will only last for six months but I'm kinda psyched. I certainly have spent enough time playing the game. I think it's cool that I will make some money as a result. I'm not sure how this will impact my blogging. I don't know how much I can, or would want to, blog about the job. I will be spending four hours a day on public transportation and that often gives me fodder for writing. And I'm still a fat woman in a fat hating world. I'm sure I'll have a thing or two to say about that. Things will either get much better here or much worse. I really don't want to stop writing, or reading. I love my on line community and I think of people, even when I'm not reading. If I have Internet time at work I can imagine reading my blogroll on a break. I really have no idea what it will be like. I just know I've been down for a long time and right now I feel better. There's something about getting this job that just makes me laugh. Even if it's a terrible job I can do anything for six months. And maybe, just maybe, it will be fun.
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