What do you say the friend who buys you chocolate for Christmas when she knows you're on a diet?
I am seething mad about this one. When I first told her -- my petite UK-size-8 friend -- about my diet, I was testing the waters. I never tell people when I'm starting a diet -- too much of a, er, belly flop waiting to happen -- but decided I'm getting a little old to lie to friends about why I don't want to eat/drink certain things.
Her response: "I hope you're not going to do that at Christmas." (I was invited to spend the holiday at her parents' house in Scotland.)
Later that afternoon, she ordered a mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream and a huge slice of cake at Starbucks. I sipped my peppermint tea, thinking: "Well, I never want people to make a fuss or feel like they can't eat what they want in front of me, but really, this is a bit much."
Then on Christmas Day I opened the box of Orla Kiely chocolates. It was one of a few presents from her family as a group, so I thought: "Oh, OK, I bet her mom bought it" -- chocolate being one of the standard Christmas gifts for people you don't know well. Still, I doubted it -- my friend had warned me not to buy her parents a posh brand of cognac (a spirit they love) because "they won't recognize it, so it's a waste." Orla Kiely, however, is trendy and London.
Then my friend said cheerfully, nodding at the box: "I picked that one out."
I didn't let it ruin Christmas, but this morning -- when I picked it up while packing to come back to London -- I got angry all over again. My sister suggested that maybe she'd bought it before I announced -- about a month ago -- that I was going on a diet. Maybe, but since chocolate is such an all-purpose gift, why not give it to someone else and give me stationery or something (she knows I'm a big thank-you-note writer)?
I'm trying to let it go, but it's not easy.
Wednesday, 27 December 2006
Tuesday, 12 December 2006
The Joy of December in London
Dear London Tourist:
I realize our city is full of ye olde English things like, um, pubs and oh-aren’t-they-cute policemen on horses and even cars driving on the wrong side of the road that you simply must photograph, but please, please, please, do not stand two and three abreast in the middle of the narrow sidewalks showing each other your photos on your digital cameras and deciding if you should take another. Some of us would like to be able to run one lone errand on our lunch hours (difficult enough with the Tube as rubbish as it is), or get to work/the film/a dinner on time. And please do not tut and cluck when those of us who live here run through your photo because we can’t stand there all day waiting for you to take a picture of – I am not making this up – a hedge in the shape of a vodka bottle in the Selfridges window.
Also, if you absolutely must snog your partner in the middle of the escalator when the Tube is packed during morning rush hour, please do not stand on the left side of the escalator or someone is going to push you down it.
Yours gratefully,
Beth
* * *
I lost another pound and a half this week. Though I don’t trust my scale. How could I weigh a quarter pound more after I went to the bathroom?
I realize our city is full of ye olde English things like, um, pubs and oh-aren’t-they-cute policemen on horses and even cars driving on the wrong side of the road that you simply must photograph, but please, please, please, do not stand two and three abreast in the middle of the narrow sidewalks showing each other your photos on your digital cameras and deciding if you should take another. Some of us would like to be able to run one lone errand on our lunch hours (difficult enough with the Tube as rubbish as it is), or get to work/the film/a dinner on time. And please do not tut and cluck when those of us who live here run through your photo because we can’t stand there all day waiting for you to take a picture of – I am not making this up – a hedge in the shape of a vodka bottle in the Selfridges window.
Also, if you absolutely must snog your partner in the middle of the escalator when the Tube is packed during morning rush hour, please do not stand on the left side of the escalator or someone is going to push you down it.
Yours gratefully,
Beth
* * *
I lost another pound and a half this week. Though I don’t trust my scale. How could I weigh a quarter pound more after I went to the bathroom?
Tuesday, 5 December 2006
Only [Number Too Depressing to Think About] More Pounds to Go
I’ve spent a good five minutes trying to think of a way to end the following sentence without a “but” followed by something negative: “I lost seven and a half pounds this week.”
OK. Did it.
But. Yes, but. But I’m already despairing of losing any more in the great sea of champagne and chocolate that is the holiday season in London. I tell myself I am looking at December not in terms of what I lose but in terms of what I might have gained, but to be honest, I don’t know what I might have gained. When I’m on the up and up I never weigh myself.
Besides, it is hard to put forth the sort of effort I’m putting forth – cooking, worrying, planning – without any results, let alone with a gain. What exhausts me is the (mental) weighing and balancing – if I have this extra for lunch then I can’t have a drink at the party tonight. Or: If I overdo it, say, on Wednesday I’d better be careful on Thursday. Which is almost impossible this time of year.
But enough whinging. Except for the first three days, when I was constantly hungry, I have had no cravings of any kind. Not even at the office birthday party I attended today, where my colleagues attacked a French chocolate cake.
* * *
This morning at the Mulberry sample sale – as I tried and failed to reclaim my rightful place in line amid a seething mass in the pouring rain – a guy heard my accent and said loudly: “This is Britain. We know how to queue here.” If you did, I wouldn’t have had to struggle to hold on to my place, you tosser.
I later saw he worked for the Express, quite possibly the most useless collection of newsprint in the UK. It’s the only one I never bother going to another newsagent for if my local is out of it when I’m on weekend duty, buying all the papers.
The sale, incidentally, was a wash. “Sample sale” to me implies deep, deep discount, whereas these prices were less than £100 off the originals. And wallets were still £89. I’ve never been one of those Americans who lives my life mentally calculating the dollars I’m spending, but now that the current exchange rate is nearly two to one, it’s hard not to. I was pleased with my restraint, only buying a £20 belt – but then I took an £11 taxi back to the office. What can I say? It was pouring.
OK. Did it.
But. Yes, but. But I’m already despairing of losing any more in the great sea of champagne and chocolate that is the holiday season in London. I tell myself I am looking at December not in terms of what I lose but in terms of what I might have gained, but to be honest, I don’t know what I might have gained. When I’m on the up and up I never weigh myself.
Besides, it is hard to put forth the sort of effort I’m putting forth – cooking, worrying, planning – without any results, let alone with a gain. What exhausts me is the (mental) weighing and balancing – if I have this extra for lunch then I can’t have a drink at the party tonight. Or: If I overdo it, say, on Wednesday I’d better be careful on Thursday. Which is almost impossible this time of year.
But enough whinging. Except for the first three days, when I was constantly hungry, I have had no cravings of any kind. Not even at the office birthday party I attended today, where my colleagues attacked a French chocolate cake.
* * *
This morning at the Mulberry sample sale – as I tried and failed to reclaim my rightful place in line amid a seething mass in the pouring rain – a guy heard my accent and said loudly: “This is Britain. We know how to queue here.” If you did, I wouldn’t have had to struggle to hold on to my place, you tosser.
I later saw he worked for the Express, quite possibly the most useless collection of newsprint in the UK. It’s the only one I never bother going to another newsagent for if my local is out of it when I’m on weekend duty, buying all the papers.
The sale, incidentally, was a wash. “Sample sale” to me implies deep, deep discount, whereas these prices were less than £100 off the originals. And wallets were still £89. I’ve never been one of those Americans who lives my life mentally calculating the dollars I’m spending, but now that the current exchange rate is nearly two to one, it’s hard not to. I was pleased with my restraint, only buying a £20 belt – but then I took an £11 taxi back to the office. What can I say? It was pouring.
Sunday, 3 December 2006
The Cult of the Diet
Multiple times this week I have tried – and failed – to write about This Thing That I Am Doing.
I’m not doing the same thing as Wendy, from whom I have borrowed the above phrase. But I feel similarly about it – that Weight Watchers drives me crazy, and that I’m tired of pretending that I can have it all when I know that I can’t.
So what is this thing that I am doing? I’m loath to describe it. Not because it’s a crazy fad diet, but because it’s something I never thought I’d do. Let’s just say it is a diet I have long associated with people who – if this diet had an online message forum, which it does not – definitely would spell losing “loosing.” This diet has made me consider whether diets can (and are) class-based, because no one in the magazine about said diet is anyone I know, or would know. Even the clothes in the photo shoots of the success stories are tacky styles from deep discount stores.
I guess I’ve been loath to discuss this particular diet because the people in the before pictures represent my deepest fears of what I think people think when they look at me. They are the women in the tent dresses, with the towel wrapped around the bucket of ice cream (for the record, something I have never done). But at different points in my life I have sat at Overeaters Anonymous meetings and Weight Watchers meetings and thought unkind, uncharitable thoughts about the people around me -- and of course, about myself, for having to be there along with them. And here I am, still unhappy with the way I look. So I'm giving a new cult -- and all these diets are cults, aren't they? -- a try.
If I carry on with This Thing That I'm Doing -- if you're counting, which of course I am, my third diet of the year -- probably I’ll post later about what exactly I’m, uh, doing. But let’s just say I am cooking and eating loads of fruit and even vegetables, though I draw the line at baby carrots! Unrelated to the diet, I’ve given up diet Coke – for now, anyway. (I’m not sure if it’s the diet or the lack of diet Coke – or both – that account for the surprising lack of sugar cravings after the initial few days of withdrawal.) A friend today – unprompted – said she thought I looked slimmer. Unlikely when today is Day 7, but nice to hear.
Why start a diet in the middle of the holiday season? Because I didn’t want to wait until January 1. Well, January 2. I didn’t want another month of feeling and knowing that I need to do something, of last chance eating, and of feeling unhappy with all of it.
I’m the queen of black-and-white thinking, but I’ve been working hard to convince myself – to really make myself believe – that I should look at this month not in terms of what I’ve lost but in terms of what I might have gained had I not made these changes now. I know I’m not going to be able to stick to this way of eating at Christmas, where I’ll be a houseguest in Scotland, Land of All Things Fried (including, I am told, pizza). It will just have to be some early practice in running like hell to catch the wagon I’ve fallen off of.
* * *
Today would have been my mother's 63rd birthday. On the way home from Selfridges, I tried to buy some orange roses -- her favorite color -- but they were wilted.
I’m not doing the same thing as Wendy, from whom I have borrowed the above phrase. But I feel similarly about it – that Weight Watchers drives me crazy, and that I’m tired of pretending that I can have it all when I know that I can’t.
So what is this thing that I am doing? I’m loath to describe it. Not because it’s a crazy fad diet, but because it’s something I never thought I’d do. Let’s just say it is a diet I have long associated with people who – if this diet had an online message forum, which it does not – definitely would spell losing “loosing.” This diet has made me consider whether diets can (and are) class-based, because no one in the magazine about said diet is anyone I know, or would know. Even the clothes in the photo shoots of the success stories are tacky styles from deep discount stores.
I guess I’ve been loath to discuss this particular diet because the people in the before pictures represent my deepest fears of what I think people think when they look at me. They are the women in the tent dresses, with the towel wrapped around the bucket of ice cream (for the record, something I have never done). But at different points in my life I have sat at Overeaters Anonymous meetings and Weight Watchers meetings and thought unkind, uncharitable thoughts about the people around me -- and of course, about myself, for having to be there along with them. And here I am, still unhappy with the way I look. So I'm giving a new cult -- and all these diets are cults, aren't they? -- a try.
If I carry on with This Thing That I'm Doing -- if you're counting, which of course I am, my third diet of the year -- probably I’ll post later about what exactly I’m, uh, doing. But let’s just say I am cooking and eating loads of fruit and even vegetables, though I draw the line at baby carrots! Unrelated to the diet, I’ve given up diet Coke – for now, anyway. (I’m not sure if it’s the diet or the lack of diet Coke – or both – that account for the surprising lack of sugar cravings after the initial few days of withdrawal.) A friend today – unprompted – said she thought I looked slimmer. Unlikely when today is Day 7, but nice to hear.
Why start a diet in the middle of the holiday season? Because I didn’t want to wait until January 1. Well, January 2. I didn’t want another month of feeling and knowing that I need to do something, of last chance eating, and of feeling unhappy with all of it.
I’m the queen of black-and-white thinking, but I’ve been working hard to convince myself – to really make myself believe – that I should look at this month not in terms of what I’ve lost but in terms of what I might have gained had I not made these changes now. I know I’m not going to be able to stick to this way of eating at Christmas, where I’ll be a houseguest in Scotland, Land of All Things Fried (including, I am told, pizza). It will just have to be some early practice in running like hell to catch the wagon I’ve fallen off of.
* * *
Today would have been my mother's 63rd birthday. On the way home from Selfridges, I tried to buy some orange roses -- her favorite color -- but they were wilted.
Sunday, 26 November 2006
Cooking With the Wakefield Twins
Tonight – at dinner at friends I consider my big brother and sister in London – we discussed questions that would make you question whether you should show up for dinner at all. (Or show up with a pizza instead of a bottle of wine.)
This came from my telling my friends – we’ll call them J and L – about the time I was having people over for dinner, panicked, and nearly called J beforehand to ask him if a clove was just one little nub of the garlic, or the whole thing. The only reason I didn’t call him: Because he and L were the ones coming over for dinner. (For the record, I figured out the correct portion of garlic. Why does one’s brain occasionally misfile such information, and how does it get refiled?)
J – who, while we’re setting the record straight, admitted that he sometimes struggles with the garlic issue – offered the following to the list of questions that would make one fear dinner: “I left the milk out and I don’t think it’s been 24 hours and anyway I’m cooking it so it should be OK, right?”
“How about, ‘I’ve spent the past hour prying the mussels open,’” I suggested. J – a comedy writer -- laughed.
“Growing up in a kosher-style home I don’t know if I’d know that one,” said L. “But I read it in a Sweet Valley High book.”
I looked at her and started to giggle. The only reason I knew myself was because in one of the books closed mussels are how Jessica Wakefield gives her family food poisoning. I bet it’s the only useful thing I learned from the entire series.
This came from my telling my friends – we’ll call them J and L – about the time I was having people over for dinner, panicked, and nearly called J beforehand to ask him if a clove was just one little nub of the garlic, or the whole thing. The only reason I didn’t call him: Because he and L were the ones coming over for dinner. (For the record, I figured out the correct portion of garlic. Why does one’s brain occasionally misfile such information, and how does it get refiled?)
J – who, while we’re setting the record straight, admitted that he sometimes struggles with the garlic issue – offered the following to the list of questions that would make one fear dinner: “I left the milk out and I don’t think it’s been 24 hours and anyway I’m cooking it so it should be OK, right?”
“How about, ‘I’ve spent the past hour prying the mussels open,’” I suggested. J – a comedy writer -- laughed.
“Growing up in a kosher-style home I don’t know if I’d know that one,” said L. “But I read it in a Sweet Valley High book.”
I looked at her and started to giggle. The only reason I knew myself was because in one of the books closed mussels are how Jessica Wakefield gives her family food poisoning. I bet it’s the only useful thing I learned from the entire series.
Roman Holiday
Back from Rome last night after a yummy, crazy Thanksgiving dinner at a wine editor’s house and a chance meeting in front of the Vittorio Emanuel monument with two friends from DC. Oh yeah, and a ridiculous assignment where I spent so much time (legitimately) sitting in one fancy schmancy hotel bar I fear deep vein thrombosis – and where I got about two hours of sleep a night.
I am slowly making my way through e-mails and obligations and dreading the return to the office tomorrow. I’m also dreading a lunch I have cancelled at least six times, with the (world’s skinniest Russian) wife of a celebrity jeweler*. After a week and a half of pasta, I do not want to find something to wear. Nor do I want to spent two hours making polite conversation – plus an hour travel time -- when I’d rather be hiding in my office in jeans and communist chic sneakers, getting actual work done so that I don’t have to stay in the office until midnight.
Sigh. As my mother would say, things are rough all over.
Still.
Must. Find. New. Job.
(Hello, so not going to happen in December.)
*though last time I got to try on Christina Aguilera's actual engagement ring -- she had sent it back for repairs. I know, I know -- not that thrilling. Trying to psych myself into this.
* * *
The friends I bumped into in Rome I saw when I was in DC, but this couple has been peripheral friends – part of the same circle, but never the sort of people I had any independent relationship with. In fact, I was surprised a couple of years ago when they turned up to my book signing and insisted on each buying their own copy of my book for support (no small thing, since the male half of this couple is notoriously cheap), and even more surprised when I once got a long-ish, thoughtful email from male half in response to a quick one I’d sent.
I knew they’d be in Rome – they were taking a week’s vacation in Italy – but they were arriving the night before I was scheduled to leave, and they wouldn’t have a phone or blackberry (yes, I know people organized their social schedules long before the invention of either). Plus I didn’t want to be the gooseberry on their romantic vacation. But there they were, standing in front of the Vittorio Emanuel memorial when I finally got out of bed after a Thanksgiving dinner that ended at six in the morning.
We hit the Pantheon – I had been already, but they hadn’t -- then had a tartufo in the Piazza Navona. (Male half of couple: “If we have these to go it will cost half as much.”) We walked across the river to see St. Peter’s at sunset, then got dinner in Trastavere, laughing and gossiping and just hanging out. And of course, commenting on how surreal it was to bump into each other in Rome, and how it wouldn’t have worked out that well if we planned it. In another year or so I would likely have lost touch with them – another casualty of the expat life, where friendships without enough of a history (or a short but significant history) eventually become history, sometimes even despite one’s best efforts. Thanks to about 12 hours in Rome, I’m sure this one won’t.
I am slowly making my way through e-mails and obligations and dreading the return to the office tomorrow. I’m also dreading a lunch I have cancelled at least six times, with the (world’s skinniest Russian) wife of a celebrity jeweler*. After a week and a half of pasta, I do not want to find something to wear. Nor do I want to spent two hours making polite conversation – plus an hour travel time -- when I’d rather be hiding in my office in jeans and communist chic sneakers, getting actual work done so that I don’t have to stay in the office until midnight.
Sigh. As my mother would say, things are rough all over.
Still.
Must. Find. New. Job.
(Hello, so not going to happen in December.)
*though last time I got to try on Christina Aguilera's actual engagement ring -- she had sent it back for repairs. I know, I know -- not that thrilling. Trying to psych myself into this.
* * *
The friends I bumped into in Rome I saw when I was in DC, but this couple has been peripheral friends – part of the same circle, but never the sort of people I had any independent relationship with. In fact, I was surprised a couple of years ago when they turned up to my book signing and insisted on each buying their own copy of my book for support (no small thing, since the male half of this couple is notoriously cheap), and even more surprised when I once got a long-ish, thoughtful email from male half in response to a quick one I’d sent.
I knew they’d be in Rome – they were taking a week’s vacation in Italy – but they were arriving the night before I was scheduled to leave, and they wouldn’t have a phone or blackberry (yes, I know people organized their social schedules long before the invention of either). Plus I didn’t want to be the gooseberry on their romantic vacation. But there they were, standing in front of the Vittorio Emanuel memorial when I finally got out of bed after a Thanksgiving dinner that ended at six in the morning.
We hit the Pantheon – I had been already, but they hadn’t -- then had a tartufo in the Piazza Navona. (Male half of couple: “If we have these to go it will cost half as much.”) We walked across the river to see St. Peter’s at sunset, then got dinner in Trastavere, laughing and gossiping and just hanging out. And of course, commenting on how surreal it was to bump into each other in Rome, and how it wouldn’t have worked out that well if we planned it. In another year or so I would likely have lost touch with them – another casualty of the expat life, where friendships without enough of a history (or a short but significant history) eventually become history, sometimes even despite one’s best efforts. Thanks to about 12 hours in Rome, I’m sure this one won’t.
Wednesday, 15 November 2006
The Brain Trust
I was back in the office for less than an hour today – not even in the office, actually, but at lunch – before job-loathing set in again.
A senior editor arrived from New York, calling for help from us because she couldn’t get in a cab because “I don’t have any Euros.” She said this repeatedly, apparently unaware that the UK has not joined the Euro. Other things she is unaware of: Who we are, how we report (she asked me how our bureau planned to report the Tom and Katie wedding because she had no idea how we did it), and who the band Keane is (apparently I’m not the only one who doesn’t read the very magazine I help produce).
And this particular senior editor has most favored nation status in New York.
Get me out of here, pronto.
A senior editor arrived from New York, calling for help from us because she couldn’t get in a cab because “I don’t have any Euros.” She said this repeatedly, apparently unaware that the UK has not joined the Euro. Other things she is unaware of: Who we are, how we report (she asked me how our bureau planned to report the Tom and Katie wedding because she had no idea how we did it), and who the band Keane is (apparently I’m not the only one who doesn’t read the very magazine I help produce).
And this particular senior editor has most favored nation status in New York.
Get me out of here, pronto.
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