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I was NOT a breastfed baby. Would my life have turned
out differently if some nurse at the hospital where I was born hadn't
told my mother that it was unsanitary to nurse?
Who knows.
As soon as I was old enough to get my hand to my mouth, I started
sucking my fingers and didn't stop until I was seven years old --
and the only reason I stopped then was because my parents promised
to finally break down and buy a TV if I did.
But now I just over-eat.
What exactly causes over-eating? Hunger? Low blood sugar? Oral fixation?
Moral weakeness, greed, addiction? Breast milk deprivation? Who
knows. I only know that I have absolutely no will power when it
comes to food and I hate that. I hate not having ANY control over
food.
So. Last summer I started this part-time job working from 5 pm to
9 pm five days a week. It's a great job but it's sort of high-stress.
And for some reason totally unknown to me, from the moment I walk
in the door at 5 pm until the moment I leave at night, all I can
think about is food. For four hours every evening I become totally
and uncontrollably orally compulsive. I become a bottomless pit
of obsessive need for food. It's weird.
So after a month of observing this trend, I started
making a list. And experimenting. Just exactly what WOULD fill me
up? Here are the results of my experiment:
Day 1: Seven giant chocolate chip cookies (Did this fill me up?
Yes)
Day 2: One and one-half pounds of Laura May's fabulous home-made
chocolate walnut fudge (Big yes!)
Day 3: Five pounds of broccoli -- cooked (The answer to that one
is a definite "No" -- not even coated with olive oil)
Day 4: Eight pieces of birthday cake including two corner slices
-- somebody at the office had a party (Yes)
Day 5: Four and one-half pounds of ribs from Everett
& Jones -- mild sauce, I'm a wimp (Yes)
Day 6: Endless numbers of carrots -- four hours worth (Absolutely
not!)
Day 7: Nine bowls of oatmeal (Yeah, a little bit)
Day 8: Ten bowls of Cheerios (Okay but...what's for dessert?)
Day 9: Two and a half boxes of Girl Scout cookies -- left over from
my trip to the United Houma Nation in February where they had extra
boxes donated to help their Katrina rescue efforts which BTW are
still going on in the bayous of Louisiana (One more box would have
put me over the top....)
Day 10: Four pounds of spaghetti (Nope)
Day 11: 25 oranges (Not even close)
Day 12: Three quarts of ice cream --
Ben & Jerry's Strawberry Cheesecake (Yes, but another pint or
so would have been better....)
Day 13: Twelve containers of Brown Cow apricot-mango yogurt -- my
favorite kind, with the cream on the top (Sort of...maybe...a little)
Day 14: Three pumpkin pies (Yes -- and pumpkin pie is also a vegetable!)
So what did I learn? I learned that I CAN be filled up. But if anybody
can suggest an easier way to do it -- one that is not so hard on
my body -- please let me know. Eating this way is SO self-destructive.
It makes me feel like a cutter.
Post Scripts:
Sometimes writing about the things that I worry about helps me to
stop worrying about them. Does this mean that I will no longer be
vulnerable to pumpkin pie? Stay tuned.
Maybe it's time I give up on the "What-will-fill-me-up?"
diet, move to the Sudan and go on "The Darfur Diet" instead.
Maybe scraping around in the sand for grubs and being stared at
by vultures for a while would finally make us Americans feel more
grateful for the abundance we now just take for granted.
If Reuters, AP, CNN or Pacifica want to embed me in Iraq, I'm still
available. Contact me! Or Senator Boxer, if you want to sponsor
me, that would be great. I will also go to North Korea, Gaza, Darfur,
Lebanon, Iran, Columbia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Spain, Britian,
America or any other country where I can bring back stories about
Bush's many mistakes!
I have become shocked and amazed lately at how bitter and cynical
and mean my e-mails are becoming -- but ever since Bush, Rove, Rumsfeld
and Cheney bombed several defenseless countries into rubble, failed
to protect my country on 9-11, scalped our treasury and blatantly
STOLE two national elections, I've just not been the same. I WANT
to be a kind and loving and caring person but the example being
set for me by America's "leaders" has precluded that from
happening. My apologies.
In defense of my country, I must fight fire with fire. Those people
in the White House are NASTY.
BC Columnist Jane Stillwater
is a freelance writer, civil rights and peace activist living in
Berkeley, California. Click
here to contact Ms. Stillwater. |
