Yesterday I ran into the girl I used to refer to as “the girl who stole my boyfriend in high school,” but recently realized I should probably refer to as “the girl my boyfriend cheated on me with in high school,” not only because the first statement implies that men are faultless pawns in games played by women (like when people call Angelina Jolie a homewrecker, as if Brad Pitt didn’t wreck his own home), but also because the boyfriend in question saw her only briefly (evidently the relationship thrived under cheating conditions but not otherwise) and then was my boyfriend again, for reasons I can’t satisfactorily explain except to say that he was QUITE cute and QUITE charming aside from the cheating thing, and I DID dump him permanently after the second time he cheated with her (and again, their relationship fizzled out).

ANYWAY, I saw the girl my high school boyfriend cheated on me with, and she was wearing a Winnie-the-Pooh shirt. And it’s not that there is one single thing wrong with wearing a Winnie-the-Pooh shirt, but still, I had a flash of sympathy for her because that is not what I would want to be wearing on such an occasion, if I were her.

Speaking of high school, I would like to know what language you studied in school, and why did you choose it? I started with French because I thought French seemed ROMANTIC, and then after two years of that I switched to Latin because I thought it would help with my SATs. It turned out I liked Latin a lot better (it’s not a spoken language anymore, so no one can criticize your accent!), so I took three more semesters of it in college.

As you already know if you follow me on Twitter (and why WOULDN’T you, since that is where I give updates on how irritated I am by the high price of shipping a few rolls of address labels?) (NINE DOLLARS WTF!!!), I’m bored with my usual exercise routine and looking for a change. I don’t usually talk about exercise here because it doesn’t occur to me as a topic of interest (but SHIPPING costs! THAT’S entertainment!), but I wonder if that’s why whenever I write on the topic of fatness I get some “Fine, don’t exercise or eat right, BE fat” feedback—as if that’s the natural opposite of “Everyone can have the same results with the same effort.”

So. Fine. I will try to remember to talk about exercise more. (Also on the syllabus: how much broccoli and spinach I eat, and how little red meat.) Currently I exercise in the evening, right after the kids go to bed, because that’s when it’s been working best: the kids wake us up around 5:30, and I know I COULD get up earlier but so far haven’t been motivated to. In the evening I’m less likely to be interrupted, and some of my routines let me watch a movie while exercising which makes it not quite so “ack I’m cutting into my limited slice of free time.”

BUT. That’s not working for me now. I used to get a second wind in the evening, but now I feel worn out. I used to be willing to cut into that limited slice of free time, but now the idea makes me feel sullen. Also, I’m bored with both the Wii Fit and with running, so that makes me feel even MORE sullen: not only am I using up free time, I’m doing something I HATE.

Well, so clearly that means an adjustment is in order. I asked for suggestions on Twitter, and 30 Day Shred is now on its way to me (hey, I finally read Twilight, this is the next natural step), despite the fact that the mere FACIAL EXPRESSIONS of Jillian Michaels make me want to punch her in the teeth, and this is without ever hearing her voice, which reportedly is unpleasant and mean. I also have several other people’s suggestions on my Netflix queue, and I wish I’d thought of Netflix before I paid money for 30 Day Shred, but there it is and I can always donate it to the library if I don’t like it.

The other adjustment, and to me this is far more radical, is I’m going to try exercising in the morning, before and while Paul is showering. Aaaaaaaaacccccckkkkkkkk. But if it WORKS, it means it’ll cut into my sleep time instead of into my free time, and may make it easier for me to get to sleep at night in which case it would in fact be cutting into my lying-awake-wishing-I-could-sleep time, which would be awesome. ALSO, it would mean I could shower right after, which would mean a reduction in the part of exercising I hate most, which is the part where I have to change clothes! and take ANOTHER shower! and change clothes! which seems like no big deal but can add another big chunk of free time to the process. ALSO-also, it would mean getting it over with first-thing rather than dreading it and/or making it dependent on what kind of day I have.

BUT, it also means I can’t go running (because if a child needed something, which is likely, Paul would be in the shower and I’d be out of the house). And it means an increase in the possibility of a hugely annoying mid-exercise interruption (such as child waking up soaked). And it means I’ll have to argue with my half-asleep self, and she’s even more sullen than my evening self.

Another potential problem is this: Evening exercising significantly decreased EATING, because I didn’t want to exercise on a full stomach and afterward my appetite was suppressed. I’d do ZERO snacking all evening, and by the time I started feeling hungry it was too close to bedtime to eat anything. If I’m exercising in the morning, though, it opens the evening up for snacking, and it also may mean I’ll have a mid-morning eat-everything-in-sight time.

So we will SEE, is what I am saying.

I tried it for the first time this morning and it went okay. The novelty of the situation made it easier to get out of bed, and it was very pleasant to be able to take a chilly shower afterward and know it could be the ONLY shower of the day. My new workout DVDs haven’t arrived yet so I did one of my old Tae Bo DVDs. Gosh, I’d forgotten how much I hate the girl who acts like she’s about to fall to the ground and start twitching with bliss. Yes, we all know you find this workout so INCREDIBLY STIMULATING it makes you want to SHOUT WITH JOY, but the rest of us are sweating and counting minutes so could you please shut your Teacher’s Pet trap, kthanx. Hey, I just thought of a new awesome product: a workout DVD in which NONE of the participants make you want to smack them! Imagine such a world!

Last night I dreamed Jonniker was having a multi-day party at her house and she let me come, and I was nervous but I went anyway and then kept wondering, “WHY DO I NOT DO THINGS LIKE THIS MORE OFTEN??” because it was so fun. I was also wondering if we really should be drinking ALL day long like that, and why no one seemed surprised that Justin Timberlake was naked. I had to leave early because I had to give birth to four kittens at the hospital, but who DOESN’T have that dream amirite?

It is time to take action on my hair. I’ve been growing it, and that’s still fun so I want to keep doing that, but it is looking overgrown and overthick, and it’s getting painful to comb even when I use lots of detangler. I’m going to make an appointment with my favorite stylist (Krissy–*starry eyes*) because she ALWAYS knows what to do. When I was growing out my bangs, I went to her and I was like, “Nothing can be done about that, I’m sure,” and she was like “Mm hm” and then she gave me a cut that was like I’d already grown out the bangs. Doesn’t talk much, does Krissy, but KNOWS ALL. (I feel a little sorry for her about her name. She doesn’t seem like a Krissy. She seems like a Beth, or an Erin, or a Cara.)

Do you know what else, about my hair? I worry that it is Too Much with the five kids and the no/low make-up. I always wear it twisted up, and it’s just…er. Especially with the maxi skirts I bought recently. Maxi skirts are fashionable right now, but long skirt + long twisted-up hair + many more children than usual + no make-up—-it starts to look like something I’m not. Or even SEVERAL things I’m not.

I don’t know why this reminds me of it, but we had someone straight out of another habitat walking down our street the other day. Normally in our town, if I see a woman walking a dog, she’s wearing capris and a t-shirt and sunscreen, she has hair that doesn’t catch your attention, and her dog is a medium-sized mutt type or a golden retriever. THIS woman had long straightened streaked hair, a deep tan, make-up that was clearly visible from my car, short-short-short shorts, glittery sandals, a cardigan longer than the shorts, sunglasses, and a tiny white fluffy dog on a pink leather leash. I hadn’t realized we had so little of that kind of thing until I was so startled seeing it. It’s like I hadn’t realized how few old people lived in the town I used to live in, until I moved to the town I live in now.

Today needs a plan. It is only breakfast time, and yet the goal “Do not go slap out of mind” is setting the bar TOO HIGH.

I thought about going to Target, because Target is always a soothing balm unto my soul, but…five children.

I could take them to the park, but the twins are getting their 5-year pictures taken tomorrow, and Edward already has a scrape on his cheekbone and a bug bite on his forehead, and I feel like that is my limit for facial injuries.

I made myself a challenge, a boring and depressing challenge but a challenge nevertheless, to see how many loads of laundry I could get done—and right out of the gate discovered I’d left a load in the washer and would need to re-run it. “That’s going to cost her, Becky.” “You got that right, Jim. We’ll have to see if she can make up the time by shaving some minutes off the next wash cycle.”

I updated the frappe recipe below, to include calorie info and a non-coffee alternative.

On impulse I ordered a mocha frappe at McDonald’s, and UM YUMMY. The ingredients didn’t seem hard to figure out: I guessed coffee, chocolate, milk. I tasted cream, so probably it was whole milk or maybe a blend of whole milk and cream. I could see little teeny bits of ice, so either there was ice in it too or else the coffee was frozen. I often have leftover coffee, so I froze some.

It’s hard to make things at home because I have to acknowledge what’s in them. If I get a frappe, all I have to think about it how much it costs and how good it tastes, and I don’t have to think, “Hey, am I drinking…CREAM??”

But the nice thing about making things at home is that I can substitute. In this case, I used 2% milk, but next time I’ll try it with skim.

One cup milk

Squeeze the Hershey syrup for awhile
(I’ll try to remember to measure next time.)

Blend. While it’s blending, add eight coffee ice cubes and two plain water ice cubes through the hole in the lid. (If yours doesn’t have a hole in the lid, shut off blender, remove lid, add a cube, replace lid, blend, shut off blender, remove lid, add a cube….)

Another squeeze of chocolate syrup, perhaps

PLEASE AND THANK YOU

Makes enough for two people to have some, or for one person to have seconds.
I am the only one in my house who likes coffee.

Update! I looked online and got calorie info for the McDonald’s Frappe.

Then I made my version again, so I’d know how many ounces. Fluid ounces are a little tricky because the blender puts air into the mixture, so presumably the ounces wouldn’t be the same after the mixture sits for awhile, but anyway, my recipe made 18 ounces so let’s compare it to the 16-ounce medium.

I used 1/2 cup skim milk (40 calories), 1/2 cup 2% milk (65 calories), and 4 T. (or 1/4 c.) Hershey syrup (200 calories FTLOG). (The Hershey syrup is a great example of the point I made near the beginning about how it can be harder to make things at home where I have to Acknowledge The Ingredients). That’s a total of 305 calories, and it’s quite chocolatey and sweet; if my goal were to reduce the calories, I could use less chocolate syrup and/or replace some of the syrup with unsweetened cocoa and plain sugar (or even Splenda, I suppose). If I’d known it would be so close to the hundred-calorie mark, I might have done all skim milk and then it would have been 280 calories which sounds much less—AND would have been exactly half the calories of the 560-calorie medium frappe.

Another note: the second time I made it, it wasn’t thick enough. I didn’t want to add more coffee ice cubes because I was doing measurements, but I think it could easily have used another couple of cubes—which might have brought it ounces up to compare to the 680-calorie large frappe, an even more impressive calorie difference.

And yet another note: The kids were all very jealous that I got to drink a “shake,” but they all hated the coffee flavor, so I froze MILK ice cubes and made the same recipe but with milk-cubes instead of coffee-cubes. VERY good, and just like giving them chocolate milk—but with them having the feeling they’re getting ice cream.

So! I take a birth control pill called Ocella. Ocella is the generic for Yasmin. And if I understand it correctly, Yasmin and Yaz are the pills that have been in the news recently because of a bunch of problematic side effects including symptoms such as DEATH. Which concerns me, but not a lot, because I read prescription inserts, and ALL versions of the pill have little pamphlets that come with them that basically say, “You understand that by taking the pill you are specifically requesting to die, right?” And if THOSE seem scary, I read the pamphlet that comes with a mere TAMPON and that puts it in perspective.

But! My cousin is in the hospital because she was on Yasmin and got a blood clot in her lung. And while a brief hospital stay is in my repertoire of parenting fantasies (another is solitary confinement in prison), I get that this is not actually a vacation. (She’s expected to make a full recovery and is impatient to get out of there.)

There are few reactions less sensible and more human than deciding to go off a medication after someone I KNOW has a problem—as opposed to after a bunch of people I DON’T know have problems. My cousin having a blood clot in her lung means exactly ZERO for my likelihood of having trouble with a medication, or for the statistical dangers of the medication, or for how the medication compares in danger to other medications. And I tell you this with a self-deprecating shrug, because NEVERTHELESS. I’ll finish out this packet and then that’s it.

So isn’t this fun? We’re back to the birth control problem, and MY GOODNESS does this ever go around and around and around again. My favorite birth control ever was the Fertility Awareness Method, which made me feel SUPAH SMAHT, but Paul’s not willing to do that one now: it was perfect when an unexpected pregnancy would have been fine and even welcome, but that was then and this is now.

Every time I bring up this topic, lots of people suggest the IUD. On paper, this would be the best option for me right now: it doesn’t have the hormones that cause problems, and it’s long-term but it wouldn’t be hard to remove if there was a change in the no-more-babies decision. But the IUD works by allowing conception to take place but then not allowing the zygote to take hold, and that makes me feel uncomfortable, so for now this method is out of the running. (The pill, too, works by making the uterine lining unreceptive to a zygote—but because it first attempts to prevent ovulation altogether, this is more okay with me. The hormone IUD works more like the pill, but in that case I’d rather just take the pill.)

All barrier methods seem practically MEDIEVAL, and they require a level of responsibility more consistent with people for whom an unplanned pregnancy would be fine.

I’ve tried Depo-Provera—but again, if I’m going to use hormones, I’d just as soon use the pill. I don’t have any trouble remembering to take the pill regularly, so going in for a shot every few months is actually MORE of a hassle for me.

Soooooo, we’re back around to the pill, but a different formula. Or…well…

Well, it could be Time for The Snip. I have been verrrrrrry reluctant to make a permanent decision about this, but the other night I said to Paul that if he was REALLY SURE, then it was TIME TO STOP MAKING ME RUIN MY LIFE WITH HORMONES. It was partly a tantrum and partly serious. I’d probably have another baby if he changed his mind, because hey, free baby, but as my youngest finishes potty-training and my second-youngests go to kindergarten this fall I do also feel more ready to say “Fine. Done. I guess that was it.”

(I didn’t post this a couple of nights ago when I wrote it, because after being up all night I didn’t want to have to deal with the comments that day. Now I’m well-rested.)

It’s the middle of the night, and I’ve been up agitating about the implications of the cat. I mean, here’s this cat, right? She eats only an optimal nutritious diet. She doesn’t have access to junk food. She lives nearly her entire adult life in complete health: aside from routine vaccinations and one small and quickly-remedied bout with fleas, she never needs medical care for anything. She weighs 12 pounds all that time—and at every annual vet check-up, the vet mentions that she should lose weight, that her “healthy weight” would be more like 6 pounds, that we should try reducing her already-below-average intake of nutritious food, that we should try feeding her food that includes stuff that isn’t food.

This struggle goes on for nearly the cat’s ENTIRE—and COMPLETELY HEALTHY—LIFE. She reaches 16 years old, which is a nice old age for a cat. Finally she begins to have some old-age-related health problems, and then her thyroid breaks, and she drops to her “healthy weight.”

The quotes are deliberate, because what does “healthy weight” even…MEAN here? The weight at which…what? Clearly not “the weight at which the creature is healthy,” because Mouse was healthy at 12 pounds, eating a nutritious diet. Clearly not “the weight that is natural for that particular creature,” since again, 12 pounds was natural for her. I suppose her “healthy weight,” then, would be the amount of flesh that would be average for the size of her frame, but what relevance would that have for her individual cat self? Her own body was round and plump, so how does the average of the entire cat population, including all cat body types, apply to her? Why would she need to strive to put her body RIGHT AT the average, rather than letting it contribute its own data point to the average?

The main question I’m asking—duh—is what does this cat’s body tell us about our own bodies? If a creature that doesn’t have food choices, isn’t shamed by news-like television showing pictures of fat people walking down the street with “THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC!!” flashing over them, and is an ANIMAL who doesn’t have Food Issues to work through with her therapist—-if THIS CREATURE is at her correct weight when she weighs twice as much as an average cat of her frame size, then what does this tell us about our own weights and our own health—and our own “health”?

I’m awake in the middle of the night thinking about how there are women who go on diets so they won’t be the embarrassing Fat Mom. These are women who wouldn’t get a nose job if their nose shape embarrassed the kids. They’d laugh long and rich if those children suggested the women should change their own personal fashion style for something the children considered cooler. But they’ll have their healthy digestive systems surgically altered so that those systems will be unable to work properly and the effect will be weight loss, and they’ll do it so they won’t embarrass their children with their appearance. (I’m FULLY IN FAVOR OF SURGERIES ((including nose jobs!)) for people who want them, and have looked into it for myself; what I’m not in favor of is an atmosphere of shame and disproportionate fear, or the idea that a person should alter their appearance to avoid offending/embarrassing others.)

Or they won’t have the surgery, they’ll instead change their lives to dedicate enormous time and energy to the alteration and upkeep of their bodies. The boulder will have to be pushed up the hill, and then it will have to be held there, NEARLY at the top, for the rest of the women’s lives. It will be their life’s most consuming project—with all the work gone the instant they die, leaving nothing of value behind to show for it. I hope it’s obvious I’m not talking about situations where this effort brings a person joy.

Well, or maybe some of them won’t give the embarrassment reason, maybe they’ll say it’s because they want to be around to see their children grow up. They want to be around to see their grandchildren. If women in their 30s are dropping dead of fatness all around us, leaving their poor motherless children behind, and of course we want to prevent that. Well worth the cost, financial and otherwise, to take actions that are in fact MORE UNHEALTHY and MORE DANGEROUS than carrying some extra weight. (I’m FULLY IN FAVOR of keeping healthy to prolong life, and as a parent I know how motivating it is to think pleasant thoughts of future family stuff, and it’s a great idea to use that as motivation for making the choices we want to make. Again, what I’m opposed to is the atmosphere of shame and of exaggerated/inappropriate fear.)

Pardon my French, but what kind of fucked-up merde is this? Let’s think again of Mouse, whose healthy weight (if we must try to apply such a term) is TWICE AS HIGH as an average cat of her frame size. Should we have had her healthy digestive system surgically altered in pursuit of that average? Should we have put her on a little cat treadmill for 2 hours a day while letting a mean person scream at her that she just needed to DO IT and STOP WHINING ABOUT IT!!!

And if we should have, what would have been the purpose? To take a healthy and natural cat body and make it into…what? and why?

Clearly I want to draw a connection between these two things: Mouse, who was healthy and round and plump at her natural weight of 12 pounds, and human women, many of whom are also healthy and round and plump at their natural weights of twice the average. And clearly, many readers are already composing their arguments why this connection can’t be drawn, or why an analogy that doesn’t apply in every single case doesn’t apply in any cases at all, or why there’s nothing wrong with being fit (of COURSE there isn’t), or why fatness REALLY TRULY IS a terrible health hazard, or how if we allow people to think it’s okay to be fat they won’t eat well or exercise (the assumption is that fat people neither eat well nor exercise), or how if people really did eat a healthy diet they wouldn’t be plump even though the cat was, or how for them being thin has nothing to do with appearance, or how they’re sure I’m right that SOME women are healthy and plump but MOST of them are lying to themselves cramming fast food down their throats and eating entire bags of chips and getting diabetes and heart disease, or how they themselves are fat and eat this way, or used to be fat while eating that way, and OBESITY EPIDEMIC OBESITY EPIDEMIC OMG ROACHES CRAWLING EVERYWHERE OBESITY EPIDEMIC!!!!1!

Or they’re composing attacks against women who are thin, or who are athletic, because if it’s okay to have a fat body it must NOT be okay to have a thin one! If it’s okay NOT to choose to get surgery for purely appearance-related reasons, it must be NOT okay to get surgery for purely appearance-related reasons, OR for reasons that include non-appearance-based elements! If it’s okay to NOT feel that spending a lot of time in athletic pursuits is a good investment, it must not be okay for someone else to feel like it IS a good investment! There can’t be more than one acceptable way to look and act or else HOW WILL WOMEN KNOW HOW WE’RE SUPPOSED TO MAKE OURSELVES LOOK AND ACT???

And many, many people will assume that because I don’t think people should be shamed into changing their appearance, or because I think fatness gets a disproportionate measure of blame for health problems while other health-impacting things get disproportionately little (especially considering how very little science is even willing to make GUESSES about at this point), or because I think sometimes people say it’s about health when it’s not, this means I think people should eat nothing but junk! and should never exercise! and that weight has NO impact on health! and that I have no idea how important it is to be HEALTHY!! And some people will assume that because I think everyone has different body types and that not everyone can achieve the same results with the same efforts and that we should see if science can find out more about this, that means I think NO ONE CAN CHANGE AT ALL!! and no one should try!! and everyone should just pig out and sit around all the time because IT’S HOPELESS AND STUPID!! And some people will think that because I think the culture has become scary and toxic and non-science-based on the subject of weight and needs a major overhaul, that means NO ONE SHOULD TRY TO LOSE WEIGHT FOR ANY REASON. Sigh.

I’m already weary of all of it, and it hasn’t even started.

So why deliberately post on the topic, if I’m going to flinch queasily every time a new comment comes in, wondering if this’ll be a Bad One? Why do it, if the adrenaline will make me snappish with the children, and if I’ll dread going to my computer, and if I’ll have to start using all my anti-mental-illness measures such as sunlight and funny books and nice hair conditioner? Why do it when I KNOW I will be misunderstood by at least a few people and probably a lot of them? Partly it’s because I think this subject is important, and I think the resulting feedback and discussions and posts end up showing the problem better than I can do by writing about it. Partly it’s that I think we keep working with theories and not wondering enough why those theories give us inconsistent results. Partly it’s that this is one of My Topics: some of us are super-laid-back and wonder why the rest of us can’t just stop thinking about things if they get us so UPSET, but most of us have a small handful of hot issues we go back to AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN, despite ourselves. BECAUSE OF ourselves.

And probably more than any of those things it’s because this is what I DO: I write about what I’m thinking about, and I publish it online. Some people think it out, some people talk it out, some people exercise it out, some people therapy it out—and I publish-it-online it out. I suppose a couple of generations ago I would have had to keep writing letters to the editor or something. Maybe get a little printing press and spend sleepless nights lining up the inky little letters, and spend the next morning handing out my little leaflets.

I put on a new pair of pants, yoga pants, something new for me. Grey-and-white striped, comfy and soft. I showed them off to Paul and he said “What’s this, Sassy Pants?” and I said, “They were on clearance and I thought I’d try them!” Usually I wear men’s pajama pants for evening/bedtime. He petted them and declared them comfy and soft and cute.

The children were surprised by the new pants and wanted to know what was going on, and I told them about it as I went into the other room to load the dishwasher. Rob, my eldest, my 11-year-old son, said in a jokey tone, “I’d have thought you wouldn’t want to wear stripes! Because…” and his voice cut off abruptly. I went into the room and said, “I don’t know what you were going to say, but it sounds like maybe it was something hurtful,” and he said “That’s why Daddy cut me off.” Which of course was worse.

It wasn’t even so much that I had my feelings hurt by what he was saying, though of course I did. And it wasn’t that what he started to say was something that would diminish my enjoyment of my new comfy pants, though of course it did. It’s that in 5th grade, at 11 years old, growing up in a household with a loving, good, plumpish mother who eats with enjoyment and doesn’t go around saying negative things about her body, he has nevertheless learned from the culture that there are assumptions to be made about fat people. That it’s okay to assume They should want to look different than they do, should want to minimize the fatness element of their appearance. That it’s okay to suggest that there are certain things They shouldn’t wear, since those types of clothing emphasize what is clearly a negative thing to be hidden. That it’s okay to remark on that in a jokey tone. That it’s a subject for discussion at all.

He doesn’t mean it, he doesn’t really mean it. But he needs to be taught that it is not okay to make jokes about other people’s appearances, and that fatness isn’t comical or scornable even if it’s shown that way in cartoons. That fatness has in fact ZERO to do with what’s in a person’s heart or brain, and zero to do with a person’s value as a person. I’m weary at the thought of being one person teaching him this in the face of a GIANT CULTURE relentlessly teaching him the opposite.

*****

I commented that our cat Mouse is now SO SMALL. Her head is one third the size of her body. She is tiny. I showed in the air how her body used to be, and how it is now. And Paul said, “Yeah, but she’s at her healthy weight now.”

Let that remark hang in the air for a moment. Consider that the reason Mouse is now 6 pounds instead of 12 pounds is that she has thyroid disease and kidney disease and is getting elderly. She throws up much of her food. She takes medication twice a day to keep her from consuming her own body.

She is half her size not because of health but because of illness. When she was “fat,” she was a healthy cat carrying some extra weight—and that’s making the huge assumption that the words “extra weight” make sense as opposed to judgments. Now she is thin, because she is ill and elderly.

It’s not just that he would assume that one single measure of health would be the most important one, and in fact the only one worth considering. It’s not just that he would fail to think about other measures and how important they are. It’s not just that his opinions about the cat likely reflect his opinions about fatness in general, and about his own wife’s fatness in particular. It’s that he’s a well-above-average-intelligence person, the kind who studies college-level physics for fun, and he would nevertheless say such a TRULY, DEEPLY, PROFOUNDLY STUPID thing. And it’s that he’s not alone in such stupid thoughts, not even CLOSE to alone.

He doesn’t mean it, he doesn’t really mean he believes she is healthier now that when she was plump and ACTUALLY healthy, and he doesn’t actually think stupid things about my body just because he thinks them glancingly and thoughtlessly about the cat’s body. He’s just not thinking it through. But he SHOULD think it through. As should all mentally-competent adults. The fat attaching to a body has no correlation to the brain and heart inside it; the words coming out of that body’s mouth are another story.

My mom and I went out shopping today, and at lunchtime we went to McDonald’s. We were unloading the kids from the car when a man pulled up in a truck and said, “Can you call 911 for me? I feel like I’m going to pass out.”

For me (someone who lies awake worrying about handling herself in an emergency and is scared of telephones to the point of diagnosed phobia), this was like opening the door to a room where a child has had a dramatic and horrifying barf incident. When there is barf on the ceiling and in between all the intricately-carved rails of the crib, there is a time period during which one stares at the disaster and tries to deny what one is seeing, and then there is a moment where one gathers oneself up and thinks, “There is no one else to do this thing which must be done, and so I’d best get started.” The journey of a thousand loads of laundry begins with a single paper towel.

Right away there was a decision to be made: cell phone, or go inside? I went for cell phone. My cell phone was out of batteries. I took my mom’s. I didn’t know how to use it, or even how to unlock it, and I also knew 911 wouldn’t be able to track my location and that I didn’t know where I was either, and I tried not to think about how much this resembled one of my Anxiety Dreams. I thought, “911 is accustomed to people who don’t know what they’re doing. THEY will figure this out. JUST DON’T CRY.”

I called, and they did figure it out, and I didn’t cry until the end when she told me to “Take care.” I told them the wrong city (we were right near the border of two), but it was quickly and efficiently figured out by the people who knew what they were doing. It cost maybe 15 seconds of time. They asked me a bunch of questions, and I kept reminding myself to say “I don’t know” if I didn’t know, rather than panicking and/or guessing. They asked me to guess his age, and I did, remembering that they don’t really expect me to guess accurately, they just wanted his approximately decade, and that most people belong at least to a recognizable DECADE and that it was okay to give that decade (“in his 40s, I think”) rather than trying to guess exactly (“42 or so? Or maybe older. Or you know, his hair is thinning and that can make men look so much older, so maybe he’s more like my age? I’m in my mid-thirties. Or maybe he could be even older than that? I’m not sure.”).

This is when my mom suggested we go OVER to him instead of continuing to stand by my car in the next aisle, which I swear had never occurred to me. My mom said kindly later, “Well, it would have occurred to you eventually,” but no, it wouldn’t have. Or rather, it would have, and I would have NOT gone over: I would have thought we should give him privacy, or space, or something. But my mom was exactly right, because do you know what? If a 911 operator is asking you questions about someone you don’t know, the session goes better if you can ASK THE STRANGER for the answers! I know, right?? Emergency Medical Training right here, free of charge!

He was pale and sweating and shiny and shaking, and he was moving around really restlessly. It was a hot and sunny day and I opened the door to his truck, and my mom opened the passenger door, but it was still hot. I asked the 911 operator if we should do anything, have him lie down or help him out of the car or something, and she said no. I’m not a touch-oriented person (I have to deliberately remember to hug the children or I don’t think of it—that’s how non-touch-oriented I am), but I put my hand on his upper arm and it was obviously the right thing to do because he GRABBED for my hand with his other hand. I remembered some study I’d read where it said that nurses who touched their patients were far more effective than those who didn’t. I also remembered when I was in the hospital having my babies and someone offered a hand to hold and I was so grateful to have it and so reluctant to let it go. So then I held his hand with my other hand and left my first hand on his upper arm, and my mom said later she wished she had thought of it first. It was a good move.

He wanted me to call his girlfriend and so here was the phone/emergency situation to deal with again, but it went okay and I didn’t cry. This is when I thought to ask his name, another move that turned out to be a good idea. He was very eager that she know that his valuables were under the passenger-side mat. I was eager not to panic her or to make her feel obligated to come (she was 25 minutes away, and unshowered/undressed), because I was pretty sure (though NOT sure) that he could take those things with him to the hospital. But he was adamant, and he was saying it again and again. It reminded me of my one big car accident at 17 when I was trying to give the ambulance drivers my car insurance information.

I kept telling him the ambulance was on the way, and that everything would be okay. It was a combination of Mommy Mode and things I’d seen on TV. He’d watched TV too because he said, “This is what they do, right? They keep you talking and conscious and they say everything’s fine!” I said, yes, they did, but that I really did think he’d be okay: that he definitely looked pale and sweaty and ill, but that he didn’t look like a man on The Way Out. That maybe he’d just had too much sun, and maybe they would cool him down and hook him up to an IV for awhile and everything would be fine. (He’d been working outside all morning, he said.) I don’t know if people who don’t know anything are supposed to offer worthless reassurances, but that’s what I did.

The ambulance seemed like it took a long time to get there, but I looked at my watch when everything was over and it was only 15 minutes later than when we’d arrived at McDonald’s so it can’t have been TOO long. They didn’t have their sirens on; shouldn’t they have had their sirens on? I’d thought we’d hear them coming. They checked him briefly and then put him on a stretcher and said they’d bring him into the ambulance where it was cooler. I told them about his stuff under the mat and asked if we should stay or if we should get out of their way now, and they said we could go. I went over and told the man that we were going, and he grabbed my hand again. I don’t think he ever once saw me: his eyes were moving moving moving.

We went in to McDonald’s but my mom said she couldn’t eat until she made sure the ambulance people got his stuff, so she went over to a window and watched until one of them went to the passenger side, got his stuff, closed the doors and locked them. I got her a diet Coke to sip while she waited, but she was at our table by the time I got there. We ate lunch, and of course his truck was still there when we left. What’s weird is we’ll never know what it was. Heatstroke? Heart attack? Food poisoning? Did he…die? Probably not. But did he?

I came out of this feeling relief. I worry a lot that I won’t be able to handle an emergency, because for one thing I’m not a fast thinker, and fast thinkers do better in emergencies. So I guess I’d started thinking I’d be BAD in an emergency, COUNTER-good in fact. But I was fine! I wasn’t perfect, I didn’t demonstrate a Natural Gift for Emergency Handling, but I was COMPETENT, and that was such a relief! And I felt like I LEARNED things from the experience (TOUCH! Find out the person’s name! Don’t let the fact that you don’t know everything throw you into a panic!) that would help me if such a thing happened again, and that gave me hope, too: some people ARE naturally gifted in Emergency-Handling, but probably a LOT of people get good at it from EXPERIENCE and TRAINING, and those are things I could get too.