Oh my glob, I cannot believe how much busier I am with this new job, and I am only TRAINING, which means I’m only doing two hours here, one hour there, doctor appointment here, form-filling-out there, reading-employee-manual here, watching video there. Well. I will just trust that I will get used to it, and that New Thing stress is part of what makes it FEEL busy. And the good news is, I now NEVER sit at home in my house thinking, “It is stupid to be bored like this. Anyone else would make good use of this time.”

I do my first real, just-me, not-training shift in a few days, and I am kind of nervous, kind of excited. Sixty-forty, probably. My guess is that as we approach the actual day, the nervousness will take over a larger portion.

Also! Guess what! I have NEVER known what “Lift with your legs, not your back” meant! NEVER. It’s like “Steer into the skid”: it seems to make sense to the person saying it, but it never makes sense to me. I’m NOT lifting “with my back”! I am using my hands and arms! Except apparently I AM lifting with my back, and now I’m going around the house practicing not doing that. It’s surprisingly hard to remember, and surprisingly hard to do. Also, I feel like I’m sticking my butt WAY out, which makes me feel self-conscious.

At a recent check-up with my primary doctor, she asked a question about a vitamin/supplement I’m taking. “Why are you taking this?,” she said, with a skeptical look. I said that my gynecologist recommended it, and explained what for. My primary doctor used her face to express doubt/disagreement about this, and then said that recent studies have shown vitamins to be ineffective. Well, except for the vitamins/supplements she has recommended for me. Those are different.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, when two of my doctors disagree. A level further: I don’t know what my DOCTOR expects me to do, when two of my doctors disagree. Does she expect me to disregard the other doctor’s advice? Is that what she would want me to do with HER advice, if I were talking to the OTHER doctor? How about the two of THEM duke it out, and then get back to me?

A level further: I don’t know what ANYONE IN THE HEALTH AND MEDICAL COMMUNITY wants us to do when EVERY SINGLE THING they say, recommend, suggest, advise against, lecture about–EVERY SINGLE BLESSED THING–is contradicted by another faction of their community. Or, in fact, by the SAME faction, if we wait a little while.

My dear plus-sized friends, where DO you shop for clothes? I went out today to buy a few Nicer Casual things to wear for things such as employee orientation, and felt appalled and discouraged. I am narrow shouldered, plump-armed, small-chested, small-waisted, much bigger from the waist down: classic pear, I guess. And long-waisted, so that shirts are usually too short and pants are usually too long (but petite pants are too short). I look terrible in anything sleeveless or v-neck.

Really, I was applying my most generous standards. I looked around FIRST, at several many-people gatherings, and observed what other plump women were wearing and how they looked. I thought, “Can I see lumpiness/plumpness? Yes. Do I care, or feel like it ‘looks wrong’? No. Is there anything she could wear that would make her look thin instead of plump? No.”

So then when I put on various clothes myself, I tried to pretend it was someone else wearing the clothes, and tried to ask the same questions. And I still hated everything. All the lower-half stuff sat way too low and baggy at the hips, then lumped out tightly and unattractively, then dragged on the floor. All the upper-half stuff seemed weird: big gaps through which my bra clearly showed, or see-through so that I would need to buy TWO shirts to do the work of one. Lots of slippery materials that felt icky and hot. I even tried on some sleeveless things and v-neck, but no. I look WRONG in them: they emphasize my narrow shoulders, plump arms, and small chest, and make my lower half look even larger.

I’ve heard lots of recommendations for online places, and then I click through and have ZERO IDEA what to even TRY ordering, or in what sizes. So much of it looks like plumpwear/elderwear even on the beautiful models, which seems like a bad sign. And considering that I can do four 6-garment trips into the dressing room and come out with NOTHING I’m even TEMPTED to buy, it’s hard to imagine having success WITHOUT trying things on.

We have a Lane Bryant within a doable distance (40-minute drive), but I find that store difficult. For one thing, it’s the kind of store where you’re not really supposed to pay the tag price for anything: everything is always going on 40% off, 50% off, buy-1-get-1-free, etc. But that means going there regularly, and I’m not going to do that: it’s in a mall I hate going to, and the drive there is unpleasant. I’ve been buying the jeans I like on eBay, just because I get tired of the constant sales-that-are-not-really-sales.

I thought Target’s new plus-size line AVA & VIV looked promising, but the stock was so patchy: I’d see a shirt I liked, and they’d only have it in X, or have my size only in black (an additional layer of Plumpness Woe: not looking good in black). Or I’d see a skirt, and they’d have it in X and 4X and nothing in between. I could try on only a handful of things. In some cases I tried a size bigger or smaller, just to get the idea, but sometimes that’s worse than unhelpful: the wrong size can make something look terrible when it would otherwise be cute. Other times, they didn’t even have a size within TWO sizes of mine, so I didn’t bother.

My favorite t-shirts and lightweight hoodies come from Old Navy: their plus-size tops are wide and cropped on me, but their XXL Tall works just right: narrow enough in the shoulders, but long enough. I’ve bought one or two other XXL Tall things on clearance, just to see, but nothing has been a success so far; still, I am not too discouraged to try again. I tried their plus-size jeans and the fit was completely wrong: it was as if they were made for someone with a waist the size of my hips, and hips the size of my waist. It was like when I try to wear men’s/unisex t-shirts: WAY too wide where I’m narrow, WAY too snug where I’m wider.

Tell me, have you had ANY luck? It seems hopeless. Every time I read someone saying “Don’t buy anything you don’t LOVE,” I think, “She is not shopping plus-sizes.”

I’m frustrated because I want to recommend some cute earrings, but something is weird with WordPress: my toolbar is gone in Text mode, and visible but non-functional in Visual mode. The “Add Media” button isn’t working, and dragging the picture over to the post isn’t working; in short, I can’t include a picture. So I’m just going to have to give you a link (I know just enough HTML to do it, which is good because the link button isn’t working either), which is unsatisfying. Perhaps later, when things are working again, I can come back and edit the post to be right. Anyway, here are the cute earrings: Beaded Drop Earrings. I think the smaller/thumbnail picture of them gives a better idea of how they look on the ears.

[It is now the future, and I have fixed the problem, and here is the picture:

(image from ChildrensPlace.com)

These are children’s earrings, so when I ordered them I thought they might be wee, but they’re way too big for Elizabeth to wear, and perfect for me. The beaded loop part is about the size of a quarter. I like them even better in person than in the picture. The colors are more intense than they look in the photo on my monitor: classic red rather than candy-apple red, medium purple rather than lilac, teal rather than turquoise. They look great with practically everything, even colors not included in the beads: my favorite combination so far was with a bright green shirt.

I like them so much, I ordered TWO MORE PAIRS, which is a little crazy. But I was getting upset at the thought of losing one or breaking one, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen any like these before. I figure that if I get sick of them and regret buying additional pairs, I’m only out $6; I can live with that.

Downsides, so you are forewarned:

1. On one earring of my pair, the inner loop doesn’t move freely within the outer loop as it’s supposed to. It can probably be bent until it does, but I messed with it a little with no success. It’s as if one of the little silver pieces holding everything together is just a fraction too big, making it nest snugly instead of loosely. This is another reason I ordered more pairs: if just one earring is glitchy, I can substitute another.

2. Where the end of the French hook touches my skin, it is just slightly itchy. Not enough to make me not want to wear the earrings, just enough to be something I would mention. Probably this too can be fixed. I seem to remember reading something about clear nail polish.

3. If I don’t wear one of those little rubber grippy backings that goes on a French hook, they periodically fall out of my ears. I’m willing to use the little rubber backings, but I didn’t used to be, so I will understand if this is a deal-breaker for you.

P.S. I just noticed when I clicked through to check my link that there is free shipping on every order today (AT LEAST today, that is). So we could be earring twins for $3.16, with no shipping!

P.P.S. Oh! And coupon code 15PLACE2 gives you another 15% off! $2.69 to be earring twins!

If there are one million things the internet has taught us, one of them is that people can feel completely differently about the etiquette of a situation. “I can’t BELIEVE someone would do X instead of Y!!,” someone will rant, leaving others saying, “What?? I thought I was SUPPOSED to do X! I was doing it ON PURPOSE in order to do the RIGHT thing! I thought it was rude to do Y!!”

For example, there are assorted rules covering table manners, and we weren’t all taught the same set. Certain things are clearly wrong (chewing with mouth open, for example), but many things can receive the benefit of the doubt: the “polite” way to hold a fork, the “polite” way to spoon up the soup, whether or not it’s okay to have elbows on the table, etc. There are plenty of rules where some of the population is taught that the X way is polite and the Y way is rude, or that X is hugely important and Y is outdated, while another part of the population is taught the exact opposite. It would be a mistake to judge someone else’s overall politeness or one’s own superiority by standards that aren’t universal.

However, I have been thinking LONG AND HARD, and I can’t think of ANY UNIVERSE in which it’s okay not to RSVP. Can you? That is, I allow for the possibility that I have overlooked a segment of the population that has been taught specifically NOT to RSVP, that RSVPing is rude. But I’m guessing I have not overlooked anything like that.

The only thing I can think of is that I suppose some people might think it counts as RSVPing if they tell their invited child to tell the birthday child that they can/can’t come—but aren’t we all familiar with children and their sketchy reliability? There’s no way for the birthday child’s parent to know if the invited child’s parent was involved, if the invited child accurately reported, if the birthday child accurately reported; there’s no way for the invited child’s parent to know if the message got through. It’s like playing Telephone, and also it ignores the instructions on the invitation for the manner in which the RSVP should be sent. Still: I can see how this could qualify as intending to RSVP, and not being aware that the attempt is failing.

I also know that sometimes a child crams the invitation in the backpack and doesn’t bring it out for days or weeks. In that case, it’s not failing to RSVP, it’s “See also: not letting children be in charge of carrying the RSVP messages.”

I do know, from experience and from thinking, that there can be reasons to postpone an RSVP: sometimes an invitation arrives three weeks before the event, and the family’s plans aren’t yet made, and maybe there’s a known event that is still up in the air but may very well be on that day: a game that will be that day if they win the other game this weekend, family possibly coming from out of town that day, etc. I have myself fallen victim to the “I can’t think about this right now,” put-it-in-the-pile-on-the-counter error. Ever since throwing my first kid party eleven years ago (this is a boring digression, but with Rob the plan was a Friend Party at age five and at age ten; please don’t tell the other children), I’ve avoided this—but it requires active remembering not to do it. (If I really couldn’t RSVP without waiting for more information, I would RSVP that that was the case: that is, “We got the invitation to Noah’s party. Jacob may have a game that day, if they win their game on the 17th. I’ll be back in touch as soon as we know.”)

I also know that there can be mix-ups. I am always a little worried that when I leave a message on an answering machine or send an email/text, that I may have dialed the wrong number or typed the wrong address or maybe the email got caught in a spam filter: what if someone THINKS I didn’t RSVP, when I DID?? *CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE* (This is why, although I wouldn’t go so far as to call someone back to say I got their RSVP, I do answer a text or email to say “Great! See you then!”) So with a certain percentage of failed RSVPs, I make that assumption: I assume that someone DID in fact RSVP, but that it didn’t reach me.

But all these things together don’t account for the number of people who just…don’t RSVP. Just, CHOOSE NOT TO.

I’ve heard that many people feel awkward about RSVPing a no, because it feels bad to reject an invitation, and I can see that. It IS harder than a yes. But which feels worse: telling someone they are sorry they can’t come but they have something else scheduled then, or being a no-show at someone’s birthday party? One of Elizabeth’s friends had a party recently and Elizabeth was the ONLY GUEST who came. The family could have adjusted for that if they’d known, but they didn’t know. Disappointed child, nearly-wasted party-place rental, wasted party bags, wasted pizza. We all made the best of it, but it would have been so much better to have some advanced warning. There were other adjustments that could have been made ahead of time to improve the party, if the parents had known.

Or, let’s be frank: there could have been second-string invitations. If the child is allowed to invite, say, six guests, and five of them RSVP a prompt no, then there is time to invite five more people. If there are a lot of uncertain guests, or the RSVPs of “no” come very late, there is no time.

Maybe people are thinking it doesn’t really matter to the host if one single guest doesn’t RSVP: they’re assuming everyone else is doing it, so they’re the only one who isn’t. And there are types of parties where it probably doesn’t matter if only one guest fails to RSVP: maybe it’s a big cook-out with the whole class invited, so if twenty-two of the twenty-three kids RSVP, the one uncertain guest falls well within the number of extra hot dogs and hamburgers that would be on hand anyway. But if five of the twenty-three guests RSVP, there is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between “food for five guests” and “food for twenty-three guests.”

In some cases, the host can call and nag. It’s pretty unkind to the host to make him/her do this, but at least they have an option. For Rob’s five-year-old friend party, where I’d allowed him to invite two friends and neither one RSVP’d, I was able to painfully, agonizingly, awkwardly call, because the kindergarten gave out parent-contact lists. I suffered, but at least I got the answers. But for Edward and Elizabeth’s parties, there are no parent-contact lists. The only way to get the invitations out is to send them in with the child (see above re: bad idea); the only way to get the RSVPs is to have the parents use the contact information provided on the invitation.

In short: RSVP! RSVP!

I’m still stressed about the new job, though less panicky now. It’s almost certainly about 10% genuine, justified worry, and about 90% pure anxiety. The brain wants to find a reason for the anxiety: it says to itself, “We are rational! Therefore we would not be feeling Huge Anxiety unless there was something to be Hugely Anxious ABOUT! Therefore, this must be something to be Hugely Anxious about!” Right now, the high anxiety levels are causing the brain to find explanations such as: “This won’t work!!” “It’s a terrible mistake!!” “I’ve done the WRONG THING!!” “EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE AND WRONG AND IMPOSSIBLE!! WHY ON EARTH DID I THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA???”

The way I’m dealing with it is, first, by remembering that I have felt this way before about things that turned out to be absolutely fine. For the best example: the last time I got a job. But then again, when that happened, Paul was out of work and therefore home with the kids, so I didn’t have to worry about that at all. On the other hand, the four of us were living on my $8/hour plus his unemployment checks, and then the unemployment checks ran out and he still hadn’t been able to find a new job, so perhaps things evened out, concern-wise.

For another example: my once-a-week volunteer thing at the school. I felt as if I’d made a HUGE mistake signing up for that, and that it was going to be a HUGE PROBLEM to get out of it, and also that they would ask me for MORE and MORE and I would HAVE TO SAY NO ALL THE TIME. And in fact, what happened was that it’s turned into something I enjoy doing, and it’s not stressful at all anymore, and they did ask me to do a few more hours of things but it never went further than that, and if anything this gets me OUT of volunteering more, because I’m Already Volunteering. And I get other benefits, such as being a familiar person to the office staff. It’s been such a success, it actually adds to my current anxiety levels: “Oh no! What if I have to give up that volunteer job??”

It’s just, new things can be overwhelming and scary, and the only way to make them NOT overwhelming and scary is to make them NOT NEW. And the only way to do THAT is to do them. (I realize this is Psych 101 here, but I’ve had to repeat this course pretty often.) And maybe after making them Not New, they’ll STILL be overwhelming and scary, like how I feel about the phone: exposure therapy has not done the trick there, so I’ve had to try/use other coping methods. But the only way to find out if this is the kind of overwhelming/scary that will STAY overwhelming/scary is the same as the first way: do it. So either way, the way to get to the next step is to keep going with this step.

So I got my first of two TB tests (receptionist: “Ah! Going into the medical profession!”). No need to think of it as a pre-employment thing for a job I might possibly hate and oh god what was it one of the interviewers said about what to do if the elderly men get fresh while being bathed OH NO THIS IS NOT GOING TO WORK, IT’S IMPOSSIBLE!! No, no, no need for any of that, it’s just a simple test at the doctor’s office! Whistle, whistle, who knows why it’s being done, just check the little box on the list of things to do.

Also, I am reviewing the reasons I thought this would be a good idea to begin with:

1. This is a set of life skills I would like to have. I would like to know how to help an adult walk, help an adult get out of a car, help an adult get dressed; I’d like to know about all the devices and techniques that can help elderly people. This seems like it could be hugely useful as my parents get older, as Paul gets older, as my friends get older, as we ALL get older.

2. I have too much time on my hands. It was fun for awhile, and a lot of it is still fun, but more and more I feel like I might go a little nuts. I could theoretically learn a language, take a class, organize/declutter my house, learn how to do stuff to make my blogs work better, but it turns out I DON’T do those things.

3. I want to feel more useful. I felt crazy in those years when we had all those little kids, but I also felt undeniably USEFUL, and it was clear to any outsider what I DID. Now, when my employment comes up, I feel awkward—especially since most of my acquaintances don’t know I blog, and I’m not about to tell the guy updating our checking account.

4. I’m interested in this work. I’ve been thinking of going back to work ever since I was up in the middle of the night with infant Rob, fantasizing about being allowed to return to the maternity ward, and NOTHING has seemed worthwhile or interesting. YES I could do this job, YES I could do that other job—but it didn’t feel WORTH it, and/or I thought I’d probably HATE it. This job made me feel excited about the idea of working again. I could be TOTALLY WRONG about it, but it seemed worth investigating.

5. This job has a lot of room to do MORE with it. I’d considered going back to being a pharmacy tech, but the only step up from there is certified pharmacy tech, which is a matter of passing a test (I passed a practice version) and making maybe an extra dollar an hour for that. From there, the only step up is pharmacist, and I’m not interested in doing that. But with elder care, there are tons of things I can learn, tons of relatively quick medical licenses I can obtain to allow me to do more things, several longer medical licenses I could train for to allow me to do even more things. I can find an interest (a certain type of elder care, a certain stage of elder care, a certain type of disabling condition, a certain setting for elder care) and specialize in that. When the kids are grown, I can do WAY more: traveling with someone elderly, doing overnights, doing temporary live-in respite care for someone’s mother while someone goes on vacation with her husband, etc. It feels to me like a CAREER path, rather than an entry-level job, even though it IS an entry-level job at this point.

6. I’d been thinking of volunteering for this sort of work. This is like volunteering, but PAID! In MONEY! Money that counts toward my future Social Security benefits!

7. This ties in with #4, but is also separate: this feels like MEANINGFUL work. I read Being Mortal and thought, “YES. People should be able to stay in their own homes as long as possible, if they want to!” That’s something I can immediately start helping with, unlike some of the other world problems. I may find myself swamped/disillusioned by the non-ideal stuff that always, always, ALWAYS accompanies A Nice Ideal, but the only way to see is to try.

8. If Paul were to leave or die, it would be nice to already be working, rather than having to scramble to make decisions and find something. In my anxious fantasies, I can picture myself increasing my hours and carrying on, instead of picturing myself flailing stressfully in an already stressful situation.

Yesterday I got a job (part-time in-home elder care), and today I would describe my status update as blind panic. What was I thinking, applying right before summer, when summer means I can’t work weekdays? …Or CAN I work weekdays? Short shifts? Leaving the children at home? Which would be a great way to get out of some of the hell that is summer vacation? But the agency needs mostly mornings, and mornings is EXACTLY when all the summer activities require my transportation and involvement. Should I just not sign the kids up for swimming lessons? Should I pay Rob to babysit and drive his siblings around? He needs a summer job anyway. But wait, that’s not money coming into the family, that’s money going from one family member to another; that makes no sense for college savings.

And what about when school starts up again? I mentioned to one of the interviewers that I’d put this off because I was thinking about what happens when the school nurse calls. She said yes, it’s a problem they all face because they’re all parents there, and I CAN’T LEAVE UNTIL SOMEONE ARRIVES TO COVER ME, and that could take an hour or more. (Paul: “That sounds like a really optimistic estimate, too: they can get someone to come in that quickly?”) Meanwhile, the school nurse is going to…babysit? How does THAT work?

And how will this work with all the other stuff, the appointments and lessons and extracurriculars and so forth? EVERYTHING IN OUR LIVES (appointment times, lesson times, whether the kids can do this or that extracurricular) is set up on the basis of one parent being home. On one hand, I have more time on my hands than I want or need. On the other hand, it’s all in HARD-TO-CONSOLIDATE PIECES.

Maybe it will be great. Maybe it will be great. Maybe it’s the first step of what will be a long and fulfilling career. It’s so hard to tell what is change-related/new-thing-related panic and anxiety, and what is truly a problem. LOTS of other people do this. LOTS! Okay, maybe they have a spouse who is available to handle some of the nurse calls and other scheduling issues. Or maybe they have other back-up, like non-working friends, or parents in the area (mine are in the area half the year, but not the other half). Or MAYBE IT SUCKS ALL THE TIME AND IS ALWAYS DIFFICULT AND STRESSFUL.

Maybe I should call the agency and quit, and start a new business: helping out working parents. I can pick up your children at school when the nurse calls, and babysit them until you get here! I can run to the store that’s only open until 5:00! I can take your kids to their orthodontist appointments and drop them back to school afterward! I can take them to their trumpet lessons and drive them home afterward! I can pick them up from school on the one day a week they have chess club and therefore miss the bus! I can bake something for the bake sale!

I finally watched Pitch Perfect, just before Pitch Perfect 2 came out.

(image from Amazon.com)

In fact, I watched it twice. Which surprised me, because the first time through I was thinking it was pretty lame/silly. There’s a part where one of the characters says she doesn’t like movies because they’re so predictable, and I was thinking, “TELL ME ABOUT IT.”

And it IS predictable. And a lot of the characters are caricatures, with simplified motivations and feelings and personalities (here’s The Weird One, here’s The Sexy One, etc.), and there are some really dumb parts (“Why won’t you let anyone GET CLOSE TO YOU??,” “Why won’t you let me FOLLOW MY DREAMS, Uncool Parent??,” etc.). And there is some exaggerated gross-out stuff that is not my style at all.

But the real point of the plot seems to be to hold together a bunch of really good/fun a cappella numbers, and it does that job very well. And everyone in the movie is really, really pleasant to look at, which helps too, and there are some good jokes and good lines and good scenes, and I LOVED the songs/performances, and the fact of the matter is that not only did I watch it twice, I’ll almost certainly watch it more times than that. And even though I found it completely predictable, at one point William, age 14, said, “Ug, I know EXACTLY what’s going to happen here,” and I said, “Oh, I know”—and then later he said, “That wasn’t at ALL what I thought was going to happen,” so it may be perfect for young-adult viewers (if you don’t mind them seeing a little crude/racy stuff, which I don’t).

One good thing about the movie is that you can pick up anywhere or leave off anywhere and still enjoy it; I made fudge and had to keep leaving the room and/or looking away from the screen, and that didn’t matter at all. A downside is that the soundtrack is reportedly disappointing: just fragments of songs, and leaves out a lot of the best ones. I had it in my cart to buy on the spot, and then read the reviews and backed off.

I read Find Me, which I thought would be exactly my thing, but it wasn’t:

(image from Amazon.com)

The inside flap describes a girl who doesn’t catch a devastating and hugely contagious illness; she and other non-sick people are taken to a hospital so their immunity can be studied and maybe used for a cure. The subplot is that she’s looking for her mother, who left her on the steps of a hospital when she was an infant.

The book has several really engaging mysteries in it—and then it just chooses not to solve them. I consider that a big cheat: a good hook is only legitimate if a good reveal is coming. Oh, is that not how it works in real life, where we often don’t get to know why something happened or how something turned out? THAT IS WHY I AM READING FICTION. It is so wrong to have a reader follow a narrator right up to the BRINK of the resolution of a plotline, and then have the author be all, “Yeah, but it sounds prettier/deeper if I end philosophically/poetically rather than descriptively/satisfyingly. And by the way, I’m never going to tell you what happened with plotlines A, B, and C, either.”

I notice that the author previously wrote short-story collections, and this is her first novel. I remember reading another author, one who wrote both short stories and novels (I think it was Jeffery Deaver), say he enjoyed writing short stories because there isn’t the same contract with the reader: with a novel, you have to have satisfying resolution, you can’t kill your protagonist, etc., but with a short story you have more freedom to end things without resolution or with disaster or a sudden surprise twist. It seems to me that Laura van den Berg wrote a novel using the short-story reader contract.

I had such a good salad for dinner tonight. Several of you mentioned a cheeseburger salad on the salad toppings post, and I hadn’t yet gotten around to clicking the link before Paul said he was going to grill burgers. I asked for mine without a bun, and asked for ten minutes’ warning to assemble the rest of the salad. I put the rest of the big bag of mixed spring greens into the bowl, and filled in the gaps with iceberg lettuce (I hadn’t realized the bag of spring greens was so low). I added a handful of grape tomatoes cut into quarters or sixths (some of them are biiiiig grapes). Then some shredded cheddar. Then, today I’d bought some bacon bits, so I added those too: BACON cheeseburger salad! Then the burger was done, and Paul cut it into a lot of little pieces (he asked how small I wanted it cut, and I said I wanted, like, 40 pieces). I put that on top of everything else.

I wondered what to do about dressing, and decided on mustard and ketchup, even though Paul acted grossed out by that. I didn’t use very much of either one, and I mixed everything together, so there was no visible ketchup/mustard anywhere—just a suggestion of the taste. (It made me remember a vegetarian co-worker of mine who said he would sometimes eat a toasted hot dog bun with ketchup and mustard and relish on it, because that was what he was REALLY craving when he felt like he was craving a hot dog.) I think if I’d thought about it more beforehand, I might have whisked together mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard to make a dressing. [Note: I did this on future salads and it was exactly delish.] Ooo, and maybe some dill pickle relish!

It was very, very good, and took a lot longer to eat than a cheeseburger. I didn’t really notice the bacon, so I’d probably skip that next time (though maybe when I take it out I’ll notice the salad isn’t as good). I’d add more cheese instead: I’m not sure how much I put in, but it wasn’t enough.

If I’d thought of it in time, I might have broiled a hamburger bun to make croutons. Instead, I put on a handful of crushed Doritos, and that was SO GOOD.

I’m finding that one downside of eating salad is that everyone, everyone, everyone associates it with weight-loss attempts. So when I put cheese and Doritos on my salad, I feel as if Paul is giving me the side-eye (even though he says nothing, does nothing with his eyes, and this could be all in my imagination)—as if I’m trying to self-righteously pretend I’m Eating Light when actually I’m eating many calories of cheese and bacon and chip. It feels hard to explain that what I’m actually doing is turning a cheeseburger with a side of Doritos into a big heaping helping of greens and tomatoes, plus the burger and Doritos, plus the joy of eating MORE.

[Follow-up: The next week, I added a cut-up dill pickle. SO GOOD.]