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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 7, 1998)
august 7. 1998 • ju s t m it, 33 The weight of the world She can trivialize our body-obsessed mainstream culture, but Lee Lynch still hates her new tummy 9th Annual Sidewalk Sale at the Hawthorne St. Fair B E A U T IF U L HOME DECOR JEW ELRY JO U RN A LS Fan & W o n ò e u f u L C artòs & G i f t s eight is a weighty subject. I’ve been sensitive about being skinny. Now I’m sensitive about being heavier than I’d like to be. I can’t win, even when I’m arguing only with myself. Nobody else wants to hear about it. This blocky shape that I’ve become worries no one but me. Lover likes my new solidity. I seem generally more confident and outgoing these days, but I have no idea if that has any thing to do with shape shifting. I grew up skinny. Everyone in my family who’s been long-lived has been thin. This convinces me that with my genes I would do well to shed these pounds that take my sil houette away from the Ichabod Crane model. Believe me, I love that Chantal and Pam and Lucy are big women. I’m not into judging anyone but myself although I’m sure society’s measuring tape has ingrained itself in my consciousness. Have another Ghirardelli chocolate chip. I only know »:*:*:*:*:*v J T ^ how to spell the name because they’re in :•:£ front of me. Seventy calories per 1 and 1/3 cup. Not bad. Calories from fat: 35. Oh. I hate knowing these things! And I hate having no BY will power. How did LEE LYNCH this happen to me? I loved being a skinny androgynous person. Age hap pened. I remember when I first started getting a tummy. I got an exercise book. It detailed the YMCA or Marine or some such regimen. I was gung-ho and fol lowed it religiously. It didn’t take many push ups to develop the ten dinitis of the shoulder that I live with to this day. Another book was specifically geared to flattening one’s stomach. I was not religious enough. Yoga was great, but I suspect only yoga instructors can put in the time to shape up. Certainly I couldn’t, bal ancing a fulltime job and a writing career. Something else happened a little more recently. I was cured of my food allergy. Before that my eating choices were severely limited. After the cure, by an acupuncturist using the NAET program which re-programs the body, I began experimenting. My allergy had been to com. Because com is so pervasive in America, I couldn’t eat white flour, white sugar or a host of other foods processed with com or some corn-based derivative. Over the months I learned to eat Mexican food (com tortillas), returned to Chinese food (com starch) and dove into American food (com syrup). I could eat pickles again, and tar tar sauce and Cheerios. Potato chips and Fudgicles and Three Musketeers! Rich butter- fatty ice cream and anything I wanted at potlucks. We went to the fair last weekend. I went hog wild, eating Italian sausage for lunch and cinnamon-sugar doughboys for dessert. 1 tasted the funnel cake Lover was sharing with friends. Last night I swore I’d have tea instead of indulging in taste orgies. Ha! I’m a born-again glutton ready to take on any dish that appeals—plus thirds. I dream of creamsicles. I fondly recall the summers of my youth when I lay on the beach reading and delighting in a Milky Way. I haven’t tried com on the cob yet, but give me another week. This burgeoning middle-aged appetite came at a bad time. Middle age to be specific. This is when the thickening of the body occurs with no help at all. When menopause makes a per son like me more nervous and I add compul sive eating to my recipe for living. When arthritis sets in and I, for one, became disabled for a year because of corrective foot surgery. I couldn’t partake of optimal exercise (no com plaints from me). When I needed medications to resolve one problem and their side effects created another— weight gain. I understand that it’s OK not to be an anorexic model. That’s not what I aspire to. I just want to be able to climb stairs again with out feeling like I’m lugging sacks of potatoes in JT o c y o u ou a fu ien ò T O Y S F O R T H E S L IG H T L Y E C C E N T R IC Clip this ad for 10% off regular priced items! ¿ss In the month of August 1998 0 3633 SE Hawthorne - 230-7740 - Open Everyday AIDS HOSPICE 6-11 P.M. S atu rd ay , A ug ust 8 Special Guest: The Professor, Russell Johnson RESTAURANT ft BAR 2000 NE 4 0 th A ye L im it e d n u m b e r o f t ic k e t s a v a i l a b l e . $ 4 5 e a c h . A d v a n c e s a l e s o n l y . C a l l 460-2682. L a v is h B u ffet • D a n c in g M u s ic a l G u e s t : A r t A l e x a k is , • E n t e r t a in m e n t l e a d s in g e r for Prizes for best Gilligan's Island costume E verclear “ ju stTu t Our House is a nonprofit residential hospice facility for men and women with AIDS, my pockets. I just want to stop buying all new sizes year after year. I just want kids to taunt androgynous me on the streets like they used to. My mother-out-law said it had been so good to see us enjoying food on her last visit. She’d witnessed me discovering Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. A whole pint of it at once. So much good food, so little time. Lover went blue berrying the other day. Six pounds she brought home. Such discipline. 1 would have wolfed down half of them as I drove. I went shopping on the Web. Climbing pants have roomy gusseted crotches. Baggy jeans are still in style. T-shirts come in extra-large. Send me clothes with room to move. There’s no stopping me now. The joy of cooking’s become a lifestyle. I only follow one rule, the quote we have posted on our refrigera tor door. “Never eat more than you can lift." —Miss Piggy had been staying in the Cottage at the See J ay Vue and Motel Fred south of Yachats for years. On this particular S ee V ue Experience the unusual visit, Jay was very ill. His T-cells were low and he was too weak to walk. All indications were that this would be his last stay at their favorite spot on the Oregon Coast. It was the hardest thing Fred and Jay had ever had to do— say good-bye to their time spent together at the ocean. TWo years later, after miracle-working drugs and Fred's love and support, Jay's T-cells are normal and all signs of his previous illness are gone. They return to the Cottage to celebrate Jay's renewed health and the promise of a long life lived together. They stroll on the beach, play with their new puppy and spend the evenings snuggled in bed. Oh, and Fred beams. 6 .2 m iles south o f Yachats, on the Oregon coast (5 4 1 ) 5 4 7 -3 2 2 7 • ig u a n a g ra p h ic s.c o m / se e v u e
