I was about to eat some asparagus tonight, but my husband warned me of its lengthy stay in Hotel Refrigerator. So I ate leftover manicotti instead. I don’t really like vegetables all that much. In Chicago, I have an ex-Amishy friend (I say Amishy because I can’t remember if she was Amish or Mennonite) who is as sincere and happy as the lady that plays the piano at Nordstrom. We took a walk around the block one afternoon and as we were discussing my vegetarianism and how I’d take a donut over celery any day, she said to me, very nonchalantly, “Yah, you aren’t like most vegetarians. I’ve never known one that wasn’t really skinny.”
Now, I could have given her the benefit of the doubt. I’m a far cry from really skinny. However, I don’t like that other people actually have the conscious thought when looking at me that indeed those are love handles that I’m trying desperately to tuck behind a mid-length cardigan and yes, that is most likely back fat you are seeing spill out of my bra indentation. I’m convinced that if I keep my black pea coat on, I can pass for somewhat skinny. Black works wonders in hiding all those post-three pregnancy creases. And coats, especially wool ones, well they were obviously invented by a woman who knew what she was doing. They are that perfect thickness, so as to not enlarge nor cling. Brilliant, I say.
I didn’t say anything to the Amish girl (she’s Amish now; she said I wasn’t skinny so she’s Amish, dangit). I just laughed that awkward “I don’t like what you just said but I’m not sure what to say” laugh and went on about the day, the thought lingering somewhere inside me that I probably should do something to become really skinny, like all “good” vegetarians. By the end of the day, that thought dissolved and Diet Coke and a Snickers bar were practically calling my name. I became okay, at least for the moment, with being chunky vegetarian girl.
If you were to meet me…perhaps you already have…you would not think that I’m overweight. I know this because, well, I just know. It’s not like I shop in the plus sizes or have considered bariatric surgery, though this is the reality of many of my friends...friends whose weight has never stopped me from seeing their inward and outward beauty (why can’t I be this kind to myself?). It’s just that I don’t know a time in all of my 29 years that I have been happy with my body. I take that back, maybe when I was two and three, before the four year-old dance recital trauma where I had to dress in a shiny green jumper and bright white tights and pretend to be a Magic Flower. I remember rather vividly wishing I had taken Jazz because they got to wear these cool black skeleton suits that covered them from head to toe. We’ve always had a good relationship, black and I. We were destined for one another, almost as much as I was destined to fall in love with that good skinny mirror in my bathroom.
So for, let’s just say 26 years, I have not been content with this vessel that I have inhabited. When I was younger, it was my thighs. I had this routine where I’d take a long walk down our upstairs hallway, sporting only undergoods, and glaring at twelve year-old me in the mirror on the back of the door, I’d focus on the jiggle factor of my inner thighs. I hated them. Really hated them. There is a reason why in Africa, showing your inner thighs is like going without a shirt in an American mall. They weren’t meant for public exposure. Who wants to see the two pads of fat that aren’t sure what to do with themselves while just chilling there between otherwise normal legs?
At some point, thigh jigglage was no longer the issue. In high school, my complaints were filed against my belly and my arms. I’d like to say I moved on with the body assault after that, or even better, that I overcame my self-esteem issues and am hopelessly in love with this body, but the truth is that I’m still fixated on doing something about the belly bulge. Only, whereas the problem used to lie in the front part, like a college girl who drank too much beer (I hate beer and was never that kind of college girl…and why does the phrase college girl sound so x-rated?), now the fat has spilled around my sides and back, creating the ultimate love handles, or better put in Oprah’s words, “The muffin top.” My sweet friend Carina, who is all of eighteen, likes to squeeze my handles, like she is squishing Play-Doh. I’m not sure why. But she’s one of very few people who could get away with such antics. And then she tries to tell me how she too has love handles and “see, feel them.” Upon squeezing the fringes of her abdomen, every bit as hard as she did mine, I tell her that what I feel is merely skin, not the rubbery stuff spilling out of my jeans.
Therefore, I have actually considered buying my first pair of mommy jeans. I own all of these jeans that prefer to cut my non-waist in half and leave the spillage issue obvious at hand. Somehow when I’m in the dressing room, I tell myself that the jeans actually go over the muffin top. But when I get them home, strangely, they no longer cover and when I wear them once, they loosen enough to fall down, because unlike most women, I have no butt and no hips. Which brings me to the other problem: I look like a man with boobs. I have calves that could be likened to the statue of David’s legs. And while I’m not up for a sex change and don’t even like males most of the time, I think I could be a pretty good-looking man.
Okay, I know there are a few of you right now who are rather angry with me in this moment, or in the very least, annoyed (oh, I can just hear my good friend Linda now). I sound like a sad woman on Dr. Phil, or worse still, Tyra, lamenting over her body image and what not. And trust me, I always hated it in high s school when the girl who was a size 2 complained about being “fat,” while all the rest of us were left squeezing into our size 8 (or was that a 10?) hip huggers (made for those with hips, not for us she-men folk). We always assured her that indeed she was skinny, all the while despising all 98 pounds of her preposterous self.
But as I have had friends who have struggled with eating disorders throughout the years, I have come to see that it isn’t about being fat or skinny. I have a good friend who has struggled with bulimia for a long time. When she looks in the mirror, she doesn’t ever see her tiny waist (which yes, I might consider giving up a toe for) or her very womanly body or her beautiful facial features. What she sees is everything she would change. She hates those outward features enough to damage her insides. It doesn’t matter how many of us tell her how skinny or beautiful she is (which is not hard…she is gorgeous), there is something inside of her that screams that she will never be good enough.
And therein lies the problem. While our culture doesn’t make it easy to be satisfied with anything short of a perfectly airbrushed Victoria’s Secret model, the reality of our discontentment is that we just want to be good enough…accepted and loved, not in spite of, but with this body, no matter its misplaced bulges and lumps. I have this theory, one that I did not come up with but which I read somewhere in some book, which means it wouldn’t really be my theory, so I recant and start this sentence again: I read one time that at age 12 or 13, the mother’s role in a girl’s life takes a back seat. At this crucial age, it is the father’s job to affirm this pre-adolescent…to make her feel completely accepted and loveable in the face of raging hormones and a changing body. I saw this movie once that starred Adam Sandler. I can’t remember the title and I have to say that after Billy Madison, I haven’t been too impressed by Mr. Sandler; however, in this particular movie, he played a father, married to this woman who is very critical of her overweight daughter. He loved his daughter unconditionally and despite the mother’s words, told her she was beautiful and made her feel completely worthy of his love. Something inside of me melted at their interaction.
Maybe that’s why I still have a certain image branded in my mind, an entrancing icon, and one that takes my breath away, like a burnished sunset. It was about this time last year and our daughter had just turned three. She was chubby and squishy in all the right places, meaning all the places that I like to tickle and squeeze. Keziah is perhaps the most kindhearted little girl I have known. She is in tuned to other people’s needs and emotions, the way I envision Mother Teresa was as a child. I’d like to say I taught her this, but because I have birthed two strong-willed boys who seem to think the world revolves around them at times, I know this isn’t true. Empathy and compassion and sharing come to her as natural as a mother’s love for her newborn.
She had just gotten out of the bath and while Thomas was drying her off, he lifted her up to the vanity and took the towel off her. He looked at her in the mirror, her sweet chubby body, her baby soft skin, and, as she made faces at herself in the mirror, he said to her, “Look at you Keziah. You are so beautiful.”
Tears welled up in my eyes as I peered through the small crack in the door. She smiled and continued to ask questions, her daddy’s words remaining inherent in her little mind. Of course she was beautiful. Of course her daddy was captivated by just one look at her.
And just like that, I watched how a woman’s self-esteem is formed.
I thought for a long time after that about how if we all received that same affirmation, we’d probably be perfectly fine with our not-so-baby-chubbiness, despite our cultural standards. We’d bask in the Father’s love because we had a father who modeled this. That love would be tangible and we would sense it every day, breathe it in every morning, be in awe of this body with its amazing gifts and talents, of the ways in which it carries babies and brings them into the world, and then astonishingly makes its way back to a beautifully altered, more motherly (and humbling) form.
And when we aren’t carrying babies within, we are running marathons, dancing like swans, diving from platforms, caring for the sick, creating machines, jumping out of airplanes, using every ounce of splendor these bodies have offered us. They are glorious, these womanly bodies. If only we believed it on the inside, where beauty exudes and glitters, like Tinkerbell, through the tiny holes of our outer selves.
We are all 13 year-old girls. I believe we all want to know that there is a prince whose heart we have captured. How beautiful when that prince is first and foremost our earthly fathers. How much more completely whole and enchanting it will be when, upon receiving the respect and dignity we deserve, a husband comes along and affirms the beauty, hopes, and dreams of our inner selves.
Just as my uninhibited daughter stands naked before her father, so we stand before our heavenly Father, the True Prince, who I like to think laughs at my ludicrous assaults on my body while gently guiding me toward confidence in this lumpy non-vegetarian-like being that has the audacity to be used in such wonderful, glorious ways.
Feb 26, 2009
Swallowing
Two odd occurrences of my day:
One: while shopping in Forever 21 and asking the kind salesgirl how to wear a square-shaped scarf, I heard a remixed version of a Johnny Cash gospel tune. Interestingly and strangely, I really liked it. Though, toward the end of the song, my head began pounding. By the time I left, three really, really loud songs later, I figured out why they call it “Forever 21” and not “Forever 29.” Loud music has the same affect these days as the spinning Spider ride at Santa Clause Land had on me when I was three.
Two: I ate the skin of a chicken. I haven’t done such a thing since I was thirteen, before the day I sat across from my eighth grade classmate and future best friend, Heather, at McDonald’s and, staring at the processed meat slathered in processed cheese, setting on that infamous crinkly, yellow wrapper, decided that indeed what we were about to eat resembled that of a cow’s butt. From that day forward, I claimed vegetarianism as my legal middle school right. My mom played along, making me special little meals all along the way.
The other day I got a call from this marketing place that does “focus groups.” Certain companies hire out marketing agencies to host these FBI-like studies, where a very detached and unbiased, as well as oddly friendly “host” (think Ms. Pattycake meets flight attendant) asks a set of questions, all the while reminding you of the mirrored walls surrounding you, behind which sits a mystery person, with a name like Joe or Bob, who the host always inevitably tells us to wave to. JoeBob is taking notes for company purposes. If that isn’t enough, we are likely to be recorded, at which point Ms. Pattycake points out all of the tiny microphones dangling from the ceiling. The lighting is the kind that makes my skin look pallid and makes me want to sleep, like first period in high school.
I have done focus groups on computer accessories, diapers and baby products, organic food, nuclear weapons, makeup, Taco Bell, and even a little device called “Potty Tunes,” made to fit into a child’s Pull-Up and play music while they peed in their pants. Every mom, including me, found that one rather ludicrous, knowing that our little toddlers would be much more apt to pee in their pants just to hear “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” There is a reason why I’ve yet to see “Potty Tunes” on the shelf at Target.
So ever since I moved to Indianapolis from Chicago, I’ve been kind of bummed because I used to go to these things rather frequently and they paid anywhere from $85-$200 for one or two hours of my time. Plus, I got to take the train downtown by myself and pretend to be childless for a few hours while I walked the Chicago streets, feeling like I had conquered something in the world by just being able to figure out which train connection to take and where exactly was my stop.
Indianapolis, however, doesn’t have the same urban feel, first of all. Second, I rarely get phone calls. And when I do, at least the times I’ve been truthful when answering the ridiculous and redundant questions, I get turned down. So the other day when they called, I was determined to get “in,” if you will. When they started asking me about fast food, I knew perhaps I was in over my head. All of a sudden, I began hearing myself saying that indeed I’ve eaten at KFC “3-5 times in the past three months.” I don’t think I ate there when I did eat meat, let alone in the past few months. After posing (because that sounds much better than “lying”) my way through about ten more questions, I was told I was “in” and that I should arrive promptly at 11:00 at their marketing oasis is some business park on the west side.
I arrived ten minutes early and waited in the little waiting room, complete with complimentary water and an excess of gossip magazines. I opted out of the water, as I was holding off on a McDonald’s Diet Coke, and pulled my ReadyMade magazine from my purse. I flipped through the “how to” section with my pink nametag, spelled wrong as usual, setting on my little table in front of me.
When they called us in, I knew I was in trouble. The Taco Bell one I did a while back, in Chicago, my first attempt at posing as a carnivore, was rather successful due to the group size and the fact that chicken hides pretty easily under a tortilla. This one was different. Group size: 7 Topic: Chicken wings. No tortilla.
I felt like I was halfway undressed in the locker room, right before some supermodel girl walks in, glancing in disgust at what is really under my black shirt and pants. I thought about going to the bathroom and not coming back. But I wanted my hundred bucks. I birthed three children. Certainly, I can sit through an hour of chicken wing talk. But every time the host dude said, “You are going to get a chance to try them here in a little while,” I started getting panicky, and a bit queasy, inside. I tried to picture the texture. The biting. The chewing. The swallowing. Oh dear. The swallowing.
After playing the girl who doesn’t really have much of an opinion, which was obviously very much an act, for forty minutes or so, feeling like such a phony, shallow and hopelessly desperate individual, it was time for the chicken lady to deliver the KFC wings. There was talk about the batter and the grease and, my least favorite, “the chicken itself.” Oh Gosh. The swallowing.
I prayed or hoped that I would only get one wing. She passed them around and cheerfully gave me two large ones, thinking she was doing me the wonderful favor of showering me with free food. I looked at them and tried to make peace with them. I thought about the times my mom would make chicken on the bone and how much I loved it as a kid. I thought about all the Thanksgivings that bird and I spent together before that fateful day at McDonald’s. I remembered all the times I considered eating one of my kid’s chicken nuggets when I was pregnant with Ezra because I desperately wanted anything fried and full of protein. Oh, if only I felt that way now.
I picked it up, focusing like a hot-dog-eating-contest-champion, and, trying to look very casual, took a very, very small bite of the skin. I nibbled around the sides, so as to make it seem that I had eaten around the entire thing. I glanced over at the eighteen year-old white gangsta boy across from me and noticed two lonely bones lying on his plate. Same with the policeman next to him. And the two African-American girls to my right who talked about chicken wings like I talk about Diet Coke. They knew the ins and outs of a good wing. Just bones lay on their plates as they waited for the conversation to ensue.
Picking up my napkin, I wiped my face and slowly placed it over my second wing, hoping that the distracted host wouldn’t notice. I continued nibbling at the first wing, like a girl on a first date.
“Well, I hope you didn’t eat too much, because we have more,” said the host in a gleeful and silly tone.
I smiled and looked to my peers for what to do next. Mental note: Continue smiling. Laugh like you’re excited. Sit still. Look relaxed. Act like you are listening to Mr. Host. Eat more chicken. More chicken. The swallowing…
I made it this far without eating the meaty part of the “tender chicken,” as my cohorts would later describe it, and I was determined, as I placed my napkin-laden plate on the chicken lady’s tray, to make it through the next round.
The smell of honey barbecued fowl filled my nose as the chicken lady entered the room once again, holding a whole feast on her large tray, including the wings that my husband likes to get from Aldi…the ones that must be so bad that they have to slather them with sodium-filled goop. The other wings only had a slight advantage over the high fructose corn syrupy ones, as I haven’t found a fried and crispy something or other that wasn’t at least edible. I sighed inside, exhausted by my own stupidity.
I offered the girl to my right one of my honey barbecued ones, thinking maybe I’d say something like “My stomach just isn’t feeling well today.” The words never came out because, even though she had a slight obsession with wings, she had a similar expression while glaring at the once free-to-flap wings of the bird. This was a hopeful sign. At least I wasn’t the only one grossed out at the idea of the slippery little guys.
One down. Syrupy wings: not edible
Okay, now for the crispy ones. I grabbed a napkin and acted like I was wiping my mouth due to the messy nature of the Aldi wings. I repeated my same trick, placing it over them in a blasé fashion. I picked up the crispy ones, looking like a professional chicken eater at this point, and nibbled at its State Fair-like deep fried bubbles of pure and tolerable air. My teeth neared the flesh as I continued on, having begun a possible career in acting.
Apparently I botched. As I picked it up a second time, I made some sort of disgusted face, like my son when I make him eat asparagus. The vocal lady to my right started roaring with laughter as she announced to the room, with cues from my brightly colored, very large, nametag, that they “should have seen Cristina’s face. Oh my gosh! That’s hilarious!”
All eyes were now on me. I laughed with them at myself as she re-enacted my expression and verbalized what exactly happened to my eyes as it neared my mouth.
I kept laughing. I had no other choice at this point then to laugh at the fact that I could never fake my way through representing a natural-born wing lover. And now, apparently my ridiculous expression matched this quite well, as the entire room could probably sense there was just “a little something off with that girl.”
Was it worth the hundred bucks, five of which I spent on that square-shaped pink and green checkered scarf at Forever 31…I mean 21?
I had a boss once that used to joke to others that “Cristi will do anything for twenty bucks.” And as much as I’d like to think that eating meat would qualify for anything, especially when we can always really use an extra hundred dollars, I will most likely re-think my answers the next time one of these marketing people calls and begins asking me about fast food.
I really thought I could eat meat. Sometimes the hardest thing to swallow is my pride.
One: while shopping in Forever 21 and asking the kind salesgirl how to wear a square-shaped scarf, I heard a remixed version of a Johnny Cash gospel tune. Interestingly and strangely, I really liked it. Though, toward the end of the song, my head began pounding. By the time I left, three really, really loud songs later, I figured out why they call it “Forever 21” and not “Forever 29.” Loud music has the same affect these days as the spinning Spider ride at Santa Clause Land had on me when I was three.
Two: I ate the skin of a chicken. I haven’t done such a thing since I was thirteen, before the day I sat across from my eighth grade classmate and future best friend, Heather, at McDonald’s and, staring at the processed meat slathered in processed cheese, setting on that infamous crinkly, yellow wrapper, decided that indeed what we were about to eat resembled that of a cow’s butt. From that day forward, I claimed vegetarianism as my legal middle school right. My mom played along, making me special little meals all along the way.
The other day I got a call from this marketing place that does “focus groups.” Certain companies hire out marketing agencies to host these FBI-like studies, where a very detached and unbiased, as well as oddly friendly “host” (think Ms. Pattycake meets flight attendant) asks a set of questions, all the while reminding you of the mirrored walls surrounding you, behind which sits a mystery person, with a name like Joe or Bob, who the host always inevitably tells us to wave to. JoeBob is taking notes for company purposes. If that isn’t enough, we are likely to be recorded, at which point Ms. Pattycake points out all of the tiny microphones dangling from the ceiling. The lighting is the kind that makes my skin look pallid and makes me want to sleep, like first period in high school.
I have done focus groups on computer accessories, diapers and baby products, organic food, nuclear weapons, makeup, Taco Bell, and even a little device called “Potty Tunes,” made to fit into a child’s Pull-Up and play music while they peed in their pants. Every mom, including me, found that one rather ludicrous, knowing that our little toddlers would be much more apt to pee in their pants just to hear “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” There is a reason why I’ve yet to see “Potty Tunes” on the shelf at Target.
So ever since I moved to Indianapolis from Chicago, I’ve been kind of bummed because I used to go to these things rather frequently and they paid anywhere from $85-$200 for one or two hours of my time. Plus, I got to take the train downtown by myself and pretend to be childless for a few hours while I walked the Chicago streets, feeling like I had conquered something in the world by just being able to figure out which train connection to take and where exactly was my stop.
Indianapolis, however, doesn’t have the same urban feel, first of all. Second, I rarely get phone calls. And when I do, at least the times I’ve been truthful when answering the ridiculous and redundant questions, I get turned down. So the other day when they called, I was determined to get “in,” if you will. When they started asking me about fast food, I knew perhaps I was in over my head. All of a sudden, I began hearing myself saying that indeed I’ve eaten at KFC “3-5 times in the past three months.” I don’t think I ate there when I did eat meat, let alone in the past few months. After posing (because that sounds much better than “lying”) my way through about ten more questions, I was told I was “in” and that I should arrive promptly at 11:00 at their marketing oasis is some business park on the west side.
I arrived ten minutes early and waited in the little waiting room, complete with complimentary water and an excess of gossip magazines. I opted out of the water, as I was holding off on a McDonald’s Diet Coke, and pulled my ReadyMade magazine from my purse. I flipped through the “how to” section with my pink nametag, spelled wrong as usual, setting on my little table in front of me.
When they called us in, I knew I was in trouble. The Taco Bell one I did a while back, in Chicago, my first attempt at posing as a carnivore, was rather successful due to the group size and the fact that chicken hides pretty easily under a tortilla. This one was different. Group size: 7 Topic: Chicken wings. No tortilla.
I felt like I was halfway undressed in the locker room, right before some supermodel girl walks in, glancing in disgust at what is really under my black shirt and pants. I thought about going to the bathroom and not coming back. But I wanted my hundred bucks. I birthed three children. Certainly, I can sit through an hour of chicken wing talk. But every time the host dude said, “You are going to get a chance to try them here in a little while,” I started getting panicky, and a bit queasy, inside. I tried to picture the texture. The biting. The chewing. The swallowing. Oh dear. The swallowing.
After playing the girl who doesn’t really have much of an opinion, which was obviously very much an act, for forty minutes or so, feeling like such a phony, shallow and hopelessly desperate individual, it was time for the chicken lady to deliver the KFC wings. There was talk about the batter and the grease and, my least favorite, “the chicken itself.” Oh Gosh. The swallowing.
I prayed or hoped that I would only get one wing. She passed them around and cheerfully gave me two large ones, thinking she was doing me the wonderful favor of showering me with free food. I looked at them and tried to make peace with them. I thought about the times my mom would make chicken on the bone and how much I loved it as a kid. I thought about all the Thanksgivings that bird and I spent together before that fateful day at McDonald’s. I remembered all the times I considered eating one of my kid’s chicken nuggets when I was pregnant with Ezra because I desperately wanted anything fried and full of protein. Oh, if only I felt that way now.
I picked it up, focusing like a hot-dog-eating-contest-champion, and, trying to look very casual, took a very, very small bite of the skin. I nibbled around the sides, so as to make it seem that I had eaten around the entire thing. I glanced over at the eighteen year-old white gangsta boy across from me and noticed two lonely bones lying on his plate. Same with the policeman next to him. And the two African-American girls to my right who talked about chicken wings like I talk about Diet Coke. They knew the ins and outs of a good wing. Just bones lay on their plates as they waited for the conversation to ensue.
Picking up my napkin, I wiped my face and slowly placed it over my second wing, hoping that the distracted host wouldn’t notice. I continued nibbling at the first wing, like a girl on a first date.
“Well, I hope you didn’t eat too much, because we have more,” said the host in a gleeful and silly tone.
I smiled and looked to my peers for what to do next. Mental note: Continue smiling. Laugh like you’re excited. Sit still. Look relaxed. Act like you are listening to Mr. Host. Eat more chicken. More chicken. The swallowing…
I made it this far without eating the meaty part of the “tender chicken,” as my cohorts would later describe it, and I was determined, as I placed my napkin-laden plate on the chicken lady’s tray, to make it through the next round.
The smell of honey barbecued fowl filled my nose as the chicken lady entered the room once again, holding a whole feast on her large tray, including the wings that my husband likes to get from Aldi…the ones that must be so bad that they have to slather them with sodium-filled goop. The other wings only had a slight advantage over the high fructose corn syrupy ones, as I haven’t found a fried and crispy something or other that wasn’t at least edible. I sighed inside, exhausted by my own stupidity.
I offered the girl to my right one of my honey barbecued ones, thinking maybe I’d say something like “My stomach just isn’t feeling well today.” The words never came out because, even though she had a slight obsession with wings, she had a similar expression while glaring at the once free-to-flap wings of the bird. This was a hopeful sign. At least I wasn’t the only one grossed out at the idea of the slippery little guys.
One down. Syrupy wings: not edible
Okay, now for the crispy ones. I grabbed a napkin and acted like I was wiping my mouth due to the messy nature of the Aldi wings. I repeated my same trick, placing it over them in a blasé fashion. I picked up the crispy ones, looking like a professional chicken eater at this point, and nibbled at its State Fair-like deep fried bubbles of pure and tolerable air. My teeth neared the flesh as I continued on, having begun a possible career in acting.
Apparently I botched. As I picked it up a second time, I made some sort of disgusted face, like my son when I make him eat asparagus. The vocal lady to my right started roaring with laughter as she announced to the room, with cues from my brightly colored, very large, nametag, that they “should have seen Cristina’s face. Oh my gosh! That’s hilarious!”
All eyes were now on me. I laughed with them at myself as she re-enacted my expression and verbalized what exactly happened to my eyes as it neared my mouth.
I kept laughing. I had no other choice at this point then to laugh at the fact that I could never fake my way through representing a natural-born wing lover. And now, apparently my ridiculous expression matched this quite well, as the entire room could probably sense there was just “a little something off with that girl.”
Was it worth the hundred bucks, five of which I spent on that square-shaped pink and green checkered scarf at Forever 31…I mean 21?
I had a boss once that used to joke to others that “Cristi will do anything for twenty bucks.” And as much as I’d like to think that eating meat would qualify for anything, especially when we can always really use an extra hundred dollars, I will most likely re-think my answers the next time one of these marketing people calls and begins asking me about fast food.
I really thought I could eat meat. Sometimes the hardest thing to swallow is my pride.
Feb 24, 2009
Life is but a dream...
Sometimes you have to check yourself. And at approximately 11:55 p.m. last night, as I laid in bed on my very uncomfortable pillow, it all made sense.
The reason I write is to inspire people.
The reason I sent my manuscript to a publisher was because I was advised that it would be a wise move financially. After all, we are moving overseas and how wonderful it would be to support ourselves via sales from a book.
Well, the only publishers who got back to me were those whom I would have to pay to publish my book. And I have no idea if something will still come from the others.
But given that I would have to pay someone to make me a book...well...that's not serving my purpose. So, my dear friends, I'm back. And I have a few things to share with you.
Love you all.
Cristi
The reason I write is to inspire people.
The reason I sent my manuscript to a publisher was because I was advised that it would be a wise move financially. After all, we are moving overseas and how wonderful it would be to support ourselves via sales from a book.
Well, the only publishers who got back to me were those whom I would have to pay to publish my book. And I have no idea if something will still come from the others.
But given that I would have to pay someone to make me a book...well...that's not serving my purpose. So, my dear friends, I'm back. And I have a few things to share with you.
Love you all.
Cristi
Feb 2, 2009
When Souls Collide: The book
Well, I did it.
I went and put my very ridiculous self on the line and sent my book out to a group of publishers.
Thank you to all of you who have encouraged me to do this, as it's been in my heart for a long time, like a recurring dream that I can't quite make sense of.
I do not know what will come of it. I have heard back from a couple of "partnership" publishers, which means I'd have to put some money into the project. I'm praying for peace in whatever direction God leads. Who knows...
So in the meantime, I'm writing, but most likely not posting. Because what good is a book if you have already read it?
Much peace until then.
Cristina McEwen
I went and put my very ridiculous self on the line and sent my book out to a group of publishers.
Thank you to all of you who have encouraged me to do this, as it's been in my heart for a long time, like a recurring dream that I can't quite make sense of.
I do not know what will come of it. I have heard back from a couple of "partnership" publishers, which means I'd have to put some money into the project. I'm praying for peace in whatever direction God leads. Who knows...
So in the meantime, I'm writing, but most likely not posting. Because what good is a book if you have already read it?
Much peace until then.
Cristina McEwen