Notes from the Red Bird House

So, I've been cutting carbs for a couple months. It's probably the last thing a former anorexic needs to do, what with food restriction being on the naughty list and all. Before everyone freaks out (mostly my mother who might be the only person left on my friends' list who remembers me as a full-blown anorexic), let me clarify exactly what I mean by "cutting carbs". What It's Not: Compare my cutting of carbs to that of a friend of mine. We were planning to meet for dinner. Here's a synopsis of our conversation: ME: Let's go someplace reasonably healthy. I'm trying to watch what I eat. FRIEND: Me, too. I'm cutting carbs and I've lost ten pounds just this week! ME: I'm cutting carbs, too! FRIEND: I'm down to 20 grams a day. ME [fuuuuuuck me]: Yeah, well, I'm not going crazy with it. We ate at Madgreens that night. Where she added extra bacon to her salad. Because bacon isn't a carb. Meanwhile, I got mixed greens, l...

Ashley Judd had a lesbian sex dream. [There's a freaking brilliant opening line. My writing professors (and every writing how-to book I've ever read) say the first line is absolutely key. As a non-reader, I know this to be true. Start boring and there's no way I'm sticking around for even one whole paragraph] But I digress... Before her  people call my people (i.e me, given I am my only people), let me make one thing absolutely clear - To my knowledge , Ashley Judd didn't really have a lesbian sex dream. I am not spreading gossip about her sex dream preference nor am I saying she has sex dreams period. Admittedly, Ashley is a highly politicized feminist and the old school variety were often accused of being lesbians, so she could be but I have absolutely no evidence in that regard (Feel better, Ashley's People?). Moreover, in the nearly two decades she held the top spot on my Exceptions List, she never once set off my gay-dar.  Not. Once. Ever. I had a...

I'm on the Express Train to fifty. For awhile I thought I was on a nice slow commuter. You know, the ones that stop every so often so people can get on and off? I dozed off and when I woke up, the scenery going by was a blur. It may be more than a year and a half away, but fifty is going to be here long before I'm truly ready for it and decisively ok with it. I've been faking that one, too. I keep telling myself and others that I'm almost fifty. It's not exactly a lie, but it's not entirely the truth either. I figure if I start believing that little-not-quite-a-white-lie now, it'll make actually being 50 more palatable. Or so I like to think. On March 26, 2019, I might curl up into the fetal position in a blanket fort and never emerge. Or I might run a half marathon. There's no way of knowing. I've been pretty can-do about aging thus far (if you can call the thirties and forties aging ) so safe money probably says I'll be sailing around the wo...

I am desperately in need of a new normal. Well, any normal really. With the flux and the change that has taken over my life in the last month, the old normal no longer applies. New is going to be mandatory whether I like it or not. We're all facing it down - me, my sister, my step-mother, my dad - so it's not like I'm alone.  I feel like a whiner, though, as I write this. If I am brutally honest with myself (and all of you by extension), my life is the least impacted. I can cry all I want, but in a few hours I'll be back in Austin where much of my life will remain the same as it's been - work, tennis, dogs, etc. Only my insides will have changed. I've seen my dad at his oldest and most helpless. I've witnessed his hallucinations and I've heard him implore 'them' go. I can't un-remember that.  We can argue that the kind of change I'm going through is difficult, but by comparison? I don't think so. My family will struggle harde...