Diane Mierzwik

March 7, 2010

Today while I was pulling out my exercise ball (please ignore that it is March and I am just now pulling this piece of exercise equipment out of the closet with only a few weeks until spring), I noticed it was a bit deflated. Which got me to thinking, if something in your life was becoming a bit saggy and wrinkled, would you throw it away, or plump it up?

Grapes or raisins? I used to prefer raisins. Now they just stick in my teeth. There are lots of foods that now get stuck in my teeth. Bread gets stuck in my teeth. Think of how happy I was when a disposable toothbrush was invented (sorry Mother Earth). Toothpicks are just so low class but bread in your teeth is so … gross. The aging gods smiled on me in my time of need. I try to stick to grapes, unless I’m eating chocolate.

Mary Tyler Moore or Raquel Welch?  I’m aging and I know that each small choice I make is either speeding that aging process up, or allowing it to meander at a nice reasonable pace. Sure, I wish I had listened to my best friend in High School who told me to wear sunscreen – and a bra. I used to look like a grape, now I look more like a raisin, in lots of specific places, some of which I cover with a form flattering bra.

So, do I choose Mary Tyler Moore as my goal for aging gracefully, skinny and severe? Or do I choose Raquel Welch as my goal, voluptuous and happy?

It’s difficult because I have always been thin. I understand thin. I enjoy shopping for small sizes and having lots of room around me in my airplane seat. Still, I live next to a retirement community and some of those thin older women look like raisins in the sun. I don’t find the look attractive.

So, okay, I admit I drink coffee with Raspberry Chocolate Creamer every morning – even in the summer when I pour it over ice. One alarmed girlfriend told me, with my best interests at heart I’m sure, “Do you have any idea how many calories you are consuming before you’ve even eaten breakfast?” I was spinning from a sugar/caffeine high so couldn’t explain to her that since I never actually measure my creamer (I just pour until the coffee looks more like light chocolate milk) because then I might decide it’s too many calories and stop treating myself every morning to a delicious cup of coffee that I deserve for even getting up given my age and attitude, no I had no idea.

Sure, rarely a day goes by that I do not eat chocolate for lunch. Really, it’s only drizzled over the granola bar or over the yogurt I’m eating as dessert for lunch. Who says there is no lunch dessert? No one I know!

Okay, so I might eat a few cookies a day. I’ve only had four so far today and I’m not sure one even counts because it was cookie dough and don’t the calories get activated in the oven?

And, yes, it is true that I can’t stand to be hungry. Why at my age would I want to have a stomach ache I can prevent by driving through Del Taco? That’s just silly.

Besides, voluptuous and happy is much more my style, at least at my age.

This week I will strive toward grape-ness by plumping up my deflating body with chocolate, drive-through and any other food that strikes my fancy.

February 28, 2010

I am the first to admit that I wear rose-colored glasses when viewing the world. I am a firm believer that you see in the world what it is you are looking for. Looking for trouble, you’ll see it. Looking for harmony, you’ll see it.

What has been a revelation to me this week is the notion that not only do I wear rose-colored glasses, but I also seem to have some form of amnesia. There are things I have no recollection of and am convinced never even happened no matter the insistence of those closest to me.

Now, you may know people in your life who seem to suffer from amnesia. If you have teenagers, as I do, you have probably experienced the form of amnesia I like to call “chore-amnesia”. In my house it goes like this:

“You were supposed to take down the trash today.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Today is Tuesday.”

“So.”

“So, it’s trash day.”

“It is?”

“Yes, and you were suppose to take down the trash.”

“I was? Are you sure?”

Another form of amnesia that I am very familiar with because my husband suffers from it is food amnesia. It looks like this:

“That’s a big sandwich.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t eaten all day.”

“What about the pancakes you ate for breakfast?”

“I didn’t eat pancakes today. I haven’t eaten all day.”

“What about the ice cream I saw you eating in the kitchen earlier?”

“Prove I ate ice cream earlier, because I have no memory of it.”

I think that’s what my adorably chubby husband said, though it was hard to understand him because he was talking with his mouth full.

I found out this week that my form of amnesia is poor-planning amnesia.

My son decided to sign up for Water Safety Instructor classes. He was able to take the classes this weekend or in March. He decided to put the classes off until March. I found this odd. Why would you put off something until later that you could get done now? Get it over with so your future has time for other things, is my motto. Or so I thought.

I mentioned to my husband how odd it was that our cherub did not follow our shining examples of a life well-lived and was procrastinating.

“It’s so weird. Why would he do that when we never do that?”

My husband was very quiet. After so many years of marriage to an English major, he has learned to choose his words carefully when he is planning to disagree with me. I have learned to brace myself when he has grown quiet.

“Aren’t you taking classes now when you could have taken them for free four years ago?”

Oh.

On the one hand, I’m rather proud of how I’ve conveniently blocked all memory of the fact that I got myself into this on-line classes mess because of my procrastination. It all seems to be a blur, rose-colored, not there because I’m not looking for it. On the other hand, how am I suppose to avoid these mistakes if I’m not even aware of them?

What mistakes? What were we talking about?

This week I will focus on the things in life that make me happy, and forget the rest.

February 21,2010

Do you ever read what is supposed to be an inspirational saying and think, “What?”

This week, in my “A Woman’s Journal of Inspiration” this saying by Margaret Mead was at the top of the page, “Even though the ship may do down, the journey goes on.”

To which I thought, “What? Yeah, the journey may go on, but not with me because I’d be dead. Drowned.”

I’m a pretty good swimmer, good enough to know that floating on my back is the best way to keep afloat for long periods of time. Not good enough to believe that if the ship went down, I would survive it. If my boat went down, that would be a different story. I can usually see the shore from the middle of Lake Mohave. But, the ship, I don’t think so.

How exactly is this supposed to inspire me, I wondered. Then I began to worry about the other sayings and if I had paid close enough attention to them for inconsistencies.

Then I found this one by Colette, “You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.” I wasn’t so much inspired by this saying as reassured. It’s nice to know that there are other women out there who make fools of themselves with great enthusiasm. I don’t feel so alone when I wear a bright orange scarf to a conference, piss of one of the presenters and fail to take off the scarf so that pointing me out to all her buddies will be easy. “Here I am, the foolish one,” my scarf said with great enthusiasm. Colette would be proud.

I worried that maybe the book had been published by men trying to trick me. They probably left out the most important parts of the sayings, like the part about how once the ship goes down, the journey will go on because a rescue boat will pick you up and be filled with ruggedly handsome Coast Guards who only want to be sure you make it safely to shore. Or the part about doing foolish things with great enthusiasm in the privacy of your home, not at a two day conference wearing a bright orange scarf.

Then my son came in and announced he had decided on his senior quote. “Do your best, forget the rest.” Not my quote, probably not even Reverend Run’s quote but that’s who I got it from. My son thinks he got it from me.

And I wonder. Someday will someone be reading inspirational quotes and read “Do your best, forget the rest” by Diane Mierzwik and wonder, “Yeah, but what about learning from your mistakes. If I forget the rest, how will I learn and not repeat the same stupid mistakes?’

I’d reply, “You mean a mistake like wearing a bright orange scarf to a two day conference knowing deep in your heart that with your big mouth you will probably piss off someone and that scarf will help you to stick out from all the other well-behaved attendees. That type of mistake?”

Yeah, just forget it. It’s not like I’m going to stop having a big mouth any time soon. Besides, orange looks good on me. No, that would be the end of my inspirational quote because I’m a fan of mistake-amnesia.

This week I will focus on what I do best, and forget the rest, like drowning or doing foolish things with great enthusiasm.

February 14, 2010

I am a firm believer that you teach people how to treat you. So, as I spend my 26th Valentine with my partner, if it wasn’t all I hoped it would be, I only have myself to blame.

I remember the night before a Mother’s Day when hubby got home at 9:30 and I asked, point blank, if he had bought me something. He complained that he’d been very busy, what with his two jobs so I could stay home with the cherub. I handed him his car keys and pointed to the door, “Walmart is still open!”

I remember my birthday when I made it very clear that I wanted a solatire blue sapphire ring and when I opened the velvet ring box to find a band of sapphires, I burst into tears and threatened divorce.

I remember the Christmas when I had pretty much given up on the idea that I was ever going to get exactly what I wanted from hubby, let alone above and beyond, so I bought myself a dress I’d wanted for some time, wrapped it up, opened it on Christmas and waited for hubby to be all confused. But not my hubby, he took full credit until I confessed I had bought it for myself. (This is the same husband who spends most of Christmas asking everyone, “What did we get you?”)

I even complained one time to my mother-in-law about how she hadn’t trained her son, my husband, very well. She retorted, “He was fine until I gave him to you.”

Yes, you teach people how to treat you. And this year I got roses from hubby. Not a dozen long stem roses. Not  a half dozen roses from the guy at the off-ramp to our house. Not a single rose wrapped in cellophane with the mini-mart prize tag peeled off.

No, I got Tuscany Superb, Empress Josephine, Celsiana, Queen of Denmark, Old Blush China and many more roses, all bare root, all planted with MiracleGro Rose Planter Mix, all with sprinklers at their base, and all slowing leafing out. Fifteen roses bushes in all and I didn’t lift a shovel, or even pick up the roses and planter mix. Hubby did it all by himself.

Count me lucky, or hubby well taught. Either way, I have had a fabulous Valentine’s Day. I can’t wait to see what I get in another twenty-six years!

This week I will teach others how to treat me, by treating them the way I want to be treated.

February 7, 2010

I never learned to cook. I could probably spend lots of money on a therapist to explore the many reasons I never learned to cook – feminist movement, lack of patience, bad recipe reading skills – but none of this changes the fact that my friends are more familiar with where cooking utensils are in my kitchen than I am.

My failure as a cook has never bothered me. Even when I got married and the dear hubby poked his form tentatively at a piece of chicken and refused to eat it, I was nonplussed because I saw my way out of ever trying to compete with his mother in the cooking front.

Mr. Braxton, my ninth grade English teacher, said once, “There are people who eat to live and those who live to eat.” He was implying that my 90 pounds of budding womanhood ate to live, and I suppose it’s true. My camp mates at the river trip in Blythe went along with my plan to eat everything cold out of cans for the week or out of a cereal box, but weren’t too happy when they caught me being fed pancakes by the other group of campers.

A bowl of cereal, Raisin Nut Bran to be exact, is my idea of a perfect meal. My husband, who happens to be a lives-to-eat kinda’ guy, also is happy with a bowl of cereal because he is forever on a diet. But the kid, now that is where this smooth sailing of an eating plan gets a bit choppy.

As a baby, he didn’t cause too much trouble, pop out a boob or open a jar of mushed sweet potatoes and feed the darling with that cute little spoon covered in plastic padding. Even mixing cereal and producing crackers I did well. Then the toddler went off to a swank preschool with catered lunches and we had “sack lunch” for dinner. Public schools even feed the kiddies hot lunch and I was happy to pay months in advance to be sure my darling was getting at least one hot meal a day.

He can drive now. The cookie jar is full of fives and tens so he can eat anywhere he wants – from Del Taco to TGI Friday’s – fine by me as long as I don’t have to cook.

So count me surprised when he came home a few months ago and pleaded for me to cook for him. “I’m an athlete. I can’t eat out all the time.”

So I went to work preparing the three things I know how to make – chili, shit on a shingle, and macaroni and cheese with toasted sandwiches. This got us by for a few weeks. Then one night he came into the kitchen and said, “This again?”

So I conferred with his dad. What else could we cook? The darling happened to be in the room eavesdropping.

“It’s not that hard,” he muttered.

“Then you cook for us,” I retorted.

“My life is perfect. I live in a great house. I have great friends. School is good. You guys are good. The only thing I would improve in my life is dinner time. When I’m a dad….”

I half-listened, letting him wind himself down with his reverie. When he finally grew quiet, I simply pointed out that sometimes beauty is only recognizable because of the flaws.

“What?” he grumbled.

“Tuna casserole tomorrow,” I said loudly, with conviction. “With potato chips sprinkled on top!”

This week I will remember that beauty is in the flaws.

January 31, 2010

I spent the weekend at the San Diego State University Writers Conference. I drove in Friday night, just in time to pick up my registration packet, peer into the no-host bar mixer and head up to my room to hide out.

I tried to get a good night’s sleep, but tried is the verb in that sentence, not get.

On Saturday morning I awoke before daylight, and since I’m used to staying in hotels where if you don’t get in the shower before everyone else, you get to take a cold shower, I jumped in the shower.

With my wet hair wrapped in a towel and deodorant dutifully applied, I proceeded to put in my contacts. I precariously balanced my right contact on the tip of my index finger, squirt in a few drops of solution to grease the process a bit then noticed how along one fourth of the contact, where the shape should have been a soup bowl, not a salad bowl, there was a row of fork tips.

And I thought my eyes hurt the day before because I had been staring at the computer for so long. Huh!

No worries, I was at a writing conference. Perhaps the writing gods were sending me a message. I’d look more writerly in glasses.

But to put on my eye makeup with no contacts meant I had to lean in very close to the mirror. Messy mascara above and below previously mentioned glasses might give me more of the nutty professor look rather than the scholarly serious writer look I was going for.

So close to the mirror, I realized it had been awhile since I’d plucked my eyebrows, and there was one particularly noticeable strand a bit too close to the delicate arch of my left eyebrow. Kinda like a misplaced comma.

Of course, I hadn’t packed tweezers. No amount of staring at the bottom of my quart size travel bag from Southwest was going to make a pair of tweezers appear. I’m no criss angel. You can tell by looking at my poorly tweezed eyebrows. 

Sure, I thought about going down to that handy dandy convenience store located in the hotel lobby. You know the one, not the  Quikymart, more like the Take-you-to-the-cleaners-because-you-pack-so bad mart. But, I think buying a pair of tweezers when you have a perfectly good pair in your other travel bag, in your medicine cabinet at home, in your car (just not the car you drove here) and in your desk drawer at work, is like having an affair. Who needs another man when you have perfectly good one at home?

So I pushed on my glasses. I tried them high on my nose. I tried them low on my nose. Then I found that just right spot – the rims hit just right where the stray eyebrow hair was and hid it.

I almost took my eyeliner pencil and marked the spot so I could remind myself where exactly my glasses should sit when I met with all those important editors and agents for the day, but instead I just pressed the glasses to my nose until an indentation cradled each of the nose pieces and there was no hope of them getting out of the creases.

Then I swiped on some lipstick, without checking my upper lip too closely, I had enough on my face two worry about, and faced the day.

As soon as I got home tonight, I plucked away. I still haven’t de-moustached. I don’t think the lighting should be too severe tomorrow. Besides a little fuzz above the lips hides all those pursing-my-lips-too-much wrinkles.

This week I will pay more attention to my beauty routines, really!

January 24, 2010

So, this is the big weekend and the first thing I did this morning was check my email “wondering” if the race had been canceled due to the weather. It’s not that I don’t want to run 13.1 miles tomorrow, it’s just that there is four inches of snow at my house and it’s beautiful and difficult to leave, even for a gorgeous beach house in Carlsbad.

And, it’s not that I’m the least bit worried that I haven’t stuck to my training schedule AT ALL! I don’t do well under pressure and having my husband-who-thinks-he’s-a-motivational-speaker constantly asking me if I was running “today”, plus how cold and dark it is for most of the time I’m not working during this time of year, has been a bit overwhelming. That, and I kept telling myself I have a bigger base than last time because I ran a half marathon in August so it should be all good.

And besides, it’s only a HALF marathon, which I frequently remind people when they ask me when “the marathon” is. I’m crazy, but not that crazy – at least that is what I keep telling myself.

Then, my husband-who-thinks-he’s-a-motivational-speaker started “pumping me up” about the “big race.”

“I think you’ll beat…”

“Honey,” I kindly interrupted. “It’s not about beating people. It’s about finishing.”

“Really,” he replied. “Then they should probably change the name of it to the Carlsbad Half-marathon Just Finish instead of the Carlsbad Half-marathon Race.”

He walked away muttering to himself about who he was SURE I would beat. I just felt a tightening of my chest because I clearly remember those last tow miles in August – yikes.

It’s not like childbirth and you forget the pain. At least it isn’t for me.

SO, this is the weekend and about 9 am tomorrow I’ll be into those last few miles. I hope you’ll think of me and send me some good energy because I’m going to need it if I’m going to beat….

Then eat 1300 calories of anything I want!

This weekend I will burn 1300 calories and wonder why oh why I didn’t just sign up for the 5K.

January 17, 2010

Thirteen years ago, my husband took me to Las Vegas for our anniversary. Late on Friday night, we checked into Sam’s Town, a nice enough casino a few miles off the strip, even getting a casino view room so we were treated to a room’s view of the nightly light show.

Saturday morning, we left bright and early and spent the day at the newest casino in Las Vegas at the time, The Bellagio. We did brunch, toured the museum, gambled, looked longingly at the pool area (you had to be a hotel guest to actually make it past the bulking attendant checking for room keys), and watched their water and light show once the sun set.

Upon returning to Sam’s Town I was struck by the difference in clientele. Sam’s Town people were MY people, blue jeans and jackets, sneakers and shorts. But, they were also looking rather worn out compared. I looked at Bill and declared, “I want to be with the beautiful people back at Bellagio’s.” 

That was the day I learned, money does buy beauty. Now, I’m talking outside beauty: not in-the-eye-of-the-beholder beauty but in the judge-a-book-by-its-cover beauty.

Thirteen years later, I am investing in that outside beauty because at my age I can use any help I can get. But this week, I must admit, was rather expensive.

First I had to get my nails done. When I turned forty, my nails began splitting and cracking along the tops no matter what vitamins I took or which oils and polished I put on them. I broke down and gave into doing what was necessary to preserve, wll, not my dignity, but my waning youthfulness. I love the way my nails look when done, thick and full of natural color. I don’t like paying the forty dollars every other week to have them done, nor the hour and a half it takes to have them done. Plus, I tend to come home with little nicks from all that drilling and sanding – ouch.

Then this week was week 5, week full of roots and scrabby ends or time to have my hair done. Another investment of money, I’ll let you guess, just know it’s was quadruple what I used to pay at Fantastic Sam’s when I was younger. Then there was the two hours spent in a chair with my hair slicked down with goo.

It’s a good thing I make good money, but really.

Plus, how do I have time for all this? I never, never scrimp on my beauty rest – not that it’s doing any good since it didn’t prevent cracking nails and graying hair, so these appointments are cutting into my watching trash tv time. A shift in priorities at my age is difficult.

And let’s not even get into how none of this is helping the wrinkles etching themselves more and more deeply into the areas around my eyes and mouth. Laugh lines, my @**. Those are concern lines and I’m rather concerned about what they are doing to my presentability in the world. And because I’m spending all my money on getting my nails and hair done, I really can’t afford the face lift I want.

Yikes, what’s an aging woman to do?

And, guess where we’re going for our anniversary this year? The good news is we can now afford to stay at the Bellagio or any of the places on the strip. The bad news is MY people are at Sam’s Town.

This week I will save my pennies and nickels and dimes for the cost of beauty.

January 10, 2010

While on vacation, I read through an old journal and found pages and pages of lists of things I was grateful for. You may have been on the same kick as me, at the same time, as it was an Oprah thing.

Oprah had done a show exploring what  the happiest people do that the rest of us numbskulls don’t do. One major thing was that they spend their time appreciating each day. Oprah then suggested that one way to get yourself into the habit of looking for things to appreciate is to write down five things at the end of each day that you were grateful for.  One of my favorite lists from this year was this:

1. Bill’s levelheadedness

2. Wes’s good mood

3. Birds feeding in the planter

4. Coffee and creamer

5. Breathing

I especially liked this list because obviously Bill had somehow helped me to avoid catastrophe, again; Wes had made my mood bright or maybe even brighter, and the rest of the list was simple things that to this day make me happy. Breathing really makes me happy because it means I’m still here, or not throwing such a fit that I think holding my breath will help me win my argument.

Three years later, I find things to appreciate without really trying. This week the morning I had to leave very early for a business trip, I snuck into my 17 year old’s bedroom to kiss him goodye while he slept, he is sweetest when he is asleep, and found our dog keeping guard in his room, more like sleeping next to my son, but I felt better leaving knowing Rocko was on the case.

While on vacation last week, when “we” realized “someone” had not packed my puzzle ( I complete a puzzle every Christmas trip), my husband went to the local store and bought me another puzzle, barely grumbling about how it was really “someone” else’s fault for not putting it with the rest of the luggage.

So, this week, when I got a toothache, I wondered: what is the bright side of this?

The most obvious is how it has expanded my experiential realm. I have never had a toothache before, which has made me quite curious when someone I know gets a toothache, but for some unknown reason, that someone ends up thinking I’m being judgmental. All I do is ask questions:

When was the last time you were at the dentist? (I go every six months and wonder if that is why I’ve never had a toothache.)

Do you floss regularly? (I floss at least four times a week, about a month before I have to go to the dentist, as if I’m going to fool him!)

When was the last time you brushed your teeth? (I don’t actually ask this one out loud, but I think it and then look closely and intently at the person’s teeth while he/she is talking.)

Finally: What were you eating when it started to hurt?

I was eating my favorite cereal, Raisin Nut Bran, and one of those nut covered raisins got stuck in my back teeth, which I yanked out with my extra long fingernails (extra long because I haven’t been to see my nail specialist lately) then ouch!

So, you see, I now know that having a toothache can have absolutely nothing with one’s hygiene habits, at least the standard of hygiene habits, my own habits.

What a bright side.

The other thing I am wondering is if it’s going away any time soon or do I need to go see my great dentist. (I started flossing just in case.) I asked my husband, who’s had a toothache before.

“I just waited until my next appointment and chewed all my food on the other side of my mouth,” he said. “I think I lost some weight, actually.”

Well, who could ask for more? My newest diet scheme – a toothache. I’ll let you know how much I lose. Maybe I can market it and make millions!

This week I will only chew on the right side of my mouth.

January 3, 2010

Today on my way to Best Buy to return a gift, what did my wandering eyes see, but lots and lots of people out exercising. Too cute!

There’s those funky resolutions making us act all out of character for a few weeks, a month tops, if we’re lucky. Too cute, unless you are a regular at your gym and suddenly the machines have been taken over by all these newbies. Sweating every where and breathing so hard that if I wasn’t feeling really good about the shape I’m in compared, I might be a bit irritated.

Instead, I use January as my month to relax. I have to be burning extra calories this month just through osmosis!

So for my New Year’s Resolution, it will not be too start working out. It will be too sign up for another half marathon after the one I’m completing in a few weeks. A funny thing happens to a cheap person like me when I have to pay for a race – I feel compelled to actually complete the race and, because of thirteen miles staring me in the face, I prepare by running on a semi-regular basis.

On the days I run, I put a gold star on my calendar. Today, I took down my 2009 calendar and flipped through it and found stars everywhere once I had signed up for San Diego’s Finest City Half-marathon. What a nice feeling!

So a resolution to get in better shape, well, we can all be in better shape, but I’m pretty happy with the path I’m on.

The one thing that is hanging over my head, okay, more like filling up my cupboards, are all those containers of Herbal Life Shape Works shake mix and those Nutrisystem meals. I have to admit,both systems work, as well as Weight Watchers, as long as I’m actually doing them. Inevitably, my clothes start to get loose, I start to eat cookies, and not those Nutrisystem cardboard shaped cookies, and fill my clothes up once again.

My clothes aren’t even that tight right now, but my cupboards are embarrassing when friends stay over and find months worth of shake mix and meals staring at them when they dig through looking for something to eat. I always invite guests to help themselves, and they do – they help themselves to big doses of making fun of me.

So, I have pulled out all the shake powders and pre-packaged meals and plan on eating all of it before March. I do draw the line at the Pea Soup. I’d rather starve, thank you.

So just like I help all my newbies at the gym by giving them space on all the machines, I hope you will help me by not inviting me out to eat, unless you plan to come over and eat some Nutrisystem and Herbal Life.

This week I will have a shake for breakfast and one for lunch then do a hearty Nutrisystem meal!