theology&geometry

Went to the civil rights museum to pay our respects. It was packed.

[Project 365]

Happy New Year at the Hi-Tone from Lindsey Turner on Vimeo.

That was the scene at the Hi-Tone last night, after the free cups of champagne had been poured down our gullets with great fanfare and meticulously timed lip kisses, between sets by the Tennessee Tearjerkers and Harlan T. Bobo. I didn’t capture the midnight countdown on camera because I was too busy double fisting (the remains of my Jack and Coke in the left and a swiftly warming skunky cup of bubbly in the right) and planning what sort of smooch I was going to plant on my man. (For the record: A tasteful one, unlike some coupled-up revelers to whom I might have shouted, “Get a room!” had they not been so got-danged attractive.)

I wasn’t feeling sufficiently lubricated (the Hi-Tone always brings out the worst of my social jitters), so I put some tequila down the hatch, and shortly after that, I found myself attempting to manually text some variation of “Happy new year” to everyone in my address book rather than send a mass text. Except that didn’t last beyond maybe half a dozen people because my god I hate typing on an iPhone and by then the show had started up again and I felt compelled to crane my neck upwards so I could pretend to see anything on stage. (I did catch a glimpse of Harlan’s magnificent broken-mirror coat, and was briefly filled with worry that if anyone hugged him, there would be more blood than I had ever seen before.) I did manage to text “Happy blue beard” to the boyfriend, which seemed really funny at the time because tequila tends to make me think like a third grader. He didn’t actually get the text until we got home, and he was very confused.

We stayed through several songs but headed out once He Who Was Hot But Refused to Take His Coat Off had had enough of the festivities. I remember walking to the car with a bit of an attitude, and intentionally stepping in enough puddles that my shoes and pants were soaked, so I just took off my shoes and walked barefoot. I believe the shoes are still in the car and I suspect they are responsible for the smell I noticed in there today. Don’t worry — I managed not to step on any AIDS-infected needles so at least I have that going for me in 2011.

So far this new year’s been pretty swell. Yes, I did spend the evening at work, but I spent the entire morning and afternoon in bed, making funny noises, napping the booze out, and stitching crappy panoramas on my phone.

Last year had its pretty intense moments — high and low — and I both gained someone in my life who is very dear to me and nearly lost someone who is very dear to me. Seems like a lot of people are waving goodbye to 2010 with a single upturned finger, and while November and December conspired to kick my everloving ass all over the place, I am going to rank 2010 as a good year, one full of new life and new beginnings and new ways of looking at things. The possibilities remain endless for all of us. May your new year be filled with sublime joy, every way you can get it.

Me: What are we doing tonight?
Boyfriend: Partying hard…ying.
Me: Where?
Boyfriend: … Applebees.

I’m up too late.

It’s cold in this house.

It’s almost Christmas.

I go on vacation in less than a week.

Roadtrip, whee!

The fella is almost done with his finals, and I think I’m more excited about that than he is.

I want to get in a car with him and just drive and drive and see where we land.

We’re doing the next best thing, I suppose, by getting in a car and heading to where we have reservations.

I am excited to unveil my TRUE car singing voice — the one that only emerges after five hours on the road. The one where I let emotion and not pitch sensitivity take over.

Oh yes.

Oh god, it has begun in earnest. Behold, a tree!

It’s a pre-lit model, something I never ever ever thought I’d ever buy, ever. It always just seemed … blasphemous. But Big Lots was out of their unlit trees when I went, so I just went down in size half a foot and opted for the pre-lit, as it fit my budget. And now that I have seen the foolishness of my ways, I dare say I will never buy an unlit tree ever again. Can someone confirm for me that the inventor of the pre-lit tree got a Nobel prize? Please?

I didn’t put a tree up last year because, for one, I didn’t have one. For another, I was scared of what the cats would do to it. I am happy to report that, aside from a few sniffs and branch bats here and there, they seem to the mostly uninterested. Granted, we are less than 24 hours in, so tomorrow I might be reporting a different story.

Of course, I have added various accouterments, including the front-door wreath, a fancy table runner, some icicle lights in the office, and Granny’s ancient candleholder thingy that was passed on to me. But the big show is the giant wreath mom and dad let me have, which I put outside on the chimney. In the words of the funny lady who plays Miley Cyrus in the SNL skit that Ray and I CANNOT STOP QUOTING OH MY GOD, it’s pretty cool.

I used a concrete nail to secure the big wreath out front. Did you know you can’t buy a singular concrete nail? True story. Relatedly, if anyone needs to borrow a couple hundred concrete nails, hit me up.

I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday right before Thanksgiving dinner. Everything had been going more or less okay; I got up and on the road to the parents’ as early as I could, since my mom had texted me the day before, telling me to hightail it early since I’d be trying to outrun bad weather. I was flying solo, as Ray had to work that afternoon. That sucked, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I couldn’t get my mom to answer the house phone or her cell, and she hadn’t answered my “need me to pick anything else up?” text early that morning. My brother was at his girlfriend’s house in Arlington and so couldn’t track mom down for me. Dad was at work so I didn’t even bother calling to bug him. Finally I got my sister on the phone and she told me that mom was having a bad day and still in bed, so she was getting the turkey ready for its broth bath. Her first time taking the reins on the turkey dinner. We assessed what else we’d still need after my grandmother’s and aunt’s contributions (dressing aka stuffing to all you yankees, yeast rolls, macaroni and cheese, green beans, banana pudding, butternut cake, etc.) and I stopped off at the Lakeland Schnucks and heaped a cheese plate, couple of sodas, salad fixins, and two pomegranates into my basket. I cranked up Girl Talk and car danced my way to the house.

Things were going fine. I was in a good mood. I knew mom felt bad but she was coming around and getting ready, and my sister had the kitchen under control. I made and stored the salad, peeled a pomegranate, and went outside to take pictures of the horses as a storm blew in and we waited on the family to assemble.

And assemble we did. It got hot in that house with all the people and heated surfaces working and the outside temperature not quite cool enough for an open door to make a difference. I went into the bathroom to put my hair up to get it out of my face, and came back down to survey the kitchen to see how else I could help. My dad looked at me with a squint in his eye and said, in front of everyone, “Lindsey, are you gaining weight again?”

And, obviously, the answer is yes, by every observable standard. Yes, world, I have gained weight. I lost a couple dozen pounds several years ago by drinking only water (okay, and a glass of wine a night), cutting out all fried foods, fast foods, and sweet foods, and consuming no more than 1,100 calories every day, while working out and burning at least 1,500 calories a week. It was a fairly fucking miserable diet but I got used to it and it felt great to watch the weight fall off. I had foot surgery and stopped working out for a while since it hurt to put any pressure on it, and got out of the habit. I started letting crap food back into my life the day of surgery, when I went and ate at Soul Fish and allowed myself some French fries. Etc. And in spectacularly human fashion, I have allowed those pounds to creep back onto my bones over the past four years.

So. Back to dinner. My eyes grew wide as saucers and I said something to the effect of, “Yes, I have! Just like everyone else in the world at some point!” Bitchin’ comeback. I’m known for my wit.

And you know that feeling you get in your gut, like it could almost be accompanied by falling string music and that camera trick where it seems like the background and the foreground move in opposite directions while you stand still in the middle? I had a smirk plastered on my face while my brain raced and raced to find somewhere safe to put what my dad had just said, because it was just a bullshit, one-off comment that probably meant nothing and so what if I had gained weight? Haitians were dying of cholera and starvation as we spoke and lava was swallowing up Indonesia. And yet my brain, my useless fucking brain, could not find a place for that comment, and in fact blew that comment up on the jumbotron inside me and all my senses’ attentions were directed to it. They stopped their happy little holiday bopping and looked up at it, and all I could feel was shame and failure. Shame and failure. Shame and failure. The muscles in my face seized up and I sat there until my aunt moved away from the oven so I could back up my chair and go somewhere, anywhere, where could I go? It was storming and cold outside by then so I just went out to the carport and wedged myself between my sister’s car and the garage door and had myself a moment. A long one, I guess, because my sister came looking for me later because it was time to eat.

I played like I had been on the phone out there in the cold and not sobbing like a fool, and I rejoined the family to a chorus of “where were you it’s time to eat what’s wrong are you sure you’re okay” and then my dad said grace. And my mom hugged me and asked me if I was okay, at which point I lost my shit and ran off to the bathroom like a drama queen. I had to get it out of me, let the heaving get done. I shooed both parents who tried to talk to me through that door and I was in there for an hour. On the floor. Unable to coax myself off it or out the door. How could I possibly go downstairs and put food in my mouth when everyone had just been made acutely aware of the fact that I am more of a fatass now than I was at the last Thanksgiving I got to attend a couple of years ago?

And I know it’s overly dramatic and completely irrational and I’m ashamed to even write about it. There is a horrible shame cycle to body-image bullshit and in general I try to not even indulge those neuroses. Publicly. But they are always with me. Always. I’ve clearly got a demon that needs exorcising. I don’t really know why what my dad said hit me as hard as it did, except that his statement comes bundled with a lot of baggage and I unpacked it there on the spot and it fucking leveled me.

It leveled me because I know how I look. I have to look at me every day, get this body into and out of clothes every day. I know how it has changed and I fucking hate it. I don’t think my dad has any idea how much I hate myself, how so many moments of every day are spent wrestling with very deeply rooted self-loathing, because I keep quiet about that stuff. I can’t imagine that he could have any idea about the kinds of things I say to the mirror when no one else is around, the way I will spit insults at every dimple in my flesh, every crease, every shadow. I know how narcissistic that sounds and is and I hate myself even more for getting tangled up in this ridiculous web that I KNOW is a farce. It’s my silent shame, and it is with me always. My dad saying what he said to me — after I had gone to the bathroom to put my hair up, which is something I do reluctantly these days because I always feel like, with my hair up, you can see too clearly all the extra flesh on my face — just gave a voice to all the toxic shit that swims in my head every minute of every day. It confirmed my fears about how I appear to other people and it labeled me a failure in front of my entire family. Because, you know, fat = failure. According to popular sentiment.

I know he didn’t mean to set off that insane chain of reaction in me, and I feel genuinely awful that he feels so awful about accidentally hurting me. I spent the entire night in seclusion. After my initial shame had subsided enough for me to want to leave the bathroom then bedroom, I was overcome with embarrassment and just wanted to disappear. And yet I couldn’t make my apparently too large body disappear. I could only hide.

I am fucked up about my body and always have been. I have struggled with my weight my entire life. I remember being in middle school and attempting to see how many days I could go without eating when a boy I had a crush on called me “lumberjack legs.” (For the record, two days.) I think most women will tell a similar tale. We all want to try and act like we have risen above it but body consciousness is a quicksand. Secretly we want to look great but as though we don’t spend any time worrying about how we look. That’s the ideal. I can be a bulldog of a feminist all day long but when I close my eyes at night, I don’t want to wake up ugly and unattractive. And I FUCKING HATE THAT ABOUT MYSELF. I have tried to squelch that part of me but it comes back bigger and stronger every time I try to put it down.

My dad has said something like his comment above to me before. I remember we were riding in the car together on the way to Jackson. We were talking about relationships. I don’t remember if Phil and I had broken up or what, but I remember my dad pretty much told me that I was lucky Phil had stayed with me as long as he had, considering I’d gained weight after high school. I remember the sting I felt when I heard that. I love my dad so much and I wouldn’t trade him for any other father on this or any other planet (that fact is well documented here on this blog), but he has never quite understood that there are some things that are better left unsaid.*

And so every time I prepare to make the trip home to see the family, I look at myself in the mirror and I get nervous about what they are going to think about how my looks have changed since the last time they saw me. I am getting older, my jowls more pronounced, my thickness everpresent. If I am not pretty enough, and just slim enough, I am not good enough. Of course they don’t think that way but this is what I have internalized, what I have made myself believe.

But here’s the thing. I grew up in a family of thick people. We are all overweight or have been for most of our lives. I never really learned how to eat well; I maintained a general pickiness throughout my childhood that allowed me to eat crap food. I remember one time when I was really young that we had Brussels sprouts with dinner. I didn’t want mine because I was generally leery of green things, but my parents tried to make me eat them. I got a little bit down and then made myself sick. And I got in trouble. But I didn’t learn how to like things that are good for me. I didn’t learn how to use food as fuel. I like fatty things, sweet things, buttery things, cheesy things, breaded things. Carbs. Lord god, carbs. And of course, these things are fine in moderation. But when they are the only things you like, it is hard to moderate.**

My palate has gotten more sophisticated as I’ve gotten older, but I’m still not where I need to be and I know it. I think about it every effing day, every time I pass a reflective surface, or feel the folds of my skin touching, or hide my face from my boyfriend when I laugh because I’m afraid he’ll suddenly see all the imperfections I see and decide he doesn’t love me anymore. What sent me over the edge Thursday is when someone else copped to noticing.

I’ve got a lot of work to do. I probably need a head shrinker to help me comb through some of this, but I’ve been reluctant to pursue that route. Obviously I need to get back to exercising because it’s good for me, but frankly I am busy lately. Insanely busy with a weird, backwards-ass schedule. (“Make time!” sings a chorus of self-righteous demons cruising for a punch to the mouth.) I will make time. I’ve done it before. It was not easy. And it’s interesting because even though I have all these fucked-up body issues, I don’t have particularly bad self-esteem. I mean, I genuinely know that I deserve to be loved and appreciated, and I think I am worthy of love and appreciation. And I think I am more or less an attractive person, in spite of the extra trunk junk and the crazy in my brain.

But obviously even if I lose the weight again, I am still going to need to get that self-hatred poison out of my head. It doesn’t want to go away, no matter how many hours I spend on the elliptical.

* Dad, if you ever read this, or if someone ever reads this to you, know that I love you dearly and I know you didn’t mean anything by either of these things you said. I forgive you, and I’m sorry I made you feel horrible.

** I appreciate your kneejerk desire to comment or e-mail me diet or nutrition or exercise or whatever tips, but I don’t want them. This post is not a solicitation for advice or a chance for you to prove that you have slayed the weight-maintenance beast by imparting your wisdom. At the risk of coming off as a total asshole here, please keep your concern trolling to yourself, please and thanks.

My apologies to those of you who have seen this on the Tweet-o-sphere and the Facebooktubes already, but I’m trying to reach eyeballs. Lots and lots of eyeballs.

The thing is this: I am selling holiday cards made from my photos in the Etsy shop. One features this bird print and the other features this snowy branch print (both of which are also for sale in several sizes). Fun fact about these cards: If you don’t like the greeting I’ve supplied, you can write your own. Funner fact: You can use cuss words if you want to. I DON’T GIVE A SHIT, I’M CRAZY!

So put that little bug in your brain. Customizable holiday cards that are highly unique and not available at your local Target, where everyone else will be buying their cards. These babies are perfect for those of you into simplicity, elegance, high contrast, and a lack of melodramatic sentiments written in sweeping, embossed gold letters above painful-looking Nativity scenes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, person who will inevitably send me a Christmas card like that.

See the snowy branch card here and the bird on a wire card here.

Here are the details for those of you who did not click those links (slackers): 10 cards, printed on high-quality, bright white glossy Costco cardstock. Comes with a set of 10 bright white self-adhesive envelopes. $16 + $4 shipping (unless ordered in conjunction with something else). You tell me what you want printed on it (within allotted space). I have them printed, I inspect them, then I send them on to you. All of this can happen in a week’s time or potentially faster than that if you need them real quicklike (expedited shipping rates will apply).

And if you’re looking for unique stocking stuffer-type things, you might be interested in these magnets I made. If you don’t buy them, they are going on my fridge. But I’d like you to buy them. I made them just for you.

Oh, and one more thing. If you ever see a picture on this blog or on my Flickr account that you’d like to buy a print of, leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail at theogeo at gmail dot com. I’m very much open to putting things in the shop by request.

Want to stay up to date on what’s going on with my Etsy shop? Follow me on Twitter or *like* my Facebook page.

Back in my day, you could elect to carve a pumpkin and it would stand tall (if somewhat increasingly moldy and smelly) for weeks. Sure, the sheer force of gravity and effects of oxygen would eventually turn the jack-o-lantern in on itself, turning its face into something resembling a toothless old man, but you felt like you got your money’s worth out of him at least.

They just don’t make jack-o-lanterns like they used to, I guess. Case in point: Congressman Cackleface’s swift collapse this week. He was unveiled to the public in the wee hours of Sunday morning, and I found myself scooping him up and disposing of him Thursday afternoon. That’s five days! Five! Was it political pressure? Was it the unexpected rain that poured into and filled his gourd TWICE in two days? Was it the slug I found perched on his crown Wednesday night? Was it karma for the amount of salt I dumped on the slug I found on his crown Wednesday night? I’ve got my eye on Pumpkinlitico to answer these questions, and maybe Gawker will one day publish a chickenshit article by some anonymous brah bee who tried to pollinate Congressman Cackleface’s parent flower but was turned off by the furriness of its pistil.

Anyway, both Councilman Chuckles and Congressman Cackleface enjoyed your support and — especially — the PayPal slush fund they used as petty cash to fund their tea-light addiction.

Councilman Chuckles’ time in the political spotlight, as his supportive core bloc seemingly seemed to turn on him immediately and — in many ways — rot his political future, was short and sweet. Seizing his opportunity at the spotlight, one Congressman Cackleface — a loose cannon — has entered the pumpkinlitical sphere.

Also when I went to check on Congressman Cackleface just now, I caught the neighbor’s dog totally making out with my sprinkler. Mmm, tongue love.

He’s never going to vote for your stupid ordinance!

I’ve got one more pumpkin and only half an idea what to do with him.

I may never top last year’s Ryburn-o-Lantern, but at least my porch is looking all festive and snazzy.

Previous jack-o-lanterns: 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

INSTA-EDIT: Uhhhh, can anyone else see a face in the shadow of that uncarved pumpkin up there? Uhhhhh.

INSTA-EDIT ADDITION: Is that Anthony Keidis?!