Fencing Bear at Prayer

I have a theory. Let's call it "God is glucose." Or "sweet," if you prefer. It's been just over four months that I have been keeping myself (as well as I can count) to 25 net carbs or fewer a day. I've lost I don't know how much weight and gone from not being able to fit into my size 12 stretchy jeans to needing to buy a new pair of 8s. (My goal is still the size 6s that I have from the last time I was my ideal weight, but I threw out all of the 8s that I had in last summer's decluttering, so I needed something to wear in the meantime other than my now-too-big 10s.) I am feeling not just less heavy but (every so often) almost positively thin (it comes and goes; my thighs are still quite heavy, but my waist is nearly firm). Even better, I find myself able to move on the strip in ways that I had thought I had lost forever along with my (relative) youth. When I look in the mirror, my face looks like my real face again (not the slightly puf...

I am a witch. Not a doctor. Not a wizard. But a witch. The witch. I am the hare who runs into the fire. I am the one whose brown hair turns white before she is forty. I am the one who loves wisdom. I am the one who says what needs to be said because if I don't say it, no one else will. I am paid for my work in old clothes and more work. I may not have any natural talent for being a witch, but I am one anyway because I have chosen to be. I have journeyed far. I have trusted my fear. And my pride. I have come home. I walk with joy. I am surrounded by love. I have come home. Yesterday, I took a first step. Today, I took another first step. Tomorrow, I will take a third. I have my steading, and I will take responsibility for it knowing that much of the work will not be particularly glamorous but that, nevertheless, it is the work that must be done. When I am old, I shall wear midnight. Starting now. With thanks, once again, to Mr. Pratchett, for teaching me how to be myself .

One of my most loyal blog readers (who wishes to remain anonymous) sent me this comment on yesterday's post : "It was refreshing to have a fun, positive blog to read--maybe you should concentrate on similar items more often!" To which my not-entirely-charitable knee-jerk response would necessarily be: "I would love to, if only I weren't such an Eeyore and actually felt that happy more often." Okay, okay, I'm not being fair. Because, of course, in part at least, she's right. Maybe if I wrote about happy things more often, I would feel happier more of the time, although, again, of course, that's one of the reasons that I keep this blog: more often than not, it is only in writing about the things that are upsetting me (or, perhaps more accurately, that I am upset about) that I am able to see them in a clearer light and thus feel better. (As, for example, here , when I had a rather different experience taking my puppy for a walk than I did this ...

Be sure to visit Jennifer at Conversion Diary for more stimulating "quick takes." 1. I got my dog ! Okay, so she's a little hard to take on walks seeing as she can't move by herself, but isn't she cute? We're going to an actual dog show tomorrow out west of the city, just to meet some real Corgis, but I've had to agree that we are not actively looking to adopt at this time. Life lesson for the week on how couples make decisions: nobody wins in a dog fight . 2. We're going ahead with our kitchen remodeling though. Can you say, middle-aged ? It's a little disconcerting standing in what you thought was a fairly stable arrangement of windows and walls hearing a contractor talk about lifting window sills and moving heaters so as to open up the space for countertops as much as possible. It's going to be wonderful after the remodeling to be able to make toast and tea at the same time, but I have to confess a bit of anxiety about (gasp!) wat...

I can't explain it, but there it is. Call it the force of anti-glamor. Do you remember the Peanuts character Pig-pen ? Every so often, this unrecognizable boy would show up, his hair combed, his clothes pressed and clean, and the other kids would wonder, "Who is he?" Within seconds (that is, one or two panels), however, all would be revealed. His hair would suddenly stick straight up, his clothes would come untucked and a cloud of dust would rise up around him. "You know what I am?," he once asked Charlie Brown. "I'm a dust magnet." That's me, minus the dust. A few weeks ago, I went to Macy's (a.k.a the old Marshall Field 's) and bought a number of stylish, fashionable blouses. At least, they're in style now, unlike the majority of the clothes that I wear, some of which I have had since graduate school (mainly sweaters), and they are moderately fashionable, lots of paisley and bright colors. Definitely a big change from t...

I don't like the way I write. At least, not as much as I like the way some of my favorite authors--Barbara Newman, Elaine Scarry, Dorothy Sayers, J.R.R. Tolkien--do. Somehow the words just never come out the way I want them to; and yet, every time I try to write in some other way, it just seems fake, not my voice at all. I could try writing like my sister , more observationally, less argumentatively, which is not to say that she doesn't make arguments, just that she is not bound as I am to make apologies (like this one) for every claim that she makes. I wish that I could write more like my friend Barbara ; if you know her work, you will know why. She is so subtle and yet so profound in the problems that she sets; you think you are reading something simply about a particular text, and before you know it, the whole structure of medieval religious thinking has been turned inside out and laid bare. Scarry is another matter altogether: she is dense and difficult right from the...

The fantasy is laughable only because it is so easy to imagine. Becky Bloomwood, heroine of Sophie Kinsella's best-selling Shopaholic series, is in a secondhand shop in London and sees a fencing mask and "sword" (aka foil? epee? sabre?). Together, they are only 40 quid (a bargain even at present exchange rates, especially for the mask), and soon she has convinced herself that she needs them. "I've been meaning to take up fencing for ages," she tells her readers, "ever since I read this article about it in The Daily World . Did you know that fencers have better legs than any other athletes? Plus, if you're an expert you can become a stunt double in a film and earn loads of money! So what I'm planning to do is find some fencing lessons nearby, and get really good, which I should think I'll do quite quickly. And then--this is my secret little plan--when I've got my gold badge, or whatever it is, I'll write to Catherine Zeta-Jon...