Zenitude #48: Half a Block of Cheese, Pear Preserves & Bell Bottoms

It’s Thursday night. The Husband is finishing up 9-holes of golf after a challenging day, and I just inhaled a half a block of smoked Gouda cheese. I kid you not. A half a block of cheese. In one sitting. In five minutes. Maybe four. Inhaling such a decadent amount of buttery, creamery goodness is supposedly not good for a body. However, my 48-year-old body whispers, “Eat the cheese. I'll still love you in the morning." Me, being the cheese-body that I am, makes mad passionate love to the cheese-whisperer and downs another cheese bite.

So what is it about craving the things that “aren’t good for us?” This I know. Given our American way of fads, fictions, and freakazoid food “fobias,” we shouldn’t eat or drink anything, and nothing is good for us. Which is it? We should die to live or live to die? Enjoy? Forget about it. Don’t eat avocadoes. Oh, we were wrong. Eat avocadoes. Don’t eat fats. Oooops. Wrong again. Eat fats. Well, certain fats. Don’t eat eggs. Eat eggs. Don’t eat carbs. Eat carbs. Don’t eat sugar. Eat this artificial sugar shit called aspartame (will it tame my ass?). No, don’t eat this artificial shit. Again, we were wrong. Rewind. Eat sugar. Don’t drink wine. Drink wine. Be like the French, Italian, Japanese or Mediterranean cultures. Which is it? Who ever says be like the Americans? In America, it’s a perpetual state of stressful eating. A constant state of flux. Therefore, I eat cheese.

Eating should be balanced. And include dessert.

If I had it my way, I’d eat from my grandmother’s garden and bathe in her pear preserves. It was Breakfast at Dorothy’s every summer I spent with her. It was her delicious breakfast aromas that peacefully wafted from her daffodil yellow kitchen, found their way under the single crevice of my bedroom door, enveloped my room, floated under my cushy covers, and gently nudged my senses awake each morning. Pure grandmother love mixed with pure grown ingredients. It’s been over 20 years. Her gardens died with her magical touch. Those pear preserves are long gone and I have no idea how she created such melt in your mouth goodness. I close my eyes, smell and taste her fruit preserves, her canned everything, and see the silhouette of her tall, thin body lovingly looking down upon everything she touched in her kitchen. Her escape. Yes. She would’ve eaten the half of block of cheese with me tonight.

So what the hell does this have to do with bell bottoms? Absolutely everything. Again, society said wear skinny jeans. No, don’t wear those. Wear bell bottoms. No. Wear skinny. No. Do this instead. Here’s the scenario for why this denim and food aren’t balanced:

My body does some jacked-up alien swelling thing between the morning when it forces itself into skinny jeans and then attempts to take them off 12 hours later.

Fact: I’d rather sleep in my skinny jeans like a stiff corpse than have a 30-minute exercise routine that involves sweating before putting on my cozies at night. Huffing and puffing the way I do when taking off my skinny jeans is not my erotic idea of huffing and puffing in bed at night. Three years ago I said I would never wear skinny jeans. Give me my flare jeans and wedges and leave me be. Yet I gave into the skinny jean craze. Audrey Hepburn (classic beauty) wore them, why shouldn’t I? Duh! Because she was 94 pounds and I am a behemoth Neanderthal. I can’t even begin to think Audrey H. had a circus struggle at the end of a day like I do. When you purchase skinny jeans, they should come with a complete diagram on how to detach skinny jeans from your skin as well as a brown paper bag for hyperventilation. It’s exhausting. It involves too much work: Lay on bed. Legs held out like two by fours. Yell to husband. Command him to grab the ends of your jeans (do not get sexy with me!). Pull. Pull! Pull!!!! Are they off yet!!?? The end.

My struggle is real. I hate taking off my skinny jeans. Not to mention I am barely flexible enough to bend over to grab hold of the bottom of the jeans much less have the strength to pull them around my feet once I’m there. Therein lies the problem. Flexibility. Skinny. Two words that DO NOT describe me. Give me my flares. The bigger the better. The end. Fashion industry, I’m never listening to you again. I’m taking back my bell bottoms and loving all 12 inches of denim.

There you have it. I am not giving up cheese. I am not giving up my bell bottom jeans. Listen to your balance. I’m off to have more cheese.

Zenitude for today:

Eat cheese. Wear bell bottoms. Be your own person. Make your grandmother proud.