Thursday, March 26, 2020

Oatmeal

I can think of little that's more humble than oatmeal.  The word oatmeal itself, one would have to agree, isn't sexy at all.  Porridge sounds downright glamourous by comparison, and steel-cut oats have a sort of "You'd best turn around and get out of town before I turn around." ring to them, but they're still oatmeal, albeit a more toothsome, satisfying variety.  Humble, glamours, or macho, oatmeal may very well have turned my life around.

About a month ago, I visited my therapist.  I'd spent much of the month of January in bed in a Klonopin daze.  I expressed conerrn that I was becoming a junkie.  We agreed to a tapering plan, and then I asked him, "Am I an addict!?"  My therapist, who in every other instance maintained a cordial, concerned objectivity, replied, "No, you silly, neurotic dope!" but more condensed.  After our visit, I went straight home, took a full dose, and took a long nap.  I woke up, ate dinner, and went back to bed.  Before falling asleep, I said to myself, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."  That was the real problem:  fear of being fearful.  I'm grateful that that is in the past. 

I can't say that I've followed our tapering plan to the letter.  I did the first several days;  after that, I cut out the daytime dose on most days.  I'm more engaged and alert than I've been in years.  I was really alert when the quack who dressed like Colonel Sanders had me janked up on Ritalin.  I'm grateful that that is in the past.

The next day, I began the tapering plan and made Nashville chicken.  For those who don't know what Nashville chicken is, it's a devilishly hot concoction of fried chicken coated with a mixture of spices and too much fat.  I used lard per the recipe I consulted, but I cut the cayenne pepper by one-third.  For sides, we ate German potato salad and turnip greens.  Everything had bacon or lard in it.

I don't know when the heartburn began; in fact, I thought that burning sensation was everything but heartburn.  My first thought was that I was experiencing withdrawal symptoms and that they would subside quickly enough.  I also considered appendicitis and, and I'm not kidding, the coronavirus.  Whatever it was, I wanted it the hell out of me.

By 4 o'clock the next morning, I was in bed writhing in the worst pain I can remember.  I hated to bother my wife, but my stomach didn't want to be in my body anymore.  She took me to urgent care straight away.  

For $65, they pumped me full of Gatorade and morphine, and gave me an MRI.  The attending physician said I either had heartburn or gallstones.  Gallstones were ruled out.  I was thankful for that, but I would have gladly had a frontal lobotomy performed if it meant that the pain went away.  I felt a little ashamed that I'd gone to urgent care for heartburn, so I asked the doctor if anyone else had ever gone for that reason.  She said that some people thought they were having a heart attack.  In my feverishness, I didn't consider that my heart was sick of me, too.

That would have made sense. I'd taken some steps to improve my health, but I still ate like I was at a Golden Corral as conceived by Caligula.  During the week or two prior, many of our meals consisted of something deep-fried and spicy.  A couple of hours after dinner, I would slip into HEB just before closing, grab a pint of their Snooze brand ice cream (which might be the best ice cream I've ever eaten), and polish it off before bed.  

The doctor's orders were "nothing delicious."  I decided, at first, to eat nothing.  Eating was still like walking down a decrepit staircase at that point.  I broke my fast with oatmeal and yogurt.  I had nothing against oatmeal and yogurt, I just thought that they might be delicious.  After my wife's assurance that oatmeal and yogurt are not delicious, I ate.  It turns out that oatmeal and yogurt were delicious, and I told my wife that that worried me.

The next morning, I ate breakfast.  For years, I only ate breakfast during vacations or when visiting my parents.  I have eaten breakfast without fail since.  I always eat oatmeal, whether adorned with fruits and nuts or plain, and sometimes I eat yogurt.  We only have drinkable yogurt now, so I've been skipping yogurt.  There's no rationale, but there are rationalizations that I can't articulate, other than to say thata drinkable yogurt is a crime against nature.

I've also made forays into eating lunch.  That meal has proven to be a harder come-by.  At first, I ate smoked turkey sandwiches on wheat bread with a dab of mayonnaise.  I'd devour two sandwiches, so I'd quickly run out of turkey.  Partly out of kicks, I started making quiche once a week.  Quiche is the perfect lunch as far as I'm concerned, aside from its being a pain in the ass to make because I insist on homemade pie crust.  Most store-bought pie crusts taste like they're made out of IKEA furniture after being run through a wood chipper, so right now I'm hungry.

Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day, but dinner is still my favorite.  The difference is that I don't treat this meal with the licentiousness that I had been.  I don't follow a diet; instead, I eat meals that most people would probably consider reasonable.  We still eat delicious, satisfying food.  The difference is that I've cut out the deep-fried horse hooves floating in habanero salsa with a flag on top and Nashville chicken.  

I also practice reasonable denial, which is my way of saying that I allow myself to cheat a day or two a week.  During the past month, I've cheated five times:  two cheeseburgers, two orders of fries, two bags of Doritos, and several healthy handfuls of potato chips.  I don't feel so bad about the burgers and fries because I considered those choices carefully.  I ate the chips knowing fully well that it was a bad thing to do.  Afterward, it hit me that I could have eaten a bowl of cereal, so I ate that, too.

Since this is getting windy and I need to make dinner, I'll wrap this up by saying small changes in diet have had a profound effect on my quality of life.  I wanna rock 'n' roll, I want to run, I want to read, and I want to write.  Those are things that I'd put off because I either didn't have the energy or I was too doughy in the head.  I feel so good now that I want to feel better, so smoking's the next thing to go.  I wish I'd never started, but since I did, I need to deal with it.  Because I see the benefits small changes have made, I'm ready.  I'm scared, but I'm ready.  I'm gonna need all the luck I can get.




That's a picture from close to three years ago.  I'm neither proud nor ashamed to post it.  I had just kicked booze, and I was using four different hair products.  I was thirty pounds heavier then.  I thought I was damned to a life of corpulence, so I bought a bunch of bitchin' threads sized extra-large, including the Endless Boogie shirt you see me in.  Anyone know a good, cheap tailor?