I'll eat when I'm dead

196 pounds
Sadly, my father-in-law had to move to a nursing home over the summer, and that move has led to me spend a lot of time with the elderly lately.

It is possible that there is no place on the planet that upsets me more than the nursing home, and if there is, luckily I haven't been there yet. Because every time I visit, I end up in the bathroom, sobbing uncontrollably.

I wish this wasn't the case—I wish I had the ability to move my father-in-law into our house, the money to hire him round-the-clock care. Or the energy to stay up twenty-four hours a day taking care of him—feeding him, washing him, nursing him.

Even more, I wish he could still walk. Or speak. Or go to the bathroom by himself.

But these things are not meant to be.

One of the few things my father-in-law can still do is eat. No, he can't always feed himself, and he can't ever swallow normal-sized chunks of food. But he can get down small pieces of real food—not pureed food but real food—and that seems to be a bit of a blessing during this time of not being able to do so much.

This is true of almost everyone I've met in the home—Bootsie the lost, Anthony the screamer, Hammond the reminiscer, Raymon the talker—all of them can still eat. Even if they can't all feed themselves.

It's possible there are people there who are worse off—people who are fed through tubes—but they don't let me see those people, they don't roll them down to the dining room for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The people I do meet make that trek three times a day—nearly all of them in wheelchairs, but a few of them still tottering through the halls, as unsteady as newborn colts.

The food at the home is decent—I've had it once, and I'll have it again, probably at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's certainly nothing I would refuse to eat, and I'm glad my father-in-law has that consistency in his life.

But what disturbs me is that some of the residents don't want to eat. Not because they're not hungry or depressed, but because they're watching their weight.

Let me repeat that . . . they're watching their weight.

Yes, even in the nursing home, even at seventy and eighty and ninety, people worry about their waistlines.

In fact, it's something that Raymon (the talker) mentions all the time. He's lived in the home for a while—possibly more than a year now—and he's obsessed with the fact that he's gained a few pounds. Raymon sits in a wheelchair all day long—watching television, sleeping, or talking—so I imagine he's gained weight because of his lack of activity. But rather than address that change, Raymon is cutting back on his daily calories, doing his best to avoid dessert and leave food on his plate whenever he can.

Keep in mind that in the nursing home every single calorie is accounted for. When your food arrives, it comes with a small sheet of paper that lists everything on your tray and the corresponding numbers for each item in order to avoid accidentally increasing someone's blood pressure or insulin. And nobody gets seconds or more than they should. It is literally impossible to overeat at the nursing home. They just don't let you do it.

But Raymon is still obsessed with what he eats. He tells me about it every time I see him.

"I've got to start cutting back," he says, and I nod.

"I hear you, Raymon," I say because it seems cruel to disagree with a man who has almost nothing left besides his opinions.

Nevertheless, in my gut I feel horror—Raymon is almost eighty, and he's still worried about his weight? It makes me wonder if there will ever be a day when he will stop worrying about maintaining his figure.

I know other people like this. My mom and my mother-in-law are two examples. They've both been on and off diets their whole lives, and it's hard to imagine a time when they will ever give up trying to lose weight. I've encouraged them many times to accept themselves the way they are, but my comments are always met with skepticism and disbelief.

Accept myself the way I am? they seem to be saying. Why on earth would I do that?

So I let them count their calories, skip their desserts, and feel guilty when they snack. But I can't help but wonder—will they ever let it go? Will they ever let themselves eat what they want and stop caring about getting back that twenty-inch waist or fitting into that size six dress? Will they ever decide that it doesn't matter what they look like in their bathing suit? Will they ever look in the mirror and decide they like what they see?

"It's not like you get worse. You only get better."—Louis C.K.

198 pounds

I've been watching a new show on FX called Louie, which is based on the life of comedian Louis C.K. The reason this show kicks my butt every time I see it is because though it is incredibly funny, it is also so freaking smart. I don't expect that. I expect a good television show or movie to be one or the other, but not both. And this one is.

Not long after getting hooked on this show, a few of my friends recommended that I watch Louis C.K.'s comedy special, Chewed Up, which I finally did tonight.

If I liked Louis C.K. a hell of a lot before, I am completely in love him now. I mean, I really luuuuuuuuv him.

I love him because of the totally honest way he talks about eating during this special—especially the segment about eating Cinnabons—but also because he admits his real weight. (I love anyone who does that.)

But the main reason I love him is because of the stuff he says about middle-aged women.

Throughout the special, he repeatedly mentions that he and his wife don't have sex anymore. He talks about how having kids has changed their relationship, but there is also something melancholy underneath these jokes (which makes sense because they ended up getting divorced a year after the special was made).

But what's interesting is that he also says that even though they don't have sex anymore, he still wants to have sex with his wife because she is a real woman. Then he explains that, for him, there is a difference between women and girls and that he is no longer attracted to girls. Girls, from his point of view, don't have enough mileage on them. They haven't really lived, and it shows in their cute faces and their pristine bodies, which, believe it or not, make them less appealing to him.

But his wife was different. She was an actual woman. He explains that her eyes had grown darker over the years, her hair had a few grey streaks, her face had even sprouted some lines. And that's what he liked about her. He liked that she was so real. That she had really lived and wore the signs of her life and that made her more attractive. He actually said that she was sexy to him because of this. "Don't get me wrong," he said (or something like that). "It's not that she doesn't look her age. It's just that her age looks good on her."

I mean, really, come on.

How can I not love this guy?

How can I not love a guy who finds his forty-year-old wife sexy because she shows the signs of getting older? It's almost like he's not playing fair with me. Because I mean, after admitting this, I honestly have no choice but to love him.

*Louie airs Tuesday nights at 11:00 p.m. EST on FX.

Loving whatever size you have and aging gracefully

198 pounds

Since I wrote about women who don't have a lot up top in my last post, today I want to write about women who do have something upstairs.

I once heard Madonna say that when you're in your twenties, your breasts stand at attention, when you're in your thirties, they start to sag a little, and when in your forties, they are hanging pretty low.

In general I would agree with this assessment, but what I take issue with is the implication that this is a bad thing. Sure, when I was in my teens and twenties, the girls were pretty perky, standing proud every day, but they were also not quite big enough to offer me any real cleavage, which was for all practical purposes nonexistent. But now, twenty years later, I'm all about the cleavage.

Which raises the question, which is better—perky breasts or ones that give you good cleavage?

If you ask me, the answer is both. When they were perky, I loved that about my body, but now that I have cleavage, I love that too—possibly even more.

And maybe that's because we're not supposed to look—or be—the same as we age. I wouldn't give up my cleavage for anything right now—even my former perkiness—and when I see middle-aged woman who have breast implants that look like they could take someone's eye out, I think it looks not only fake but ridiculous.

During a recent trip to visit family, I had the pleasure of seeing Solitary Man, an independent film about a divorced couple played by Susan Sarandon and Michael Douglas. In one scene, Douglas' character visits Sarandon's and finds her in a low-cut top that perfectly shows off her cleavage. I have to say that Sarandon looked amazing. But more than anything, I loved that—at the age of sixty-three—she was still working it. And why shouldn't she?

Dave and I saw that movie with my mother, and I wondered then why Mom almost never shows off her assets, which are plentiful. I think it's because we're taught that after a certain age—possibly after childbearing age—women aren't supposed to be sexual creatures.

Well, I think that's a load of crap.

And I'm thrilled that Sarandon is bucking the trend.

The same week we saw that movie, I also spent a good deal of time with my two nieces, who are now becoming very curious about women's bodies. They talk about them constantly and are always launching questions in my direction that I find hard to answer. Maybe because they think they can get more out of their aunt than their parents? Perhaps, but I also know their mother is pretty up front with them about this stuff too.

No, I think that they are just trying to cull information from as many different sources as possible, so they can make up their own minds about this issue. One of the things they taught me is that some women have "sporty" breasts—read small—while others have big "pillows." (Cute, huh?)

But I noticed that they didn't make a connection between body size and breast size. They claim that when they grow up they want to be really skinny but have big pillows, a fact I digested with horror while also taking the opportunity to explain to them that there is usually a direct correlation between body size and breast size and that not very many women get to mix and match, per se.

They seemed to get it, and by the time Dave and I were heading home a week later, they knew how to answer the question, "Which size is best?"

"Whatever size you have," they said in unison, and I smiled with relief.