The reassurance of the bland

 

Cool cherry cream, nice apple tart
I feel your taste all the time we’re apart
Coconut fudge really blows down those blues
But you’ll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle

–The Beatles/Savoy Truffle

 

 

Mashed potatoes

Top Ramen

White rice and butter

Pasta carbonara

Popcorn

Potato chips

 

There is something very comforting to me about things that are savory without being overly flavored. Don’t get me wrong–I am a big fan of spice in my food–but if I am eating because I’m depressed, there is a very good chance I will be eating something bland. And probably a lot of it.

I shouldn’t eat when I’m depressed, it will only make me fat and more depressed. Shut the fuck up. I know that. If you’ve ever seen me, you can tell I have issues with eating– I’m fat. The fact that I overeat  is apparent to anyone who cares to look in my direction. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the inherent comfort of bland. Although someday we should talk about how much it sucks to have such a visible flaw. People who beat their children or cheat on their taxes don’t have to have it stamped on their foreheads.  Just saying. (Sorry. Digression. Going back on track now)

When I’m depressed, I relish anything that doesn’t require thought or analysis which can be consumed in large quantities.

Not necessarily just food. It applies to all sorts of things. Reading. TV. Knitting.

The last thing you want to do when you’re depressed is think. So I’ll sit and mindlessly eat a 20 gallon bucket of popcorn while re-reading “Pride and Prejudice” and  “Betsy In Spite Of Herself” and watching “Real Housewives of New Jersey” marathons on Bravo channel.  This is probably the place where I’m supposed to tell you how I figured out why I do it, and how I stopped. Sorry. I wish.

  I managed to replace bland food with running for quite a while, but apparently my joints didn’t think they wanted me to run 10 hours a week. They made me stop. I do get the same sort of zoned out feeling though. So I had the right idea. Perhaps I’ll find something else that works too.

 

In case you’re wondering, writing doesn’t work because I can eat and type at the same time.

I’m also working on  a facile explanation of why I overeat the rest of the time, because let’s face it–I eat when I’m happy, when I’m tailgating, when I’m out with friends having a good time, when I’m celebrating or when I’m not even thinking about it. If I only overindulged on comfort food when I was depressed it wouldn’t be an issue. I’m not sad very often.

 

And I eat all the time.

 

I hate to say it, but it’s a balance thing.

An alcoholic has to stop drinking entirely.

I can’t go cold turkey on food. I have to eat it in some sort of balance.

Shrug.

Or be fat.

 

There are worse things to be. I’ve been quite a few of them, so I know.

 

Please pass the potatoes.

 

 

BTW, even Facebook knows I’m fat:

Damn you, Facebook

Who put intentions in my head?

I
Was once
Misinformed
About
Your intentions

–Soul Coughing/Misinformed

Who put it there?
Hmmm?

Whoever it was, please insert something else now. Nothing twangy and NO ABBA!

Thank you for your consideration.

Actually, I’m kind of getting used to it, but now I’m wondering whose intentions my subconscious thinks I was misinformed about.

Please do let me know immediately if you’ve been misleading me about your intentions. I’ll want to start worrying about it as soon as possible–
Kthxbai

For what it’s worth, I also have the phrase “I feel funny” stuck in my head today. Perhaps because I feel funny. I keep giving myself the standard reply, which is, of course, “you don’t look funny,” but the feeling persists.

My froat hurts. Whine.

Sleepy…so sleepy…

 

Good night means that I hope you will sleep well, and wake up safely in the morning, and that nothing bad will happen to you.

Well, such as…I can’t think what sort of bad things might happen to you.

Good night.

–MaddAddam: A Novel/Margaret Atwood

 

 

Bed, bed I couldn’t go to bed
My head’s too light to try to set it down
Sleep, sleep I couldn’t sleep tonight
Not for all the jewels in the crown.
–My Fair Lady/I Could Have Danced All Night

 

I don’t know what it is, but I am always particularly sleepy this time of year.

Maybe it’s the cooler temperatures, maybe it’s the darker mornings, but in the late Summer and early Fall, I sleep more hours and more soundly than I do in the brighter, warmer months. That means something, because sleeping is something I’m generally good at any time of the year. In the Fall, I tend to go to bed a little earlier, fall asleep a little sooner, and sleep until it just isn’t decent.

 

Don’t hate me because I’m well rested.

Because sometimes I’m not! In spite of getting more sleep this time of year, I often feel sleepier during the day. I think it’s because in addition to sleeping a little more, I also have more dreams and the dreams I have are more likely to wake me up. Often, they’re spectacularly violent and bloody. If I’m lucky, they’re sexual. Sometimes, disturbingly, they are both.

 

So what?

Yeah, so what.

I don’t know.

 

I tend to think that the dreams must mean something because they are so vivid. Some of them can just be enjoyed, of course. No, I don’t mean the violent ones. If the dreams “must” mean something, then I feel like I need to take heed. Which means I wake up and take either real or mental notes about what happened in the dream. Usually it also means that I’m awake for a while trying to shake it off, especially if it was violent or upsetting in some way.

In spite of that, I’ve never been very successful in extracting meaning from dreams. In one especially grim recurring nightmare, children were being sexually tortured and flayed at the airport while I watched, unable to save them or to escape myself. I’m not even sure why I couldn’t escape, since all I had done was walk into a room that was supposed to be some sort of gallery. The children were the exhibit. My watching was part of the torture. In one especially horrifying version of the dream, the torturer tried to make me skin a child. Or rather, tried to persuade me. There was never any overt violence toward me. Being led into being complicit with such a monster was guaranteed to wake me up screaming, paralyzed and adrenaline-poisoned and completely unable to get back to sleep. But I never really figured out what it was really about. What did I feel like I was participating in that I needed to get away from? I have no idea now, and didn’t then. Eventually the nightmare stopped.

 

And I could sleep again.

 

Because I always do eventually.

Maybe the dreams don’t matter.
Maybe they do.

I just don’t know.