Over the past few months, I’ve had a swirl of thoughts about the Joe Paterno situation. I’ve started to jot them down now and again, but then something new comes up or other interests take precedence, and I never really complete my commentary.

And I want to preface this by saying that I have NOT been a lifelong Joe Paterno fan. My parents were Big Ten, Ohio State, all the way, fans (having attended THE Ohio State University), and despite having grown up in PA, I was not a Penn State fan. I really didn’t like them. And as I grew older, I developed a serious chip on my shoulder about how big-athletic program schools give their athletes everything…scholarships, money for room and board, tutors to “help” them pass their classes, all the stupid shit and perks that athletes get for playing a stupid game and never having to work at classes, while the average Joe Student has to work three jobs and graduate under a mound of student loan debt, just to go to a relatively cheap state school that no one has ever heard of. (Penn State is NOT a state school — it is affiliated with the state system of higher education in PA but it is NOT a state school and is therefore more expensive than the 14 state schools in PA.)

I didn’t become a Joe Paterno fan until I learned about how he makes sure his players go to class, and how he makes sure his players graduate with an education, just in case that whole football thing doesn’t work out. In an industry that seems to promote a strong sense of entitlement “just for being you!”, Paterno did things differently. He made sure his kids earned their accolades, and earned them for legitimate achievement. He cared about the future of his players, not just about the years they played for him.

This weekend the famous, and now infamous, and yes, Legendary Joe Paterno has died. And while many have shown their respect and reverence for the man, many still insist that the rest of his life’s work was negated by one single decision about the alleged actions of another man. Yes, I use the word alleged, even though there seems to be no question that Jerry Sandusky did molest young children, and worse yet, created a charity ostensibly to help those same kids but more likely to lure them in as victims.

But let’s go back to Joe. All I want to do here is provide some possible perspective — I don’t know more than any other sports fan about what actually happened. I’m just trying to figure out how it’s possible, given the person Joe Paterno is believed to have been, that he didn’t do more about what Sandusky was doing. How is it possible that he made the decision he did — to not be pro-active or to pursue more information.

Two friends of mine have made comments similar to the following:

“I know that you knew you made a horrible mistake, looking the other way and ignoring the blatant signs that your friend and colleague was a pedophile.”

“His inaction in the Sandusky scandal overrode any good he did. Common Sense would indicate to follow through if you heard a child was being sexually abused.”

I want to be clear, I’m not trying particularly to defend Joe Paterno. But those statement are just RIFE with the kinds of assumptions and generalizations about the situation that make me want to have this conversation with the rest of you.

Let’s start with who Joe Paterno was. Joe Paterno was “old school.” There are absolutes in life that hold true to who YOU are and they are the kinds of absolutes to which you hold your friends and collegues. I generally believe that the following are included on the “Joe Paterno List of How to Conduct Your Life”:

1. You go to college, you study, and you get a degree.
2. You go to work every day and you work hard.
3. When you play a game, you play to win, but you play it fair.
4. You don’t EVER hit a woman.
5. You DON’T have sex with children.

Okay so I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that these are some of the standards by which Joe Paterno lived his life. I also don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that Joe held the people around him to the same standards.

Sandusky had been a graduate assistant in the football program in 1966, and then returned to Penn State as an assistant coach in 1969. He coached in increasingly higher levels until he retired in 1999. That’s 30 years.

So first, I want you to think about someone you’ve known and worked with and trusted for 30 or more years. I can’t because except for elementary school friends, there’s no one I’ve known for 30 years, and certainly no one I’ve been close to, outside of family, for 30 years. But I can go back 20 years for a few close friends. 15 years to people I know and would implicitly trust. Bet you can too.

So think about that person.

Now…think about someone you don’t know as well and with whom you have not worked for very long, coming to you and telling you that this person you’ve known and worked with and trusted and had dinners with and shared successes with…you’re being told that “I saw him horsing around with a kid in the shower…I’m not sure what they were doing, and it might have been sexual. I just don’t think it was right.”

Stop! I know what you’re thinking…and just hold on for a second.

A New York Times article from November 2011 on the Sandusky scandal, stated the following — as was indicated by the grand-jury report. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/sports/ncaafootball/internet-posting-helped-sandusky-investigators.htm)

Paterno, by his own account to the grand jury, met with Tim Curley, the university’s athletic director the next day and told him of McQueary’s account, saying the assistant had seen Sandusky “fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy.”

McQueary, who by then had been elevated from graduate assistant to an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator, laid out for investigators what happened next. It took a week and half, a time lapse that investigators find deeply troubling, for Curley and Schultz to call him to a meeting. McQueary told investigators, and later the grand jury, that he had explained to the two men in graphic detail what he had witnessed.

Curley and Schultz gave different accounts to the grand jury of what transpired in that meeting. Curley said McQueary saw “inappropriate conduct” that he termed “horsing around” between Sandusky and the child, and Schultz said he had “the impression that Sandusky might have inappropriately grabbed the young boy’s genitals while wrestling.”

McQuery says that he “explained in graphic detail what he had witnessed.”  That statement, and that statement alone, is the thing I find suspect about all of this.

McQuery witnessed the event in 2002. If Joe Paterno died at age 85 in 2011, in 2002, he would have been 76.

I will grant you that Joe Paterno was probably not your typical septuagenerian. But I would be willing to bet all the money in my wallet right now that the 28-year-old McQuery, when talking to this “God of a Man” within Penn State, never once used the words “rape” or “anal sex” or “sodomy” or “molest” or even “pedophile” when he told Joe Paterno what he saw or what he thought he saw. Which means that once that information got passed on through Paterno to the head honchos at Penn State, it probably got filtered even more.  To the point at which no one even bothered to discuss any of it with the school’s counsel.

So when my friends use the terms “blatant signs” and “heard about a child being sexually abused” to describe what Joe Paterno MUST have known, I bristle a little because I honestly don’t think he saw it that way. I honestly don’t think he was given anywhere near enough information to change what he thought he knew about Sandusky. A man he had known and worked with and trusted for OVER 30 YEARS.

I have a little perspective on this that I’m going to share with you now. It’s not a direct correlation but it does give me some understanding as to what happens when you report sexual conduct of other people in the workplace based on heresay.

At one of my jobs, I was the lead tech writer and we had gotten a new writer recently, as well as a new manager. This new girl wasn’t young but she was really cute and while not stupid by any stretch, didn’t seem to be terribly familiar with the politics of office workspaces and the best way to get by and be able to succeed at your job.

Anyway, one day she came to me and wanted to talk, outside, privately. She told me a story that indicated that our new boss had effectively told her that as long as she wore tight, low cut outfits, that she would be able to succeed at her job and maybe even get promoted. It might have even been more blatent and lurid than that, but it was a while ago and frankly I can’t remember for sure. But I know the incident, as told to me, was clearly overt sexual harassment — promising success at your job because of sexual favors, even if not specifically sex.

Well she told me this, and she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to report it because she didn’t want to get fired. But she didn’t want to spend every day at work avoiding a guy who was going to be trying to look down her shirt or up her dress every day.

So I took it upon myself to report it. First to someone I trusted who was in a managerial position — I needed advice as to how to proceed. At this point the whole thing is just heresay — “this is what she told me” — and I wasn’t sure who would want or need to know, and what they’d even be able to do about it.

Well, long story short, I had to re-tell the story she told me several times over – to managers and HR people and blah blah blah. And each time I told it, it sounded more and more ridiculous. I don’t know if this guy actually said or did these things or not. I hadn’t worked with him for that long and really didn’t know what kind of guy he was. He certainly never said these things to me. Other people were interviewed about the incident, people who may have had similar experiences or known peripherally what was going on. But they really didn’t want to be a part of it either. I reported it because I thought this girl was telling the truth and really was concerned for her job. But in retrospect, maybe I was wrong in that assessment. And whose job was really on the line? Did I ruin his life because I passed on her story? Was she telling me the truth or what she just being a bitch? Or is he the sleazeball? I have no idea. And again – didn’t know either of them well enough to say I trusted what either of their stories was.

So take that scenario and make it bigger…with a lot more implications and investigative involvement. Heresay that may or may not have been terribly clear or terribly well relayed, talking about not only ruining lifelong careers but personal lives as well. We all know how once the media reports something it MUST be true, regardless of what actually plays out in the courts (see John DeLorean for a prime example). So when you’re talking about a friend and co-worker of three decades, and you’re talking about molesting kids, (the same guy you’ve watched raise money and found an organization to HELP young kids), you’re going to be kinda particular about what you say and how you say it and what happens after that. Especially if the information YOU’VE been given is second hand. I know how hard it is to tell someone, “well this person told me that they…”

As an obvious aside, it seems to me that McQuery knew enough to go to the police, especially if his latest statements are true. His were the first-hand accounts. Which is what makes me highly suspect of his saying that he told anyone about what he saw “in graphic detail.” But that’s not the topic here.

In hindsight, it appears that Jerry Sandusky is a very very VERY bad man. And hindsight being what it is, yes, Paterno, Curley, Schultz, and Spanier all should have done more than they did. Yes, the attorney general’s office should probably have done more than it did and a damned site sooner than it did. This guy had been under investigation with allegations brought against him as early as the mid-90′s. But any prosecutor will tell you that prosecuting sexual crimes is VERY difficult, especially when the predator is as good at what he does as Sandusky clearly is. He picked his victims very carefully and primed them very carefully and there’s a reason he was able to get away with it for so long without anyone doing anything about it.

My son asked me the other day why Joe Paterno got fired. I thought about it and I tried to explain a little of what happened — that Joe was told what someone saw and while he reported the incident to his bosses, he maybe should have gone to the police or followed up on the report. My son asked me, “Well, he didn’t do anything wrong. And didn’t he do what he was supposed to do? Why did they fire him for that?”

And I thought for a second and said, “He got fired because he was in charge. It happened while he was the head coach and when things like that happen, you gotta blame someone. When bad things happen while you’re the boss, sometimes the boss has got to go.”

And that’s pretty much the crux of it — Joe was the Head Honcho and it was one of his coaches (retired or otherwise) who was busy using Joe’s facilities to do bad things. I strongly doubt whether Joe really knew what was going on — there’s a whole set of layers of coaches and staff between the Head Coach and the day to day happenings at athletic facilities. God knows, I worked at Army Athletics at West Point, and while I would have regular contact with a lot of the “lesser” sports and coaching figures, I didn’t meet the head football coach once. Assistants, yes. Lackeys, yes. But even at a lower-echelon school like Army, the head football coach is more a figure than a real person. Yes there are lots and lots of stories about how personable Joe was and how he certainly never saw himself as larger than life, and certainly never acted that way. But that doesn’t change the reality of the caste system that exists in top-level college football programs.

So thinking about it with the perspective of a 30-year relationship with the accused, the possibility that McQuery’s eyewitness account to Paterno or anyone else in PSU leadership positions wasn’t exactly graphic or detailed, makes me think that the hindsight in this situation is way way clearer than any understanding of it at the time of any of the incidents in question. I just don’t think it’s possible for Joe Paterno to have actively covered up anything, or to have known that he should have done more. It’s easy to think of ourselves as objective from out here. But what if someone came to me and told me that YOU had done these things. Should I believe them?

I think everyone believes that Joe was wracked with guilt over his inaction once he realized how serious the allegations against Sandusky were. Once he realized for certain the kind of man he’d harbored in his fold, and how he’d facilitated those horrifying acts, albeit unintentionally, I think Joe must have actively wondered whether the good he’d done in his life was enough to make up for it.

That’s certainly not MY call to make. But I think, on the whole, it was. It doesn’t excuse it. There are no excuses in life. But it does tip the overall scales in his favor and does not, in any way, undo his positive effect on the generation of people who crossed his path.

I’m sure as my 10-year-old gets older, it will get less funny. Or maybe not. Maybe he’ll have the same lack of coordination he’s genetically pre-disposed to.

I mean, you sign your 5 or 6 year old up for T-Ball and you take him out for practice and games with these hopes that maybe you’ve got yourself the next young baseball star. And you sit on the metal stands and watch…

And after about 10 minutes you realize you’re really just watching monkeys at the zoo. The kids on the infield are all squatted down playing with the rocks and the dirt, occasionally throwing it at each other. The kids in the outfield are playing airplane or just spinning themselves around until they get dizzy and fall down.

It’s hysterical. You sorta wonder if Barry Larkin or Brian Roberts ever did that. I can totally see Brian Roberts playing in the infield dirt.

And then you encounter the obnoxious parents and over-competitive coaches and all the fun of monkeys at the zoo sort of falls away. Well, it runs away really.

So I’ve recently signed my son up for basketball and he likes playing it but this is the first organized team circumstance he’s played in. And he’s not the only one on the team that is new to the coached, organized version of the sport.

I got to watch some of the game tonight and the team did pretty well. But the one thing I noticed was the difficulty some of them seemed to have with rebounds and with deflecting and intercepting easy passes, or snatching the ball away from either smaller kids or those with poor ball handling.

I find this funny, again, because I spent the formative years of my son’s life teaching him to play nicely with other kids, and not be selfish with the toys or equipment, and to not be a jerk and take toys away from other kids, even if they did it to you. Especially kids who were smaller than you.

Now I have to teach him to do all those things I taught him not to do. Grab the ball away from someone else getting it; bump them out of the way to get the ball; be aggressive and use those bony elbows for something useful. Within reason of course.

Tonight’s game made me think about this because they team they were playing had some players that were obviously more well versed in “having the right to the ball”. The kids on my son’s team would sort of go for the ball but when there was another player who actually went after it, they would back off. Pretty much like their parents probably taught them to do, in order to “play nice.”

So now we have to teach him differently – to go against what is his instinct in order to be successful.

I mean it’s kind of nice to see that his instinct is what I’ve tried to teach him to do. But I gotta wonder how hard it’s going to be for him to “un-learn” that behavior and then also to ONLY unlearn it for basketball.

The best I can do, I guess is to hope that I’ve done my job in bringing up my son right, so that now he can learn how to be aggressive and go for the ball, without being a jerk and without breaking the rules. And then leave all that on the court and not have it bleed over into other types of play. Hopefully I’ve laid a proper foundation for him to be able to maintain that balance.

In the meantime, let’s see if we can make some use of those bony elbows and stork-like legs and turn him into a passable basketball player.

That being said, I now find myself rooting FOR Mr. Tebow, despite the fact that I have no real preference for the Denver Broncos. And I find myself kinda confused by this.

I suspect a lot of it comes from my general support of underdogs. I like it when people or teams succeed even though all the talking heads who presumably “know” things are saying that they won’t or worse yet, “can’t”. I rather like it when determination and hard work are able to overcome shortcomings in natural talent or ability. I like it even more when the underdogs credit those other than themselves, or the team effort as the key to their success.

And that pretty much sums up Tim Tebow.

His performance in last night’s playoff game against the Steelers was…not amazing…but very good. And different – certainly different than what I’d seen in the previous few games. It looked a lot to me like they just let him loose. Like they said to him, “Okay kid. You’ve been at this most of the season and you don’t seem to like the limitations we’ve put on you for calling and executing plays. Tell you what – you go out and you call the game YOU want to play. I don’t think we have anything to lose. We either win or we don’t and if you think you can get us the win, have at it.”  I saw him make passes — deep passes – that I hadn’t seen him make very often until yesterday. They weren’t all brilliant. Some of them were really pretty mediocre. But some of the back-shoulder throws to the deep receivers were right were they needed to be. In stride. Out of the reach of the defenders. They were the passes that everyone said he couldn’t make.

So as of yesterday evening, he’d earned the right to look straight into the camera and say, or at least imply, “I told you so.” But he didn’t. He credits the people around him, and yes, God, for his success. I even like to think that he’s a little uncomfortable as being the “face” of the Broncos success this year, despite his leadership position at quarterback. He knows it’s not all him and says as much.  And he doesn’t thank God for winning the game. He thanks God for giving him the ability to play well and give his team the opportunity to win.

And there’s the thing about him that seems to rub people the wrong way. The “God” thing. The way he wears it on his sleeve and makes sure everyone knows how he feels about God and Christ and his religious beliefs.  You can be sure that lots of people along the way have told him to maybe tone that down a little. That it’s going to create enemies, and limit his marketability. Teammates, maybe coaches, likely his agent and other PR-savvy folks.

But he doesn’t. He states what he believes and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about it. You have to respect that.

But this “God” business makes people dislike him, and I understand why. I’m sure that if I spent any time with Tim, I’d eventually get rather annoyed with his proselytizing to me about how important it is to accept Jesus Christ as my lord and saviour and blah blah blah.  But I don’t have to spend time with him and I don’t have to listen to him preach to me. I just have to watch him play football and prove the nay-sayers wrong.

Do I believe he’s going to be a great quarterback? No.

Do I believe he’s going to be the BEST quarterback that HE can possibly be? Absolutely. And I think that’s an important reason why I like him.

In this era of Maurice Claretts and JaMarcus Russells, it’s damned refreshing to see a highly-touted college player get to the pros and actually WORK at being the best he can be. In a game full of players with million-dollar talent and five-cent heads, it’s nice to see someone who understands how much work is involved to excel at the sport. He doesn’t take any of it for granted and he knows that playing professional football for a living is a privilege, not a right. And he didn’t have to go to prison to realize it! <koff koff Michael Vick koff koff Plaxico Burress koff koff>

Tim Tebow is smart enough to know he’s not the best, and smart enough to know that he needs to listen to people who know more than he does. He understands that he has shortcomings, and that he has to work hard to overcome them. He knows that despite the ridiculous paychecks, this is a job and you have a responsibility to work at your job and that success is never a given. Success should never be assumed. Success is a result.

And that’s what we WANT out of our sports heroes I think.

I grew up an Orioles fan in the era of Cal Ripken. And the thing that made Cal Ripken great, to me, was that despite being a fantastic player, he still worked really really hard at his position. He had natural talent and natural ability and probably enough of that to succeed without having to work too hard at it. But he DID work at it, and that’s what made him the best. Good Enough never was. There was always Better.

And the greatness of Cal Ripken, as stated by George Will, is NOT 2161 or 2632. The greatness of Cal Ripken is 3. In 1990, he committed only 3 errors in 162 games at shortstop, one of the most error-prone positions on the field. That comes from hard work, studying scouting reports, positioning yourself properly on the field, and executing your job the way you are supposed to.

And then there was the streak – made possible, in part, by Ripken’s belief that you show up for work. Period. And yeah – maybe a little Divine Intervention helped ol’ Cal out too. Consider that there were times in his career where he did get injured, but a rainout managed to give him an extra day or two to heal up so he could continue the consecutive game streak. There were injuries that happened to fall just before the All Star break, so he could rest up before the second half of the season began.

But I don’t think God, if there is one, gives a damn about baseball, or football, or the Denver Broncos or even <gasp> Tim Tebow. I think if there is a God that he/she has bigger things to worry about than whether or not some sports figure does well or gets to show the masses how the Great Being helps them along. Google “Darfur” and see if God has better things to do.

But faith and prayer permeates football — lots of players kneel down to pray after that touchdown catch, and nearly all locker rooms have a moment of prayer before heading out to “the battlefield.” So just because Tebow wears it on the outside  more than most doesn’t make his beliefs uncommon within the realm.

I mean you like who you like and you dislike who you want, and as a sports fan, you don’t even need a good reason for it. Christ, I’m a Jets fan and when people ask me why, the best answer I can give them is “Because they’re the red-headed stepchild of NY sports”, and “Vinnie Testaverde”. It probably really goes all the way back to Joe Namath for me, but I don’t know. I don’t understand either, and I don’t have to. I just like who I like.

So yeah — I like Tim Tebow. And I’ll root for Tim Tebow. I’m anxious to see what comes of him over the next few years. I’ll be curious to see just HOW good he can get, with the proper coaching and all the hard work I know he’ll put into it, and with some more professional experience under his belt. And I’ll be curious to see whether he is successful and if so, whether his success ever stops sports analysts from telling me why he shouldn’t be successful.

That was my day today — and I was consciously aware of it, which made it kind of weird.

I had some things to do and errands to run, which is not unusual. But normally, I think through the things I have to do and arrange them in the most efficient order, and plan my route to the different stores or whatever, in order to get done what I gotta get done as quickly as possible.

Today though, I had a few things I needed to take care of but I didn’t really plan them. And I found myself driving routes that I wouldn’t normally have taken, and doing things in an order that didn’t really make a lot of sense. Like I’d start going in one direction toward one place but then change my mind and go somewhere else, for no real reason.

At first, when I discovered I was doing this, I sort of attempted to consciously structure what I was doing a little better, but then I thought, eh, maybe I think about stuff too much and decided to just surf it.

I got what I needed to get and did what I needed to do, but it sorta got me thinking about why these days come along. Maybe it was better, for some reason, to use my gut instincts instead of letting my brain get in the way.

But why? I dunno – maybe I avoided an accident or something because my timing was “off”. Maybe I crossed paths with someone completely unknown to me, and it made a difference in their day.

I remember one time my brother was driving us somewhere – I don’t remember where – but I remember that we were delayed leaving the house briefly – like mom had asked us something on the way out the door or one of us had to run back in and get something. It wasn’t more than 30 seconds but it was a delay. Then on the way to where we were going, some distance in front of us, a car pulled out into the road we were traveling, very clearly running the stop sign (and speedily might I add) and I think nearly hitting another car. And I remember my brother commenting that if we hadn’t been held up, that dude would have rammed right into us. He didn’t even say that much. All he said was “That could have been us.” And I knew exactly what he was talking about. It was just one of those moments that you just KNEW you had avoided disaster by just the dumbest of luck. Or timing. Or fate. Or whatever.

So I just started kind of wondering what I either did or didn’t experience today that might have been different. I think this happens pretty often, and we usually don’t get to be lucky enough to know about it. I will say, though, that just in case it was “meant to be”, I did buy a lottery ticket.  I mean, I don’t think the universe gives that much of a damn about me and it certainly has no reason to extend me any great favors — I’m not in need or anything. But, ya can’t win if you don’t play. And what the hell.

Anyway it was just sorta weird, and again like I said, was made even more weird by the fact that I was aware of it. And at some points during the day I would start to direct myself into my standard operating procedure, but would catch myself and try to return to that sort of lower-level consciousness where I would just “go” instead of trying to target a goal.

It was cool though just not thinking too hard — I need to do a lot more of that in my life. I gotta learn to just trust my instincts and learn to roll with the world as it flows to me and around me rather than trying to always shape it into however I think it should be. That second thing? That’s freakin exhausting. I really need to stop. It makes me tired and uptight.

That’s really hard though. I guess I gotta practice or something.

——————————————–

I was sitting…well laying really, on the futon in the little one’s room this evening, listening to my husband bathe the baby, my hands behind my head and my feet up on the arm of the thing, and I got to feeling just a little self-important. Not really sure what came over me, but I can describe as a wave of unadulterated self-worth.

Now I know that this isn’t really something to crow about, except that it doesn’t happen to me all that often. But I was just sort of thinking how cool it is that I am good enough at what I do to be an independent contractor and be able to make good money with a few clients. That WHAT I do is something I can do from home so I don’t have to go into the office except now and again for a meeting or something. And some of the work I do is for the National Cancer Institute, so I feel like sometimes it might actually mean something in the grand scheme of the universe.

So I get to do my job and I get to also take the time to run my home properly…laundry, paying the bills, getting the kids fed and homework done, making sure schedules work out so they can be off to wherever it is they need to go. All of that. And it’s like I’ve maybe made some good decisions along the way that have led me to where I am. Accidental ones to be sure in many cases, but I guess they’ve been good.

Now see this is where I tend to get in trouble with this whole trying to lose weight business. Because I use this success at most other facets of my life to excuse and justify the desire to stuff my face with whatever I want.

But that’s the thing…what happens if…and this is a big if…what happens if I manage to lose some weight and actually go back to being <gasp> moderately hot?

Is it possible to be successful, happy with a good life, AND be good looking?

No way. Something’s gotta give, I’d think. If that actually came to pass, I would be forced to hate myself – because I’d be the person I’d want to hate because they had it all. Either that or I’d be constantly looking for some piece of space junk to come down on my head.

And anyway, it’s kinda moot because now I’m old, so the whole “hot” ship has sailed I’m afraid. But maybe I can be “hot for an old broad”. I’d be okay with that. Maybe someone would put that on my headstone, or urn, or whatever. “She was hot…for an old broad.”

Yeah – that would be okay with me.

See now, there’s a goal I can get on board with.

Having to diet sucks.

Know why?

Because the REASON I’m dieting is so that I can go back to eating.

How stupid is that?

Let’s face it though, that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? Once you get past puberty and all that hormonal growing up messiness, if you’re not weirdly obsessive about food in a negative way, you’re probably not going to be. Which means you spend the rest of your life trying to find that happy balance between eating (and enjoying eating) and not getting fat.

Or, for many of us, enjoying eating, getting fat, getting unfat while not being able to enjoy eating, so we can eat again.

“No no, what you have to do is change your life.”

Uh…yeah…okay. That seems reasonable. <insert eye roll here>

No, I get it. I do. You have to change things about your life that make you unhealthy, especially as you get older. Exercise more – even if it’s just a little more, but do it regularly. Try to pick things to eat that are better for you – Paleo, high fiber, low fat, no carb, whatever you decide qualifies as “good for you.” But honestly, if I really wanted to that, I wouldn’t be having to do this in the first place.

Yeah yeah – I know. Just whining because this is day one of trying to lose some weight and I’m 150-200 calories over my recommended daily limit for trying to lose about a pound or so a week. Though what that tells me is just how much over my recommended daily caloric intake I usually am.

So I guess that’s something.

It’s hard to not get completely disheartened over the whole mess. According to this little app I downloaded, at 1.5 lbs a week, it will take me until early May to lose the 25 lbs I want to get rid of (ideally).

WTF?? May??!? Are you kidding?? That’s like forever from now!

See now anyone who knows anything about this knows that’s actually an ambitious plan. And that’s why the diet plans on TV and all that shit doesn’t even attempt to sell you anything like reality. They’ll show you the chick who lost 86 lbs on NutriSystem and YOU can do it TOO! But they don’t tell you that it took her about 2 years or so and several stops and starts, and lets not forget the regular trips to the gym for treadmill or spin class or Zumba (whatever the hell that is).

And for the record, I’m not knocking NutriSystem. I’ve tried it and it’s actually a pretty good program and if I didn’t have two kids, including a very young one, to feed as well as my husband, I would consider going on it again. The good thing about NutriSystem is that it gives you what to eat and you can arrange it pretty much any way you like. If you follow their system religiously, it does work. But for a lot of us, that sort of regimen doesn’t really work. In that case, though, you have snacks at hand, you have ready-made meals to take to work and eat for lunch or dinner and you don’t have to think too hard about it. And the food tastes good. And this was a few years ago and I know they’ve made a lot of improvements to their stuff. So for any of you considering it, give it a try. It’s not cheap but it is easy.

It’s just that losing weight that took a couple of years to put on is gonna take some time to get off. So between now and whenever I begin to see results, it’s really hard to wonder what the fuck the point is and really easy to just say “screw it – so I’m fat.”

It could be worse – I could be a lot heavier. I’ve managed to maintain within a 10-15 lb range for about 10 years, so I know I can get it down at least a little with relative ease. And I’ve learned that exercise actually feels good after the first 15 minutes or so (gotta love endorphins). I live in a hilly neighborhood that is really nice to walk – briskly – when weather permits. And I OWN the Dance Dance Revolution for the Wii, though it is still wrapped in the plastic. From last Christmas. But I’m a music lover and find that music really helps me push on through exercise. It seems like less work that way.

So I could definitely have it worse.

But man – just seeing that pound cake sitting on the counter, just…well…kinda sucks.

Why am I putting these here? I dunno — maybe so I can feel responsible to someone other than myself, who has proven herself to be something less than reliable when it comes to holding me to some sort of standard. (Did that sentence make any sense to anyone but me?)

This is about what I think I want. Which is untrue — these are things I really do want, but the question becomes how hard am I willing to work at them. Which ultimately translates into how much do I really want them? We’ll see I guess.

To break it down, here is the list of things I guess one can call my New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Lose 20-25 lbs. Or, be able to wear a pair of the jeans currently in my closet, or one of the bras in my dresser drawer all day and still be comfortable.
2. Get up every [work] day at 6:30, shower, and put in at least 6 quality, focused hours of work a day. I am an independent contractor and my contracts are only part-time, so this makes more sense to me than it probably does to you.
3. Blog every day. Write at least something.

Now, these really don’t seem all that complicated, and they’re not. As I posted on Facebook earlier, it’s not that hard. It’s just about making better choices. Consistently making better choices.

But that’s kinda nebulous, aint’ it? So I’m trying to come up with a “plan” to achieve these things. If I’m smart about it, I can make them all sort of work together so that I can succeed at all three.

#2 sorta stands by itself, but that’s more a matter of getting my ass out of bed before the kids get up. And then NOT getting on Facebook, and NOT deciding that I should just go to the grocery store in the morning after dropping the kid off at daycare, along with the myriad other things that distract me throughout the day. I get my jobs done, so it’s not a matter of not completing work. But I’m sure the quality of my work has suffered, as I compress all the shit I have to do into short little intense periods of work. Plus, I’m paid by the hour, so it behooves me to NOT do that. I just need to balance my client work, either daily (x hours per day for each client) or weekly (x days for one, x days for the other, depending on current workload). It’s not really that easy, but it probably could be if I worked at it a little.

#1 is going to be the tricky one. I have a moderate addiction to food, in as much as it tickles that little part of my brain that makes me feel good and makes me feel like I’ve done something good. And as alluded to in an earlier post, I can justify the evening snackage with all kinds of bullshit about how I do all these things and should be able to treat myself blah blah blah. Yeah, sure, it’s a perfectly good argument, but it ain’t gonna make my jeans fit better.

The way I want to start is to just start making better choices.  Choose NOT to eat in the evening. Choose to EAT DINNER so I’m not hungry at 8pm. Choose to blog at 8pm instead of stuffing cookies or whatever else into my piehole, even if all I end up posting is a whiny assed rant about how hungry I am or how much I would rather be eating some slices of sourdough along with some cheese. See how that works? If I’m good, I can tackle both #1 and #3 at the same time!

I suspect that will work sometimes. But not all the time.

The REAL problem is that my best time of the day is the morning, after coffee but before say 1pm. I do my best thinking and best writing during that time. And nearly every day, I come up with something I want to blog about in the morning.  But I feel obligated to give my employers that part of my day, so that I can successfully compress all the work I need to do into that little short focused burst of work that gets the job done. You know, the one I mentioned before.

Usually about 9 or 10am I have something really clever or interesting or bothersome that I want to write about. But I don’t write then because I feel obligated to be working. (Yeah but it’s okay to Facebook for an hour from 9 to 10? This excuse doesn’t really fly cupcake…honestly, you can do better cantcha?) And then by the time the end of the day comes, I’m wiped out and don’t feel like writing and/or I have forgotten whatever it is I was gonna say.

Christ I had about six different entries about Joe Paterno and Penn State and they’re all gone now.

And this all sort of comes down to my belief that you should do the things you NEED to do instead of the things you WANT to do. Which is all fine and good but I’m beginning to wonder if I need to re-think that philosophy some. That’s another post. Hey! Maybe tomorrow!

So now I have to figure out if I want to write when I feel the “spirit move me” as it were, and then be disciplined enough to work more in the evening if necessary, or save it for later and try to recall it, or what.  I’m still working that one out.

Ideally, I should write up a quick draft with the basic points, in the morning if it strikes me, then edit and finish it up in the evenings when I’m not stuffing my face. That sounds like a plan. Think it’ll work?

I dunno – I think I’m gonna have to take a ‘work in progress’ sort of stance on this one.

The food thing – the weight thing – well I have a plan for that one. Minimally, as I said, stop eating after dinner. There’s no point in it. Which also means I’ll have to get used to feeling hungry, but being sure to eat proper meals during the day so that I’m not ACTUALLY hungry. I also need to find better snack items for those nights when I really really just need something. Maybe a small bowl of cereal or some fruit rather than the standard go-to items.

I need to plan dinners for the week too. That will help me make sure the kids get fed and allow me to eat my other meals of the day around the planned dinners. It will also reduce the amount of stress I feel about trying to figure out what to feed the kids and the husband.

And then at some point I’ll tack on some regular exercise, which will make me feel hungry a lot more, but hopefully I can practice my “good choices” then too.

Those things combined with paying a lot more attention to the stuff that I do eat should get me on my way. I find it difficult and disheartening to try to count calories and follow plans. Mostly because I just end up trying to hide the food from myself and just not admitting that I’m eating it. It’s ridiculous, I know. But it’s how it feels to me.

Well this is has been a little disjointed, and I’m sorry for that. Since I plan to force myself into writing every day, this may be more of what you get for a while than my usually thought-out diatribes. Who knows.

I have two more episodes to write, so I’m posting Episode 1 to try to pressure myself into actually getting them written. They’re good stories.

I read LZ Granderson’s blog page: My first Thanksgiving with white people, and it made me think about some things.

The point he was trying to make was that while he felt like he was a smart and learned guy, there was a lot about the world he didn’t know and had yet to figure out.

The point I picked up from the post was where he talks about how different family members made the different foods for Thanksgiving and they poured a lot of time and effort and love into the food. His line, “That’s what soul food is about. My family didn’t have a whole lot to give, but what we had plenty of was love and we poured that love, our soul into the food.”

Every year I wonder why I put myself through the effort and tedium and actual physical pain of hosting Thanksgiving. I mean, aside from the fact that my house is actually large enough to keep the whole family for a few days and my kitchen is most conducive to cooking a large meal. I’m very happy about that and happy to oblige on that point.

But JEEZ…why do I really want to do this year after year after year? It wrecks my back, and there are always too many people in the kitchen to move efficiently, or not enough people helping out so that I feel like I’m doing everything, and inevitably there are arguments about the potatoes or the gravy or the whatever. And whether the kids will actually EAT any of the food being slaved over is really a crapshoot. Shit. Why not just make a huge pot of spaghetti and be done with it?

Because Thanksgiving is an important and distinct memory for me — our Thanksgivings weren’t always traditional, and they CERTAINLY wouldn’t qualify as formal affairs, though they  were definitely (along with Christmas Dinner) the most formal meals my family ever had. But they were what they were and I smile at the memories. I smile at the recollections of my brother trying to throw wadded up napkins into a drink glass at the other end of the table. I smile at the thoughts of the times that someone said or did something ridiculous and I would laugh so hard I couldn’t breathe.  And I smile at the idea of being able to eat some of my favorite foods, that are made only at Thanksgiving.

I know my son isn’t a big fan of the family recipe stuffing, or of much else that’s served. But he’s 10. That may change. He may decide in a few years that Mom’s turkey stuffing (which is actually MY father’s stuffing recipe) is really the best stuffing he’s ever had, and he too will look forward to it on Thanksgiving. Maybe some day he’ll see it like I see it: not having it would be a personal travesty.

My mom makes cranberry relish, and I will get that recipe from her some day. And I will get to make the relish one day and it won’t be as good as hers…at first anyway. But I’ll figure it out and make it my own. Just like I have with Dad’s stuffing recipe. I’m pretty damned good at it now, I think. For me, those two things are really the keystone of Thanksgiving — they are things that I would never get having Thanksgiving with anyone else’s family, as the recipes are distinctly ours. They are to me as Granderson’s family’s greens or the paprika on the potato salad. Everyone has Turkey. No one else has my dad’s stuffing.

Sometimes there are suggestions to do things a little differently, like smoking the turkey or deep frying the turkey, or having ham instead of turkey. And we try these things out now and again. But we always come back to the way my family has always done it.

And every year, the house fills with those smells that you only get once a year. The smell of the roasting turkey, mixed with the smell of the seasonings and apples in the stuffing. The smell of the sweet potatoes. The smell of the giblets happily boiling away in a pot for gravy. And those smells, like many smells, trigger all kinds of happy memories. It’s the smell of Thanksgiving at MY house. Regardless of which house that is or how old I am.

So I start about an hour before the turkey has to go into the oven. I chop celery. I chop apples, I brown the butter and toast the almonds. I add herbs and spices to the stuffing cubes and shake it in an enormous pot. The I add the other items and shake again. Then I add some more things and shake some more. Until it’s perfectly blended, smells just right, and is ready to stuff into the bird. And the muscles in my back are so tight I can barely walk.

Then I begin planning the rest of the cooking of the meal; when to peel and start boiling the potatoes; which burner will the sweet potatoes be cooked on; when do the rolls need to go into the oven; what will need to come OFF the stove to make room for the green beans (no we don’t do casserole…that was never part of my family’s tradition).

And I begin prepping the table; who will sit where; get the card table from the basement for the kids; where is my good table cloth; where are my placemats; where are my grandmother’s linen napkins.

Okay – I need to sit down for a few minutes, then stretch my back and find an icy hot patch.

So why on earth do I do these things? Why do I put myself through this?

I do this out of love — love for my family; love for the food; and yes, selfishly, love for the memories it brings me of my childhood.

And with any luck, I am helping create happy memories for MY children about the fun, warmth, closeness, and  love, that surrounds the crowded and hectic tradition of family Thanksgivings.

So while I do put a lot of effort and love into all the other meals I make during the year, Thanksgiving dinner is special.

Thanksgiving dinner is this white girl’s version of soul food.

In the evenings, after the little one goes to bed, I like to sit down in front of the TV, peruse Facebook to see what’s going on, and quite often have a snack.

Sometimes I snack because I’m legitimately hungry. I run at top speed from about 3:30 or so until the baby is in bed, usually somewhere between 7 and 7:30. This is after a day of work for which I get paid, sometimes laundry, making dinner or at least seeing that the two kids and the husband have something to eat, tending to the dog as necessary, grocery shopping, and whatever else needs to get done. Sometime I actually get to eat dinner; sometimes I don’t.

Either way, I snack. It’s my comfort food time of the day. I can relax and eat something without someone needing my attention for a little while.

And while I feel moderately justified in this evening nosh, it’s a very bad habit on my part, mostly because I’m about 40 lbs overweight. And while I doubt I could maintain my ideal weight of 130-135, it would be nice to park around 150 or 160 and keep it there.

But Oreo cookies and milk at 7:30-8 in the evening is going to make reaching that goal rather difficult. Okay, impossible. And I know that. And sometimes I can actually resist. But most of the time I don’t. I could, I think, but I don’t.

So sitting down with my little cream filled chocolate delights, that get just a bit soggy when dunked, fills me simultaneously with contentment and self-loathing.

Eventually I have to let the self-loathing win. At a minimum, find some other time of day to indulge. Or I am destined to be one of those people I see at the Wal-Mart, perusing the snack aisle, wearing stretch pants that are filled to capacity with the undulating cellulite mass that will ultimately be my buttocks, seams crying out for mercy until they finally give way.

I dunno – is it better to visualize what you WANT to become, or better to have a clear vision of what you DON’T want to become. Like driving — staring at the pothole you don’t want to hit will ultimately cause you to drive right into it. So look at where you want to go, not at where you don’t want to go.  Does life work the same way?