Mama said there'll be days like this. Well, not my mama, but someone's. Days when it feels like a dog-eat-dog world and you're wearing Milk Bone underwear. It's Day 7 of the project . No sooner than I announced to the universe that I was going to be kicking butt and taking names, guess who came to visit? She whose name must not be spoken but every woman knows all too well. Once a month, she arrives unexpectedly. And all I want to do when she comes is sleep and eat vats o' chocolate. I cried for an hour after watching The Time Traveler's Wife and had to keep reminding myself that time travel isn't real and Eric Bana is never going to have to roam the streets alone and naked. I half-heartedly dragged myself to the gym, then the pool, but felt like a slo mo Stay-Puft marshmallow man, sweet on the outside, ready to wipe out an entire city on the inside. At this point, the only thing I'm looking forward to is watching Ruby confront her therapist on Sunday night's show.
On top of that, I'm on a two-week visit home to Lubbock. Ahhh...TEXAS. The geographical love of my life. The place of my birth. My home emeritus. And the scene of the crime. if you pull up the carpet in the guest bedroom of my parents' house, you'll be able to see the chalk outline of me holding a Diet Coke in one hand and a box of Mallomars in the other.
I cannot remember a time when our pantry did not stock two things: Dr. Pepper and Tostitos. I was raised to believe that nachos were the overlooked food group. My mom has actually packed bags of Tostitos in her luggage when traveling just in case there is not a store within walking distance of her hotel. I'm not kidding. And when I walk into my parents' house, no matter how many big girl pills I've taken on the airplane, I am immediately 12 again. I follow my mother around like a little duckling, quacking my first duckling pleas for just a taste (or several plates) of Tostitos with melted cheese (organic cheese, of course, because it's healthy).
And, in the Jones household, we pray to the god of chocolate on a daily basis. Don't laugh, it's very sacred. My mom and I run across the street to our Texas-sized grocery store to score our chocolate fixes. Me, I'm off the real thing...trying to wean myself, you know. So I've opted for sugar free or "made with fruit sugar." Meanwhile, my intestines are screaming "Oy vey (yes my intestines speak Yiddish), enough with the Aspartame already!"
What will happen when the family meets the new me? When the baby duckling quacks for a plate of salmon with pesto and pine nuts over corn chips and cheese? Will we still have the same bond, speak the same language, swim in the same duck circles? And what happens when the waterfowl uncle flies in for the holidays? Will he be quick to make fun of the duckling and her useless efforts to make a better life? Maybe it will be like Somewhere in Time, when Christopher Reeve travels back in time to find his soulmate, only to be sucked back into his own dimension when he finds a modern-day penny in his coat pocket. Oh, that's right, time travel isn't real. But in many ways, losing weight and finding oneself is like traveling between dimensions, trying to find a happy medium between the place you once were and the place you aspire to be. Maybe Rod Serling will show up and narrate me out of this.