cabbage soup is for amateurs, or squats are for suckers

Woke up this morning unable to walk. I deem my stepped-up workout routine effective, (if counterproductive, since the only further physical activity I am able to do is eat cake in bed).

Back East you have a good two or three months to recover from post-Christmas cookie weight gain. And to do so in private underneath a great knee-length wool coat that drapes strategically. In Vegas? Not so much. Bathing suit season starts in a month.

I called Brighton—a fellow East Coast transplant—to commiserate.

Brighton: Yeah, no kidding. What happened to full-coverage fuzzy sweaters and cute boys who can’t keep their hands off them?

Me: What are you eating?

Brighton: Biscotti.

Me: Biscotti?

Brighton: Yeah, and I lost five pounds this week.

Me: Pray tell.

Brighton: It was Anne’s idea.

I hear Anne laughing in the background. She gets on the line.

Anne: You know how they say to take your clothes off and give your body a good hard look in the mirror the night before you start a diet? For inspiration?

Brighton: For confirmation that your ass is in fact bigger than it was yesterday. She saw it on Oprah. Dr. Green or Mr. Bob Oz or whoever said it’s a good idea.

Anne: Well, it’s a bad idea. And totally unnecessary. I came home on Tuesday and without even realizing it I sat on the sofa and watched all my shows without taking off my sunglasses. When I went to the bathroom I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and noticed that maybe I looked a little thinner.

Me: Uh huh.

Anne: So I took everything off except the sunglasses and... CONFIRMED. Sunglasses make you lose weight.

Me: Uh huh.

Anne: Now, I don’t have to diet as long as I keep sunglasses on.

Brighton chirped in, noting my skepticism (she’s good like that) and said, “Seriously, eLLe. It works.” I imagined both Brighton and Anne sitting on the sofa, wearing their Michael Kors sunglasses, eating biscotti and believing they were thinner while I, on the other hand, was wondering if that whole bit about not exceeding 10 aspirins in a 24 hour period was really true when a sore ass was involved.*

“Perception is truth,” said Brighton channeling a pretentious art professor, which of course was way less ironic than she had intended because she is a pretentious art professor.

“I think it’s brilliant,” said Anne.

“Now I just make David wear sunglasses whenever we are in bed,” said Brighton.

“And he’s OK with this?” I ask.

“Of course, baby. He just thinks it’s one of my new bedside fetishes.”

“Like the dish soap thing,” explained Anne.

“Yes, like the dish soap thing.”



Good grammar is the new black.
* Run on sentences: I am aware that this sentence may indeed be a run-on. A good rule of thumb, which I always tell my students when they are working on papers, is to read the sentence aloud to themselves, preferably alone in their bedrooms. If they pass out due to a lack of oxygen, the sentence is too long. Not that I want them to pass out or anything when they are alone in their bedrooms.