Chicken Broth and Other Distractions

Feeling like the ever-bitter writer these days. Having the defeated-what’s-the-point-want-to-quit-and-get-a-day-job-moment. Of course this is after day one of working on my novel, the one I started this summer and have been talking about for four years. Read over the chapter I worked on when we were in the Northwest. I go back and forth between feeling brilliant and worthless about the work, even though I’ve only completed thirteen pages and I have yet to see where the story takes me. But instead of writing, I piddled with it a bit—then start thinking about how messy the house is and whether or not I should take the fiction workshop or start a writing group and the next thing I knew I was skimming the fat off the chicken broth I made on Monday and pouring it into small containers to freeze. Somehow I always end up back in the kitchen.

The kids are at preschool and now I have to figure out what to do with my life, other than be a mom, throw ruckus dinner parties and get fat and into more debt than we already are ––start a small business? get a job? continue freelancing with evil and demeaning creative director at the beauty corporation? Said beauty corporation has offered me two days a week writing for the online division, but working from home, which is brilliant, except.. I’m not sure that being alone all day with my computer is a good idea, given that I’m prone to excessive brain picking and solipsistic over-thinking. My shrink says I should take the job and figure out how to see people more. Maybe I’ll join a gym! Teach a class! Start a meditation group! Go running with friends!

My weight since having kids, and then even more since I started cooking all the time, has ballooned. Mostly I've been feeling sorry for myself and looking at pictures of me as a skinny 20-year-old. With this as my torture, er, inspiration, I have signed up for a 5k in central park. I’ve got 5 weeks to train. And I’ll do more pilates! I’ll eat less fat! More fish! And more low-fat yogurt! And I’ll drink less wine! Even though I just want to go get a massage, then drown my sorrows in a bunch of $12 cocktails and eat grilled chicken livers over at Savoy. Instead I’ve got a one pm Pilates class and then I’ve got to pick up the boys from school and entertain them until daddy gets home. Usually their kooky sweetness breaks me out of whatever ails me. It’s hard being depressed around preschoolers, unless they are beating each other up or throwing a fit, which of course, my my two, is always a possibility.