Saved by stir-fry
November 27, 2005
As a lifelong on and off dieter (for shame, I know) I am no stranger to hunger and restraint in the face of it. So I find it funny when there are those rare times that I actually become irritable due to hunger. Today was one of those days.
After inviting friends over last night for a dessert-only Thanksgiving gathering (which went off nicely despite my concerns that I was inviting too many different �groups� over), and eating way too much of the sweet stuff, I decided that today I�d go back to my usual healthy fare. I�ve become a much more balanced and nutritious eater since moving back to Egypt, partly for health reasons, and partly because fresh, healthy food is readily available at home. But anyway, I came into work today armed with apples and oranges and a yummy salad, but was still hungry anyway after plowing through those things. As the hunger pangs continued I was becoming more and more irritable until I was downright depressed. Suddenly everything was looking gloomy (ok, so the sky is dark outside due to a mild sandstorm), and I was getting really down thinking about issues which I have managed to suppress for quite some time now. I was loathe to cave and spend money on ordering food from outside, but eventually cave I did. So I ordered stir-fry from my favorite coffee shop, and now my mood is back to normal.
But the episode got me thinking about the last time I was this irritable about being hungry. It was back in early 2002 (see, I told you it was rare), and I was still with �the dumper�. I�ve mentioned him here before, but have never really talked much about that relationship despite the fact that it�s been the most important and longest romantic relationship I�ve had in my early adult life. In fact, I refer to the dumper here often, but under another nickname. I prefer to keep his current incarnation and role in my life separate from his past incarnation and role in my life. I loved him them, and I love him still, but�as most of my readers know�our relationship now is very different from what it was. He was many wonderful things to me back then, but I call him the dumper because, frankly, that�s what he eventually did. He dumped me, and no one had ever done that to Newgy before.
Moving along. This particular night the dumper and I were doing our usual hanging around being bored but not sure what to do to allay the boredom, when I decided I was really hungry and we should go out to eat. I decided (I think) that I was really craving Chicago-style pizza from Numero Uno, but that was all the way down on South Street, and we were all the way over in West Philly. We wasted even more time trying to decide whether we wanted to make the trek, when we finally decided we would. Actually, I can�t remember if I�m recalling the details correctly, but the point is by the time we actually sat down and ordered our pizza at Numero Uno I was REALLY hungry and getting more irritable by the minute. tD couldn�t understand what was wrong with me, and I tried to explain to him that the horrible gnawing feeling in my stomach was not normal. I think tD thought I was just being spoiled and whiny, but at the time I just decided that he thought I was fat and shouldn�t be so obsessed with food anyway. [Girl logic. Ugh.] By the time the food came I realized something was terribly wrong, but by that time tD had had enough of my whining, and wasn�t hearing it.
We went home, tension still heavy in the air, and eventually went to sleep. At about 2 a.m. I woke up feeling sick and ran to the bathroom, and up came Chicago�s finest pizza. I quietly crawled back into bed. The dumper asked if I was ok, and I bitterly told him that I�d thrown up. He mumbled something, and then we went back to sleep. A couple of hours later, I woke up again to throw up, and that�s what I kept on doing for the next 3 days. The dumper first wrote it off as a stomach flu or mild food poisoning and didn�t seem too concerned. The dumper�s brother and Inky were both kind enough to offer their home remedies to make me feel better, but I just couldn�t keep anything down. Finally, on the third day I managed to get enough energy to take myself down to student health, where they did some tests and put me on an IV. When I woke up the fourth day with glands the size of golf balls student health informed me that I had mono.
Anyway, there is a happy ending to this story. I stopped feeling sorry for myself, and the dumper spent his time after coming home from work taking care of me. He would tell me stories about when he had mono as a kid, and he would try to make me laugh. One night, as I lay delirious on the couch mumbling nonsense, the dumper and his brother made up a story about Taparpater�the landmine widow�and her gaggle of landmine survivor children. [It�s one of those you had to be there kind of things.] Sometimes tD would lay with me in bed telling me stories about these children in the special voices he made up just to make me laugh, and Taparpatar and her children have since become a running gag with me, td, and his brother, though tD will now say, �I will not do the voices on demand. I am not a party trick,� and toss his head in disdain.
I don�t know if there is any point to this story other than to rehash a now-distant memory. To the dumper�I hope you�re not upset that I brought up this story. I think you know I wouldn�t exchange what we had for anything else. To those who know the dumper�please do not think badly of him. Looking back, I realize that during a lot of that time I was a whiny little bitch, and the dumper had reason to be annoyed with me, especially since our relationship was partly based on a mutual agreement not to coddle each other. My problem with previous boyfriends had been that they were too overbearing, and too caring, and that I always ended up feeling like I wasn�t giving enough in return. But at the time I forgot that that was the thing I truly loved most about our relationship, and decided that the dumper obviously didn�t care about me.
And for those of you who don�t know, 2 months after he dumped me�which was about 9 months after the above story took place�we quietly got back together (though not �officially�), and over the next year, until I moved back to Egypt, had (and continue to have) what I consider to be a near-perfect relationship�caring, understanding, supportive, and open.
Well, that was a mouthful. (har har)
As for Ireland...well, I�m tired of seeing myself talk about it. Inky, how would you feel about doing a couple of guest entries here and filling the folks in about the great time we spent together?
Hope that those who celebrated had a great Thanksgiving.