Is it me, or does a brown van driving up the street playing creepy "come and get ice cream" music, scream something out of a horror movie, or Richard Bachman's "Regulators"? A brown van cruises my neighborhood every night around 5:30 or 6:00 and occasionally on the weekends. I think it used to carry seafood in its former life, because, as most cars in Phoenix with any appliques, there is faded paint reading: "come and get your crab"on the sliding door. Regardless, I never see kids running to it like in the movies, and I tend to run from it when I hear it creeping up the street behind me while I take my dogs for their evening stroll. Funny enough, tonight as I sit watching my back-to-back episodes of Friends on TBS (dreading my required hour of gym time that is still glaring at me from my to-do list) I now want ice cream.
Good thing I have my sugar-free raspberry Jell-o *gag* to kill my sweet tooth. I don't want to call it dieting but I am going back to my hometown in July, and have this neurosis that is preventing me from eating any more than three balanced meals a day - no snacking. Ugh, it is miserable and I am always staring lovingly at the candy drawer at work, but at least when I eat I can eat more than an ounce of boiled chicken breast and a quarter cup of whole grain rice without the dreaded calorie counting.
Why is it that you always want to look good when you see people you haven't seen in two years, but when you were living there it was no big deal to drink yourself into a stuper and find yourself being rescued by your brother after you passed out on the catering tables in the back room of the local Legion Post? It is okay to get completely obliterated and have public displays of affection (this was never, ever me) with complete strangers at a street dance after a rodeo, participate in wet t-shirt contests (not me either) and throw drunken scenes in bars with your parents' friends present, but heaven forbid you put on five pounds from the last time you were home...two years ago.
While I feel them judging me for becoming fat, I also sense their disapproving stare, especially in the middle of the summer, and then they say, "I thought you were living in Phoenix, where is your nice tan?" I want to scream at them, "Have you ever sat on metal pool furniture after it has been sitting in direct sunlight for 6 hours in 115 degree heat?" Phoenicians that are tan in the summer are tan by other means - none of which include lounging in that heat. All that aside, I am excited to come home - I miss it; it will always be "home" to me, and besides it wouldn't be home if you weren't ready to run screaming from town at the end of the week :)
2 comments:
I am SOOO on your wave length! Every time I come home I feel like I need to have a new wardrobe, a tan (I'm a HUGE fan of the spray tan), and some fancy news. I usually hit one of the three (last time it was introducing the wee one!) I say don't worry about your extra 5 pounds most everyone will want to feed you anyway. {What's up with everyone trying to stuff you like a pig before a luau when you get home too?!} Not that I'm complaining!
Hey, when you are planning to be there? I'm on the fence to come home the week between 4th of July and Boatfloat.
P.S. I love the reference to the legion tables...it must be a right of passage to pass out there!
Puh-lease! No one is going to notice your five pounds because you will be completely eclipsed by my 35 lbs! That, and my "it was a late spring in Montana" tan!
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