Ten days to go till I turn 30.
PART 1 - EATING
I shouldn’t have ordered the Thai noodles. My poor colleague sitting alongside me in the edit suite doesn’t know what he’s in for. It’s only half-past midnight and I can already feel the gases mixing, evolving, fighting with one another inside my stomach like bickering unborn twins trying to beat each other to the exit.
All my attempts to bring my waist size closer into line with my age have all but failed: the paunch I picked up in Buenos Aires has remained stubbornly rounded. I’ve tried sit-ups, but they never work - after watching me curl my gym trainer assured me my abdominal muscles were actually strong (I therefore reason that I have an extremely modest six pack that simply chooses not to expose itself). In truth, all I probably need do is eat a little less rapidly. But that, to me, is like asking a child to unwrap a present slowly.
Being born at this time of year certainly doesn’t help. I mean, it’s not as bad as September/October, when the Jewish holiday eat-a-thon gets in full-swing (thank G-d gluttony’s a Christian sin!). But still, there’s drinks every other night; there’s meals out on the town; and, of course, the Homer-endorsed custom of eating doughnuts on Chanukah.
Despite turning 30, my mother will, no doubt, insist on making her trademark frosted cake (with 30 candles, one can only imagine). She used to make them in the shape of Dougal from the Magic Roundabout; or in the form of racing car with yellow, liquorice all-sort wheels. I always insisted on a custard-cream filling. But my brother loathed this yellowy mulch. He preferred jam. So my mother would do the decent thing and split the filling half-half. Trouble is, we never knew which half was which. The first slice was always something of a lottery – heaven forbid you should slice the thing straight down the middle and get some custard in your jam or some jammy bits in your custard. I hate blackcurrent jam!
Right now, though, cakey delights are the furthest thing from my mind. Aside from being full right now and on the brink of an early-morning flatulent-induced dystopia, my stomach is still knotted. It has been since Saturday, though I’ve yet to work out whether it was the meat and bean-stew cholent I ate that lunchtime or my confession to my best friend Aurora that I was in love with her.
PART 1 - EATING
I shouldn’t have ordered the Thai noodles. My poor colleague sitting alongside me in the edit suite doesn’t know what he’s in for. It’s only half-past midnight and I can already feel the gases mixing, evolving, fighting with one another inside my stomach like bickering unborn twins trying to beat each other to the exit.
All my attempts to bring my waist size closer into line with my age have all but failed: the paunch I picked up in Buenos Aires has remained stubbornly rounded. I’ve tried sit-ups, but they never work - after watching me curl my gym trainer assured me my abdominal muscles were actually strong (I therefore reason that I have an extremely modest six pack that simply chooses not to expose itself). In truth, all I probably need do is eat a little less rapidly. But that, to me, is like asking a child to unwrap a present slowly.
Being born at this time of year certainly doesn’t help. I mean, it’s not as bad as September/October, when the Jewish holiday eat-a-thon gets in full-swing (thank G-d gluttony’s a Christian sin!). But still, there’s drinks every other night; there’s meals out on the town; and, of course, the Homer-endorsed custom of eating doughnuts on Chanukah.
Despite turning 30, my mother will, no doubt, insist on making her trademark frosted cake (with 30 candles, one can only imagine). She used to make them in the shape of Dougal from the Magic Roundabout; or in the form of racing car with yellow, liquorice all-sort wheels. I always insisted on a custard-cream filling. But my brother loathed this yellowy mulch. He preferred jam. So my mother would do the decent thing and split the filling half-half. Trouble is, we never knew which half was which. The first slice was always something of a lottery – heaven forbid you should slice the thing straight down the middle and get some custard in your jam or some jammy bits in your custard. I hate blackcurrent jam!
Right now, though, cakey delights are the furthest thing from my mind. Aside from being full right now and on the brink of an early-morning flatulent-induced dystopia, my stomach is still knotted. It has been since Saturday, though I’ve yet to work out whether it was the meat and bean-stew cholent I ate that lunchtime or my confession to my best friend Aurora that I was in love with her.
posted by David Cohen at 12:28 am
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