Author: Susan Wilson

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Opinion The Last Word

Be Like Ivanka

CREDIT: Laurence Agron | Dreamstime

Y’all, Ivanka Trump has inspired me. I’ve been perusing her book, Women Who Work. I can’t say enough about this book. Ivanka? She’s just like you and me, girls. Did you know, she didn’t take time for “self-care” or “massages” during her daddy’s campaign? I had no idea she was making that kind of sacrifice. She’s really inspired me. I especially like how she says grocery shopping isn’t important. I know, right? She’s just like us! So, I’ve made myself a Pinterest board and taken her advice to write a Personal Mission Statement and Pursue My Dream of becoming a Lifestyle Expert.

To start, it’s important to work. Work is important to becoming Personally Fulfilled. You should have a team at work. This team should be able to accept delegation. For example, you should build a team you trust so that you can take time off for Self-Care and Rejuvenation.

But what if you don’t have a job or a team? You should start by applying for a job. I can’t stress enough what a critical step this is in becoming Personally Fulfilled. Ladies, it may seem pushy to apply. Don’t let that stop you! And I know it’s tempting not to create a resume, but don’t let that stop you! I can tell you from where I stand, I’ve heard so many times, “Susan, I cannot believe you applied for that job!” And my answer? Look, I know it seems impossible, but your application deserves to be ignored JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE’S! Don’t let people tell you that applying for a job is “pushy” or “aggressive” or (and I hear this one a lot, girls) “not feminine.” Don’t let that stop you!

Laurence Agron | Dreamstime

Ivanka Trump

I also find that a sheer pink lip tint is the perfect little pick-me-up when you have the job-hunting blues. La Prairie’s gloss is a little luxury that, at $40, is something every job-hunting gal can charge and worry about next month. Thanks, Visa

Involve your kids in your work. For Ivanka, that meant making her kids listen to her speeches over and over again so she was used to talking in front of an audience. I needed to practice a big presentation I was giving my boss. It was super important. I was asking for a day off so that I could go to the dentist, get the kids registered for school, do the grocery shopping that isn’t important, renew my car tag that expired last March (Oops!), take the baby to get vaccinated (It’s a political statement!), have the plumber over to fix the toilet in our one bathroom that hasn’t flushed since last month, and take a minute to indulge in the little luxury of the first pap smear I’ve had in three years. Here’s the important thing. I didn’t let any of that stress stop me!

I plopped the infant, the toddler, and the five-year-old down on the couch and told them Mommy was making an important presentation. The infant had colic, the toddler had a bad bout of icy diarrhea, and the oldest stuck a carrot up her nose because she wanted to be a snowman. It really wasn’t that much different than making the presentation to my boss! And did it ever help! When my boss told me there was no way he was letting me take a day off, it was nothing compared to swabbing diarrhea off the toddler. I’m pretty sure I can stick that tooth back in its socket and go another month or two!

I find that Chantecaille Nano Gold Energizing Eye Cream ($420 for 1.7 ounces) is a great way to hide those little lines all us gals get between our eyes from squinting because we haven’t been able to get new glasses in six years. Yes, it’s pricey! Don’t let that stop you!

Live your life. Honor your passions. Be true to yourself. Don’t sleep too much. Answer emails at midnight. It’s super important that you live authentically. If you aren’t authentically living yourself to your fullest potential, all the self-care in the world won’t help because your authentic self will be at war with your un-actualized self. Then your selves will initiate a turf war, and you barely have time to pee let alone see a psychiatrist, and then you’ll find yourself fixated on burlap door wreaths on your Self Actualization Pinterest board instead of Positive Self-Indulgence Messages.

If you find you aren’t living your Authentic Actualized Personal True Self, I recommend leaving a note on Smythson’s London notecards ($60 for a box of 10) telling your family you’re off to Bali to find True Peace. Pack your sarongs in Smythson’s Burlington flag-red 24-hour travel bag ($2,395). So what if your second Visa is maxed out? Don’t let that stop you!

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

A Very Memphis Meal

CREDIT: Catherine Laurin | Dreamstime.com

I had one of those Very Memphis Moments last week. First of all, it was hot, and it was raining. It was that kind of wet, hot mess we get here this time of year. It’s like when you take a towel out of the dryer, only it really needs about 10 more minutes. That’s what it felt like we were walking into. We were going with some friends to a relatively famous barbecue place that’s known more for its really good food than for being famous.

We settled in to do some people watching. One of the things I dearly love about Memphis is people watching, especially in a good restaurant. I think the better the restaurant, the better the people watching, because good food will generally bring in a diverse group of people.

The family next to us was young and hip. Hip in that way of being hip that would look homeless if one’s jeans weren’t a brand that can only be bought in boutiques that swath one’s purchases in tissue paper and matte black shopping bags. The child was, I believe, named either Carol or Chlamydia. I couldn’t tell. Either is a possibility, as one is ironic and one is just stupid. Anyway, I held out a soft spot for them because they were sucking back pork ribs like their name was Flintstone, and had I seen them on the street, I’d have pegged them as the parents of the kid who doesn’t get invited to birthday parties anymore because there is literally nothing she can eat but kale and lentil non-dairy ice cream.

Catherine Laurin | Dreamstime.com

They were discussing the best place to get a hamburger. The consensus was they liked old-school diner burgers rather than anything containing the words “Angus” or “jam” in the description. I get it. I recently chose a hotel specifically because there was a Whataburger across the street. I’ve also been known to suck back a Tennessee Grass Fed farms burger with Bonnie Blue Farm goat cheese and pickled green Ripley tomato jam on a brioche bun. The point was that when you want a burger, you want a burger. Not an experience. They named several places in town they liked, talked about some that weren’t what they used to be, and all agreed that stuffed burgers always promise and never deliver.

There was a party of about 10 on the other side. The table was multi-generational, with the youngest not yet walking and the oldest not still walking. It was hard to catch up with what was being said because there were several conversations going on. I kept my eye on the lady who I’d put money down was called Nona. She didn’t talk. I don’t think she was hard of hearing or disinterested. I think she was just amazingly focused on her ribs. Although, now I think on it, maybe she was deaf because there was some discussion about tomato gravy in which she did not participate, and I’ve not known any grandmother not to put her two cents in about a tomato gravy.

As we were served our food, a middle-aged couple came in. They were clearly tourists. The first clue was they wore those matching sandals I think are like German comfort shoes. The second was the lady wanted white wine, but was good natured when told such a beast did not exist. The waitress walked them through the menu, pointing out the difference between pulled and chopped meat and the pros and cons of dry vs. wet rub. I watched the couple excitedly tuck into their meals, request boxes for leftovers, and have another discussion about how they’d found out about the place from a Food Network show. They were in and gone before we’d ordered our third round of drafts.

That was when I realized that every conversation in that room was about food — including ours. Not just what we were eating that night or what we almost ordered. It was about how a waitress told us the other day she loved that my husband and I shared our plates with each other. It was about charcoal or hickory. It was about the best gas station meal in town. It was about a certain restaurant we love that recently redecorated and painted over Guy Fieri’s signature on its wall from when he’d done a segment there. We had a very involved conversation with our waitress about the best ways to season cast iron skillets and if you should bake biscuits close together or two inches apart. It was one of those Memphis nights that made me remember why after 16 years here, I still choose it every day.

I hope when people ask that couple how Memphis was, they say they loved it, but geez! All they do is talk about food.

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Runway FLOTUS

CREDIT: POOL New | Reuters.com

Melania didn’t wear a headscarf in Saudi Arabia, but she did wear a mantilla in Rome. She’s not Muslim but is apparently Catholic, so I get it. I also get it’s a great time for my conservative friends to champion her subtle political digs via her wardrobe and my for my liberal friends to remind them that most first wives cover their heads when in Rome. Never having met the Pope in Rome, or anywhere else for that matter, I can’t comment upon my millenary choices or lack thereof.  

Here’s the thing: I don’t care that Melania wore an outfit that cost as much as most people make a year. The truth is I didn’t expect her to go to Rome wearing something from the Kohl’s Super Saturday Sale. And if she did, we’d get pissed that she was appropriating normcore. You know who could get away with that? Queen Elizabeth. I could see Betsy roll up to a Commonwealth meet-and-greet with a Marks & Spencer tag poking out of her cardi. I’ve read the woman eats out of Tupperware, so I don’t think it would surprise anyone if she spent her evenings carefully rinsing out her pantyhose and storing them in the fridge so they don’t get runs.

POOL New | Reuters.com

I get I’m supposed be outraged she wore a jacket that, at a little over $51K, retails for just a few thousand less than the median U.S. income. I’m not. People voted for Trump specifically because he gold-plates everything — including his face. He’s a Successful Businessman (or at least that’s what his supporters keep crying), so his wife should be wearing expensive clothing that looks like the satin version of every macaroni artwork your kid ever made for you. In this way, she’s at least authentic in a way she wouldn’t be by showing up in Talbot’s suit separates.

A few years ago, money was super-tight at my house. Like too-small-bike-shorts tight. All I wanted was to be able to go to the grocery without a list. Just go and get whatever struck my fancy. Now, let me note for the grocery-phobic who might be reading, this is different than forgetting a list and coming out half an hour later with a bottle of ketchup, some olive loaf, and peach yogurt because you just panicked. We’ve all been there. No, I wanted to get smoked oysters, if they caught my eye. I wanted to buy the name-brand dental floss. This is my small, middle-class version of success. If I want the Honeycrisp apples, I’m not getting Red Delicious.

The First Lady operates in a different orbit, and her clothes reflect that. We don’t need to pretend that as a Trump she’s ever worried about getting the mealy apples because, Sweet Gussie, what exactly is it that make Honeycrisp apples cost as much as steak? This is a woman who posed for a magazine spread with her child in a gold baby carriage. Do you think she is concerned that her fashion choices may be decried as tone-deaf? She wears a diamond the size of that baby’s fist; she’s not exactly Erma Perma Press.

Michelle might have been the woman we are, but Melania is supposed to be the woman we want to be. Don’t kid yourself. She’s not going to come into her own or take up causes. That’s not her bag. She’s not like us, okay? Who knows if she has important things to say about cap and trade? Maybe she has a detailed plan to eliminate the deficit in three years or a way to fund Planned Parenthood. We’ll never know. She’s not the issues wife. She’s the $50,000-dress wife. The two things cannot exist on the same plane. Have we not learned that by now? Did you really expect that a lawyer for a First Lady and a Ph.D. for a Second Lady meant we’d banished the Madonna/Whore Complex from the White House? FOOLS! Just read the comments on Breitbart! On second thought, don’t. Really. Trust me.

Don’t feel sorry for Melania Trump. Quit trying to read political tea leaves from her wardrobe. She’s not sending out secret messages via her fashion choices. She’s not ever going to be the First Lady you can have a glass of wine with. She’s the one you’ll never be cool enough for.

Her decision not to wear a headscarf was not a middle finger aimed at the patriarchy. No, the middle finger was raised with all those wide belts. She’s a middle-aged mom without the middle-aged mom waist. Her pointed-toe stilettos, razor-sharp shoulder pads, severe tailoring, and wide belts are all very Alexis Carrington. And I can’t do Alexis Carrington again. I just can’t. I’m hoping our next First Lady has more of a Mrs. Roper vibe.

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband, Chuck, have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Body Parts

CREDIT: Pontus Edenberg | Dreamstime.com

Last weekend my honey and I went to a bar in town we love for people watching. As soon as we sat down, he pointed out a woman with a shirt proclaiming, “I DO MY OWN STUNTS!”

“I’m getting that for you,” he said. I might or might not have been regaling him with the tale of how I fell UP some stairs when going to lunch with some coworkers. Or it could have been how I took my wedge sandals off to walk out to the mailbox, replaced them with Sensible Shoes, and still managed to turn my ankle by stepping into a sewer grate. Wait, no. We were most definitely talking about how I tried to turn my pillow over to the cool side the night before and punched myself in the face. Which is NOT the same story as the time I was having a dream I was cornered by a beaver and decided what the hell, I’ll just punch him, and punched the headboard in my sleep.

I am not a delicate flower. I’m tall and always on the chubby side. But the recent additions of a desk job, a severe vitamin D deficiency, and treatments for a yet-to-be-diagnosed brand of arthritis have created a delightful pile of manure in which full-on obesity has blossomed. Being in my mid-40s has something to do with it. As do tacos. I have been taking one particular medicine that makes it seem sensible to eat an entire box of oatmeal cream pies because it’s either that or, you know, punch walls.

Pontus Edenberg | Dreamstime.com

Have you seen my center of gravity?

But the thing is that I don’t move the way I used to because my center of gravity has shifted. To Cleveland, apparently. It’s rather like how, when you’re pregnant, you have to have someone you trust to tell you whether you’re wearing matching shoes because you just have to slip into whatever you feel on the floor. If you bend over to look yourself, you’ll end up rolling head-first into the back wall of your closet.

Now that we totally bypass spring in favor of summer, this issue presents some wardrobe challenges. Slim ankle pants are a good look on most people except those with no bones where their ankles should be. My never-slight ankles have now been replaced by fat deposits the same consistency as perfect brioche dough. Ankle pants now make me look like a human Go-Gurt tube busted on both ends.

I check out plus-size catalogs which have become almost fashionable in the last couple of years. I say “almost” because what, at first glance, seems to be a perfectly innocuous peasant shirt ends up being a style called a “cocoon blouse,” which involves elastic at neck, elbows, and hem. Also things called “elegant embellishments” — lace, trim, and ruffles, the likes of which I have only seen on the christening gowns of Victorian-era babies. Printed denim jeans with matching jackets is apparently a thing again. Which is great. Because I genuinely enjoy going calf roping on the weekends just like millions of other women do. I guess. I mean, that is the only legitimate reason I can think of to wear a Canadian tuxedo.

Office looks are scarce. Unless you work at an office where an off-the-shoulder ruffled tunic worn with a pencil skirt is the height of professionalism. I know those jobs exist, but I don’t know anyone with one. Except for my friend Pernilla, who is awesome and wears skull-print leggings to work. No, an off-the-shoulder blouse requires the kind of undergarment sacrifices I am not willing to make. And the pencil skirt is a no-go now that we’re out of black tights season.

There are only two solutions to this issue. One is win the lottery and hire someone to custom-make my clothes. I’m working on that one two bucks at a time. The other is, you know, don’t be fat. That right there is tough, too because it’s not necessarily based on luck, but on the idea that one exercises and does not keep Pringles in one’s desk for a snack during conference calls. I have a great ballet workout video with this beautiful ballerina from North Carolina. She’s got the most soothing manner, and if I ever meet her, I’m going to rip her adorable ponytail off her head and beat her with it. She has no mercy. She’s like a really cute dominatrix.

It’s just that I have to take a break from Mistress Toe Shoes because the last time I did the workout I fell over during an unsuccessful arabesque and knocked myself out when I hit the corner of the coffee table. I didn’t know one literally saw stars when one got knocked out. The things you learn from good, clean living.

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband, Chuck, have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

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Opinion The Last Word

What So Proudly …

A few weeks ago, I was at a Grizzlies game, dreading my most loathed part of every sporting event in this country: the singing of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” I say “singing” because I can handle even the worst instrumental rendition of our anthem with dignity and aplomb, but even the best a cappella versions are generally wobbly and interminable and leave me wishing we could just all agree to listen to a recorded version of Whitney singing at Super Bowl XXV.

I appreciate the cobbled-together aspect of our anthem. It’s a poem set to a drinking song from an English gentlemen’s club. Learning that, I have to say, made me almost like our anthem. In the same way that enough single malt makes me like listening to “Scotland the Brave.” What I don’t appreciate is the bone-headedness of having a song that everyone in the country is expected to sing span almost two octaves. And who knows what a rampart is anyway? No one. That’s why half the time the lyrics become something like, “What so proudly we hailed at the rampart’s early light.”

I also find something distinctly surreal about starting out a game of seven-foot millionaires running around in shorts chasing a ball with a song whose lyrics read in part, “Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.” Was the blood British? Was it slaves’ blood? Moreover, I find the anthem to be too much like the War of 1812. It rather fizzles out, and no one can remember why it started in the first place.

“Giant, Plush Man-Ribs”

It’s not catchy like “O Canada” or stirring like “Gimn Rossijsko,” nor does it have simple lyrics like “God Save the Queen.” If you’re a natural-born American, it’s easy to take it for granted. If you’re an immigrant, it’s confusing. You just have to commit to it and plod through. In that way, I’d say it’s the most American song we could possibly have.

There was something that night that particularly struck me about our anthem. As I sat there at halftime watching three human-sized, velour ribs race each other to the finish line of a foot race, and as the person next to me gleefully licked barbecue nacho sauce off his fingers, I realized the anthem is very Memphis. It’s anachronistic. It’s a little old-fashioned. When you try to gussy it up and modernize it, people make a stink. We built a Chick-fil-A inside a church, bringing a whole new spin on the second verse of the anthem, “What is that which the breeze/o’er the towering steep/As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?” Little did Key know one day that would apply to the chicken franchise flag flying o’er Union Avenue.

“Then conquer we must/when our cause is just” is the perfect rallying cry for the pro-annex caucus. “Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam/In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream” reminds me of the light hitting the Pyramid. “In God is our trust” is the prayer of every woman who has had to figure out where to go for birth control when funding for Planned Parenthood is cut yet again.

I see little difference in telling me that I’m going to be the one to sing the anthem at all Tigers games and telling me I’d be the one to come up with a plan for the Crosstown building. Both overwhelm me. The thing is that no one would deride me for not having the vision to repurpose Crosstown, but that I find the idea of starting a Little League game with the anthem ridiculous makes me an American-hating pinko. I’m okay with that, by the way. Anyone who wishes to measure my patriotism by my dislike of our anthem is really jumping the gun, because I haven’t even told you how I feel about pledging allegiance to a flag.

I was impressed with the singer the night of the game. Her voice was as well suited to the song as any voice could be. She didn’t force it or do that weird thing so many women do when we sing using our head voice when we need to be giving our diaphragm a workout. Her version was Memphis in spring.

There’s no doubt I’d make a mess of the damn thing, so I have a huge amount of respect for anyone who would publicly put themselves through that torture. I feel the same way about running for a Shelby County school board seat or city council.

But for what it’s worth, I think the giant, plush man-ribs should sing the anthem at Grizzlies home games.

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband, Chuck, have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Argumentation: You Are Not the Boss of Me

The inauguration put the kibosh on my self-imposed news blackout. I’ve started sneaking in the Sunday news shows and BBC World News. I’m not into any good shows right now, so Trump’s Twitter feed is pushing me through to the next season of Outlander.

I did a really stupid thing last night. I read comments on a piece that my hometown news station ran. One comment caught my eye because it started, “Is it just me, or …” True fact: Anytime a sentence starts with that line, yes, it’s just you. I’m not excluding myself. “Is it just me, or does my kitchen look spotless?” Yup. Just me.

One of my favorite chestnuts has always been the slippery slope fallacy. It’s like that book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. If you give a mouse a cookie, he will burn down your house, rape your dog, and steal your identity. Or something like that. I haven’t read the book in a long time.

Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde

The “No REAL Christian” argument is just getting pathetic. No REAL Christian could believe that gay folks marrying each other, having equal rights, raising families, paying taxes, getting life insurance, and generally behaving like normal people could be what God wants. That then begs the question, don’t we know God says being gay is wrong because God said so in the Bible and that’s the word of God? BUT if I say something like, oh, you get to believe whatever you want, but we’re talking about policy not religion, I am a sinner. Ergo, forthwith, and heretofore, I cannot POSSIBLY have a valid argument because I don’t go to church regularly/take the Lord’s name in vain/occasionally speed/insert other infraction here. AND FURTHER, you’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny. Ad hominem … aaaand … scene.

Irrational arguments are a thing. We all make them. But we need to keep them among friends, not when deciding policy. There’s a scene in the classic movie Legally Blonde where Holland Taylor discusses Aristotle’s maxim: “The law is reason, free from passion.” Y’all, it’s hard not to get all riled up about something you believe in passionately. You should hear Himself talk about his favorite hat. And I can give you 492 reasons pants are evil. And while I want to tell people who rally against GMOs that they are poopy heads, I go with, “First, tell me what you mean by GMO,” because insulin is a GMO, and I don’t think you want to take away a diabetic’s medicine. Or maybe you do. In which case you ARE a poopy head.

We are starting to confuse shutting down an argument with winning one. Well, that’s just my opinion. I would like that phrase stricken from our collective discourse. You didn’t make a point by saying it’s your opinion. And opinions are different than facts.

Blue is a color. That is fact.

Blue is the best color. That is opinion.

Blue sports drinks are a conspiracy between Monsanto and Proctor and Gamble to get us addicted to trimonosodiumglyotholateiseum which then makes our babies autistic and is responsible for the popularity of the Kardashians. That right there is some made-up bullshit. And while it’s nice to have something to blame for the Kardashians, that’s not it. And following that up with WELL, THAT’S MY OPINION does not make it any less bullshitty.

Navy pumps for women are declining in popularity. Global temperatures are rising. The decline in navy footwear is causing global warming. THAT’S MY OPINION. ARE YOU SAYING MY OPINION IS WRONG?? I GET TO HAVE MY OWN OPINIONS. YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME.

I also am really over the whole this <insert product here> is full of chemicals! It will kill you! You need something natural! You know what’s natural? Sharks, bears, poison ivy, puffer fish, nightshade, and poke berries. They can all kill you. Just because something was grown out of dirt doesn’t make it safe anymore than creating something in a lab makes it dangerous.

Opinions are not fact. Legalizing marijuana will not make us all heroin addicts. Pharmaceuticals aren’t bad because they are made in labs. Just because I once answered a math question wrong doesn’t mean I can’t do math at all. Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t make it false. I don’t understand Javascript, but that doesn’t mean it’s not powering the Flyer website right now. (I do not know if it is powering this very website right now. I just said I don’t understand Java.)

Now, you must excuse me. I’m feeling a little tired, so I’m going to ingest some coffea liberica mixed with dihyrdogen monoxide and possibly a prunus persica. I have to be careful because the pit of the prunus persica contains cyanide. In fact, I better eat two before they get banned.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Sanctadiet

CREDIT: Oleksandra Naumenko | Dreamstime.com

Are we all about cauliflower now? Because I thought we were still doing avocados? Or is there a shortage? I know almonds are out because they treat the earth like a frat boy treats a public bathroom, but are we still doing nuts and seeds at all?

I know we’re about “bombs” right now. All those sped-up recipe videos on my Facebook feed are for cheesy garlic lasagna bombs, cheesy meatball garlic bombs, and deep-fried cheesy garlic chicken broccoli Crock-Pot bacon bombs. Is that a reflection of the current political climate?

Oleksandra Naumenko | Dreamstime.com

Pink champagne cupcakes are apparently the new macarons. Or maybe the new cronut. Is that because we have a gazillionaire in the White House? Will cotton balls dipped in fruit juice be the next mini-tacos to celebrate a former model as First Lady? Will we bring back chicken Kiev to celebrate our Russian comrades?

So many questions I have about food right now. Like how many recipes for Crock-Pot roast made with peperoncini and Ranch dressing mix do you really need? And when did we start wrapping everything in pizza dough or refrigerated rolls? I mean, I love a stuffed whomp biscuit as much as the next girl, but salted caramel chocolate cake stuffed in crescent rolls and deep fried is a bit much. Who am I kidding? I’d eat the ass outta that low-flying duck.

But about this cauliflower thing. You’re supposed to make pizza crust out of it because it’s healthy. I don’t think anyone would argue cauliflower is healthy. Anything that tastes like a packing peanut is going to be healthy, but by the time you crumble the cauliflower, mix it with cheese, top it with sauce, more cheese, pepperoni, and sausage, I don’t think you get to call it healthy anymore.

My best healthy eating hack has to do with portion control. Simply scoop out the food that falls into your bra for quick midday snacks. I also highly advocate what I like to call the “Sanctadiet.” I can’t say enough about how telling all your friends you don’t eat rice due to unethical harvesting practices, or that you’re not eating GMO foods because your yoga friend told you GMOs caused perimenopausal women’s bones to turn to the consistency of cornmeal will totally change your life and the lives of those who have to listen to you. The Sanctadiet starts working the minute you feel a sense of superiority because you had a spinach smoothie for breakfast when you know Karen had granola loaded with sugar, because she told you over double soy latte caramel half-caff grandes.

It’s really important when startin​g a Sanctadiet that you tell a​ll your friends. I mean, you don’t want to, like, preach. They know what’s best for their bodies, even though you know that chemicals will literally kill you. So when Pam says she ate half an extra-large Meatzilla stuffed-crust pizza last night, it’s important to tell her that you respect her decision (even though all that salt, sodium, preservatives, and salt will make you bloated and sluggish and unable to stay awake through your mindfulness sessions), and that you totally admire the way she can stay functional with all those chemicals running around her system. It’s not your thing, sure, but you totally understand a cheat day. And when she says she was starving because she’d just run 14 miles for a charity event, make sure you tell her you admire her for running, when it’s so horrible for your knees.

The Sanctadiet doesn’t work if your adrenaline doesn’t get going while waiting for her to shut her piehole so you can tell her what Dr. Oz says about chia seeds. Also, you get to tell her about how your college roommate posted that thing about how there are a ton of charities that are totally bogus, but you’re sure she’s totally vetted that one to make sure that a celebrity endorses it so you know it’s legit — even though charity begins at home and that charity she did the run for was to raise money to treat kids who lost limbs in bomb attacks in Syria. But whatever! What’s best for me isn’t always best for you, Pam!

I have found that we can wipe out the damage unhealthy eating does to us as long as we put the picture of the unhealthy food on Instagram and use a ton of hashtags. Posting a heavily filtered picture of your triple-decker cheeseburger (that you totally bought as a joke) with a string of hashtags — such as: #tripledecker #gonnadothis #cantbelieveiorderedthis #getinmybelly #blessed — lets your followers know that you’re in on the joke, and, honestly, t​hat burns calories. Eating trans fats ironically doesn’t count as an unhealthy habit.

I’m trying to add more green stuff to my diet, because I honestly love green stuff. But washing vegetables is hard work, y’all! #thestruggleisreal

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband, Chuck, have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Not My Problem

CREDIT: Andrew Cline | Dreamstime.com

There’s a graphic that’s been making its way around social media for a while. It says something like, “I don’t care if you’re gay, straight, black, or white. If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.” I’ve had many friends share it while patting themselves on the back for being so generous with their correctness. On the surface, it sounds great, but inside lurks the real evil: I’m not going to be nice to you until I see you’ve earned it. This tends to be shared by people who will also say they don’t see color. White people such as myself like to say this because it makes us feel like we’re doing a service to you by denying your ethnicity. After all, true equality means we’re all treated white, right?

I’ve been thinking about this lately because of our new Cheeto-in-Chief. Some of my left-leaning friends have spoken up loudly to say, just as my right-leaning friends did when Obama was elected, that Trump is not their president.

Here’s the problem. He is.

The year 2016 was one of blame cloaked as personal responsibility. Don’t want to get raped? Don’t drink at frat parties. Don’t want to be beaten for being transgendered? Stop being transgendered. Don’t want to be stopped by the police? Don’t dress like a thug. Don’t want to be mocked for your religion? Don’t wear a hijab. Don’t blame me! I voted for Hillary. Can’t blame me! I didn’t vote at all.

A few years ago, Elizabeth Warren and President Obama both stirred a bit of controversy for pointing out that no one achieves anything by themselves. They noted that when you build a successful business you do so using roads we all paid for. Your business is protected by tax-paid police and fire departments. Your business used community-financed resources such as electricity and water. Your responsibility as a business is to help repay that.

Andrew Cline | Dreamstime.com

Elizabeth Warren

They were both castigated for pointing out these facts. Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple? This is what critics asked. Are you saying he didn’t build that? No, that wasn’t what either of them said. Steve Jobs hired programmers, designers, cafeteria workers, security guards. He wasn’t a one-man office. And even if he were, he’d have still had to buy office supplies somewhere. The point was that your success doesn’t mean that someone else can’t be successful because you won’t help pay for repairing the roads you used to haul your goods across country.

When we say Donald Trump isn’t our president, it says that we will not take responsibility for what comes next. It’s a convenient excuse to sit at home and stream Netflix and eat aerosol cheese because, hey, that dude is your problem. Well, hey. Those who voted for him don’t see that dude as a problem. So when the company who makes the computer you use to watch Netflix is the same company as the one that provides your internet service you use to watch that company’s movies, and the cheese you’re squirting on crackers is a subsidiary of that very same company, and you find out this all happened because someone else’s president created a climate in which there is now no place else for you to go for internet and cheese, and your service is now being throttled because you could no longer afford unlimited bandwidth because with no competition that one company could charge whatever it damn well pleases for service, what are you going to do? Now that other person’s president has made it personal, because NO ONE MESSES WITH YOUR MURDER, SHE WROTE MARATHON.

When you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. And that means you think you’re entitled to your opinion that climate change is real. And that being gay isn’t a choice. And that bathroom laws aren’t necessary to protect our children. We’ll agree to disagree. But that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works. You don’t get to deny what you don’t agree with or understand. You don’t get to deny your responsibility as a citizen because your candidate didn’t win. And you certainly don’t get to be a jackass because you think someone else might hurt your special snowflake feelings.

We wanted the swamp drained? It’s been drained and is filling up with corporate logos. With men who think they got there with no help from anyone. The 115th United States Congress will be brought to you by Exxon and Hardee’s. So you can get fries with that.

I cannot think of anyone more resistant to personal responsibility than a man who railed against a corrupt, rigged election that would put his opponent in power, but once he won, denied that same election was corrupted, despite proof a foreign power he lusts after was involved in corrupting it.

But hey, not my problem. I didn’t vote for him.

Susan Wilson writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband, Chuck, have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.

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Opinion The Last Word

Knowing Jack: A Dog Worth Saving

This time last year, I was driving home from seeing my parents in Laurel, Mississippi. I’d been talking to my dad about my grandparents’ dogs. Other than Cuz — who had her own platinum dog-tag with a diamond in it — they were usually named Cindy. I think there were three generations of Cindys. Granddaddy chose this name for reasons unknown to me but kept it because he’d always get at least one dog to come when he called. The Cindys I knew were black Labs. They were hunting dogs who were, despite what my grandparents might have said about my father and aunt, the real children of the house. Dad told me the first Cindy wasn’t actually a Lab. She was, he said, part dog. The other part was undetermined, but most likely dust mop.

About the time I got to Grenada, I got a series of texts from my husband. He and my stepson had taken possession of what he called “the dirtiest poodle in Memphis.” He was filthy, tiny, scared, but friendly. He’d been wandering around their office near I-240 on Getwell. He had no microchip and no tag.

Jack

My husband asked if I could take him by a vet the next day to get him checked out. It was at that point I realized we were getting a poodle.

He was, like Cindy the First, more mop than dog. He was so furry we couldn’t even tell if he’d been neutered. His tail was festooned with dreadlocks, and if we’d taken out all the mats, he’d have been hairless. But he danced. He spun in circles, tap danced on his hind legs, and his ears moved with every sound. We were certain the vet would say there was no saving him. We figured he was only held together by knots and dirt. He was just over seven pounds, mostly poodle with some unidentified terrier somewhere in his past. It turned out he had hookworms, but other than that he was healthy.

Within a couple of days, many sessions with the scissors, and the realization he was housetrained, he became Colonel Jackson Humphrey Hoover Dog.

Jack is now almost 11 pounds, belly-up about 20 hours of the day, and loves nothing so much as spending the weekend at Shelby Farms sniffing butts and playing in mud.

He gets underestimated. He’s small enough to straddle the line between teacup and miniature poodle. When my husband walks him, people tend to assume “the wife” makes him walk her dog. They ask about his Napoleon complex. For the record, Jack doesn’t think he’s a big dog. He just doesn’t know he’s not. He has a bit of a fetish for German shepherds. Maybe he recognizes his own Bavarian ancestry in them. Maybe it’s just easier to sniff taller butts.

He grumbles. A lot. I like to think Jack is a very gruntled dog. He rarely seems disgruntled, anyway. Well, except when he doesn’t get any of our steak. Then he’s very disgruntled.

It’s taken a commitment on our part for Jack to become a part of the family. He hasn’t been cheap, and if he gets off his routine, he could do horrible things to a rug. We talked about his finances — medical bills, food, housing. Our hearts told us to keep him because he was cute and novel and his antics make a great Twitter feed. But he isn’t human. He can’t hold a job, so he mooches off us. He can’t open doors or not chase squirrels. It would have been easy to take him in without committing to his well-being. He’d have ended up back on Getwell if he made it that far. He’s a perpetual toddler in a lot of ways. He doesn’t speak the language, doesn’t have a nickel to his name, always goes nude, and has been known to eat deer poop.

I read once that Dalmatians have a high rate of abandonment. They’re high on both novelty and maintenance, and lots of times people don’t really understand what they’re getting into. People just want something different. They get tired of spaniels and labs. They want a little something with some zing. They don’t think about having to calm them down during thunderstorms or constantly taking them to the vet for urinary tract infections. We’re all guilty of wanting the cute little puppy but not thinking about what happens when we get it home and it eats the sofa. We blame the dog, not the fact we don’t want to take responsibility for it.

That’s to say, I don’t want Jack guarding my smokehouse. I really don’t trust him around bacon. I don’t ask him to do things he’s incapable of. Just because he can fetch a ball doesn’t mean he can play centerfield for the Cubs.

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com.

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Opinion The Last Word

Hello, People of the Future …

CREDIT: Dwong19 | Dreamstime.com

Hello, people of the future.
By the time you read this, we will have elected a new president. I hope you’ll be reading this and that Shit Creek hasn’t escaped its embankments and flooded us with millions of tons of Clinton emails and Donald J. Trump neckties. I hope Russia hasn’t decided to invade us while we weren’t looking, because the only thing I know about survival came from watching Red Dawn, and I’m not really cut out for the having-to-pee-in-the-woods way of life. I hope we haven’t woken up to riots.

I haven’t been one of the ones saying that if Trump wins, I’m going to Canada. I’m too lazy for that kind of commitment. My passport’s expired. I’m not stockpiling ammo. I can’t ever remember what gauge the guns are, so I’d end up with a closet full of the wrong kind, and I don’t think I’d be good at selling shotgun shells on the black market because I’m not one of those people who always knows a guy. I’m not moving out into the woods. Sure, we talked about it, but I just got a YMCA membership so I want to get my money’s worth from that. Also, I just bought a bunch of produce, and I’m not sure how techy the Canadians are about bringing collards into the country. Let’s not forget they sell milk in bags. I actually haven’t decided if that’s a positive or a negative.

My brother-in-law lives in The Hague, and we talked about crashing with him. I mean, all the Dutch seem concerned about legislating is the wearing of veils and headscarves, so I guess it must be pretty quiet over there. The problem is I have no balance, and riding a bike everywhere would not be good for me. Or anyone within a three-mile radius of me. Oh, and also I believe that clothing isn’t something a government should regulate unless one is serving in an army, and I’m pretty committed to that whole freedom of religion thing, so it’s really no good.

Dwong19 | Dreamstime.com

Miley Cyrus

I just Googled “what to do if Trump wins” and got a list of celebrities who said they were leaving if Trump is elected. Barbara Streisand, Raven-Symoné, Miley Cyrus, George Lopez, Chelsea Handler, and Amy Schumer are a few. In the interest of being fair and balanced, it’s good to know there might be something positive from a Trump reign. If Clinton won, the Oath Keepers have promised Civil War. I wonder if I am waking up to an America where Miley Cyrus is tweeting about weed from Cape Breton? I’m not entirely uncomfortable with that.

I think this morning we all woke up relieved the election is over. I think we woke up tired. I think we woke up wondering if we need to push the credit card payment back to make the mortgage on time. I probably woke up this morning realizing I forgot to get coffee. I probably woke up because my dog was whining to go out. My husband probably woke up because I accidentally popped him in the head because I was dreaming that I was in a fistfight with a beaver (that has actually happened). We all woke up this morning just like we have hundreds of mornings before, and we’ll fall in bed tonight just like the hundreds of nights before. I’m not saying the election didn’t matter. I’m saying I’m trying really hard not to quote the Who about new bosses and old bosses because it seems trite.

My father told me never to vote against anything or anyone. Vote for something or someone. I was able to do that this year, just like I’ve been able to since my first Presidential Smackdown in 1992. Some years it’s harder than others, but no one ever said democracy was easy. If it were, everybody would have one. I don’t mind that other countries roll their eyes at us. It’s not like they don’t have shenanigans. Milk in bags, remember? Italy elected a porn star to parliament. North Korea’s run by the kid who sat in the back of your math class and ate his own boogers. There are people in Britain who honestly didn’t know that voting to leave the European Union really meant they would leave the European Union.

Perhaps we’ll see how close we came to ruin and make better choices next election cycle. Maybe we’ll realize all politics is local and start making better choices at home, which will eventually trickle up to better national choices. Of course, maybe every reality “star” will see how easy it is to come close to the presidency, and we can look forward to Honey Boo Boo 2032 billboards.

Here in Memphis, we’ll go on grinding. It’s what we do.

Susan Wilson also writes for yeahandanotherthing.com and likethedew.com. She and her husband Chuck have lived here long enough to know that Midtown does not start at Highland.