The Jobless Goddess

     So today a co-worker who is — let’s just be honest here — 70 years old, gave me a serious run for my money at the library. Some guy was looking for a specific movie, which just happened to be located on the very bottom shelf, and I did one of those pretend searches for it on the middle shelf. She walks over and squats down like she’s going to give birth in some Third World country and finds it in two seconds. Again, here we are. Now I’m at home tearing open the cardboard box of a frozen pizza and she’s obviously at home on a rubber mat touching her big toe to her nose.      I regularly call the doctor to renew my prescription for muscle relaxers, while it seems like the rest of the women on this ridiculously fit island drink hot tea and take a warm bath for their yoga-stressed muscles. Thank God my teeth are relatively good.      It’s not easy to work with women your age and older who think nothing of drinking spinach shakes and lugg...

     I may have this whole so-called “New Year’s resolution” thing figured out. For years I’ve lost and gained back about 1,000 pounds. The thing is that it’s hard to stay on a big-time diet when you’ve decided long ago to be okay with yourself no matter where you fall on the fat spectrum.           The only thing that helps people like me stick with any diet is our impending death. When you get to be 50 or older, staying alive sort of becomes the focus. Especially amidst all those reports of folks who didn’t make it to the end of 2016. You start to think that they must have eaten a lot of sausage and Snickers bars.      But I have to say, the world gives us a mixed message. We’re supposed to love ourselves right where we are no matter what, but then again we’re supposed to fix anything that’s “wrong” with us — for me that’s what Chris Farley referred to as “a little bit of a weight problem.”   ...