Honking and Hunger

Honking and Hunger

I came back from my lunch break - during which I didn't eat lunch, what else is new - feeling pretty good, because two men in cars honked at me. Not that they were the sort of men you'd want to be caught dead with; nonetheless, society has shaped enough of me to feel flattered in some persecuted way.

I never eat lunch on my lunch break because a) I don't have time to make myself a portable lunch in the morning, and b) I'm too cheap to eat out. I'm also too lazy for either a) or b). Furthermore, it's a strategy for maintaining my slim figure, stupid though it is, but I think the real reason - if it isn't sheer sloth - is because I like the slightly empty feeling that comes with being just a bit hungry all the time. I spend so much time trying to dump out this or that negative feeling, usually failing, and being hungry is like settling for the bottle over the breast.

Food is not my obsession; being thin is not my obsession. These days, control is my obsession, as it has been on many other days in many other years. Since I can't control the events shaped by other people in my life, I look for a substitute, and food seems to be the most obvious. Well, food and online shopping, which is an addiction I'm not sure about. While some women solace themselves with chocolate or gobs of french fries or a whole pizza, I grab hold of hunger and hug it like my son's favorite blanket.

He just discovered the concept of a "blankie" this past week, and it's really very cute. I've encouraged him to a small fuzzy red one that won't drag on the floor in an attempt to keep him from tripping. He accepted my choice more readily than experience led me to think he would. After all, my attempts to cleverly hide vegetables in almost everything imaginable have failed miserably, and no matter how much I smile and sing and say YUM YUM he just isn't fooled. It's the same thing trying to coax him to play with one of his toys instead of some death-trap household item, like scissors or the stapler or drill bits. Forget the shape sorter, Mom; bring on the Drain-O.

Back to the guys in the car: what kind of guy honks at women? Jerks, presumably. Men who objectify women and aren't really giving you a compliment; they're stroking their own egos, or displaying some kind of oxymoronic wimpy macho-power - "hey, I'm a GUY and I can honk and hoot at you!" - all the while safely in their moving vehicle which will take them away from you before you can summon a comeback. Do I want my son to become a man like that? No - so why do I indulge my own ego by feeling flattered? Shouldn't I just salute such men with my middle finger hoisted high in defiance? That would give them power, I suppose. They'd know they'd gotten to me. I have a vague memory of my mother telling me "Just ignore your brother; you're only egging him on by reacting!" Easier said than done, I say.

It's this aging thing, really. I'm 20 years old, or some other sexy age; I'm just stuck in this 30-something body. How on earth did this happen? And I'm still in denial. I look at my sleep-marked face in the morning and make weary excuses. Which might work if I didn't say the SAME THING every damn day. Those little bags under my eyes, the dry skin, the tiny wrinkles - well, I must've slept poorly last night. Certainly the inevitable passing of TIME has nothing to do with it. Because I'm immortal. Right? Please tell me I'm right. The honkers and the hooters play right into my desperation, their noise doesn't wake me up at all - instead, it's anesthesia: they fool me clear out of reality and into my own personal Wonderland where I'm not getting older, where I'm still "hot" and desirable. Where I wouldn't look perfectly ridiculous wearing jeans so low-slung they went down to my pubic hair, sporting a naval piercing or a tattoo.

Even my computer gets into the act. I don't take pictures with a good, old-fashioned camera anymore - no, no, no, those images are too real, I use a digital camera now. And before my picture ever hits the developer, I've used technology to make my eyes a little brighter, my lashes a little longer, and blemishes fade away. I don't even have those troublesome freckles anymore. I love to look at those photos and say "now THAT's me, not that tired woman in the mirror."

I can't control the passage of time. I can't control my utter disbelief in my own mortality. Aging is fine for everybody else, but not me. I suppose this means my ego is as inflated as the car-guys'. Why, if I got a good look at them, they'd probably be slipping-past-prime folks just like me, or pimply young guys who can't get dates.

Control. That's the thing. I want it, you want it, we all want it. Even my little boy wants it. He's learning the game now, and he's not even three. Manipulation, persuasion, flattery - and when these tactics fail, he throws his toys or lies on the floor screaming. Which, at least, seems honest. But I can't do that - you can't do that. We're beyond that, aren't we? It's unacceptable, childish, juvenile. We're the ones who have learned better. We are the withholders of information, the last-word utterers, purveyors of the silent treatment, the road-raged, the too-busy, the too-tired - and the list goes on. We can play the game all we like, exerting our control on anything and everything we can subdue. In the end, destiny still calls us inexorably to the dust from which we came.

God, I'm hungry.