Dawn Is Me

See, this is why Michelle Obama is my hero — well, one of them, anyway:

Perhaps the most encouraging action so far has come from the East Wing, where Michelle Obama has been speaking out about the importance of real, fresh food, home cooking and gardening. By planting an organic garden on the White House lawn, she launched a thousand victory gardens (vegetables seed is suddenly in short supply), gave conniptions to the pesticide industry (which wrote urging her to use some of their “crop protection products” whether she needed them or not), and at a stroke raised the profile and prestige of real food in America.

You wouldn’t know it to listen to/look at me, but I’ve become something of a fresh food fanatic over the last three years or so.

I’m assuming it’s tough to tell because my spouse still hasn’t figured it out. I sometimes dread sending him out to buy things that my family is expected to eat because he rarely reads labels and, even when he does, he doesn’t seem to know what he’s looking for.

But, besides what happens in my kitchen, I care about food and food policy because of what I expect will be happening in my community later this year … along about November 3rd. More about that later.

Generally speaking, I frown on fanaticism. It expends a lot of energy in inefficient ways and usually accomplishes nothing except to make enemies out of those who really ought to be allies.

My view of food and food policy is relatively simple. Real people were intended by nature to eat real food.

When we don’t, bad things happen.

If we did, we could collectively solve all sorts of seemingly unrelated problems.

Not rocket science. Truly.

Ricky turned 12 today. I haven’t killed him yet.

I think we both deserve a word of congratulation.

So … just how hard is it to be Dawn this week?

I find it pretty difficult, mostly because of how I’m surrounded by people and still manage to feel so all alone.

Of course, some of my children will read this and protest. And I guess I could wrap myself up in their love if I wanted to escape how I’m feeling right now. Only, if I did that, then I’d find it impossible to let go when I’ll need to. Eventually, they’d hate me.

Helicopter Mom. Not my style. I know that, even if they don’t.

The primary thought in my head about this is: being alone in this way must make it much easier to contemplate death.

Man, I really need to pull my head outa my ass.

You wouldn’t think it to listen to all this whiney stuff but I’m actually doing some very cool things for myself these days. Things that will, eventually, result in a Dawn that looks good and feels good (healthy) and all that nifty stuff.

The issue is in the Getting There.

Sometimes, Getting There is just no fun at all. I find that I have issues when my ideas of who I am — which includes stuff like what I look like and how I think and what I need to get through a day — conflict with reality.

The sad fact is that no amount of baby soft skin is going to make the average woman look good in a cosmetic mud mask. She enjoys having the soft and youthful skin but not the wearing of the mask.

And, of course, if you ask her to stroll down Broadway wearing the mask, you are likely to have a mutiny on your hands.

That’s where I’m at right now, taking analogies into account. It’s silly and I gotta tell you that one of the things life can throw at you that really truly SUCKS is when you get depressed and feel stupid about it at the same time.

I mean, under those circumstances, you can’t even feel properly sorry for yourself because you’re too busy making fun of yourself.

Clearly, I need something to take my mind off of me. I’ll work on that.