Food for Thought

Saludos, ecuatorianos!
Ok. Things are about to get weird in here.  I'm weird about food.  I don't know why I am, but that's me.  What does this mean?  Ugh.  There are so many things...where to begin...
While I have never been an adventurous eater, I was forced into eating fruits and vegetables when I was being raised. I never liked them.  Never. Ok, there were some that I liked.  I used to eat onions right out of my Dad's garden. I loved corn, of course, but that hardly counts...neither do potatoes. I can do carrots if they are cooked.  I can do green beans, but I don't really seek them out. 
Ok, I almost just put myself to sleep by writing this already - we get it, Steve eats like a ten year old (incidentally, if you google image search "eat like a ten year old", the picture above actually comes up in the results. Yes, you read that right...if you google "eat like a ten year old", a picture of me comes up. Tragic, no?

This isn't about the fact that I eat pizza and wings more than I should. This is about eating in front of people. It's not always something that I am comfortable doing.  I am not really sure when that happened. I'm not really sure why.  It isn't weight related, as internet research on the subject suggested. I didn't have some traumatic public eating crisis, where I was cutting my chicken breast and knocked my water glass flying, etc. And it isn't always...sometimes I am so hungry that I don't care. Sometimes the friends that I am around are so near and dear to me that I don't have the phobia (phobia? has it gone that far?) kick in.  


It's like when I recall a time when I never thought about dirt under my fingernails.  When I was unaware of what my hair looked like on a given day. Things that most people cannot even imagine not thinking about.  Not that I was unaware of any of those things any time recently, I am reaching far back with this one.  But there just came a day when I didn't really enjoy eating out in public. I don't know if it is food guilt at whatever I am eating, compared to what others are eating.  I don't know if it is fear of food being all over my face, or food getting stuck in my teeth (a constant source of terror...I travel with floss always). Whatever the cause, one day that I can't pinpoint, I decided that I would rather get food "to go", rather than dine in. I would rather take it home, or to a private place and eat than in front of others. 


Ok, before I sound totally crazy, follow me here.  You know when you walk into a restaurant, and as you are being seated, you look at what everyone is eating as you are sat?  You know you do it.  Every human does.  The curiosity sometimes spurs us to find whatever we thought we saw once we receive a menu.  "That looked good!", we might think as we unfold our menu. Well, in this tale, I am the dude who's food you just looked at as he was taking a bite. And something about that drives me batty. My hackles go up, and suddenly I am my dog, guarding a treat when another dog comes over. It's an almost primordial instinct...like..."don't look at what I am eating...you can't have it!"...I fully understand that this is an irrational reaction. 


Everyone has a natural curiosity to see what everyone else is eating, because as humans, we eat in a pack like style. From the dinner table, to picnics, to restaurants, etc. We gather around a food source, and we devour it together as a community. I get it.  I even like it from time to time when this weirdness doesn't float into my mind. Street fairs that are full of bite size food, galas that have bite size bits on tooth picks floating around on trays, small dinners with great friends, none of these trigger the weirdness to come on. 
"Whatcha' eating?" someone will ask, and my spine gets hot. Maybe it is food guilt, after all. Maybe if I could respond, "green salad things topped with glucose free tofu, spiced with guacamole and magic fairy dust", maybe I wouldn't be so sheepish about it. But no, it's not embarrassment.  I love what I love, I eat what I eat.  I go to the gym almost every day and never eat large portions of anything.  I hardly ever eat dessert. I have no reason to be guilty under the sun. But still...after heating up my dinner in the microwave at a theatre, and before I can get a bite in before retreating to the dressing room, or somewhere where I know no one will be, someone says.."MMMMM, what's that?", and I can't help but think..."Well, it was Peruvian chicken and sweet potato fries, but now it's something that you are adjudicating before I have a chance to enjoy it."  It is as if someone has had sex with my virgin wife before our honeymoon, and everything is spoiled for me after that.
Again, I realize that this is an irrational response to natural human curiosity. I understand that 99% of the time, there is no judgement being passed on me by anyone asking something along those lines. I get it. I get it. I really do.
I am trying to work through it. The other night, while on dinner break, I went to zPizza and had a slice, plus a few wings, and sat in the bar style booth that faces the window.  I ate as people walked by, every single one of them looking in as they passed, as everyone does while passing restaurants. My pulse increased slightly at first.  I dabbed my face and fingers with napkins after almost every bite, careful to also wipe the corners of my mouth meticulously - (MOUTH CORNERS!!! PEOPLE ALWAYS FORGET THIS AND LEAVE REMNANTS OF THE LAST MEAL THERE!).  My dad used to get food on his face, and when one of us (usually me) would tell him so while at the dinner table, he would respond, "I'm saving it for later." I strive to be more like my Dad in this way. No big deal, make a joke, move on. When I finished my meal, I headed back to the theatre, washed my face in the sink, and obsessively flossed. Baby steps.
Now, before I wrap this mess up, I am fully aware that those of you who read this might write me off as a lunatic. I would too.  It makes no sense. But they say to write what you know, and as I wondered what to write about next over dinner break, someone passed by and asked, "Whatcha eating?". And there it was.  
And yes, you can still ask me out to dinner. I will go. After a drink, I won't care who I am eating in front of. But please...for the love of God...if I have some food on the side of my face, please tell me.  I will chuckle, say, "I'm saving it for later!", and live inside a private hell for 5 minutes as I wipe my face like Lady Macbeth, but I would rather all of this than to not know. 
And by the way...whatcha' eating?
xoxoSGS



***ADDENDUM***
So, before I brought myself to post this, I wanted the opinion of my husband and a few friends.  I wanted someone else to read this and discuss it, Because I was afraid that this whole thing made me sound crazy. My husband summed it up for me in a few sentences. 
"Why is the whole world interrupting your world?", he asked. 
Wow. 
And this is why I write these things and ask these questions, because I don't desire or want these characteristics, but want to investigate and find out why I have them. 
Natascia Diaz came to see me perform in the role of SHRDLU in Adding Machine; a musical at Studio Theatre about 5 years ago.  After the show, she told me. "I understand you now...you are a laser.  You are a fucking laser beam. Your laser focus on something is so intense and scary and perfect, and when you focus your laser, it is the most powerful thing I have ever seen."
In my life, I have many projects that I am working on, constantly. I laser beam on them when I need to get them done.  When I do, nothing else exists. When I tend bar, I am efficient as fuck, because I am focusing on it. When I am on stage, there is nothing else. When I write, there is nothing else. (Witness, a third blog in a row after I have lasered on the fact that I have not blogged in awhile.)
So maybe it isn't so much a food thing as a focus thing.
When I am keyed into what I am doing, I only want to do that, with no exceptions. You see, my husband is a Rolodex, and I am a laser. This is how half of our fights happen.  I focus on one task as he focuses on 20. While I am in deep thought about one task, if something breaks my stride, I am undone. When I am focused on eating, that is what I want to do, with no hindrance or interruptions.
This, again, goes back to ADD. 
While we were writing Night of the Living Dead, I had the entire script in my head.  Matt kept asking me when I would write it out, and I kept telling him that I was working on it in my head. One night, he persisted, and out of frustration, I sat down at the keyboard and wrote the entire thing out in one sitting.  Laser. 
So my husband's insight of me has explained this weird trait. I can focus solely on one thing at a time, and when derailed, I can't deal. I don't like this trait, but it is great to know that I have found the cause. 
When you are my friend, there is no other friend.  When we are hanging out, there is no one else in the world. When I am making love, there is no other love in the world.When I am eating food, there is no other food. When I am writing this blog, there is no other blog. And now it is time for bed...and there is no other bed.
XOXOXOSGS 

 

1 part Wisdom removed

I have been suffering from one particular Wisdom Tooth for years. My top left one. It has grown in on an angle, so that the sharp part actually veers out toward my cheek. For years I have growled through as it went through growth spurts, and just hope that it would fix it self eventually. (The male school of most things health related).

We all know how that ended up, right?

Well, I was on the phone about two weeks ago with Fred, when I felt something in the back of my mouth that felt like a hard piece of food or something that had dislodged. Nope. It was a piece of my crooked wisdom tooth. I freaked out at first, but then thought - well - it doesn't hurt, though....knowing that I was only putting off the inevitable.
The next day it started to hurt. I realized that it was indeed going to be an issue that just continued to get worse. So after consulting many friends and asking Dental opinions of where to go, I came to work, and my co-worker, Steven Cupo recommended his own dentist. He even called him up and told the doctor of my situation (the fact that I was an actor who couldn't afford a crazy amount of money to get this tooth out), and he said "Send him on over".

Never even having had a tooth pulled, I became terribly nervous. Several times on the way there, I thought that I might pass out. I didn't, of course, or you would be reading an even more pathetic post than this, probably from the hospital. But no, I made it there, holding my new book that I am reading (Under the Dome by Stephen King - 1100 pages and AMAZING) tightly against my body, as if it were a shield...which by it's size - it could be.

I was handed paperwork to fill out, and before I was even finished with it, to my horror the receptionist called out to me that the doctor would see me now. "But I haven't finished my paperwork!" I protested, stalling as much time as I could before the inevitable tooth sharking to follow. "You can finish it in the chair", she pleasantly chimed. She was enjoying this little fear game with me, I could tell. I began to construct nightmare scenarios in my head about being lead into what could only be an "Organ Hatching" operation, whereupon I would be gassed, my kidneys and other organs removed, then dumped on the curb somewhere in Anacostia. Sweat broke out on my forehead as I was lead to the chair.

I continued filling out my paperwork as the dentist (a very sweet man, for the record) asked me a few questions, then started rooting around in my mouth. Before I knew it, he had swabbed the area with a numbing solution and was pulling a needle out. My hands gripped the handles of the chair. I could barely feel the needle, nor the two that followed as his injections continued around my wreck of a tooth. He told me to finish up my paperwork as he waited for the Novocaine to go to work. Country music gently played over the sound system as I did this. I laughed to myself, thinking of the irony of my current situation juxtaposed with the singer on the radio telling of cool breezes and country hills. The Dentist had left my cubicle and gone to the next and I soon heard the unmistakable sound of a drill roaring to life. My stomach suddenly felt like it got invaded by army ants.

Soon it was time for the procedure to start, and I told the dentist at the last minute that I had never had a tooth pulled, never even had an oral shot, and was terribly scared. My rationale at this point was that maybe, just maybe the dentist had some Zanex tucked away in the office, offer it to me, and then I could drift away on happy thoughts as he wrenched my tooth out. No such luck. He told me that there was nothing to be afraid of, that he would go slow, and that I would just feel some pressure, scraping and digging. "That sounds delightful", I managed. My hands gripped the handles of the chair doubly hard.

The procedure began, and yes, I started to feel something - I could feel a tiny bit of pain. I told him immediately, and he gave me another shot. He then put an instrument in my mouth that looked like the scythe that the grim reaper carries around. "Does this hurt?" he would ask as he scraped the thing in my soon to be ex-tooth's gum-dock. "No.." I would say in a small and tentative voice, knowing what was coming next. "How about this?", he said, grunting as he did. Pressure and digging sensations from my left cheek began. "no..." I mustered. I felt two inches tall. "And this?", he asked while really starting to apply leverage to the tooth. I felt like my face was going to cave in, but it was just that pressure that I felt, no real pain. But I have to say, the sounds reverberating through your jaw bones as the scraping and digging are happening is enough to drive you insane. Your mind imagines what a murder scene that your mouth must look like, and your imagination (especially mine) can be a dangerous thing.

He was really grunting and hefting at this point, and I began to see him as a fisherman in a small boat trying to reel in a Blue Whale. I kept thinking - "I just don't want to taste my own blood - if I have to taste my own blood while my mouth is being held open, I will throw up. As if reading my thoughts, he asked his assistant for "suction" and the blood that was indeed flowing was sucked up. My knuckles were whiter than white. Every muscle in my body was tensed and flexed as he finally wrenched the tooth to freedom. I made a grunt of relief as they finished up in there. "All done." he said with little fanfare. "Was that hard to come out?" I asked, thinking of the epic pressure and grunting put out on his part. "No, not at all.", he said very matter of fact. The whole thing took about two minutes total from when he started the tooth extraction process. Of course, it felt like 2 hours.

It has been over a week now since the procedure, and I am well healed at this point, and thankful to be rid of the little deserter of a tooth. I am also relieved at the last bit of information that he gave me before sending me on my way. He told me that all of my other teeth looked to be in good shape, and that my three other wisdom teeth were coming in fine, and looked to have plenty of room to come in. So at least for now, it feels good to know that my dental outlook is good.

The recovery was interesting, however. I was warned by the dentist, as well as many others about the danger of the dreaded "DRY SOCKET". This dental condition was such a boogie man in my mind as friends upon friends told me tales of how they got it. One of which seemed the least obvious to me -touching your tongue to the spot. I never even thought of that, and at once, my tongue moved into an efficiency apartment on the right side of my mouth, not wanting anything to do with the left side. I chewed on the right side of my mouth only, and usually with my head tilted to the right. I must have looked like an inquisitive dog while eating for best part of a week. While I have not touched my tongue to the "area" yet, and am determined not to if I can at all help it, my eating habits have remained fairly the same, with most of the chewing still happening on the right. Brushing my teeth has become a longer process, as I operate the brush with the precision of a surgeon around the left upper side of my mouth. I actually called the dentist on Monday to see if I could go back to the gym, even though it had not been one week, as going to the gym was on the list of things that could cause "DRY SOCKET". He very nonchalantly said, "Oh sure. You're done now."..."but it hasn't been a full week..", I interjected..."Yeah, but if you were going to get it, you would have by now.", he stated.

And so I went to the gym. And all is now seemingly back to normal. My tongue isn't quite back to it's pole position as master of my mouth, it has traded it's small right side efficiency for what I like to think of as a "Half-way house". Going through this process, I have faced a life long fear, and come through it fine. And while my teeth themselves are none the wiser, I would like to think that I am.