Intermittent Fasting

I’m thinking about a Facebook post about intermittent fasting while slicing English cheddar for a towering ham sandwich.

4 days a week, posts a Friend, I only eat during a 6 hour window. Combined with regular infrared saunas and a weekly coffee enema, I’ve never been more optimized.

I went to grade school with her long ago. In 5th grade, she wore boat shoes with socks, excelled at floor hockey, used a purple marker to write the name of the boys she loved in the margins of her textbooks.

Now, there’s a picture of her in a weight room looking cadaverous but smiling, eyes shining with wolfy hunger, each rib countable. A filter has been applied to her teeth - a terrifyingly solid block of sparkling ivory.

Bitchily, I picture a different scene: Blood dripping from pointed canines, eyes the color of sulfur, tail flagged. Mange. (I know her husband.)

You too can thrive! she advertises in cursive pink across the flat canvas of her abdomen. PM me if you want to know how I got here - offering packages and special rates!

Fucking crazy, I think ungenerously, annoyed that my sandwich suddenly seems indulgent, the punishing art of calorie restriction glamorized, shaming my Black Forest ham from the screen of my phone. 

Lord Jesus, I’d starve! one woman quips to everyone’s delight. She follows her comment with a selfie, a jar of Reeses Pieces cradled in the crook of her arm like a baby.

The fasting woman responds: Lol, I’m NEVER hungry when I fast.

There’s a collective roll of the eye. A wave of collective shame. We feel our asses in our chairs, gingerly finger the rolls of our neck, crave a soda from the fountain.

I toss a crumbling piece of cheddar in my mouth, the alchemy of fat and salt opening the sluice of dopamine.

Cheeeeeeeese.

*

My friend, Anna, improvises a charcuterie board when I visit. We kick back in old lawn chairs, rest our feet on the wide cedar planks of the garden beds, and share hunks of marbled salami cut with her pruning knife, wiped clean on the leg of her jeans.

Try this, she says, and pops a ground cherry from its paper husk. It glows yellow in my palm, tastes tropical. Check it out, she says, rubbing leaves of Korean mint between her thumb and forefinger, filling the air with smell of licorice.

I crack the tab of a skunky IPA, 16oz split between two mugs brimming with foam, the back of our necks reddening in the sun. Chickens aerate the soil, gobble the scratch we toss in front of them. Tiny dinosaurs, Anna remarks, and points out how we’d have to run from them if they were suddenly the size of trucks.

We identify wildflowers, walk for the sake of walking, talk about moms, mothering, our fathers, fathering. We eyeball traffic, count how many people drive by distracted by their phones. We talk about various technologies and the ways in which we’ve committed to staying Luddites. We talk about the smell of books. Dust mites.

I tell Anna about my daughter’s favorite book, a story about Baba Yaga, the witch of Slavic lore famous for her repulsive nose. Her house is built on chicken legs, meaning it can run through the forest and relocate when necessary. Her black cat salivates watching Baba Yaga cook up the children she’s stolen from warm homes. The book is demented, and wonderful.

Anna snorts, tells me about her son’s favorite book - a Russian satire about a nose that flees a man’s face and makes a life of its own. Noshe! her toddler requests, nauseating her every time she arrives at the part of the story where the nose is discovered in a loaf of sourdough.

We talk about men’s noses, how beguiling they can be. We talk about how to deal with disappointment, funny bird behavior, the five flavors, and our hatred of the winter wind. 

Back inside, Anna clears a spot on the kitchen table and shares a pop-up book she’s made by hand, each snip of her scissors dizzying and precise. 

We eat olives, bread, share another beer. When it’s time to leave Anna gives me a hug.

I drive home, the back of my neck burned by the sun.

*

In addition to English cheddar, I add romaine, stone ground mustard, salted tomato, and bacon.

It’s three stories and tilts to the left.

I take a bite.

What washes over me can only be called sandwich joy.