Doughnuts

The other day I wanted doughnuts. I wanted a box of doughnuts. I wanted to eat a box of doughnuts and watch TV.
When I was a preteen the mommie, K and I used to stop at Dunkin Doughnuts and go to a friend's house. Actually it was a couple who were the mommie and K's friends. They had a daughter who was my age (I think). I don't think we actually liked each other that much. We'd go to her room. Eat a lot of doughnuts. I think she wanted to watch something like the Twilight Zone. Something that freaked me out. My memories are vague about everything but the doughnuts. They made me sick. Every time. I'd be sick in the car on the way home. It was decades before I wanted another doughnut.
When I worked at EA we had doughnuts every other week. Not just any old doughnut. Krispy Kremes. Probably fresh ones considering how close we were to the factory. At first I didn't participate but I was curious about the famous doughnuts. Eventually I tried a glazed. It was good. And I didn't get sick. Then I tried a jelly. Then I started taking a glazed and a jelly. I was all in.
One day when I went for a break there were still doughnuts on the table. I looked both ways and then superstitiously grabbed a third. Went out to the balcony and ate it as fast as I could. I wasn't sure what I was worried about. I ate forbidden (for fat people) foods in public all the time. But I felt like doughnuts were ... trashy. I had no idea where that thought came from or that I had it in me but there it was.
I just finished Heavy by Kiese Laymon. Fierce. Relentless. Chronicling his life growing up in Mississippi. There is so much in the book it's hard to narrow what it's about but he is fat and that is my theme. At one point he is on his own. Away from the people who tell him he needs to lose weight. He goes to one of those restaurants where they sell big breakfast specials and eats a long list of foods. Then he goes to Dunkin Doughnuts and gets a box. He writes that he felt free. I felt that in my bones.
When you're a fat kid everyone has something to say about what you eat. Doctors, teachers, parents, grandparents. other kids. You often feel monitored. I never did a lot of secret eating but I have had moments like that one on the balcony. I'm always confounded by the ideas we have about food. Most of all why we care what anyone else thinks about what we eat.
My ageing digestive system would never deal with a box of doughnuts. Not the amount. Not the sugar/carb combo. My system would punish me for days.
That night DeAnna walked in with a big pink VooDoo doughnut box. It was like she had read my mind. There were only two in the box but VooDoo doughnuts are huge. One had coconut on top, which made me so happy. I enjoyed every bite. The second was chocolate and peanut butter and Oreos. I picked off the Oreos so I could eat more of the doughnut.
After a day of wanting them there they were and they were good. I did't get sick. Well. Maybe a little belly ache but not too bad.

Morning Reading

We had a snowy week. Only one day was bad enough to stay home but I'm always worried about falling so I stayed home the whole week. I'd eat breakfast and then take my coffee, sit in my recliner by the window, pull on the purple throw and read.
In the past I have turned on the news and the computer first thing and preformed a simulacra of working. I usually read in the afternoon and/or evenings. Morning reading feels decadent. Luxurious. I have no where else to be. There are things I could be doing. Dusting the never ending dust, emptying the drier, watering the plants, writing a blog post. Writing anything. But no. I sit with my legs up turning pages and feeling like I am doing exactly what I need to be doing.
After the snow week the morning reading has continued on the days I don't swim. Swimming is the only thing I'd rather be doing.
I blazed through seven novels and a book of essays and I loved all of them. Reading so many books in a row like that can be tricky. A writing style that you love one day feels hollow in comparison to another that you just loved.
I took a class on women writers of the southern cone years ago. We read Of Love and Shadow by Allende right after Mothers and Shadows by Marta Traba. I like Allende very much and have read many of her books. But following Traba's much sleeker and more devastating prose the Allende read like a romance novel. I feel like I would have liked it better if I'd read it first. The Traba tore me open. I'm not sure any writing would have felt real after that. 
I just finished another book of essays. This one by Vivian Gornick. The book is about rereading but as with all Gornick it's really about everything. There was an essay about this problem of reading when you aren't open to the writing and then rereading. She mentions a reviewer who had given a book a bad review and then reread it at a later date and loved it. One of the reasons I don't read or write many reviews is the fluidity of affection.
I bought books specifically because I want to reread them. Books that I read when I was younger. I spent the summer between my junior and senior high school year reading Dostoevsky. I'm sure I would get so much more out of those books if I reread them now. I started to buy all of the Anais Njn diaries but hesitated because I doubted I'd get through them ... again. I'd like to reread all of the Little House books. DH Lawrence. Lawernce Durrell. Collette. Jung.
Years ago I was house sitting for a friend who had all of the Herman Hesse books. I had read them all in high school and loved them dearly. They were pivotal in terms of how I saw the world. I tried to reread them and found them horrible. But I wonder if I might try again and ... fall back in love.
There are just so many new books. And I'm always seeing more. It's quite overwhelming. I am a slow reader. I often need to read sentences and paragraphs two or three times. I may have dyslexia. Or I may just not be able to concentrate. 
OK.
So.
Back to the book.