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Just finished my first week back at work after a relatively short recovery. It feels good returning to the ol' routine, though I'm hampered by frustration over things I still have trouble doing (exercising, sleeping comfortably, etc.). Luckily, there have been no complications (knock wood) and I'm healing like a champ, which I attribute to overall good health and good genes. As well as good jeans. One can never have enough of those.
My closet is in need of major overhaul, as most of my shirts and sweaters now make me look like a schoolgirl playing dress-up in her mother's clothes. To say nothing of my drawerful of now-useless DD boob-smoosher-downers (aka bras). I'm taking bets on the number of Victoria's Secret gift certificates I will garner for my upcoming birthday.
Seriously, I couldn't have imagined what an effect losing a few cup sizes has on the way clothes fit. Not only are shirts and sweaters far too big, but they fall much lower on my waist and hips than before, minus the "tent effect" they had because of the big ol' boobs. Even more unexpected, the sleeves on most of my garments are now too long! Perhaps it's time to take those sewing classes I skipped in junior high in favor of woodshop?
As glad as I am to be back at work, I enjoyed my leisure time immensely, finishing several great books and catching up on letter-writing. I'm not big on fiction lately, but amidst my non-fiction extravaganza, I finally finished Nick Hornby's How to Be Good. After years of enjoying and learning from his brilliant columns, I finally got around to one of Thomas Friedman's books: Longitudes and Attitudes. Based on suggestions from friends, I devoured Freakonomics, the hilarious Candyfreak and Augusten Burroughs' twisted Running with Scissors (I'd read Dry a while back and loved it). I also returned to a book I'd started a few months back: Blind Ambition, John Dean's fascinating insider account of the Watergate scandal.
But the recent read that had the greatest impact was the positively riveting Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer's frightening expose of the violent record of Mormon fundamentalists. The history of the Mormon church is fascinating enough in itself, but Krakauer uncovered some truly horrifying facts about their past (and present) and provides them in chilling detail, making for a very hard-to-put-down book. Any remaining doubts I had about the pros of organized religion have been effectively stripped after reading this! Weeks later, it still has me thinking almost daily about the horrors going on in this country in the name of religion. And to think, most Americans believe Muslims are the ones who are backwards. Fucking hell.
Posted by ayelet at September 30, 2005 04:16 PM