A Most Unreliable Narrator Issue #112 Lions, Tigers, Bears
Oh my!
Welcome to A Most Unreliable Narrator, the slice-of-life newsletter of GenXer around town, Lisa Rabey. I talk about anything and everything with a bit of swears. I’m glad you’re here.
Dear Internet,
Jesus Christ. This is the fourth version I’ve written in a week. I write something, put it away to read later. Read later and find that it’s not quite what I want to say. Save it and start over. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The previous three versions were fairly timely so I could use them in the future but knowing me as I do, probably forget about it and those versions will hang about in perpetuity.
Dearest friend and I were talking about goals once we lose weight. What is the kind of things you want to do that you can’t do now? So, I had a thought about this:
Run a 5K
Buy and walk properly in a nice pair of stilettos (I’m 5’10 but I always want to be taller)
Do yoga inversions
Walk Pyramid Point without stopping (I cannot tell you how often I get dusted by the old folks. It’s embarrassing!)
Hell, walk up a steep hill without sounding like a 60-year-old smoker
Buy straight sizes*
I’m sure there is more but it’s escaping me right now. What it boils down to is not wanting to end up like my mom who at 55 decided she was tired and lived in her chair for the next 15 years, eventually ending in a wheelchair. I think to myself, “Hey, I can walk for miles in my current condition.” But can I though? Really? About the ½ mile mark my back starts twinging and then I’m feeling extremely broken.
Love Island x Jane Austen
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My workouts as of late have been a bit uninspiring. We are at coming into our fourth month and I feel…fine? I notice some body strength but I don’t much notice anything else. My eating is so disordered I’ve given up getting measurements because who knows if I’ll be bloated or not or if my arthritis is kicking in which usually means swollen joints and appendages. I asked around the interwebs for yoga on YouTube or somewhere. I looked for local yoga spots here at the cabin but either the time doesn’t fit or I have to travel 30 minutes to Traverse City which with the class can eat up a lot of time and I don’t want to waste PTO on exercising.
I found a couple of online yoga places I want to try. First up is Joyn which is a web based app geared for movement for every body not just everybody. Eleanor hooked me up with them and best part, it’s free. I’m really excited to try them out.
I’ve also been recommended to try Yoga by Adriene which is on the YouTubes which I really like because we have the YouTube app on our telly which allows me to participate more since I’m not looking at my phone or iPad.
Now the thing is is that months ago I decided I wanted to teach yoga for every body. To be inclusive because damn, aren’t I tired of going to yoga studios and seeing thin white bodies prominently in that space. Yeah, yeah, yoga is inclusive and open to everyone but in reality, it’s not. I’m sure these thin white ladies don’t mean to be exclusive but oh lord, are they.
The itch to teach (training takes minimum of 250 hours with most peaking out at 500 hours. This does not include specializations or continued education.) has waned as life has taken front seat lately (*gestures to world*). But as I feel my body move during my work outs, including stretching, I’m beginning to want to move more freely and confidently and right now that is not happening. As I remain a big girl, this is a good time to get started.
My insurance reached out to me a few weeks back that they will have a final decision for fat girl surgery by July 27th. I'm nervous because what if they reject me? What am I going to do? Diets don’t work. That’s proven over and over again. And I’m not strong enough to love my body
I have plans to discuss this with dearest friend since their surgery is next week and we started to, a bit, when they pointed out that if insurance wanted to reject me, that would have already happened. Right now, it’s about money and time.
The one thing I’m desperately trying not to do is get anxious about our cruise in December. We booked it in February, and I thought to myself we would have plenty of time to lose weight and get in shape and here we are in July and while I’m working out, it’s not happening with the weight loss. Yes, diets don’t work but if I don’t shed something by the beginning of December, I’m not going to fit in airplane seats.
(Note: Norton called me a few days ago to let me know the insurance company came back and I have to have 12 meetings with a dietician and therapist (combined) which I can do virtually because thank god as I’m in N. Michigan and I don’t want to have to go back to Louisville unless I absolutely have to. Once the appointment criteria is met, then Norton will resubmit to insurance for the fat girl surgery. I already have two appointments down and the remaining 10 I will be doing twice a week.)
Last weekend, J and I walked around Narda Lake to see the frogs and turtles:
Then Tuesday we walked around Crystal River:
And it was a two mile walk and sure enough, ½ mile in my back starts twinging. I thought for a long time it was sciatica but turns out it’s not. My PT had me doing a bunch of exercises which don’t seem to be helping and now that I’m working out with core strength, that’s not helping either.
Saturday we drove all over the peninsula and got our feet wet in Lake Michigan:
I scheduled an appointment with a local chiropractor because I’ve got shit to do and this problem needs to be resolved.
(I’m also hoping that losing weight will help but I need some relief now.)
We came up to the cabin on June 25th and we’ll be here until at least September with no plans to head back to Louisville beforehand. We discovered that Gary the field mouse and his buds had a grand ole time in our kitchen (no food was eaten rather they just leave poop behind looking for stuff) and right now we have humane traps set out with Cool Ranch Doritos as the bait. We haven’t seen a hide nor hair of Gary since the traps were laid out.
(Note: Gary has been caught but died since the trap was hidden in the utility closet and it wasn’t until J was grabbing a garbage bag he saw the trap. We have no idea how long Gary was in there. We buried him in a pauper’s grave.)
We hired a contractor last summer to come and remove most of our back deck since it’s rotting and fix the front deck. We had the A-frame windows replaced last fall and the cabin windows will be done sometime this year. A landscaper came out on Friday to give us an estimate on getting our property in order because hoo boy do we look like no one lives here. Which is funny because someone left their tires in our yard so coupled with other huge debris we’ve had over the years, we need to get a dumpster.
The property market is hot up here with our own cabin now worth nearly 300% more than what we bought it and it’s only going up. We could sell it but this is the only thing that ties me to Michigan and allows friends and family to come see us. Even if we win the lotto, I’d still keep this place.
With that being said, we’ve also talked about moving to Chicago once I got the go ahead to work from home permanently but what about just moving to the cabin? It’s a property we already own and it’s almost paid off, we’ve started the updates, and we only need to get a washer / dryer in here and central heating (which both are doable in the next year or so) and after that, we’re thinking of trying a winter here to see if we can hack it. Now I only have to worry about bears and coyotes and snakes rather than being robbed or harassed.
Yay?
*Straight sizes are sizes 0 – 20 (roughly) that can be found in most stores and online without being qualified as “plus” or “curvy” sizes.
Things I Recently Wrote
If you read #97.5, you’ll recall I’ve ditched the We’ll Read Anything Once (Twice If We Like it) book review blog for a newsletter of the same name.
What I’m Reading
FINISH A FUCKING BOOK LISA BEFORE STARTING A NEW ONE.
The 7/12 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle An Agatha Christie-esque locked room mystery
Reputation Mean girls with Jane Austen thrown in
Dissolution Lawyer turned sleuth in Tudor England
The Book of Life All Souls #3
Girls to the Front Oral history of Riot Grrrls
Black Loves Matter Essays that intersect on love, romance, and media through the lens of Black authors and creators
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl A contemporary retelling of Woolf’s Orlando
Orlando Virginia Woolf’s modern take on fluidity of gender and sex
The Widow Queen 10th C Poland. A princess used as a pawn to form alliances, but she has other plans
Lonely Boy Tales from a Sex Pistol
Anger is an Energy John Lydon’s life uncensored
Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph Biography on John Keats
A Curious History of Sex A very skim the top look, but highly interesting, history of sex
Equal Rites Discworld #3 and beginning of the Witches track qualified
Wonderful Thing
Peter Hook and Joy Divison.
Most people know of Joy Division by Love Will Tear Us Apart (or one of the hundreds of cover versions. I’m not kidding.) or their iconic album cover that is so ubiquitous, it has its own meme.
I’m not sure how I got into JoyDiv but I do remember I’ve been a fan for decades. TheEx once said he knew he was a goner when he first came over to my apartment and saw the poster of Ian Curtis, the lead singer, on my dining room wall.
Curtis committed suicide on May 18, 1980. I was eight. The likelihood of ever seeing JoyDiv live (or for them to release new music) was impossible.
Or was it?
Peter Hook, former bassist for JoyDiv and the spin off group after Curtis died, New Order, has been traveling for years playing JoyDiv songs. He’s rarely been to America concentrating on Europe and environs. (Not terribly surprising since Curtis killed himself right before JoyDiv were to begin their American tour.)
I follow Hook on Twitter and saw he and his band were touring. I checked hope against hope and he’s coming to the States! He’s playing in Royal Oak (N of Detroit) on August 15th and I convinced Steph, another big concert goer, to come with me.
I’m beyond excited for this show because in a way, I’ll be seeing JoyDiv live, something that I never thought possible.
On July 15th, Curtis would have been 66. Have a silent pint on his birthday.
P.S. Anton Corbjin directed Control (2007), the bio doc of Curtis (and Joy Division) based on his wife’s memoir, Touching From a Distance. TheEx and I drove 120 miles to see it when it came out since only one theater was showing it in all of Michigan. JoyDiv, and New Order, (and Factory Records) was the kick off to a whole new genre of music, Madchester, where 30+ years on, the influence is still being felt. Control is great movie. Depressing, but great.
P.P.S. 24 Hour Party People is the film that came out in 2002 about the beginning of the Madchester scene but begins with Joy Division as one of the first signers to Factory Records. If I watch one, gotta watch the other.
FINIS!
Have a happy
lisa x
(Fuck fascists and Nazis!)
You've just finished reading A Most Unreliable Narrator: the slice of life newsletter from the GenXer about town, Lisa Rabey. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky if you're so inclined. I am everywhere. Copyright © 1996 - 2025 by Lisa Rabey