Oh my bunion and blistered feet, what have you beheld today?

1. Everyone’s on the same page: 70 degrees in January means let’s run by the river! I felt slow.
2. I was slow.
3. Eating late at night can make you run slowly.
4. A sudden change in 20 degrees can make you feel like you’re overheating and make you run slowly.
5. New sneakers can make you run slowly and also give you blisters and make your calves hurt.
6. There’s an adorable twentysomething boy sitting on a bench by the river playing ukulele!
7. There is an adorable thirtysomething couple sitting at a table by the river playing Connect Four!
8. There is a creepy old man sitting on the side of the track smoking a cigar leering at the girls!
9. Oh, hey, I think a piece of glass did wedge in my foot when I broke that champagne flute! Now I feel it!
10. New Year’s resolution: try to run faster.

Related:
Wired: My 4-Week Quest to Run Faster

Previously:

The dentist himself is too good to clean teeth. He comes in at the end, after the hygienist has done her thing, glances in my mouth and throws an Oral-B toothbrush on my bibbed chest: “A gift.” And he’s gone.

Her thing. The hygienist would like you to know that hygienists don’t get any respect. People think it’s the dentists that do the cleaning but it’s not. How are my teeth? It’s weird but in the last two days, I’ve felt some weird sensitivity to cold. Without looking at my teeth, she tells me that the reason for that is I’m on my way to gum disease. There is the tooth, the root, the rod, look at me please, the tooth the the rod, and bacteria has gotten in between the root and the gum and I am going to get gum disease. Unless I get sealants on my teeth. Wait but you didn’t even look at my teeth. That’s okay, I know. Sealants are $100 per tooth.

Let her poke around with her little needle. The handles of her tools are rubber, light green rubber and the rubber is filthy. This does not inspire confidence. They wear gloves. How do the handles get so gross? Weren’t the scrapesters and mirrors cooked in an autoclave? I have pocketing. Remeber the tooth, the root, the rod? Bacteria, I’m going to need some deep sea irrigation cleaning on both sides. It’s $450 per side. I tell her I am not prepared to spend that kind of money on my teeth. I understand I will soon be a toothless young lady gumming my Cream of Wheat but I cannot spend $900 on a gum irrigation. I would sooner spend that kind of money on Lumineers (TM), which she has not yet tried to sell me but watch out she will.

I tell her I would like to get a regular cleaning, like when I was 10, and we scrapey-scrape and she lectures me about flossing and I get a fluoride treatment and leave. She says she doesn’t lecture about flossing. I say “But I don’t floss!” and she says “Well, try to floss sometimes then.” I realize she doesn’t want me to floss. I realize this dentistry practice is in the hole and she is dying for me to get gum disease and the dentist has told her to talk non-stop about me losing my teeth so that he can finance the renovations she has told me they are doing in February! No I do not want to pay $70 for bite-wings! Why can’t you be honest with me? I’m the only person I know who actually goes to the dentist! And I use Sonicare! And I grew up with enough calcium! Oh, she’d like me to know that the Sonicare, because its brush head is unfortunately (unfortunately!) the size of a regular brush head, is not getting into the cracks in my gums. I am so fucking on to this woman. The dingy office is plastered with ads for the Oral-B electric toothbrush with that tiny, non-regulation-sized round head. How fortunate!

So she does the cleaning. She uses the electric scrapster and I am 100% positive she hurt me on purpose to prove her point about my decaying gums. It hurt terribly and when it hurt I just opened my mouth wider as if I was feeling no pain listen missus not only don’t I have gum problems but my gums are so healthy I will not wince or cry out when you stab me.

I need a new dentist. I want a dentist who is going to work with me within my budget and not try to sell me a bunch of crazy treatments. I believe that a dentist (or underappreciated hygienist) who is not concerned with my flossing is trying to take me for everything I’m worth.

Which is, of course, quite a bit.

So you want to be a runner? Good girl. Here’s how I did it.

In Chapter 1 of the book I blather on about how I always despised running, lying awake terrified the night before “The Mile” every school year when I’d be forced to lope four times around the track, fearing collapsing before reaching the finish line. I still remember how future Olympians like Lia Walker would run The Mile in six minutes and I’d come skating in at 9:56 on a fast day, my throat sore, all shaky and sweaty and delirious with joy at not having walked and not coming in at the back of the pack with the walkers.

Even if you were a walker, you can try the program I did that transformed me from a running-hater to a person who actually can’t think clearly or digest properly or sit still without a multiple-mile run several times a week. It’s called The Couch-to-5K Running Plan. It takes about eight weeks and it’s very reasonable and rather fun and regimented and will surprise you. I mean that if you don’t run and you want to, you will surprise yourself at what you are capable of.

It might sound like I’m bragging a little about the running thing. Okay, fine, I am. I am truly amazed at how a year and a half ago I couldn’t run a mile comfortably, and now I can and do run many times that.

Thanks to Bobbie, who wrote to me asking about the running program I did, and who articulated what I think a lot of women feel/think about running and other kinds of exercise:

I realized as I read that I’ve always told myself I can’t run and I can’t do this or that — and maybe it’s time I say I want to run, I can run, and I am going to run! I’m a near couch potato right now that’s blessed with a high metabolism, but I don’t want to neglect my health any more.

Hooray, Bobbie! We should all stop telling ourselves what we can’t do.
Good luck, future marathoners.
Lia Walker, eat my dust.

Oh my idiocy, I never until this very minute noticed her last name was WALKER. Lia Walker. I would have done anything at all to run that fast.

Previously:

Today’s question comes from Rachael, a third-year medical student from Kingston, Ontario.

Dear Ms. Kirsch, I just read the “What supplements should I take” section on page 25, and was very disappointed not to see folic acid in the list.

In a woman who becomes pregnant, folic acid is important for the prevention
of neural tube defects (like spina bifida) and other birth defects.
Supplementation with folic acid has been proven to decrease such defects.

I am sure that most of the women reading your book are not trying to get
pregnant. Half of all pregnancies, however, are unplanned. Furthermore,
neural tube defects occur very early on, usually before a woman knows that
she is pregnant. It is therefore recommended that all women of reproductive
age (ie your audience) should be taking folic acid BEFORE they are even
thinking about having children.

I think that this is a very important message, which young women often don’t
receive until they are actually pregnant. Your book targets the very group
that needs to know about folic acid: adult women who are not yet starting
their families. If you produce a 2nd edition at some point, please please
please include information about folic acid in your nutrition section!

Thanks for the great book.

Rachael’s question got me thinking, because I’ve heard a lot about folic acid being necessary for expectant mothers, but never thought it was important for women who weren’t trying to become pregnant.

Since that list of nutritional supplements was compiled with the aid of our resident nutritionist, Dr. Jeffrey Morrison, I took Rachael’s question to him. Here’s his response:

Dear Rachael,

Thank you so much for your comments about the fact that women of child bearing years need to be concerned about adequate folic acid intake.

Currently The U.S. Preventive Services Task force recommends that all women planning pregnancy take a daily multivitamin or multivitamin-multimineral supplement containing folic acid at a dose of 400-800 mcg, beginning 1 month prior to conception and continuing through the first trimester, to reduce the risk of neural tube defects.(1)

Even though it was not expressly written, a diet high in fruits, vegetable and fortified whole grain products contribute to that goal. In addition, my recommendation that women take an additional B-complex will typically cover the folic acid requirement.

That all being said, I agree with you. In the next addition to the book, I will recommend to Melissa to add a bullet point to clarify the importance of folic acid to women’s health. Thank you for your comments and good luck with medical school!

(1) Combs GF. Ch.4 on Vitamins, in “Krause’s Food, Nutrition and Diet Therapy.” Mahan LK, Escott-Stump S, editors. 10th ed. W.B. Saunders Company. Philadelphia: 2000. p. 94

Thanks, Rachael! I hope this helps. As I wrote in the introduction to the book (Who reads introductions? I know), The Girl’s Guide to Absolutely Everything is not meant to be the last word on anything, but the opening of a conversation. I wrote the book so women could benefit from the accrued experience of other women. The exchange continues beyond the pages of the book.

If you have any questions, corrections, stories, comments, ideas, wisdom, advice or anything else you want to get out there, write me at melissa@melissakirsch.com.

Getting your ingrown toenail operated on without anesthesia. Also without that little pleather screen they (in respectable podiatry offices) put between you and the pliers so you can’t see the grossitude. I’m hobbled. I let out little shrieks. I actually covered my eyes with my hands. I wanted a diagnosis. I was told to stop getting pedicures and yes that’s a “tiny bunion.”

I would like to make a felt stuffed animal of a tiny bunion and give it to you for Christmas. It would have googly eyes and a maybe thatch of krazy red hair. It would be like an Ugly Doll–you know, ugly and cute all at once. Except it would hurt.

PS ‘Twas the Friday before Christmas and you still hadn’t bought a copy of my book? Get it while the getting’s good. Surely someone on your list deserves access to your free trial period of Amazon Prime!

Fascinating, this montage of Donald Trump’s semi-controlled vitriolic tirade against Rosie O’Donnell for criticizing him on The View yesterday.

Notice the one thing that Donald keeps coming back to is how “fat” and “ugly” Rosie is. I maintain that criticizing a woman’s appearance is just low, it’s a low, cheap shot for men to take when they feel defenseless or emasculated (Rosie said Donald was “bankrupt”–which, for a man whose entire identity is predicated on his net worth, would be the equivalent of saying he has a tiny pee-pee). Criticizing a woman’s appearance, especially calling her fat, as evidence of her unworthiness is cheap, cheap, cheap. Weight discrimination is the last socially acceptable form of prejudice. I wish it were also an insult empty of venom. But while women know that every idiotic man who can’t think of a way to hurt a woman is going to say something about her body, this doesn’t stop the insult from stinging. It shouldn’t mean anything more than any other subjective epithet, but in our “evolved” society, it does.

As Sarah Silverman says, “I don’t care if you think I’m racist. I only care if you think I’m thin.”

A woman walking down the street in NYC without an iPod on is going to hear an unscientific average of three catcalls, two lewd comments, and receive at least one up-and-down salacious ironing by a stranger. But woe unto the woman who yells something back, for she is undoubtedly going to called an “ugly bitch” or a “fat ass” by the man who was harrassing her in the first place. Not every man is a dirty pig, but all dirty pigs know that they can “win” by criticizing a woman’s appearance. And every woman who’s ever defended herself against the attentions of a dirty pig knows what she’s in for if she dares do anything but smile and walk on by.

I have (male) friends who say “You should feel complimented when men check you out.” I have grown weary of explaining the difference between my boyfriend telling me I look pretty and a stranger hissing that he’d like to “tap that ass.”

OK, this is just terrifying. It looks like a pretty poster of flowers, it’s actually a logic-less argument against contraception. Check it out! Condoms grow “lethal experimentation” (whatever that is). Chastity grows volunteers! I’m trying to decide if it’s fair that the dandelion has to bear the fruit of all this Evil.

Brought to you by some creepy organization called “One More Soul,” via the excellent blog Feministing.

If you have health insurance, which I sincerely hope you do (and if you don’t, I sincerely order you to explore the cheapest options), go to the doctor. It’s easy, as we know, to let things go to crap when you’re super-busy–things like tidying up, picking up your (still at the cleaners!) laundry, returning emails. Taken together, these neglected tiny things make you feel like your life is just slightly out of control, that the checklist items are not only going unchecked-off, there is no checklist.

Yesterday I started to get a tickle in my throat. And I thought “Perhaps I should see my doctor before I get whatever tedious germ is ‘going around’”. Then I realized, perhaps I should see the five or so doctors I pay health insurance premiums every month for the privilege of seeing. What the hell? I have been suffering away with an ingrown toenail, a future bunion, teeth-growing-moss, a weird back thing, and a host of other woes. I made four doctors’ appointments and one dentist appointment.

My apartment is still a mess. I might not wash my hair today. I have no clean clothes. But I feel measurably more in control, and less like I’m going to start falling apart, limb from limb.

Call your PCP/therapist/colorectal surgeon/podiatrist/allergist/[fill in the specialty] right now. Enough of not having time or being scared that the dentist is going to yell at you for not flossing. Go, go, go.

I have a very serious question for you. I need you to listen closely and then answer me from that very honest place, the tiny corner of your soul from which issue the promptings of your truest self.

If a person creates a “Listmania!” list on Amazon, has she lost every single on of her marbles, or just, like, three?

I don’t understand Listmania!. I mean, I like those lists people make, and sometimes find them slightly useful — no, scratch that — I find them slightly diverting. But the public service that people are providing, and the free advertising for Amazon product…it all seems like people with too much time on their hands. Or people working in offices who have lost significant numbers of marbles due to overhead light, Aeron-chair-ass and repetitive stress injury from right-clicking.

Yesterday I created an Amazon Listmania! List. Part of the impulse was to have my book on a List, even if it was a List I created. But that was just part. Another part of me thought of it as a civic duty. Like voting. Or jury duty. For which I have inexplicably been subpoenaed.

Who have I become?
Last Minute Gifts That No One Doesn’t Love
A Listmania! List by Melissa Kirsch

Please give me some “helpful” votes. They will bolster my will. I might even venture into the “So You’d Like To…” List category.

Previously:
Chickarina Is a Bumblebee

(Filed under “Health and Body Image” because of obvious mental health implications.)

So in The Book, I give lots of advice about how to come up with an exercise regimen you’ll actually stick with. Condensed here:

1. Choose something you like, that you’ll actually stick with, because if you have a nervous breakdown every time you think about going to step class, that’s not your kind of exercise.

2. Mix things up for balance and variety. If you try to do 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer every single morning, you will get bored and hate yourself and your elliptical trainer (you own an elliptical trainer? that’s sort of cool). You know: run, swim, bike, lift some dumbbells, go nuts on one of those giant rubber balls that I secretly love.

3. Keep your workouts short enough that enough time passes between workouts for you to actually want to do it again. If you spend 2 hours at the gym every time you, but then you’re so burnt out you only go once a month, that’s not fun.

…&c.
(That’s supposed to pique your appetite so you’ll run out and buy it to find out what else I say that could and actually definitely will change your life.)

Okay, so I know all these things, but how often do I actually take my own advice? So this week I varied my running route and actually sought out the park by the river rather than just going on the paths through the housing development (oh, to live in the wide open country where one can run and frolic in streets and yards!) like I always do. I ran by the river, through a playground (watch out, tykes!), around a baseball field, I ran into a big soft track and did a few laps, ran back and couldn’t resist a spin around the housing development (you can’t keep a good girl down). But it was exhilarating. I felt like I’d discovered an extra room in my apartment, you know, that dream that’s always so sad to wake up from, where you realize you have a wing to your house you never knew existed, like the closet has a fake back wall and there’s a giant bathroom with a clawfoot tub back there you never knew about. It was almost like that, except it wasn’t a dream!

Then Ben and I rode up the east side on our bikes today, which was less than halcyon, since the path dead-ends at 42nd Street and you end up on the highway (oops!) but we’ve been riding most weekends on the west side, which is sort of like a boardwalk full of happy beachcombers jogging and biking and rollerblading and you could almost believe you were someplace tropical if you don’t look to your left. Ben likes to remind me that these bike rides are in no way strenous, but I say it’s all exercise, and another tip I have in the book is to find a “workout buddy” (I hope I don’t use that term, but it is accurate, if dorky). Better that we should be riding bikes while we chat than, I don’t know, watching one more documentary about lefty politics, our former favorite weekly practice. I mean, we’re still going to see Iraq in Fragments (I hope) but the riding feels as enriching.

So I’m here to say that a super-busy week in which several things could potentially have put me in rotten spirits was actually quite blissful, because I followed my own advice. You should too. Let me know how it goes.

Previously:
The Long Run, Hubris