My Body Talks Back

I want to tell you about my body. My body and I act like a long-time, unhappily married couple -- too tired, too entangled to get a divorce. What we have between us are mostly confrontations, complaints and painful incidents. There's rarely a moment of tranquility or appreciation. I have gripes: For example, there's a feeling in my chest like a garlic bagel is stuck.

Other times my body behaves like a petulant ex-lover who continues to send annoying e-mails long after the passion has passed -- tart remember-me's, like sinuses stuffed with Elmer's glue, or a food-trap in my molars that aggravates my gums.

The latest is my foot! My foot!

My left foot stepped down funny, collapsed on itself and fractured! "Notice me, notice me, notice me," the body says.

Okay, I get the picture.

Then, after a few days in a big black shoe boot and a noxious mood, I chanced upon a You Tube video that seemed to be talking to me.

It's a black and white undulating odalisque in graceful silhouette. The gist of the copy explains that as long as you're at war with your body you'll never have peace. I realized, "that's it!"

These aren't isolated ailments that plague me. I'm at war with my whole body! A war with

more animosity than Palestine and Israel.

For instance, I want to lose weight. It spots FatWich chocolate brownie samples at Whole Foods market and swallows three.

"Just talk to your body," the video coos. "Ask it what it needs."

So yesterday I invited my body for a sit-down and tried not to complain about the size of my ass.

"So what do you want, body," I asked.

"You're always picking on me," my body said. "Pick, pick, pick. You pick my eyebrows. You bite your lip. You pull at your cuticles. You scratch. Can't you ever just leave me alone?"

I have to say I was taken aback! But, I also have to admit my body is right about the picking.

"And you never, never ever give me compliments! Or green leafy vegetables. You hate exercise!" My body was right about that too.

Me and my body! Decades of disappointment and hurt. Drab hair. Weak eyes. Biceps the texture of brioche. Besides all that, it's painful to look at my body and not be angry that it is no longer 19, perky and taut.

But then again my body has never betrayed me either, with anaphylactic shock, persistent dandruff, or gout. And just look at the amazing job I did with pregnancy -- it was an absolutely perfect delivery with no meds and little gas.

Body! If I can just beg forgiveness and start again. I'll buy a WII. We'll go back to yoga.

Maybe, oh maybe I can make it up to my body, my dear old, lifelong friend.

Cockroach in my iced coffee.

Despite a rich travel history in second-rate motels and third-world countries, I cannot get used to four, six or eight-legged creatures of any genus in my drinks. This aversion also includes larvae or worms with indeterminate appendages that occasionally show up in bottles of tequilla. But, in this instance, the culprit was a city slicker known to many New Yorkers, the common cockroach.

Now that most of my travel is closer to home than in the reckless days of my youth, you'd think that I would not have to be as vigilant as in times past. And perhaps the thought that I can drink the water or eat the lettuce was a naive expectation in today's world. Still, I was shocked, yes shocked at what transpired the other morning.

I stopped in my favorite coffee shop in town. I often eat here. In fact, I am a regular, with all rights and priviliges, such as extra straws and napkins, welcome by first name, and so on. I purchased what I always order on sultry summer days -- "a large iced decaf with milk to go."

Now this is one of my great. great pleasures. Not just because I enjoy the icy coldness in my hand and th rich milky-coffee taste in my mouth. Not just because after two or three years, practically everyone behind the counter almost always remembers me and that I don't take sweetener. Or, even that here I can afford to truly be a sport and leave an extra large .35 cent tip -- sometimes more! It just is! For no reason! So when one of these peak moments in life, particularly one that is repeatable is torn away, it hurts! It does!

Here's what happened. I took my coffee and my "New York Times" and caught the 7:13 am train to Grand Central Terminal. I found a seat and curled up next to the window. The person next to me was absorbed in their "Wall Street Journal." While I slowly, contentedly read my paper and sipped my coffee, looking up just once, to flash my ticket at the conductor.

As the train pulled into the station, I tipped the glass up and slurped the last bit of liquid out of the ice. That is when I saw it -- a dark mass -- clearly not an ice cube -- not my imagination -- and not on the outside of the glass!

I had drank the entire iced coffee with the creature swimming in the liquid.

There are no words to console me. It happened. I cannot pretend it didn't. Has it permanently changed me? Yes, somehow it has. Something untoward has soiled my palate. All the gold-wrapped Godiva chocolate in the world can't erase that fact. Maybe sometime in the future I will be a regular somewhere else again. If I can only trust.