Katie Goes...

For the next six months I'm going to do something amazing every day.  It might be having a salad for dinner, or going to the gym...or happy hour at Mai Tais.  (Depends on the day) I approach forty like an eating disorder, which will be easier to deal with in hindsight, but here I am now.  Geneen Roth wrote a wonderful and heartbreaking book called, "When Food is Love" and I read it through tear-blurred eyes, the first time, when I was about 13.  One chapter, in particular, has stayed with me- the part about the little girl and M&Ms: A mother brought her overweight daughter to Ms. Roth, frantically overwrought that her daughter kept gaining wait and she was so young.  Ms. Roth asked the little girl what was her favourite treat, "M&Ms!!!" she cried.  The mother was instructed to get a pillow case and fill it with the chocolate candy and have her daughter carry it around with her wherever she went.  The mother did as instructed and the daught...

"The time is now, the walrus said, to talk of many things..." Well, in 6 months, I turn forty.  Yeah, yeah, I know, it's just a number.  Regardless, I started taking a Social Psychology class and there was an "about me" portion to fill out on our profile.  I know I'm coming up to a time that is a huge right of passage, and it might take 10 years to get through it...but I feel it. Here is what I wrote: As a social entrepreneur, I look at a problem as an artist views a blank canvas, and my mediums are storytelling, art therapy, music, theatre, spoken word, and film. I have engaged in community activism all over the world, but the experience closest to my heart is when I produced and directed the musical HAIR. The event was preceded by a host of local events, workshops and panel discussions that created dialogue on race, sex, drugs, war, and the environment. Among those who were engaged in this production were the Asheville chapter of the Veterans for ...