October 1st Through the Ages

On October 1st, 2003 I started the cheeseblog to document my giving up cheese for one month. I was unemployed. I needed something to do other than avoid writing the novel I was avoiding writing. I lasted 17 days without cheese. The cheeseblog has lasted three years! Happy blogiversary to me! Cheese content is currently at an all-time low but October 1st comes around every year. Who knows what might happen. For example:

In October, 2004 I gave up cheese again, because my chin was itchy. A naturopath told me to give up cheese, wheat, yeast, garlic, onions, mushrooms…was there anything else? I don’t remember. I lasted longer, but then I got a cold, then tonsilitis, then a canker on my tonsil, then sinusitis, then WORSE sinusitis. I was still itchy, so I started eating all those foods again. Later I realized that the itch I had been blaming on those foods was actually related to my hormones. The moral? Cheese is good. Eat more cheese.

On October 1st, 2005 I did my last shift on the telephones at a 24-hour crisis line where I volunteered for almost two years. It was an early morning shift, two hours in length. One caller got to me – in the wrong way. I had talked to him many times on many different mornings and I had known for a while that his “crisis” story was fabricated. Whatever the reason, he kept calling, looking for new (female – he would hang up on male volunteers) voices to offer empathy. This particular day I was incredibly angered by what I saw as his abuse of the valid support I had left my warm bed to provide to strangers at the crack of 6 am. I disobeyed my training and in this last call – I knew it would be the last call I ever took – I let him know that the benefit of the doubt was being rescinded. I cut his protests short and hung up on him. It felt glorious.

Also on October 1st, 2005 it is quite possible that Trombone was conceived. Today he turned 3 months old.

To celebrate, he lay on the floor and was goddamned adorable. And then peed his pants. Goddamned adorably.