Word on the Street

For those of you who don’t know, I moved into a townhouse with my boyfriend Troy this week. It’s an exciting but busy time, and there’s still a lot of unpacking to do before we can feel settled. I couldn’t be happier, though. I plan to write more about the move in the coming weeks.

For now, I’ll give you a glimpse of what the experience was like for my cat Clara. When we moved furniture out of my old apartment, I thought Clara had gotten outside. I couldn’t find her anywhere and started to worry that she was wandering around outside, unable to fend for herself. Eventually, I found her hiding underneath a shelf in my closet and my spirits lifted a little. (Panic attack averted!)

It’s nearly impossible to get her into a cat carrier, so Troy and I had to find another way to bring her from my old apartment to our new place. We ended up putting her in Troy’s motorcycle helmet bag, which she often climbs into. Troy put the bag in his lap and consoled her in the passenger seat as I drove. Here’s a video of us introducing her to her new home. Like us, she’s adjusting. Day by day.

Misinformation spread quickly Saturday night after Onward State reported that former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno had died. CBS picked up on the report, and so did many other news sites, including Poynter. Some news organizations soon began contradicting the reports, however, saying that a Paterno family spokesperson told them that news about his death was “absolutely not true.” (On Sunday morning, Paterno did die.)

My colleagues did a great job pulling together information about what happened, and raised important questions about the value in verifying information before posting it on social networks. This is an issue that has become increasingly prevalent in recent years as more journalists break news on social media. And the Paterno incident is reminiscent of what happened last year when news organizations spread false reports of Gabby Giffords’ death.

Here’s a Poynter.org Storify that captures how journalists spread (and later corrected) misinformation about Paterno’s death. And here’s a piece that talks about how “getting it first” is often less about readers/viewers and more about journalists’ desire to be first. Do people really remember who was first with the news? Usually not. As others have pointed out, people are much more likely to remember who was wrong than who was first.

As Saturday night’s events unfolded, I was reminded of a saying that one of my mentors, John Quinn, once shared with me: “Get it first, but first, get it right.” I relayed this advice and talked about the Paterno incident while teaching a social media session to a group of Chips Quinn scholars in Nashville this morning. The incident sparked a lively conversation about the challenges journalists face when posting breaking news on social media.

Of course, when we see breaking news, we want to be part of the conversation. But you can be part of it without reporting information you haven’t confirmed. I always recommend phrasing tweets by saying something along the lines of, “X is reporting Y, but we haven’t been able to confirm this information yet.” Or, you could a couple of tweets saying: “We are working on this story and will tweet updates as soon as we have them.” … “Here’s what we do know …”

This enables you to build your credibility and get your voice in the mix, while letting your audience know that you’re on top of the story and care about getting it right.

I wrote a piece this week that I really enjoyed reporting. It’s less about journalism and more about the fluidity of  language and how the meaning of words changes over time.

I spoke with editors from Merriam-Webster, Wordnik and Urban Dictionary, who all have different outlooks on how words should be defined. At Merriam-Webster, it can take years for a word to make it into the dictionary. At Wordnik, the editors believe that words mean what we want them to mean, and that neologisms should be recognized immediately. And at Urban Dictionary, anyone can define a word, and some words have hundreds of definitions. (“Hipster,” for instance, has about 325 definitions.)

I like the idea of having a traditional dictionary to see the etymology of words, but I also love seeing how other words and “slang terms” come into being, even if they never make it into a traditional dictionary. What’s your take?

Here’s the intro to my story:

I’m a word nerd. I like learning the etymology of words and seeing how language changes over time. So I was intrigued when comedian Harris Wittels coined the term “humblebrag” and when Weird Al Yankovic used the word “kardash” to describe a unit of time measuring 72 days. Would “humblebrag” and “kardash” become mainstream, I wondered, and would they ever show up in a traditional dictionary?

As old words take on new meanings and new words emerge, questions about the fluidity of language and the meaning of words become more complicated — and more interesting. Now, thanks to sites like Urban Dictionary and Wordnik, we can track words as they evolve and see how they carry different meanings for different people at different points in time.

Click here to read the rest of it.

Note: This blog post was published in January 2012.

Cancer. It’s that ugly word that always lingers in the back of my mind. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 36 and died when she was 40. My mom’s sister was diagnosed at age 48 and died when she was 52.

While I’ve written about my mom’s struggles with breast cancer, I try not to think about my own chances of getting the disease. I don’t do self breast exams, and I’ve always avoided genetic testing for hereditary breast cancer and ovarian cancer, which are both caused by mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Mainly, I’ve been afraid of the results. My mom was scared of cancer, too. She found a lump on her breast but waited months before seeing a doctor. I remember her doctors said that during that time, the cancer likely metastasized.

My boyfriend recently started encouraging me to at least consider genetic testing. After giving it a lot of thought, I got a recommendation for a breast specialist and begrudgingly made an appointment. My primary care physician had told me I didn’t need to start getting mammograms until I was in my mid-30s, so I was surprised when the breast specialist told me that women who have a family history of breast cancer should start getting mammograms 10 years before their youngest family member was diagnosed. Since I’m 26, and my mom was diagnosed when she was 36, that would mean I’d need to start getting them now. The specialist recommended that I get a mammogram every six months and an MRI every six months. Ultrasounds are an alternative for those who are worried about exposing themselves to too much radiation, but they don’t detect as much as MRIs do.

The specialist said I seemed like a good candidate for genetic testing and suggested I go through genetic counseling first. I agreed, and recently talked with a genetic counselor by phone. She had me fill out some forms about my health and my family history of cancer, and then asked me questions that can factor into a woman’s likelihood of getting breast cancer — my height, weight, how often I exercise, whether I’m of Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jewish heritage, and even whether I have an abnormally big head. (Yes, it turns out that your head size at birth can be a contributing factor.) The counselor said that given my family history, I’m a strong candidate for genetic testing.

Ideally, my mother would have been tested for the gene, but she never was. If she did carry the BRCA mutation, I would have a 50/50 chance of carrying it. Women who test positive for the mutation are 56-87 percent likely to get breast cancer, compared to 8 percent of the general population, the counselor said. They’re 27-44 percent likely to get ovarian cancer, compared to less than 2 percent of the general population, and they have a 5 percent chance of getting melanoma, compared to 2 percent of the general population.

The counselor told me I have a 9 percent chance of carrying the gene mutation. She also told me that my risk of developing breast cancer in 10 years is 1.933 percent, compared with .278 percent for an average 26-year-old woman. My chance of developing cancer in my lifetime (regardless of whether or not I test positive for the mutation) is 27 percent, compared to 10.253 percent for the general population.

The 27 percent, coupled with the thought of knowing I could potentially carry the mutation, is daunting. While talking with the genetic counselor, I couldn’t help but ask: Why should I get the testing? I’m a worrier. If I test positive, will I just spend the rest of my life worrying about getting cancer and not being able to do anything about it? What options will I have? The counselor gave me a comforting response, saying something to the effect of: “I understand where you’re coming from. I’m a worrier, too, but I’ve found that sometimes the unknown is scarier. If I know what to worry about, then I can at least try to isolate the problem and be proactive about it.”

There are a few options for someone who tests positive for the gene mutation. The most extreme option is to have a double mastectomy, which nearly eliminates a woman’s chance of ever getting breast cancer. Some women also get their ovaries removed. The other option (which the counselor recommended I follow even if I test negative) is to get a mammogram every six months and an MRI every six months. There are also online support groups, such as BeBrightPink.org, for women who want to be proactive about their breast and ovarian health.

The cost of genetic counseling — about $3,500 — is understandably a deterrent for some women. I called my insurance company and found out that it will pay for most of the procedure. I also learned that because of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (also known as the “GINA act”), my insurance company can’t deny me coverage if I have a genetic predisposition to developing cancer. Because my insurance company will pay for most of the testing, I decided to pursue it.

On Tuesday, I got a call from my breast specialist’s secretary, asking me if I wanted to make an appointment to get tested. I said sure, not realizing that she was going to tell me I could get tested the following day. I scheduled the appointment and then wondered if I’d made the right choice. Wednesday morning, (tomorrow) I’ll get tested. It’s a simple test that will only take about five minutes. Within a week or two, I’ll know if I carry the gene mutation. From there, I’ll decide what to do next.

It would be easy for me to keep avoiding the testing, but I think it’s ultimately better for me to know my risks rather than living in fear of the unknown. Regardless of whether I carry the gene mutation, I’ve told myself that I’m going to start getting regular screenings and start doing self breast exams. My mom, no doubt, would want me to.

Update: As it turns out, the results came back negative.

While surfing Facebook today, I came across a link to a YouTube video that “offers a super easy technique for creating newspaper nails.” I’m not going to lie; I kind of want to try this out …

 

While we’re on the topic of newspapers, here are some fun recycled newspaper crafts.

I keep telling myself I’m going to do yoga. But I never make the time to go — usually because I’m too busy or I figure it’s easier to go for a run instead. I’m reading a book, though, that has made me want to start going to yoga again, if for no other reason than to carve out time to do something for myself that I enjoy. I love running, but I need a little variety.

On the surface, Claire Dederer’s “Poser” is about yoga. But once you start reading it, you realize it’s about much more than that. It’s about Dederer’s attempt to figure out what makes a good friend, wife and mother. It’s about fear, balance and joy.

As her practice of yoga deepens, Dederer starts thinking more deeply about her own life and the people in it. One of my favorite chapters in the book is “Vinyasa” because it talks about her relationship with food. I was struck by one passage in particular because it reminded me that even if we don’t struggle with disordered eating, many of us feel the need to be in control of what we eat — and what our kids eat:

“It only stands to reason that certain people with issues about food would seek a cooperative elementary school. Because many people who chose the co-op chose it for the same reason I did: fear. Everyone seemed driven by this big, wobbly, jellylike terror that something was going to hurt their kids. Social anthropologists have theorized that this worry stems from the small size of the modern family; we have more invested in each kid and don’t have extras to spare. At any rate, this endemic fear has other names, like love and concern. And these people’s concerns for their children centered around food.

For some kids, this was a very clear-cut deal: They had bad allergies or serious health issues. Lucas had severe celiac disease and truly could not ingest any wheat. Kendra was fatally allergic to peanuts. Then there were the nonmedical cases that were still at least rational: Serena and Porter came from a vegetarian family and needed help learning how to identify and pass up dishes with meat in them.

Then things started to slide down a slope that was as slick as soy yogurt on a banana. There were parents who were against sugar. Parents who were against trading lunches. Parents who were against “kid food.” Parents who disliked food as a reward. Parents who shunned food with “chemicals” in it. All these things need to be discussed.

From there, it got even more confusing. Many of these preferences were expressed as medical necessity. Parent A’s decision to limit the dairy products in their household became her child’s “dairy allergy. Parent B insisted that Grayson was allergic to wheat: why then did we sometimes see Ritz crackers packed in Grayson’s lunch box? The mom who hated chemicals smoked cigarettes and included candy in her kid’s lunch.

How did I know this? We were all there. We were the kind of good parents who didn’t want to miss a minute of anything. Wheat and lunch trading and dairy allergies: These were the topics of the day.”

Sometimes we get too caught up worrying about food when we don’t need to. (Story of my life.) For as much as we want to try to be healthy, though, we can’t take all the fun out of food. We have to find a balance.

That word “balance” kept popping up in Dederer’s book. It seemed the more she found her balance (literally) in yoga class, the more stability she found in life. Her writing’s enough to convince me to start doing some child poses and downward dogs again. Who knows, maybe it will make me find more balance in my own life.

I stumbled across a new blog the other night that I can’t stop looking at. “Design Love Fest” is run by Bri Emery, a designer “who entertained an early passion for design and typography by keeping inspiration journals of curated images torn from magazines and scotch taped together.” I love that description and many of Emery’s posts, including this one about stress. Emery says she tries to relieve stress by:

• Stepping away from the computer.
• Making dinner.
• Drinking a glass of wine.
• Cuddling (with a significant other, pet, pillow).
• Eating.

“When I am eating, life seems the least stressful to me,” Emery writes. “I can focus on how amazing those potatoes were and not some silly work drama.”

Many commenters said they, too, turn to food and drinks to relieve stress:

• I second the eating remedy. Works miracles! In addition to eating, doing something for ME (i.e. pedi, reading, couch potato-ing)
• Copious amounts of hot drinks: tea, chocolate, chai. Anything goes. But also the wine. It does work like a charm.
• Cheese & chocolate (lots of it!!)
• Wine, a good meal with the hubby and then maybe some TV or a movie in pj’s with ice cream – the best!
• Some lunch/drinks/dinner with the girls is always a good distractor.
• Read a good book, watch a good movie, take a nap, write, go to Starbucks, throw a a party, and yes – eat or cook or both!
• A nice long walk, a great cup of coffee.
• I love coming home and cooking up a great dinner. It is so relaxing and it helps me feel like I’m taking good care of myself (rather than eating a blah-tasting frozen microwave dinner). Top it off with a glass of wine and some great music and I’m all set.
• Wine is definitely the number one stress buster followed closely with chopping veggies.
• I’ve had a motto most of my life – “stressed spelled backwards is desserts.” Eat a brownie and everything will be alright.

The comments speak to the tension between our emotional and physical needs, which are often in conflict with each other when we’re stressed. A 2007 American Psychological Association survey found that almost half the people in the U.S. say they overeat or eat unhealthy foods to help manage stress. 65% said they turn to chocolate and candy; 56% eat ice cream; 53% eat chips; 49% eat cookies and cakes; and 46% eat fast food. For as comforting as eating can be, it can also cause undue stress. We eat a few cookies and then start worrying about our looks, comparing ourselves to others, or beating ourselves up for breaking the “food rules” we’ve created for ourselves.

Eating junk food can be a form of rebellion. When we’re stressed, we have an excuse to break the rules and indulge in foods that we’ve told ourselves we shouldn’t eat. We find excuses: I’ve had a hard day; I don’t have time to cook something healthy; I ate healthy yesterday; I deserve a slice of chocolate cake! And sometimes, because we can, we overdo it. We eat too much unhealthy food and then we feel physically sick or emotionally disgusted. We wonder how we lost control.

It turns out, there’s a whole psychology behind the foods we choose to eat when we’re stressed. Psychologists Leonard and Lillian Pearson divide foods into two categories: “beckoners” and “hummers.” Beckoners are foods that we eat out of convenience, not necessarily because we want them but because they’re readily available. They’re the tacos we buy after stumbling across a food truck; the hot pretzels we smell and then buy in the airport; the free samples we eat at the grocery store because they’re there and, hey, they’re free.

Hummers, on the other hand, are foods that we know we want before seeing or smelling them. They’re often specific — a grilled cheese sandwich with two slices of tomato; a bowl of hot minestrone soup with Oyster crackers; our mom’s mac and cheese. Hummers satisfy us both physically and emotionally, unlike the foods we crave and then binge on.

Author Geneen Roth, who has written several books about the connections between emotions and food, explains:

“When certain foods match certain moods or situations, they are hummers. Sometimes when I’m hungry and lonely, I want a baked potato; its fluffiness and warmth comfort me. My friend Sue eats meatloaf, peas and mashed potatoes when she’s hungry and sad. Her mother often fixed that meal for the family when Sue was growing up, and now, when she’s hungry and needs comforting, that combination of foods hums to her. ‘But it has to be frozen peas,’ she says, ‘like my mother used. Otherwise it won’t work.’

“Note that I paired the emotions I mentioned — loneliness and sadness — with hunger. If Sue weren’t hungry when she turns to meatloaf and mashed potatoes, she’d be bingeing, not choosing what hums to her. There’s a difference. When you eat hummer foods, you’re satisfying both your body and your mind. Once you’re done, you’re done. No risk of overeating because you’ve eaten exactly what satisfies you.”

The key is to listen to our body and figure out what we really want. Do we want a slice of pizza, or are we just craving it because we feel lonely and stressed? Are we eating a doughnut because we’ve been wanting one, or just because it’s readily available? Are we pretending we’re not hungry for dessert because we want to look like we have self control, or are we really not hungry? These are tough questions to answer, especially in the moment. And they’re even tougher to answer when we’ve spent half our life trying to tell our body what it should and shouldn’t have rather than listening to what it wants and needs.

For 15 years, I’ve used food as a way to cope with stress — either by not eating or eating too much. I’ve created so many rules and bad habits around food that it’s hard to genuinely enjoy eating.  I’ve told myself I can’t eat certain foods and have pretended not to want them, only to eat them in excess behind closed doors. I want to do a better job of stopping myself when I feel tempted to binge and asking: “What am I feeling right now, and why am I feeling that way? What else can I do to relieve my stress?”

My goal for the next few weeks is to practice asking for help when I need it rather than trying to deal with everything on my own. It helps to have a friend or loved one who you can reach out to when you feel like you’re about to have a hard time. Reaching out to them can help you break away from your impulse. And the responses you get — a compliment perhaps, or a note of encouragement — can be good reminders that you’re loved and that you aren’t weak for acknowledging you need help.

While many of the people who commented on the “Design Love Fest” post said they turn to food to relieve stress, just as many said they turn to family and friends. Sometimes being — and eating — with people we love is the best remedy of all.

I really want to make this cuatro leches cake — mainly because it looks delicious but also because of the story behind it.

Part of the reason why I love cooking blogs is because they connect food with stories. So much of what we cook or bake can be traced back to a memory, a story, a tradition. We crave chocolate chip cookies when we think of baking them with our grandma years ago. We refuse to eat blue cheese because of a bad experience we once had with it. We cook a special dish of stuffing every Thanksgiving because the holidays just wouldn’t be the same without it.

I’m particularly interested in the connections between mothers, daughters and food, so I couldn’t help but be drawn to the story that went along with the cuatro leches cake recipe. In less than 300 words, the baker — a mom named Sara Kate Gillingham Ryan –talks about wanting control over what her daughter eats:

“I have this thing about kids and sugar. I don’t think they make such a great combination and I grip to this conviction, hard. When she was much younger, I used to tell my daughter that she could have sweets when she was five. Five seemed like a safe and far-away target, but as it approached, I knew I had to keep my promise.”

So for her daughter’s 5th birthday, Ryan decided to let go. She broke her no-sugar rule and baked a super sweet cake with edible pink glitter. The experience, she said, was transformational for both her and her daughter. Ryan noticed her daughter gave her a lot more hugs and “I love you’s” than on previous birthdays. She also realized that loosening your grip can open you up to new experiences, like seeing your daughter indulge in something you put a lot of love into making. Ryan writes: “Sometimes you can buy a little love. Not with money, but with food, because food is what makes people feel they’re being heard, being loved.”

I couldn’t agree more.

As one of my favorite writers Geneen Roth has said, “food is love.”  Many of us turn to food when we’re lonely or when we want to fill a void. We stuff ourselves with empty calories to numb the pain, only to find that the void deepens because we’re not filling it with what our body needs — nourishment from healthy foods, and from love. People who struggle with eating disorders often talk about their “relationship” with food. One of the well-known books on eating disorders is called “Life without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and How You Can Too.” Life without Ed (an eating disorder) means looking at food not as a substitute for love, but as a sign of love.

Recently, I started cooking more for my boyfriend because it makes me happy to see him enjoy food that I’ve cooked. I can’t eat the meals, though, because they usually contain meat and I’m a vegetarian. So I’ve been trying to cook meals as a sign of love for myself as well. Like Ryan, I want to break some of the rules I’ve created for myself when it comes to food. I often tell myself, “Just eat a salad or a veggie burger for dinner, Mallary. You don’t need to spend time making something for yourself.”

A few weeks ago, though, I broke this rule and made a vegggie tofu stirfry for myself. It was the first time I had cooked a real meal for myself in years and it felt (and tasted) good. Not long after making the stirfry, I made a veggie enchilada for myself. I’m used to eating the same foods for lunch and dinner, so breaking my routine was difficult. But it felt liberating, and made me realize that yes, I can eat different foods if I want to and I’ll still be ok. I think the more I do this, the more I’ll start to realize that I deserve to eat well — and that it’s ok to splurge on a piece of cuatro leches cake every once in a while.

Fewer rules, small steps.

I love borrowing and lending books. But I have to admit: I don’t usually return books in the same condition I received them. Somehow, I manage to get water or food on the inside pages. Or I bend the cover. Or my cat, who loves to eat the corners of books, leaves her teeth marks on the book’s cover.

Fortunately, the people I often borrow books from don’t care when their books come back looking a little less new than they did when they lent them out. (At least this is what they tell me.) When I can, I buy my own books so I can add to my collection, write in the books and refer to them later in essays or stories. But borrowing is fun, in part because you can talk about the book with whoever you lend it to/borrow it from. The more you talk about books with someone, the more apt you are to know what types of books they’ll want to read and borrow.

I recently came across a blog post about “proper book borrowing etiquette” and it got me thinking about taking better care of the books I borrow. I was surprised to see how many hits I got when I searched for this term. The gist of these tips is that people shouldn’t eat while reading books they’ve borrowed, they shouldn’t write in them and they should return them in a timely manner.

The advice about not eating while reading borrowed books reminded me of a book binder who I interviewed in Dallas a few years ago. She said several customers had come to her shop asking her to clean the pages of books they borrowed. One man, she said, was eating chips and salsa while reading a borrowed book and accidentally got salsa all over the outer edges of the pages. He tried to wipe it off and ending up making even more of a mess. Whoops. He went to “the book lady,” as she was called, and asked her to make the book look new again. She did her best, she said.

I’m going to try to be better about taking care of books that people lend me. (Note to self: keep them away from my cat and don’t eat salsa while reading them.) When giving out books, though, I don’t mind if they come back to me in worse shape than when I lent them out. As long as they don’t have missing pages, I like seeing that they were a little loved.