Going Blue Collar—Mayo's Adventures in Construction Management

Next week, one of my nightmares is coming true. I'm going to be working for my parents's construction company.


Shocking, but not necessarily a bad thing.

For those of you who don't know, my parents run JR Construction Corp and are exclusively contracted to work for Columbia University. Much of my childhood was spent on Columbia's campus, lugging compound cans, sweeping and generally following my dad.

After high school, I focused on a career in media because I wanted nothing to do with this construction career. "Construction isn't for girls," my mom would say. I didn't need any convincing—my plan was to go to college, get my English and Journalism degree, and live in TV land.

Like so much in life, things didn't go according to plan. TV was exhausting, and then I was laid off from my web job earlier this year. All this did teach me a lot, especially that manual labor isn't so scary or so gender-specific. When my apartment had to be renovated, I was happy to pick up a drill and learn how to reinforce sub-floor. I lugged drop cloths with a smile, and hauled cans of garbage with a skip in my step. If I was going to be kicked out of one field and thrown into another, at least I could try to put on a happy face about it.

So from Thursday to Wednesday, I'll be an official construction job manager while my parents jet off to Spain. I'm going to wear the company jacket, put the walkie-talkie hook on my jeans and get some dust in my hair. I'm going to practice my Spanish with my dad's employees and do my darnedest not to get any parking ticket.

This, my friends, should be funny.

A Face That Makes You Want to Talk to It—Or At Least Ask It for Directions

Look at this face.

Sure, I'm generally cheery, friendly and nice to be around. I may look like I at least believe some of the stuff that erupts out of my mouth.

But there's one thing I can't figure out.

I can't see where on my face that it says "ASK ME ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING, AND PLEASE SHARE YOUR LIFE STORY WITH ME AT THE VERY INSTANT THAT WE MEET."


Don't get me wrong. I do NOT wish that I looked like a ripe old hag (though if you asked my husband on the wrong day...he'd say I play the part quite well). I am guessing this invisible-but-somehow-detectable neon sign on my face has been there forever, but it hasn't been so obvious as it has been these past few weeks.

Every day—without fail—I am asked for directions. Doesn't matter if I'm a block away from my house or 150 miles outside the city. It's not like I travel to tourist traps daily, and it's not like I don't get lost. But for some reason, people think I have the answer. The people asking me these questions range from born-and-raised New Yawkers to travelers just passing through town.

Friday night, I was getting off the 1 train at Canal Street. "Hey, hey, psst psst, you...," the guy barked at me. I tried to ignore it, especially since I'll be damned if I'm going to be "psst psst" at. I'm a lady. Why is "excuse me, miss" so hard?

"Hey hey, do you know where Broadway and Church are at?"

"I'm not sure, unfortunately. Let me get out my map."

"A map?" he balks. "What, you not from here?"

So this thing that can't even cordially address me for help is judging me because I need a map of Chinatown? Why did I even bother to help?

"I am, excuse you, but I'm not Rain Man and I don't have every street in the five boroughs memorized. What, are YOU not from here?"

And before he said the words, I knew what the answer would be: "Yeah I'm from here but not this area. I'm from Brooklyn."

Wonderful. I guess that can be everyone's excuse for being rude and having a bad sense of direction.

I pointed out in my trusty Manhattan Diary 2009 that Broadway and Church don't in fact meet, but he and his lady companion should start walking west on Canal. She seemed to have a clue, though she didn't say a word in this entire exchange. Yes, you can assume that he couldn't tell which direction west was, but I proceeded to my destination anyway.

Jump to Saturday morning, as I'm on my way to meet a pregnant friend to go shopping for baby shower gifts. Not half a block out of my house and I get hailed down again. "Hey you...," again with the rude salutation, but I ignore it because it's a woman with a baby. Pregnancy brain is just about the only valid excuse for starting a conversation so rudely.

"I've seen you around the neighborhood and I like your purse," she said.

"Thank you," I said. "It's so nice to talk to someone who speaks English in this neighborhood."

OK, maybe this one was my fault. By being friendly and trying to talk about the neighborhood with this woman, I opened the floodgates. In 15 minutes, I ended up learning her entire life story and part of her medical history. I won't go into details here, but let's just say I learned things that took me 10+ years to learn from other friends. She was super nice, but I was not prepared to learn about this woman's reproductive system, racial views and economic status while I was running to go buy booger suckers and nipple pads at Buy Buy Baby. The conversation ended amicably (somehow with me agreeing to start a campaign for racial sensitivity in the neighborhood) and we exchanged numbers.

I am not a misanthrope (well, not in the Larry David sense), but I do wish that I didn't appear to have SUCH an open invitation for dialogue on my face. If that were the case, then maybe I'd finally make it to my intended destination on time or get all that writing done on the subway. Until then, I'll just settle for not being mocked for using a map.

WNBC's Sue Simmons likes a liquid lunch...just like the rest of us

Maybe it's all the "Mad Men" I've been watching lately. Maybe it's the fact that I completely understand a working girl's need for a stiff one (a DRINK people...get your minds out of the gutter) during the work day. But this story about WNBC anchor Sue Simmons makes me giddy.

LX New York asked the local news legend if she would get loose after a newscast. Not only did she admit to going clubbing between shows, but she also said she used to drink. This is now the headline on Huffingtonpost.com.

Are we so sure she stopped?

This is a woman who cursed on live TV (no doubt at some stagehand who had put too many olives in her 6:05pm martini) and still kept her job. Here's the video to remind you:


This is a woman who also spent a few years with America's favorite curmudgeon, Jack Cafferty. Now, I worked with Jack Cafferty for a few years and though he's actually a very nice man in real life, he is occasionally prickly...to put it nicely.


This is also a woman who has fallen off her anchor chair...


And a woman who regularly does an impression of Punxsutawney Phil every year...


Is anyone surprised at this point that this woman likes her special sauce?

As much as I rip on news outlets focusing on the dumb stories I actually find this one amusing for one reason: It shows that news people are human. Not only human, but also sometimes not-so-great humans who need a drink like everyone else to erase the emotional sludge that accumulates from working a day job.

And if you work in local news for most of your life—-reporting on murders, rapes, fires, break-ins and car chases for 90% of your career—-there's a good chance that you just don't give a frack anymore. And that's OK.

So the next time you see Anderson Cooper or your local newsman, hand them a bottle of vodka. At least the execs won't smell it.

A Whole New World

This is a new person. A new Elizabeth/Liz/Mayo or however you know me by. This is a person who will be blogging regularly, eating better, exercising, job hunting and writing. This is someone who has a clean refrigerator and enough underwear and socks to last TWO FULL WEEKS without doing laundry. That's right, I said it. I'm going to be doing a complete 180 from my current existence and actually DO everything I keep saying I'm going to do. I am no longer content with pointing fingers in your face. I'm actually going to poke my own face and get busy.

I'll even make it a point of not boring you to death with every minute detail of my life. Ok that's a lie, because the narcissist that I am thinks my life is interesting.

So I'm about to get all Aladdin on you. Enjoy.

Mayo's Spread: Gluten is my Bitch

After the intense health battle I've had over the last six months, I've done something somewhat drastic to my diet.

I've eliminated gluten.

You may be wondering why changing my diet would have such a direct effect on my health. Let me explain.

Once I caught whooping cough from a friend's child, my closest lady friends raised the alarm. This was the 4th infection requiring antibiotics and the 6th major illness since getting laid off in January.

The illnesses went as follows:
1- Flu in February
2- Cold in February
3- Throat infection in March
4- UTI in April
5- Throat infection in June
6- Whooping Cough in July

It's not like I went around licking door handles or eating on public toilets after I was laid off. Aside from some stress, most everything else was normal. Now, when you put all my illnesses in a list like that it's pretty depressing, right? Even if you weren't a doctor you'd have to stop and think...maybe there's something going on here to make a seemingly healthy 29-year-old so prone to infections?

I took matters into my own hands and played Dr. Mayo. I may not be related to anyone who founded the Mayo Clinic, but that doesn't mean I can't use my crack research skills and pretend. I've seen enough "Mystery Diagnosis" and been to enough doctors in my life to know how to do this!

My research started with a condition I already have: Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. It's not just hypothyroidism, where the thyroid gland fails to produce the proper hormones to keep your body working. It's an autoimmune condition, where my body literally attacks my thyroid thinking it's a foreign object that must be destroyed. I can't tell if that means my body is self-hating or racist.

In the past, I'd read that many people were having trouble on synthetic thyroid replacements, specifically levothyroxine, the only pill I'd been on since being diagnosed in 2004. I asked my doctor to put me on a natural thyroid pill, known as Armour Thyroid, and at a higher dosage. It's made from powdered pig thyroid, which is kind of gross, but if it works I'm AOK with it. Thankfully, my doc made the switch quickly and I started about two weeks after coming down with the whoop.

I kept digging deeper and found a site that said a very high number of Hashimoto's patients tend to have underlying Celiac's Disease (a genetic condition that prohibits your body from digesting gluten, the protein in wheat that makes your pasta chewy) or gluten intolerance (when your body, over time, can't properly digest gluten). Then I focused my research on this Hashimoto-gluten connection and as I read the symptoms, I realized that I'd found a possible answer to my immune dysfunction.

The argument goes that one is likely a precursor of the other, and each can trigger an autoimmune reaction in the body. So if my body is too busy fighting my thyroid and any wheat/gluten particle in my diet, then it doesn't have any firepower left to protect me from things like whooping cough, throat infections or the dreaded swine flu that is expected to blow up this fall.

Now afraid that any slice of bread, cookie or pasta could literally kill me, I've elimiated it from my diet in the hopes of noticing a difference.

It's been about 10 days on a gluten-free (GF) diet, and there are a few things I've noticed so far:

1- I have really random cravings for wheat items. I'm assuming this is part of the withdrawal process. Three days into the GF diet, I had a wicked migraine that led to vomiting. And as it was happening, my body kept telling me "you need crackers." WTF? I just puked and you want me to eat the thing that could be killing me? I could only guess that my body was freaking out at the lack of wheat in my body. Then the other day, I had a really bad craving for donuts after seeing a Dunkin' commercial. Like, a violent, I'll-tip-cars-and-punch-old-ladies-for-a-bite craving. Now I know how heroin addicts feel in rehab. I had to stay strong.

2-*WARNING THIS IS GOING TO GET GROSS*
I have no gas. Pre-GF diet, I could rival ANYONE in a farting contest. Like, killing plants and choking babies fart contest. It got to the point that I thought my husband was ready to ask for a separation. Since going on the GF diet, my gas has almost been reduced to zero. That's enough of a change for me to keep going. And my husband is thrilled.

3- I have more energy for the first time in months, if not years, and my insomnia is waning. I'm not back to normal, but I'm definitely able to stay awake longer during the day and sleep longer during the night. This could be due to the fact that I changed my thyroid medicine, but I'm also guessing it's because my body isn't so tired having to fight off the gluten all day. I remember noticing that everytime I had pasta or a sandwich for lunch at work, I would want to pass out right afterwards. Now I have a meal and I feel the same energy level before as I do after.

4- I've lost some weight. In this short period of time, I've lost about 5 lbs. Even the old soccer player guy living across the street stopped me the other day to say he's noticed I've lost weight. Major plus.

It is early on in the process and my symptoms aren't gone, but this is an interesting start. I'm not saying I have Celiac's, but I'm pretty certain I do have gluten intolerance. And though many sites suggest getting checked out by doctors before starting a GF diet, I'm not going to be doing that. I don't have insurance right now, and the last thing I want is to have a "disease" listed on my medical chart for health insurance companies to pounce on once I do have coverage again. Plus, if the only treatment is to go on a GF diet, then why am I going to be hundreds of dollars for testing?

All this research has been very interesting, I must say. It seems that possibly millions of people around world have a problem with wheat and gluten, and many don't know about it. A recent Reuters report said that cases of Celiacs are up dramatically, according to Mayo Clinic research (HA! Mayo's know their stuff). Even more interesting is that this increase in gluten sensitivity isn't just happening in the U.S.—it's going on around the world, regardless of income level or race.

If you want my opinion (you're on my blog so you're going to get it), I think gluten intolerance is WAY more widespread than people think, and it may be an underlying cause of the obesity epidemic. Researchers are finding that many people with Celiacs or gluten intolerance are overweight, where previously it was thought that weight loss and malnutrition were the only indicators. All this "you're eating for emotional reasons" bullcrap is really masking that our bodies have a chemical dependence on these highly processed foods (even though it's killing us) and turning them down is really difficult. Once you realize how many foods have wheat and gluten—from salad dressings to beer to barbecue sauce to cookies to vitamins—this theory might not sound so crazy.

If you want to read more about living gluten free, gluten intolerance or Celiac's, here are some sites you can visit.

www.gluten.net
glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com
holdthegluten.net

And please share your thoughts! Do you think you have gluten intolerance? Do you think my theory is full o poop?