Mamarati

80 Pounds of Sugar

2012-02-02T15:13:00.002-06:00

I'm angry at sugar right now. I make all these changes to my diet and lose all this weight and now sugar wants to hold me up. I got a kitchen scale for Christmas. Today, I decided to weigh the sugar that goes into my two cups of daily coffee.

110 grams. Yeah, I like it sweet. Plus I think that I've been getting desensitized to sugar or something.

So, that's about 80 pounds a year of sugar that I eat. And that's not counting what goes into things like my muffins and whatnot. That 80 pounds translates roughly into 105,000 calories. And it equals about 30 pounds of fat lingering on my thighs, butt, gut and arms if you consider a pound is worth 3,500 calories. And I wonder why these last 30 pounds are such a total bitch to get off. Lay off the sugar, superchunk.

I could at least be having some healthy calories, no? Sugar. Screw that stuff. I don't need it.

And, of course, that brings me to the slavery that is coffee. I keep having this battle. I get off it. I get back on it. Back and forth. I always feel better when I'm off of it, but I love the taste so much. The smell of it is so tempting, so hard to resist. And getting off it always makes me such a wreck. The migraines. The fog. The total lack of clarity for several weeks (yet it feels like eternity.) Right now, I'm longing to go off it again, but I have a statistics exam and several papers to write soon. So, I'm inclined to put it off.

But I should just get off it. It only takes those two cups to completely screw up my sleep, too. Just one little cup in the afternoon, and I will toss and turn in bed until 7am. Two cups early in the morning and I'm up until at least 3am unless my evening reading is very technical.

When I was younger I thought I had an insomnia problem, but I didn't at all. I was delusional. It was clearly a coffee problem.

And just think of how sweet everything tastes once I get off all the sugar. Every time I go off the coffee, a few weeks later I'm eating a piece of fruit and I'm practically writhing on the floor and moaning in ecstasy.

I'm talking myself into it here.

Okay. Fine. Tea. Two cups of tea for a week. Then one cup for a week. Then none except green since I like that without sugar and it's so low in caffeine. That's my final answer and I'm sticking to it.

Damn you, sugar.

The Librarian at Play

2011-12-10T18:08:00.001-06:00

My lover gave me an early Christmas present. Something he picked up for a penny. The Librarian at Play. A book by Edmund Lester Pearson, printed in 1911. It made me cry. It's such a quirky little thing. I'm almost as fascinated by the cataloging details as I am the actual content. The binding. The repairs. (It was an old library book at S.U.N.Y. Geneseo.)

The index is the most amusing thing. I have the second edition. Here's what it says:

"Since the publication of the first edition of this book two or three readers have pointed out that it needs an index. By the addition of an index, they say, its value as a work of reference would become almost wholly negligible. Impressed by the force of their remarks, I employed expert aid, and the index now printed at the end of the volume is the result. It was prepared by Miss Narcissa Bloom, an honor graduate of the Philander Library School, and it may therefore be relied upon as the flower of modern library science."

Then, here are some of the best entries from the index. My favorite entries are those for genealogists.

Ancestor Worship, see Genealogists. 

Animals, library classification of, impossible, 170. 

Authors, Young, hectic vanity of, 8. 

Children's Librarian, nefarious plot against a, 141. 

Extra-illustrators, see Snippers. 

Feet, Pigs', not in public library, 85. 

Flippancy of librarian, deplored, 300. 

Goat, Wild, see Wild Goat. 

Gray Hairs, cause of, to librarians, see Genealogists. 

Highball, Scotch, as a life-saver, 36. 

Librarian, see also Children's Librarian. 

Misers, clinking habits of, 58. 

Nuisances, see Genealogists. 

Pests, see Genealogists. 

Scotch Highball, see Highball, Scotch. 

Telephones, slowness of, when librarian is waiting in rain, 29. 

Thorns in the Flesh, see Genealogists. 

Wild Goat, see Goat, Wild.

From 1906 to 1920, this author wrote a column called "The Librarian" for the Boston Evening Transcript, a newspaper that died in 1941. Ahead of its time in that way, I suppose, given the current climate for newspapers. (It was ahead of its time in other ways, though. It was the first major American daily to have a female editor in 1842.) I want to go find these columns and read them all now.

I've had to use the OED twice now to look up words and in one case was almost stumped. (You, too, can nerd out with this book. It's really quite humorous. Library stories.)

Anyway, I didn't know about cutting pages. What did that mean? From the book:

"As there were no gauges on the books about the Flemish Renaissance, I had no data to go on, except the fact that although she declared she had 'skimmed through' them all and found them 'very helpful,' she had not, so far, cut any of the pages. I did not mention this to her, as she might have retorted that we ought to have cut them ourselves. Which was quite true."

And it led me to this equally nerdy bit and subsequently here. Interesting to both of us, probably. I guess I'd assumed that cutting somehow meant making a copy of something and I was trying to conjure up what type of technology might be used to do that in 1911. But, no. It's referring to the unbound edges of a book not being cut open yet. How do these things get past me?

I guess I should have just asked him about it. Funny. And all this for a penny.

Oh Lordy. I'm 40.

2011-10-31T10:01:00.001-05:00

Allergies. Today? Really? This is not the day. I am so behind on everything and have a paper to do. I do not have time to be this way nor can I function if I'm drugged. "Claritin clear" my ass.

Anyway... Today feels like a new day for some reason. I can't put my finger on it, but I feel optimistic and everything has this shiny quality to it. I haven't been drinking this morning, so I can only assume that this is coming from inside. I did turn 40 this weekend, so maybe that has something to do with it. Is it that? Is this what happens when you reach the top of the hill? Is there a shiny new world on the other side?

Maybe it's all the yoga I've been doing.

Maybe it's all the clearing out of clutter and junk that I've been doing.

Maybe it's that I can finally feel that this whole school thing is real and it is, indeed, about to be ending. At least the first stage.

Maybe I'm just in a post-laundry folding state of euphoria.

I wish that whatever it is that's making this morning seem like the best, most cracktastic morning ever (allergies aside) would also somehow affect the fingernail picking that I've been engaging in lately. Most of my digits are pretty much down to bloody stumps. If everything is so great, then why so nervous? Why so much anxiety? Why so fidgety?

I guess I'm just realizing that it's all going to be fine. There were times in my life when I was sure I wouldn't make it to 40. Many times and starting very early in life. Probably before most people even know there is a beginning or end to life I was either wishing for my end to come or constantly thinking it was about to. But here I am. So far away from all those moments. The further away I am, the better it feels. Time and distance really do a pretty good job of healing.

You know, I think part of my feeling today is that maybe I've just sort of given up a little bit. Given in. There's a lot of stuff that's up in the air right now and it's kind of been making me crazy. I think maybe this morning when I woke up, I just thought, "Screw it. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen." Maybe that's where this peace is coming from. It's silly of me to spend so much time thinking about things that may not ever come and that I mostly don't control anyway.

Relax woman. Just enjoy the peaceful damn morning. You're 40. You're at the top of the hill and you can finally survey your kingdom. Enjoy the view. Quit overthinking it.

Coo Coo for Cocoa Puffs

2011-09-29T19:28:00.000-05:00

Are those even vegan?

I decided today upon waking up that I changed my mind about 3 pairs of jeans and 2 pairs of khakis. I'm keeping them. I can wear the ratty ass, too-big khakis with a belt around the house till they wear out and I will be in those jeans in literally 1 size down. What is that, like 5 or 10 pounds?

I've also decided today that I have lost my ever-loving mind. I could swear that the Sudafed permanently altered my brain chemistry or perhaps it's still floating around in my system somehow. I feel just crazy today. Granted, I did get a visit from Aunt Flo (or "Florence of your Labia" as boyfriend likes to call it) this morning, but usually that just makes me irritable and weepy. Perhaps it's because I've been feeling sick all week and I finally have some energy.

Here are the signs that I've lost my mind:

More closet cleaning took place.
I've been singing all day as if I'm in a musical.
When not singing, I've been rhyming all my sentences.
I'm making a carrot cake.
I'm also making a chocolate cake with cookies and cream frosting.
I went outside and did major maintenance on the worm bin.
I've been skipping and hopping all day + robot moves.
Cleaned out vegetable and fruit bins.
Three loads of laundry + one of dishes.
Watered everything outside (boyfriend is the waterer, I hate doing this).
Said, "Ah, screw it," or other similar thing inside my head in response to many situations today.
So busy doing stuff did not check for Mango update for my phone all day.

Too much for one post-sick day. Also renewed my newly-vegan.com domain, which means that it's been a year since I started writing about that. Which means that it's almost been a year since I went vegan! Oct. 4 is my anniversary. Need to take some time and reflect on all that. I was going to sign up to do VeganMoFo again this year, but the damn cut-off was yesterday which is way earlier than last year. Boo hiss.

Oh well, one less thing for me to worry about, I guess. Still, that kind of snuck up on me.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep chocolate cake is done says the oven timer. Now if only this carrot cake would cool so I could frost it!

Fast Forward on Clothes Purge

2011-09-28T22:04:00.001-05:00

Well, since being back from camping, I've been plagued with allergies and what I think is the cold that I didn't really endure in full force when the boys had it last week. I've been a mess. Monday was spent mostly in bed, miserable, unable to breathe. Benadryl x 2 and it didn't even seem to touch it. I had to suspect that it wasn't just allergies at that point. Tuesday, I took some Sudafed and let me tell you, I understand just how they get meth out of that stuff. I'm overly affected by medications anyway (even Tylenol makes me drowsy) so I felt like I was losing my mind.

Today has been a better day, but I haven't been able to focus on much. I think there might be something wrong with my ears now. I feel really dizzy and when I move my head and stop my head, it feels like my head is still moving. When I close my eyes, I feel like I'm moving and everything that I look at has this vibrating quality to it. My chest and back are sore from coughing and sneezing so much. Still, my nose is mostly clear now so I won't have to take anything tonight but a nice steamy bath.

Since I didn't much feel like I could write in a very focused way, much less format everything all APA Style, I decided that I don't need clothes any more. I snagged 65 things out of my closet and they are on their way out of this house. Let go of some of my favorites. Got rid of some of the more disappointing pieces. Decided that I'm not spending a lot of money on clothes until I lose all the weight I'm going to or I'm ready to head back to the work force in an outside-the-home sort of way, but I'm not going to just keep buying crap, either. I'm so sick of shirts that shrink or fade after just a few washes and all this ill-fitting crap.

I've reached the limit of my focus right now. I'm really feeling so bizarre. I can't wait to feel normal again. I mean, you know, normal for me. Time for bed. At least now I'm down 65 items and that much closer to only owning 108 things. You never know what craziness an illness is going to bring. I got a cleaner closet out of the deal. I just hope that my lack of being able to see straight isn't going to make me regret some of my choices...

Camping at Mineral Wells State Park

2011-09-26T15:21:00.001-05:00

Went camping this weekend with Jacob's home school group at Mineral Wells State Park. Boyfriend got the day off on Friday and we packed up the car with camping gear and off we went. It wasn't primitive camping or anything (although I'm leaning more toward wanting that these days) so we brought a mix of our old gear and new, lighter, tinier gear that fits in our lighter, tinier car after a shopping trip to REI earlier this month.

There was also a burn ban since basically the whole state has been on fire at some point this summer, so that ruled out any fun fiery bits and required all the electrical paraphernalia. We haven't settled on an alternate cook system, yet. I've been researching the freezer bag cooking method, though, and that appeals to me quite a bit since it eliminates the need for dishes and anything but boiling water. I have a dehydrator so can make a lot of that stuff myself. It's also a lot easier since going vegan since I don't have to worry about refrigerating dairy or meat things at all. I think the pocket rocket is the system that we will get just because I like saying "pocket rocket" and since the fuel cans that go with it are red, I can see a lot of "red rocket" jokes in my camping future. Here's a pic of me and the Zia 3 together:

We rented a shelter (number 9, number 9, number 9) and set up the new tent (which was pretty easy once we figured it out. We also set up the old tent, just in case anyone wanted to use it, although Haley and Jacob just ended up sleeping in the shelter and using that tent as a place to change clothes in private.

We hung out with other families in the group for a while after we got there, which was nice since we never really do much with the group over the summer. I hadn't seen several of them for quite a while so it was good to hang out and catch up. It's crazy how much everyone has grown up over the summer, especially the boys. They're all tall as trees now!

The kids went on a hike at the rocky area (Penitentiary Hollow) and me, boyfriend and Terri went down by the lake, skipped rocks and sat around talking till they got back. Then we headed back to our shelter and had smart dogs, chips, clandestine cocktails and whatnot for dinner. Terri and Sam headed home and me, boyfriend, Jacob and Haley sat around talking in the shelter and listening to raccoons fight outside. At one point they were up in a tree and boyfriend went out there with the flashlight. When he shined it up there, one raccoon bit the other and he jumped out of the tree. Inside the shelter we heard it hit the ground with a thud. Sad baby raccoon. Hope he's all right. Then I got cold and tired so we headed to the tent.

Here are things I have to bitch about for that night:

Took me a while to warm up because I'm so cold-natured and also a big whiny baby.
Tent was not on flat ground so I kept sliding off my mat all night.
Forgot to put in contact lenses so had to go retrieve them from shelter and put those in under camping conditions (I use them to prevent corneal erosions at night).
Jacob couldn't sleep, so woke me up with shelter door / light as he went to hang out at the dock below our shelter at 2:30 in the morning. Was OK, though, since I had to pee and would have gotten up 5 minutes later anyway.
Cows started mooing. Not just mooing, but frantically mooing all night long. Except when they would briefly stop and then a really loud one would start the whole process over again. I have no idea what the deal was, but they were perfectly silent during the day. I think they were shut in trailers all night as part of some livestock show nearby. Boo hiss.
Lots of Harleys going by on the highway.
Allergies decided to kick in so had to take Benadryl.

I would add positive things, but I don't feel like it.

The next day started off nicely. Allergies were calm and despite my lack of sleep I was looking forward to camping coffee which tastes so incredible for some reason even if it's just crappy Folgers. This wasn't crappy Folgers, though, so it was pretty spectacular. We ate raisin bran (which is now banned from my diet due to gastrointestinal issues that have cropped up upon my return home) and rice milk for breakfast. A one-eyed squirrel came for a visit and boyfriend spent much of the day feeding him nuts and bread and getting him to eat out of his hand. Haley later got him to eat out of her hand, too. He was a pretty nice squirrel.

Betty and Susan from the group came and hung out down at our shelter for a while and talked and then Caitlin showed up, too. We sat chatting while simultaneously edging further and further out of the reach of the blazing hot sun, constantly adjusting and readjusting chairs and body placement. Terri and family arrived and we hung out with them for a while. David showed up briefly and dispersed hugs. They all left except Terri, so we just hung at the cabin for a while until they were finally able to cajole me into going to Penitentiary Hollow. I've been worried about my knee since the surgery, but it held up well. I felt a little bit of burn in my shin toward the end of the hike, but overall, pretty good. The tops of my thighs are sore today, but not so much that I feel like taking anything or eating bunches of bananas. Guess my therapy / exercise regimen is working after all.

While we were there, a woman was climbing and the things she was doing with her knees were pretty fantastic. She wasn't incredibly in shape or anything and it was definitely work for her, but that made it seem all the more attainable for me. I've got to get these knees strong so I can do stuff like that again. We watched her for a long time and gave her lots of verbal encouragement... clapped when she made it to the top and back down again. She thanked us for the support and her face said she was feeling good and proud of herself. I need more moments like that.

Just about everybody else in the home school group had only come for the day on Friday or had left by that point on Saturday or were getting ready to. Haley and Jacob stayed back at the shelter, which is probably good, because they made a second trip back to Penitentiary Hollow after Karen and her crew arrived. We made guacamole and had chips and salsa and hung out while they were out there.

When they got back, they long boarded and got on the bike a little as we engaged in the long process of figuring out the personalities of Sam, Michael and Terri which was quite a hoot. That makes the shelter 9 group go like this:

Me: INTP
Boyfriend: INTP
Haley: INTP
Ethan: INTP
Sam: ENTP
Jacob: INTJ
Karen: INTJ
Michael: INTJ
Chris: ISTJ
Terri: ?STP (half I / half E)

Poor Sam. The lone extrovert. How does he put up with us all?

Chris and boyfriend went to see if they could find Karen some hard cider, but lo and behold, this park is located in a dry county so nothing but crappy BMC beer could be found. She stayed sober while we had some beers. Well, I say she stayed sober... As darkness fell and we started to cook dinner, her allergies started to kick in full force, so she took first one hit and then later another hit of the old Benadryl.

Cooking dinner was punctuated by a never-ending flow of bugs. I literally was eating bugs, had bugs up my nose and bug legs stuck to my contact lenses. These were little bugs that looked like mosquitos but didn't bite. They were just annoying as all hell. And everywhere. And not at all repelled by bug repellant. Still, dinner was tasty. And full of unintentional protein. And probably not vegan as a result.

I suddenly realized that Haley would be leaving and so that meant Jacob would be sleeping alone in the shelter, so I proposed he go back and spend the night with Ethan and we'd pick him up the next day. That was met with wide acceptance from both boys since there is a complete lack of video games in the forest and also they haven't been able to spend much time together lately due to Jacob's school schedule which is pretty out of control this year. They left and then we took Sam's telescope and looked at the stars and a planet that was later determined to be Jupiter.

We were supposed to go on a spider walk that night, but missed it because we were busy doing other stuff at that time. We'd read about how the wolf spider's eyes reflect light and sure enough, on the way back to the shelter after star-gazing, boyfriend had the headlamp on and saw some little eyes in the grass and there was a wolf spider. Big old joker, too.

Before bed, I needed to take my contacts out and clean off all the bug legs and silt so grabbed my bag and headed up to the bathroom. Inside the bathroom, a hundred million bajillion more of those little bugs were swarming around the lights creating a fog that obscured the mirrors. In addition there was a layer of dead bugs covering every flat surface. I left that bathroom and we drove to another camp area hoping that bathroom would be better, but this one had a light right in front of the door where I would have to walk through a fog of bugs just to get in or out. I opted for washing my hands at the camp site and then cleaning my contacts in the front seat of the car.

Other things to bitch about that night:

Another night of allergies and Benadryl.
Harleys on the highway.
Cows mooing, but less than the night before.
Corneal erosions x 3 but not deathly terrible ones that required my bootleg anesthesia drops.

The second night of sleeping was much nicer. We had the fly open on the tent (the whole top half is just netting) so we could feel the breeze and see the sky. We got to have some naked time since there was no risk of the kids coming out and getting an unwanted shock. It was cold the first night, but this night was just too hot for clothes. We had the fly open to the side facing the lake, so really, if anyone could see us, then they were too damn close to our camp site and deserved the eyeful they got. Although, for as close as this campground is to the highway, it's a wonder nobody saw us from there.

Anyway, the fly open was not great for my allergies but I was screwed on that account anyway, so might as well just enjoy the star-gaze in my antihistamine haze. I don't remember even falling asleep, we just kept talking until we drifted off, planning future camping trips and reminiscing about the squirrel.

In the morning, birds woke me up just in time to see the red sky and sunrise. Really nice. We got up, had some coffee and started breaking everything down and packing the car in a leisurely manner. When all that was done, boyfriend decided to take a shower before the journey home. When he got up to the shower, he found that someone had taken a dump in it and left their scungy boxers right next to it.

I went up to return the shelter key and told the park ranger, "Thanks. Oh, and by the way, somebody pooped in the boy's shower." She just looked at me deadpan and said, "Oh. Well, they'll clean that up."

Well, allrighty then.

We took a winding way home to avoid the highway and I checked in at random places along the way on Facebook. I've decided that I'm never going to check into another place where I actually am so I can mess up their data mining and get more interesting results in targeted ads and such.

On the ride home, we concluded that this was a fun trip since it was with friends and being so close to home made it possible for group members to visit during the day from the city. We also concluded that future trips that don't include other people will occur in areas farther from the city where there is not a highway nearby and there is no cell phone reception. I think that those things are probably enough to filter out the crowd of folks willing to poop in showers and bring us closer to a more conscientious type of camper who is willing to either pack it in / pack it out or use a shovel to bury it. It will also eliminate the issues with orange haze that hinders the best star-gazing and star-picture-taking and keep the confined cows and Harley crew a safe distance from my sleeping bag.

So, the bottom line is, I like camping, but I need to rough it a little more even if my allergies disagree with being outside. Next time, with a little more planning, I might make this a day trip on the way to a more remote spot. Socializing for the first half, getting away from it all for the last half.

Redux: I Just Don't Know

2011-09-11T16:27:00.000-05:00

about this world sometimes... I mean...

I just don't know.

All this stuff is going on, and yet... my life goes on as is.

I still wake up every day to rush around so I'm not late getting J to school, not late getting myself to work. I still pack my day full of activities for the kids in my class. I still come home tired to rest for just a bit before it's already time for bed. I still have no money for the bills that keep coming my way. I still have a wedding to be in on Saturday and tons of things to do before then.

It's all the same here for me... and yet this thing, this catastrophic thing has happened. And I hardly have even a moment to sit and absorb it all and figure out what I feel... I hardly can sit and just take in the enormity of it all.

I feel almost nothing. I listen to people talking about all this, over and over. I see bits and pieces on the news in between going on with my life... making dinner and breakfast and making sure homework is done and baths are taken and teeth are brushed and medicine is taken...

I haven't had a chance to really wonder what's really going on or what's really going to happen. Is money going to get tighter? Are we going to start a war (finish a war?) Are things going to change in this country, the world? What does all this mean? For me, for my son, my friends?

I keep hearing unity, and I know that all the things that are feeling cliche to me are about that unified experience of an event, but I feel very little but disbelief.

I'm tired. I just want some rest.

This post was written on 9/13/2001

Second Day of School

2011-08-30T11:30:00.002-05:00

Can I really be 40 years old and saying that. Again?

Get on with it, woman. Quit getting distracted by every little buzzing noise around you. You're not getting any younger.

One of my classes isn't loaded in the system yet. Just called tech support and it's there, the professor just hasn't released it to the students yet. I've had to work out a pretty tight schedule to keep both my own and my kid's school work flowing. With that class missing and being finished with the work in another class (I'm taking six classes / 18 hours) I've got a little bit of time to write here.

Writing here almost feels good again.

More about that later. I'm not going to be too cryptic for long.

But for today, I am.

I'm starting to enjoy cooking again.

I'm starting to enjoy my life again.

One thing taken off my plate. One goal being reached and not on the back burner any more. One inconvenience related to my coupling doesn't seem like such a big deal any more. Everything seems possible and the world is starting to feel new again.

I feel fresh. I feel happy.

Before, it was just too much.

(sigh)

But second day of school... It feels good and I'm excited about my classes. I'm taking several library related courses (technology, library management, teen services) and then I'm taking another management class, a computing class (LOL) and one about Hip Hop, Culture and Politics. So far, I think the teen services class and the Hip Hop class are going to be my favorites.

Somewhere in there, I take the GRE and apply for grad school. Texas Woman's and UNT are my first and second choices.

Then next semester it's another computing class (LOL again), statistics or some other math, advanced research services, an upper level humanities (I think I will do either Native American Lit or Bible as Lit) and then my internship.

Finally getting on with this life.

But it's all happening the way it's supposed to. I mean, I look back on everything, standing on this hill I've managed to climb up, and I can see it pretty clearly. This was the only way. The best way. The way it's supposed to be.

The Problem with Cat People Friends

2011-08-18T10:16:00.009-05:00

I just love how the Internets are so enamored with cats. I've been slowly falling out of love with it, so I take a redeeming quality where I can get it. And we cat people are able to find each other with ease around here.

It really makes my day to see a friend post about something funny a cat did or post a picture of a cat lounging on a keyboard or lap. And, as frustrating as it can be to deal with our neighbors and their unfixed cats, there are many rewards in caring for their unplanned litters. And there are many rewards in being friends with others who take on this job. This spring and summer brought four litters to my Facebook feed (and one to my own laundry room) and it was fun to watch all these little fur balls grow and to hear of their antics.

A friend's mom recently captured an elusive mother cat who has been responsible for many litters. She lured her with her kittens who are just a few days old. I felt excited for her. I felt relief for her. This will be (hopefully) the last litter she needs to care for. I took some comfort in knowing that this means less rallying for homes in my Facebook feed. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't bother me that the rally is there. It's just part of the gig when you have cat people friends. I look at it as a necessary evil, much like an NPR member drive. I think it just always makes me a little anxious because I want every cat to have a home. I think about the life of Buttercup, my own little fluffy diva, and I want that for them all.

The problem with cat people friends, however, is this: Cats die.

My overly empathetic nature gets the best of me. I read the accounts of illness or accident and death with a heavy heart. I go through all the sympathetic condolences and openly weep at my desk. I am not just sad for cats, of course, I am sad for their humans. I know this relationship so well, and know its end. I have felt this before and it is an immensely miserable place to be.

And it's not just the loss of beloved house cats who are family members or the frequent friends who are strays that is so hard. The missing or killed ferals are just as heartbreaking. It's a different relationship with a feral. You can't get close to them. First, they don't let you. Second, the nature of a feral colony dictates that you shouldn't let yourself. Still, those deaths and disappearances can be the saddest of all. They are the cats that never even had a chance.

This year, I've seen two of my ferals disappear. Twinkle Toes disappeared around January. See his sweet little white toes? (Sigh)

And his sister, Tabby Mama, I haven't seen for a couple of months now. I got both of them fixed and even cared for Tabby Mama's litter just last year. She kept them hidden well, but finally brought them around for food and I was able to catch them.

This was the closest I'd ever gotten to her before she got fixed. She was the loudest in the trap and wailed through much of the night. After getting fixed, she finally started to settle down and would even come up on the porch at feeding time and let me pet her for just a few seconds before darting off into the bush to wait me out.

I had to have Tabby Man, another feral, euthanized after he got so sick he wouldn't drink or eat.

He crawled along the side of the house under a box and was barely able to walk. He and Tabby Mama were buddies and often slept together. Around the same time, she developed a cough and before I could even think about catching her to get her treated, she was gone. I get so sad thinking about what probably happened to her.

Other cats have passed on recently and affected friends. Sumre. Debbie. Andrew. Barbara. Linda had an especially hard year... You cannot quite capture the amount of joy a cat can bring to your life. The same is true for the amount of sorrow there is when a cat leaves your life.

Rest in peace, soft sweeties. You were all loved and will be missed always.

The Garden Is Ablaze

2011-08-09T14:35:00.007-05:00

My peppers look like this every day, no matter how much water they get.

I was just about to go and mess around with some containers in the garden. I put my hair back and grabbed my hat. Put some socks on so I could wear my sticker-resistant Vans outside. Put on some panties so my elderly neighbor doesn't have a heart attack when I bend over to pull some weeds in my sundress.

And then I checked the temperature. And it's almost 108. On the porch. In the shade. I always have to qualify that since it's blowing my mind this summer that there's no relief even in the shade. We're on day #39 of 100+ degree heat. In just three days, we will beat the record set in 1980.

I was 8 years old that summer and I remember it well. It was the first time I heard the words "heat wave" spoken rather than sung. I remember thinking about it a lot. It was the lead story of the news every night. We had window air conditioning and it seemed like it was on constantly and somebody was always standing in front of it. In the areas that were getting hit by it up North, lack of air conditioning was making things much worse. They always made a point of saying this on the news. I think it was hard for Southerners to understand why so many people were going to hospitals and dying up there in places like Chicago. But then it was like, Oooooooooh, they don't have air conditioning. Weird.

I spent my summers not here in hot ass Texas, but in milder places like Missouri and Oklahoma. I don't really remember summers being that hot and I played outside every chance that I got unless I could find a way to make myself invisible inside with a book. Summers were green. Fall was always colorful. Here, summers are brown and fall is browner. It seems like this place gets just enough water, unfortunately, to keep it from being a desert.

I have a tree that may not make it through the summer. We've got a slow trickle on it that might save it, but in the past week or so, it decided that it's going to be fall. It's dropping every leaf it's got.

After living here in North Texas for the last 13 years, I think I've finally decided that I'm not going to grow tomatoes again. It is just too labor and water intensive. I think I'm going to stick to peppers and herbs and native perennials. This year has been an especially sad year for the garden and I have mostly given up on it. Boyfriend still goes out and gives everything a drink, and I'm thankful for that. There are still some things growing and flowers here and there that keep the birds and the bees happy enough in this sad landscape that is my yard.

But then there are some things that no amount of water seems to touch. I have plants that are dying from heat. You pick up the container and it has water in it but it's dying anyway. Other things, I'm not sure are worth watering in the first place.

This bush, I hate it anyway and it's not native. I guess this year I'm fine with letting it die so I can let the native purple sage that lives in front of it take over the spot or plant something a little less thirsty.

You know what else I hate? Grass. That my yard looks like this is only sort of breaking my heart. If I had my way, I would replace this with something else. Wildflowers or veggies or a rock path or -- if it must be grass -- buffalo grass instead.

My tarragon has decided to take the drying step upon itself.

After years of happiness on this spot on the porch, Scheffy takes a turn for the worst. Time to come inside sad guy.

Just about the only happy things around here are some catnip and succulents.

There's one thought I have that's going to keep me going and allow me to start getting my beds ready to cook down over the fall and winter: With this year being so hot and dry, surely next year won't be so bad.

I hope I'm right, because try as I might, I can't seem to stop trying to grow stuff no matter how bad I am at it.

Programming My Dreams

2011-08-08T09:14:00.007-05:00

I've had some experience messing around with lucid dreaming when I was younger and I've always had a pretty rich dream life. I never have too many nightmares, but I have several recurring dream themes.

I always dream about driving a car down a hill with no brakes when I feel my life is out of control, for instance. There I will be, in the dream, just grinding my foot into the brake pedal, but nothing happens. I usually wake up from that one screaming right before I would have slammed the car into something in the dream. It's a good sign that I need to get a grip on things or stop worrying so damn much.

I always dream about tornadoes when there are major changes in my life. Sometimes the tornadoes are multiple, large, destructive forces and it's more like a nightmare. Sometimes there is a single, wispy tornado dancing along the ground around me and it's almost pleasant to watch. Recently, I had a dream about one large tornado with lots of small, harmless ones wrapping around it. It's funny how a dream can send you a message if you're paying attention.

Another recurring dream I have is of a specific house. I've had this dream since I was a child. Sometimes I'm inside the house, sometimes outside. Lots of features of the dream can change (what the inside looks like, who is present, etc.), but the exterior of the house is always the same. One day when boyfriend and I were driving across the country, I saw a house exactly like it. Everything was the same, including the way it was set back from the road, isolated. The windows and doors and roof were all the same. The road leading to it and the way the trees lined the sides of the property were the same. Only the gate on the road was different. It was somewhere in backwoods Alabama. We stopped and took a picture.

You can't see the house very well, but it didn't really matter to me. I've seen that house so many times it's burned into my memory. How did it get into my head, though?

Anyway, I'm also a person with a fair amount of anxiety. And some other frazzly thing that seems to go along with it. I always joke around that I have a "fragile nervous system" because I am scared very easily and once I get scared it's difficult to rein it back in. So, if a door slams or somebody drops a book, for example, it makes me feel like my spine is curling on itself and scares me to death. My heart races. My breathing speeds up. I get all the trappings of a fight-or-flight response. Every fucking time somebody slams a door or drops something. Like every noise is some sort of threat. And then it goes on and on. I have to do lots of internal brain stuff to get it to stop. Physically become aware of and change my breathing, ground myself in the moment, tell myself nothing is wrong. No threat. All is well. Inhale. Exhale. I have to mentally swaddle myself, like a baby with an overactive startle reflex.

As I describe this, it sounds pretty bad, but it's something I'm pretty used to and it all happens internally. Unless you live with me, you would not even know all this is happening. Even those who live with me aren't aware it's going on most of the time.

I decided that there has to be something out there that can help this that isn't all druggy and such. I used to have some kava kava tea that was sort of nice, but it made me entirely too sleepy and sometimes I just didn't like the taste of it. So, I decided recently I would take some GABA.

The first night I took it (500mg before bed), I noticed that it made me feel relaxed and a little sleepy, yet I was completely alert. I had a feeling of discomfort (not related to the GABA, but to an emotional / stressful situation going on at home) and, almost like having an out-of-body experience, I was suddenly elevated above this emotion and was talking to myself in my head about what I could do to make myself feel better at that moment.

I don't really do that type of thing. It was almost as if I was an observer of myself. I went on having the emotion the whole time I was thinking about fixing it. It was pretty bizarre really.

That night, I had some very intense dreams. When I woke up, I was very alert as if I'd slept all night, but at the same time, there was a level of mental fatigue there that made the rest of my day difficult. I took another 500mg pill during the day.

Then I took another 500mg that night. The dreams were more intense and what's strange is that I was aware of the dreams. I was having them and at the same time I was observing myself having them. In one, I started talking to myself as my boyfriend decided he was going to do some type of surgery on White Thing (one of the stray neighborhood cats).

I was telling myself stuff like, "He's about to cut her. There's going to be a lot of blood. It's going to be a spectacular scene because she's so white. You have to get out of this before he starts cutting. It's almost too late now. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up." She was looking at me with those eyes the whole time. He started to cut her and there was some blood and then...

I woke up.

And that was not the last dream I had that night. Nor was it the most vivid.

For the next few days, I decided not to take the GABA and see if other people had experienced this craziness. Turns out, it's not all that uncommon. Some people don't appear to experience it unless they are taking huge amounts of it. Body builders and such who take it for different reasons take really high doses and report having crazy dreams. I even found some forums of people who are into lucid dreaming as a hobby or something who take GABA to make it happen. So, I decided to take just the 500mg and only right before bed. No more during the day. Maybe a smaller dose would make it more manageable?

That night, my dreams were still very vivid and I was aware that I could sort of control them a bit and I was able to wake up from one when it got disturbing and then continue it in a nicer way when I fell back asleep.

Once I realized this, I decided that this supplement might actually be sort of fun. I started making suggestions to myself about 4 nights ago that I wanted to dream of kittens. (Previous nights of dreaming on this had shown a tendency to incorporate whatever I'd been thinking about a lot or talking about before bed so I didn't want to be thinking of anything disturbing or that could be twisted.) So, every night before bed I've been thinking kittens, kittens, kittens.

The 500mg has been pretty perfect. It relaxes me almost like a really light muscle relaxer and then I'm drowsy and fall right asleep. All this happens within about 45 minutes of taking it. I had vivid dreams every night, but they weren't disturbing and I was able to change their course when necessary. I was almost always aware that I was dreaming rather than just passively having a dream. But no kittens.

Until last night! Not only did I dream of kittens, but I lived in an apartment that was next door to a non-profit kitten rescue facility and we had an adjoining door so I could go see the kittens whenever I wanted. It was crazy. When the kitten part started, I got all excited in my dream like I had been waiting patiently for my brain to produce this and now here it was. Freaky. GABA is now known as the "Inception Pill" at this house.

Boyfriend decided that he would take some last night, too. He never remembers his dreams at all. I'm always waking up telling him some crazy thing that was just going on in my head and then I ask him about his dreams and he's got nothing for me. The only dream he can remember is pretty funny, though. We were sleeping and he had his hand in the back of my underwear. All of a sudden, he starts flapping his hand around in there really quickly like a seal clapping his flippers. I am dreaming while this is going on that he's attacking me with a screwdriver. He's dreaming that armadillos are after him. We both wake up making a lot of noise and freaking out at each other.

I think armadillos have gotten him in a couple other dreams, but really, that's about the extent of what he can remember of his dreams in all the years I've known him.

So, after taking the GABA last night, this morning he said that he was also aware that he was dreaming within his dream and that he was aware that he wanted to write down everything that he was dreaming about. Like, inside the dream he was saying to himself, "I should be writing all this down." But, he still didn't remember the actual content of the dream. Pretty funny that he remembered anything at all.

The rest of my kitten dream included my apartment and boyfriend's apartment (which was all run down and ghetto) separated by a Princess Bride-type Fire Swamp forest thing that had this bird that looked like a sea gull but was the color of a robin's egg. It was chasing me and literally spraying a steady stream of poo the entire chase. Then came moving day where we were going to combine our living quarters, a phone call from my mother (who is not alive in real life) asking me where the important boxes were, boyfriend not taking off work to move and suggesting we get a Uhaul after work. Then I realized we didn't have enough stuff for a Uhaul (that is definitely a dream!) and we decided to go eat. Fort Worth wouldn't allow taco trucks in my dream, so we went to this place that had a taco truck parked INSIDE the restaurant. Boyfriend was reading the menu to me and it had all this meat on it like chickelk and turkemu and turtison. He got some sort of sausage taco and I got a sno-cone. Then he sat there and told me about how they got chicken and elk to mate to make this meat.

I woke myself up at that point because I knew it was going somewhere bad. I'd been reading some animal activist stuff earlier in the day yesterday and I saw some images and read some stories that, even as I was reading them, I knew would be a problem for my dreams. That's why I was thinking harder than ever about kittens before bed. Ha.

I can't tell, however, if this GABA stuff is making any difference at all with my anxiety level. There are other things that I do (like Yoga or drinking green tea w/ Jasmine) that are supposed to naturally raise the levels of GABA *in my brain*. There's not really any studies about whether or not a supplement can produce high enough levels in the brain to do any good and there's some evidence it may not reach the brain at all. All I know is, it's reaching something and it's very relaxing at night when I need it most. It's making my dream life so rich I feel like I'm living several different lives when I go to bed at night and it's quite a lot of fun to be able to order up my dreams from a menu of my own creation.

Detangling Wires and Turning Hangers Right Round, Baby

2011-08-01T10:00:00.000-05:00

I really wish I'd thought to take a before picture of the wire box. Let's just say that what you see here was inside a huge Rubbermaid container that's about 2 x 1 and 2 feet deep. And it was in a tangled ball. And there were yarn scraps and a wire hanger entangled in there somehow. And there were other non-wire items like phones and speakers and stuff that attached to the wires as well.

And I'm good at detangling things. But it still took me like 4 hours. Of course, my kid was in there most of the time in complete awe that cords like these are still in existence.

He kept saying, "What's this one?"

It's an ADB to USB.

And, "What's this thing?"

It's a Zip drive.

"Why do you have two of these things?"

Well, one is a 33.6k PCMIA modem card and the other is a 56k. Apparently I just had to have more speed. I know it seems crazy, but every little bit mattered back then.

"You guys are such nerds. I can't believe you still have all this stuff."

Yeah, me either.

Other gems... a Polaroid camera that has removable plates and made picture stickers that were little thumbnail-sized pictures. Oh yeah. I used to use them to take pictures of the kids and put them on their cubbies, cots and table mats. For the picture on their cots I would take a picture of them with the parent who dropped them off on the first day and then at nap they'd always feel like they could connect with a parent.

So. Much. Phone cord.

So. Much. Ethernet cord.

Because I had a laptop way back in the day and that was all very nice but there was still no wireless really. I would drag that phone cord out my door and into my yard, I shit you not. I got connectors and would hook two really long cords together.

Tape recorder from my old Pre-K classroom. I put colored star stickers on the buttons because they couldn't all read yet. First I taught them how to play Red Light, Green Light. Then I explained that the green sticker meant play forward, the red sticker meant stop and the yellow sticker meant go back and hear that again. Then I hit up library used book sales and snagged books on cassette for them. Only two children could be at the listening center at a time and it was always the first center to be chosen at center time.

Am I going to do this every time I clear out a box? Think about what each little thing means and go through all these memories?

In other news, I turned all the hangers around in my closet and I really think that system is going to work. Already I can see that I've got my favorites and even as I was turning them around, I knew some pieces that I'd be letting go of. Still, I'm going to let a full year go by just to make sure and so I can cycle through the seasons.

Hoarders Lite: Operation Declutterfy

2011-07-28T10:07:00.010-05:00

So, I've been on hiatus from my goal to only own 108 things. There's just a month left to go before Jacob starts school and then I start (with an 18-hour courseload) just a week after that. I figure I should get a move on with this plan. I'm about to be a very busy woman.

I've been thinking a lot about why I even have this plan. Of course, I want to own less stuff. I want to take care of less stuff. I want to stop consuming so much stuff. I want less stuff to be around should I die so that nobody else has to sort through my stuff. The next time I move, I don't want to have to have a U-Haul the size of a small planet.

And that brings me to the next time I move. And this is a move that is imminent. Well, not tomorrow, but very likely at the end of three years, probably from this very time. Just a couple more scorching Texas summers and I will be outta here. And when I move, it's going to be into a much smaller space.

But Stephanie, you already live in a tiny house. Yes, it's true. In this everything-is-bigger state, I'm a total freak and outcast with a house that is barely even 1,000 square feet. But it's still too much. Plus, it could have been designed better to maximize the space. I know you folks in Japan or NYC and, you know, outside the "privileged" United States probably scoff at the idea... and that's fine. I just can't help it, though. I have this feeling inside my chest. It's like a gauge of some sort telling me how full of life I am, and strangely, it expands with every item I get rid of or give away. It really is a less-is-more sort of feeling. There is something very freeing about it.

Stuff like this... it inspires me.

I look at that and I think, "I wish I could do that." I think part of it comes from a lifelong struggle I've had with roots and home ownership. I keep moving into houses because I have this idea that I need to put down some roots. There's this expectation or this perception of myself I hold that says this American dream of home ownership should be sticking to me. I should want this. And I sort of do. There are elements of it that I like. But I've spent the last 20 years of my life pretty much hating every house I've ever lived in and only really being happy when I've got a tiny apartment. I like the idea of having a base, but for me, I think it's ridiculously unnecessary for that base to be even an inch more space than I really need. I need to stop fighting this feeling that the only normal, natural way for me to be is in some permanent spot and I need to embrace that I want the option to roam. That I want to be able to put down, sure, but it shouldn't be too hard to pick up and go from there, either. I'm almost 40 damn years old and I just need to stop fighting what feels right to me.

So... the plan. I've got something on the agenda for every single day leading up to the start of school:

Turn all your hangers around. I'm trying that trick where you get rid of all the clothes you haven't worn in a year.
Sort bottom clothes drawer. I gave up panties for Lent, so this drawer will be super easy!
Organize the box of wires. I dread this project more than any other, which is why I've scheduled it near the start. If I can't finish this one thing, I will know for sure that I'm doomed for failure.
Clean out bedroom shelf 4. Everything on this shelf is horizontal. That's a scary thing.
Deal with magazines. But I might need that 2001 issue of Young Children. What if I need to read that article on the importance of blocks again???
Work on books in closet and rest of bedroom shelves. Keep the books where they belong. At the library. Not your house.
Silverware drawers. Don't hold back, crazy kitchen implement hoarder!
Pantry. Mostly will be just post-kitten rearranging.
Top of desk filing cabinet. Please don't make me go to the bad place!
Bottom of desk filing cabinet. Mostly just PR materials. BYE!
Top of back filing cabinet. Yes, I keep the manuals for every single thing I buy. Okay, I guess I could get rid of the ones where I haven't owned the product for some time.
Bottom of back filing cabinet. VHS-a-thon.
Spice cabinet. I can't even pronounce half of what's in there. Asafoetida anyone?
Below spice cabinet. Enough pasta to last a year. For a family of 10.
Junk drawer x 2. Yes, I have two junk drawers.
Junk drawer x 2. Yes, I have four junk drawers.
Junk drawer x 2. Yes, I have 6 junk drawers but they're really small, dammit.
Area above junk drawers and surface of back filing cabinet. Camping equipment depot.
Tool shelf top. Maybe I'll let boyfriend tackle that one.
Back room dresser. Former kitten incubator.
Area above washer and dryer and laundry shelves. A mountain of beach towels and sheets just waiting to avalanche.
Top of fridge and under kitchen sink. It's not as bad as you'd think.
Shelves above glasses. Do you really need 100 coffee cups?
Shelves above plates. ~~Do you really need all that liquor?~~ never mind.
Baking shelves and pan shelves. How many cookies would you like? 500? I can totally handle that.
Under bed boxes. Brown recluse breeding station.
Bathroom linen shelf. I don't think I've gotten a single item out of this area in all the time we've lived here, so almost 7 years.
Bathroom drug area. I probably can just reduce this area by ingesting some of the surplus. I'll probably need it to get through this project.
Bathroom below drug area and under sink. Costco toilet paper storage area.
Closet bottom, his side. How all the crafty kid stuff got over there, I don't know.
Closet bottom, my side. Anybody want some really huge speakers?
Wire shelving in closet. Photo album repository.
Closet tops. Yes, I really do have every box for every electronic device I own.
Desk. I'm saving that for the day before school so I get off on the right foot.

How can there be that many places to tend to? Ack. Must reduce!

The Sun Will Come Out...

2011-06-21T16:51:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow.

You're only a day away.

Things are feeling a little bit surreal lately.

Feel like I'm floatin' above it.

I could use a pleasant elevation right about now. I wouldn't mind missing enough to feel all right, either.

Perhaps a little gin and juice will adjust my current perspective.

And that's what it all is, isn't it? Perspective. What you see. What someone else doesn't. When it comes down to it, they're not living your life, are they? Don't even see your life. Can't even imagine what must happen in a day or a week or a year. A lifetime. Won't ever know what your life means. Just write you off as this or that, not really knowing.

Not hard to believe since I'm barely living this life myself.

Beneath this surreal fog, there's a layer of weariness. Fatigue. I drag my legs through molasses while my head bobs around in the nebula. Stretched between the earth and sky.

Like Block and Byrd.

Lakshmi Singh.

I'm at the cusp here. Before the swamp and the fog, there was running and running and running. Looking around and hiding. And running some more. I feel like I'm about to finally be able to rest. Climb upon a safe shore and live again. Get out from under a crushing weight. Escape an oppressive regime.

It's difficult when you're two. Your happiness depends on the other. Vice versa. There's pressure where there shouldn't be. It's not my fault yet I can't control it, either. There's guilt because shouldn't you be happier than you are?

I'm not Sally Sunshine.

I'm not Sally Anything at All.

Things could change. The potential is there for the ship to be righted. Things could start to matter again. Perhaps.

Tomorrow.

Either way, I'm starting to realize that I might not emerge the same on the other side. Even if tomorrow never comes, it's clear to me that something still has to change. I cannot engage in anything fully as it is and I'm so tired of living a halved life. A hidden life.

Apple, I'm Done with You!

2011-05-21T23:04:00.005-05:00

So, my battery on the MacBook has exploded. I'm living on the edge here with it just plugged into the wall and no battery. I thought my computer was going crazy for a while because it was always doing this thing where it would highlight and erase text, close windows, delete fifty bajillion emails all at once, etc. But turns out it was just the battery expanding and putting pressure on the track pad and causing all these problems.

I went to the genius bar and they want me to pay $100 to replace their defective battery. Give me a break. I think not so much. Little boy, I've been using Apple products since you were in diapers, but no more. I will not buy another Apple product so long as I live. You've gone and joined the evil ranks of corporatization. I've had it. Did I ask you to replace my keyboard when after 2 months all the letters wore off the keys of my iBook? NO. I wrote those damn letters back on with a Sharpie™. Did I ask you to replace my case after all the flaky slivers started coming off? NO. But now, a battery reduces my laptop to a desktop for months and then explodes in my lap and you want to charge me $100 for it?

Noooooooooooooooo.

Just no. I do not think so. Not only that, I think I will be contacting the Consumer Product Safety Commission and you can just recall these batteries, too. And then I will enjoy my new frickin' Dell or some other Windows machine. What kind of topsy-turvy world am I living in when Micro$oft is the one who is the lesser of the two evils?

HP Lenovo Gateway 2000 Quantex Asus Toshiba Vaio eMachines Acer something something or other, hell I will get a Compaq. OH I am so aggravated.

Now that I'm eligible for an iPhone upgrade do you think that's what I will be buying now? NO. I will not. Windows 7 Phone 7 phone 64 bit. Going to give someone else a try. Ohhhhh aggravation.

I'm done with you, too, Google. I like Bing better anyway. Laugh all you want, but have you tried Bing lately? It — get this — WORKS. You actually find stuff you want. CRAZY CONCEPT, I know. (Although I will miss that shift+option+hyphen em dash action for sure.)

Disclaimer: It's entirely possible I've had a cocktail or two tonight.

BUT I'M MAD.

Don't even get me started on the predator who started all the rapture rubbish. Also, don't get me started on the hipster, plastic, newcomer, Becky Patrol™ people I had to endure all over the place while waiting for my appointment in Yuppieville.

I'm going back to building my own machines and I'm going to use Ubuntu. I can't take it any more. Goodbye cruel world. Hello world. Hello Dolly. Help. High school. Foxfire. Give me the blue E!!!! COMPARED TO WHAT????? Save me. Madonna-whore. Oh. Oh. Oh. Does not compute. It just runs programs. Do you want to play a game? Bad command or file name. PC Load Letter!!!!!!!! Mr. Watson... Bueller!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't take it any more.

Disclaimer: A brand I'm still loyal to may have influenced this blog post just slightly. Also, it helps if you read this entire post in the voice of the bus driver on South Park.

Be Gone Evil Illness

2011-04-27T10:04:00.002-05:00

So, what I thought was allergies turned out to be that, of course, but underneath it was a cold brewing. I kept taking more and more antihistamine wondering why it wasn't completely taking care of the runny nose, etc. Then it dawned on me that, having ventured out into the world of humans on Friday, I might have picked up a bug. Lovely. I took Nyquil night before last and that gave me a superior night of sleep, but I didn't take it last night and that was a mistake. I had nightmares all night long and woke up with a river coming out of my nose.

(Sigh)

Luckily, Jacob has a light week at school. The TAKS is Thursday so not much else is on his to-do list but to be ready for that. He's using that to get caught up on his algebra class. He's behind on that one a little bit. I hope I'm not doing him injustice trying to teach him about the quadratic formula and simplifying radicals while sick and druggy. Better send him to Khan first so he can autocorrect my haze-induced errors.

Boyfriend's caught the bug, too. Sorry, honey. But at least J isn't sick. I've been hand sanitizing and guarding my pencils with my life so he doesn't touch them. Not cooking. Sanitizing door knobs.

I went outside for a few minutes yesterday to see how yard and garden things are going. Scarlet runner beans are going insane. Nasturtiums have sprouted. Bajillion-year-old moonflower seeds only sprouted a few (figures, but worth a try, I can't throw seed out). Morning glories are coming up and cardinal vine, too. Tomatoes are doing well. Basil is happy. Echinacea is spreading like wild. One of my salvia cuttings (or stepping-ons, I should say) is green and happy like it never got separated from the mother plant. Tarragon that I thought was dead really wasn't and just before I went to compost the dead roots I noticed a tiny smidge of life. Repotted it and now it's going crazy. Two succulents survived the freezes and are doing well in their new pots on the front porch. Schefflera is putting off lots of new growth. Mint... well, you know mint. Ditto zucchini. Need to get the rest of my herbs going, but just not feeling it this week. Boyfriend has been on tree patrol. We've got a new pear that's doing well. A pecan that he's constantly wrangling from the grips of invasive vines and a baby oak.

There may be hope for this yard, yet.

In cat news, I'm quite allergic to Feline Pine cat litter. Wow. Permanent nose tingle + sneezathon. Back to square one. The cats didn't like it anyway. Buttercup was walking along walls of her box, strategically straddling the corners to do her business so she wouldn't have to step in it. Mama Frances poops half in / half out of the box anyway, but there did seem to be more landing outside the box than normal, perhaps also in protest.

Kittens have their eyes starting to open now and are starting to recognize my voice and mew at me when I enter the laundry room and say anything. Mama is kind of lazy compared to meticulous Grey Mama. I never even knew that there could be such copious amounts of fluid and blood at a cat birth because Grey took care of all that. Not hardly a spot was left after she gave birth to her lot. Kittens were spotless at all times. She would pin them down and growl at them if they tried to get away. She licked their eyes open before they were a week old. Every time I walked back there, she was giving one of them a bath and she regularly licked them while they were nursing.

Frances, on the other hand, had goo coming out of her for a full 24 hours that she would not deal with. She didn't lick herself at all during labor or birthing and it was a hot, wet mess. Kittens were coming out and she was kind of reluctant to do anything with them but finally got on board with it all. These guys barely have eyes open and a couple of them aren't open still. The one cat that really goes crazy when he hears my voice doesn't have his eyes open at all. I rarely catch her cleaning them and sometimes it seems like they're mewing at her to do it. One will finish nursing and a couple minutes later crawl up by her head and mew at her and then she does the poo cleaning bit.

I hope all this is not any indicator of how litter training is going to go. It's strange how different the two mothers are, but then I guess that's how it is in the world. Mothers can have totally different styles, even be polar opposites, and everything works out in the end. Go figure.

Ugh. The pressure in my face is unreal. Going to take a shower and see if it helps clear these nasal passages.

FIne. Fine. Fine.

2011-03-25T22:01:00.003-05:00

Fine. I ain't no spring chicken. I ain't gettin' any younger. I got one foot in the grave.

Time is passing. Once upon a time the days dragged on like molasses and nothing I could say or do would change that. Each second dripping like Chinese water torture. Like the ascent on a roller coaster. Now I'm over the hill and I'm screaming all the way down. I can barely catch my breath. I already know what my face will look like in the snapshot at the end of the ride.

Slow down. Slow down. Wait for me. Give me just a minute. Hold on just a second. Go on ahead, I'll catch up... except I know I never will.

Wasn't there a day when I was bored to tears? Didn't I used to watch the clock waiting for that bell to ring? Didn't I grow up faster than I should have and even that didn't seem fast enough at the time? Didn't I jump into things before I was ready? Wasn't I always getting ahead of myself?

Did I climb every mountain or did I miss a few? Did I forget to stop and smell the roses?

Fine. I'm not the girl I used to be. I'll stop complaining about it once and for all. Although maybe I'm not the girl I used to be because I'm the woman I am now. I should stop looking back at her and just enjoy today, short as it may be.

Fine.

Spidah Killah

2011-03-17T17:51:00.001-05:00

I'm generally not a bug killer. Last night I had 3 nightmares that woke me up about spiders, snakes and a splinter that I pulled out that turned into an evil little worm. Then today, I found a spider on my nightstand, caught it and put it outside. Just now, another one was crawling right next to me on the couch. I think it may have been a brown recluse so I mashed it.

Now I have guilt + crawly skin feeling + know I won't sleep tonight. Ack. I'm not usually like this, but I am having some serious spider anxiety right now. I'm literally sweating about it and that is so not like me. I cannot even remember the last time anxiety made me sweat.

And what kind of world is this where I don't see a single spider camping but come home and they're infesting both my dreams and my house?

Purging

2011-01-20T09:45:00.001-06:00

A purging has commenced. My closet was threatening to take over the rest of the house so I had to lay the smack down on it. Well, in reality it was more like a slap on the hand, but I got 2 bags out and a box of old movies sorted and organized for future 8mm to Flip transformation.

I'm thinking about the 108 things that I want to keep. I still want to do that, but am realizing that it might take time. Am also realizing that I need to do a lot more thinking about what those things are. Also, in thinking, am realizing that the 108 things are important. Each individual thing has to have some significance or importance to me.

And then I'm realizing that maybe there's a nugget in there that I need to pan out. It goes something, though not completely, like this:

If I'm trying to get rid of things, and I'm trying to make things less important in my life, then is it counterintuitive to be focusing on the importance of a subset of things? Because then I'm not thinking stuff like, "I don't need this thing!" Instead, I spend all my time thinking, "I can't possibly live without this thing!"

But then maybe that's the point. If I spend all my time consumed with the things I can't part with, maybe I'll become so sick with myself that I'll finally come to the realization that I can, quite possibly, live without all of them.

Or something like that. I'm not there yet, since I just bought a damn yogurt maker and I have enough Amazon boxes around the house that I can't find the cat most hours of the day.

It does make spectacular yogurt and it did only cost $18. Since I have made 7 servings in it thus far, it is nearly halfway to paying itself off since soy yogurt is so damn expensive. And it makes Greek yogurt and sour cream, too, and I could even make soy cheese if I was feeling ambitious and / or patient.

Screw it. My kitchen appliances technically only count as 1 thing in the 108 things schema, anyway.

/justification

Still, I want it to be "one thing comes in, two things go out" instead of "50 things come in, closet swallows girl whole."

NoJoMo Tres - Up and Around

2010-11-03T11:59:00.000-05:00

Going to get to practice my Spanish numbers up to 30 this month if I keep that up. Which is good that I don't live in my home state any more since they just passed a law that English is the official language of the state. Why?

Why?

Makes me want to learn that much more Spanish. Also the one concerning Islamic law concerns me not because I think that it should ever be consulted when deciding a court case (what? does that happen?) but because it's one more state over religion thing that just shouldn't be overlapping.

What were voters thinking when they saw this on the ballot? I wish I could really be inside minds and know what the reaction of people was who weren't expecting to see something like this and make a decision about it.

At the end of the day, when I write, it's like I'm in 3rd grade language arts class or something. I want to explore all these things that have been bubbling around in my head, but I am just so tired. It all comes out sounding so simplistic and superficial.

I need to write more in the morning.

Which I have been doing, actually. I made a sandwich today. And I wrote about it. And I blogged at work.

Boyfriend has had a cold the last couple weeks. I am about to ban the Mucinex. I have never heard so much coughing in my life. It doesn't sound very productive either. I think Mucinex is best at the beginning and middle of a cold. Now, though, when it's almost over and there's not much going on... it's time to just tough it out. Unless you're having signs of infection, which I'm worried he might be. Then, just get on to the doctor already, please. His cough is ear piercing, too. I may have to harass him if he doesn't get seen soon or I may not have any hearing left.

He's never sick, either, so this is weird. It's hung on a long time. I'm amazed I haven't gotten it. I get everything that goes around and I stay sick for the longest time. I was dreading getting sick on top of surgery recovery. The day we got out and went to the grocery store, I started feeling crappy, runny nose, tickle in my throat, etc. and thought I was catching it, but turned out to just be allergies.

Speaking of surgery recovery... Today was pretty great. I drove a little more to take Jacob to a church group thing and was up and around most of the day without crutches. I made a batch of cookies, even. I just tried to take it slow and not rush around. The pain is enough that I needed a pain pill for the night, but during the day today it was so much better. Like a switch flipped or something.

Word count today = 1449

Words that didn't sound like they were written by a 3rd grader = 5

NoJoMo - Election Edition

2010-11-02T22:43:00.002-05:00

Perry won.

I wonder if Merck makes something for depression.

I think all of the alcohol propositions may have passed. Drink up, folks.

I made seitan today. And I wrote about it.

I did physical therapy.

I am a robot. I just run programs.

This is what physical therapy and elections (like today's) do to me. They make me tired -- mentally and physically exhausted -- and just fry my brain.

It's not just who won or who lost, either, that leads me to feel this way. It's not about my person or your person or this or that party or even down to the individual issues. I feel this way because a lot of this feels fake to me and always has. It doesn't feel genuine. All the coverage feels so for its own sake and not for my sake. They all talk about what they think but none of it ever feels like what I'm thinking or wondering about. People run for office and they seem like they're fooling around with it or it's mostly vanity.

Sometimes I just don't know my place in all of it. As an individual, I have a lot of views that don't always click together very neatly or match very well.

Bah. I don't want to talk about it and do a bunch of that ruminatin'.

I drove today. Only a couple of blocks, but still. My knee was feeling pretty good up until I started working it a lot. Now I've got a heating pad on it and I'm getting so drowsy these words are starting to blur. I didn't do as well as yesterday with the writing, but I still did some so, I'm satisfied on that front as well.

Maybe I should be taking baby steps instead of trying to run a marathon.

Words = 1537

NoJoMo - Does This Even Count?

2010-11-01T23:12:00.005-05:00

Does it count if I just point you toward some other stuff I wrote?

I will add personal mundane details to make it all better. Ha.

I went to the doctor today for my first post-op visit. They took the bandages off and the wounds (3 of them) looked tiny and nearly healed. I got more steri-strips and can now take a shower. In fact, it's hard to believe that at 10pm I still haven't done that. I figured the moment I got home I was going to be in there immediately, since it's been over a week since any sort of hygiene beyond brushing my teeth has taken place.

But then, I realized, I would be trying to get in and out of the shower with no assistance, all alone. I can't even stand without crutches. What the hell was I thinking? So here I still sit, dirty.

I have to continue to wear the thigh-high anti-embolism socks for like another 3 weeks. Gross. But hey, blood clots are also pretty not good, so I will do what he says.

I wean off the crutches slowly for the next 3 weeks and can drive only in the neighborhood at first (it's my right leg that's jacked up) and then by next week can drive more. Have to get out and vote tomorrow, which is at the end of my street, so that will be a good first test. I can always brake with the left foot if it comes down to it.

He told me about what was going on in there and I had a complex bucket handle tear (which is a pretty bad one) and the flap part had twisted and gotten folded under so that I was mashing it with every step. There were also lots of tiny bits in there from me just grinding it down repeatedly over the last 10 months. Also, that knee has some mild arthritis as a result of wear from the injury. All was fixed, shaved down, smoothed out, etc.

I saw the physical therapist after that and she was pretty gentle on me, but gave me lots of painful exercises to do and I have to go back twice a week. The good news there is that I'm already at 100 percent normal with being able to bend my knee (this was similar to what happened in my arm -- they were shocked that as soon as my cast came off, I could already bend my arm all the way shut). However, I am at 10 degrees straightening (and should be at 0 degrees, completely flat leg) and the leg is weak from not using it and shifting all the work to the other leg all this time. So, the goal is "straight and strong."

Friday was my birthday, which sucked. I tore both my eyeballs open (corneal erosion) and got no sleep. I woke up and boyfriend got ready for work, left and didn't wish me a happy birthday. Kid woke up and didn't wish me a happy birthday either. Hours passed like this and I was getting pretty depressed. I've already been in a funk over this recuperation / depending on everyone for everything / laying around on painkillers stuff anyway. I didn't need all that.

Boyfriend realized he forgot, I can't fault him too much, on top of the house falling apart since I'm not my usual domestic self, he's had a raging cold and hasn't been able to really take up my slack. He'd taken Nyquil the night before and said he still felt drunk at noon. Which was when he ran out to Pei Wei and brought me some food.

The day still sucked though, just because, you know, it was my birthday and I couldn't even walk to the bathroom without pain / assistance / annoyance / wanting to throw something if only I didn't have those damn crutches in my hands and, you know, had the energy to walk across the room to actually get something breakable.

I did get a lot of nice birthday greetings on Ye Olde Facebook, so that went a long ways toward making me feel better and not so alone in the world. Boyfriend said that I'm the only person he knows who acknowledges every single birthday wish on Facebook. Whatever. I figure people are being nice to me when I'm down and out, so I'm going to say thanks.

And I'll say it again. Thanks!

Today is Jacob's birthday and it's not much better from my perspective. I can't take him to a fancy dinner and really celebrate. So I sent him away for the weekend and today to be with his best friend and partner in nerdy crime. They watched cheesy scary movies and played shooting games and did things like talk a lot of smack and not eat properly and not move from the couch for very long periods of time and not brush teeth adequately and not say excuse me when farting and burping and all those other things that 15-year-old boys do when left to it. That worked for him.

Can you believe he is 15? Man do I feel old today. And that is not most days for me. I'm only 39. Whatever that even means. I do not feel old in my heart most days, but when I think of him being damn nearly a man, my heart, it's feeling it.

He declined to hear his birth story this year.

FINE!

In other news, I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year even though this was the year I really wanted to do it. I have some guilt over not working as much as I wanted to and not giving my writing self over to some of the food excitement / agony / struggle / joy that is going on in my life. So, I decided instead to do NoJoMo to get my personal writing back on track. And then I'm going to split the difference of the 1667 or so words per day I'd need to do in NaNoWriMo between VeganMoFo (if they'll have me, they might not since I'm so new) and my paid work.

Today's tally:

VeganMoFo = 1426
Personal = 1241
Work = 0 (Oops. Got fired up about personal stuff, but hey, at least there is a fire. These things tend to spread. Look out tomorrow!)

Total = 2667

Not a bad start. Now let's see if I can keep this up.

Surgery went well

2010-10-23T09:21:00.005-05:00

I had my meniscectomy and it came off pretty well. I've been dealing with this pain since January and then this last weekend the pain became excrutiating again. I don't even know why. I don't remember anything that I did, specifically, even while I do remember exactly what I was doing when the pain kicked in again: just standing there. I wasn't even moving. Makes me wonder if I'd torn it earlier at the beach or something and didn't realize it until that moment.

The doctor said that there was the old tear plus a new tear that had a flap turned at an odd angle, so perhaps it was when the flap moved in such a way to cause pain that I finally felt it. He also said that the knee has some arthritis going on.

I came out of anesthesia well. Usually I'm feeling angry and like I want to vomit, but I didn't feel any of that at all. The nurse offered me some crackers and I took them more as a preemptive strike against nausea and out of hunger since I hadn't eaten. She kept telling me to take deep breaths. We had this long conversation and in between every sentence she told me to take a deep breath. I was like, "All right, all right!" But I think that actually helped clear the drugs out or something because I was feeling more awake and aware every time I did it.

Then they came and asked me about pain, drugged me up some more and I got sleepy and loopy all over again. Had to pee a million times, but was able to get myself from the wheel chair to the stool all right. Much better than I thought. The last time I peed they asked if I just wanted to go home already and both Terri and I answered with a resounding YES!

I got home to find Biggs playing video games with the kiddo. Jacob ran and got the crutches and I noticed that the pain I was used to feeling was gone, but replaced with pain from the incisions and where he'd been in there rooting around. That was my first sign of yummy healing goodness. I got to the couch and started to get comfy. Terri joined me. I was aware of being completely goofy and loopy on the pain meds, but kept running my mouth nonstop anyway. Boyfriend walked in the door just minutes after we did and started taking orders, and then a few moments after that Jacob's dad showed up with Cody to take Jacob to camp this weekend. It was like a party in my tiny living room and something was really surreal about it. I had this vision of them all coming out of a clown car that persisted even over the conversations taking place.

(Misplaced modifiers: I'm too wiped out to correct them.)

Everyone left and Terri stayed with me while boyfriend went and got my antibiotics, more pain meds. We just sat in this vegetative state on the couch going on and on about everything until there was no more light in the room. It was very calming. Boyfriend returned just as my "time for meds" timer went off. I'm notorious for forgetting that I've taken a pill and taking way more than I need. When my arm was hurt, I was on them for so long and I ended up putting all my pills in a plastic Rubbermaid container and keeping a dry erase marker next to it so I could write on the lid when I last took one. My nose was itching like crazy since I'm sensitive to codeine. Took some benadryl which didn't help the loopy thing so much.

Boyfriend got me munchie food, which is good, because I was about to start tearing through the pantry like being stoned. He's so good to me. This after he went out of his way yesterday to get me cane soda ginger ale and non-HFCS saltines at Whole Foods. This time he went to Costco and got me veggie spring rolls and the biggest bag of ice you have ever seen for the ice man cooler that Terri hooked me up with. I ate 3 of the spring rolls, a granola bar, a butterfinger leftover from the wedding, 2 "sausage" muffins w/ "cheese" and had a ginger ale. All in quick succession.

Sleep was rough. I didn't get into bed until about 1:30. I was a little bit afraid of hurting things, turning over, etc. I laid awake not really able to find a comfortable position worth sleeping in. I realized I was pretty close to being able to take another pill, so I just stayed awake, thinking about how transplant recipients must feel. Because I'm sort of feeling like I've got a new lease on life here. After spending this whole year hurting and not able to do the things I love to do, like camp and hike and travel — and some days even just walk — I feel like I really need to make sure things go off without a hitch going forward. Pun intended. I need to be compliant with physical therapy. I need to join a gym and go regularly. I need to get a recumbent bicycle. I need to lose weight. I need to get a walking stick for tromping. I need to figure out now how to manage the arthritis there.

I finally took my pill at 3am and had a little smoochy love time, then fell asleep around 4. At 8:30, I heard some thunder and decided to try to get the cats fed before it rains. Boyfriend has been working with the new litter. Have I talked about them? There are three: a black and white, a tabby clone, a grey tabby that looks like a Buttercup clone. Their mother is the sister of the black and white polydactyls born last year. I have all of them fixed except her. I knew she was pregnant, but she was super feral and I couldn't catch her. Then I saw her skinny and knew she'd had the babies, but didn't know where she was keeping them. Now, she's done just like her black and white sister and has brought them to the back step to eat.

They're pretty scared, but boyfriend has been going out there and catching one at a time and bringing it into the house to tame it. The black and white is the most tame at this point. He will even come and meow at the door and not run away when you reach out to him. The other two are coming around, too. I think he had all three in the house at various points last night. They are still pretty small and cute, so hopefully with a week or more of handling, they'll be ready to go get adopted. None of them are polydactyls.

Anyway, I fed the cats out back which consisted of Big Foot, Tabby Mother, her babies, Frantic Brown, Pankaj Brewster, Poly Cali Baby and Tabby Man. I decided to hobble my way to the front door and put some out there (since it won't get rained on and any stragglers can eat up there) and found Squishy Poly Tabby. Then I heard some noise in the bush and thought it might be White Thing, but it was scared Black and White (aka Black and White Mama) and she was gnawing on the biggest mouse I have ever seen. Not interested in my crunchies whatsoever.

Circle of life and all.

Vegan Progress

2010-10-21T10:36:00.005-05:00

Wow, I haven't written here in forever. I suck. Oh well. Sure miss the days when doing this was second nature, habitual, easy, uncensored. I enjoyed writing in spaces like this when I didn't think it would embarrass my kid, affect my job or the jobs of those close to me, etc. I miss talking about my sex life with candor. I miss talking about the cute things Jacob does that crack me up. Even though he's a teenager, he still does those things, except now I can't talk about them because he and his entire life are lingering around these parts.

When he turns 18, though, all bets are off...

And it's not that I'm not writing about personal stuff... I am. Just in a little, out-of-the-way spot where it all began, you know? In a private way. Although I suck there, too. I've been trying to just write a little every day about anything, just the most mundane stuff, in order to get the flow going, but I've failed miserably at even that. And now that spot is having technical issues. It's worse than constipation. And then I see other people, baring their souls. Writing what they really feel. Digging deep and putting it all out there. And I'm jealous. Because that used to be me. But then I see them lose their asses over it. Lose their jobs. Saying what's on your mind has repercussions. I enjoyed the days when it didn't have those so much.

And so, I just shut the fuck up. I swallow it and I tell myself that what I have to say isn't really all that important after all.

And on that note, here's the unnecessary, unimportant shit I have to say today...

I'm on day 18 of my foray into being vegan. Not much of a stretch since I was vegetarian for years in my younger days. I have been mostly meatless lately, just having fish and the occasional relapse / rebellion for about the last year or so, and off and on in the between years.

For me, there are always layers to this. I mostly start considering it because of something health related. I don't feel good. I'm fat. My cholesterol is high. Something doesn't feel right with my system. Then I start eating less and less meat. I stop letting it come into the house and if I eat it, it's prepared by someone else. Then I go for a long period where I'm eating no meat. Then I freak out and want the worst possible meat you could imagine, like McDonald's or something. I pull over and buy some nuggets and a double cheeseburger and eat them so fast I can barely taste them. Then I want to vomit and I feel gross. Then I go home and watch some PE(nance)TA videos and I want to vomit some more.

Then it's not about the health any more. It's about animals. It's about me. It's about my personal growth and enlightenment. It's about guilt. It's about frustration and powerlessness. It's about being a little girl in a big world that I can't change much. It's about being unable to shed all the residue from growing up in a meaty, self-serving world. It's about looking at the place I'm in today and realizing that I'm far from where I thought I would be by now. The idealistic me from back in the day did not see the me of today still grappling with this issue. It's about saving a hundred cats but not a single chicken. It doesn't make sense.

Layers. One day meat. The next only fish. Then just cheese and milk. Then none of those things. One day health. The next animals. Peeling them back. Digging deeper. Ashamed that I'm almost 40 and this is as far as I've gotten. Disappointed that I've soothed and coddled the parts of me that were making decisions, allowing justifications for personal convenience or laziness and in order to keep peace and not rock boats. Regretting that I made concessions for other people who have their own selfish or uninformed motivations when I should have been making choices that would be true to what is the right thing to do.

Not, "What do you think is right?"

Not, "What do you want me to do?"

Not, "What will you think of me if I make this decision?"

Not, "What are most of you doing?"

When did I become such a spineless little wuss?

When did what you think of me become more important than what I think of me or what's right for me?

When did I start to favor repression over freedom?

Internal struggle. Eternal struggle. Infernal struggle.

So, enough of that. How have these 18 days been? Not bad really. I've had some screw-ups, but am not going to beat myself up over those. Even though I don't eat at Taco Bell normally, I thought I would just hit some fast food type places and see if there was even a smidgen of what could work for me. I asked about the potato burrito (no meat, yes cheese) And ordered it without cheese. When I got it, it had some sauce on it that most certainly contained cheese, milk and egg. I hadn't considered that there would be a sauce. I ate it anyway because I'm not going to start out being all anal about it.

I got some beans at another place without cheese, forgetting that they garnish it with meat chili. I ate it.

Then on the way out to the airport at 5am, I grabbed some frapps from the pantry that I'd gotten for boyfriend (for the upcoming days post-surgery when I will not be up making his coffee every morning) and realized too late that they have milk.

Had a peanut butter cup at a wedding that had milk chocolate.

Had a salad that had Parmesan cheese on it.

Oh well. I'm just not going to be that girl who makes a big stink about things in restaurants over minutiae. And even the militant folks at PETA do not advocate being that person, so maybe I'm not too far off the mark. I'm still doing honey right now, because I haven't thought about it enough and determined how I really feel. I'm buying some of the fake cheese even though it does have casein in it. Even after buying it, though, I'm finding that I'm not really wanting it too much. I'm sure I'll ditch it completely at some point, but right now... layers.

I have been going through a sort of milk withdrawal or detox, which I thought was really interesting. At first I didn't know what was happening. I thought I was coming down with a cold or the flu. I felt run down. I had mucus flowing everywhere. My nose, then coughing it up, even had the mucus of a super fertile myrtle, if you know what I mean. Not even ovulating, folks. And there it was. My chin, usually pimple-free, is covered with seven or eight painful bumps and my armpit has a frightening rash. My tongue was even shedding this weird, slimy goo. I started to doubt I was doing the right thing. My poo... Wow. The most unpleasant rottenness coming out of there no matter what I was eating. Why get rid of all that in my diet if it's just going to make me feel like shit? I started to question my motivation. Is it really all personal if all I care about is how I feel, or am I willing to feel like shit for the rest of my life to prevent some suffering? Is this about my own fat ass or is this about something larger?

I did some Googleage and found that I'm not alone. It was really surprising to me all the changes my body was going through, though. I was shocked at how negative it all was. It's mostly over now, thankfully. And unlike the switch from meat to no meat, the switch from that to no dairy had real impact.

It also had impact on my weight (roughly 6-8 pounds have fallen off me) and the way I feel now. I feel lighter, not so bloated all the time, not so full all the time, not so worried all the time (not sure how that's related, but there it is) and overall I'm just feeling satisfied despite other things going on in life (like a knee surgery coming up tomorrow that I'm not yet freaking completely out about).

And speaking of that, I cannot wait to get that over with. I blew the knee out again while out of town and had to be wheeled through the airport. The pain is ridiculous and I feel completely worthless right now, not being able to perform the usual domestic tasks for my family like cooking, cleaning and what not. I generally enjoy that type of thing, really, and am feeling a bit incomplete.

Whatever. It will be better soon enough. Just carry on, woman.

Funky Funky Limbo

2010-04-15T14:35:00.005-05:00

Texas. I don't know why I'm here. I mean, I do know, but I wish it wasn't so.

I don't like it here too much. Especially during times like these past couple of weeks where I'm miserable from allergies. You know, there aren't very many nice days that happen around here... where it's a temperature below 100 degrees or above 30 degrees and things are green and pretty. But on those few very nice days -- the four weeks of the year when it is either spring or fall -- you can bet that the pollen or mold counts will be so high that there's no way I could possibly enjoy myself.

And how did anyone ever grow anything in this state with its lack of rain and burning sun? I've given up on spending $700,000 a month on water to get one tiny jalapeno out of the ground. I know I don't have the greenest thumb in the world, but when I lived in Arkansas, practically any seed I stuck in the ground would produce for me without much effort. I don't like gardening here.

I don't like the state of public transportation, bike trails (or lack of), how everything is so spread out and you just about have to have a car to do a damn thing. I hate how the sprawl goes on and on yet none of the cities are connected by public transportation.

Sometimes, though, I think if I had a better yard... one that had some trees that shielded the yard from the burning sun. Shielded me from the burning sun. Maybe if I didn't even have a yard and didn't have to go out and partake in futile gardening tasks I would be less disgruntled.

Sometimes I think, maybe if I had just a little more room in this house or a little less stuff in this house or if all my kitchen cabinets would stay closed at the same time... then maybe I would be a little more content and I could quell my desire to move far, fast away from here.

Or maybe if there wasn't that situation with my partner that causes me to be on egg shells and not live my life as fully as I'd like. Maybe if that was all rectified I would be happier and so it wouldn't matter where I was, because all would be right in my world instead of... in this limbo.

Suspended between two places in my life. Two worlds. Not really leaving. Not really arriving. Just, suspended.