Growing Pains

If there was one person who I might consider punching on sight… it would be Kirk Cameron.  OK. I wouldn't punch him... but maybe sling him a dirty look or two. Oh… I watched “Growing Pains” when it was on just as much as anyone who tried to avoid TV-sitcoms of the 1980s like the terrible cultural plague they were.  First… everyone knew it was a complete rip of “Family Ties” and Cameron was a second-rate version of Michael J. Fox.  But the thing that it reinforced to me… a poor white girl living in the city being raised by a single-parent… that popular American culture didn’t give a rat’s ass about me.  I was not normal.  I hated the Seever family then… and it was even worse after Cameron’s conversion to what I’d consider a very backwards form of born again Christianity.

Evangelical Christians don’t as a whole bother me… but I don’t appreciate ANYONE trying to tell me what God really says… and “really” means.  Really?  God thinks evolution is a sham? Did he TELL you this? Does the Bible tell you this?  Is the fossil record a cosmic test of faith?  Or is God playing a practical joke? Has anyone noticed that most Jews don’t take this “begat” stuff seriously... and it was their book first? Puh-lease… only God can decide who is going where… and from what I’ve been told… God loves us.  Even me… especially me… because apparently I NEED saving.  Every parent has a secret admiration for their problem children…no?

Anyway… some of the stuff that’s come out of his mouth makes me want to scream. You can use the Bible to prop up your opinion all you want… but that’s not going to make it any more or less your opinion… until God takes out advertising space during the Super Bowl at half-time… I’m going to use my best judgment when interpreting God’s will. I’m going to stick to the Bible... not as the literal word of God... but as a historical record of the ancient people of Israel... and their religion.... as well as the teachings of a really awesome Rabbi named Jesus who had his shit together. 

A few years ago… my in-laws gave us a copy of “Fireproof.”  It kind of sat in my TV shelf for a few years before I really wanted to toss it… but my husband felt bad about the idea of getting rid of the movie without actually watching it.  So one evening we popped it in…

Take all of the religious gobbledy-gook out of the movie… and it’s a solid movie about saving a marriage. Not deeply entertaining… but the sort of thing a therapist might suggest a couple watch together before they get a lawyer.  The premise of the movie is Kirk Cameron’s character Caleb… starts the movie out as a royal dick.  Selfish… full of himself... and controlling.  His wife works… but he wants her to do the housework, cooking and cleaning.  He’s using most of his personal savings to buy a boat when his in-laws need some extreme financial help with medical bills.  He surfs the internet for porn.  He’s also one of those guys who can really keep it together at work… where he’s the captain of the local fire department… and where roles are strictly defined… and then tries to apply the same logic and rules at home... and naturally comes off as being a misogynistic asshole.

His wife… who has the personality of a platter of cocktail shrimp… is the PR/Communications director of a hospital. She starts the movie out as a bit of a snippy shrew. One of the doctors at the hospital she works at is schmoozing her.  She spews out the usual litany of “you never help me at home” or “I’m too tired to do that because I’ve been working all day” sort of stuff that is probably stolen from a Couple’s Therapy workbook. And when she’s not making googy-eyes at the doctor at work... she’s off at her parents house martyring herself by looking after her mother... who is recovering from a stroke in a State that is somehow exempt from medicaid.

But the advice that Caleb/Kirk’s father’s character gives him… on how to methodically and consciously spend time trying to rebuild the relationship with your partner… is spot on.  And that makes me hate Kirk Cameron more… because besides the smarmy “I’m in with Jesus” stuff… he does exactly what anyone trying to regain intimacy should do with their relationship.  He works at it.  He works at it even when he doesn’t want to.  Even when there’s “nothing in it for him.”  Even when he doesn’t get results.  In Buddhism… we’d call the practice “radical Metta” or extreme lovingkindness.  When you love someone without expectations… you fill their heart… and at the same time… fill yours.  The more you work at it… the easier it becomes… but keeping up the lack of expectation… keeping it “unconditional” love… is the difficult part.  Our partners are NOT children.  We have expectations of them that even we don’t know about… and loving someone who is actively taking you for granted… and/or caught in a self-destructive spiral… there’s a lot of risk involved. It’s very hard to love without expectations that the love will be returned... and returned in the same way. We are used to getting “payoff” for effort. But the payoff for lovingkindless is the love it fosters within ourselves. Not the result it has in the object of our love.

And it’s hard, hard… impossibly hard work.  It’s so easy to be resentful in a relationship.  I can’t tell you the number of times… “Fuck…he did it again!” comes out of my mouth in a week.  And when shit is wrong in the house… we don’t want to blame ourselves… and who else is there to blame?  The captive audience… the person or persons we live with. I don’t have kids… and the dog does not leave his dirty underwear in the bathroom under the sink. So I see it... swear... and dirty underwear becomes a symbol of everything that’s wrong in my marriage.  Petty... sure... but if you’ve been in a long-term relationship... you’ve been there too.  Or... you’re living in some severe denial.

Anyway… the list of things Caleb’s father gives him to do is called “The Love Dare.”  Again… it’s filled with a lot of scripture quotes that are as usual… taken out of the context of the scripture they appear in.  This “Dare” is supposed to last 40 days… and in the course of the movie we see Cameron’s character struggle… first completing the dares in a half-baked and half-assed manner… but then going all-in… tossing out the computer he used to surf for porn on.  Paying for his in-laws medical expenses with his boat money. Cooking and cleaning and taking care of his wife when she’s sick.  He changes… he’s not a terrible actor… so you can see the subtleness of the change.  Passion and lust and “chemistry” are things that make us fall head-over-heels in “love” with someone… but WORK… is what makes it go from rose-colored love… to deep, rich red intimate love. He breaks through the shell of resentment and anger his wife has built around herself... not by trying to change her... but by changing himself. And that's the key to having an adult relationship in a nutshell.

But the spokesperson... Mr. Cameron... holy Moses this guy has his head up his tuckus... telling homosexuals they’re unnatural (Um... there are same-sex pairings in nature.  All the time.  It’s “unusual” not unnatural.) and trying to scientifically prove the existence of God... as well as the whole "where's your cross between an alligator and a platypus Creationism crap"... well... after I stop laughing I’m just going to read myself a little Richard Dawkins until I settle down and write my open letter... “Dear Evangelical Christians... trying to prove intelligent design is America’s #1 cause of athiesm.  It’s in your best interest to stop... thanks...”

I'm not faithless. I keep what I do and don't believe as private as I can. I admire Jesus and his teachings. I respect the church tradition I was raised in. But I believe that every world religion has a creation myth that is just that... a myth. A way the spiritual wellspring of a people is explained. Genesis has similarities to Sumerian and Babylonian creation myths... and Persian creation myths. I'm not stupid... I can't say... "This several thousand year old account of the creation of the world is the one that... OBVIOUSLY... actually happened despite scads of evidence to the contrary..." so I choose to believe that the creation of the world is best explained by science... and the creation of the Judeo-Christian world... by Genesis. Though the two worlds inhabit the same space... they're different... with different laws of physics.  

In one world... the power of God can heal and raise the dead. In the other... the BELIEF in the power of God can improve your health... or comfort your grief... and change the path of your life. Because whether or not God exists is moot... because we're left to do His work regardless. In our daily lives... in our relationships... and trying to merge the two worlds is futile. It's a massive waste of energy that could be better spent serving God. Why? Because we all live on the one world... but not everyone lives in the other. Some live in the world where Ishmael was the sacrifice instead of Issac. Where the dance of the gods brought the world into being. Where the Water Beetle brought earth from the depths of the ocean to make the earth so it had a place to rest. And some... only live in the world of matter... which has as much awe and wonder as any other world. You can't reconcile the world of faith with the world of matter without making yourself a cause of suffering on both worlds. Nor can you separate them completely. But it will take the pain of growing past blind faith to get us there.

Yellowstone Jones and the Caldera of Doom.

It should be a movie title… no?   

So this year’s summer vacation was to the oft-visited vacation haven of Yellowstone National Park via the drive from hell across Nebraska and southern Wyoming.  (Really… if you’re going to Yellowstone from the East… take 90 and go through South Dakota.  When you’re disappointed that a cyclone didn’t whisk you off to Oz… well… you’re not in Kansas anymore… you’re in Nebraska.  It’s the armpit of the Midwest.) 

Anyway… how can anyone explain the natural wonder that is Yellowstone?  You really can’t.  For 99% of the people who visit… it’s a hell of a lot of driving and walking around to see the “natural attractions” while dodging Chinese tourists who insist that umbrellas are better than sunscreen and completely ignore the “The Placid-Looking Bison want to kill you…” warning signs, while listening to an endless litany of whining small children who have been dragged to see yet another stinky rock belch sulphurous steam…  just like Daddy after the Superbowl.

I would have loved to do some day hiking.  I went prepared for copious day hiking… but a combination of a severe allergy to lodgepole pine pollen that clogged my sinuses rock solid and started the fastest sinus infection I’ve ever had in my life… and not quite realizing an elevation of 8000+ ft. above sea level was in fact… quite high for a native Illinoisan… hiking the backcountry became completely impossible.  

But the tales are true… it IS the Serengeti of the American West.  As a veteran of many years of watching Marty Stouffer’s Wild America… I knew that there was still actual non-zoo wildlife in the US.  And last year’s visit to Glacier National Park confirmed it.  We saw Mountain Goats… and Bighorn Sheep on the side of the mountain. But Yellowstone was what we literary folks call fecund. 

Life was everywhere… from primordial soup living off of the excrement of the volcanic hot springs… to bison causing traffic jams to rival downtown Chicago at rush hour.  Squirrels of every size and color… ravens trying to steal your lunch… and yes… I did see both black and grizzly bears… AND wolves… what our guide called the “fanged trifecta” of viewable wildlife.  

There were meadows there that should replace the definition of the word in the dictionary.  Long rivers with looping meanders… and thick coverings of geese and water fowl.  Vast thermal spring fed wetlands. Swans.  Heurons.  Elk browsing willows along the shoreline.  While rafting down the snake river… we watched an adult osprey stoop in its flight and splash into the water… bringing out a large, red, wiggling cutthroat trout… and then fly it in wide loops around our head until it suffocated from the air pressure in its gills. We watched a lucky coyote running off with something suspiciously weasel looking in its mouth… and dozens of other examples of the food chain in action. It was pure wilderness… and through all of my hacking and congestion… I looked on the beauty of God’s creation and was filled with the appropriate combination of fear and awe.  There is a place on earth where I am NOT the top of the food chain… the master of my landscape… and here I am… standing inside the body of a living volcano… watching a predator through a spotting scope that could scoop out my insides like they were made of double-fudge mocha chip ice cream.  That would slurp my bowels like noodles…

And then I would turn around and watch someone in a tube top… hanging out of the sun roof of their Lexus SUV… trying to take photos without flashing the pronghorn… and the spell would break.

And that’s Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.  The beauty and majesty of nature…  and while floating down the Snake River watching the Grand Tetons emerge from beyond the canyon ridge… you can see Sandra Bullock and Michael Eisner’s house… and part of Harrison Ford’s 800 acre wildlife and aging Hollywood icon preserve… before going into Jackson for the 2pm shootout in front of the “Ripley’s Believe it Or Not” museum.  It’s in danger of becoming the American-side of the Niagara Falls in everything but scale.  The Wisconsin Dells of the great West…

So besides the souvenir sinus infection… the trip left me rather sad.  It’s not just the ecology of the place that is fragile… not the balance of nature and man… mountain and molten rock… but it makes me wonder what the actual purpose of vacationing in the wilderness is?  Why do we climb the mountain in our crew-cab 4X4? For the 1% who strap on their daypack… wear appropriate shoes… and hike into the backcountry… yes… they’re experiencing the wilderness.  They’re doing something that several people die trying to do every year.  (Though usually from mishap and stupidity… and not actual dangers.)  But for the rest of us… we’re viewing wilderness from the safety of our cars… like Yellowstone is a giant nature drive-thru… but we’re shouting into the clown’s mouth but will never get our order.  We will never see the Wild America that Lewis and Clark saw when they viewed the vast herds of Bison on the American Plains… eventually… even the Artic will be available on Google Maps… and that’s what makes me sad… that we’re running out of wild places that have never heard the footfall of man.  Every time some shaggy biologist in the Amazon announces the discovery of a new species… I shudder.  And not with excitement… but at the continual narrowing of our world.  

There are a contingent of Yellowstone freaks who are waiting for the time when the Yellowstone volcano erupts… spewing ash and smoke into the atmosphere on a catastrophic scale.  There’s a force under there said to be ten times of what we saw when Mount. St. Helen’s erupted.  The explosion would usher in a new ice age… a volcanic winter… that will make all of those crazy Montana “preppers” smile and count their cans of beans and boxes of shotgun shells against the impending breakdown of society.   Sometimes… Sometimes… I hope they’re right.

Revelations from my (fake) trip to Norway

So rather than go to Spring Camp Dogwood… my husband and I… and about four dozen other intrepid Norskephiles trecked up to the hinterlands of Minnesota for a weekend of fun, frolic and lefse.  (No Lutefisk… thank you Jesus!)  I had no idea what to expect really… a frustrating weekend trying to ask for toilet paper in Norwegian while superior Counselors secretly snickered behind their bunads?

Here’s what I learned at Skogfjorden….besides Norwegian:

1.       Norwegians eat better breakfasts than we do.  They call it “frokost” and it’s one of the six meals they eat in a day.  (Well… it SEEMS like six.)  It’s typically a bit of a buffet of sliced tomatoes and cucumber, ham, turkey and some sort of salami, pickled herring, smoked salmon, mackerel, sliced onions, pickled beets, three cheeses: brown, herb and Jarlsberg Swiss, gherkins, hard boiled eggs…and a couple kinds of bread.  I think I identified a potato bread, some sort of røgbrød (ryebread) and the ubiquitous flatbread.  (What we call crackers… or Wasa.)  There was usually also some fruit, muesli… and Scandinavian style yogurt which is a little more runny than the Baltic-style we’re used to thanks to the nice folks at Dannon.  Bread and cheese and toppings were made into several small open faced sandwiches.  (Which are eaten with a knife and fork… unless you’re JUST having cheese and bread… then you can pick it up with your fingers.)  A little butter, mayonnaise and mustard was also part of the “spread” and could be used to zip up the sandwiches. 

2.       Norwegians drink coffee like they have a hollow leg.  Thank God the Skogfjorden policy was to switch the “big pot” to decaff after 2pm… or I would have been a shaking insomniac by Sunday.  Kaffepause usually happened two hours after eating anything… and consisted of coffee and some sort of small snack.  A raisin roll with brunøst.  (Brown cheese.)  A slice of spice cake.  A cookie.  A roll of lefse with butter and sugar.  And more coffee… and more coffee.  But not with dinner.  Coffee is for AFTER dinner. 

3.       Norwegian adults drink milk as a beverage.  I don’t mind this… I’m one of the few people I know who really enjoys drinking a glass of milk, and doesn’t suffer any ill effects.  But it’s fun to see a table of adults look at a half-gallon of milk on the table like it was a jug of snake venom.

4.       Formiddagsmat or “Lunsj” is pretty simple.  Either a nice selection of salads and bread and maybe a soup, or a simple one pot dish like meatballs.  One day we had pea soup and pancakes.  Norwegians are pretty enlightened on the pancakes… cream and jam.  Not that I don’t like American pancakes… I do!  But bringing them away from the breakfast table to position as a side-dish for lunch or dessert… mmmmm. 

5.       Actual dinner… well… besides the one meal we had shrimp at… was even more simple than lunch.  The shrimpalicious dinner consisted of a composed salad of shrimp, shellfish and veggies.  The chef at Skogfjorden was nice enough to make me a shrimpless version.  And because the peel and eat shrimp for dinner would have covered me in hives… I got a replay of the kjotballer from lunch. Everyone seemed appalled that I’m allergic to shrimp. I have the mild version of the shrimp allergy. And so far… it just makes me itchy and/or causes mild tummy distress.  It’s not like my throat swells closed and I risk death.  Most commercial “cocktail shrimp” doesn’t bother me at all… it’s been de-shelled and de-veined and cooked to the point of being almost unrecognizable.  It’s handling shrimp that really does me in.  One other lady who just poo-pooed shrimp rode in on my coattails to get a shrimpless meal.  But since she didn’t pre-notify them… hers didn’t include a salad-for-one.  Snap!  

For our banquet night we had a roast pork filled with prunes. This… was fall apart tender and fabulous. I’ve had roast pork with prunes before… but Grandma never bothered to do the stuffing and rolling required. It was accompanied by lovely mashed red potatoes and asparagus. Yum!

6.       Norwegian folk dancing is a lot like Irish Folk dancing… but not at the same frantic pace.  Tim and I actually kept up for the first few dances, but I quickly got exhausted… and we were cruelly out-polkaed by a bunch of people in their 70s. The music is… lively. But there’s something really haunting about the sound of a Hardanger fiddle.  Like it’s hard to play sad music on a banjo… it’s equally hard to play purely happy music on a hardingfele… the instrument is designed to cry.

7.       My Great Grandparents came from a very nifty country. Looking at Norway now… one could wonder why anyone would want to leave… but when my Great Grandfather left… the land-laws had just changed (making it hard to “break up” land if you wanted to leave it to multiple children… rather like the “entail” property laws of England) and there was nothing for a sixth son to do but leave.  And the potato famine of Ireland didn’t stop there… but also devastated the Scandinavian crop… causing mass emigration in the mid 1800’s. So coming to America meant a better life. And life here IS good… but like almost all mixed-breed Americans… I’m occasionally nostalgic for some sense of cultural unity.  I love America… don’t get me wrong… there are things that we take for granted… and I don’t mean life, liberty and all that… though it’s pretty nice… I’m thinking about going to the store and being able to pick from more than one brand of maxi pad.  (I’ve been to Turkey… it’s Orchid or bust over there.) We have amazing cultural diversity here… we’re just too myopic to see it… and too divisive to really appreciate it. But if I had to pick a people besides Americans to claim as my own… I think I’ve been more influenced by my Norwegian relatives… Grandma Helen, Mom… than I have any of my Scotch-Irish relations… cause my father did little more than provide me a last name.


Most of all... I wish my mother had known about Concordia Language Villages when I was little... because I looked at some of their Summer programs... and I would have had a blast.  I'll have to save my pennies to send my Goddaughter when she's old enough...

Have Exact Change

I’ve tried pretty hard to adopt some of the Buddhist and Christian beliefs in compassion, equanimity… and some of the precepts against gossip... along with the grandmotherly wisdom of keeping your mouth shut if you don’t have anything constructive to say.

I try… I really do. But I’m human. Like most humans I occasionally get a little happy about someone else's misfortune. Whether out of bitterness or jealousy… I’m not sure where exactly the feelings come from. I could tell you I wasn’t crying into my soup when Andrew Beitbart died earlier this year. Yes, I know he was relatively young and yes… I know he had young children… but the stuff that came out of the man’s mouth was vile… I never wished him dead… but if I had the ability to wish someone back to life he wouldn’t be the first pick on my list. I made an ill-thought out post on my Facebook... and a long list of people felt the need to chime in and tell me how callous I was for thinking... "Yay... one more crazy loudmouth down... a zillion to go...!"

A co-worker of mine… who I worked with for 10 years before changing buildings… is dying as I type this. A series of heart attacks… one in the hospital… and he’s been on life support for several days. He’s brain dead. They’re turning off the machines tonight.

Now I realize that I can’t spend my entire life watching what I think or say just in case that person drops dead the next day and makes me look like an unfeeling bitch… but though I did my best to get along with this co-worker… I also thought he was a bit of a slacker. He smoked rather heavily… was very fond of his smoke breaks... and it's something I’m sure factored heavily into his heart attack. He was always looking for a reason to leave his desk… would “meet salespeople downtown” for lunch whenever his supervisor was out of the office… and would regularly tell his supervisor he was leaving early to take the train when I knew darn well his car was in the parking lot. He also took off early two summers in a row to coach his kid’s little league…. Something which I’m pretty sure he was supposed to be doing on his own time and not on the company’s. He was also on the anti-social side… and whenever the group of us got together for pizza… or holiday lunch… he’d skip out. I didn’t like him. I didn’t actively dislike him. You know... the relationship you have with most of your co-workers.

For all of his real or perceived faults… he was someone I knew… knew for a decade… and he was a very good father to his kids. His sons regularly came in for “Bring your child to work” day festivities… and they were well mannered boys… seemed bright… and he was very good to them. He talked about them all of the time… in a way only an interested and involved parent would. Some people have one talent… and maybe his was being that perfect blend of stern and compassionate that seems to make someone a good father. Especially the skinny, chain smoking types sporting moussed comb-overs. His children are both in their teens… one mid- one early… and they will lose their father today. They will live a life without a father to straighten their cummerbund before they leave for prom… one where their father doesn't attend their weddings and dance awkwardly with the bride… and in a world where their kids' Grandpa is a photo in an album... and not a skinny old guy who still chain smokes from the first base bleacher section. The thought makes me sad… terribly sad… because I lost the only father figure I knew at that age… and remember how much I tried NOT to grieve. To be an adult… while the adults around me fell apart from grief in their own special ways. How much I miss having him around now... how bad I feel that my husband never knew him... except through the filter of my memories.

So I’m going to forgive myself for any and all ill thoughts I had about him when he was alive… and I can say was because a co-worker just stopped by as I was writing this to tell me he’d passed… and I’m going to wish his kids well… his family well… and hope that if there’s someplace after this… he’s there and happy. I'm sure that some of my co-workers grumble about my bad habits... and I'm sure they'd be equally as shocked and sad if I suddenly passed away. But there's no use holding onto guilt. It's the acid that turns everything sour. Another lesson learned on the path to treating the people around me with compassion and love… but one that has already been given to us both by the Buddha… and Jesus Christ.

1. I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
2. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.
3. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
4. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
5. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.


“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

A weighty matter...

I wouldn’t say I’ve struggled with my weight all through my 20’s and 30’s. I’ve never been the yo-yo dieting sort. I’ve seen what extreme dieting can do to a person… watching someone you care about struggle with an eating disorder… well, it makes you not want to count calories. And it was a pretty traumatic funeral to go to. I just let myself get really overweight… and tried not to worry about it. There was no struggle.

Then right after 9-11… I realized I was creeping up into the "holy crap" territory of being overweight. America was attacked… and because the world seemed to be ending… an extra helping of mac and cheese really didn’t seem to matter much. I ate myself right up to the top of the Lane Bryant size chart… and then had a moment of “whoa” when I was starting to have a hard time finding pants that fit. So…

In 2002… I started Weight Watchers. I lost around 80 pounds total over the course of a year… bringing my two-hundred and mumble-mumble pound body down to a pretty manageable 170-ish. Maybe not the ideal for my weight/height… but I was happy and comfortable at that weight. Had more energy. Life became pretty good…I could shop for clothes wherever I wanted…wear heels without killing my knees…all I had to do was join the cult of counting points. Because that’s what Weight Watchers takes… a near religious commitment to accounting for every bit of food you put into your mouth. (Back then… the plan was “Winning Points” and you’d bank extra points for things you wanted to splurge on later in the week. Today’s plan is different. YMMV.) It worked. And because I’d lost enough weight for exercise to become downright enjoyable… hiking, bicycling….walking the dog… I kept the weight off until my brain started going south in 2007.

Between 2007 and 2008… 30lbs crept back on. Depression is a meanie… and I get the depression where I want to eat… not where I’m too depressed to eat. When it started getting worse… I switched to Effexor… and man… I could have eaten sugar right out of the bag with a tablespoon. 30lbs became 40… and kept going up. I started getting cravings to binge on carbs that I’d never had before. (Not to mention all of the other god-awful side effects I had on Effexor.) But the depression was lifted… and that seemed worth the expanding waistline. I mean… I could always lose weight… but repairing my remaining friendships and marriage… and family relationships damaged by several years on the “I hate life” roller-coaster… seemed worth an expanded waistline and new pants. And considering the mortality rate for depression is about as dangerous as obesity… I again tried to just ignore my weight and get on with life the best I could.

And now… with depression being pretty well managed by a VERY low dose of a more mundane antidepressant… and the careful management of my thyroid problems… I’m left in size 20 pants… wondering how I’m going to get back down to that weight I was happy in…. without rejoining the cult of Weight Watchers. It worked… but I hated being a food accountant. MY LIFE REVOLVED AROUND FOOD. What I could eat … where I could eat it… how much. What I was going to eat next. I talked… about food. Dieting. And other people… well-meaning people… would complement me on how good I looked. And what would we talk about? Food. I do about a zillion other things besides eat… from having a smart and beautiful dog… to crochet… quilling… sewing… reading… listening to and playing music. Etc. But my life was about FOOD on Weight Watchers… and the “Quest for Eating More for Less.”

That’s the problem with dieting… you put the thing you shouldn’t be thinking about… front and center in your life. Problem number two… unless you’re ALWAYS on a diet… dieting doesn’t work. We have a zillion years of evolution telling us to hold on tooth and nail to every calorie we take in. Add my thyroid problem already making it very difficult to lose weight… and I’m never going to model for Victoria’s Secret. Maybe Victoria’s middle-aged older sister Eunice’s Secret. But after I’d lost the weight… I did manage to keep it off for quite a while without much effort. Being thinner made activity easier. Feeling better makes you want food that… well… makes you feel better. Not “comfort food” but stuff like vegetables. I was lucky that walking and exercise had become a bigger part of my routine… because I know the first thing to go out the window was counting points…

So I’ve been reading up on other diet ideas while avoiding the fad diets. The Beck Diet Solution is more of a behavioral solution. I’ve tried it… and since it’s based on a therapy model… it seems like something that would work better if a therapist or coach facilitated it. It works… but only for people who are also big fans of therapy. I also read all of Dr. Walther Willett’s books… the “Eat More, Weigh Less” philosophy and really do believe in what he says about whole foods… and eating to live… and food that is good for you tends to be low calorie… so we should eat more of it.

But again… hard to follow what’s basically a dietician’s guidelines when I’m working to 7pm and come home hungry enough to eat my dog. What the hell… don’t people who eat healthy have LIVES? Sometimes… you just have to grab a burger because it’s the only food around for miles… and the alternative to eating is getting a hunger migraine. (Skip a few meals… and yeah… they’re fun.)

So… as a counterpoint…I’ve been reading Linda Bacon’s “Health at Every Size” and have to say that a lot of what she says is intriguing… but some of it smacks of the Fat Acceptance Movement. I am never going to accept that weighing nearly 300lbs at 5’ 7” is healthy. Weighing more than that… is not a glandular problem. It’s a distinct lack of physical activity plus some sort of compulsive overeating that really should be addressed medically. People who are overweight should not be discriminated against. But neither should they expect to go to their doctor and not have their weight discussed… OR expect the “average sized” world to cater to their size. I mean… from amusement park rides to airline seating… there is ONE SIZE FITS MOST. And if you weigh 450+ lbs… accepting that there are going to be a few things you won’t be able to do comfortably at that weight is going to be a lot like a blind person having to accept that they’ll never get a driver’s license… or a little person realizing that they’re not going to make the physical requirements for the military. Your dreams of skydiving… are probably DOA.

And there are a lot of things that cause people to be really, really heavy…besides just overeating and a sedentary lifestyle…hormones, economics, mental health, genetics, education….and gender. Anyone who looks at someone who is obese and thinks that they just LOVE cookies and sit on the couch and eat them all day… well…I’d rather be fat than stupid. Because that kind of thinking is stupid.

I’ll use myself as an example. I guess I’m what I’ll call “functionally obese.” My BMI is right around 40. Bu blood pressure and blood sugar are all normal. My cholesterol is normal. I can still exercise without significant problems. But I sit on my ass almost all day… and try as I might… I can’t seem to break out of it. Put me on vacation… and I’ll walk every day. Go hiking. Bicycle. But after a day of work the last thing I really want to do is run on a treadmill. I’d rather swallow live scorpions than go to an aerobics class. I’ll try to walk at lunch… and eat healthy… but I have hormonal swings… get food cravings… and I’ve always been an evening eater. I’m hungry at night. Not before bedtime… but I like large dinners. And after an hour commute home… I don’t want to spend a lot of time cooking. I come home HUNGRY. My husband does most of the cooking… and most of the time for dinner I’ll out eat him because by the time I get home I’m starving. Physically, mentally… sometimes emotionally. And the physical hunger is the easiest to feed. I’ll start scarfing down anything that isn’t nailed to the table. Then I’ll eat dinner. Then if I’m not comatose, I’ll start poking around for other things to eat to fill in the cracks around dinner. Candy. *munch* Cookies. *munch* Dove Bars *munch* Is it eating disorder bad? No. Is it a really terrible habit? Yes.

A few months ago… I watched the documentary “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.” It’s basically about juice fasting… and the body’s need for micro-nutrients… and how we don’t get them in the standard Western diet. Something about this documentary is sticking with me… something besides watching the guy in the movie go from looking like fat middle-aged Australian dude to a rather svelte copy that Peter Walsh guy who comes in and helps you clean out your garage. He cleaned off 30 lbs.… but also developed a love of running and other kinds of exercise along the way that I don’t know that I’d ever get into.

I like to walk my dog. I like to bicycle OUTDOORS… and not on a stationary bike. I also enjoy swimming and reading. Reading is about the only reason I don’t weigh a zillion pounds… because I’ll download a good book to my Kindle and then will forget I’m on the elliptical machine in the wellness center where I work…until my knees start to smolder or someone taps me on the shoulder and tells me it’s time to go home. It doesn’t work the same way with TV… for some reason… watching TV turns my body off… whereas I can read and do almost any physical activity… you know… besides riding a bicycle and driving a car. If I can hold a book steady… I can read and exercise… and forget I’m exercising.

Anyway… the other part of the juice fast documentary that got me was just how… well… healthy the people looked afterward. Not model skinny… or like they’d just been on months of Jenny Craig… but… healthy. And by drinking juice. I LIKE juice… so the idea has been sticking in the back of my mind that maybe I need to go on a juice diet.

And then I smell my coffee… and that Idea goes straight into the trashbin.

Yes Virginia… there is a double-standard clause.

A few weeks back I went in for a vaginal ultrasound. I know… complete TMI… sorry… but I promise I have a point. I showed up for my appointment… hoped I’d remembered to shave BOTH legs… and after waiting for 45 minutes because the radiology lab had needed the ultrasound room for an emergency… I put on the stunning cloth gown and let a perfect stranger squirt warm gel up my hoo-ha and probe me with a camera shaped like a ding-a-ling for ten minutes.

It was… well… lemme tell ya. I DON’T have a medical fetish. And my tech was a woman… pretty… mid-20’s… blonde… wearing pink scrubs dotted with teddy bears. Being rather heterosexual… I’m NOT attracted to women in lab coats… no matter how nice they are. Nor do I have a thing for pink and teddy bears. So the whole experience was rather… um… awkward. At times… slightly uncomfortable… because there is nothing “exciting” about getting probed down there when it’s not in a sexual contest. (At least for me. YMMV.) But yet it’s not the same speculum, swab, scrape, and “OHMYGODDON’TPUSHTHERETHAT’SMYGONADNOTAFRICKENSTRESSBALL” that is your standard pap smear and well-woman exam.

A vaginal ultrasound… well… it’s bizarre to say the least… especially when you’re getting it for some other reason than to see your little tadpole. I imagine the excitement over seeing one’s soon to be spawn overrides the weirdness of being masturbated by a stranger with a camera.

(FYI. I have a benign cyst on one ovary that was screwing around with my cycle. No worries folks.)

And with that in the back of my head… I heard this while listening to NPR this morning…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/mandatory-ultrasound-bill-virginia-anti-abortion_n_1242627.html

If you don’t wanna click… here’s a short quote that just about sums it all up…

To protest a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) on Monday attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication.

"We need some gender equity here," she told HuffPost. "The Virginia senate is about to pass a bill that will require a woman to have totally unnecessary medical procedure at their cost and inconvenience. If we're going to do that to women, why not do that to men?"

OK. I’ve been hearing about the debate going on in Virginia and Texas over the “Show me the fetus” laws… but I had no idea that a) It was going to be at the woman’s expense as part of the abortion procedure. b) They wanted a VAGINAL ultrasound.

Without getting any more graphic… let me explain this to men...

Imagine going to your doctor for a “wand check” and having to maintain a stiffy for 10 minutes while someone "examined" it with a “sleeve” that subtly mimics its intended non-excretory usage… INCLUDING the liberal application of warm lubricant… but is being done by some big hairy guy named Bruce wearing a lab coat who is telling you to hold still and relax. (Unless you’re gay or bi and into bears… then see the description of my radiology tech above.) And the price of this awkwardness... around $600.00.

How excited would you be about it… REGARDLESS of why you were getting the examination?

It’s legislative punishment. Pure and simple. But it’s not punishment for an actual transgression. Because getting pregnant and not wanting to keep your baby… OR to go through the physical trauma and health risk of pregnancy and childbirth for the sole reason of providing your offspring to someone else to raise… IS NOT A CRIME. I have a right to make decisions for things that happen within my body. And as a woman… I also have a right to be able to boink another consenting adult without signing up for 18 years of childcare.

Men lie about their vasectomies. Condoms break. Diaphragms move. Cervical caps slip. IUDs fail. Pills get forgotten. Or God forbid you read the Republican Guide to Sex Education and now believe one of the many myths like… “You can’t get pregnant the first time you have sex” or “If you douche after sex you won’t get pregnant.” Or you’re too poor for birth control… or you're functionally illiterate and can’t use a calendar. (Not downing on folks who can't read... or read ENGLISH.)

On a more sinister note…rape happens… and so does incest. Women can get manipulated into a sexual encounter for money… a place to stay… food on the table… or a sense of security. There can be drugs and addiction involved. The moral question of having sex doesn’t matter. Where sex and intimacy is concerned… the ability to make a good decisions isn’t always there… and sometimes there’s only the ability to make the “least horrible decision” available to you. And sometimes that decision is having sex even when you don't really want to.

There are a thousand reasons why sex leads to pregnancy… and they don’t mean the woman is using abortion as a form of birth control.

So… rectal exam and cardiogram before getting your happy pills? Why stop there? Why not require that the man also be straight, married, and have a wife who is still fertile? Because EVERYONE KNOWS that the only reason to have sex is to procreate. So why would you want an erection if it wasn’t for the specific purpose of having sex to have children? (Cue Monty Python’s “Every Sperm is Sacred.”)

SOPA, cockroaches... and crystal meth.

Well… I think by now we’ve all heard it. An elderly woman who loses her home and car because her grandson is cooking meth in the basement… and asset seizure law doesn’t really give a crap who owns the meth lab… but takes it away from granny so that it is no longer available to be used for criminal acts. It’s sad really… this sort of situation. But it really does behoove someone to know what is going on in their own home… no? It’s not a “chemistry set” and nobody needs that many boxes of Sudafed.

So… SOPA. Provisions of the law will work similarly to asset seizure in a drug raid. But in effect… it would be like seizing someone’s house and property if the cockroaches living in their house were cooking meth between the walls.

When you have what could be considered… an infestation… living in your house. You can do due diligence in calling the Orkin Man… and making sure you’re not leaving food out for the little buggers… but it is nearly impossible to have a home and know what every little creepy crawly inside is doing at any given moment.

And not only is this now an absurd analogy… it’s what SOPA is basically expecting Internet companies to do. Peer into the minds of the little cockroaches that are file sharing illegally produced copies of the Twilight movies… or the latest album by Slipknot… (really a self-punishing act… no…??) or they’ll huff and puff and blow their entire business back into the early 1990’s.

It’s chilling… the idea. I mean… I’m all for corporate responsibility. A CEO should take full responsibility for any crimes committed by their employees on their watch. But this is holding the CEO accountable for crimes committed by their CUSTOMERS. Like suing the gun manufacturer because someone committed murder with a handgun. Might serve them right in some instances... but...

Makes no sense. If I choke someone with a bunch of bananas... you going to go after that Chiquita lady with all the fruit on her head for it?

Anyway… the business model for companies who benefit from intellectual property is outdated. Rather than buck up and change their business model… they’re trying to push our government into protecting it. Not that this has ever happened (ahem) before in the United States as we started to bleed manufacturing jobs… and the family farm slowly turned into a hobby for fans of Jeff Foxworthy. Nope… we’ve never tried to dig in our heels and try to keep progress from happening by kicking and screaming and refusing to let the good old days pass…

*laugh*

I’ll tell you… I really… really dislike online piracy. Oh… I’ve done my share of downloading. But try to find a legal copy of Helena Bøksole’s last album in the United States… and you’d hit a torrent site too. I am NOT flying to freaking Oslo for it. If it’s out of print, hard to find… or I’m looking for something innocuous like a subtitle file… yeah… I download. I’m sure I’ve downloaded something that is copyright protected. Especially when I’m too lazy to hook up my USB turntable to listen to something… so I grab the mp3 off the internet…but I don’t make it A HABIT. I don’t download things because I’m too cheap to buy a legit copy. I'm just too cheap to buy an 8-Trak Player. (Yes... I do still have a few.)

And that’s the thing in a nutshell. If people had been buying legit copies of things all the while… THIS WOULDN’T BE HAPPENING. And why aren’t they? Sure… I like free stuff just like the next person. One of the reasons I buy CDs still is because I like the liner notes. Or in some cases… the sound quality of the CD is just so much better than I could do if I bought a copy on MP3 and then burned it off to listen to in my car. I buy CDs… when I don’t have to… because I like the product… and can afford it.

So entertainment industry… if you want people to buy legit copies of movies and music and whatnot… do what any other business does. Lower costs... increase value… maximize sales. Cut out the middle men… distribution… etc. Break yourself up into small, profitable chunks. Rethink your business strategy. MOVE OFFSHORE. Worked for most other industries no? Software companies? Again… lower costs… increase value… maximize sales. You want to keep me from buying a pirated copy of your operating system? Provide me KICK ASS customer support when I buy a legit copy. Give me VALUE… and I’ll shell out $300. The thing is… I’m NOT going to shell out $300 when the only reason you’re putting out a new version… is because someone in your marketing department decided Windows 7 sounds better than Windows XP. Or Windoze whatever is buggier than a hot July and if you don't put out an updated copy... you'll implode. Stop selling me cosmetic updates… give me REAL value… something so new that you deserve another $300 of my hard earned money… and I won’t even consider borrowing a copy off my neighbor.

Pharmaceuticals? That’s a different story. It’s a case where R&D needs to balance profit and demand… and there is a maze of legislation that makes the situation so sticky… it’s covered in flies. I don’t have an easy answer. If I didn’t take prescription medication daily. I’d die. Lucky for me my drugs cost pennies a pill. But if you were deciding on rent or food vs. going without your drugs… yeah. Well… it’s a lot different from pirating an operating system.

Health care… in America… is broken. If money was provided by the government for R&D into new drug treatments… I think whatever is developed should end up having a shorter patent duration than when the research is fully funded by a for-profit company. And in the same token… more money for drug research then needs to be provided by the government. Will this happen? It’s about as likely as my finding the cure for cancer in my lunchbox. But it’s what needs to happen. Something NEEDS to happen… because it’s a quality of life thing.

Kindling for my Fire...

Since August, I have gone from being a died-in-the-pulp paper book reader to having four e-readers in the house. (OK. One is my husband’s…but I did order it for him so he’d keep his mitts off mine.) I have now found the one gadget that I couldn’t live without. I like my iPhone. It’s a decent phone… and it seamlessly integrates with my Outlook at work and calendar at home taking the place of the Palm I used to have… what’s not to like? No manual syncing… and occasionally I play a few fun games on it. But I’m not a heavy phone user… and not a real big fan of texting either. (It takes too long because I refuse to devolve the English language into a series of lol brb Ihtgpdgm “I hope the grammar police don’t get me” shorthand phrases.)

But my Kindle… has saved me from being too cheap to buy books. Not MONEY cheap… but space cheap. I stopped buying fun books to read when we ran out of bookshelf space. For a long time… I just didn’t read unless it was something trashy I knew I wouldn’t keep after I read it. (That I could buy used… or really cheap at Borders.) I read out of the library… or I borrowed books from other people. Anything to keep from adding to my net total of books.

But I love books… so the next thing I did was join paperbackswap.com… and start getting rid of books I knew wouldn’t be re-read… or that I could probably find in the library from now until doomsday. (Copy of the Iliad… Shakespeare’s Plays…etc.) Then I got rid of any hardcovers I could spare. Then I let go of a few books that I “liked” but didn’t love. And any books I owned specifically for work… I actually brought to work.

But in August I bought the wi-fi Kindle because the price finally seemed reasonable. I am a pretty heavy Amazon user… was an early adopter of Amazon Prime… and now use Amazon’s subscription service to purchase a majority of the household dry-goods in bulk. I like Amazon’s customer service. I like their MP3 downloads better than iTunes. (Stuff on Amazon occasionally goes on sale like a normal CD would.) So I figured… why not? I’ll give this Kindle thing a try….

I was reading the Jim Butcher “Dresden Files” books… and had managed to Paperback Swap the first few… but I really liked them… and kind of wanted to hang on to them and not re-swap them. So…I bought the next book in the series for the Kindle. And then the next… and then was kind of hooked on the whole idea of WANTING to read something… and then being able to in about three minutes.

Really… that’s what it takes from turning your Kindle on… navigating through the Kindle store… making the purchase… to completed download. I timed it.

So… after that… I decided any fiction I was interested in would have to be bought for the Kindle. It started with fiction… then I bought ONE cookbook for the Kindle… then a new Thesaurus… then all of a sudden I was a full-blown Kindle user. And when they announced the Fire… I put it on pre-order. The only thing that disappointed me with the wi-fi Kindle… was that I couldn’t see some books in color. Not necessary for most reading… but it was the one thing that was keeping me from buying a lot of travel books and cookbooks for the Kindle. Plus I kind of wanted a tablet computer anyway. And having something small and portable to watch movies on that was a little bigger than my iPhone seemed like a good idea. So… I figured… $200… what’s not to like?

All around… it’s a nice device. But it’s not perfect at anything it does. I don’t like reading on it for prolonged periods of time…e-ink is a thousand times easier to read. But I DO really like it for anything with color photos…cookbooks… to “how-to” books… travel books…etc. And it’s great for the odd Android game I like to play…light web-surfing…and as a kitchen computer. (I love youtube cooking shows. Being able to prop up a tablet in the kitchen to watch them is pretty handy when trying to follow a recipe.) What I don’t like is Amazon Prime movies.

The movie selection is OK… but maybe I don’t like it because I’m a long-time Netflix user. The Amazon Prime Movie interface just sucks. I don’t like not being able to have some sort of queue or playlist feature. If there IS one… I haven’t found it. So it’s pretty much useless because I can’t surf around on my computer for a list of stuff I’m interested in… I have to browse through their entire catalog of Prime movies to find something I’m interested in watching. I do like the rental feature though… because my corner video store was just killed by the two Redbox machines nearby… and I’m kind of sad to see it go. The local video rental store was such an icon of 1980’s and 1990’s movie watching culture… I refuse to support Redbox. So now… I’ll rent from Amazon.

So the Kindle Fire…It’s not so much an e-reader as it is an “Amazon Content Delivery Device… now with Internet!”

And then I was watching Woot… and came across the Kindle DX (wide format) for $200. Damn. Bigger e-ink screen… for $200. And my workplace has gone 5S crazy… and I need to get rid of at least a half-shelf of reference books. For $200… I could download PDFs of all of my manuals and literature into one device. A couple of clicks later… and now I own a Kindle DX… and yeah… the bigger screen rocks. And you really can look at a regular sized page of text without going blind. The handy rotate feature makes it even easier than my Kindle Wi-fi. I loaded all of my manuals and literature onto it… and got rid of four binders worth of paper. The only thing I kept paper copies of were my color publications… and wide format publications.

And with three Kindles I can’t part with… of course I bought my husband one.
What I don’t like about the Kindle… any of the Kindles… is the file organization. On the e-ink Kindle… it’s clunky. If I have 300 documents I want to load into a collection called “Reference Material” I copy it onto my Kindle using the USB feature… and then I have to go onto my Kindle… and individually add each and every document into that collection. Ugh. Cludgy. Obviously not geared towards managing complicated directory structures… and organizing documents. It’s a DISPLAY device… and it does that wonderfully.

It makes me wonder what the next step for hand-held devices is. Five years ago… my Palm Tungsten was my indispensable device. Now it’s kind of… “Palm what?” And with the iPad becoming so popular… I wonder if it will kill e-ink devices. (Which for dedicated readers… is just SO MUCH easier to read than a backlit screen. Please, please, please keep making something akin to e-ink…tech gods… are you listening?)

The only thing I’m not too upset about that everyone else seems to be is pricing. I don’t mind paying near “full-price” for an e-book. The current pricing structure is antiquated. It’s based on the distributor/consignment model that bookstores use. People think that since it costs so much less to “produce” an e-book vs. a paper book… it must automatically be 80% cheaper. But books are priced so everyone who “handles” them gets their fair shake. Your average paperback book… what is it… 40-cents in paper… maybe 60 cents in ink and binding materials plus labor? The largest cost is in shipping and warehouse space. And since some printed paper books will always be needed… the profit from high-volume sales books will ALWAYS have to cover for art books… coffee table books… small releases… and other books that can’t be formatted easily for print on demand. (Photos that bleed off the edge… NOT easy to do on a POD press. There’s still a ton of trimming that needs to be done...etc.) If we priced books based on the cost of production without any thought to distribution… I think the variety and number of publications would go down… not up. Books aren’t paper and ink. They’re not JUST shelf space. They’re the blood, sweat and tears of the author. They’re ideas and emotions and knowledge passed from one person to another. They’re history and laughter… reference and religion. And do you really want all of that cheapened?

In the Purple

I know I should accompany this with a photo… but I’m going to be a meanie and make this text only until I can figure out some way of taking a photo of the back of my head without growing another set of arms.

For my 40th birthday… I decided to be bold with my hair color… and get red highlights. My stylist over a Black Hearts Hair House… Kat… has suggested red highlights a couple of times… but I’ve always been a little iffy about the idea. I go through life with a perpetual flush anyway… I don’t need anything else to make me look red and blotchy. But I figured I was turning 40… and might as well do something I’ve never done before.

It was… well… interesting. Every time I looked into the mirror my reaction was rather like…”Whoa fuck… my hair is red!” My second reaction would usually be to play with it until the large highlighted chunks were hidden. After two weeks… I knew I was done with red… and then it started to fade out. Bad…from red… to orange… probably on its way towards looking like someone peed on my head.

So… seven weeks later and I was back in Kat’s chair. And she asked if I’d like to do something funky with vegetable dies rather than another hair-frying application of permanent highlights. (I usually go several haircuts between highlights.)
In a fit of whimsy… I decided on purple. Yeah… actual purple. No… I didn’t also have plans to pierce my lips and work in a record store. I had myself convinced that it wouldn’t be too bold and unusual… or couldn’t be more unusual than the mauve… or the really bright red… so I let her paint on the “Pimpin Purple” over my faded highlights and have at it.

I have to say… I like it quite a bit. It’s less shocking than the red…and the red I had was actually a “comes in nature” color of red. It’s less noticeable too.
Anyway… why is my haircolor blogworthy?

A long… long time ago I remember a Saturday Night Live skit with Eddie Murphy in it… where he got himself made up in “whiteface” to see what he was missing.

http://www.snotr.com/video/422/Eddie_Murphy_goes_undercover

And it’s a lot what having purple hair is like. Strangers smile at you. People come up to you and tell you how much they like your hair. Kids point at my head and scream… “Mommy! I wan’t purple hair!” When I say I had it done in a salon… pens and paper must be found so I can scribble down the phone number for people. It’s like I’ve gone from being a fat, middle-aged woman who isn’t pretty… but isn’t ugly… to some sort of daring hair vixen.

I’m not exaggerating… I’ve had no fewer than 20 compliments on my hair in less than a week.

When you’re not one of the “beautiful people” you don’t learn how to take compliments. I tend to “p’shaw” folks when they tell me I look nice. I also have a mirror… look at myself every day… and have never seen anything special. I don’t take my appearance that seriously… don’t wear make up… don’t primp that much… so when something as easy as changing my hair color makes me feel pretty…
It’s a good feeling.

But alas… purple hair is not very office friendly. I’ve had a few strange looks from management… and after this fades and grows out I think I’ll be back to plain old naturally occurring colors. Because being noticed by strangers is fine… being noticed by someone with the power to fire me because they don’t like my hair… not so fine. For the next few weeks… I will enjoy being pretty… vibrant… different… and then go back to the obscurity of highlighted brown.