Justifiably Scholastic

I look forward to this day.  I wait for it. I crave it.  It is the best day, by far, of the entire quarter. 

It is the day before the stress and workload begins to accumulate.  It is the day before all my classes begin.  It is the only day when I go to campus without being in a rush. No deadlines…yet.  Without having my mind spin endless circles around the readings I have done the previous night and that very morning…  Sorting out what I read where and what I though about it – and what those thoughts lead to and how, and in what ways, everything interconnects…. Today, rather, is the day I go to the bookstore.  GET TO GO, I should say. 

You see I, like so many of us, have a problem with books.  With everything else in my life, I am able to exert an impressive amount of restraint in my purchases.  Usually, the cost outweighs whatever benefit I see in the item.  No it is not the school sweatshirts and decals, hats, shoes, backpacks, trinkets – I easily pass them by without a second glance.  Not so with books.  Especially not so in a campus bookstore where I feel justified in buying everything that catches my fancy because it is, in at least some way, vaguely scholastic.  I want them all – and today is the day when I face the bookstore and know that I have nothing pressing to do – nothing calling me away.  What goes through my head as I face the bookstore?  I wonder how much my books will weigh (as it is a long walk back to the car), how many bags they will fill once I include the necessary notebooks and supplies (another, although to a slighter degree, love of mine), just how much I can carry back while at the same time looking reasonable (ie – like I have NOT entered into the strong-woman contest for book carrying…).

I have to say, I think it is the hunt that is the most appealing.  That hunt for the book I don’t know I will find, don’t know that I want, don’t know how much will impact my life.  How will I find it? Is it there?  Who wrote it? Why?  And assuming I find just such a rare item – when will I read it?  Right away or will I wait and eventually pick it up at just the right moment to GET what I need to out of it?

Justifiably scholastic.  So what if I am an English major – why can’t I add a book on practical engineering, applied mathematics, Italian, web technology, biological anthropology (already have and have read) .. to my collection. 

The wait for this quarter is ending.  The wait for the next will begin later this afternoon.

A Real Hurt; An Earned Pain

I do not normally do this.  Bike ride I mean.  Even a couple of months ago, after convincing Casey [he requests his name be put in full...] to take the bikes out, getting around the block was a struggle.  Okay, it was more than a struggle and I had to get off and walk uphill (by ‘hill’ I am referring to the slight rises in the pavement) more than once. So please, tell me exactly how it is that two days in a row I have taken my bike on a solitary trek through the hills (real ones this time)? As the miles fall behind me it is as if I am being projected forward.  Yes, the hills still hurt like a son of a … Well, needless to say they are not very easy, but the fact of the matter is that I was able to get past them.  I have found there is an indescribable feeling as the bike passes the high point and starts its plummet down the other side.  With legs that simultaneously burn and feel like jello, all I can do is hold on and hope, in desperation, that whatever steering I am able to do will be enough to save me from hitting a rock or bump in the trail – sending me, as my mind pictures frequently, catapulting through the air and down the hillside.

The green.  I am a slave to the green of the hills.  As I wind my way through the hillside, it steals all other thought from my mind until all I have left is an awe at the beauty in life.  The surreal.  The smell of being outside – the smell of dirt itself.   Connecting with the smells and sights that for me, recall a childhood connectedness with the outdoors.  Becoming in tune with life…with myself.

Alone.  Yes, I am aware that this is contrary to anything remotely advisable (especially in mountain lion terrain), but it cannot be helped.  Okay, the first day it could not be helped. Casey was at work and I was off early.  I needed something to do and a ride around the block simply turned into this grand adventure.  The second day?  By the second day I figured out how much it means to me to do this alone.  The entire ride was me against myself – conquering, learning, coping, surpassing.  I do have it in me to get over this incredibly tall, rocky hill.  I am brave enough to go speeding down the side of a mountain.   I can take the trails I am not familiar with and find out where their tiny, winding, barely visible paths lead.  I want to see the lake such-and-such a sign tells me is three more miles up.  And lastly, something equally significant as the rest, I can do all these things and then make my way back home.  The return trip where all the pedaling hurts so much more, the hills seem so much higher, the distance greater.  I can do this too.  I can make it back to my door.  Sore.  Utterly exhausted.  Spent. What a feeling.  Yesterday morning my muscles hurt in an uncomfortable sort of way.  Then I took my bike out and went longer, further, harder.  This morning my muscles are sore but in an almost pleasant way.  It seems that this is how I am supposed to feel. That this is how you feel when you tell your body to do things, and it responds by accomplishing what you ask of it.  This feeling is completely new to me.

Last fall I could hardly walk.  Could hardly get out of bed.  Between the smoking and the complete absence of the thyroid hormone T3, I was hardly able to function.  I still did it all [caffeinated to an incredibly high degree mind you]. Still commuted to work and school.  Still took on way more than I should have and still managed to somehow get it all done.  But it hurt. I hurt.  Walking was a challenge.  Lifting.each.leg.up. was a matter of will because at about 100 pounds (which, by the way, is counter-intuitive to hypothyroidism) all my muscles were atrophied to practically nothing and my lower legs were so swollen I could hardly pull a sock over them.  And the stairs at school? The ‘Jans steps’?  They were my personal hell.

Quit smoking.  New medicine.  Health(ier) eating.  A bit of time.  Now I almost feel REAL.  At least in a physical way.  Today, I am sore.  I can feel the muscles over my stomach contracting each time I take a breath. My body hurts, but simply put, it SHOULD.

Enforced Happiness

Yesterday, if you had asked me for my opinion on the holiday (in a non-religious sense of course), my answer would have revealed my indifference.

Easter.  Yes, a time to be with family, but once the anticipatory ‘bunny’ fades into the distance of youth  – and prior to having any kids of ones own – what else is there?  This would have been my response last night.This morning, waking up to a sky not yet inundated with overpowering sunlight, I knew what I wanted to do.  Well, if not wanted, at least what I knew I should do if I did not wish to feel the pangs of regret.  So, up I got, stumbling into the bathroom to turn on the muchtobright light, to make myself at least halfway decent in a braving-the-public-at-seven-a.m.-on-a-Sunday-morning sort of way.

The grocery store.    Avenues of display items, the whole of the store devoid of the mass of people I generally encounter on my early evening supply runs.  The ‘holiday aisle’.  Why don’t these baskets come pre-made?  Okay, a basket, some chocolates, some stringy stuff for the bottom, random toys – all, in all, way too many decisions for my sleep-fogged mind.  A couple of donuts.  Some flowers. 

The return home.  Putting everything together.  It’s at this point that something in me changed.  Now, if asked, I would have to respond that Easter doesn’t seem too bad.  Sort of an enforced jump-start on the merry spring outlook. You know, the outlook you imagine everyone having as you scroll through blogs only to find little more than picture after picture of flowers. I have subconsciously been avoiding just such an outlook, holed up in my apartment with the air conditioner telling me that winter is still outside my door.  Maybe this spring is not too bad.  Today, it actually seems quite nice.  Plus, summer is my actual nemesis and spring is only colored in my outlook by proximity..

And the sunflowers I bought for C scream happiness… Today feels like a good day. 

Well, okay, lets quit that too…

It’s the creamer.  It has to be.

 

I happen to be one of those people who are doomed to be forever battling with weight issues.  If I am not carrying a bit too much around with me, then I am on my way to skeleton-ville.  For some reason I can’t seem to find equilibrium – always on the up, or down, swing.

 

With that said, I unfortunately find myself at an impasse.  By all accounts, I should be dropping pounds like there is no tomorrow.  I am going to the gym on a regular basis and giving my body a healthy (over)dose of cardio and strength training.  This, by the way, is somewhat unusual for me and by its lonesome, should be resulting in visibly slimming results.  I have combined this with eating a very healthy diet.  At least what has always worked for me in the past:

Salads with low calorie dressing

Fruits, steamed vegetables

Low calorie wraps with Deli Turkey

…..and coffee and tea (lots) with sugar free creamer and packs of sweet n’ low.  I suppose with all the healthy eating and exercising I may be pouring the creamer a bit too liberally.

 

This one has me a bit stumped.  As I go to pull on yet another pair of jeans from my ‘lets keep these around just in case I get a bit heavy pile’ and find them on the tight side, my mood shifts.  I find myself getting more and more bitter about the fact that all my hard work is paying me a negative return.  Why is it again that I am not going out to eat (which I obviously love to do way too much) and eating bottomless bowls of pasta and never ending baskets of bread?  Why did I work so hard to get all of that dreaded ‘holiday’ weight (okay lets call it NOVEMBER-DECEMBER weight since I gave myself free reign with food during the whole of those two months) – off?

 

It’s the creamer.  Or at least that’s what I can think of to cut.  Oh, I don’t want to do it.  I have this attachment to my creamer that goes back quite a few years now.  It’s good, it’s candy, and until now, it has been the one indulgence I have refused to abandon.  Sadly, it seems that time is over – at least for a while.  Hey, maybe if my coffee (which I make myself – out of extra fine (Turkish) ground espresso beans) doesn’t taste as good, I will drink less of it.  Plus, tea might be better for you if you can actually taste the tea and not just the pseudo-sugary goodness you put in it.

 We shall see…

Music; or, A Soundtrack of Thoughts

Music.

 I am not a die hard fan.  I used to be. I used to know all [ahem, okay, a lot of anyway] the ‘up and coming’ artists.  I used to be one of those people with an IPOD forever sticking out of their pocket and a white cord attached to an ear.  If you wanted to talk to me, you had to do so loud enough to make yourself heard over the background soundtrack that I refused to turn off. 

IPODS break.  Things get busy.  Charging units hide themselves around the house and in the bottom of a car’s center console.

 I haven’t had music keeping me company for quite some time.  In the car, yes, but with a sound system that is forever on the fritz – that’s iffy.

So I go about listening to the only thing I have left.  My thoughts.  They have stepped up to the plate, magnificently, to fill the void left by music.  They question, confuse, muddle, ponder.  They SEEM to have their own agency but the ultimate goal of such a plan (scheem..) is something I am utterly in the dark about.  I listen.  People still have to talk loud enough to get through the background soundtrack – there is just a lack of melody these days.

 Today I woke up feeling a bit ‘off’.  In the head that is.  Probably due to a series of consecutive late nights studying and writing for exams/papers etc.

Sitting at my computer, working from home mind you, I had the bright idea to minimise my tasks for the day and go in search of a long lost ITUNES application.  Found it. Picked a song at random. [Put it on repeat because this is just something I DO - always have, and yes it annoys everyone but me].

Now I am sitting here with a long forgotten friend.  It’s this somewhat glazed, far away look in my eyes.  It’s not sadness – far from it – just this distancing from myself.  Not really escaping my head – but looking at it without the ‘ZOOM’ turned all the way up.

So now I wonder if I will make the effort to find that pesky little device…

Shades of Ourselves; Unformed Friendships

Shades of ourselves. Shades of others.

 We meet people and say things.  Try to get some point or another across while skipping over a thousand other equally important things.  No one will ever really know you but yourself.  We go through life trying to understand the people around us – impressions forming about those we meet – from the most limited of interactions.  It is like a figure giving off a hundred thousand shades of itself.  The figure is the mystery.  It will always be.  If I don’t ‘get’ me, who am I to ‘get’ you? 

 Sometimes I think that I don’t think/act/behave in a certain way that seems prevalent in those in life I encounter.  I don’t understand why people lie or deceive.  Oh, I understand the aggressive tendencies we have.  I understand OVER REACTING and being TACTLESS.  I understand saying something malicious as a defensive maneuver.  But why lie?  I watch so many around me fabricate these complicated entanglements for no clear-cut reason.  They seem to be stuck on dive and evade mode.  Is this a form of self preservation/protection.  Is the truth a place of vulnerability? 

I build my own type of walls.  I distance myself from others.  I have my intense lonely moments but always justify them with an inner desire to remain relatively solitary.  I think this ties into my sense of loyalty.  If I form an alliance, which for me constitutes anything more than a remote acquaintance, I give myself completely to it.  I will do anything for my family.  I am engaged and to be honest, (even as my sense of self rebels against my writing it…) I would do anything for him.  Maybe that’s why I don’t form true FRIENDSHIPS anymore.  In my youth I did.  And true to form, I would have done anything for them and expected the same in return.  Back then it didn’t dawn on me that we don’t all work in this all-or-nothing fashion.  I wound up hurt, used up and ditched.  They always lied too.  Time and time again until finally the point started to sink in. 

That was a long time ago.  I don’t have any steadfast reason for my lack of friendships these days.  I look to my parents (hell, anyone for that matter) and I see them surrounded by these beautiful, lasting friendships.  I understand that, at least in theory, I can form friendships without 1.becoming dependent on them and 2. investing too much in their worth.  In theory.  In the meanwhile I am sitting back from it all.  Searching for myself and what that means to me.  Learning to live honestly – especially with myself.  Trying to ‘get’ me (at least a little ;-) and perhaps at least a few of the shades I am casting.

 Listening to: several but at the moment: Goo Goo Dolls/”Black Balloon”.

My Little Office Apple-Trees

Let me start off by saying that my work schedule is somewhat sporadic.  Because of school, which I attend all day Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, I had to scale down to part time at work.  Now I work remotely on Wednesday’s and in the office on Friday’s.

 So a while back, when I was making the two hour commute to work each day, it finally began to sink in that I had been there almost a year and my work-space [it's not a cubical, it's not a cubical, it's not a ... okay it is a cubical] was quite devoid of anything personal.  Each morning I would walk to my desk (always the first or second to arrive due to the long commute and my theory that it’s better to be absurdly early than late), and look into the lives of my co-workers via the picture-collages, plaques, trinkets, decorations, and so forth that seemed to multiply in an endless desire to occupy all empty desk space.  Then I would reach my desk.  Not much but few stacks of paper cluttered with sticky-notes.  Hmm…no wonder I felt they didn’t think I belonged.  So, in a somewhat defiant manner (or so I told myself because I would not go the picture route), I bought a plant.

I found this plant in a tourist town up the coast – Solvang if you really care to know – in a little store catering to mother’s like mine.  I had let word slip of my plant-search and she (the absolutely wonderful, amazing, supportive, best-friend-of-a-mother she is) found one.  Over priced for sure, this was a delicate ivy of some sort that made its way up a four-leg wire guide that came to a point, about a foot and a half above the pot.  A beauty for sure, not that I had much hope of keeping it alive.

 Live it did, however, under the flickering, fluorescent light above my desk.  How? I have no idea, but sure enough new, tiny, brilliant green leaves started to appear and reach their way up in the air.  To me it was perfect and to the best of my knowledge, it declared that yes, this was some one’s desk, and no, there was no way to know the details of this person’s life just by passing their desk in the morning.

That was until my schedule changed, school began and this ‘part-time’ business started.  At first, during the hectic time of becoming one of the company’s first remote – or work-from-home - employee’s, I had yet to request that Friday be an in-office day.  I didn’t see the office for a three month stretch and when I returned, you guessed it, the plant was a crisp skeleton of what it one was.  This was not a case of withering and dying or simply a, leaves falling off the steam, issue.  No, my plant was a completely preserved version of its former self, down to the tiniest new foliage.  Damn.  Couldn’t someone have thrown a cup of water into the pot for you?  No, of course not, they didn’t have the trinkets and picture collages to bring you to the forefront of whatever they were thinking as they passed your desk. 

So on Friday’s when I make it into the office I look at the bones of my plant, and wonder at their stuborn defiance in holding on to each fragile leaf.  I do my best to water it – I guess this points at some belief that there is a core in those thin stalks which has not died out completely and which will reemerge in a glorious green statement of triumph. 

Nope.  Nothing.  Months have gone by and there was not the slightest sign of life.  Until the apple, or apples I should say, that is.  I was occupying my lunch in front of the computer one day, eating a Granny-Smith (my favorite, although they’re the only apples I eat so it’s not much of a contest).  When I got to the core – I eat the core, don’t ask me why – I saw that one of the tiny seeds had started to root. 

…I didn’t think this was possible:  as children we had a nanny from Romania.  She would bring back chicken or duck eggs – can’t remember which – on the plane with her and try to hatch them at our house.  It never worked.  Something to due with the metal scanner ‘rays’ you walk through.  I just applied the same logic to why, whenever I tried to plant a seed from something grocery-store bought, it never worked…

On an impulse I put the seeds into the pot of my skeleton plant.  Yesterday at work I looked over and sure enough there were about three, one inch apple trees growing. Green again.  It was nice.

Flash Mob versus Flash Individual

Doing my best the other day to waste as much time as possible, I was browsing through the school newspaper and came across an article on Flash Mobs.  Apparently I was a bit behind the eight-ball because I had never heard of such a thing. 

Flash Mob:  ”A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief period of time, then quickly disperse.” – courtesy of Wikipedia

[The example given by the article was a group of people, gathering outside of some retail environment or another, "holding bananas up to their ears and chatting as if they were on cell phones."]

Since reading the article I can not seem to get the idea out of my head.  Not only do I expect to see a “mob” around every corner, I WANT to see them there.  Why?  Perhaps I am just sick of the day to day conformity I feel surrounded by.  I ‘expect’ and ‘WANT’ to believe that everyone else around me is inwardly as fed up as I am.  Why does everyone go from one task to the next – from one day to the next, from weekend to weekend - without really noticing their life blurring by.  I do understand the whole ’society must abide rules, laws, and morals to avoid utter chaos’ thing.   Still, every time I drive on the freeway, jammed with cars, [and yes, maybe this is a Los Angeles thing...] I can’t stop imagining every vehicle using whatever off-roading capabilities they posses, driving up curbs, sidewalks, hillsides – making their own roads – and actually getting to where they have to go. It is the unending lines of break lights that do me in.  I can’t stand them.  I can’t stand everyone going about their day, caught up in whatever triviality they are currently obsessing over, standing there, obediently, ‘in line’ – metaphorically and literally.

I expect and want to see flash mobs wherever I go, and to be honest I don’t understand why we all seem unable to think outside the box which is our life.  The reason this bugs me – I am sure – is because in a large part it reflects the aspects of my own life I most abhor.  Some of the things I do – I DO – because society sets them in front of me and I mindlessly succumb (or at least I am unable to think of and enact an alternative).  This begs the question of why, if I so abhor the continutiy and mindless flow, do I not start my own, one-person-flash-mob?  Because that would be ‘crazy’, and because it would seem that it takes numbers to say anything sanely.

What place in line was I again?

A Scary Situation

Throughout my life I have been in various ’scary’ situations.  Situations when one thing or another has lead to some unsafe circumstance.  Why is it when someone we love is in such a situation it is SO MUCH WORSE?  The feeling of helplessness increases exponentially…but it’s more than that.  I can block out my own memories, fright/flight impulses – I can glaze over the top of them as only quasi-real moments in my life.  With someone I love it’s a different story.  There’s no forgetting.  It happened, it was scary, it was real, and it is not going away anytime soon. 

Back In The Kitchen

Okay, I don’t feel good – so why can’t I admit that to myself?  I woke up this morning and have been repeating over and over the though ‘No, you actually feel fine…good even…start your day and get out of the house.’  At the moment this just not true.  No I do not ‘feel fine’, I feel like I was run over repeatedly by one of those huge metro buses  – - hmm, how to explain…everything from my head, to my stomach, to my skin just feels like shit hurts.

 No it’s not a hangover.  Well not in the alcohol and drug sense of the word.  What I am wondering is if you can get a hangover from food.  Yes, I know that anyone can probably eat until they make their stomach hurt – but does their entire body hurt the next day?  This is a reoccurring thing with me and I find it utterly confusing.  I am not one for sugar/sweet indulgences but on occasion[<-- that was a lie, in reality it's quite often] I feel extremely hungry and compensate by eating a large amount of food.  [As a side note: I do try to stick with relatively healthy foods such as fruit, meats, lower fat items ...not that I am always successful...].  What I want to know about is the physical effects this has on my body the next day.  I once likened the feeling to having a bruise over my entire body. My skin becomes painful to the touch, in addition to the more obvious symptoms such as a headache and stomach pains.

 I can’t help but wonder if this is a typical response to overeating.  I do know that it has a disastrous snowball effect in that once I feel this crapy bad, all I want to do is comfort myself with food.  Yes I do know that it will not help and will make things worse – but this knowledge does not seem to be enough of a deterrent.  It might even be that knowing this makes me more prone to head back into the kitchen.  ‘Oh you don’t think you can feel any worse, well lets see about that,’ or ‘I know you planned all night to work out today but you don’t feel good, might as well eat instead…’.

 It’s odd watching myself say these things to myself, knowing they are compete nonsense, but being somewhat at their beck and call.  I do know the consequences of actions like these.  I was overweight in my teen years and while I am currently a slim looking 5′7 130 lb woman [<-- that wasn't easy] – the weight/FOOD issue is a constant battle.

[Another side note I find interesting:  My finance does not share in these struggles.  He is healthy, extremely fit, eats what he wants, stops eating when he is reasonably full, works hard, and usually feels great with the exception of some version of IBS.  Watching him, for me, is like a science experiment.  I look at him go about his day without the obsessions that plague mine and I take him as proof that no, everyone in the world does not battle with this as I do. 'Ahem, no Andrea, you are not the center of the universe...'.

It seems that the problem of obesity and weight in general - in the U.S. and possibly elsewhere - is, at least in part, derived by own own obsession with restriction and substitutions in the name of healthy living.  C has never had to diet.  He cannot conceptualize why anyone would eat huge portions of something - past their comfort level.  While he doesn't eat low fat versions of food because they don't taste as good, he does avoid eating fast food saturated in oil too often - ie. more than a couple times a week... If he is hungry - he eats, when he's full that's it.  He has no anxiety whatsoever in conjunction with food. (I am reminded here of something I heard in an AA meeting several years ago.  They said that an alcoholic is unable to waste alcohol - can't understand how someone could drink half a glass and be done with it.  Are we simply becoming foodaholics? <--this word is not found in my computer's spell check function despite the fact it suggests 'workaholic, shopaholic, and chocoholic'...  The 'clean your plate before you leave the table' gone horribly wrong?)]