Hiatuses are Vastly Overrated

I awoke very early yesterday, about 2:30 a.m., and as my consciousness wandered through the melatonin- and serotonin-draped hallways of my mind, it began to compose this comeback post. Of course, I've forgotten most of what occurred to me to say.

I believe it had something to do with some insights gained in the past half-year, about this living-process thing. It's as if the gods took one of those mallets studded with half-diamond shapes used to pulverize cheap meat to make it tolerable to chew, and beat the living doodie out of me. As if.

First off, I don't believe in "the gods"... I am a Believer in the Judeo-Christian God of the Universe. That's just how I roll. Not to make light of it, but it is intrinsic. Secondly, I was sorely in need of something or someone beating the living doodie out of me, I have come to believe. Consequently, with all which has happened in my life the past six months--- though not special and unique--- I feel I've come out a better person. At least a different one.

One thing hasn't changed... my need to upchuck my personal journey through whatever in print. I still have this basic need to connect, and I know most of us do. I like to do it in writing. Well, talking too, but mostly writing, because I cannot go back and edit the words which sometimes escape from my mouth.

INSIGHTS/LESSONS:

1. I hate having people stand over me/tell me what to do/make comments about my life
2. I frequently need people to stand over me/tell me what to do/make comments about my life...dammit
3. I will never recover from the death of my parents
4. Loss of parents is not a valid reason for over-indulging and under-living
5. I can lose a lot of money and get by on far less than I thought, and be pretty happy.
6. I cannot and will not work for crooked, unethical people or companies, even if it means a regular paycheck.
7. No matter what anyone does, says, or consumes around me, I am the one completely responsible for how I react to that.
8. Waiting for others to change is never a good reason to put changes needed in my life on hold.
9. TODAY is always the best time to start changing anything in my life that isn't working for my good, because Magic Monday never comes.
10. In the immortal words of Stevie Nicks, children get older, and I'm getting older, too.
    

NEW PLAN: More structure from a more flexible program......oh, that's still for getting healthy and fit.

Here's what I've done the last couple weeks: finished cleaning out a storeroom of accumulated STUFF from my old houses in New Mexico, and my parents' house in El Paso, which had been in commercial storage for A DECADE; in order to clean out my own flesh storeroom of accumulated STUFF, begun to eat increasingly more raw fruit and vegetables every day, phased out beef and junkfood which I let creep increasingly back in, began drinking more and more water all day, cut down on the frequency of martinis, signed up for Tampa Bay Adventure Boot Camp, am participating until next Sunday in Frederic Patenaude's FallCleanse 2009, and come upon the way I would like to feed my body and build muscle for a while, maybe longer if I do-- one that uses whole, clean foods, and can be tailored for when you're feeling a little vegany, all the way to feeling a little meaty. That would be Jon Benson's EODD, and he has a great toning/musclebuilding program too.

So I continue my eternal quest for returning my body to some vague semblance of what I have come to think of as its former glory. And to shed toxins, poundage, and old rotten pain and resentments in the process. Time to let go of all of that. I am seriously tired of carrying all the extras around.

I didn't seem to make much forward progress in the past six months, but I have begun to ask myself questions about the basic way I think, like, forward? into what? And let the answers to those kinds of questions inform my subsequent actions. So, in the eyes of the world, my hiatus from activity may have seemed "non-productive", but I am feeling a major shift in my thinking and even, yes, "worldview"... that seems to be carrying me in a totally new direction. Perhaps for reflection leading to life-altering changes, hiatuses aren't overrated at all.

Are there Fireworks in Heaven? and other Random Thoughts from tonight's walk

Not every day raw is marked by profound revelations or progressions. Some days are just...days. It doesn't prevent me from wanting to fulfill my commitment to myself to blog more this year. Some of my favorites started out as a collection of musings and ended up having a point, after a fashion. This post will probably fall into that category.

When I ate mainly cooked food, I noticed I was usually starving in the morning or at least thought I was. Believing that I needed to eat was so strong, that I have no remembrance of actually feeling hungry, for, oh, I don't know how long. When I started eating raw, I started noticing that when I get up, my first thoughts are not of food. All of us BREAK fast at different times... and I continue to lose weight and get healthier and healthier, and upon occasion am not truly hungry until noon, or even early afternoon! Also the longer I eat raw definitely is having an impact upon my becoming increasingly attuned to my body and learning from it. When I was eating all cooked food and low-nutrient/high-fat/high sugar food, I seemed to be totally out of touch with my body.

Yesterday I let the day get away from me before getting to the gym to exercise before it closed, and it was chilly and rainy all day, and my precious baywalk was closed for this year's Gasparilla Extravaganza Children's Parade. So tonight I was especially determined to get outside to walk. I get down to the seawall, and it turns out they had closed Bayshore Drive again from Patriot's Corner where I usually stow my car while I do my run, northward, so I head south to my old starting point, El Prado. I begin a walk south towards Ballast Point, 3.6 miles roundtrip. The concrete walk along the seawall narrows toward the end of Bayshore, continuing alongside brick-paved streets gently winding to mimic the unseen curve of the shore just the other side of the townhomes on the east, ending up at Ballast Point Park.

As is always true after missing a day of exercise for any reason, I spend the first five minutes allowing Fat Brain and Skinny Brain to duke it out about who is driving Body, and whether or not we're going to "turn this body around and take it right home!"...Skinny Brain, as always, wins, even though Fat Brain had Faceskin and Fingers on his side, and Shrinking Torso was undecided. Then I start opening my mind to various and sundry thoughts to see what would come, and this is what I ended up with tonight:

• I'm so glad I have all my extremities still with me to be able to feel anything, including cold. No matter how I might feel about war as a philosophy or in general, God bless you, co-citizens of this country, who have ended up losing any part of your body in the line of militaristic duty to which you felt called or honor-bound to perform you believed to be in the pursuit of freedom for your countrymen and countrywomen.


• Pushing myself to complete the daily efforts to reach my goals is part of it... it never stops and I can never quit, unless I want to stop trying to reach goals.


• After the first five or ten minutes, it's a moot point anyway--- I'm going to finish at that point.


• Even if you're half-frozen, always take time to stop for a surprise fireworks exhibition...you never know if it will be the last one you ever see.


• I've never seen fireworks dropped by planes flying in tandem before! The Red Baron Squadron's aerobatic performance was an amazing sight, especially the sparkly contrails...but watching them caused a tension within which detracts a bit from my unabashed enjoyment, because they fly too close to each other and I'm afraid of some tragic occurrence...


• Are there fireworks in Heaven continuously? That's probably thinking too small...from what I've been told....I love fireworks.
• Why does watching fireworks make you want to drink alcoholic beverages and light up a cigar and swing your hips around in hulahoop fashion and cry WooHOOO! Or is that just me?


• Why are most of the shooting sparkles the colors of Christmas? Does magenta and hot pink and chartreuse cost more? Are our city coffers a bit constrained--like my own--- in the fireworks-display budget right now?


• It is marginally more fun to watch fireworks displays--- especially when I'm experiencing physical discomfort--- with someone than without...but it's alright alone, too. Alone in a crowd.


• It's tremendously cold for the Floridian species...47 degrees windchill back at the house, probably colder down here at the bay.


• My tailbone hurts, perched on one of the concrete seats curving bayside at intervals along the seawall, and my hands form cloth-clad stumps inside the ends of each sleeve and are plunged inside the pouch at the front of my red and black hoodie. But if I leave now, I won't get to see the big finale...they always have a big finale... it is a battle of will to stick it out, especially as others begin to give up and move off towards the assured warmth of their respective rides or homes.


• I want to see the big finale.

The evening walk ends up being a metaphor of my weightloss experience-- I tend to turn everything into a metaphor of my weightloss experience--- but it really was: if I can endure the momentary discomfort, I'll get to experience the pleasure of the Big Finale! And after I started to walk on to my car, after the big, wonderful, unusually explosive ending, a minute or so elapsed, and they had one more encore! Which I related in my mind to maintenance... more reward for continued effort.

Sitting in queue at the railroad tracks, it occurred to me the day ended up being a feast for the senses...face-deadening, finger-stiffening cold, startlingly awesome pyrotechnic display, delicious new fruit to taste, the sound of fireworks exploding, both shooting up and being dropped from planes into the night skies, the loud blare of the locomotive I had to wait for on the way home, the heater air slowly warming my toes, while the cold air above kept my nose and cheeks numb... of all the days there've ever been, this certainly has been one!

So, I'm thinking, I can't wait to see what kind of days this journey will bring me in the months ahead, and I want to stay...until the end, and beyond!

Fear of Feasting Alleviated by Veggie Porn

"And although it be not always so plentifull, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God,

we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plentie."

---Edward Winslow writing in Mourt's Relation,

one of only two primary sources for the events of autumn 1621 in Plymouth, MA

We were planning to go to The Pub Waterfront Restaurant, over in Indian Shores, for Thanksgiving dinner...I really did not relish the thought of the whole two-day food-prep rigamarole, for food I wasn't going to eat, anyway. I discovered while either reading Creative Loafing or *tbt that they were serving TD traditional roast turkey with all the trimmings. Knowing that Ossie is all about tradition-- we've had the same things at Thanksgiving Dinner for twenty years, an amalgamation of what my mother (and her mother) made and what his mother made, with a few creations of my own added over time-- I thought, what a wonderful way to preserve my rawtiety and not make the family suffer unduly! With the added bonusii of being waited on, no cleanup, and the certain appropriateness of traveling to a place called Indian Shores on Thanksgiving, I excitedly called for reservations.

Despite all that, we made some last-minute changes to TD dinner plans when Ossie returned from Boston this week. Maybe it was something about being closer to the area the actual first Thanksgiving took place, I don't know. But when he returned, his resolve to go out for TD had waned, and after very little discussion, I agreed. We are going to stay home and cook, again, but a streamlined version of all the other years. Ossie is going to help prepare. He is actually an excellent cook and enjoys it, so we are dividing the duties. I'll handle the veggies, he'll handle the meat, and we'll come together on the dressing. There was some momentary angst, when discussing just purchasing a turkey breast for the whitemeat lover, and a leg for the darkmeat lover (alas, the poor turkey, he loved all of his meat!), and Ossie worried about not having giblets for the gravy or dressing. I reminded him that, he hated giblets, and so did my son, and the only person who ever gobbled them down was...mois. This cheered him up greatly, and the modified plans are in place and widely accepted. They make more sense for everyone, now that I have gotten over my fear of cooking.

It wasn't as if I bothered to make pies for a long time, anyway. Grocery store bakeries do such a good job, more cheaply. Traditional pies at TD never were a huge draw for me... I only suffer the pie to get at the whipped topping, and left up to the other two family members, they don't even want the topping! (You can see on top of having a food addiction, part of my curse was to live in a house filled with non-foodies, with no sweet tooth, who forget to eat on a regular basis---in other words, I've been forced to cohabitate with beings outside my species.) Now, a great treat will be an extra smoothie that day... a fresh cranberry-apple-orange one in the morning, and a watermelon-papaya-pineapple one later in the day. For the actual dinner I can just share the nice big fresh-fruit salad I make for everyone else to enjoy. I look forward to that, because I haven't taken the time since I've been raw to actually cut up fruit and make a mixed salad! I tend to be a mono-eater, one of the reasons I find eating raw food so appealing. That might mainly be due to the fact I simply enjoy eating one food at a time-- sometimes the same food over and over again for weeks until I move onto the next one--or to my extreme laziness when it comes to getting nutrients and fuel into my mouth when it doesn't involve preparing for anyone else.

As Boot Camp has progressed, I've learned more and more, and I'm starting to loosen up about this new way I eat, and live, and think. I was feeling so magnanimous, I made dinner again last night... the previously-dreaded rellenos. It was so alright, I didn't even crave one-- not ONE, I tell you! Part of dinner involved making the pintos from scratch, which I started in the morning, seasoning blind, had hubby taste midday, they were pronounced fine, and I didn't have to worry about them again, except to keep an eye on them just simmering a few more hours. No big whoop with the pintos...my legumitude is, to forego the good but not fantasy-inspiring flavor, I can do without the after effects. I crave them not.

The other part-- a prior subject of fear--- was preparing the actual chile rellenos. They are my absolute favorite dish, ethnic or otherwise, of all time. I was able to avoid a dangerous part of the Relleno Ritual, because they had already been roasted and frozen. After they were half-defrosted, I peeled them and then, it became more like an art project. Since they had come from the tailend of the crop we harvested from our backyard garden this fall, they were so small, the usual Mexican-cheese strips with which I stuff them would not fit. Each chile had to be laid out on a board with the Queso Blanco strip beside. In order to make the chile relleno, or 'stuffed', I then had to carve the exact shape to fit that chile and carefully slide it in. I was partway through this process, when it occurred to me-- I was sculpting little phallic shapes and slipping the little chile condoms over them.

That pretty much did it. Took it right out of the realm of food for me. The rest was a snap. After I finished dipping them into the batter of blended yolks and eggwhites beaten stiff--- oh, no... I won't even go there---and frying them in the hot, melted vegetable grease---which caused me to ponder, how does one render a vegetable in order to extract its fat?---I immediately tidied up, wiping all the ceramic down with my homemade cleaner-- a mixture of a little bit of purple Fabuloso (a wonderful cleaner originally from Mexico, now manufactured by Colgate-Palmolive and pissing off the people at ConsumerReports.org who fear their sweet-smelling and luscious-coloured product may entice small children to drink and die), water, and a bottle of alcohol. I was Suzy-Homemaker for a few moments, again-- even filled (but failed to start, which I discovered this morning) the dishwasher, then walked out to the back landing to do my 57 wall push-ups for a challenge at Rawk Village.

Let me tell you, when it was all over, and I had gone out front for a moment and come back in, I realized it was the first time I had smelled any of the cooking odors! Made me wonder about how deeply I breathe normally. It also dawned on me how much easier it was to stand for all the time it takes to prepare them, and how my back didn't even start to hurt until the very end. That's understandable, since I'm just two pounds from my goal of releasing thirty during this first Boot Camp. What a difference from seven weeks ago when it would start hurting within the first five minutes, standing bent over the countertop, to do any type of food prep. Maybe my body remembering that associated pain was the real reason I dreaded making chile rellenos, after all.

But now...Piece of cuke!