The Further Adventures of Deluzy

Happy 4th of July

My mother would be proud:  this morning I put out the flag ("Old Glory," she used to say, half-ironically, half-affectionately) and (here, neither she nor my oldest sister would be proud) made the traditional potato salad (everyone knows you're supposed to make it the night before so that all the flavors have a chance to combine and set -- but oh well).

Potato salad in hand, I'm heading to my friend D's house later this afternoon -- just me, him, his partner J, and the 4-pack of dogs.  Woof. My husband prefers to mind the home front and keep the kitties company on this night of loud fireworks, and that's fine by all.

(My husband did mark the day by cutting off his hair, which he'd let get very long [for him] since he retired early two years ago [I think it was his way of saying fuck The Man]. His hair is white and wispy, with a bald spot on top, but the wispiness hung to his shoulders.  I'd said nary a word, because hey, if tht's the way he wanted to wear his hair, he got to -- just as I wear mine the way I like. I only ever observed, when the topic came up, that I thought he was handsome with his hair short. Then today, in the name of practicality and staying cool during the summer, he took an electric razor to his locks, and -- wham, call him Sampson (with me as Delilah, I guess, because I neatened up the job). Now he's as shorn as a lamb -- and just as cute. ;) )

On other fronts, I've looked up motorcycle safety classes and at least here in California, the state seems to dominate the market and set fees. $250 (ouch!) will get you basic training and, if you pass, the DMV driver portion of a motorcycle license; the written portion still has to be taken through the DMV itself.  The scooters in which I'm interested fall into the 125cc range rather than 49/50cc, so that license is going to be necessary even to test-drive something.

Because I'm always slow off the mark, all classes within 25 miles of me are fully booked through mid-August, of course -- which is right when I head into the fray of the new semester.  Not wonderful timing, but whaddyagonnado? After I finish posting this, I'm going to reserve my space online and plunk down my money -- and jesusgod, that will mean I'm serious about this. 

Methinks at some point this fall I'm going to get me a scooter!

P.S. Lenten outcomes

Before I totally forget to  mention it, I should confess that I failed miserably at this year's Lenten resolution to give up coffee shop lattes (ones I made for myself at home were okay, according to my scheme of things.  Don't ask me why).

I made it through the first week of March -- kind of -- and then when my work schedule careened out of control with the search for a new chair, I caved.  I was sucking back coffee shop lattes to beat the band.

It's sick, but they felt Fundamentally Necessary to me in order to 1) get through my grueling days and nights; 2) meet my protein quotas.  It got to the point where I dreaded ordering another latte (which I never would have thought possible), but I knew that I would collapse without one. Literally.

(*S* is correct when she comments that adequate rest is especially necessary for DS patients and that the margin for error with that is much narrower than it is prior to WLS. I have one or two times a year during my job when it's literally impossible to make sure I get that rest, and inevitably I feel sick with fatigue during those periods. Feels utterly and completely awful.)

At any rate, my consumption of lattes has now dropped back down to one, sometimes two, a day.  (Hey, I do love my lattes.)  Now it's time to figure out how much money I might have saved if I had successfully not bought lattes throughout Lent and then donate that amount to Kiva.org, a really wonderful microloan organization. That was my original intent, and that, at least, I can follow through on.

Where's my calculator?

Happy Easter

This is still my favorite Easter cartoon, and I post it and/or send it out every year.  Cracks me up each and every time I see it.

It's a beautiful day here today, and in about an hour I'm going to get dress (it's already late morning, and I'm thoroughly enjoying being a slug on this, my first day of spring break!) and head to my cousin's in Berkeley for her annual Easter gathering. I don't think I've seen her or other members of this branch of my extended family since a large reunion on the east coast in 2005, so I'm looking forward to it.

My husband will remain happily at home with a new PlayStation game that the Easter Bunny brought him. (Uh, part of the new home entertainment line-up is a Sony PlayStation that accommodates BluRay -- and my husband has no PS games yet, so I got him one.  Man, those things are pricey -- sheesh!)

After the gathering at my cousin's, time permitting, I may see a friend in a nearby town whose beloved dog died a few days ago and who's feeling blue. We'll see if the day works out that way and if it's something he wants to do.

All in all, I anticipate a relaxing day, one that will start the detoxing process from the previous frantic three weeks.

Food yesterday was really not good -- way too many carbs and sweets because I gave into mindless stress-eating so I feel kind of yucky today. I'm looking forward to having a more cleansing, refreshing, nutritional day today.

Maximize the protein, minimize the carbs, and all will be well.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

To wear green or not wear green -- that is the question.  The only genuinely green item I own is a rather ratty sweater, but if I pair it with a nice black top beneath it and a pretty black skirt and boots, I supposed I could get away with it  (i.e., people might not notice the pilling at hip level where my shoulder bag has rubbed against the weave).

Why not?  Who's looking, after all, for god's sake?!

I began my day with coffee and three rugelah (echoes of older, compulsive carb consumption there), but I've since shifted to a protein shake.  When I'm stretched to the limit at times like these, I really notice how close to the edge DS patients' bodies are: you can't neglect the basics (i.e., water, protein, vitamins, enough sleep) for long at all before you start feeling really shitty.  Your health improves after the DS, but there's also far less margin for error in taking care of it.

I know this. I can't do a whole hell of a lot about the lack of sleep until after Wednesday, but I can drink water, minimize caffeine (maybe -- truly I'm clutching at it like a lifeline, but I'm also trying to stay hydrated with other, better forms of liquids), and I can build in little breaks in my day.  Today?  I'll go to breakfast with the chair camdidate, I'll teach my class, I'll listen to the candidate's presentation, and go to dinner with him -- but for lunch I'm staying in my office and getting some work done.

It's not much, but it's the best I can do for today.

Happy Valentine's Day

I've always really liked Valentine's Day.  I  like hearts. I like the color red.  What's not to like?

Historically, I've had very few boyfriends, so I learned early on that, for me, the day was less about Romance and more about expressing love and affection for the people in my life -- friends, mostly -- that I cared about.

That was a perspective I learned early on. My grandmother used to send me the most beautiful, elaborate, Victorian-style Valentine's cards that I'd treasure for years. She was born at the end of the nineteenth century, so they seemed very much a part of her.

I remember Valentine's Day in my 4th grade classroom, too, when everyone bought packages of 32 very simple cards to sign and put in the little mailboxes we'd all made to hang off our desks on Valentine's Day.  We'd all have time to go around the room playing mailman and deliver our cards, and everyone would come away with a haul.

(What's the deal with those packages of cards now?  They're all branded and cross-branded with Disney characters or superheroes  ... yuck!)

It was a little more difficult in high school.  There, people could order single carnations in advance and have them delivered in first period, and there were some  girls who went around school clutching veritable bouquets of the things, so popular were they.  Others, often had none, and I remember that was a socially painful thing to navigate:  She's Popular.  She is Not.

My husband and I are very low-key about Valentine's Day, but it's nice anyway. While I was still in bed this morning, catching up on missed sleep from yesterday, I heard him go out.  By the time I'd gotten up and set out his little bag o' symbolic Valentine's treats, he returned.  He came directly to my study, clutching a bouquet of flowers, a card, and a bag of sugar-free candy in a Target bag. 

"I did it, dear!" he exclaimed triumphantly.  "Flowers, a card, and candy -- just like I'm supposed to!"

I stared at him for a second and then burst out laughing.  Romantic?  No.  Sweet? Yeah, pretty much, especially when I read the card.  On the front was a little boy holding a single flower, as if to say, "Here!  Take it!", and inside the caption read, "I really, really, really like you."  My husband had added, "To my dearest dear girl on Valentine's Day.  My best girl!"

Aw.

I'll guess I'll keep him.

Ash Wednesday

(Wow.  Hillary and Obama are neck and neck after Super Tuesday.  Ultimately, I will happily vote for either in a national election -- but I'm still pulling for Obama.)

I wrote about Lent in this blog a year ago and my relationship to it then, so I won't go into now -- except to say once again I'm going to do my best to give something up for it. For me Lent is a symbolic reminder of both plenitude and need, an occasion to express gratitude for all that I have as well as my awareness of  how that gratitude needs to translate into action on behalf of others who  have less.

Pass it on.  Otherwise, it does no good.

Now, remember, this is a purely symbolic gesture on my part and its practicality is virtually nil.  It just isn't going to change the world, and it's definitely the thinking of a western person of privilege in the early 21st century. Nevertheless, for the next 40 days, I'm going to forego my trips to Starbucks and/or Peet's for my daily latte and, come Easter, calculate what I would have spent there and put it toward a Kivo micro-loan. The frequency with which I go to either store will remind me of the larger point behind this on a daily basis, and the money, however little a drop in the bucket it will amount to in the Scheme of Things, will do somebody some good somewhere.

Home-brewed lattes are still fine, and according to my particular Lenten scheme this year, trips to either store to buy coffee in bean or ground form for that purpose are also okay. But the daily stops en route to work or while I'm out and about running errands? I can give those up and create however brief a daily opportunity to think and work toward something better as I go about my days.

Happy New Year 2008

It's here, it's bright and shiny, it's full of possibility -- which is never the way I used to feel about the dawn of a new year.

For me, growing up, the new year was more about endings than beginnings. My much-older siblings would generally leave and return to their lives far away in the middle of the country or on an opposite coast -- in college, or at jobs -- and it would just be my mother and me again.  And, in that last year before he died, my father, too (which doesn't actually bear thinking about because it was so lonely and scary).

The new year was the time for taking down the holiday decorations (and I so loved it when they had gone up, only a few weeks earlier). The dry Christmas tree, denuded of ornaments, looked sad before it was taken down, and the living room, with its furniture set back in its customary places, seemed far too ordinary and commonplace.

But now I rather like the start of a new year. I'm usually more than ready for the decorations to be put away until the following December, and I like putting the house to rights again. New calendars are hung, holiday foods are disposed of (if there's anything remaining!), resolutions are there to move one forward.

For me, this year, New Year's Day represents a partial return to work by choice (i.e., I'm sorting through and responding to some email, writing a couple of letters of recommendation, and getting ready for a half-pleasure/half-business meeting with a colleague tomorrow).  As it turns out, my department has imploded with petty politics in recent weeks, with people acting out in truly the most amazing ways: I've been watching the conflagration taking place through email, exclaiming aloud now and then, "Oh my god!" when something particularly nasty, demented, or unprofessional pops up, and then repeating my mantra to myself: "Step away from the pathology."  As a junior faculty member (the only one in the department, I might add), it behooves me to keep my mouth shut in large groups, express my opinions to smaller sub-groups of tenured colleagues with whom I already have an alliance, and then let them do the heavy lifting of debate in public, but of course, I'm no spring chicken, so occasionally I do express a viewpoint -- circumspectly, I trust, but with a certain amount of irony and understatement that apparently sends my messages more clearly than words alone ever could. (I used to think I had a poker face, but I've been informed many times that when I adopt a carefully blank expression in meetings or social situations, those who know me can tell just exactly how full of shit I think the subject or person under discussion is.) 

At any rate, it looks as if we may have to come together (at least physically) prior to the start of a new term for a meeting led by a professional organizer in order to move through some of the issues we face.  As one colleague observed, without such a person, any meeting is likely to be a bloodbath.

One can prepare for the worst but hope for the best -- that's my approach to the current fracas.

In addition to a little light work today, I plan to start my pleasure reading for 2008 (note the new list on the right-hand sidebar), perhaps watch a film, and maybe do a little investigation of pedometers.  I flushed my last one down the toilet.  By mistake. Honestly.  But I'd like to get another to help me track one of my new year resolutions.

Auld Lang Syne

What a satisfying way to spend the last day of December 2007 -- with my old, dear friend B and, for a time, her sweet 4-year old daughter, in San Francisco.  We hadn't seen each other in a year, despite less than an hour's distance between our homes, and we were able to begin catching up.

Here's to the end of 2007 -- and the beginning of 2008. May everyone have a safe and happy New Year's Eve.

Time to turn the page

Okay, I'm ready for this month and this holiday season to be over. 

It's not that it's been awful -- but for a variety of reasons it's been a little bumpy, and so I'm ready for it to end.  In fact, until we do move into January, I don't think I'm going to be able to figure out how much of my emotional malaise is due to the need to tweak meds, or to the holiday season, or to all the work I had this semester and from which I'm still recovering, or to some nutritional oddity that may show up in my second-year DS labs, or what.  There have been just too  many factors occurring simultaneously for me to be able to sort through them all with certainty.

But with the holidays beginning to recede and 2008 only a few days away, I think the sorting will become easier. In fact, I'm counting on it.

Now, here's a question: am I making New Year's Resolutions this year?  Are you?  I haven't decided yet for myself.

Note: I guess I've decided.  Click on the list of resolutions under More (and Less) About Me at the top of the right-hand sidebar.

Old ghosts

Yesterday was oddly difficult, thanks mostly to a (now thankfully rare) attack of depression and panic that, at one point, had me swallowing Ativan and going back to bed for a couple of hours after my husband and I had opened gifts. It snuck up on me unexpectedly and I only realized that, in fact, I was having a full-blown anxiety attack once I was under the covers once more and gasping for breath. Horrible feeling at any time, particularly on Christmas Day.

But looking back across the past several weeks I can sort of see how the groundwork was laid for it. Old baggage in and around Christmas that dates way, way back to my family of origin had been accumulating in various mental chambers for weeks now. Then gifts received and not received, symbolism intended and unintended, were the triggers. And stretched beneath it all, as always, is my wonky brain biochemistry which needs its daily care and feeding.

All in all, the mind can be a dangerous, dark place, and unhappily it was thus for me for most of Christmas Day.  I laid low, turned off my phone, tried not to spread the non-cheer about to my husband  (who couldn't help but notice that something was off), and tried to sort myself out. I isolate when I get in this place, kind of like an injured or sick cat, and that behavior was itself an old trigger ("Uh-oh, am I going to find myself huddled in a fetal position on the floor of my closet in the next few hours?  Am I going Back There?"  More anxiety, more panic.)

It's impossible to describe the condition to anyone who hasn't been in the grips of clinical depression, clinical anxiety (something which is true but which I also realize I use as truth  to isolate myself further from others, thinking you can't possibly understand). Part of me still wants to numb out with additional meds, or with food; part of me wants to run run run to where no one can find me.

Sigh.  None of this -- none of these feelings, none of my past -- relieves me of the obligation of taking care of myelf, being an adult, and dealing like a grown-up in the present. So I won't numb out with meds or food; I won't run away; and I suspect that this, too, shall pass -- sooner rather than later.