Five of my favorite things right now (yeah, that's right, goin' all Oprah today. I had to counteract the heavy posts from before):
1) Planning trips. I've got one planned already (U.Va. Reunions in June, woohoo!), another in the works (Dallas, Memorial Day weekend - just have to buy the tix), and about three more in the early daydream stages (New York in the fall? Canada ... sometime? Paris 2013, anyone?)
2) Celebrity blogs/tweets. Yeah, I'm late on the bandwagon. But I find it oddly endearing to find out that Shaquille O'Neal really wants to break his diet and go to Dairy Queen (I feel you, Shaq. I feel you). My fave celeb Twitter pages so far: Felicia Day, Michael Ian Black, Wil Wheaton, John Mayer (he's a douche, but he's a funny douche) and Idris Elba (mostly for the sheer number of times he uses "yuh mon" and "fanks." SO British! and he was Stringer Bell!)
3) Pandora radio. This has been a favorite thing of mine for awhile but it deserves a shout-out. My stations are becoming more and more refined -- I do get lots of repetition but it's mostly songs I love, and I'm still finding new and interesting artists. And I listened to romantic piano solos for nearly a whole day earlier this week. So much Chopin and Field and Schumann. So calming and gorgeous. Really made me miss playing the piano.
4) Fug Madness. I really don't care about March Madness, even though almost my whole office has gotten into the thing with the brackets and they have a pool and whatever. The Fug Girls, however (see my link to Go Fug Yourself), have a (to me, anyway) much more entertaining spin on the whole thing. My favorite to win it all is SWINTON. Check it out.
5) Emerald Cocoa Roast almonds. Seriously, these things are addictive. I had to divide them into individual servings in ziploc bags last week so I wouldn't just cram the entire container's worth into my mouth while watching TV. They're roasted almonds, awesomely crunchy, lightly sweetened with a little dark cocoa powder. Excellent 3:30 pm snack - I always want something desserty then, but these babies have protein too. Next project is coming up with recipes in which to include them. I am open to suggestions and I'll certainly post about anything delicious I invent.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
by the way ...
I'm sure I'll have something cheerful to post eventually.
Unfortunately my habit is to write in a heavy and introspective manner. And I tend to blog late at night. Which means so far I'm really coming off as a glass-half-empty kind of person.
Unfortunately my habit is to write in a heavy and introspective manner. And I tend to blog late at night. Which means so far I'm really coming off as a glass-half-empty kind of person.
No Man Is An Island
... Any man's death diminishes me.
John Donne's words came back to me just now when I read about Natasha Richardson's sudden and tragic death. I knew of her mostly as Sally Bowles from the Cabaret cast recording soundtrack I've worn out, as one of the Redgraves, as Liam Neeson's wife. I can't honestly say I ever followed her, or made a concerted effort to view her work. But there's something in me that hurts to hear of her death, like it hurt when Heath Ledger died last year. I knew a lot of people who had similar reactions to that -- we were all sad, to the point of reflecting on it long past the normal celebrity-news attention span we have developed. And we were all embarrassed to be sad about someone we'd never met. Even people like my mother, whose celebrity knowledge is usually vague at best, confessed months later that she was still thinking about him.
I remember trying to pinpoint the reason for this unusually keen grief over someone I'd hardly ever thought about during his life. Am I really just that obsessed with Hollywood? I do spend a lot of time reading, talking, thinking about, and watching celebrity culture. I do feel, on some level, that I *know* these people, though of course at the same time I realize I don't.
Or was there a sense of identification somewhere in there - because after seeing him on film as a high schooler when I was, myself, in high school I felt a bit like we'd grown up together? Or maybe it was because his overdose, rather than from some typical heroin-and-coke-fueled celebrity orgy at the Chateau Marmont, seemed to stem from a completely understandable mix of depression, exhaustion, confusion, and just plain bad luck. Everyone I know has suffered from at least some of Heath's problems, and several of them (probably more than I'm aware of) have narrowly avoided sharing his fate. And a few *have* shared it.
Or maybe it comes down to fear. It's not enough that there are car accidents and homicides and heart disease and cancer and strokes; there are also accidental prescription drug overdoses. And fatal head injuries caused by minor falls. Probability for these kinds of events may be low, but as is demonstrated by the widespread phobia of flying (in which I unfortunately share), statistics mean nothing in the face of fear. Death can be so random. We try to work out, eat right, visit the doctor for physicals, avoid unnecessary risk; but we're unprepared to deal with these bizarre events. And if someone larger than life, with plenty of money and all of the security and care that can buy, can be snuffed out just like that? So can we. So can I. No one is safe.
So I guess it makes sense to be sad, even if it's about someone I've never met. It's not rational, but that's kind of what makes it human. We all share the same fears, and we all run the risk of our lives ending any day, from any random bit of bad luck. We're all connected in that way.
Every person's death does diminish us all.
John Donne's words came back to me just now when I read about Natasha Richardson's sudden and tragic death. I knew of her mostly as Sally Bowles from the Cabaret cast recording soundtrack I've worn out, as one of the Redgraves, as Liam Neeson's wife. I can't honestly say I ever followed her, or made a concerted effort to view her work. But there's something in me that hurts to hear of her death, like it hurt when Heath Ledger died last year. I knew a lot of people who had similar reactions to that -- we were all sad, to the point of reflecting on it long past the normal celebrity-news attention span we have developed. And we were all embarrassed to be sad about someone we'd never met. Even people like my mother, whose celebrity knowledge is usually vague at best, confessed months later that she was still thinking about him.
I remember trying to pinpoint the reason for this unusually keen grief over someone I'd hardly ever thought about during his life. Am I really just that obsessed with Hollywood? I do spend a lot of time reading, talking, thinking about, and watching celebrity culture. I do feel, on some level, that I *know* these people, though of course at the same time I realize I don't.
Or was there a sense of identification somewhere in there - because after seeing him on film as a high schooler when I was, myself, in high school I felt a bit like we'd grown up together? Or maybe it was because his overdose, rather than from some typical heroin-and-coke-fueled celebrity orgy at the Chateau Marmont, seemed to stem from a completely understandable mix of depression, exhaustion, confusion, and just plain bad luck. Everyone I know has suffered from at least some of Heath's problems, and several of them (probably more than I'm aware of) have narrowly avoided sharing his fate. And a few *have* shared it.
Or maybe it comes down to fear. It's not enough that there are car accidents and homicides and heart disease and cancer and strokes; there are also accidental prescription drug overdoses. And fatal head injuries caused by minor falls. Probability for these kinds of events may be low, but as is demonstrated by the widespread phobia of flying (in which I unfortunately share), statistics mean nothing in the face of fear. Death can be so random. We try to work out, eat right, visit the doctor for physicals, avoid unnecessary risk; but we're unprepared to deal with these bizarre events. And if someone larger than life, with plenty of money and all of the security and care that can buy, can be snuffed out just like that? So can we. So can I. No one is safe.
So I guess it makes sense to be sad, even if it's about someone I've never met. It's not rational, but that's kind of what makes it human. We all share the same fears, and we all run the risk of our lives ending any day, from any random bit of bad luck. We're all connected in that way.
Every person's death does diminish us all.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Willpower vs. Stress: An Unfortunate Reminder
The past week and a half or so I've had to perform in two choir concerts (both on weeknights), layer my clothes like crazy every day since the weather has been so up and down, set all my clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time and lose an hour of my weekend, take apart five old computers to remove the hard drives, figure out what's going wrong with one of the servers, fight a workplace plague that claimed almost all of my coworkers at one point or another, and use about half the albuterol in my inhaler thanks to all the tree pollen floating around.
Have I mentioned that I hate springtime in Denver? My allergies and asthma go nuts, work gets progressively busier, there are no holidays to look forward to (only summer, which is anything but holiday-like for us), the temperatures are summery one day and wintry the next, and there are hardly any flowers anywhere for more than a week or two. The best I can say for it is it's at least less torturous than the perpetual pollen-ridden Santa Barbara, where I lived before I moved here. But after growing up in Texas, where we routinely started swimming in our unheated backyard pool in March, and spending five years in the lush, green Southeast, I just can't appreciate the Colorado springtime.
Yes, I'm a cranky old woman. Thanks for pointing it out.
So anyway, I've been working to lose weight since the New Year and it's been going mostly well. I got into a gym routine and started carrying around a little notebook in which I enter everything I eat and corresponding calories (since I am lazy, and also have little to no willpower, this means I eat a lot of Lean Cuisine and other prepackaged foods. Oh, well. I'll cross the nuked-plastic-caused-cancer bridge when I come to it). That is, most of the time. Except when I decide to cheat, and then it's often too difficult (and shameful) to calculate the calories.
A couple of weeks ago, when I started having trouble breathing all the time (when I go to bed, wake up, walk a block or up a flight of stairs, and sometimes randomly at my desk) and waking up with a sore throat every morning, I decided to take it easy on the gym.
Mistake #1: disrupting an already fragile routine. Granted, since my asthma is partially exercise-induced, I try not to poke the beast any more than necessary when it's pollen season. But I should have found a less aerobic exercise so as to keep my momentum. Instead I used it as an excuse for a "vacation" from my good behavior. Since I was home at night, and bored, I decided to order takeout. Which turned into several days of takeout, buying junk food at the grocery store, eating random snacks at work, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Mistake #2: exacerbating the problem by throwing my hands up with an "in for a penny, in for a pound" (or technically, in my case, three pounds and counting) attitude. I should be more careful, not less, about food when I'm not exercising - especially as food can also be really important in regards to my mental and physical health. I was especially tempted into all this because work has been busy and stressful, and I had the choir concert to worry about as well. I once read an article that described the results of studies that showed people have a finite amount of willpower (although luckily it can be increased with practice). Basically, if you're exerting too much willpower in one area you're much more likely to fail in others. I was concentrating on work and choir, and getting my other necessary things like laundry and groceries done, at the expense of the mental energy it takes me to stay on track with food and exercise.
Mistake #3: letting my mental energy lapse. I should always have a plan for ways to relax and de-stress. Enjoying myself and refusing to take life too seriously in my free time is what allows me the strength to do things I find difficult or scary the rest of the time. I know this, but I let myself slide into old habits, which only make things worse in the long run. Maybe rather than doing laundry I should have planned a trip to the library, or a long walk in the neighborhood, or an apartment-reorganizing project, or a non-food indulgence like a massage or a pedicure.
I realized today that my muscles are sore (maybe because on Wednesday I went back to the gym after a two week absence, or maybe just from recent tension) and that my plan to 'reward' myself with a massage once I get back on track was flawed. I can't deny myself pleasure and relaxation until I've been "good" again; I need to actively seek them so that I can be "good." Long story short, I scheduled a massage for tomorrow.
Have I mentioned that I hate springtime in Denver? My allergies and asthma go nuts, work gets progressively busier, there are no holidays to look forward to (only summer, which is anything but holiday-like for us), the temperatures are summery one day and wintry the next, and there are hardly any flowers anywhere for more than a week or two. The best I can say for it is it's at least less torturous than the perpetual pollen-ridden Santa Barbara, where I lived before I moved here. But after growing up in Texas, where we routinely started swimming in our unheated backyard pool in March, and spending five years in the lush, green Southeast, I just can't appreciate the Colorado springtime.
Yes, I'm a cranky old woman. Thanks for pointing it out.
So anyway, I've been working to lose weight since the New Year and it's been going mostly well. I got into a gym routine and started carrying around a little notebook in which I enter everything I eat and corresponding calories (since I am lazy, and also have little to no willpower, this means I eat a lot of Lean Cuisine and other prepackaged foods. Oh, well. I'll cross the nuked-plastic-caused-cancer bridge when I come to it). That is, most of the time. Except when I decide to cheat, and then it's often too difficult (and shameful) to calculate the calories.
A couple of weeks ago, when I started having trouble breathing all the time (when I go to bed, wake up, walk a block or up a flight of stairs, and sometimes randomly at my desk) and waking up with a sore throat every morning, I decided to take it easy on the gym.
Mistake #1: disrupting an already fragile routine. Granted, since my asthma is partially exercise-induced, I try not to poke the beast any more than necessary when it's pollen season. But I should have found a less aerobic exercise so as to keep my momentum. Instead I used it as an excuse for a "vacation" from my good behavior. Since I was home at night, and bored, I decided to order takeout. Which turned into several days of takeout, buying junk food at the grocery store, eating random snacks at work, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Mistake #2: exacerbating the problem by throwing my hands up with an "in for a penny, in for a pound" (or technically, in my case, three pounds and counting) attitude. I should be more careful, not less, about food when I'm not exercising - especially as food can also be really important in regards to my mental and physical health. I was especially tempted into all this because work has been busy and stressful, and I had the choir concert to worry about as well. I once read an article that described the results of studies that showed people have a finite amount of willpower (although luckily it can be increased with practice). Basically, if you're exerting too much willpower in one area you're much more likely to fail in others. I was concentrating on work and choir, and getting my other necessary things like laundry and groceries done, at the expense of the mental energy it takes me to stay on track with food and exercise.
Mistake #3: letting my mental energy lapse. I should always have a plan for ways to relax and de-stress. Enjoying myself and refusing to take life too seriously in my free time is what allows me the strength to do things I find difficult or scary the rest of the time. I know this, but I let myself slide into old habits, which only make things worse in the long run. Maybe rather than doing laundry I should have planned a trip to the library, or a long walk in the neighborhood, or an apartment-reorganizing project, or a non-food indulgence like a massage or a pedicure.
I realized today that my muscles are sore (maybe because on Wednesday I went back to the gym after a two week absence, or maybe just from recent tension) and that my plan to 'reward' myself with a massage once I get back on track was flawed. I can't deny myself pleasure and relaxation until I've been "good" again; I need to actively seek them so that I can be "good." Long story short, I scheduled a massage for tomorrow.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
The Furniture Epiphany
I turned twenty-six in January. Not a major birthday, really. It was on a Monday, and I celebrated by taking the day off work - I went to the gym, went to my favorite hamburger place for lunch and spent the afternoon watching episodes of House on DVD, and that was it. There were no profound differences in my life to mark this birthday - I've been in the same apartment in the same city now for over two years, had the same job for over three, and remain as single as I was the day I graduated from college. But I did wake up with the keen awareness of being closer to thirty than twenty, and with that came an epiphany of sorts: I'm a grown woman, but my surroundings don't reflect my real life. How did I realize this? I looked around and noticed:
Everything in my apartment folds.
OK, not everything. Just everything serving as a seat or bed. I had two mismatched futons (one serving as my bed and the other as a drastically less comfortable spare couch/guest bed), a cushioned butterfly chair, and two flimsy wooden folding chairs.
I've been out of college and in the workforce for five years, I have my own place, and I'm a homebody who spends a lot of time in my apartment; I need a home that reflects those facts or I'll never feel like this is my real life. Cheap, folding furniture doesn't just indicate that I work for a nonprofit or live in a small space; it implies that my residence here is a temporary thing. That I could pick up and go with little effort at any point. That I wouldn't care if I had to leave all my furniture in an alley or sell it for twenty bucks on Craigslist because it was no more intentionally chosen or arranged than dorm room furniture. It's been very easy to prolong a college-student mindset in my life, because I've moved a lot and thrown myself into the culture of the organization I work for. In a way, I stumbled into the job I'm doing now, and for a long time I just went with the flow, committing for the minimum possible time, feeling sure I'd be leaving and finding a new career just as soon as I magically figured things out. I didn't bother trying to make friends or date outside of work, since I thought I'd just be leaving anyway. And then I woke up and realized that I like my job, I like this city. and even if I don't know where I'll end up or what I'll do when I get there, I can still live my life here, now, as if this is it. That I should.
So on my twenty-sixth birthday I made a resolution to put down roots. I decided to be conscious of living my life rather than just waiting for the next milestone to pass. Before the month was over, I'd made my first step towards acknowledging my life as a grown-up: buying a chair. A real one. It's stylish, it goes with the colors I like and already have in my apartment, it has a matching ottoman, and best of all? It doesn't fold.
For Serious
I've never been able to maintain any kind of diary, journal, or blog for longer than a month or so. But this is my year. This time it's for serious. Yeah.
Of course, like all journal/diary/blog entries I've ever written, this one is being created late at night. I should be asleep right now, but I've thrown my sleep schedule ridiculously far off.
Reasons I'm still awake at 2:35 a.m. on a Sunday:
- Stayed up till 4 a.m. on Saturday, slept until 1 p.m., so it only feels like ten or so at night
- Made and drank coffee (to prevent caffeine-withdrawal headache) normal length of time after weekend wakeup; which because of aforementioned late night meant the coffee happened circa 4:30 p.m.
- Went crazy on junk food while lazing around with DVDs and stomach is still full/hurting/spewing acid back into esophagus
- Shot of late night whisky (ew. still reminds me of slugs. but had just finished watching a delectable BBC series about a Scottish laird and was in the mood, and happened to have about a shot's worth of whisky in the cupboard.)
All of which make me sound like some kind of losery slacker college kid. Not that I have anything against college kids. But it concerns me that sometimes I feel that I act more like one now, at the age of twenty-six, than I did when I was actually matriculating.
One small comfort, I suppose, is that I don't feel like a college student. College students can shake these sorts of things off - I don't think I ever had a hangover until I was at least two years out of school, and there was an entire semester my second year where I got an average of four or five hours of sleep a night and seemed never to get sick. Not so now. Oh, and the last reason I'm still awake? It's Daylight Savings Time, so I lost an hour and only realized it at about 1:30 a.m. Yes, I'll eventually be glad for the longer daylight, but tomorrow (and Monday) I'll only mourn my missed sleep.
Of course, like all journal/diary/blog entries I've ever written, this one is being created late at night. I should be asleep right now, but I've thrown my sleep schedule ridiculously far off.
Reasons I'm still awake at 2:35 a.m. on a Sunday:
- Stayed up till 4 a.m. on Saturday, slept until 1 p.m., so it only feels like ten or so at night
- Made and drank coffee (to prevent caffeine-withdrawal headache) normal length of time after weekend wakeup; which because of aforementioned late night meant the coffee happened circa 4:30 p.m.
- Went crazy on junk food while lazing around with DVDs and stomach is still full/hurting/spewing acid back into esophagus
- Shot of late night whisky (ew. still reminds me of slugs. but had just finished watching a delectable BBC series about a Scottish laird and was in the mood, and happened to have about a shot's worth of whisky in the cupboard.)
All of which make me sound like some kind of losery slacker college kid. Not that I have anything against college kids. But it concerns me that sometimes I feel that I act more like one now, at the age of twenty-six, than I did when I was actually matriculating.
One small comfort, I suppose, is that I don't feel like a college student. College students can shake these sorts of things off - I don't think I ever had a hangover until I was at least two years out of school, and there was an entire semester my second year where I got an average of four or five hours of sleep a night and seemed never to get sick. Not so now. Oh, and the last reason I'm still awake? It's Daylight Savings Time, so I lost an hour and only realized it at about 1:30 a.m. Yes, I'll eventually be glad for the longer daylight, but tomorrow (and Monday) I'll only mourn my missed sleep.
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