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December 31, 2007
More New Year's Resolutions
Be nicer in person, meaner on blog.
And all you CR-haters can take that as a warning.
I've never much liked the term CRONie, it just sounds too stupid. I think I will coin a new term:
"CRONista."
Posted by april at 6:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
New Year's Revolution
"What do you want to be after the revolution?"
"A musician, of course."
"Oh, I want to be a cocktail waitress."
Actually, I kinda want to be a cocktail waitress now. Or a bartender. At a non-smoking bar with no televisions. Susie and I have this long running fantasy about opening our own bar. Too much stress though, restaurant ownership. I'd rather just be a waitress. Danny is fairly sure I could make more money than I'm making now. Of course, I'd miss helping working people get a voice on the job, doing my share to end the nursing shortage, and working to improve health care for all. But I'd be helping people get their drinks, which really would make them happy, albeit in a short term kinda way.
I'd hate the hours though. I'm a morning person. I need to be a waitress in an upscale bar that caters to night shifters coming in for a drink after work at 7:30 am. Yeah, that's the job I'm looking for.
Posted by april at 6:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Vaguely Southwestern Swiss Chard Salad
We have a lot of leftover Swiss chard (the neutral green!) from the delicious wraps that MR's mom made while they were visiting, so today for lunch I made a giant salad for MR with the chard leaves as a base.
Ingredients (from bottom to top):
Swiss chard
Quorn tenders
eggwhites (just a few to bump up the protein)
Yellow squash
Broccoli
Roasted red peppers
Fat free mozzarella
Avocado
Olive oil
Spiced, with the spices and sauce between the layers:
Cayenne pepper
Cumin
Garlic Tabasco
Lime Juice
Fresh pepper
Garlic
So I'm cooking again... the last dregs of this illness are finding their way out of my body, but I'm still sleeping a lot and waking up stuffy and coughing. We had a great time with the parents of MR, even though my cold slowed me down quite a bit. We went to the art museum on Friday night and attempted to go to the art after five event, but ended up at the restaurant because the happy hour section was just too loud and crowded. They had a little buffet called the "Artists' Table" and we all ate that (except for MR who brought his own food.) Everyone seemed a bit shocked that I ate the higher calorie items (cheese, meat, etc.) but everyone seems to have recovered. We'd eaten a large dinner on Wednesday at James (my big meal out for the week) so I really shouldn't have been eating out again, but I did, and I don't appear to have died. I suppose however that this is how I got to weigh more than I feel comfortable weighing and sick with a cold: eating ad lib way too often. Well, it's New Years and goodbye to all that.
Needless to say, the next two days have been light. Very light. Under 1200 yesterday.
Still too worn out to work out. Ugh. Really need to get back to the gym soon, or at least try my new Pilates DVD.
Still vaguely sick. Not terrible, but I just can't seem to shake this thing. Funny that Robin, Sara and I all got sick, all as we've been eating more than usual. Ladies, shall we all go back to the good life? Cause I don't know about you, but I'm sick of being sick. Sick of feeling sub-optimal. Sick of missing how I used to feel when I was on proper CR.
Yes, folks, for all I whine, I miss CR, the real CR, extreme CR (cause there really isn't another kind -- the other stuff is just a glorified version of Weight Watchers, not an anti-aging intervention.) I miss CR something terrible, but lucky for me, I can get it back. Am doing so even as we speak. I miss CR, I miss the side effects, I miss feeling like myself. I had done so well for so long that I forgot how bad it feels to feel bad. And I plan to forget again.
Posted by april at 10:15 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
I'm Through With Standing In Line At Clubs I'll Never Get In
Posted by april at 8:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 29, 2007
New Year's Resolutions
I used to be one of those people who hated New Year's Resolutions. They're all so trite, having long surpassed the point of being quaint, and it just seemed to uncool to make them, or at least to admit to having made them.
However, this year I've really gotten in touch with my inner dork, and I feel like I've become so uncool that I may have turned a corner where being comfortable with being uncool may transcend dorkiness and again become some form of cool. So I'm going to make a bunch of really lame New Year's Resolutions, but here's the catch: I'm starting them right away. I want to do a little warming up before Jan. 1 so that I feel confident in my ability to fail a little but pick myself up and keep on going.
1. Go to the gym at least 5 days a week.
2. Learn to run.
3. Keep calories tightly controlled and measured six days a week... allowed one meal out per week.
4. Stop eating off other people's plates... except for the occasional two french fries, but no more than two!
5. Take melatonin every night so that I stop waking up in the middle of the night and blogging.
6. Take Pilates class twice a week, and do Pilates video that MR got me for Christmas on at least one other day, more if I miss class.
7. Make no excuse whatsoever for anything.
8. Scrub the kitchen floor once a week. (this one will be the first to go)
9. Download no more than two songs from Itunes per week.
10. Save the last dance for me.
Posted by april at 3:38 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
December 25, 2007
And My Christmas Cooking Goes Over Very Well!
Last night's shirmp dish with artichokes, capers, olives, roasted red peppers, cider vinegar, hot habenero pepper flakes, crushed tomatoes, and flax oil was much appreciated by the crowd of parents, mine and MR's. Then today I made my almost-famous stuffed peppers: green peppers stuffed with goat cheese, tomato and basil, with a touch of tarragon vinegar and cooked at 350 for 45 minutes in a bath of dry white wine. I have two leftover peppers which have destinations picked out tomorrow: two of my favorite people are planning on turning up at work, and I've decided to reward them for their efforts with peppers.
On the side of the pepper dish, I made a pumpkin puree with mushroom broth, garlic and dill. I love savory pumpkin dishes. MR's mom isn't a fan of pumpkin with lemon, so she doesn't care for my usual pumpkin soup, but she liked this pumpkin "mush" as she referred to it.
Tonight is the traditional Christmas dinner, complete with turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed cauli, Jack Daniels sweet potatotes, cranberry relish, and pumpkin flan. I have a pretty dress-up dress to wear, as MR's parents like to dress up for Christmas dinner and I never need an excuse to put on a pretty dress.
I'm still sick... slept twelve hours last night and still think I will nap before we get up to prepare dinner. Tomorrow I'll be back at work but perhaps for only a half a day. I can't wait till I'm feeling well enough to be back at the gym learning to run. Must be in good shape cause you never know when the revolution is coming, and one really must be prepared to look good in anything and run like hell.
Merry Christmas to all, as applicable!
Posted by april at 12:50 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 24, 2007
Turn the Clock to Zero
It's the middle of the night and I can't sleep because a) I usually can't sleep b) I have a cold, my first in years, and I can't stop coughing if I'm lying down. MR was holding me tight and cuddling, and Philomena the cat was snuggling on my pillow, but I finally decided (about the time the cat got up and walked to the end of the bed) that I may as well only keep one of us up rather than three. So I am up, and I figure that as I am up, I should come downstairs and create ART.
I'll be sure to paint something before I go back to bed, because these days I think the blog is more whine than art, but whatever, you people keep showing up. And thanks to my wonderful commenters, all of you. I don't always answer you directly because I realized a long time ago that I go crazy if I try to answer all your questions as soon as you ask them, but I do read and love your comments, and I answer the specific questions eventually.
So it's near New Year's and I think we're all thinking, as Robin wrote the other day, about the possibility for change. Robin and I both feel like we've figured out how to lose weight and keep it off, but then we end up going in slightly different directions... she's worried that she may have gone too far, I'm worried that I haven't gone far enough. But we'd both agree that we've accomplished long term, lasting change through CR. Like Robin, it just doesn't occur to me that I'll gain back the weight I lost. The highest I've ever gotten in three years was 115, and that was just a few days during the end of the twin campaigns. These days I hover at around 110, and I consider it way too much, but come now, it's not a crisis. I am definitely at the low end of "healthy weight." That's where we get into the difference between obesity avoidance and CR. The two have a lot in common in terms of techniques, but the degree and the final outcome are radically different.
This icky cold has really helped focus my head on why it is that I do CR: so I don't feel like crap all the time. My two months of alternate-week CR have caught up with me, and my immune system collapsed. You could say it's because I'm run down exhausted, but the fact is I've been much more run down exhausted for most of the three years I've been doing CR (nearly four years now!) and I haven't gotten sick except for once, for a day. I haven't been to the gym more than once a week, I've been eating way too much upon occasion, and I've been breathing in a ton of secondhand smoke. And I do love my secondhand smoke. But I am finally convinced that I have to go off it: after breathing in a ton of it a few nights ago, I woke up at 3 am with a terrible searing pain in my lungs, and I couldn't take a deep breath. The pain lasted until midway through the next day, and the muscle aches in my back continued until MR rubbed them out. He very graciously refrained from saying a big, "I told you so," but I recognized that the combination of inflammation from the illness plus secondhand smoke was probably a bad idea. I'm sure Danny and I can negotiate some deal in which I still get to hear his stories but he doesn't smoke directly on me. Maybe in exchange for my pass key to the front parking lot. He's a great negotiator, always offering to buy something he wants in exchange for something he doesn't actually have, but sounding credible. I'm sure we'll figure it out.
My CR has been great since I've been home, making up a bit for holiday eating indulgences of the past weeks. Yesterday I finished off at 1200 calories, which is well below my average, and the scale is reading a solid 111, down from 113 when I got home from my parents' house in NC last Sunday night. I'm eating my super nutritious foods in high concentrations, extra brewers yeast, extra yogurt and cottage cheese, mass doses of protein... basically, I am following my own advice to get myself back on track. I did treat myself to a Jack and Coke Zero last night, but with a tiny half ounce serving of Jack instead of the ounce and a half to two ounces I'd get if I were out. The occasional meal out followed by a few days of low calories to balance it out will always be a part of my CR, I suspect, and I like it that way. I didn't much mind going to bed a bit hungry tonight, and if the idea of going to bed a little hungry freaks you out, I suggest you examine your priorities in life. Is a tiny bit of physical hunger that big a deal? Ordering one's entire life around avoiding any sort of hunger is very limiting, yet it has become our cultural norm. More on that later.
I'm really looking forward to family Christmas at home: our home. I always wanted to have the Christmas festivities at my own house, and it's wonderful that MR's parents have travelled so far to be with us. My mom will be coming in from Reading to stay with us too, and we have some great meals planned. Being sick for the last few days has dampened my holiday spirit a bit, but I'm near the end of the cold and I'm sure I'll be better by morning when I need to run to the mall the second it opens to grab one last minute Christmas gift.
So it's almost New Year's, and we're all wondering: what, if anything, are we planning to change in 2008?
I've been convinced for quite awhile that 2008 would be my favorite year to date. I am really, really looking forward to it. My magic spell is working: the seemingly impassable barriers to CR have lifted, and though the last gasps of 2007 involve a rather unpleasant cold, that's just the dead stuff getting out to let the live stuff take over. As one of my favorite signs at my gym used to say, "Pain is just fear leaving the body."
One of my favorite Sting songs is the one quoted in the headline, "Brand New Day."
Turn the clock to zero honey
I'll sell the stock, we'll spend all the money
We're starting up a brand new day.
So many new starts have taken place this year: both of the twins going from being unorganized hospitals where nurses were beaten down and had no real voice to becoming vibrant union hospitals, the publication of Aubrey and MR's book, shining some light in the popular media on the real chances for real life-extension, the arrival of Lisa from London and her magickal transformation into an organizer, the incredible evolution of Susie as an organizing goddess in the midst of one of the hardest campaigns I've ever worked on, and then at the very end of the year (just when you think it's safe to answer your cell phone) the blond haired blue eyed manifestation of trouble made flesh that is Danny California. All of them have undergone massive transformations, but they don't realize (or maybe they do) that they've changed me.
I've hit the reset button on my life so many times that I am completely convinced that it is possible to turn the clock to zero and start all over again. In the last few months as I've confronted fears I'd forgotten about for a long time, I've noticed that the reset needed yet another hit.
Restart!
Cue the annoying Star Trek music that my computer plays when it's booting up.
Long before CR became a media circus and an issue in my relationship, it was the single most positive, life-affirming force in my day to day existence. It mopped up the damage from my stressful work and it gave me the strength to keep going out there and keep doing what most people burn out at doing after a couple of years. It gave me a body I love, in sharp contrast to the body-hatred that like 90% of women feel for most of their lives. It gave me a mental sharpness that I can't describe... but that I will need.
I am also thinking I will take up running, as the more time I spend thinking about the revolution, the more convinced I become that I need to learn to run really fast.
New Year's Resolutions:
1. Do CR, my way, for my own reasons.
2. Learn to run very, very fast.
Posted by april at 12:45 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
December 23, 2007
Soy Ginger Balsamic Cranberry Sauce
Those of you who read the blog for the recipes (just like those of you who read Playboy for the articles) must be really bored by now. It's not that I haven't cooked, though I haven't cooked all that often lately as I've been out for work or out of town quite a bit. But I haven't done much new creative cooking.
Today, h owever, I have as usual entirely by accident created something really cool.
Here's how you do it:
About 200 g cranberries
Water to boil them in to get them to pop
1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
A bit of sucralose or Splenda (or God forbid sugar) to taste
Powdered ginger, to taste
Boil the berries, add the other stuff, try it till it works. You could put some lemon juice in there too if you wanted to make it just a touch more tarty bitey ish.
This would make a really fun sauce for leftover turkey after Christmas, or a good dressing on salad (that's how I'm using it today for lunch, ontop of a salad of mixed greens, Quorn tenders and hot roasted cauliflower) or as a sauce for most any protein source, vegetarian or not.
Holiday cooking has been fun so far. MR's parents came over last night for dinner and I made de Grey Stew, which is a combination of Muir Glen organic fire roasted tomatoes, Quorn tenders and grounds, and any vegetable I have in the house. Spiced up with cumin, cayenne, garlic, and whatever hot sauce I put my hands on first (Texas Pete, Tabasco chipotle flavored, and Emerill's green sauce) and a teaspoon of flax for all. On the side I served a salad of greens with fresh pears dusted with cinnamon and topped with a hazelnut oil and balsamic vinegar dressing. MR's mom brought over her roasted cauliflower, which was delicious.
Tomorrow the Christmas extravaganza begins. MR's family does the traditional dinner on Christmas Day, so I have a free hand on Christmas eve. I'm planning to make a shrimp and scallop dish in a roasted red pepper sauce. I may even grab some kalamata olives to mess with the sauce a bit more. Not sure which side dishes I plan to use, but will think of something.
Christmas Day I'm making my peppers stuffed with basil, tomato and goat cheese dish. It's red and green! I've always had good luck with this dish, ever since I served it to my then-vegetarian boyfriend my senior year in college... the one with the long hair and rather difficult to navigate around piercings. It's a perfect Christmas brunch dish, but it needs a side and I'm not sure what to put on the side. Pre-CR I served it with yellow rice. Suggestions? Maybe a big pumpkin dish... but nothing to confuse with the Jack Daniels sweet potatoes we'll be having Christmas night. I'm also making my dad's Bloody Mary recipe because it really can't be a daytime holiday without Bloody Mary's. That recipe is:
Clamato juice
horseradish
fresh lime
Tabasco
Worchestershire
vodka
Christmas dinner will be the traditional turkey with stuffing and gravy and Jack Daniels sweet potatoes and mashed cauliflower and stuff.
Sometime this year I am going to make my apple pie... it's a tart granny smith apple pie with a homemade graham cracker crust. I remember years ago sitting on the porch at one of the collective houses in West Philly watching one amazing girl activist dig into my apple pie with her bare fingers. It's not exactly CR-friendly, but I could have one bite a day for a month and share the rest with non-CR'd people.
Okay, time to serve lunch. More soon... and I promise I'll post more recipes!
Posted by april at 10:08 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
December 18, 2007
Actually, You Aren't What You Eat. No Really, You're Not
I had the most bizarre experience the other day. Two of my online friends, people I've met through the blog and the CR Society list, said something to me (totally separate from each other) to the effect of, "You'd be so disappointed in me, I haven't been eating well." "I've fallen off CR, I hope you're not mad."
Yikes.
I quickly rushed to clarify. But it made me sad: why would anyone think that how I felt about them as a person was determined in any measure by what they eat?
I discussed this with Danny while we were waiting on two co-workers to show up for a meeting.
"I think you should write about this on your blog. Tell them about me," he said.
He must not be reading the blog, I thought, since I've actually talked about him quite a bit recently.
He clarified that he meant tell them about his less than life-extension optimal lifestyle. Let's see: smoking, drinking whiskey, eating whatever the vegetarian option on the menu is (usually something that involves cooked mushrooms, bread, and fries) and riding a motorcycle.
If I were the kind of person who doesn't like people who don't build their lives around eating healthy, I would definitely not be friends with this kid.
"CR is just an interest I have in common with these people," I said to him, still puzzled and concerned and worried about both of my internet friends. "It's how we met, but it's not what defines our relationship."
Online, people tend to become two-dimensional. I write about CR so people think I am just about CR. Those of you who've been with me awhile know that I think about a lot of other things: organizing, politics, Halloween decorations, cats, love, cooking, the quest to eventually clean out my closet. The search for the perfect shower cleaner that both gets the shower white while not toasting the environment. I've written extensively against weight bias, and I take a lot of intellectual pride in my ability to make the arguments in both directions a whole lot better than most of the websites dedicated to such, if I do say so myself. Food and CR and life-extension are definitely important to me, but they're not all I do, and they're far from the only things I care about.
I never, ever, want anyone to think that whether or not I care about him or her, as a person, has anything to do with what he or she eats. Sure, it's a ton of fun to compare notes with other CR geeks. MR and I love to do it, Allswell and I love to do it, Robin and I love to do it, but it's no different than two Red Sox fans bonding over the latest whatever the hell baseball people talk about. It's fun, it's an activity, it's a part of what we do for sure, but it's not who we are.
I don't think of the people I love as a collection of things they do or say or think. I don't love MR because he's a genius and a brilliant writer and a sexy redheaded human giraffe lookalike and a great lover and someone who's been with me through hell and keeps showing up every day anyway. I love him because of him... I can't and wouldn't want to describe it in terms of what he does. Somebody said on some NPR show I was listening to half asleep, "We are human beings, not human doings." Yeah. When I think about the other people in my life who are so very important to me, they're not in my life because of what they do. They might have turned up in my life as a result of some particular action: Lisa and I met on a plane, for example. But I don't love her because she was on that plane, or because she's a dedicated and talented organizer, or because she has beautiful long hair that she lets me pet. I love her for the ineffable essence of who she is. That can't be compartmentalized into little lego blocks of "organizer" "long hair" "likes cats," etc.
I did some thinking today about all the things that I love about my network of super-close friends and family. In no particular order, with no names mentioned to protect the innocent until proven guilty, and there are many, many included though a few are repeats:
the way she always emails me right before I'm about to fall apart and she talks me down from the ledge; his habit of using the word "literally" when he means "really, really, but metaphorically;" the fact that she won't let me stop writing, ever, she'll beat me to death with her own hands and a wet carrot first; the way she shakes hands with the ficus tree in my office; her eyes lighting up and her voice getting just a bit sing-songy when she talks about a nurse she's just met with; the fact that I can tell him anything because he already knows the worst things about me and loves me anyway, and more so for it; her impassioned and witty defense of me and CR in many an online forum; when he tells us to open the wine at 3:30 pm and we sit around drinking it out of Dixie cups; walking in and seeing his scarf draped across my chair and him turning around from the bar holding my drink; when he tells me that I have the most exciting life of anyone he knows, and he writes a novel where the lead character is half me; how we can sit around for hours exchanging stories of people that the other will never meet, half of whom are dead; the case of empty beer bottles that are left all over the living room after one of his visits; that time when we measured white powder on an accurate to the gram scale in a bar in New York, and it really was just inositol; making up after a year long fight; the feeling of his arm around me in the middle of the night; when we run into each other for the first time in awhile, exchange a look, and immediately know what kind of trouble we've been getting ourselves into; when he's leaning up against a wall waiting for me, looking really cool but he's actually just too tired to stand up; the way she rebuilt her life from the ashes of a terrible tragedy and came back to be even tougher than before, in ways that I suspect that no one but me can really appreciate; all those early morning leaflets when he was there with me; how she taught me so very much of what I know; her in a skimpy Halloween costume drinking gin and tonics; the guacamole on the table that he made during one of the scariest days we've had, and how the dog ended up eating it while we were out of the room; the way she didn't run away or fall apart when things got really, really tough; the memories of our life together so far, with all of its screaming fits and drunken rages and days and nights of making love and feeling absolutely certain that this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with if I don't kill him in the next twenty-four hours.
What is love, anyway?
I did some talking about this today, not early in the morning, more mid-morning, perhaps even late morning.
A lot of people toss around the term quite liberally, but neither of us are that type. We mean something by it, and I'm not sure that we mean the same thing. When I think about love, I think about three different occasions, and three different people. All of the situations involved a rather huge level of sacrifice on their part so that I could be happier. Pretty grand gestures, rather Casablanca-like, as in, "She went, but she knew you were lying."
(yes, yes, round up the usual suspects)
But there's that kind of little love too, the small every day love that usually doesn't involve sex, that's about turning up at the office with an extra bag of baked chips and leaving them on my desk. The "Are you okay?" text message when it's been awhile. The fact that we've all done some stupid things that probably weren't a good idea but we get over it and stay friends because after all, nobody else would laugh at our jokes or keep our secrets.
Maybe we have fun cooking together. Maybe we bond over nutrition information and the ongoing frustration of being a thin girl and getting called anorexic. Maybe we'll share a bottle of French red and tell ex-boyfriend stories. Maybe we'll win, maybe we'll lose, either way we're going to be in this foxhole together.
[Side note: did anyone hear the NPR contest for the best twelve word novel? My favorite was, "There are no atheists in a foxhole," said the chaplain, "So get out." That's thirteen words, so I'm sure I screwed it up, but I thought it was really funny.]
I don't love you because of what you eat, or what you don't eat. I love you for who you are. Just the way you are, right now. Maybe you'll change, and so might I. But that indestructible core at the middle of you is what I love, and it's not going away.
That being said: you really would feel better if you ate a high protein breakfast.
Posted by april at 10:40 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
"And How's That Working Out For You?"
Last week at the end of our staff retreat, I was pouring inositol into a glass of diet Pepsi.
"What's that?" asked my best friend.
"It's inositol. It's a B vitamin. It keeps me from going nuts."
"How's that working out for you?" he asked, giggling?
I threw a ball point pen at him. It's the first time I've physically assaulted him in years.
So you're wondering how my new hardcore-ness is going.
Decently well, thank ya.
Yesterday: half cup cottage cheese with teaspoon flax oil for breakfast. A bit later, a cup of veggie broth with two tablespoons brewers yeast, attempting to build back up my nutrition. A green salad with nothing but vinegar when my co-workers wanted to go out. A big salad for dinner, plus the cottage cheese I had packed. Plus drinks after negotiations with co-workers of course, two glasses of red wine.
Today: eggwhite omlette with the flax oil that MR had packed for me, plus leftover salad from the day before. Skipped lunch out of confusion, had a glass of wine with co-workers after work, then came home because MR had called in a panic noting that his boss, Aubrey de Grey, had turned up at the door expecting to work today (they have monthly or so summit meetings) and MR had though Aubrey was coming tomorrow. OOOOPS! So I made dinner for both of them, ate some of the mushroom tomato veggie soup I made for Aubrey, and ate my lunch salad with cottage cheese... the salad I had never managed to pick up in a very busy day.
So it's working out. Tomorrow to the gym. My co-workers are all talking about getting in better shape. I am excited about this. I need motivation to turn up at Pilates class and hit the treadmill and such.
Tomorrow MR's parents turn up and stay for ten days. We should have fun.
Exhausted now... more soon.
Posted by april at 5:05 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
December 12, 2007
Ascetic
And other things I am not.
I love food, wine, and have recently discovered much to my chagrin that I love whiskey. I also love being a little crazy, feeling slightly out of control, taking cleverly calculated risks (like the time I jumped on a plane to go spend the weekend in Chicago with a man I had met once... and he picked me up from Midway Airport on a tandem bike!) and living to turn it into a funny story.
I don't see myself retiring to a convent any time soon.
Never before did it seem like such a struggle to integrate all these things into a pretty decent CR practice. But as I'm trying to go lower, it's so hard. MR isn't going to just stand by forever and watch me poison myself with secondhand smoke and whiskey. And I really don't want lung cancer, or to misplace my liver. Of course I don't.
I have turned over every part of my brain looking for some thread of asceticism to grab onto to help me get really excited about ceasing to eat, other than one day a week, anything that is not calorie controlled and nutritionally optimized. It's always been my deal that I eat out once a week, and don't worry about it, just make up for it on other days. But lately I've been out way way way more than that. I have been indulging in my hedonistic tendancies and I am not supposed to be doing that!
Now if you look at the above paragraph and decide that you wouldn't want to live that way, fine. I don't care. Don't write in a million comments about how miserable that sounds because we're not talking about you, we're talking about me. And I will admit in fact just did admit that it has drawbacks. It's not for everyone, in fact it's not for most. So if you don't want to do it please don't, just don't whine to me about it.
I've been so excited about CR for most of the time I've been doing it. I really love the software, cooking, playing with optimizing, sharing a project that we are both passionate about with the man I love, and even the fun of being a little bit of a food rebel. Not to mention the joy of being attacked in national magazines... wait, that's not fun!
In fact, it was my hedonistic tendancies that drew me to CR in the first place. I wanted to have more fun, longer, and I wasn't having any fun when I was overweight and getting sick all the time. I loved the sensation of weight loss, and I missed it when I was done. I enjoyed playing with how different foods made me feel. I even found entertaining how much harder alcohol hits me now that I am smaller... I mean, after the first few awkard incidents before I figured out that I can't drink at 107 like I could at 137.
CR wasn't like a job... it was a hobby, a passion, an intellectual pursuit and a great way to freak out my friends and family. At times it was like a drug, but never like an addiction. Not compulsive, and very much something I could turn on and off. Better, actually, at turning off than on.
It was no sacrifice at all. No asceticism required.
For so long I felt like the danger on the rocks was surely past. And I know I'll never go back to eating ad lib, or gain back the weight, or actually take up smoking as opposed to secondhand smoking which I am trying unsuccessfully to quit.
But how long have we watched and waited with varying degrees of patience while I try to go back on hardcore CR and then don't?
There are so many excuses. I can't stand excuses... I get plenty on the job... "I can't go to the meeting because the dog ate my husband" and such. Thank heaven my staff of amazing people are also allergic to excuses. I can't very well claim that I would love to go hardcore, yes I would, but you see I can't because to access my inner ascetic I would need to fall in love with a Buddhist monk with anger management issues and ask him to beat me every time I fall off the wagon. Isn't it enough that I live with the true shining orange icon of CR perfection? You'd think that would be encouragement enough, wouldn't you? And I get so much support. From MR, even from my friends, even when they think I've gone right round the bend. They support me in doing whatever I want to do. Unless it's really, obviously, blatantly stupid, like crossing the road in front of oncoming traffic. Edward did once have to stop me from doing that.
So can I just whine for a moment? (Wait, I've been whining on blog for three years! Why ask permission now?)
IT'S SO HARD!!!
It's not hunger that's the issue, it's trying to cut back on going out. If I could make up for going out by just not eating at other times, believe me, I would. But it doesn't work if you do that all the time because you end up severely compromising nutrition. That kills the rats. Can't be good for me either.
I have a little magick spell that I am planning to put on myself, just a bit of scripted meditation really, nothing fancy or creepy or Harry Potteresque (no it does not involve a Buddhist monk. Wait: it just dawned on me that I hung out last night with a friend of mine who is a Buddhist! But does he have anger management issues? I doubt it.) that I think may help. I'm very good at wiring up my brain to do what I have to do when I have to do it. Seriously. You should see how I am at crunch time in a campaign. I develop superhuman levels of energy and focus in the face of extreme pressure. Then once the campaign is over I watch 18 hours of Big Cat Rescue videos in one weekend.
Real CR really does take a lot of self-discipline, but I find self-discipine really hot, both in others and in myself. There's a reason why I've always been attracted to serious people, of whatever sort. It comes in many different forms, and some people think it's a zero sum game. Like if you blow all your self-discipline on your work, you might not have as much left for your health. Or vice versa. But I've always thought that was a convenient excuse, and the dog did not eat my husband so I have to show up at the meeting. If I could channel the focus and self-discipline that I put into my work onto CR, as I once did, I'd be set.
I am beginning to think that all of these years going out and eating and drinking and now secondhand smoking are just ways of making up for something that was missing in my life, and that if I had that one thing I would be fine with just hanging out with my friends when we go out but not eating. I never really knew what it was until very recently, though I'm sure I suspected. And it's the one thing that MR says I can't have.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you guess it: it's a tarantula.
If only I could have a tarantula, she whines as though bargaining with God, I could do hardcore CR. I know I could. Just one. Not necessarily the giant mouse eating kind, but just a cute little garden variety cricket eating fluffy spider and I know I would finally have all that has been missing in my life.
Don't get me wrong: MR does not oppose tarantulas. He thinks they're creepy neat. But he doesn't want one in the house, or any more pets at all. In fact, he doesn't even want the pets we actually have. So needless to say he does not want to add to the population.
I know what kind I want, I think. She only needs to be fed once a week, and she prefers no attention whatsoever. A lot of women would like this in a husband. A blue one. Spider, that is. Not husband. I don't want a husband, and I like my partner orange. I'm sure there are women who would not so much mind that their husband was blue as long as he only had to be fed once a week and wanted no attention whatsover. I am not one of those women.
He's not my husband, but he is my life partner, and I can't impose an unwanted spider on him. And he may be worried that I'll get ideas from her and one day eat him immediately after mating.
Of course, the anarchist has a clever idea: keep the spider at the office. He really wants an office spider. They don't move much, and perhaps we could pass it off as a houseplant.
This plan is so fraught with difficulty that I don't even know where to start. It's probably against the organization's by-laws to have a spider in the office. If it's not, I'm sure there will be a special emergency convention to pass a new anti-tarantula by-law.
But I still have this dream of a cute little tarantula chilling out in the corner of my office. Feeding her a weekly cricket... watching her barricade herself into a little hole and refuse to come out... talking to her even though I know she doesn't care that I'm talking.
I've even picked out a bunch of possible names for her.
Come on, I'm not having kids, can't I have a tarantula? She'll be cute, she won't get in the way, she'll just sit quietly bothering no one. What more could you ask for?
How about this: if we can organize 1000 nurses this year, calendar 2008, we can have a spider?
It'll help me with my CR. Really!
Posted by april at 7:28 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack
December 11, 2007
Don't Forget Who's Taking You Home
Wow, this entry has been riding around in my head for years. Like baby opossums on the mommy opossum's back, blog entries sometimes are carried around by me for a long time before they are ready to walk out into the world on their own.
Two years ago, not that long after MR had moved in, shortly after Luke had started working with me, I kept hearing Michael Buble's version of "Save the Last Dance" on the radio. I usually heard it during the two to three minutes between when I'd drop Luke off at his house (remember how he used to ride with me because he had no car?) and when I'd arrive at my own house to park the car and go home to my darling Orange one.
But don't forget who's taking you home
And in whose arms you're gonna be
So darlin, save the last dance for me.
Why did this obvious tribute to monogamy strike me as a freedom song?
I'm sure it started with the contradiction between who was taking me home and whose arms I was gonna be. Hmmmm... late thirties Harvard educated labor organizer, the person I still credit with re-awakening my passion for my work after a long time when I didn't care as much as I need to, my intellectual soul mate and one of the most annoying people on earth when he just won't let the point go. That was who was taking me home... or who I was taking home... or whom? Should it be whom?
But in whose arms I was gonna be... that would be the mid-thirties orange Canadian life-extensionist, one of the most beautiful men I've ever seen up close, who can also be annoying in his own soft-spoken way, but who put up with so much during all the times when I really was a mess.
So what does that mean?
Luke's first month I had the largest credit card bill I've ever had because we spent way too much money going out eating and drinking. Not exactly responsible little CR girl, eh?
Yeah, I didn't care. Not much. I'd been working so hard to be perfect little wifey, attempting to cook all the meals and do all the cleaning and stay sane while working like I do... I really thought I could be superwoman. I still suffer from that delusion from time to time, but the perpetual need of the kitchen floor to be mopped talks me out of it. MR loves me for me, not any surface resemblance to Martha Stewart, and we were both a lot happier once I figured that out.
But what was I looking for in all that going out and eating and drinking and ignoring the cat hair on the floor?
Some kinda sense of being free. Some sort of escape from the constant (utterly self-imposed)feeling that I was failing.
I have high standards for myself, and because I frequently can meet them I find I am encouraged to keep trying. But there are times when I ask too much of myself, or when I allow others to ask too much of me. There have been multiple occasions on which I was fairly sure Edward was trying to kill me with how hard he pushes me at work... so I solved that problem by pushing myself even harder than he ever could.
I have this irksome little habit that it doesn't take an expert on human behavior to detect: I decide what I want to be, or to do, and I surround myself with very strong people who are or do that. Really well. Then I sometimes externalize my own expectations for myself, projecting them onto the people I've collected. And sometimes those people play right along, actively articulating those expectations, and threatening to hold me to them.
For the most part, this technique has worked well for me. For example, some twelve years ago I fell in love with the great Francis, who remains one of my closest friends, and allowed his confidence in my ability to become a great labor organizer to fuel the nightmarish journey that was the early part of my career. Dragons to be slain because handsome prince to be won... the gender-bended fairy tale worked for me. Eventually, after winning the biggest campaign of my career to date, we did finally make an attempt to date, and we quickly decided we were better off as good friends. Not due to any lack of my ability in the bed in LA, mind you. He met someone else, we were on opposite coasts, we moved on. We still talk all the damn time, and he is my best source of support whenever I find myself smashed up over another crazy genius boy.
Sometime in March of 2004, I was learning about CR. I was into it. Super into it. I needed to find a way to stop feeling so crappy all the time, and I saw that this was it. I also kinda wanted a boyfriend, and wasn't willing to settle for the young suburban professionals one meets at the bars in my town. Nope, no one who didn't nearly make my heart stop everytime he walked into the room would do (was that a double negative?) I exchanged a few emails with MR, the head of the CR Society study, the best writer on the CR list who could explain all this life-saving science in terms that I who never took a biology class could understand, and use, and he threw me a lifeline that I grabbed and held onto with all the strength I had.
Then on the 25th, or was it the 24th, of March, he didn't answer my email.
Hmmmm, thought I.
Of course he was just busy. He is terrible about answering emails, y'all know.
Hmmmmm, thought I. I will turn myself into the perfect CR princess, and you will sorely regret the day you failed to answer my email.
And I did. For the most part. With a few problems. Sure, I lost forty pounds. I learned how to use the nutritional software with the precision of a world-champion Tetris player. I know my stuff really well. I started a blog to a) keep myself on CR b) attract a boy who wouldn't fall for just a pretty girl.
[Mental note: Why can't I just go for the boys who like pretty girls? Why must all this mental/spiritual/emotional stuff come up? Can't long hair and a great body and pretty nails be enough for once? Where are all the shallow men in America?]
But I was never perfect. I've gone on and off real CR, I've strayed very far into the realm of obesity avoidance, not CR, I've had way too much wine, and lately I've taken up secondhand smoking. I don't blame MR for being concerned and at times frustrated.
I don't blame him for wanting to be sure that at the end of the day, I'm on with the project we signed on for together. Life-extension, CR being the only known method that actually works at this time. He wants to be with me for a long, long time. He loves me.
And I don't blame my friends for feeling like this is a little nuts, and for feeling, on occasion, that MR puts too much pressure on me. They love me: they just want to see me happy. And I'm not always as intellectually honest as I should be about the degree to which I hide behind MR's wishes for me as a smokescreen (what the hell is a smokescreen anyway) for my own CR goals when I find the goals hard to reach. It's easier, sometimes, to paint a picture of myself as torn between two sets of incompatible goals than it is to recognize that sometimes I just don't put the self-discipline into my CR practice that I really wish I did. I fell in love with MR for the man he is, but I acquired my super-star crush on the CR rockstar largely because I wanted to *be* him, not just mate with him and then eat him like I would if we were tarantulas.
So riddle me this: the girl who surrounds herself with people she wants to become more like has now chosen to spend most of her time with an anarchist. With the one person who resolutely will not tell her what to do.
I ask him, "If you were me, what would you do?"
"I'd take up smoking," he says, and I know he won't give me an answer.
Now, after all these years, I have finally backed myself into a corner where I have to decide what I want, what I a la Spice Girls really really want.
Not cause MR wants me to. Not cause Edward wants me to. Not cause the work requires it. Susie and Lisa and Danny and Edward and my mom and all you wonderful friends out there in the bloggie world will stand by me no matter what. The danger of having friends who really love you is that you can't just fall back on their expectations to figure out what to do next.
Whatever I do, most people in the universe will have a problem with it. That ship sailed long ago. I'm a labor organizer, a thin girl, a fuck-me feminist (though as of late I have become a "fuck me when you find it convenient, because I certainly don't want to trouble you" type of feminist. I think it's an over thirty thing.) I was born radical, and controversial.
I'm sick of fear. Fear of hunger, fear of losing, fear of being alone, fear of disappointing the people closest to me, fear of running out of money and having to beg my friends for treats.
At the base of it, hunger is about fear. Fear that you'll never eat again, never have your needs met. But if you know you'll be okay, no matter what, the fear goes away. I find that these days I've ceased to be afraid of most things. I am still afraid of motorcycles, and marriage, and babies. But I'm not really afraid of nearly as many things as I used to be. Being afraid is a great way to put off making your own decisions. As long as you're scared, you can just tread water, afraid to make a change. But that also gets in the way of figuring out who you are. I have at times felt like I was a collection of fears. For someone who is pretty freaking fearless in her work life, I'll admit, this is odd. Mostly I was afraid that if I wasn't exactly what whomever wanted me to be, I'd get left alone, and I'd be sad. And then in the effort to turn myself into whatever it was that (insert name of any one of a series of strange men I've dated) wanted me to be, I'd end up losing a piece of that strong, independent woman (insert name of freak, for as my father points out, the one thing all my boyfriends had in common is that they are weird!) fell for in the first place.
But don't forget who's taking you home
And in whose arms you're gonna be
When I used to drive home listening to that song, I'd think, for just a brief second, that no matter who I went out with, who I worked with, who/whom I fell in love with, the person taking me home was well, me.
And me, as it turns out, or I, as would be gramatically correct, think that aging sucks. Don't feel like doing it. Know a lot about CR. Enough to know that for the last while, I haven't been doing serious enough CR to reach my goals, either short term or long term.
Around the corner, waiting to wake up, is the sleeping beauty version of me that actually does CR, not just obesity avoidance. Miss M is quite right that I am now at my "natural" weight. This is not real CR. Do I want real CR, the kind that might actually have an effect on the aging process, as opposed to this fantasy version aka moderate CR where nobody is ever in the slightest bit hungry or inconvenienced? I think so. I wouldn't mind a couple of kisses from Prince Charming (and anything else I can get for that matter) but unlike in the fairy tales, I have to wake myself up.
I have not yet given up on slowing my biological aging process. And I know I'm a lot more fun to be around when I'm in the CR Zen groove. So there. The era of whining to my friends that CR is soooo hard and MR is so sad when I fall off the wagon is over. Whining, finished. I am ready to do battle with biological aging. I feel like the last three years were just a warm up. GAME ON!
Our life may not have turned out to be a fairy tale, though it certainly has had fairy tale aspects. MR didn't show up and immediately banish every part of me that wanted to engage in distinctly non-CR friendly practices. That's something I can only do for myself. The fantasy that some boy will come along and solve all your problems is one that we women have been indoctrinated with from day one, but sitting around waiting for it to happen can take much longer than even those of us who hope to benefit from life-extension really have to wait. If I want a longer, healthier life, I've got to get it myself.
Which doesn't mean I'm about to give up my kisses. I hear they make you live longer.
Posted by april at 1:26 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 9, 2007
World Falling Up
Have you ever wondered if you can use your hair dryer while listening to your Ipod without getting electrocuted? My grasp of things electrical is clearly lacking. I was listening to "Restless Heart" from Peter Cetera's "World Falling Down" album and I didn't want to stop but I needed to dry my hair. While some other person would no doubt have known that this would be just fine, and some other person not knowing that this would be just fine would google it, or ask someone, before risking electrocution. I am usually an extremely cautious person. This is a good quality in a life-extensionist. Clearly I've lost my mind. Today I listened to my Ipod while drying my hair, and I got away with it. Emboldened by this small step, I will no doubt continue down a path that will lead to hitchhiking, motorcycle riding, and inevitable gruesome, tacky, inexcusable death.
For those of you who don't know, "World Falling Down" was written during the breakup of Cetera's marriage. Are the two events related? Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps Peter will write in to let me know. Anyhow, this album includes two fantastic songs, "Restless Heart" and "Feels Like Heaven." You've got to give a guy credit for doing a duet with Chaka Khan. Perhaps a time of great transition and turmoil is to blame for this burst of adult contemporary creativity.
No, my marriage is not falling apart. Far from. Better than ever. Three years in and we learn and grow all the time. So you can stop those rumors right now.
Nor am I leaving my job. Happier than ever.
So why did I, after a glass of whiskey on the rocks, happen to mention the title of Peter Cetera's totally counterrevolutionary CD?
And why, in the name of the Goddess, was I drinking whiskey on the rocks?
[My father is thinking: you should have been drinking good Scotch straight. This, btw, the man who said he'd disown me if I ever got on a motorcycle. This fact, along with the fact that I'm sure MR would pack his bags and head to Canada, prevents me from getting on a motorcycle. That, and the fact that Danny's motorcycle is still broken.]
My world, as long as I refrain from riding a motorcycle, is not falling down. If anything, it is coming together. Quite nicely, thank you.
It's been together for a long time, actually. Most successful year ever at work, incredibly stable yet passionate relationship with the love of my life, home-freakin-ownership, no debt, even a regular workout schedule. Oh I am so good. Pet the good little girl on the head as she eats her cottage cheese. She happens to like cottage cheese, and she keeps her bad girl tendancies securely locked within the four walls of the home she owns with her partner of record, the man on her health insurance.
The other day I got called "the queen of CR" on that nasty woman's blog. Whatever, dude.
I never meant to become the international icon of girly CR practice. I feel like such a screw-up myself so much of the time that it's just irritating to read about how I must be such a rigid, wretched human being on these blogs and in media articles. Would that I were more rigid! Would that I were more disciplined! Why the hell was I drinking whiskey???
I am in big trouble with MR for coming home night after night with my hair smelling of tons of smoke. According to him, secondhand smoke, for the non-smoker, is just as dangerous as smoking. I am supposed to STOP IT! Tell Danny that he can't smoke when I'm around.
My CR has been off and on. MR calls it "Alternate Week CR." My calories have stayed consistently fairly low, but when I eat out too much we all know how it screws the nutrition. And before this morning, I hadn't darkened the door of my gym for ten whole days.
Part of me feels like this is all really bad. The other part of me feels like saying, "Whatever! At least I'm not riding a motorcycle!"
Always remember: it could be worse.
For the first time, I am starting to think that I have to make real sacrifices to do true CR. If I am a good life-extensionist, I will not be breathing in secondhand smoke. And that means not sitting at the bar for hours exchanging stories with Danny while he blows smoke in my face.
But yes, I want to live longer. Feel better. Age slower. I am on about the project. I am, after all, April CR. I never wanted to be an icon of CR but it's too late now isn't it? At 108 I know there is so much better I could do. 108 and probably 1700 a day average. So for all of you wonderful commenters (and thank you!) who are trying to eat 1200 or 1300, you're eating too little! Go up closer to 1600 and you'll be able to do it.
Will I get my calories lower? Will I swear off secondhand smoke breaks? Will I look cute at 99 pounds or just gross?
Hunger isn't all that scary. We make a huge deal out of it, but I've been there and it's not that hard at all. It's much easier, for example, than being in love with someone you can't touch. I remember what it was like before MR and I got together, when I wanted him so bad I could taste him, and I had no idea that it would ever work out. Let me assure you, hunger is better. You know that in a few hours you'll get a bit of cottage cheese.
My world is falling up. It's coming together. I have decided to stay and fight, and that means staying in this hard line of work, with these complicated relationships, and living as long as I can.
Today I ate: an eggwhite omlette with mushrooms, tomato, onions and green and red peppers, a ton of coffee, tea, red wine, and a California roll of sushi, which is avocado, cucumber and crab. I won't eat any more. Tomorrow I'll eat the normal stuff, normal calories, normal calcium. I'll be a bit low so I'll calcium bomb tomorrow. That's 200 percent of the RDA. As I love non-fat dairy, this is fun for me.
But I have a restless heart, and I find myself identifying with Peter Cetera, which is really much scarier than being hungry.
And I have to do CR. Cause the costs of doing otherwise are more than I'm willing to pay. And no one who hasn't been there can understand. The absolute freedom that comes with standing down hunger, aging, death, fear... try it and you may I say. Or not. I can only speak for myself.
Until you've felt the freedom, you have no clue what I'm talking about. I am the kind of person who always wants to take it to the wall. I've been near the wall once, but not in awhile. I'm ready to go back. I never do much of anything when my back isn't against the wall. I function on adreneline.
Here we go. Why not? What else are we going to do?
Posted by april at 9:10 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
December 4, 2007
Just What the World Needed
Another hopelessly uninformed, ill-researched, knee-jerk emotional article mentioning CR.
Posted by april at 2:57 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
December 1, 2007
Stay and Fight
I have been called upon, upon occasion, actually rather frequent occasion, to teach classes in how to organize.
Unions, that is. Movements of people fighting for a better world. Not closets. If you want someone to organize your closets, you're best off calling someone else. Though I actually think I could organize other people's closets. There's something about having absolutely no attachment to the articles therein that brings me to crisp, clear resolution. But this is not about closets, and if it's not then why are we still talking about it?
One of the funnier teaching moments I replay over and over again is my riff on what I call "Work/worker avoidance behavior."
Work avoidance behavior is pretty obvious. But worker avoidance behavior comes down to this: it's the time when you should be calling workers, and you're not. Maybe you're updating your notes in the database, maybe you're planning a community support rally, maybe you're on your third drink and have decided it would be better not to call workers (fyi, the time to call workers tends to be in the evening.) In any event, you're doing something other than calling workers. It might be talking to politicians or community leaders (hello... the community does not vote in the union election. But that is a lesson for a later day.)
Today's organizing lesson: basically, the only thing that will build the movement is talking to workers. Not the community, not your database, not the legal strategy, no... talking to workers. At the exact hour when I know I would rather be chilling out with my boyfriend and not working.
It is my contention that the entire labor movement is engaged in worker avoidance behavior. Negotiating deals with bosses, where the "worker piece" is just a sideline, is a prime example. Funny how the workers eventually get annoyed and want their voices to be heard. Maybe you should have talked to them in the first place?
No one is more frustrated than I at the current state of the movement. But what do we do about it? Do we just give up on organizing, that fine art of moving people into effective action to achieve their stated goals? Yeah, it's hard. Twelve years, tiny lines on my face that I can't see without my glasses, scars on my heart buried so deep that I am surprised they start to bleed again every time I train a new organizer who shows real promise... yeah, this all really sucks. But what else are we going to do? Totally sell out? Give up?
Worker avoidance takes many forms. For example, Thursday night I really should have made a ton of calls. But I didn't. One of my staff was having a meltdown, so I went out with her and another of my organizers, and didn't make calls at all. Nobody can do their calls every night. We all flake out here and there. We move on.
Anyhow... the more advanced forms of worker avoidance involve ways that people get out of organizing all together. Some common ones: having children, going to law school, being "promoted" to levels of the labor movement where you no longer talk to workers (can those people just go away?) and my perpetual favorite: death.
When I was a twenty-one year old organizer driving around rural North Carolina getting doors slammed in my face by white racist workers who associated the union with Northern black people, I used to think, "If I drove my car off this bridge, at least I wouldn't have to knock on one more door." Of course I wasn't really suicidal. I was just taking the desperate desire to avoid workers to it's logical extreme.
So this last month has been full of surprises.
First, there was the appearance on the April-world stage of Danny California, whose real initials are CR. The irony, which may have escaped my notice for a good forty-five minutes, was eventually discovered.
Then there was the call from the absolutely most strategic hospital that we could possibly hope to organize.
Then yesterday I met a goddess. Yes, I did. I met a Yale '84 friend of my lawyer friend Jim, and I discovered that she was one of the leaders of the pro-labor and divestment in South Africa movements at Yale in the eighties. Yes, the ones with the shantytowns built on campus center. The people us nineties activists modeled ourselves after. It was like meeting my older sister. And of course she is now a super successful labor lawyer and a beautiful grown up goddess and still looks like a ballerina. Wow. Jim and I went out to lunch with her, then we all went to the art museum. She and I couldn't stop comparing notes about our experiences as Yale activists. Then we beat Jim with our art museum programs because it took him this long to introduce us. He deserved it. I really feel like I've met a long lost friend.
Which leads me to the next "baby what a big surprise" moment of my month of November.
We saw the Renoir landscapes exhibition at the Philly art museum, and then we were funnelled out to the American art section, and I just about ran into one of my favorite paintings of all time, Winslow Homer's Lifeline.
I ran into Lifeline and about fell on the floor. I love this painting. I wrote about it here. It's such a powerful painting, full of words I can't quite make come out on the page. Margo the goddess and I looked at it for ages. Then she walked on with Jim, but I called her back.
"Margo," I asked, "Is she (the woman in the painting) really unconscious? Cause it looks to me like that's her hand, holding the rope."
"No, she's not unconscious. Her eyes are closed, but she's holding onto the rope. She's awake." That was Margo's take on it.
Funny how in all these years that I had worshipped this painting, I had always been quite convinced that she was unconscious, and I even believe that several written commentaries on the work imply or even state the same. But no, she's holding on the rope. That's definitely her hand... it's too small to be the man's, and he's clearly clasping her firmly with both arms around her waist. That must be nice. One fantasizes that he is quite cute, and that once they get back to the ship and change into something a bit less sea-soaked, something interesting occurs. If one must be rescued from a sinking ship, one may well be rescued by someone cute. The point reminds: you'd better hold onto the rope.
This week has not been great for my CR. I've been so focused on work and out so much with my work friends that I haven't weighed and measured everything, and I haven't worked out. While I have eaten fairly healthy food when out (the good old salad with grilled chicken, and even when we had sushi I had a California roll which is excellent except for the rice) and I haven't overeaten... I've eaten out twice at nice places this week, both Jim events, but I've compensated by eating basically one meal a day. Still, not proper CR. Not monitoring my nutrition, often neglecting my nutrient-filled quotidian staples. MR has been very anxious, but is being quite good about not nagging me. I've just felt like I had to focus on other things this week. It's also easy to lose focus on CR when the excitement of what's going on at work is so overwhelming and I'm hanging out with people who definitely don't do CR.
The tension between being involved in a movement where the work is right here, crashing down on us, metaphorical bullets flying all the time, and simultaneously trying to maintain a lifestyle that requires a lot of discipline for even those with the most flexible of jobs has made me a bit nutty on numerous occasions. It's not that it can't be done... I've done it. It's just that it's hard.
And my perspective has been doing a fair amount of spinning around in the air this week. To say that Danny California has led an interesting life would be an understatement along the lines of telling Ingrid Bergman she was the most beautiful woman ever to come to Casablanca. I am glued to his stories... which are not as easy to get out of him as one would think, since he is a great listener and spends tons of time getting the people around him to talk. But once I finally got him talking it was hard for me to tear myself away. Thousands of workers organized, but I feel occasionally like my life has been a bit boring. Ironic that just as Danny is trading in activist rockstar life (mixed in with a whole bunch of crappy jobs, to be sure, but still) for business suits and talking to workers and memorizing contracts, I am having escapist fantasies of taking over abandoned buildings. I guess it's no worse than my former escapist fantasy of starting a diet and nutrition consulting business. I wonder if there's some way to combine the two. Anyhow... it's not like I'd do it. I can't even get away from my work for a proper vacation, and I'm committed, long term, married to my job, forever, or at least till the state is organized. And I love it. I'm happier in my work that I have ever been, in large part due to the amazing people I work with. I was so happy with my co-workers before Danny walked in, and now it's even better. He makes me think about things I hadn't thought about in a long time, and I suspect that's good for me. I know it's a lot of fun.
Besides, I wouldn't have the first clue as to how to build a barricade, he'd have to teach me, and he's way too busy figuring out the finer details of how overtime shifts work at our second largest hospital to do that.
Living as though there might not even be a tomorrow has never been my style. I've always had the long view, and seen CR as a means to the end of being here to see the change I've... we've... fought so hard for.
Yesterday when he was telling me about a particularly interesting action he took part in, I said, "I'm sticking with you. You have useful skills."
No doubt remembering the conversation we had a few weeks ago when I asked if he had a plan to get out of the country if they outlaw unions, he said, "Just as long as you understand that I'm planning to stay and fight."
"So am I," I answered. Then I pointed out that if you're going to stay and fight, it might be helpful to know how to do some of the things he can do. I am really quite jealous of some of his skills. And I suspect that I'm just too little to be particularly effective at some of the things he can do anyhow. But I'm very good at getting *other people* to lift heavy things. Hey, that's organizing!
I've been distracted by the swirling smoke and the hope of a new campaign and the vertigo inducing experience of teaching the thing I love most in the world (organizing) and the feeling of being back in the bubble with my staff and the hope that all of this work is actually going to turn out to be worth something, long term, not just incremental change but dare I say it some kind of eventual no I won't say it you can't make me but you know what I mean.
But that's going to take a long, long time.
And I really want to a) be alive b) look good c) be able to walk when it finally happens.
So that's why I'm doing CR, Calorie Restriction, the ostensible topic of this blog. Not to be skinny, not just because my boyfriend wants me to, not to become Kate Moss. Not even... though this is a major contributing factor, because I so desperately need the short term side-effects of mental focus and calm and invincibility in the face of winter colds.
That's all good, all but the Kate Moss part. But that's not why I'm doing CR.
I'm doing CR because I'm going to stay and fight.
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