The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

October Review

Pounds lost:

Big Ole Goose Egg.

Stories Completed:

“Ashes to Ashes” and “Friday Night.” The Latter has been submitted to glimmer train but the former needs another week or so to simmer because I’m not feeling right about sending it off yet.

Books Read:

Gun with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Total Number of Pages Read 1237

The Nitty Gritty 

October started out strong. After the 5 pound loss in September I felt lean and light and fast. The first two weeks of October I lost an additional 3 pounds. In my elation I went shopping and almost screamed with joy when I pulled on a pair of size 10 jeans and they were LOOSE. I’ve been hovering on the very edge of my size 12 pants for the past few years, wearing skirts with elastic waists on “fat days,” unwilling to buy a size 14 anything. So putting on a 10, and a loose 10 at that, felt like a major accomplishment. It wasn’t my goal size but it was close.

But of course all this good fortune only meant it was time for the pendulum to swing in the other direction.

I was leaving the house in a hurry because, as usual, I was running late. Just like my sense of direction my sense of time is vague at best. I’m the person who looks up at the clock and thinks “OH CRAP I HAVE TO BE THERE IN FIVE MINUTES.”

So I was running late and I pulled on my new size 10 jeans. I collected my things and walked out the door while sliding on my mustard yellow gloves. Then as I’m stepping down off of the porch I notice that the dog’s leash has left black streaks on my new gloves. The stupid thing is made of recycled rubber which bleeds black when it gets wet. I’m feeling like a sucker for buying the stupid thing made of old tires just because it was recycled. As I’m thinking about buying a new leash my foot lands on something unstable. The stick was so large and perfectly round it was as though I stepped unknowingly on a rotating balance beam. I didn’t fall forwards or backwards, my right foot just rolled until I was standing on my ankle instead of my foot.

OW!

I hollered at the top of my lunges like a child. Then I stood silently grimacing and assessed the situation. I needed to go to work. I was shaky and in pain but I was mobile. I limped to the car and drove to work alternating to my left foot when my right was feeling too tight and the pain too acute. I should have called in and said I would be late because I had to ice my ankle for a bit. But I didn’t. I simply continued on with my day.

Mistake.

After standing on the ankle for 8 hours I finally iced it. By that point it had almost doubled in size.

I didn’t have to stop exercising after that. I could have done upper body work. I could have worked around the injury. Instead I used the ankle as an excuse to sit around. The more I sat around the more I ate. I quickly gained back the pounds I had lost at the beginning of the month.

Then Halloween reared its ugly candy laden head. I waited until the day before to buy candy but I should have waited even longer. I ignored the candy for about an hour after  bringing it home with me. Then I opened a bag and picked out a Reese’s Cup. My mortal weakness.  I popped it in my mouth and tied the bags of candy inside of plastic grocery bags so I couldn’t see them.

This did not work.

An hour later I was “preparing the candy for the trick-or-treaters”–a day early–by emptying a variety into an enormous bowl and swirling it around. I walked away empty handed but returned five minutes later to stand over the bowl like Golem. I might as well have been mumbling:

“My Precious…”

I picked out something besides a Reese’s in a feeble attempt to show restraint. By the end of the night I had gobbled up maybe six fun size candies.

The next day was worse as the candy was brought out at work. Around noon I decided to stop counting calories.

Mistake.

By the time I was home and the trick-or-treaters were arriving I had eaten more fun size bars than I could count. A few friends had joined us to help answer the door and with them I drank wine and beer while the trick-or-treaters stormed across the front lawn. We had been warned by the neighborhood watch that the numbers of trick-or-treaters would be high in our neighborhood. I only half believed it.

We filled the big turquoise bowl with candy again and again. There were many ninjas and lots of batmen some princesses and the cutest little pink dragon. I heard a kid tell his friend we were the house with the best candy. Obviously, we had some repeat offenders.

At some point a small princess informed me that there had been a candy spill in my driveway. Not wanting to clean up the spill I said to her, cheerfully, “finders keepers!”

As I watched the girl and her friend scoop up the candy with the same frenzy that I had experienced the day before alone over my candy bowl I began to feel a twinge of guilt.

I had frenzied two little Golems.

After that I began to notice every chubby cheeked child and the guilt grew. I wasn’t responsible for the overweight kids but I was certainly complicit. Hell, I had the best candy on the block.

My guilt led to heavier drinking and a one a.m. bedtime which led to four hours of sleep before work.

The first of November I suffered the punishment of the hangover all day at work and my misery left me feeling contemplative. I went down to the library to vote once the work day was over and as I waited I thought and thought. I considered alternative treats for next years Halloween–maybe raisins or nuts. Then I realized that all the change would get me was less trick or treaters. Everyone else would still be handing out the good stuff around me. The kids would just dump the raisins in my yard in disgust or leave them at the bottom of the barrel until they went rotten. My singular effort wouldn’t change a thing.

With the aid of the candy and the hangover food and the bum ankle I managed to take two giant steps backwards. I want to blame my ankle for all of it. While the injury did leave me demoralized it was only a player in a larger game. Really, the problem has more to do with the impending doom of the holiday season.

Many people have reasons to feel depressed over the holidays–be they familial or societal or monetary. Unfortunately, I also suffer the bonus agony of working in retail during the holiday season. I have been blessed with this agony for about ten years now.

I’m not much of a drinker but dealing with these holiday stresses often makes me crave the sauce which leads to a lowered sense of willpower which in turn brings frequent higher calorie days.

By the time I was leaving the library I had decided to have a sober November. That way I could learn to deal with the holiday stresses in other healthier ways.

I’m going to call it training. After all, I do have a 5K to run on Thanksgiving and I’d love to run it faster than I did last year.

Staying sober throughout November will also help me reach the goal of 50K words for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

I’m still not sure what my plan will be next October. I know I can’t change those kids lives. The only life I can change is my own. But there’s got to be something better I can do next year. Some alternative to candy that will get the kids excited. I’d love to hear suggestions.

For now I’ve wasted enough time. I’ve got a novel to write NaNoWriMo style.

Try-Curious

I have a problem.

I’ve taken ballet lessons, tap lessons, jazz lessons, piano lessons, vocal lessons, and guitar lessons. I’ve gone to painting classes, drawing classes, theatre classes and video production classes. In college I majored in Psychology, Musical Theatre, Pre-Law, Art, and finally in Literature (even though I would have preferred creative writing). I minored in Spanish then German then History. I tried to drop out once to go into a graphic design program (my mother was not pleased). After graduating with a BA in Literature I had a grand scheme to go back to school and get a degree in Chemistry (what?) and then in Biology (why?). I have half of a masters degree partly in English Education and partly in Professional Writing. I’ve had dreams of owning and running a comic book store, a book store, a craft store, and a bakery. After watching too much Project Runway I sit and think about having my own line of clothing and handbags which sometimes devolves into me running an online store selling graphic tees with funny pictures on them.

My problem is that I’m Try-Curious. I tell myself stories about the future projecting successes and failures in my mind. I live out whole lives in my head based on preconceived notions. Then I get all hyped up and think: “Finally! I’ve found it! My calling!”

Then there I am sitting in a room full teenagers trying to teach them Macbeth. But I’m not Robin Williams and no one is standing on their desks saying “O Captain my Captain!” Instead I’m trembling and don’t know what to say and while I know teaching is a noble profession suddenly I realize that I don’t care and maybe I’m not so noble as I thought I was. The teenagers are staring at me. Some of them look concerned and some look amused. I’m sure that I look horribly embarrassed because that’s how I feel. After a while I break them into groups so I don’t have to stand in front of them anymore. I talk to them in a way I think is cool and casual. They write evaluations of me at the end of class. One of them writes: “she’s not an authority figure.”

My first and only teaching experience lasted one week. At the end of it I felt so relieved I almost ran out of the building. Why did I think I wanted to be a teacher? Where did this notion come from?

Sure, part of it was my own imagined future, my dreamscaping, but part of it was others ideas of what I should be that were so drilled into my mind that I began to think that the thoughts were my own.

“Oh, you were an English major? Are you going to be a teacher?”

“No, I want to be a writer.”

“Well, no one ever gets published. You’ll need a back up plan.”

“Sure, I guess so.”

I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. Wondering why I can’t just focus. I’ve become obsessed with people who do the seemingly impossible. I want to read books about survival and endurance. I want to figure out the secret to focus. An ultra runner focuses only on running, believing they can run, and figuring out how to be a better runner.

I don’t want to be Try-Curious. I just want to be whatever I am. So why can’t I?

I think that the secret is confidence. The secret is giving into the risk/reward and realizing that the risk is worth the reward. I’m never satisfied with anything else I try because my version of the story is better than the reality. Because, well, I’m a writer. So why do I keep denying it? Why do I keep ignoring it? I suppose I just don’t believe in myself.

The best writers focus every ounce of themselves on writing and they can do that only because they believe in themselves.

Murakami writes from 3 AM to 7 AM every day. In a recent interview Michael Chabon said that he writes from 10 PM to 3 AM five days a week. Stephen King writes something like 6-8 hours a day every day without exception and so does Joyce Carol Oates. About a month ago I heard an interview with the popular romance writer Brenda Jackson. She said she got up at 3 AM every day to “writer her little stories” before getting her kids ready for school.

These are bestsellers and Pulitzer Prize winners. Why are they so successful? Because they just write and write and write. It is their priority.

I think that’s why I try try try and never love anything else I do. All I want to do is write and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. The rest is simply a series of distractions because I don’t believe in my ability to be a writer. I just have to find the confidence to make writing my priority. I have to stop listening to others opinions and I have to stop giving into my fears.

So there it is in plain black and white.

And here I am evaluating my goals. How can I give the most time to writing?

I cannot give up running or preparing nutritious meals because those things keep me alive, sane, and healthy. I can’t quit my day job because that pays the bills. So there is only one thing left.

I’ve been spending all this time researching craft fairs and how to start online businesses and how to make patterns and I’m realizing that what was fun as a hobby bores me to tears when I consider it as a serious enterprise.

I know I’ve really lost track because I’ve spent hours thinking of silly names I could give to breads when I open a bakery (current favorite a Naan bread called “Mahatma Naan-dhi”). But wait, we were sewing here.

And then there’s the enormous amount of time it takes to run a business. When I think about it I want to puke. Applying for loans and hiring accountants and sewing and mailing and sewing and mailing. But when I think about writing I feel like this:

So why not just do it? Why not just run through the hills and throw caution to the wind? Why not dedicate this year to nothing but running and writing? Why not indeed. So here I go jumping without a parachute.

I hereby dedicate myself to writing and running until serious illness, injury, or death prevents me from doing either. I don’t need an MFA, I don’t need approval, I don’t need a back up plan. I will either die a writer or die knowing I tried to be a writer with all my heart and soul and I will die satisfied because it’s all I ever really wanted to be.

Death of the Life of the Mind

Here, a week late, is my September in review.

Reading: 

Eat and Run by Scott Jurek

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Total pages= 695

Writing: 

I discussed my writing breakthroughs for this month in my September 16th post Flex. Unfortunately, I did not meet my submission deadline for this month. My excuse=one dead cat+two friends in need of my support. I will address the dead cat in more detail later in the post. I suppose that November 1st I will have to submit two stories instead of one to make up for my delinquency.

Nutrition:

I discussed my nutrition breakthroughs for this month in my September 26th post Simplify, Simplify. Shortly after writing that post I made the decision to cut meat out of my diet completely. I’ve never really been a huge fan of meat (with the exception of bacon…I do like bacon). As I child I always remember eating meat because I felt like I should, never because I wanted too. Really, I showed up to meals for the sides and desserts. I also seem to have some trouble digesting meat which demotes it further in the food hierarchy of my mind.

In high school I tried to be a vegetarian but I didn’t take care to eat well and often felt ill and listless. A girl cannot live on pasta and candy alone. I remember a doctor or some other adult telling me that vegetarian diets were unhealthy, which is total bullhockey, so I began eating meat again.

Anyways, I’ve been a vegetarian for a few weeks now and I feel great. It could be the absence of  that hard to digest animal protein in my system, or my increased vegetable consumption, or just the calming of my conscious. Regardless of the reason I feel light and fast. My running time has improved. I feel satisfied after meals. My sugar cravings have decreased.

I could discuss the environmental and health benefits of vegetarianism and I could go into the horrors of factory farms. I could talk about why I love animals. There could be a lecture or lesson here but others have written about vegetarianism more eloquently than I could ever possibly hope to. I’m particularly fond of the recent book by Jonathan Safran Foer called Eating Animals. Foer’s book is well researched and beautifully written but shocking so skip it if you are the sort who’d rather not think about that sort of thing. Other good books on the subject include The Omnivore’s Dilemma  by Michael Pollan and Diet for a New America by John Robbins (which I have not read but which comes highly recommended). If you are not into reading try the documentary Forks Over Knives. 

In the month of September I lost a total of 5 lbs which brings my weight down to 160 lbs. Only 15 lbs to go until I reach my goal weight.

Fitness:

I’m feeling like I really was born to run (and yoga). In August I focused too much on H.I.T. (high intensity interval training) which left my joints feeling a little creaky. Since I am missing much of the cartilage in my left knee (a short but ridiculous story I am choosing to omit) jumping and squatting and moving side to side a lot really takes a toll on my joints. My knee also makes this sickening crackling sound when I move that way. So in September I’ve been focusing more on running and using yoga to cross-train.

Right now I’m running between 2-3 miles four days a week and 5-6 miles one day a week. I intend to incorporate some more specified training in the future but lately I’ve just been running how I want to run. Three days a week I’ve been throwing in some yoga to stretch and tone. I’m really digging my exercise routine of late. The best part, I think, is that running makes me get outside and explore while bonding with my dog and sucking up my daily dose of vitamin D.

Crafting:

I’ve finished about half of an apron. I guess I’ll have to owe two crafts next month along with my two story submissions.

On Dead Cats:

On September 29th my oldest cat, Squigman, passed. He did not go softly into the sweet night. He fought for his life with every ounce of strength in his little furry body. In the end it was his brain that betrayed him. According to the vet he was in perfect health but his brain just shut down and when the brain switched off the lights everything stopped working.

Sometimes I feel silly for being so distraught over the death of a cat. Over the last week I’ve repeatedly burst into crying fits at the thought of Squigman’s life or death (I’m crying even now as I write this). I’ve imagined seeing him in the bedroom, where he spent most of his final months, and then become upset when I realize I’ve only seen a pile of clothes or a bunched up blanket.

Squigman died at the vet while I was at work. When I came to retrieve him they asked me if I would like to hold his body. A million fears race through my mind. Years ago I would have said no, I would have been petrified at the thought of holding a dead body, I would have averted my eyes and paid the bill and had him taken away somewhere so that I didn’t have to think about it. And I would have regretted behaving that way. So that day I decided to confront death and hold my old friend in my arms the way I had so many times before. He was heavier than ever, still warm, and he smelled of antiseptic. They had wrapped him in a towel so I couldn’t see the blood on his body. His mouth hung open as it had in the last moments that I saw him alive. I thought I felt him breathing and then realized that I was just imagining the movement of his belly. The vet left me alone and I gently stroked my dead cat’s neck and talked to him through painful tears.

I spent a little over a decade with him but it was at that moment that I finally realized how much he meant to me. He was with me in my first apartment. He was there when I graduated college. He helped me through the deaths of family members and through a bad breakup and through other just general bad days.

In exchange for all that I gave him a home and food and love. I chose him from the animal shelter because he looked ridiculously pathetic. There were many cute kittens there but Squigman was not one of them. His head was too big for his body and it caused him to fall forward sometimes when he walked. In that huge head were two tiny green eyes that were too close together and perpetually gunked up and crusty. I wish I had a picture but I adopted him before I owned a digital camera or a phone with a camera in it (gasp). There may be one of those old fashioned film photos somewhere but I couldn’t begin to guess where I could have squirreled it away.

Despite his dopey appearance as a kitten Squigman grew into a handsome man. He weighed in at around twenty pounds and would let all of that weight relax into your arms when you held him. Most cats won’t allow you to cradle them like a child but Squigman seemed to prefer it. I often held him in my arms like a teddy bear when I went to sleep–now the hour before sleep is the time when I miss him most of all.

I took Squigman home and my husband and I buried him. In the days that followed I tried not to think at all because thinking led to crying. I distracted myself by going out or cleaning or watching movies or running. By the end of the week the grief began to clear and I felt not only strong but stronger than before. The world looked somehow different than it had. I suppose it looked less permanent but also, strangely, more vibrant.

I know that I did everything I could for that old cat. I’m proud of myself for facing my fears and in facing those fears I showed Squigman the same respect in death as I had in life. He deserved it after all. Goodnight old man. I’ll never forget you.

Simplify, Simplify

“Let food by thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

–Hippocrates

After secreting the third 100 calorie pack into the bedroom and knocking it back like a shot of  tequila I realized that I had a problem. It was 9pm and I was so hungry that I had gone into a frenzy pacing back and forth across the house. I was feeling guilty and bargaining with myself.

“Okay, so I’ll have one more pack of cookies and then go to bed and then get up early and run and run and run and then it won’t matter.”

It was pathetic really.

These frantic negotiations had been happening every night in August from the time I recovered from my first bout of illness at the beginning of the month until the time I came down with the flu at the end of the month. Since June I’d been on a 1500 calorie a day diet and was exercising five to six days a week. Sometimes I’d work out for 20 minutes and sometimes I’d log up to 90 minutes in the course of a day. On days I worked out harder I’d up my calories a bit to make sure I didn’t starve myself. Everything seemed to be okay until August.

In August I never felt full and I was weak all the time. There were several days where I let go and binged on ice cream or ate ridiculous things like bagels slathered in peanut butter and nutella. I had all sorts of “diet food” around the house too that I was eating like it was air. Skinny cow ice cream bars, 100 calorie packs in every variety, low fat cheese, and fat free jello pudding–all of which came in convenient single serve packaging.

I never had one serving though. I was constantly surrounded  by tiny packages ripped open and emptied so that just the husks remained strewn about the living room and kitchen and bedroom. And I was using up all my calories on this crap while the spinach in the fridge was going bad.

When you are standing in the grocery store looking at the packages and reading the calorie content and all the other stuff thought up by the marketing team at Nabisco or whatever it’s easy to become seduced into buying. After being at work all day it’s hard to think too much about what you are really reading.

“Oh, look, this says it’s a healthy choice and it’s convenient!”

Picking up the box of 100 calorie packs feels so simple and easy. But it’s not. The box you hold in your hand represents the marketing strategies and cash flow figures of an entire corporation that has little to no interest in your health. They just want to sell you their snacks. So they tell you what you want to hear and you take home what’s basically junk food that’s fat free or low cal. Yes, junk food. There is nothing nutritious about Oreo thin crisps.

I’m guilty, very guilty, of letting these things seduce me again and again. Why? Because I’m tired. Work and day to day responsibilities have sapped all the energy out of me. By the time I’m standing in the grocery store aisle I just want to take the most convenient thing and go home and sit on the couch.

Is that really so wrong?

Yes, I think so.

Around the end of August my mother came down to visit. She rented a cabin at a ranch near my house. The place was all rolling hills and mountain scenery. What seemed like hundreds of animals, big and small, roamed around and did animal things. It was quiet and majestic. One of those places that makes you take in a deep breath (not to close to the barn) and let it out like it was the first breath you had every really taken. We rode horses and when we arrived back at the barn I didn’t want to dismount. I just wanted to hold onto the horse’s neck and breath in the air. The owner, a small woman with short cropped hair and sun-browned skin told me I should come back for the day ride where they served lunch in the woods with artisan bread and fresh goat cheese.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that bread and the ranch and the way it all made me feel so a week later I made some fresh bread. Making bread doesn’t really take that much work, there’s just a lot of waiting, and for me the process of kneading and mixing can be very relaxing. When I finally got to taste the homemade bread I felt so satisfied in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. The bread was delicious and hearty and healthy. A slice was around 200 calories, four times the calories of the sandwich bread I’d been eating, but one slice for breakfast made me feel full and contained lots of protein and other vitamins and minerals and absolutely no preservatives or chemicals.

I used to make homemade bread a lot, when I was addicted to Michael Pollan books, but I had become cynical or something and had fallen off the natural foods wagon. One loaf of bread made me want to jump back on.

Then I read Eat and Run, a running memoir written by a vegan ultramarathoner named Scott Jurek.  I could identify with Jurek’s love of running and cooking. What touched me most though was his transformation from junk food junkie to health nut. In the book he stresses again and again the importance of eating a variety of plant foods for optimal health. Okay, so this isn’t news, but hearing it again was a great jolt of inspiration. I had an inkling that my August failure was due to poor eating habits but reading this book made me sure of it. I needed to simplify my diet and cut out all that processed crap.

It would take more of an effort every day to eat this way but it would be worth it. Picking and preparing food shouldn’t be the part of life we rush through or try to make more convenient. If I have to give up half an hour of TV or facebook to knead bread or cut vegetables then I should. We only have one body and life and we shouldn’t ignore it or neglect it. Our bodies and minds can do amazing things if we provide the right fuel.

So I’m on week three of homemade bread and I’m convinced I can never eat store bought loaves again. I make yeasted bread on Sunday when I’m off work and sometimes quick breads during the week. In addition to a few hearty slices of bread a day I’ve cut my diet down to fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, rice, and minimally processed dairy like milk and cottage cheese. I’m eating very little meat. I decided that if I really want a cookie I have to scrounge up all the ingredients and make it from scratch.

Eating this way takes more work, yes, it’s true. But I feel full for the first time in a while–really full–and I’m under my calories every day. I feel better overall and my body seems to be functioning more efficiently. I’ve regained some sort of primal connection with my food, making it from scratch, and this connection has led to a heightened appreciation. The best part is that eating this way is cheap. People often say they can’t afford to eat healthily but that’s not true. Everyone can afford to eat healthily. Sure “health foods” like 100 calorie packs and skinny cow ice cream bars are expensive but vegetables are some of the cheapest things in the grocery store and you can make four times the cookies with flour and sugar for the same amount of money you put into the store bought ones.  And while the dollar menu at McDonald’s is tempting, consider the medical costs of diabetes.

Something else that I’ve learned is to reconsider what a meal can be. We have this idea that we must eat a certain way for it to count as a meal. But a meal can be cottage cheese, homemade bread, and a salad. A meal can be a baked sweet potato with sour cream. A meal can be a bowl of oatmeal with hemp seeds and fruit. We don’t need these ridiculous portions and big slabs of meat and elaborate meals. We need to simplify and appreciate food again. We need to mix flour and touch dough. We need to cut vegetables and taste them, really taste them, and enjoy what they are. We need to hold a piece of fruit in our hands and appreciate it’s natural sweetness and beauty.

We need to remember that food is life and treat it with the reverence that it deserves.

It’s an easy thing to forget, I know. I forget it often. But if I try, really try, maybe one day I’ll get there. Quitting junk food and releasing ourselves from the downward spiral of the western diet can be as difficult as kicking a drug habit. The best strategy is to take it a day at a time and if you fall down pick yourself back up and start over again until you can walk without falling and the next thing you know you’ll be running along like you’ve been doing it your whole life.

Flex

Lately I’ve been experiencing a lot déjà vu. I could blame a glitch in the Matrix but I think cerebral overload is more likely.

I have a theory that déjà vu is the brain resetting—like when your computer freezes and you switch it off and on again and everything magically works as it did before and sometimes even better than before.

The past two months have been full of transitions and brain workouts.  I’m reading and writing and exercising and working and making art. Some days are harder than others but every month the effort seems a little less strenuous as my mind and body adapt.

I remember when I first started running a few months before I was married. Running seemed like the hardest thing I’d ever done. I had attempted to run many times when I was younger only to give up. But last year I had the goal of looking good for my wedding photos and I was able to focus on that and something clicked in my brain and made me keep going.

The first few months of running the pain in my body was terrible and I’d never felt my hips ache so and I thought that my body maybe just wasn’t built for it. But there was something I loved about running that I couldn’t quite pinpoint so I kept it up after the wedding was over. Gradually, my body began to adapt and the aches and pains lessened. I’m not a marathoner yet but I’m working on being a better runner and reading about it and practicing my form. I’m realizing that I have to become more disciplined with my diet and create a running plan and if I do my body will continue to adapt.

They say, whoever they are, that the brain works like a muscle. The more you exercise it the stronger it gets. Learning comes through repetition and with repetition comes ease and advancement.

I’ve always been sort of lazy about writing and would only pick up the pen every so often and then, when I had a difficult time expressing my thoughts, I would put the pen back down again.  Just like with running, writing fiction has never come easily to me, but giving up writing has.

Forcing the continuous practice of writing (and reading) over the past few months has changed something in the way my brain functions just like running has changed how my body functions. Every sentence I read and every sentence I wrote I was progressing—though it was often hard to see it though all the pain that the effort of it caused.

Then suddenly, about two weeks ago, some time after I had begun experiencing the déjà vu, something clicked in my brain. It was like my synapses had frozen and I was in this awful funk and then somehow I rebooted and everything started running at full speed. I sat down and pulled out my notebook and wrote the word “truth” at the top of the page. I thought for a minute and then a flood of words came out of the pen as if by some sort of magic and there it was, a complete story, written in thirty minutes. And with it came this rush of adrenaline and joy.

Then a week later I did it again.

I hadn’t written one story in two months and then suddenly I had two in two weeks. I’m sure neither of these stories are high literature but I think they are pretty alright and I’m proud of them. I’m also positive that neither of them would have happened if I hadn’t forced myself to continue on a consistent path.

I hear a lot of defeatist talk every day. I hear it from myself as well as others. There’s a lot of “I can’t” and “you can’t” out there. It’s easy to forget that all it takes to accomplish most things in life is effort, consistency, and discipline. It’s even easier to put off that effort when you begin to think about the mental or physical pain it may cause you. But then when you get there, when you have that reboot, when you reach that plateau where the pain subsides for a moment and you feel the rush of accomplishment that’s when you realize why you went through the pain in the first place and maybe, just maybe, you remember that feeling of joy when the pain comes again.

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year receded before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms out further….And one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”’

I believe in it too, Gatsby, I believe in it too.

Count Out

Read my flash fiction story Count Out here:

http://www.flash-fiction-world.com/count-out.html

If you would like to comment on my story please do so on the Flash Fiction World page rather than on wordpress. If the editors of Flash Fiction world see your comments it will improve my chances of winning their yearly contest.

Thanks for your support!

The Sequel

Like many movie sequels and sophomore albums the second month on my self improvement journey had its good points but was not quite as impressive as month one.  So, let’s run the highlight reel.

Reading: 

In August I read 2027 pages. Phew. That’s about 500 pages more than last month. I made sure to mix it up and incorporate lots of different writing styles and read multiple books simultaneously. Doing this keeps my hyperactive mind from getting too bored.

Books completed in August:

A Clash of Kings George RR Martin

Circle of Magic (books 1-3) Tamora Pierce

Slapstick Kurt Vonnegut

Cesar’s Way Cesar Millan

Fitness:

I’ve had a very low energy month plagued with illness and injury. I was sick once at the beginning of the month and again this past week (all this time on my butt is probably why my reading totals are so high) . The first time I fell ill I had a small head cold and just felt really tired. In the last few days I’ve had flu symptoms including a fever and a hacking cough and a runny nose and all that other stuff that they advertise on the NyQuil bottle.

In addition to all this I’ve had some bad foot cramping that has further stymied my exercise efforts. I would probably blame the foot cramping on pounding up and down the steep hills in my neighborhood, trying to keep up with my pup and tire him out, and then going home and doing intense circuit training. I kept this up six days a week for the first two weeks of August after I felt I recovered from the first bout of illness. It’s obvious that I overdid it a bit. So for the last two weeks of this month most of my exercise has been walking with the dog peppered with very occasional running intervals.

I’m a little disappointed with my inconsistency this month and my stubbornness. I pushed myself when my body was obviously screaming for a break. I suppose that I felt supercharged from my accomplishments last month and forgot that I needed to build on my exercise base and not go galloping from a level five to a level ten.

Writing:

With all the ups and downs in my health this month I’ve been struggling to keep my spirits high. For a long time I have battled depression and anxiety, as a lot of writers do, and I simply cannot write when I have the blues. Therefore, in the month of August I did not achieve my goal of writing every day.

On the days I was able to write I wrote briefly, maybe accomplishing a paragraph per writing session. I’m currently working on two very different stories neither of which I finished this month. So for my August submission I pulled another old story out of my desk drawers, a flash fiction piece that I rather like called Count Out. The piece has been submitted to  http://www.flash-fiction-world.com/ where it will appear online if accepted for publication and will be entered in a contest to possibly win a whopping $40. If the piece is accepted for online publication I will post a link to it on the blog.

Nutrition:

Overall I would say my nutrition has been unbalanced. My diet has been all soup and crackers when I was ill and emotional junk food binges when I was not. Regardless, I’ve managed to lose one pound this month bringing my weight down to 165.

I suppose I’m glad I didn’t gain weight through all this but really the weight loss is not the important part. What’s important is health and proper nutrition. On this front I have been quite lax. I need more veggies and less sugar, more lean protein and less cheese, more control and less “how much food can I shove in my mouth before bed time.”

Honestly, I partly blame my injuries and illness on my out of whack eating.

Crafting:

In one of his angry pee fits my cat Chewbacca ruined the bag my husband used to carry his gear to softball practice so for my craft of the month I attempted to make him a new one. The bag was one of those drawstring sack backpacks made out of that  sort of nylon fabric that looks like a football jersey (I’m blanking on what it’s called and I’m too lazy to google it). I didn’t have a pattern so I sort of made it up and the bag turned out pretty okay. The only real issue was getting the drawstring to pull right. For that kind of bag you should be able to pull the drawstring on either side and it will cinch closed without having to tie the string. Eventually, after I completed the bag of course, I figured out that to accomplish this you had to loop the drawstring around. So, the first bag doesn’t exactly cinch right but I know how to fix it for the next bag.

Here’s my awesome husband modeling the bag.

This month I also managed to pull out my oil paints again. I haven’t painted in a very long time. I decided to just work on some abstract free form painting while listening to music. I don’t really want to post my unfinished painting so here is a picture of the fire hazard I created outside while working on the piece in the whirl of mosquitoes that live in our backyard.

Notice the lit citronella candle next to the turpentine and the can of bug spray.

If you like it then you really shouldn’t pee on it.

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.”

– Ernest Hemingway

My cat, Chewbacca, is a total A-hole.

Yet this jerk wins top billing in my heart.  Maybe it’s his endearing napoleon complex or the fact that he taught himself to use the toilet or his loud and forceful purr. He’s a wonderful cat. A phenomenal cat.

Except when he gets angry. When Chewbacca is really pissed off he pees. Everywhere.

I’m organizing books in the guest room and I get a faint whiff. What is it? Oh no. I get on my hands and knees and lean a little too close in and oh blech I’m going to barf. Then I go and get the pee cleaner. The stuff is supposed to cover up the smell of the pee so the cat won’t mark in the same spot again. It doesn’t really work. I close the guest room off to the cats so he won’t pee there again.

Another day I’m writing in the study, trying to write anyways, and I’m agonizing over some sentence and Chewbacca is there and he’s rubbing on my leg and then I hear the sound of piss on metal. He’s peeing on my metal easel and on the carpet right there in front of me. I go and get the pee cleaner and tell Chewbacca what an A-hole he is.

And yet another day and I’m getting dressed for work in the bedroom. I’m stuck in one of those clothing circles where you put one thing on and decide it makes you look fat and then put something else on and then put the first thing back on again because it was better anyways and besides it matches your shoes. And there’s Chewbacca and he’s peeing on the closet door.

Later I’m working out and I still smell pee, in fact I smell it everywhere, and then I realize that the jerk-face peed on my sneakers. I smell around the closet and smell it on my leather boots too and some belts and a pair of flip flops and a purse I like (most of which shouldn’t have been on the floor of the closet anyways). Some of it I save and clean and clean and some of it I throw away.

An hour later he’s peeing in the dog’s bedding.

When we moved he did it and when we got the dog he started to do it again. In our old apartment he did it all the time. I think because that apartment smelled horrible and was loud due to our downstairs neighbor being a crazy alcoholic chain smoker.

I think Chewbacca does it for attention but I don’t want to give him attention when he does it because then he will do it more and I don’t want to scold him when he does it because then he will have a negative association with peeing. I wonder if he does it because I praise him when he goes in the toilet and he just thinks that peeing is a thing to get praised for. Or maybe he really is just a total A-hole and does it to be an A-hole.

And it’s not that I don’t give him enough attention. He gets tons of attention.

I know that Chewbacca loves me and I love him but its like we have this abusive relationship where I love him and love him and then he pees on me.

“I told him a remark which I had heard attributed to the writer Renata Adler, who hates writing, that a writer was a person who hated writing.”

-Kurt Vonnegut

I have the same relationship with writing that I do with Chewbacca but the roles are reversed so in this scenario I’m the one who pees on writing’s shoes.

The first thing I ever wrote, that I remember, was a story about a woman who worked in a diner and there was a little man that lived in her pocket and told her what to do. The story was called “Alice’s Restaurant” because I had seen the cover of that record album somewhere and it imprinted itself upon my mind.

At first I thought the story was great and then I thought it was okay and then I thought it probably stunk. I never finished it. I decided then, I was probably nine or ten at the time, that even though I wanted to write that I couldn’t because it was hard and I wasn’t very good at it anyways. Besides, if I was a writer I’d always be poor and tormented.

In other words, I peed all over writing.

So then I stopped writing for a few years. I closed myself off from writing and from reading as well.

Then I started reading and writing again a few years later and I dredged up that old story and tried to work on it and confirmed that it smelled like pee and peed on it again. After a while I tried to write something else and eventually managed to get started. It took months but I wrote about half of a novel. I never finished it. Instead, after months of hard work, I just peed all over it.

And the process repeated itself again and again. The same old sad story.

I want to be a good writer so badly but I get angry when it doesn’t all come out as beautiful music. I can smell that scent of pee on my writing. Sometimes I wonder if that’s how Chewbacca feels. He wants to be the favorite and the alpha have everything go his way and never be disturbed from his routine. Then he gets upset and pees and then later he smells his mark and pees again because that scent reminds him that things don’t always go his way and he resents that.

Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.

And I wonder if they make something to get that pee scent off of writing.

 

Fear of Thinning

Overheard Conversation:

Woman 1: Which diet do you think we should try? How about the Paleo Diet? Or Skinny Bitch? Oh, what about this one, it says “lose weight eating whatever you want.”

Woman 2: How about we just do a cleanse? Remember when Christy did that juicing thing and lost a ton of weight?

Woman 1: She’s still fat though cause she gained it all back. She’ll always be fat anyways. Her Momma was fat and her Daddy was fat too. It’s genetics.

Woman 2: Slow metabolism.

Woman 1: I know, my metabolism is soooo slow. And I think I may be allergic to gluten or something and I’m under so much stress.

Woman 2: You should do this gluten free diet then.

Woman 1: No, I’m going to get this one. It’s called The Cookie Diet. 

Woman 2: Well, get it then and let’s go to lunch. Where do you want to eat?

Woman 1: McDonald’s sounds good…

Head Games

Yesterday I ate far far more than I should have. It all started with chicken fingers at Zaxby’s. It’s been a while since I’ve eaten fried fast food. Apparently, it’s a gateway drug. My 1200 calorie Zaxby’s meal (and I got the small size) led to beers and chips and lots of Nutella, among other things. I felt guilty and gross while I was eating it all and I felt sick afterwards. In a way I also felt safe and free.

I don’t recognize my legs anymore. My entire life they’ve been there, my thunder thighs, even at my lowest weight. But suddenly they’ve begun to shrink away. It must be all the running. I should feel excited but instead I feel fearful.

What?

I’ve been trying to work this out.

It’s the strangest thing. As my body thins and become more muscular my mind obsesses over the change. In the conscious part of my brain I know that I want to have an athletic and healthy body yet the unconscious recesses disagree.

I suppose in part it comes back to survival. Losing weight works against everything our bodies are programmed for: eat food=gain fat=live.

Having the willpower not to eat an entire cake is such a first world problem.

Of course, I suppose it’s not really all that simple.

As my thighs thin away so does my identity. I’ve always been fat and if I’m not fat anymore then what am I? If I’m thin I have to be a different person and move out of my comfort zone.

I know that some of you are thinking:

You don’t have to be a different person. Just be the same person but thin.

Sorry, but that won’t work.

The person I am now includes my 24 hour obsession with food, my tendency to binge, my sweet tooth. While I can’t remove these urges I can change my approach to soothing them. Fat Liza gives in and eats the whole pizza while skinny Liza restrains herself and only eats a slice. These are two distinct people. To be skinny Liza I have to resist fat Liza.

Then there’s the harassment factor.

All women, no matter how they look, have to put up with some amount of harassment from men. Over the years I’ve noticed that the amount of harassment I receive is directly related to the way I look. In my heavier years I received considerably less attention than in my lighter years. Clothing choices are somewhat related to the harassment factor but body composition has a much stronger impact.

I hate being hit on. I don’t find it flattering or fun or amusing. There was a time when I would do anything to avoid it. I’d wear baggy clothes, I’d forgo makeup, I’d behave differently. Anything to avoid the pick up line.

As I mature, I try not to let my fear of being hit on change who I am. I want to wear makeup and dresses and act demurely. So I will. Not to attract others attention but just to feel good about myself. Yet, in the back of my mind I’m always concerned about the moment that some man will impose his will upon me and ruin my day and I just want to run away and eat a candy bar–or a bag of candy bars–and cover myself in a layer of protective fat in order to avoid it.

Yikes.

And, really, losing weight is just so damn hard.

I’ve tried and tried and have yet to reach my goal weight. Every time I give up I do so with bit of relief and a bit of reluctance.  I don’t want to be overweight and unhealthy but it’s easier to be that way. Not better just easier.

The easy way is never the better way.

It’s easy going to work every day and being told what to do and then going home and watching TV and then eating an entire gallon of ice cream. But at work you feel blue and while watching TV you feel bored and then after the ice cream you feel bloated and sick.

It’s better to work hard and be productive and eat right. You’ll feel accomplished and satisfied and energized. You’ll feel good but it won’t be easy. At least that’s what I’m telling myself every day.

Some days it works and some days it doesn’t.

Where Are You Going Where Have You Been?

A Quote:

“If food is poetry, is not poetry also food?” –Joyce Carol Oates

Pony Up

If you own a calendar, or a watch, or a computer, or a cell phone, or have a job, you probably know that today is August 1st. Today I must be weighed and measured and hopefully will not be found wanting.

Reading

I have most definitely met my reading quota for the month. I have read every day without exception. Of course, most of my reading has been Game of Thrones centered. I believe I have read around 1500 pages this month. That seems like an awful lot but when I was getting my BA in English I read that in a week (and that reading was much denser). So I suppose I could do better next month.

Fitness

I’ve managed to exercise 5-6 days every week this month including the week I was on holiday in Florida. Some days I put in more effort than others but I’m proud of myself for sticking to it even on the days my get up and go got up and went.

I have been consistently active for over a year now but I hit a wall a few months ago and was feeling really frustrated. Exercise is definitely more rewarding when you can see results. When the results aren’t there it’s easy to throw in the towel. Before I started this blog I was often tempted to give in to the fat and let myself go. Yet, in the last month the exercise has begun to pay off again. I can’t help but think it has something to do with eating a more balanced diet.

The most thrilling fitness accomplishment this month, at least in my eyes, has been my marked increase in stamina. For the past year I haven’t been able to run further than five miles without stopping but yesterday I ran six miles and went on two walks with our new puppy. That’s a total of eight miles in one day and at the end of the day I had energy to spare.

Diet

More often than not my diet has been pretty good. I do have a weakness for sweets and indulge in this weakness from time to time but most days I’ve stayed within my calorie allowance. My worst week of the month was the week I was on vacation. Eating out and being around others who were not dieting was incredibly challenging. I gave in to temptation perhaps more than I should have (cake, how I love thee). I started this month at 170 lbs and when I returned from vacation I was 175 lbs.

Even though I gained some during my holiday I was able to get back down to my July 1st starting weight within a week. I also lost an additional 4 lbs bringing my current weight to 166 lbs. Not bad at all. And now that I’m losing some of the poundage I can actually see the muscle I have been building for the past year.

Writing 

My writing life has been a tad off (as always).  First of all, when I set up this blog I immediately became obsessed with it and got the idea in my head that I was going to post every day. Posting every day would be fine if it didn’t take me two hours or more to write each post. And once I’ve finished the post I have no time or energy left to write fiction.

I realized that my fiction to blog ratio was unbalanced around the middle of the month and started concentrating more on fiction and less on the blog (thus, the reduction in posts). I think in the future I will stick to a blog post per week so that I can spend more time concentrating on my fiction.

I was able to write every day for most of the month rising as early as 6 am (gasp) to get my writing in. I’ve found that I write much better in the morning while the rest of the world slumbers. My early morning writing strategy was really paying off until we adopted this guy:

6 am means nothing to him. He’s adorable but at only two months old he requires constant attention when he’s awake. The first week after we adopted him was particularly rough but I think we are falling into a better routine over the past few days. Mostly, we have figured out that a long walk cures most ills when it comes to puppies. And by that I mean it exhausts them into submission. So now the routine will be: exhaust puppy and then write. Of course, the best part about this is the bonus exercise.

Anyways, because of the puppy (excuses, excuses) my writing slowed down in the second half of the month. I’ve been working on a strange story that just won’t come to a resolution and I haven’t been able to put in the time to rework it. I realized two days ago that it would be impossible to wrap it up before the August 1st deadline so I pulled an old short story out of my hat to revise. Yesterday I submitted the old story, called Snake Skin, to Glimmer Train, a literary magazine. The submission was entered into their very short fiction contest. Cross your finger and hope that I win the grand prize of $1200. Second or third prize wouldn’t be bad either.

It’s difficult for me to summarize Snake Skin. Mostly, it’s about change, hence the title.

I find that although I can relate very personal things about myself here I feel reluctant to post unpublished fiction on the blog. A much deeper part of me resides within my fiction than in my non-fiction. So I will keep it to myself for now.

Crafting

My struggle for writing balance also affected my crafting time. By which I mean I crafted very little. I did manage to make one bag in two crazy three hour sessions the second of which occurred in the middle of the night during a very loud thunderstorm. It is a simple bag with a shell made of light denim and a lining made of cotton. The lining fabric is a neat blue and orange houndstooth pattern that my mother and I found in a small fabric shop in Atlanta. The bag has one inside pocket. I made the bag to give to my sister-in-law for her birthday. It’s very large and we discovered it could smuggle a ton of snacks into a movie theater without anyone noticing.

Here is my lovely sister-in-law modeling her bag:

That, As They Say, Is That

There you have it–my month in review. It’s been a busy month but not a bad one overall. I’d love to stay and chat but the puppy is awake and running off to hide somewhere with my shoe.

Until next time!

Ciao!