100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 34

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch:  Subway, roast beef and a bowl of soup
Dinner:  Tuna salad sandwich, a cup or so of chips, hardboiled egg, cup or so of pineapple

So, this breakfast, the not having any has to stop.  I feel hunger when I awake, but it is gone by the time I am up and moving around, feeding the cats and going you know where.

It is supposed to be the most important meal of the day, breaking the overnight fast and all that.  I just kind of forget about it.  Not good.  Gotta stop.  Make the effort.  Eat something, dammit.

Slow day at the gallery, which was nice, as I was able to finish my library book and can get a new one when I go in tomorrow for a special session with a client.  She does not want her current employer to know that she is looking for a new job, totally understandable, especially if the new position does not work out.  Normally, even this sort of a kinder-gentler sort of subterfuge would bother me and I would be wishing that she had kept that information to herself, but if she had, I would not have been able to suggest a Saturday appointment.

It means that I will have to give up my afternoon with a friend, but this seems more important, particularly since her current work and future plans are with disadvantaged persons.  That speaks to my heart and the work that I do, making this a noble effort for both of us.  Crafting what she needs will be easy, because she has qualifications upon qualifications and those are stacked atop the energy and knowledge she brings to her work.  It is very satisfying to work with someone like her.  Oh yeah, everyone needs a job and deserves to have one worthy of them, but this kind of expansion into the realms of serious public service, even though it brings a paycheck with it, is worth whatever it takes to help someone.

One of my other clients stopped in to visit.  He is of an entirely different type of person, both in the work he would like to do and how he seems to be doing his best to avoid actually getting an actual job.  He showed up with a haircut, of the stunning and wonderful kind and told me that he is serious about making his life better, so it looks like we will be working together again.  The person who cut his hair, however, did a not so great job and when he shows up next week, we will step outside and I will trim and try to fix the small mess the stylist made in the back of his head.  Yeah, we run an all-inclusive-services kind of operation there.

Those two are one of the reasons that I proposed this service to our library and have kept on doing it for two years.  I hope to do it for as long as it is needed, which, Universe willing, will not be forever.

Dear kind and loving Universe, people need jobs, so if there is anything you can do about it, I would be so appreciative.

I have finished three bath wash cloths for the babies.  Two are the half-sized and ribbed ones, and I started a fish-shaped one at knitting club on Wednesday, finished it today at the gallery and an half-way into the second one.  The babies and I will be making bathtub soap paints next week and then they can take a bath with those and their new wash cloths.  I stopped at a tiny variety kind of store on my way home from the city tonight and bought a couple of crochet hooks so that I can make nice, loopy hangers for them, and was looking around at all the lovely yarns and found some more cotton yarn.  Huge surprise, but I bought some, only two balls, in colors that I think the babies might like.

I also found, on-line, patterns for knitting letter and initials into a cloth, and will go back when I have used up the yarns I have now and am feeling more confident about this whole knitting thing and get some solid colors so that I can make some with their initials.  Might make some for mommy and daddy, too.

I used to knit.  It is sort of like the whole shooting thing, I did it long ago, then more recently and am wanting to do it now.  Again.  It is fun.  It keeps me busy when I am feeling too exhausted to do anything else.  I am making cool and useful stuff.  If I start to feel hungry, I pick up the needles and yarn and keep my hands occupied.  And, it is pretty darn cheap.  But, the best part is staying busy and doing something useful when I am unable to do anything else and can at least manage the needles and yarn.  I know that it is stupid, but it helps me to feel like less of a waste of ectoplasm, you know?

I am feeling like a waste where all my crap is concerned.  I have divested myself of so much stuff and yet I still feel burdened.  I have to keep going and become more ruthless with this.  Someone who is not me continues to take things out of the garbage and charity boxes and squirrel it away somewhere, but I am getting more clever.  I have again begun just keeping an eye on things and then packing them in a box and taking it immediately out of the house and to the charity shops when I have the time and energy to do so.  I still have nearly a couple thousand books to get rid of.  Just shameful.

I was thinking, only thinking, about hiring one of those pack-em-up-and-haul-it-out places to come in when I am away and take everything.  I have even thought it through to the part about how I could take the essentials, like some art stuff, my favorite sewing machine, some clothes, my toiletries, and a few books and stuff like that and putting it all in one room and then just letting those guy have their way with everything else.  I would still want my bed and the computer and some furniture left, and suppose I could label those big things or something.

It would be like having some kind of natural disaster coming along and taking everything away and leaving a clean slate.  That is very appealing, especially since I have so much stuff and have been doing this for a freaking year and a half.  Something has to give and I think that it is going to be me just packing shit and releasing it into the ether or something.  

I wonder if anyone else has done something like that and how it worked for her/him. 

Anyway, it is kind of exhilarating to think about and I just might do it or something similar.

Or not.  Cripes.  I am just so sick and tired of this whole stuff stuff.  I mean, am I serious about being healthier or not?

Someone told me that reading about my efforts towards a healthier life was helpful to her, that it inspired and encouraged her.  Frankly, I think that it is more likely that it makes her feel better because she is not nearly as fucked up as I am.  Yeah, I am pretty positive about that.

GP.  Bluebodies.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 33

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch:  Tater Tots, chocolate
Dinner:  Bag of salad, kind of large tomato, salad dressing

The Tots were eaten over several hours, a whole plate, as in an actual plate, of them.  They are just as good cold as when piping hot from the oven, or at least pretty close.  When I finished them, I had some 86% cocoa mass chocolate, and some lemonade that I made from frozen lemon juice and Splenda.

I am trying to keep a decent perspective about this eating thing, but I really should be ashamed of how badly I eat some days.  Even I know that I have to create and follow a more balanced and reasonable way of eating, you know, like a decent diet, for crying out loud. 

You know, I go to the store and I look at all the food and try to buy stuff that I will actually eat and that will not, ultimately, get tossed into the garbage because I am too tired and tired out to cook the damn stuff.  There is still too much waste going on around here.  It is not like I have a ton of money and a complete lack of conscience that would facilitate not feeling so freaking guilty about all of this.

I need to buy food.  I need to eat it.  It is as simple as that.  And, yet, it is not.  It is supremely difficult and complicated to do.  I think that is why, heck, I know that it is why I am eating out several times each week.  I know that there is not any reasonably easy to cook food at home and so I go to a restaurant and have a nice, healthy meal and it satisfies me because I know that there will not be any waste.  If I stop at the market, there is an excellent chance that I will be too exhausted to actually cook what I have just bought by the time I get home and drag myself and everything else into the house.  This totally sucks.

I tried buying just frozen stuff, like meals and parts of meals, things that are already cooked and just need heating in the microwave.  I guess that is how the Tater Tots got into the freezer.

Unfortunately, there is not all that much in the realm of frozen foods that are as healthy as anyone, especially old and diabetic me, would prefer.  More than a month ago I bought a package of pre-formed beef patties.  All you have to do is to take one of the things out of the bag and cook it in a frying pan.  You do not even have to thaw them, just grab them frozen.  Seriously, that is all you have to do.  I think that you can also broil them or bake them in the oven, but those things are more steps than I can handle most days.

I have a pound of asparagus in the refrigerator right now.  I have, probably, two more days before I will have to trash it and all I have to do to eat them is to wash, snap the end, pop into a roasting pan, sprinkle and roll them around in a bit of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and bake them for a half hour.  As simple as that is, they are still likely to be tossed.  That is how little energy I have.  I can sit here and type.  I can rest and read.  But, that is all that I can manage most days here at home.  I am busy enough on my out-of-the-house days that I need the opportunity to rest and gather my strength.  Man, even to me that sounds so pathetic and excuse-laden.

I have to fix this.  I have to figure out a way to eat properly, not waste food and to spend as little as possible.  I just have to figure this out.  Even today was supposed to be a day of catching up and that seemed like it might happen after a neighbor cancelled our lunch plans.  But, it was just another day of feeling crappy, so I did very little and tried very hard to not take a nap.  Which, I did not.  Maybe I should go back to my doctor and throw myself on her mercy and ask for happy drugs or, hell, I do not know how to properly explain how tired I am all the time, much less figure out how to ask for help.

So, there is nothing left except Guilty Pleasure.  Shell Game.  I like the colors.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 7

Goodness.  A week.

I am better today.  Feeling more sick, but with a greatly improved outlook.  Maybe a better attitude, as well, not sure.  But, more hopeful, at any rate.

Breakfast:  2 eggs, over easy; 3 strips of well-done, although not too crisp, bacon, fat blotted off; tiny bowl of fruit, small cubes of cantaloupe, watermelon, 2 slices of some kind of red apple, not the crispy kind and two red grapes.
Lunch:  Pho, with the works, flank, brisket, tendon and tripe; 3 spring rolls; can of diet coke.
Dinner: The spring rolls leftover from lunch.
Lots of water.

Today was morning coffee with my friends.  It began as coffee and maybe someone would have a roll or a muffing or toast or something like that, but it has morphed into actual breakfast.  So, breakfast was at a restaurant, the second time we have been there.

The group likes to try new places.  Some are worth a return visit, some not.  This place, today, is kind of weird.  The staff runs hot and cold and you would think that you could not tell such a thing from only two visits, but apparently if the staff is just weird enough, you really can tell, even on the first visit.

The first time there, I was the first to arrive.  Another woman and I live way south of everyone else, so we get to drive the longest distance.  We live on opposite sides of the county and cannot ride together, but we are always the first to get wherever we are going.  So, I get there and the hostess welcomes me and asks something like how can she help me and I reply that I will be dining with five friends.  She stares at me.  She looks down at her desk/counter.  She looks back up at me and asks, "Do you mean now?"  I mumbled something like, "Ummm, yes."  However, in my head I was saying, "Nah, I was thinking sometime in August, maybe on a Thursday.  And, maybe you could pick me up, because this is a heck of a long way to drive." 

Anyway, she huffed and puffed and tried to blow my house down, but my house was in another county and she failed, which did nothing to improve her mood.  She did, however, lead me to a table that would accommodate five people and said to let her know if all six of us showed up and she would find another chair for us.

Today was slightly better, but just as amusing.  So, anyway, I had this great, hardly carby breakfast and then went shopping for stuff to do with my mentee and stopped in for fat quarters and some other fabric at a friend's store.

Then, I went for pho.  Oh, man, I love that stuff.  A huge bowl of steaming broth that cooks the meats and the extras, pure and unadulterated bliss.  Comfort food of the highest order.  The noodle shop I visited today (one of three that are my favorites) tosses in a couple of perfectly crafted meatballs, fine textured, strangely spiced.  Ahhhh.  Just one more reason to visit Vietnam.

It was too long a time walking and doing and looking and talking to my friend.  She sent me home with a Michael Cox book; I think it is Glass in Time, but I cannot really remember.  I took the book and myself to bed, got 21 pages read, then the drowsing cat beside me drew me into my own nap.  Waking, I felt much better, still do.

Feeling too ill to do much of anything useful, I checked all the computer stuff and one was a link to the Peace Pilgrim.  I read the article Steps Toward Inner Peace.  You know how things come into life, awareness, just when you need them?  This was one of those occasions for me. 

One area with which I have been struggling is one of the older (than me, even!) women for whom I provide social contact.  Actually, I consider her a friend, but that is how our relationship began, gosh, maybe eight years ago.  Wow.  Anyway, she has her own special personality and I have been feeling drained and weary the past dozen or so times I have taken her out.  She does have another friend, and is close to her family, even though they live far away.  They talk on the on the phone and her sons are always sending her photos via their cellphone.

But, I am the one who takes her for most of her shopping, particularly to the mall.  This mall is a near-hour drive from here and the days we do that are long, often ten or twelve hours.  It is great and we have a good time, but the days are just too long and I am guessing that it is because I have not been feeling well for a long time.  I feel stressed just thinking about how a simple lunch turns into an eight hour ordeal. 

I mean, how selfish can I possibly be?  Yeah, that selfish.  However, reading that article, well, it was like a reinforcement of all of the stuff that is important to me, stuff that I have not been practicing very effectively.  Anyway, I called my friend and had the nicest, and shortest, conversation I think that we have ever had, at least since the early days of our friendship.  I had the opportunity to be exactly what she needed.  Man, that feels nice.  We can go to lunch, walking in the mall and get her some groceries tomorrow without me feeling all ashamed of myself.

I am hungry, so I will have a couple of snap pea pods and go to bed, to read and more dozing with the kitty.

I even felt well enough for more guilty pleasure:

And, what the hell is wrong with the label function?

Maps

I was using Google Maps this morning to find the location and direction to a family thing being held in another state, on the weekend next.

Alongside of the directions, there was the full, continental US map image.  Except for the tolls and the likelihood of encountering road construction, it looks like a nice and easy trip.

I grabbed the little zoom bar and pulled it all the way down so that I could see the whole world.  I swear, that image never fails to thrill me right down to my core.  That teeny place marker, that infinitesimal point where I will be spending a couple of hours on the road, well, it just floors me.

A space on my screen that a gently expanded hand-width covers and I have touched the entire planet.  Rotate my hand approximately 20 degrees and I could hold it in my palm.  It makes me think of how delicate, how fragile and wondrous it is, this place we call home.

Sure, it enthuses me to take care of it.  More than that, it helps me revisit my commitment to making my part of it, that tiny bit at the point of the marker, a better place.  Small things salve my emotions, fuel my desires and make make my behaviors worth performing them.  My tininess reminds me of my connection to every other person, every other living thing.  I am humbled by the shared responsibilities and shames me for my pitiful efforts.

On that map, I am an invisible speck beneath uncounted specks. 

Oh, and I might have lost a friend today.  If it happens, it will make me sad beyond my ability to express how truly sad I will be.  Sometimes friends have to take that risk with each other.  But, I will still be sad.

Babbling

So, anyway, it has been an interesting day here at work.  I am leaving in a few minutes and am not sure what I think about this job or myself, for that matter.

The day began with an unexpected and tricky legal issue.  It involves state government, so no problem with accepting that it was over my head and experience.  However, with a half-dozen telephone calls and meeting some truly kick-ass civil servants along the way, we ended up with personal legal attention for my client.  I love happy endings.

Two no-shows and two walk-ins, back in business, both with very challenging issues.  Cool.

Then, my final client of the day came in.  I was out and waiting for her and I knew, as soon as I saw her looking at me, seeing me, that she was hugely disappointed.  Here I am, the person that her human resources consulting firm mother said that she has to see and all she gets is me.  Old, fat, dumpy, felt valentine (the ones in Joybelle's link, yeah, they are still uber cool and groovy) in my hair (which refused to stay up and out of the way today), walking, barely, with my cane and then we go into one of the study rooms, not even an actual, official office.  Ummm, I know that was what she was expecting because she mentioned it.

Man.

We  did some work, and we made changes that pleased her, but her heart was not in it.  This sort of thing should not bother me.  I know that I do excellent work here.  I know that other community programs are being modeled on what I do and how I do it.  I receive lots of feedback from my clients and the director here. 

I think that what bothers me, and yes, I can intellectualize the crap out of this, is that she could not get past my appearance.  You know, I do not make children run, weeping in fear and my friends think that I am great.  I have lived long enough to get over myself and accept how I look, my body type, my features, my disabilities, everything. 

But, the way I am feeling right now, gosh.  I know that I am being superficial.  Stupid.  Vain.  I have known all of my life that I am not a beauty, not attractive.  So, I am always clean and shiny.  Well-groomed.  I try to have nice posture and walk with as much confidence as it is possible to do with a cane or two. 

Well, I will get over this.  Scarlet and I will have a better day tomorrow.  I cannot please everyone, particularly for those aspects of myself over which I have absolutely no control.  I guess there are some days when you just feel like your existence is a waste of planetary resources.  I think the worst part is actually caring what someone else thinks about how I look.  I think, hell, I do not know what I think.

Slacking

Or, maybe writing would be slacker behavior.  You know, doing this instead of any of the thousands of useful things I should be doing around here. 

I had to get a refill on Charlie's medicine and stayed to chat at the vet clinic.  Of course.  They agreed to take more books, those sweet babies.  Plus, they can take the leftovers to the charity shop down the road who does not want take any more of my crap, even though my personal stuff is really high quality and lots of it is virtually unused.  Seems they like my crap, they just feel that they do not have any more room for any of it for a while. 

Now, they will not know that what the clinic babes bring over was originally mine and I am trying to not be conflicted about this, you know, like in it might be slightly dishonorable if the books were mine to begin with and only passed through the filter of what the clinic babes do not want.  It is not like I am stopping strangers on the street and asking them to pretend that my stuff is really their own, personal donation or anything like that.  Still, it seems a fine point and I suppose that I could collect what the clinic babes do not want and then take it into town to the other charity shop that will take anything.  No hesitation, just pull up in your car, open the doors and they will remove the boxes and send you on your way. 

At this point it does not make any difference, because I am still sick, only slightly, marginally better, but sick, still, and I just do not have the strength to haul anything anywhere.  I should feel good about continuing to rid myself of this stuff, but I thought that I would be finished divesting by this time.  Hell, it has been a year since the first trickles began seeping out of here.  It should be all gone by now.  There should be so much stuff gone that I would be experiencing fairly regular moments of regret that something useful is gone.

Then there is the whole issue of all of the projects that need completing, some of which could bring in some cash.  Yet, I slack.

Just the slacker in me. 
I probably should have named this blog properly.   
Slacker...and too unmotivated to really give a darn.

Too early

I am a night owl.  Always have been. 

Living a simple life seems to carry a lot of emotionally embarrassing baggage.  It is my experience that those who truly live a simple life seem to be so judgmental about the daily habits of what that entails.  And, I can never decide if sharing my thoughts about such aspects of how a life is going along is simple observation or judgment in itself.  I mean, how does one separate the two, or is it even possible to do so?  I just do not know about that aspect, but I do know that I can never figure that out.  Maybe it has something to do with those who husband animals and large-ish crops and have so much responsibility every day.

Anyway, I offered extra time to a client yesterday and we are meeting at the Library at nine o'clock this morning.  I could have slept in for another hour or so, but us night owls need lots of preparation time for early in the day stuff.  I have been up for more than an hour and am finally able to do more than sit and try to stay awake.

A nap later in the day would help, but that is another embarrassing thing to do, much less admit to doing, although I will likely partake of that guilty pleasure anyway, even though I have tons of unfinished stuff around here.  I have not even reached that part of today and am already manifesting my inner slacker.  And, feeling guilty about it, too boot.

I have always wanted to be a morning person.  On the few occasions when I am up early enough to see the day begin, sunrise and all that jazz, I love it.  In the moment, I love it, but I guess not enough to make it a regular enough practice so that it seems more natural to me.

I have always been intrigued with circadian rhythm experiments and thought that I would like to participate in one.  I wish that I had a life that allowed me to find my own rhythms, on my own.  I kind of worry that I would discover that I am a true child of the night, that my nature is to sleep all day long and arise only near dusk.  Maybe I would have to live a life more alone than the one I now have.  Maybe my only human contact would be other owls when I go out for provisions from the 24-hour gas station convenience stores, silently wandering the two or three aisles of cereals, canned soups, snack foods and motor oil and those dangle-y, evergreen-tree-shaped auto air fresheners.

Maybe I need to find other children of the night.  I wonder where they hang out.  I cannot even think of any all-night places, so maybe they just congregate in the park or the parking lot at the mall or the cemeteries.  Or, where?

Or, maybe I live in the wrong latitude and should have been born (or move to) another hemisphere.  Maybe I am the classic lost zygote.

I am either not living according to my natural needs or I am emotionally or intellectually fighting against my own best interests in my struggles to avoid the dawn.  I guess that after more than six decades of messing around with this that I should have come to some, oh, I do not know, perhaps some kind of uneasy, but doable, peace about this.

Well, I had better finish my breakfast, and get ready for the day.  Lordy.