merger

Not writing to this blog anymore.  Enjoy what’s here!

ever changing moods

Sometimes my moods are as fickle as the weather.  Yesterday I was certain I was on the brink of destitution, this morning I woke up before the alarm full of ideas and energy.  I’m getting more peaceful about letting these moods ebb and flow and not taking them so seriously.  I try to rock it out and get a lot done when I’m feeling manic, and make a point of calling friends for a reality check when I’m feeling depressed. 

What I do like to see is that I’m getting thicker skinned.  Not literally, although I did burn the bejeezus out of my hand tonight and the skin there is definitely morphing into something new and different.  I mean emotionally, in response to things that happen.  Like this evening:  I hosted my Sugar Rollercoaster talk.  There were thirteen people signed up, but only five showed.  A year ago that would have been devastating.  Tonight I gave a great talk to the people who were there, and didn’t think too much about the others.   I didn’t take it personally.  This is a very liberating development.  It’s not something I consciously worked on, it’s just come with time.  Same with my sense of financial security.  I’m self employed in a business that’s just two years old – the money isn’t consistent yet.  I’m getting alot more comfortable with that, getting to know the cycles and getting in the groove of it all.  Very positive stuff.  Most businesses fail within the first year, many can’t make it past five.  I think the key is perseverance.  You just gotta put the days together and learn how to get comfortable in the grey – that weird place where you just don’t have all the answers.  If I could offer any advice it would be to avoid getting divorced and starting a business at the same time.  That’s a whole lot of stress and change to take on at once.  Although I wouldn’t have put off either one of them.  When it’s time, it’s time.

Got home from the talk and fixed myself a plate of shredded sweet potato, spinach and artichoke hearts – all raw and very delicious.  Had some pumperknickel toast smeared with butter and fresh ginger, chives and sesame seeds.  Now that’s good eatin’.  The Reuben Panini and Fries I had for lunch at Busboys and Poets wasn’t so healthy, although I put coleslaw on my Reuben and with the sauerkraut it’s mostly cabbage on rye.  Right?  Right?

www.HoweToEat.com

pushing pencils and daisies

I spent a lot of time writing today.  I wrote an outline for a full length Solo Performance; I wrote my October newsletter.  I’m writing my daily blog.  The latter is turning out to be the most difficult, not from a creativity point of view but from a technology point of view.  Any of this writing would have been easier, in a way, if we still pushed pencils.  But seldom do I write longhand anymore.  I’m the beneficiary, and at the mercy of, technology.  Since the blog is written online, I’ve suffered the most with it today.  The others I just type up in Word and save to my hard drive, all self contained in my apartment.  For the blog I’ve gotta access the world wide web, and with speeds topping out at 12 mbps today, I’m about to tear my hair out.

Other technology that’s serving me better today:  digital television.  The digital part isn’t all that important to me –  I’d be perfectly happy with rabbit ears if there were any signals left for them to pick up.  Television was definitely my friend today, since today marked the return of Pushing Daisies.  I am utterly in love with that show.  I love the handsome PieMaker.  I love the quirky, smitten Olive.  I could do without Chuck.  The characters are all amazing, the costumes and sets are super saturated with color, the dialogue is witty, the narration is brilliant.  And the score – the score makes my heart sing.  If that’s not Danny Elfman it should be.  There is nothing I don’t like about this show. 

Remember this time last year when the writers went on strike and the season got cut short?  That was awful.  I’d just moved out, was on my own for the first time in years and I was eating ice cream every night.  I cried a lot.

I was tempted to celebrate the return of my favorite show with ice cream.  But then I got to thinking.  I really love this TV show.  Watching this TV show is the fun thing I’m doing for myself.  Ice cream is another fun thing I can do for myself, but do I need to be doing two fun things at the same time?  Can I really be enjoying either to the fullest if I’m doing both?  I decided not.  I decided to skip the ice cream and really attend to watching the show.  It was a good choice, and I’m feeling pretty darn proud of myself.

www.HoweToEat.com

Busy day and crispy treats

Just another Tuesday – wake up tired from being up too late Monday night,  present a talk on Sugar to an office group, meet with existing clients, consult with new clients, scoop dinner off the prepared foods bar at Whole Foods, and dodge a monsoon on the way home.

Just another Tuesday.

Highlights of the day were getting my parking validated, dropping off sweets to my mechanic to thank him for being wonderful, eating a Brown Rice Crispy Treat, and buying myself flowers.  I have a $5 per week flower allowance.  

That Crispy Treat I enjoyed for a 3pm snack, with a lovely cup of tea while sitting in my desk chair, my back turned to the computer so I could look out the window with my feet propped up on the radiator.  I spent about fifteen minutes eating that treat and really taking a well deserved break.

Brown Rice Crispy Treats

2 cups brown rice cereal * ½ cup each:  brown rice syrup / almond butter 

½ cup each:  chopped almonds, dried cherries, chocolate chips

1. Place cereal, nuts and cherries in a bowl.  2. Place syrup and almond butter in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until creamy.   3.  Pour syrup over cereal and stir to coat.  4.  Press into pan, stud with chocolate chips. 5.  Refrigerate, cut and serve.

www.HoweToEat.com

Mindful Eating: Sidewalk Sandwich

I had Solo Performance Workshop tonight, which means I don’t even get home until 11pm and that it must be Monday.  I was out late last night, too, babysitting for a friend, didn’t make it home until midnight.  Tomorrow night I’m working until 8 but at least I could be in bed by 10.

Enough of that, let me tell you about my dinner tonight.  I was intrigued to feel my heart race throughout the day each time I thought about hitting Starbucks for dinner on the run – a decaf soy latte and day old sausage ‘n egg sandwich.  I’ve done that in a pinch for the last two Mondays and, unbeknown-st to me, it’s become quite a compelling habit.  In a bizarre twist of enabling irony, my accountant sent me a Starbucks gift card last week to thank me for referring a client to him, so the thrill of refined white flour, processed meat and trace caffeine was heightened by the thrill of getting it all for free.

But what seemed a perfect plan wasn’t meant to be.  First disappointment: they were out of sausage and egg sandwiches.  Second disappointment: they were out of soy milk.  “There’s nothing I can eat here!”, I whined at the barista, and shuffled, defeated, out of the store. 

Up the street I hit Yes! Market, the natural food store that’s been in my line of sight for the last two Monday evenings while I sat on the curb eating my stale Egg ‘BucksMuffin.  In there I found a hummus and avocado sandwich with shredded carrots and romaine, and a free-of-most-anything-that-would-have-tasted-good ”chocolate chip” cookie.   I put the cookie in my bag for later and tore into the sandwich.   There’s an alley I walk through to get to the back door of DC Arts Center, an alley I really didn’t want to take food into.  It’s an alley you don’t want to wear open toe shoes into, frankly.  It’s disgusting.  So I stood at the entrance to the alley, on the sidewalk, and ate my sandwich.  Now, I typically recommend sitting down with a napkin and a beverage for meals.  I really insist on turning off the TV, focusing on the food, being mindful.  But I had an interesting experience tonight.  Standing there on the sidewalk, with the people milling about and the buses bumbling by, I felt really tuned into my sandwich.  The hummus was thicker than I like it, but very hearty.  The carrots and lettuce were a bit wilted.  The avocado was creamy and satisfying.  The bread was nutty and a little damp.  I tasted, felt, savored and really lived every bite of that sandwich.  While it was not delicious, it was very nourishing.  The noise and bustle of the street kinda faded into the background while I stood there and ate.  I’d say it was an out of body experience, but in fact I felt more in my body than I had all day. 

www.HoweToEat.com

So there’s this guy…

… on the internet.  Has there ever been a story that started out that way that ended well?  This one didn’t end well, but it didn’t end all that bad, either.  I’m going to get a blog post out of it, so that’s something.

There’s a guy on the internet who writes poems.  Not poems, really, more like stream of consciousness missives.  He writes one every night.  And posts them in the “Men Seeking Women” section on Craigslist.  How do I know that?  What was I doing surfing the personals on Craigslist?  In my defense I was looking for an apartment, but my attention wavered and I thought I’d check out the personals.  Much more entertaining.  So, that’s how I stumbled upon a listing that was unlike the others.  Lengthy, story-like, rich with interesting imagery and rife with SAT words.  By surfing through multiple days, I figured out this guy was posting on a regular basis.  I emailed him, curious to know if he was simply a vigilant date-seeker or if he was an avant-garde artist using Craigslist as a quirky new medium.  He replied, which thrilled me, and said it was a little of both. 

Fast forward roughly two weeks to last night.  His missive of last evening entailed Oreos, tall buildings, and acceleration due to gravity.  I was charmed.  It was so well written, so clever and so compelling!  I contemplated printing it out and framing it, it was that good.  Now, I am a hopeless romantic with a very active imagination.  In my mind I had this guy and me married, sailing into the sunset, living happily ever after.  Fortunately I’ve been through this before.  I know I can get way too excited about things, and that my fantasies tend to be overly idealistic.  I was certain, for example, that this Craigslist poet with his wonderful metaphors and brilliant vocabulary was a tall, dark and handsome, wealthy Baron from an exotic country, tragically misplaced here in Alexandria and living in some sweeping, lavishly appointed garret or loft nearby.  In the interest of nipping my Silhouette Romance tainted mind in the bud, I decided to ask this guy out and see what was really what.  I figured he’d either be everything I’d conjured and we could jump start our life together, or, more likely, the illusion could come crashing down and I could get on with my life.

What I didn’t expect is that he wouldn’t want to go out with me.  I invited him to tea; he declined.  Can you beat that?  I sent a photo, he said I have a “kind and welcoming smile”.  Yippee. 

Back to my regularly scheduled Saturday night, I guess.  A big plate of kale and black beans, Netflix and popcorn.  I’ve decided to stop looking for and reading his posts, although I think someone should collate them all into a book.  That would be very clever.

they said it was decaf

But I don’t think it was decaf.  I’ve stumbled through this rainy Friday, wrapping up an emotionally draining week, on about one hour of sleep.  I went out with friends last night, as is our Thursday tradition, and had a cup of decaf.  I know I said about a week ago I was going to get off the decaf, and I did, except for last night and oh yeah, Monday, when I had a decaf soy latte both before and after my Performance class.  Despite the failing of my personal boundaries, Monday’s decaf was enjoyed with impunity.  Not so last night.

I was up until about midnight, and then finally made myself get in bed.  I stared at the ceiling, incredulous until 2:30, when I turned on the lights and read for a couple of hours.  At 5:30 I just went ahead and got up.  I think there were a few moments of dozing in there, so I’m calling it an hour total but that might be generous.

So today I felt lousy.  Hungover, almost.  Bones and joints aching, head spinning - it was awful.  Sleep deprivation is the worst, and that was just one night.  What about my poor friends who have newborns and feel like this for months?  Miserable.

I am a little suspicious about something in addition to the “decaf”.  It’s the French Vanilla Custard Berry Tart I had with it.  I’d put in about four days free of refined sugar, and that thing knocked me right off the wagon.  What slays me is that it wasn’t good.  It didn’t look good to start with, but I bought it anyway.  Didn’t appeal to me from a culinary point of view; at $4.59 it didn’t appeal to me from a budget point of view… what got me was my co-dependent point of view.  We were there celebrating with my friend, and she got a sweet treat.  It felt unseemly not to join her with my own sweet treat.  Even though it looked gummy.  Even though I knew it was too damn big and sticky for 8pm.  Even though I really just wanted a slice of bread with butter and honey (my standard La Madeline treat).  Something deep within me said it would ruin my friend’s celebration if she was the only one with a big dessert.  So, from that twisted point of view I was motivated to buy  – and eat – the sordid pile of goo.  I’m pretty sure it contributed to my lousy sleep.  I seriously need to invent and attend Food-Anon.

So, yet a deeper level of understanding around the subtleties and persuasions of my crazy mind.  I’m wrapping up today free of goo and decaf, too, praise buddha.  I’m hoping for a good night’s sleep.

technical difficulties / dating dwindles

Is mercury in retrograde or what?  My website was down most of the morning, which may or may not have been my own darn fault.  In trying to get it up and running I had to clear the history, cookies, etc from my computer – consequently I’ve lost all the auto log-in conveniences I’ve depended on.  Passwords, user ids…  Not really a huge big deal, no long term damage, just a long drawn out day of having to start from scratch.

Had therapy today, praise buddha.  The amazing Blair Glaser (www.blairglaser.com), who has been with me since before I could admit my marriage was falling apart.  That’s years, just so you know.  Bonus, I got a call from a friend afterwards who I’ve known for almost three times as long as I’ve known Blair – the friend had just had therapy, too, so we got together for dinner and mutual decompress.  I am so very grateful that I have friendships that span decades.  Quite a feat for a Navy brat like me, who learned at an early age that it was easier to burn bridges and leave angry than to miss people. 

Speaking of friends, I’m fresh out of boyfriends, and looking at spending what will be weekend-two-in-a-row dateless.  How did this become such a problem?  I only started dating six months ago, what was going on all those weekends between being married and starting dating?  I got out my calendar and flipped back to see.  Seems I used to go out with my girlfriends, see movies and treat myself to an occasional “evening of beauty”, which meant home with myself and a hot bath, mani/pedi, mud facial, and lounging about the apartment in my cute pink kimono.  I can do that.  I can get back into that groove.

delayed reaction

Good googily moogily did I do some emotional catch up today.  Yesterday was my wedding anniversary; I was impressed with my detachment and stability yesterday.  Today, however… today I caught up.

Some years ago, way before I got married, I had a cat.  I’d leave him at home with a big bowl of food when I went away for the weekend.  He seemed cool with it, but everytime he’d wait a few days after I got home and then puke.  That always impressed me.  Not the puke, ’cause you know it was always on the carpet, but his coping skills.  He’d be tough and weather the storm while I was gone.  He’d even maintain his stoicism for a few days when I got back.  But once we’d settled back into our groove and the coast was clear, he’d let all the stress surface and get sick. 

Most of us, the cat included, can deal with crisis when we’re in it.  We can even keep it together for a little while afterwards, but the art of coping is letting it all hang out as soon as its safe.  Know that it’s all gonna hang out sooner or later.  There’s no such thing as not reacting – it’s just a matter of timing.  The sooner you can decompress the better; the alternative being carrying the stress with you packed in that little tupperware hidden in the back of your brain.  The danger there is that the tupperware is going to burst at the most inopportune time and in the direction of an otherwise innocent bystander.

So, I’m pretty pleased that my delayed reaction came within 24 hours of the actual angst.  Yesterday would have been our eighth wedding anniversary.  Today at 3pm I had a session with my business / book coach (the amazing Anne Loehr).  She’s a genuinely kind person, and when she asked me sincerely: “How are you doing?”, I started to cry.  I really didn’t want to, I was wearing mascara and had plans for the evening, but after fighting it for a bit I broke down.  I was overcome.  I wanted to go home, take a walk to the river, make dinner and go to bed.  So that’s what I did.  I packed my pockets with tissues, grabbed my Ipod, went down to the river and cried.  It was really lovely, if you can believe that.  I was lettin’ it all out; it felt good.  It was cool and breezy and the water was up high.  Everything seemed lush and full of promise.  I came on home.  Thus ends today, the day after what would have been my wedding anniversary.

it was supposed to be an easy day…

Judging from the pain, it was not an easy day.   Truth be told it wasn’t a hard day, but my body is just screaming tonight.  My legs hurt from walking around Old Town in heels on the utterly miserable crooked brick sidewalks, back and forth between my office and the mechanic’s where I left my car this morning.  My butt hurts from sitting in my desk chair all day.  My brain hurts from thinking and rethinking some things I thought I’d had figured out already.

I just hurt all over, which was not what I had planned for today.  I didn’t plan on putting my car in the shop.  I didn’t plan on having some clients miss their appointments and others run half an hour late for theirs.  I didn’t plan on getting home at 8:30 not having had dinner yet. 

Fortunately, most days go as planned.  This one did not.  Luckily I’ve got some good stuff in place so even a wacky, out-of-my-control day comes off pretty well.  I’ve got a solid morning routine, so breakfast, stretching and meditation were all in the bag before I even left the house.  I’ve got a good relationship with my mechanic so dropping off the car was no problem.  I’ve got friends, so I was able to call in a date for lunch.  I had high quality leftovers for a nutritious, albeit late, dinner, and to soothe my poor, aching, tired self I’ve got the know-how and good food in the house to concoct a tasty dessert treat:  pink grapefruit and almonds with a drizzle of honey.  Not too shabby.

Looks like I’ll get to bed on time, which is a great way to end this wacky day.  For the record, today is my wedding anniversary.  It would have been eight years today, except for the being separated and getting divorced part.  A year ago I was certain today would have killed me.  The anniversary has crossed my mind several times today, but it’s been a factual consideration without emotional reaction.  No throat tightening, no stomach flip, no heart flutter or sting in the eyes.  My legs, butt and head ache, but those are unrelated.

A year.  I swear, you need a year to heal.  It’s amazing to me, but the passage of a year changes everything.

www.HoweToEat.com