Is it a bad sign that I’m still counting the days of this four-week adventure? I mean, is it bad that the last thing I think before I fall asleep at night is “Three down, 25 to go…”? Or that the first thing I think when I wake up is, “Jesus, really? We’re only on day four?”
I may be losing my enthusiasm for this change and could require a serious attitude adjustment. Or perhaps – just perhaps – I need to be a little patient with myself and acknowledge it’s gonna take a little while for me to settle in.
I’m finding that the biggest challenge to eating a whole-foods, plant-based diet is my deep and abiding commitment to laziness. You guys, this thing is hard work. I don’t mean it’s hard work avoiding big piles of meat and bowls of ice cream. So far, that hasn’t been too difficult. But the problem with whole foods is that they come whole. Which means you have to do a lot of prep work. Significantly more than pulling a Lean Cuisine out of the box and bunging it in the microwave for five minutes.
If anyone says that all things worth doing require hard work, I will punch them in the face. I’m playing it pretty fast and loose with the face punches right about now.
That said, there have been some gratifying experiments – my quinoa, corn, mango and black bean salad, for example, turned out to be delish. There have also been some food experiments that taste distinctly like punishment. Like the chocolate “pudding” from the Engine 2 recipe selection. It involves mixing together cocoa powder, silken tofu, agave and vanilla.
There’s an anecdote in the Engine 2 book that they served it to a fire chief who doesn’t subscribe to their healthy living approach and he didn’t know it wasn’t regular chocolate pudding. To which I say, with all gratitude and respect for the service he provides, that fire chief’s an idiot.
Of course, I still ate a bowl of it.
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May 17, 2012
Well, folks. I did it. I survived yesterday, our first day of LIFE CHANGE – by which I mean, following the Engine 2 Diet for a plant-based, whole-foods approach. And, let me tell you, it’s every bit as exciting as it sounds.
Sunday I made a lengthy list of items the book recommended I’d need to pick up. Being the good, obedient girl that I am, I added things to my list being careful not to think too long and hard about a) what they were or b) what the hell I was supposed to do with them.
However, as Sunday slipped away, I became increasingly gun shy about the whole thing. What was I doing? Why was I doing it? Amazing how quickly I can forget. At Whole Foods, I tossed items dutifully into my cart, fighting a feeling of doom with each addition. Liquid amino acids? I don’t know what ANY of those words mean. NUTRITIONAL YEAST FLAKES? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
But I promised myself I’d make this change. And so I came home Sunday night, put away all the evidence that I was about to embark on a brave new journey, and then promptly ate McDonald’s and a big slice of chocolate cake. If I gotta go down, I’m going down fighting.
Then Monday rolled around. D-Day. I woke up refreshed and ready to meet the challenge with this attitude: I’m not doing it and you can’t make me. I was facing the first of many moments of panic-induced catatonia as I thought: what the hell am I supposed to eat?
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May 15, 2012
A few months ago, I watched the documentary Forks over Knives and – persuaded by its arguments for a plant-based, whole food diet – I promptly became a vegan.
In my mind.
In reality, I didn’t immediately change much about my eating habits. Maybe I bought a little freekeh at the store and a handful of wheat berries, but it’s not like I cooked them or anything.
On some level, though, the messages from the film got stuck in my craw, for better or worse, especially those linking an animal-protein and dairy heavy diet with heart disease. I’m no good with science-y stuff – as evidenced by the fact that I just used the phrase “science-y stuff” – but the fact that heart disease and cancer rates are significantly lower in countries whose diets are nearly devoid of those things is pretty heady stuff.
Especially since, nearly three weeks ago, my father underwent open heart surgery, a quintuple bypass. He is, thankfully, recovering well but the experience has forced me to take a more serious look at my heart health.
My mother died at 60 of a heart attack brought on by an aortic aneurysm. There had been no previous symptoms or indications that she was suffering from heart disease. And this seems to be in keeping with statistics – for many, sudden death is the first and only symptom of heart disease.
My parents’ history combined puts all four of their children in the highest risk group for developing heart disease. For someone who spent a chunk of her twenties having panic attacks and feeling certain her heart was going to explode, this isn’t calming news.
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May 11, 2012
It took me a while – embarrassingly long, actually – to figure out why I haven’t been fired up about writing this blog. Or taking and posting photos on Learning Curve. Or doing much of anything, really. It took me until two days ago to figure out why the last six or seven weeks have been marked with a staggering ennui, requiring energy I simply don’t have just to go through the motions of each day. Weeks of being a ghost presence in my own life, feeling disjointed and disconnected from everyone and everything.
A few days ago, I was self-diagnosing online – as you do – examining the side-effects of a corticosteroid I started taking a couple months back. I had noticed sudden weight gain, face puffiness, fatigue and an increase in joint and muscle pain and, sure enough, each of those was on the checklist.
Then, I saw, at the very end of the list, this little gem: depression.
I know it seems obvious looking at it from the outside, but to me it came as a bit of a lightning bolt. A disinterested, dull lightning bolt, but a bolt nonetheless. Here I had been thinking that my life had just reached a point of being patently uninteresting, that I had used up all my enjoyment and would need to hunker down for the next few decades of disinterest. When what was actually happening seemed to be real, clinical depression.
Now, I am no stranger to depression. I’ve suffered from it on and off since adolescence. Clearly, though, it’s been a long enough time since I’ve experienced it in full force that I had trouble recognizing it. That, I suppose, is the good news.
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March 28, 2012
I’ve been thinking a lot in recent days about my friend Leslee. At least, I think she’d agree that we’re friends. We both lived in St. Louis at the same time, ran in the same circles, and while we didn’t get to know one another as well as I’d have liked, we always enjoyed each other’s company. And I think we’d have become better friends if I hadn’t moved to Ann Arbor in 2005. Although, considering Leslee’s always off gallivanting in some other part of the globe, teaching English or generally doing good, it’s hard to say for sure.
Instead, my friendship with Leslee has moved primarily to Facebook, “liking” a comment here and there or leaving a smart-ass remark on the other’s “wall.” As with many of my Facebook friends, I haven’t actually laid eyes on Leslee in a very long time.
Yeah, I know. I’m aware that cynics denounce Facebook and other social media as substitutes for “real” friendships. I get that they’re the lazy person’s way to stay up-to-date on people’s lives with just a mouse click. And I know that it’s far more de rigeur to roll your eyes and declare oneself “over” Facebook, but I love, love, love the fact that it has allowed me to keep tabs on people I might have lost track of otherwise.
This is all swirling around my head right now because on March 1, her first day back in Korea, Leslee was hit by a car in Daegu. To clarify, with details that tell you enough about Leslee that you’ll start to feel you know her too: she was in a taxi when she witnessed a car accident and got out to help the victims. When she did so, Leslee was struck by another car. She sustained massive, life-threatening injuries, including multiple broken bones and damage to numerous internal organs.
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March 12, 2012
It was about 15 years ago that the first of many writer friends suggested I consider doing Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. And it was just the first of many times that my reaction was: “What? That hippie shit? Not a chance.” Because I’m just naturally open-minded like that.
For those of you unfamiliar with Cameron’s work – which has given her vaulted status in creative-self-help circles – it’s a 12 week program for those who consider themselves “blocked” creatively. The idea is to take a fearless look at old beliefs, excuses and self-criticism that is holding us back from achieving our creative goals – and to start practicing being “honoring” our creative selves on a daily basis.
I know. A lot of hooey, right?
I should also mention that the subtitle of The Artist’s Way is: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. At the time my friend suggested I try this program, I was brand-spankin’ new in sobriety. I was having a terrible time going from agnostic-with-atheist leanings to someone who could find a place in a 12-step recovery program that asked me to embrace the concept of a higher power. One spiritual struggle was enough. I wasn’t anywhere near ready – or open enough – to consider The Artist’s Way.
As you can probably guess by the tenor of this post – which, I confess, I am writing despite lingering feelings of sheepishness – I have recently had a mind-shift about this hooey. And if you’re as astute as I think you are, then you’ve already guessed that it’s because I’m in the process of finishing up The Artist’s Way, and I have found it – much to the chagrin of my inner judgmental, stubborn self – revolutionary.
First, let me say that I am a firm believer that everyone has to be completely ready to undertake any sort of self-help endeavor and that we all come to these places in our own time, if ever. That is, I may be copping to having sipped some Kool Aid, but I want to be clear I’m not in the business of converting others.
I just want to stick with my intention of being more honest than ever in this blog, of trying to write without fear (or despite fear) about things that I’m, well, afraid to talk about. And right there next to “pain,” which I wrote about recently, is “writing about writing.” Or, more specifically, my fears about writing and my own ability to do so.
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February 24, 2012
Few Valentine’s Days are life-changing. Perhaps I should rephrase that: few of my Valentine’s Days have been life-changing. (It could be that I’m doing them wrong.) But one was – February 14, 2002, when my sister gave birth to her youngest, my crazy-wonderful niece Olivia.
You should know this kid. You really should. She’s smart and hilarious and full of beans and she is our full-on guarantee that, no matter what, there will never be a dull moment. I can’t believe I’ve gotten to be her aunt for a decade.
So I just wanted to take a moment to say: Happy birthday, Livvie Lou. I love you. And here are just ten of the gazillion reasons why:
1. 
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February 14, 2012
I’m practically sitting on my hands I’m so excited. Wait. What? You thought I would post about my travels? While I was gone? Oh, reader. You are so, so precious. And I’m certain that I shall, eventually, get around to writing some perfunctory recaps of my trip to Glasgow and Amsterdam.
But for now, I’m rendered too nervous because of this:
Or, more specifically, because of this: lemony olive oil banana bread, which I put in the aforementioned thing. It is my first foray into baking with an oven so far out of my league I swear it laughs at me a little when I open the door. Not unkindly. Maybe.
I’ve never really had a great oven before, certainly nothing this fancy-pants. Nor have I, for most of my life, much cared whether I had a great oven. Now I find myself in a place where my horizons have broadened (read: I’ve aged) and suddenly I care a great deal more about things like baking pies and my own bread.
I know. I’m not sure who I am, either.
We have lived in a rental house – which we like a lot – for nearly six years now. It has a deck that practically doubles the living space in summer, our landlord’s the nicest guy and we’re in a great location. Yet, for years there has been an increasing tension building between me and the previous stove, a gorgeous-looking old-timey Roper vintage number.
It was frequently the first thing people commented on when they came into our house. Enjoy the following short play:
Them: “Wow. Awesome stove.”
Us: “Yeah, but…”
Them: “It’s super cool looking.”
Us: “Yeah, but the oven temperature’s uneven. And the oven itself is uneven. And there’s only one rack. And only one of the burners stays lit…”
Them: “But do you love it?”
Because it’s a curious thing – when people see something they think is lovely and unusual, especially if it hearkens back to another time, they get all soft and gooey. Soft and gooey to the point of having selective hearing. And it’s not fair to blame it all on others because, let’s face it, we put up with that stove for a lot longer than we might have otherwise were we not keenly aware that it had some sort of intrinsic cultural value simply by dint of being Vintage.
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February 11, 2012
I took a writing workshop once where the teacher made us go around the room and say what we were afraid of writing about. It was an unexpected – and jarring – question. I don’t even remember what I answered. I do remember, though, that whatever I said wasn’t my real answer. The real answer would have been that I was terrified to write about my weight. But I couldn’t even bring myself to say that out loud.
Today, the answer would be different. It wouldn’t be, as some might guess, my recovery from alcoholism. Hell, anyone who knows me knows I’ll shout about that baby from the rooftops. No qualms whatsoever. Not even a residual modicum of shame.
No, today I’d have to say that the thing I’m most afraid of writing about is my life in pain.
Not the emotional kind. Like almost everyone i know, I’ve had my fair share and I can write about it with my eyes closed. What I’m afraid of writing about is my physical pain, the chronic pain I live with. Only, I keep hearing this little voice telling me that I need to write about it. So I’ve been thinking that I probably need to figure out how to write about it in a way that won’t – as I fear – annoy the hell out of people.
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January 28, 2012
Pssst. Hey. It’s me. From a few years ago. I’m thinking about trying to turn over the engine on this blog to see if she still runs. I keep waking up in the night lately thinking that I miss blogging.
How weird is that?
When I blogged here back in the good ol’ days – before abandoning ship for that wacky year-long change experiment – I was pretty new to Ann Arbor. Exploring the town gave me things to write about, especially in the early days. Until I ran out of things to write about.
I think this go-around will be different. More “life,” less “northern town.”Some stuff about my trying to learn how to take photos. Some adventures in cooking and baking. Some travel. Some navel-gazing. Okay, probably a fair amount of navel-gazing.
I suspect I’ll probably be writing a lot, too, about recovery stuff, especially since that’s the subject matter of my novel I’m struggling to finish. I know that’s not always comfortable and/or interesting for people to read about. That’s okay. I get that. And I forgive you.
Damn, I’m magnanimous.
Now I just have to go off, deal with some dough that’s rising* and decide what to write about first.
*Not metaphorical. If I meant that as a metaphor, I’d probably have to insist you stop reading for your own sake.
January 16, 2012
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