Slugday

This morning when the alarm went off, I decided I needed a day off. Or at least half a day. I miss the routine I got into around the time of my hysterectomy, when I spent many weeks having the whole morning to take my breakfast back to bed and read or blog while the tv played in the background. In the last couple of months, the task of selling, buying and moving house has become my job and has managed to occupy most of my waking hours and attention. I am fighting with a cold right now - the type that travels around your body and seems to leave for a day just to return, maybe because I need more rest.

However, as a doctor pointed out, I am not so good at "self-care" and he's right, dammit. Why it is so hard for me to accept this as a helpful observation, not criticism? He told me I have to take better care of myself, and I have to admit I'm not sure exactly how to go about that. Ok, I'm getting the eating better stuff pretty well, but as someone who has been obsessed with food most of her life, it's not surprising that that was the first thing I would tackle.

The physical exercise stuff is an interesting journey. It took me over five years, but I went from no exercise to maybe too much. Before my surgery I was exercising too much, perhaps even compulsively. I was going to the gym religiously 3 times weekly, plus running at least 3 times weekly, and I had developed some sports related injuries in my shoulder and knees. I think that in some area of my brain, I believed that if I didn't exercise nearly every day, I would fall apart. Some of the scenarios lurking in my semi-conscious were: gaining back a lot of weight, losing all discipline and never exercising, just a general avalanche of backsliding. Well, it hasn't happened yet. I am going to the gym much less, but I'm still running 2 or 3 times a week with my group and/or Fuzz (wow, never thought that day would ever come to pass. He was always the fit one!) and I'm doing things like gardening, home reno, packing and extensive cleaning. Checking my weight monthly, I've gained 2 pounds at the most. So the physical stuff is ok right now, it's still a discovery process that I suppose will continue.

I guess the hard part of self care for me is discovering the difference between being good to oneself vs. overindulging. A morning in bed feels dangerous to me for some reason. I feel shame over it. And yet I regularly plug myself into the television for hours on end late at night. It's like, well, it's late, who does useful work then? And yet I feel I never have time to write or meditate. Why don't I do it then instead of watching the Late Late Show? Oh, I don't know. Maybe I need this guilty pleasure. It isn't accompanied by Late Late Eating any more, so what's the problem? Dial it back, honey. Even Martha has help.

Back Again

The Title Wizard says I've used "Back" in a number of my titles. Not a huge surprise I guess, because isn't "back" the pattern of life? As I sag, aw no, come on, ease into a sage (!) 45, I am beginning to think that the Bhuddists have it right: you repeat events and mistakes until you get it right, and maybe that takes several lifetimes. It certainly seems that I, and other people I know who are struggling to change their lives, seem to repeat our issues endlessly. I used to find this depressing and sometimes still do while I'm in the midst of an AFGO (Another F***ing Growth Opportunity) but now I'm more able to look at it and sigh, "0h yeah, that again". Sometimes I even smile because I've just been reminded that my humanity is linking me with all the other humans I know and respect who also struggle.

I used to think I had to be perfect. Hell, there are still many times I fall into that thinking. See, that's one of my patterns!

Whew, This Feeling Stuff is Hard!

I don't usually post in the evening, but I've had so little time to write in the mornings that it's now or never. I'm ticked off I've been posting so little. I've wondered if this meant the end of my blog for a while, but I think posting is good for my health. Who cares where it is or isn't going. I've spent too much of my life worrying about end product.

True to form, I've spent the last week worrying. The unthinkable happened: we bought and sold a house in what seem like good deals in around a month, and everything is moving more or less smoothly. After some great euphoria over this, the worry found its way back in. And why not? It's my default position. Just like being hungry. When in doubt, worry, then eat! That's how, kiddies, you get back on the binge-o-matic! Whee!

Someone in a meeting this morning said, "I don't know what's wrong, but my food's up. It will come to me soon." I nodded, because that's what I'm recognizing in myself the longer I hang around the 12-step "rooms": I'm still lousy at figuring out why I'm not feeling happy some days, but I realize that I am unhappy about the same time the hunger rises. I guess I'm healthier these days, because I get good and miserable before I start to binge. I don't look forward to these lousy feelings, but it beats the alternative. It's as if there is some antediluvian part of my brain that is slowly learning to recognize a negative emotion before my digestive tract does!

Not that I'm perfect at this. I'm no food nun. But rather than fantasizing about diving into a dozen donuts, I usually find I'm snacking on a few more baby carrots, pickles and other veg. If this doesn't help the hunger and it's not meal time I go, "Duh? Wazzup? Aw crap, what is it now?"

Whoa...

I wonder if I come across as terminally positive here? Am I ticking you off with some sort of goody two shoes act? I dunno. It's impossible to see how others see us.

CAUSE I HAVE GREAT NEWS!!!!

Our house sold!! It took 2 days. Yah, baby! Fuzz and I walked around in a daze for most of Saturday. That was it. No more "fluffing", obsessive cleaning up after ourselves, or any more of that crap. Sad to say that this was the cleanest our house every has been. But I kind of like it. It looks so uncluttered. It's good, because now we have to pack up, and we're moving into a smaller house. So, if I can keep that image of an uncluttered space during moving and reno stuff, it will give me the impetus to keep getting rid of stuff. Speaking of which, this afternoon I am going to take a series of digital photos of stuff so I can send it to various friends who may wish to buy or adopt stuff.

I'm freakin' amazed at how well this has been going. None of the awful stories I've heard of in real estate have been happening. Financing, legal stuff, all of it has gone through without much of a hitch, boom boom boom. And yesterday I bought a new fridge. Well, used, but gently used for a few years and half the original price. And it's just the fridge I wanted but didn't think I could afford yet. I actually was approached about it in an OA meeting. Turns out she was told I might need a fridge by another OA friend ---who I think I wrote about here before, the one who's been helping me pack up and clean in exchange for art lessons.

I keep thinking this is eerie evidence of a higher power at work, and best friend thinks it's time I bought a lottery ticket, but our higher power really does work through people. And a higher power works through me gettin' it out there: sharing with friends about my issues and fears, my problems, my joys. I've gotta get the whole deal "out" there. Basically, we're all part of this higher power. It's bigger than all of us, maybe, but it is essentially composed of all of us.

I've spent too much time in my life trying to function in my own little bubble. Yesterday I wanted to skip and jump for joy, and I had many different friends to do so with. It was magnificent. This is living.

Balance? Wazzat?

Around 4 pm I fell into bed and slept for a solid 2 hours. I was exhausted. The real estate agent had just left the house after taking a series of pictures for the listing on her website. Fuzz and I, with the help of a few dear friends, had just spent every spare moment of the last few weeks preparing: packing, painting, cleaning cleaning cleaning what hasn't been cleaned for years, drywalling, patching wallpaper, mowing, planting planterswrestling The China Cabinet of Doom into a storage unit, I even spent Sunday laying ceramic tile on two countertops... one of those jobs I just never "got around to" for 2 years.

But it worked. The house looks great. Kind of like I always dreamed it could but never felt able to make happen. Now, I don't want to spend the rest of my life cleaning every spare moment, but hey, it's not bad exercise. How do I integrate some of this into my daily life without it taking over? The last few weeks I haven't journalled much, gotten to the gym, nor spent much time in the studio. And I don't even have kids. I don't want to be busy busy all the time. I know I know, it's the old story, I want it all, but, yes, I do want more. I want to have friends in my next house without cringeing about how it looks. I like being able to see outside without gunge on the windows. I like the look of a clean countertop with some open space so I can work on it without having to shove piles of stuff (usually paper) to the side.

Can this be a part of my life? I'm already feeling overwhelmed by the concept. I think that may be a sign that I need to spend less time dwelling on the concept, and just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And granted, right now is a particularly hectic time. This isn't just housekeeping, it's moving! (I can hear the collective "ugh!" from here.

When it all seems like too much, I recall how I felt the last couple of months when I was finishing grad school. One day I wrote out a list of all the projects I had to accomplish before the end of the semester, and I went into shock! "No way can I do all of this!" I thought. Then I got rid of the list and went back to work. It all got done, maybe not as perfectly as I desired, but it went remarkably well given how intimidating that list looked.

Except, right now I feel like another nap!

Damn, The Sponsor was Right AGAIN

I've been in OA now for over 3 years and I've just recently started sponsoring in the last month. My sponsor has been encouraging me to sponsor for ages, but I've been either too wrapped up in my own recovery or just plain afraid of sponsoring. Growing up in a family where I was trained to sacrifice my needs for my parents disfunction, for the longest time I just didn't feel able to be a healthy sponsor rather than an enabler or a martyr. Just when all the poo hit the fan with buying and selling a house, so I'm still not the most active sponsor in the world, and I'm taking a tip from my sponsor and letting my "sponsees" call me, do the footwork in their recovery by reaching out to their sponsor.

Right now I don't have time to chase them down. If they want me, they know where to find me. One of the two has just dropped off the face of the earth, but she's a big NHL hockey fan, and it's playoff season, so I figure she'll resurface in a few weeks.

The other one I've been playing phone tag with. The relationship is complicated by the fact that I can often be found going to bed only slightly earlier than she usually rises, but the other morning she finally got me at home and awake. My sponsor has always said to me that her sponsees often gave her more than she gave them, at which I would usually go "huh?", but I found that happening on Tuesday morning.

My sponsee is pumped, she wants to work the program. She's sick and tired of being sick and tired. Lookout, she's on a roll, get out of her way. Here I was half awake, having spent half the night rattling around the house packing, tidying, pitching and completely obsessed with house, house, house. I was also feeling pretty low that night, pessimism rising.

She brought me down to earth, reminded me of where I was and how important these new habits of living are to my present happiness. She also reminded my how little program work I've been doing. I was telling myself that because my food was quiet (Hell, I was so busy, I was forgetting to eat my programmed snacks, always a shock for me to realize), I was fine. If you read my posts regularly, you will have noticed how little I've been blogging. Ditto with the reading of OA literature and attending meetings. They are all part of my lifeline, what keeps me plugged into health, rather than disfunction and misery.

Ok, ok, uncle uncle! I hear ya! Time to put some balance back. Do the things that make me feel better. Hit a meeting yesterday, and will do another tomorrow and lunch with a fellow sufferer who's struggling. Then back to the unending house crap. Did I say I'm glad we're moving into a smaller house? Much more manageable, and forces me to let go of the China Cabinet of Doom!

Wrestled the Gorilla...

aka the china cabinet into the storage unit! It is massive (219 cm tall, that's over 7 ft and almost a meter deep), but thankfully the top half detaches from the bottom. And of course, the dining room now looks spacious. I kind of like the old thing, the homespun craftsmenship, dovetailing, and plain dignity of it. It may or may not be valuable, but I can't keep it in any house I'm going to live in any time soon, more suited to a rambling old farmhouse with 12 foot ceilings.
There are also so many sad memories with this cabinet. It seems to hold a dark cloud of sadness in its dark victorian depths. In the top was all the china and crystal that was used so rarely. In the bottom went various bits of stuff that my parents didn't know what to do with: all those Christmas tchochkes from my father's business associates, 60's cloth napkins and placemats in acqua, green and orange, home movie cameras and reels, slides... then there was the alcohol and chocolate. My father's vice and mine, respectively, side by side. It just struck me a month or two ago how eerily the two forbidden substances coexisted there for years while I swore I would never be like my father as I mimicked his every step in alcohol with my food: the closet bingeing, the shame, the isolating, the supressed rage and fear, the hopelessness.
The reasons for selling it aren't merely physical. I think it's time to move on with my life.

Ahhhh

Finally, I'm taking a little time to just stop. Seems like ages since I've been able to sit in bed with the laptop and the TV on, half-watching Martha cook something, I'm not sure what, I'm not paying much attention, just luxuriating in somebody else working. I've got 10 zillion other things I "should" be doing --- my friend says, "there you go, should-ing on yourself again" --- but I need to stop, gather my scattered wits. I'm taking this morning off.

We've been painting and packing. I'm so happy about where our new house is, downtown in Midsizeburg, where I can walk or bike to almost anywhere I want to go in the downtown. But the house is smaller. It's a great size for the two of us, but it is forcing me to finally come to terms with all that furniture and bric-a-brac I inherited when my parents died almost 10 years ago. I've sold or given away a lot of it, but there is still too much. It is as if I am living in a museum to their memory, and it's not a happy memorial --- there are many sad memories tied up with these old things. I don't have an albatross around my neck, it's a china cabinet filled with silver and pinwheel crystal!

Like going through the waves of grief I went through when my mother died (not the same as when my father died, his passing was a merciful relief of misery), I go through waves of emotion when dealing with their stuff:

"Oh God, if they only saw what I was doing, they'd be spinning in their graves!"
"I am SO SICK of this stuff!"
"That's it! This can go to Goodwill!"
"Maybe I can just make a fire in the backyard..."
"Ok, let's go with the auctioneer..."
"I wonder if this might fit in the kitchen?" Fuzz:"Are you KIDDING?"
"I'm keeping this. No, I'm not. Yes, maybe... Rats... "
"Is this actually worth all this grief?"
"Just put it in the box before I change my mind!"
"Wow, this looks really good when you get all the crap out of here!..."

Whew. No wonder I can feel tired even without lifting a finger! However, slowly, things are happening. I'm discovering how dealing with stuff can be pretty satisfying. And come what may, the first week of July we are moving. I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Feel the doubt, feel the fear, spit in its face, and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

And enjoy this cup of coffee.

Taking Time to Listen

Listen. Really listen. What is she saying? It's exhausting. She thinks she's talking about looking for a job, but all I hear is a stream of negatives, "I can't"s, and "They did x to me". Finally I give up and start tuning her out, because she's too busy justifying to listen to any suggestions. I can't blame her, I know I've been locked in that behaviour too, but boy, it seems like there is a lot of pain. Did I really listen or just get locked into "helpful" mode? That's my other default position.

She may have hit bottom. She sounds totally disgusted with her life right now. Sometimes listening helps with that, but it's so hard to not judge.

She's also talking about losing weight. Tried OA, didn't like the God talk. We talked a bit about the whole spirituality vs. Christianity thing.

Funny the things you get into just talking with a casual acquaintance @ Starbucks. on a cold May morning.

Things are Going Well, If Very Fast

This is another of those "on the run" posts. Akkkk! I have to get dressed and all that stuff, we're going over to the new house to look at the kitchen. The vendor actually paid for new kitchen cabinets before she got the news she was being relocated, so we're trying to figure out where stuff is going and what we need changed, if anything. And then there's paint swatches. The house was mid renovation so I can pick what colors I want. Wow. Too much, dude.

Fuzz is pacing. Time to go. Life is faster right now but pretty sane, amazingly. Except I'm not getting enough exercise the last few days. I want to work on that. Good thing I quit my job at the end of last month! A real estate agent comes for a talk tomorrow about selling our house and sometime this week a lady from the auction service is coming to give me some appraisals. Whee...

I'll write again soon. Promise. And I won't talk about freakin' real estate.

Continually Amazed

Well, it happened. The seller accepted our offer, and the bank likes us, and we don't even have to rush to sell our house because our finances are in very good shape. I keep asking people to pinch me. You know, it's just a little modest 2 storey in a downtown neighbourhood that I think is on its way up, no big deal, right? Except the house next door is owned by my best friend (of 25 years) and her partner and daughter. After living for 15 years in "Smallville" and never really finding a community (excepting the 2 years I lived in New York), I am going to be living in a place (shall we call it Midsizeburg) where I think we will find a community. Within blocks live other artists and musicians, and many more of our friends, including Fuzz' brother and wife. Fuzz actually grew up 2 blocks away. Stranger than fiction.

I feel very lucky, but I think we made our own luck by listening to our hearts, putting out the word we wanted to live in the neighbourhood, and asking for help: spiritual, emotional support, and physical help from our friends. It was our friend that told our neighbour that if she ever wanted to sell her house they had someone interested. And then being willing to have fate, a higher power, karma, or whatever do what it would for us. This morning a groggy Fuzz said through a codeine-acetaminophen-ibuprofen blur (he's got a virus) "Boy, your higher power sure was on yesterday!" And he's right. It is amazing when you start clearing out the old emotional debris, I believe a channel opens up that allows good things to come to me that I can't even imagine.

The seller and even the seller's father seem extremely happy, because she was able to sell her house in 2 days and now can concentrate on moving to her new job out west in July. One major headache out of her way.

I was doing the "Mr. Bean Christmas Morning Happy Dance" yesterday, or was it the "Snoopy" along with lots of high pitched squealing. Maybe not the best idea, because it's easy to bonk your head dancing and jumping around with your eyes screwed shut!

When we got home last night I was still adrenaline filled, so I got on the treadmill for an hour's power walk. Then I lay down on the couch with a little cantelope and Letterman, thinking I might follow it up with some hot milk. The next thing I knew, it was an hour later, the cat tucked under my chin. I crawled up to bed and slept like the amazed baby I am.

Anybody want to buy a charming 90 year old house with a custom designed art studio & craftsman workshop in small town Canada? Such a steal!!! ;))

Sleep, Puleeze...

Maybe there is something to my doctor and therapist's suspicion that I may suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. During my checkup on Monday I realized I'm sleeping much less than a month ago and didn't feel nearly as sluggy as in March and February. I have a feeling I'll be trying one of those light therapy boxes next winter.

Tonight (it's coming on 5 am as I type this) I've got the opposite problem, sleeplessness. Major stress going on right now as we are trying to negotiate a private sale on a house. It's kind of small and needs some cosmetic work, and the basement, hooboy, don't get me started, but I love the location. Suddenly all our moving, selling and buying plans are notched up about 5 clicks. As Fuzz pointed out, it's much easier to be motivated when you have an concrete object in sight. About a million things could cause this to fall through, but it's a trip we've gotta try, sleepless night or not.

Let's see, today I have to investigate a storage locker and ugh, phone the bank for a talk about financing. Big fear around that last one, but Fuzz is up to his eyeballs in work, and this is something I can do. Fuzz is hilarious, he's absorbed enough of this "higher power" stuff from my work with Overeaters Anonymous to get it, he keeps saying, "If our higher power wants us to get this house, we will, it's out of our hands." It helps with the stress, but he still looks a little strung out over it too.

I guess this is what a healthy life looks like. Yesterday, my computer geek partner made a concept map (kind of a flow chart) of all the things stressing him out about this! I chose the low tech way and cried for a while, feeling completely overwhelmed and ashamed of how incompetent I felt, and then got on with life: Community choir rehearsal, made a roast beast dinner for us and Fuzz's folks, packed a couple more boxes last night with one eye on the Law & Order CI season ender. I just did ---what do they call it in 12 step circles? --- oh yeah, "the next right thing". Speaking of which, I think I can sleep now. Oh joy, one whole hour before the alarm goes off!

Body vs. Head

I have to admit, once again, that I am a complex creature. "No no no," screams my brain, "I want everything to be simple! Why is everything so damn complicated!" Grr! Spit! I am considering the relationship between my head and my body, which is probably pretty similar to most women: torturous at best. I wonder how many women I know do not look daily (or more) at another woman (3D or 2 dimensional) and find their own body lacking? And honestly, I also have the other distasteful trait: looking at someone and thinking "well, at least I don't look like that." I would like to think myself above all that, but I'm not. I fight it, or accept it as remaining evidence that my self esteem is still lousy. In other words, it's my head that's the problem, not the body. Pretty common disease in our culture, and not confined to women.

My therapists have called it shame. Yuck. What a word. Just writing it makes me shiver.

But like I said, it's complex. I also have pride in my body, and there are bits I am just discovering. Like my toes --- I had my first pedicure ever last week and what a treat it was! All this soaking and massaging and buffing and stuff, wow! Best Friend, an old hand at this spa stuff and big fan of the french manicure --- something I just don't get--- had hers painted a subtle blush taupe, but not me! Like a kid in a cosmetics store, I went straight for the fuschia. It took me almost 45 years to finally get there and needed BF to make the appointment and accompany me to keep my nerves at bay, so I went for the brightest day-glo color there to proclaim to the world, "Hey! I got my toes done! Aren't I a girly girl?"

My question is, what took me so long? Why did I have to lose half my body weight to honor my toes? Maybe it's because I now actually like people looking at me, because I no longer wish to be invisible, I am discovering my body. It's like running, also a new pursuit, discovered just last fall. I like sweating now. Before it just made me angry.

Emotional Feet Stamping

I have written and erased the same 3 or 4 sentences three times. I've got a bee in my bonnet but I'm not sure why. I just feel restless and discontent. I'm not sure what is going on in my fevered noggin, but it seems cyclic. Could be a body cycle, or just a reaction to things going ok, neither great nor awful. And I know tomorrow it will probably seem different. Isn't it amazing that today's emotional tailspin will likely evaporate to such an extent that tomorrow it will be hard to remember just what was so awful?

Last night I mentally went through a checklist of all the good things I had accomplished yesterday. I had to do this because I hadn't helped Fuzz with a home reno project he really wanted to get done. That was his job, but I felt a lot of guilt for not helping him. Instead I cooked meals for us, cleaned out the stinky (whoof, what died in here???) leaves and guck from the pond and got it functioning for the season, tidied my studio some more (no wonder it was hard to move around with 3 bicycles and the back seat from the van in there!), mowed the lawn for the first time this year, whacked the weeds, cleaned the kitchen, bought food, and wrote. All good and worthy things, but because I wasn't helping him, I felt guilt. He never even suggested I aid him. That's just the script in my head. It's so hard for me to stay with my own stuff. As soon as I feel I "should" be doing something for another, it's as if my brain has been snatched from my body.

It's a constant source of amazement for me how someone who used to weigh over 300 pounds and is still about 145 and 5'9" can feel so ephemeral, without substance, when confronted with another's issues or agenda. It is as if the binge eating was an unconscious effort to feel real, as if I existed.

I'm going to the gym later, and I think I might combine some weight training with a run outside since it's such a beautiful day, sunny, with just an edge of crispness as we edge toward summer. I think I'll run along the lake and around the campus. It will likely improve my mood, maybe release some endorphins. Instead of eating to feel as if I exist, I will make myself physically stronger. I still like that odd ouchy ache I sometimes get when I move after exercise. It says, oh yeah, those muscles got used for something. After years of physical inactivity, it's nice to feel my body talking to me on occasion, just a little tweak here and there, not big pain. Speaking of tweaks, I'm not even getting that as my body is into its 3rd month of healing from the hysterectomy today, and I'm feeling about 98% recovered, with about the only symptom being a slight lag in my energy reserves.

One thing I am feeling anxiety around, but also flashes of joy, is being in the studio to give my friend art lessons. She wants to come back for more this week, so I have some prep to do. Another small step taken in my journey doing something meaningful that I love. Now that is making me feel alive! I'm thinking of things to work on while she paints... uh oh, might be time for another self portrait. That's usually what I do when I haven't been painting for a while and need an utterly fascinating subject to get those juices flowing again...

Listening and Recasting God

At the beginning, and at the end of many OA meetings they say the "Serenity Prayer". It is a shortened variation on the original prayer written by an American Protestant minister and theologan Reinhold Niebuhr, and the version we use is: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. " Then---and I know this is where we differ from other 12 step fellowships and maybe even from OA in different regions--- we add the sentence "Thy will, not mine be done."

The wording of much of the original 12 step literature passed down from the early 20th century AA founders was originally a stumbling block for me when I started attending OA meetings. Raised Catholic, I'm someone who has avoided most organized religion for most of her adult life. That being said, over a decade ago I realized I wanted to have a community to consider my spiritual life with, and so I'm a member of a Unitarian Universalist fellowship, a very liberal faith community that is bonded by that desire to explore spirituality without being told what we must believe. I found a lot of good people, but for some reason I never went much deeper in my search. I still stayed angry at God and scared.

So I have trouble with the G-word. Or I did, until I was told that I could conceive of God, or "a higher power" in any form I wanted. It took me a long time to realize how stereotypical and unhelpful the image of a higher power I had swallowed early on was for my emotional and physical health. The God I had created for myself was punitive and angry, cobbled together from the attitudes of the family and community I grew up in, and the popular culture. God was invoked to keep us in line in the church and me in line in my family.

As I meditate now on the possibility of a higher power that might want me to be "joyous, happy and free", I realize that this means I have to change my conception of what that higher power wants me to do in my daily life. Like this morning.

I was lying in bed with my usual dose of guilt: "Oh ugh, I should vacuum, I should rake the leaves out of the basement window well, clean out a closet, blah blah blah..." when what I really wanted was to sit in bed, drink coffee, turn on the CBC and surf the net and write. Then that phrase "Thy will not mine" floated into my fevered coconut.

I wondered "what if Thy will is for me to sit in bed with my laptop?" Not what my parents would say, but maybe by absorbing their sad conception of a higher poser (that was originally a typo but maybe it was a freudian typo) was one of the things that made my life so awful. Evidence that this may be the case is that when I do shove everything else back and do just that, I'm more in touch with my feelings and the rest of my life goes much better: I eat better, I obsess less about food, I get exercise, I keep myself straight with valued friends, I discover the joy of pedicures and running and belly dance, I get into the studio more. And paradoxically, enough of the other stuff that needs to be done, basic housework and stuff like that, seems to get done, if not enough for my old Fake God. I need to fire Fake God, and for the time being, do it daily.

Not a Bad Day - Now There's an Understatement!

Yesterday was interesting. I think it went well. Lots of anxiety, but overall it was ok, and so far, so good. Sorry, I'm mystifying you with all these cliches.

What happened was I made a bargain with one of my closest OA buds: she would help me pack up some of my three china cabinets in return for some art instruction. Yes, I said three china cabinets: One rustic one I want to keep, one made by my father-in-law that I will probably end up keeping as thankfully it's small and quite pretty, and then there is the behemoth: a massive dark victorian (I think) which is likely the most valuable, but it is huge and is like a black hole that sucks all the light out of a room and a lot of my energy with it. Filled by my mother's china and crystal, various fiddly cups and saucers and odd brick-a-brac, I want to sell it, but it is just so huge. And unmanageable --- hmmm, nice metaphor for how my life seems most days! It's got a lot of emotional baggage stuffed in it, one of those things I inherited when I cleaned out my parents' house. Perhaps you have one of those emotional albatrosses hanging around your neck? I don't know exactly what I will do with all of it, but getting it all organized and ready to move to storage in preparation for selling the house is a good first step. One foot in front of the other, doing the next right thing... ugh ugh ugh.

Anyway, we only managed to pack up a sixth of the behemoth in a couple of hours, but Mom's china is now washed, catalogued and photographed, carefully wrapped and in numbered boxes.

Then it was on to my studio, a somewhat daunting task for both of us as we both regularly fight with the perfectionism monster. But after another hour or so, we had a couple of ideas about what she would like to do and some homework in preparation for her first painting in acrylics. Sometime in the next week we'll go shopping for her first stretched canvas, and I'm so excited! Maybe this is the artist's equivalent of being a mother--- I'm sighing, just thinking of the delight of that first canvas. Hm... do I remember mine? Yes, I think I do, oh the delight of that springy stretched fabric, existing just for the touch of my brush, and all that luscious paint... Wow. I believe I may be having my own little epiphany here, and have just experienced a flash of the true joy of teaching, of being able to convey what really thrills me about art.

HOLY HANNAH! THIS IS GREAT!!!

Now this is why I quit my job. Oops, gotta run. I'm getting my first pedicure at noon! Whee!

Add This to My "Never Again" List

You may think me terminally antisocial, but I think I have reached the age where I can declare with some certainty that I would appreciate never having to attend another shower: bridal, baby, jack and jill, buck and doe, jack and jack, jill and jill, whatever. I don't mind attending a wedding, particularly if there will be cake and dancing, but for a shower please just accept that I'll send a gift (no, actually, I'll just send a card and money) but I don't wanna go. Obviously it's been a long time since I went to one, because I forgot how much I dislike them until yesterday when I went to one for an OA friend. She's a very nice woman, all the other women there were very nice and normally a lot of fun, there were no lame shower games, but there is just something that is just so stilted or dated about the concept.

Maybe it's because we're living in a time where we are well aware that prince charming is a myth and happily forever after is too, or that the apex of a woman's life is not necessarily her marriage. Babies are probably another matter, but don't ask me because I am happily child-free. Even there, most mothers who haven't been nipping at the Amontillado during Oprah will admit that being a mommy isn't always love, flowers and Mr. Clean moments, more like 15-20 years of sleep deprivation, debt, driving to karate, soccer, ballet, homework tutors, teacher conferences or parole hearings.

Of course, this just begs for my best friend, who seems happily settled in non-married monogamy with her partner of almost 10 years (and 6 year old child) to have a mini stroke and decide she needs two extra toasters and a fondue set or five and I'll find myself in shower organization hell...

What this has to do with my compulsive eating is: it's just so easy to self-sabotage my efforts to be there for myself. I left that shower about 2 hours after I should have, and in a foul mood. While grinding my teeth on the drive home, I realized that I had once again abandoned myself at some point during the day. Instead of leaving after the first hour and a half of not having much fun, I stayed for hours of increasing tedium. I got locked back into my default "duty" mode, you know, the one I learned eons ago as the dutiful daughter, dutiful granddaughter, dutiful student, dutiful wife, dutiful friend.... Oh God, Oedipus didn't poke out his eyes because he had slept with his mother, he blinded himself because he had become her! I was practically a Stepford, I was so not in in my body, one of those things that in the bad old days was regularly soothed by a dozen doughnuts or another half pizza.

That's it, showers are going on my abstinence list!

Yes, I Said "Belly Dancing". Ya Got a Problem Wid Dat?!

Just add it to the long list of stuff I would never dreamed of doing 3 years ago. Cinthia, this may have been your influence... I can't remember how I found it, but I stumbled upon the website of a local bellydance/Mid Eastern dance teacher at nobodys-watching.com (exactly the condition I need to do it) and on impulse e-mailed her an inquiry as to whether this was the proper class for a beginner just interested in some exercise with music. I never actually want to exhibit my abs to anyone besides Fuzz, much less perform. The teacher was encouraging, so I went, dragging along my best friend. She's been trying to lose those 30 pounds of post partum weight since her six-year-old was born.

So far (2 classes) so good but I am INCREDIBLY uncoordinated. And I was flabbergasted when the teacher told me I had to stick out my stomach more to start to undulate my ab muscles. This is the same tummy(well, a smaller version of it) that I have been desperately trying to suck in for over forty years, the one my mother kept trying to coax into a girdle when I was twelve. I stared downward at my torso, at a loss at exactly how to perform such a reversal in a long standing, unquestioned habit. I managed a half hearted undulation, but it's going to take some practice. Just the same, by the end of the second class, I had my camisole tucked under my chest, trying to see how my roll was coming along.

I wish I could say that I had the courage to do all this physical stuff when I was 300 pounds, but I didn't. I remember reading an assignment to my class when I was in grade five and getting howls of laughter when I said I would like to take ballet, and I was likely a relatively slender 160 pounds. That humiliation then ruled out the possibility of dance. I had to be satisfied with dressing up like a duck or a maid as comic relief in the school play. It was then that I discovered I could really make people laugh, and from then on I was known for my comic timing. If you can't beat 'em... all that jolly fat crap--- it felt like a good defense at the time, but I was usually just taking the handle of the knife they'd stuck me with and giving it a further twist.

There are some heavier women in my class, and a nice age spread of about 40 years from youngest to oldest, but nobody really obese. It's really too bad, but we took in the message that we should be ashamed of our bodies with our mother's milk. I think there would be a lot more healthy obese people if we weren't ridiculed by strangers when moving around outdoors.

My friend doesn't know the half of it, and she's been around me long enough to know she doesn't. For most of her life she had been quite thin. Before she was pregnant she was a smoker who actually forgot to eat (huh?). Yet even she remarked that the bellydance class had a different atmosphere from most of the ballet and jazz classes she had taken as a young woman. Of course, in those classes there were many girls and women with their own version of an eating disorder, just a more socially sanctioned one.

Decisions, Decisions

I HATE making decisions, but the sick feeling I've had in my gut the last couple of weeks drove me to finally make one about whether to return to my job. My sick leave is over, but I've decided that I'm not returning. It was just a stopgap anyway, a seasonal, low paying job at a friend's business that I took to earn a bit of money and get me out of the house because I didn't feel able to work in the studio due to, well, for lack of a better term for it, my artistic block. Which had been plaguing me, surprise surprise, in tandem with my binge eating problem.

Oh yes, the two are linked. I'm sure of it.

Hello, where did the sense of well-being go that I felt immediately after making that phone call to work? What's the nature of that dark cloud that just bled into my blue sky? Self doubt and fear? I'll bet that part of it is that self-imposed pressure/pefectionism that I'm so good at putting on my shoulders.

Twelve step programs (all more or less descended from the granddaddy of them all, AA) talk about looking at your resentments and then looking in your role in your problems. I think my role in my depression is continuing the self-defeating perfectionism I learned growing up. It's the best method I've found to quash any sense of happy freedom I have from embracing my bohemian nature.

I'm in a community choir, and this semester we're doing a program of spirituals from different faith traditions. Of course, the majority are traditional african american hymns because they are just so damn beautiful. Look at the titles of what's on my mp3 player and floating through my mind right now: Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit... I'm Goin Up a Yonder.... Gonna Build a Mountain... Hold On...

You'd think someone was trying to tell me something.
Gotta go, I don't want to be late for my belly dancing class...

Late Night Noshing

For most people with food issues, late evening is a problem. I'm a natural night owl and Fuzz is an early to bed guy, mainly because he has to drive 40 minutes in the morning and then cope with more than 90 hormone driven attitude factories during the day. So it used to be prime closet eating time for me.

For the last couple of years, since I'm into the rhythm of my plan of eating, I have 2 regular evening snacks and maybe a cup of decaf coffee or chai and that's it. Lately however, I've been having salt cravings after 11 pm. I usually ignore them or sate them with a pickle. I know from hard experience that crackers or popcorn is just asking for trouble: ie, the urge for more. But last night I had a third of a cup of leftover couscous and a couple of ounces of ham before going to bed. Not a binge by any means, and I had run about 4 km before dinner, so my body is getting used to being more active coming back from the hysterectomy. Maybe it truly needed some more food? But then I had eating an afternoon snack to prepare for the extra exertion...

But I still feel wierd about it. Some people in OA would declare that a break in their abstinence. I haven't. Hm. Don't know.. I guess it's not, but I don't want it to become a habit. I guess I'll see what today, a less physically active day, feels like in the late evening. I wonder if I just need to go to bed earlier unless I'm doing something worthwhile? Face it, mostly I chill out by watching Craig Ferguson, read the paper, or surf.

I may have no good answer for these questions. I'm just trying to be aware.

News Flash: Mother was Right!

Like many kids, I thought my mother was the best cook in the world. From my middle aged perspective, I see that food was an important non verbal conduit of affection and comfort in my family. When I left home, I discovered that there were other ways to eat, and even more revolutionary for a kid brought up in a forest isolated Irish-Catholic community, spices beyond salt, stale pepper, cinnamon for apple crumble, the faded ancient bottle of Tabasco sauce, and that mysterious green bottle my mother kept on the lazy susan called "Poultry Seasoning".

Eventually, I realized that Mom had been overcooking most everything. No wonder I had never really taken to lamb or chicken breast. When she caught the low fat bug, about the time she first started Weight Watchers, her previously panfried hamburgers were now oven baked on a rack until they became dark shrunken pucks. If flung, they easily could have taken out an eye.

Bless her, Mom was a product of the Depression and iceboxes, and meat had to be cooked until every evil bug was long gone to its maker and the chops themselves cried for mercy. Even her specialty, baked whole salmon, had such a saliva absorbing quality that it begged for --- now, don't scream too loudly--- ketchup. It took me years to adjust to properly cooked salmon, but I now down salmon sushi with impunity, occasionally wondering if Mom's coffin has spun itself all the way through to Tasmania yet.

And vegetables... well, you know the answer to that. They weren't done unless Gran could happily chow down on them without her teeth in. I don't remember how she coped with the beef pucks.

Mind you, in '70's Maritime Canada, green vegetables out of season inevitably came from the freezer, and bless them, my parents did grow and freeze their own green and yellow beans, peas, and a local delicacy, fiddleheads. The tightly furled, immature fronds of the ostrich fern, fiddleheads are picked for a brief time about now every spring, usually from the slippery banks of shallow, fast flowing, frigid thawing streams, accompanied by the constant risk of falling in the stream, that is, if it isn't already raining, which it was the few times I actually accompanied them on a picking expedition. They were always a devil to clean, covered in a brown papery covering requiring soaking, scrubbing, then trimming, but they were tasty. By the time mom was finished with them, I could hold one above my mouth and it would unfurl in a long spiral, like a noodle.

With a season of under a month, you rarely find them in the stores in this part of the country, but last week I stumbled on some fiddleheads in excellent condition, (ie not half unfurled) reasonably clean, and gathered up a pound for dinner. I informed Fuzz that it was my birthright to eat the lion's share of them but I would share a few with him. He was fine with that as long as he got extra ham to dull the crushing disappointment...

Like Proust, as I was steaming the fiddleheads I caught a whiff of spring forest, and was whisked back 30 years and 600 miles and knew I would have to overcook them in order to complete the experience. Besides, these are a rather bitter vegetable, a bit like asparagus crossed with swiss chard, that may actually taste better with a little extra steaming. They were great with just a touch of kosher salt and some butter.

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across a newspaper article this morning that said that the Centers for Disease Control and Health Canada both recommend boiling or steaming fiddleheads for 12 to 15 minutes. The research isn't conclusive, but there is a suggestion from several reported cases of mild food poisoning that fiddleheads contain a thermolabile (heat sensitive) toxin that is destroyed by longer cooking. No chichipoopoo flash saute for these little guys.

Thanks Mom. Sorry about the sushi. Now that I think of it, you might have been right about the hamburger too.

What a Difference a Day Makes!

Woweebobby! Today is such a different experience from yesterday! I was grumping around this morning, on my way for another cup of coffee to take back to bed with the laptop when one of my friends from Overeaters Anonymous called to chat. "I'm ok," I said, upon which she asked if that was true or a lie. "Hmmmm, both. I'm not wonderfully happy but I don't feel like utter crap."

When I asked what she was up to she told me that she was attending a new Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) group for women that was starting up. "Mmph." says I, "I should go."

Now, a word of explanation. I don't consider myself a sex addict, but SLAA is also for people who have trouble with relationships. Boundaries, and all that yukky stuff. And in my post yesterday, I wrote that I was avoiding my OA group because I had trouble coping with the people in that group. I know I have relationship issues. If anything, I can be mentally anorexic with my friends. I come across as an extrovert, but I really do hide from people when the going gets rough: pull the head into the shell, close the door, shut the curtains. Nobody home but us chickens! I don't have boundaries, I have Berlin Walls.

So I went to the meeting. Someone who I had been really angry at was there. Right off she apologises for what she did. 3 of us went out for coffee later. Things are good.

Going running tonight, and am going to do my damnest to not try to break any personal bests, or for that matter, anyone elses! Actually, a personal best for me would be to go running and stay in the moment, and enjoy that I can run.

Grumpy and Hungry

The two go together. I spent most of today screwing myself into a mental hole, and surprise, surprise, I'm hungry now. I've been really indecisive, and I blew off my OA meeting this morning. Something has been bugging me about that meeting, I've been leaving it feeling spent and angry, not filled. So for the last couple of weeks, I've decided at the last minute to not go. This morning I almost got all the way there (it's about a 40 minute drive) before I turned the car away and spent the time sitting in a Starbuck's, writing. I don't know if the other members really are as whiny and negative as they seem to me, or if I have a chip on my shoulder because I'm the secretary of that group and I see them as messing with "my" meeting. Usually, the answer is a little of both.

I'm feeling a great deal of shame and anger about it, it seems. And interestingly, as I drink another cup of coffee and write about this, at least I can feel the hunger subside, if not those roiling emotions. I know it's not healthy for me to avoid things that make me uncomfortable, because that's my pattern, fed by that pessimistic voice that sighs "oh, what's the use?" And then it's a quick dive, dive, dive, right into the food.

I think this has to do with self image, vulnerability, boundaries, and the importance of being my own best friend. And I have to do it out in the world. It's not enough to do it cocooned in my la-z-boy. Yes, I have one, actually, two, since I inherited another one when my folks died, and sigh, they really are comfortable, especially when using a laptop.

I had the most interesting image while going to sleep the other night: I was thinking about that yawning canyon of fear that seemed to open up beneath me when I tried to work in my studio. Suddenly I had the image of that canyon being the grand canyon and I wasn't falling into it, but flying through it, enthralled by the splendour enveloping me.

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday felt like a great day. Now that's odd: I was about to write "Yesterday was a great day." but I immediately started questioning whether it really was a great day. Well, I can be subjective, it was MY day, and I can call it great. If it felt great, it WAS great.

Am I confusing you with this little dialogue? Welcome to my twisted world of second guessing myself. It took me a long time to see that in much of my life experience, it doesn't matter what "really" happens/happened to me, my perception of my life is the most important thing. I always prided myself on my empirical objectivity. Well, when it comes to life experience, the subjective is what we get. Objectivity is impossible. My life is not a mathematic algorithm.

That doesn't mean that I can't examine why I reacted in a certain way to an event or a person, but I now see that the only way I can feel less lonely and desperate in this world is by honoring my right to my unique experience. I'm a visual artist, a painter, and the only way I can function as one is to value what I have to say through my art. Otherwise, who will?

After my parents died my own health was a shambles, and I dealt with it by controlling my food strictly. After a year, I had lost over a hundred pounds and my diabetes and hypertension were under control, I used my inheritence to fund a Masters of Fine Art in New York. It was a great experience, but at the same time my eating was growing more and more unhealthy, and I was drinking like a 20 year old frat boy.

After graduation I returned to Canada. After two years of living in a closet (and painting in one) in one of the most vibrant and frustrating cities in the world, I returned to my beautiful, peaceful studio in a leafy bird and flower filled yard and panicked. I had felt the fear rising during my last year at the Academy and sought out a therapist because I could feel the chasm beckoning. But it didn't delay the inevitable return home. I wanted to return home, but then I was alone in the studio. The camraderie and competition of school was gone. It was just "little old me".

I didn't feel strong enough to survive just on my own agenda, I wanted someone else telling me what to do. I was not enough. Over the next few years I painted less and less, and ate more and more. Oh, the fear in the studio was so visceral! I remember running to the convenience store a couple of hours before supper for chips and dip and returning to the studio, turning on Oprah, and just stufffing it, that terror, down. I then would return home to cook dinner, not telling Fuzz what I had been up to. I tried visiting NYC as much as possible, even renting space from old schoolmates to try and hold onto the feeling of being a "real" artist, but that sense still slipped away as my hole seemed to get deeper and deeper. I had regained almost all the weight, save about 40 pounds, but if my previous trends held true, it would be back within a few more months, plus more.

I didn't go into Overeaters Anonymous willingly, the therapist, a woman who never tells me to do anything, actually gave me a shove in that direction, because she was at her wits end. I have a friend in OA, M, who I alternately love or pushes my buttons so that I want to slap her. She said, "I didn't want to be here!" Then she snorted,"Who does?!" She’s kept her weight off for four years.

The point of this tirade is that I am convinced that my obesity and disordered eating is little more than a symptom of the larger disease. When I look at the alcoholism and behaviour of my father, my bette noire, I shiver at the similarities. Some people may more triggered by certain foods, but in my experience, my behaviour around food is a reflection of the mental anguish, the warped thinking, leading to the desperation that makes it seem that food is the only friend, my only alternative. For me, the only way I am going to hold onto my physical health is by examining my thinking.

Back in the Saddle, er, Sneakers

Well, so far, so good. I went to the gym last weekend and did strength training at about 75% my pre-hysterectomy (about 2 and a half months ago now) intensity, and I rejoined my running group last week too. My abs were pretty achy the next couple of days, but nothing a couple of ibuprofen couldn't handle.

The funny thing is, my brain does this weird competitive thing. It's as if while I was off sick, it kept going, and is having difficulty accepting that my endurance and speed are not so great right now. My group has changed routes to a local conservation area and we're now doing more cross country stuff. Ugh, hills and uneven ground. We've also started doing these short course relay drills which means we end up running alone more. So last evening, I was panting my way up a short but steep hill, and without even knowing it, I was running like a person that was damned if she was going to let a little old 6 inch abdominal incision slow her down. Yes, I'm insane...

That brought back a very unpleasant flashback from student teacher days when I went on a hike with a grade 6 class. I had been struggling with this class of overpriveledged, undermannered kids and their teacher, a cross between oh, Cruella DeVille and some sort of benevolent dictator, and if her students did anything wrong, it was obviously my fault. For some reason, I felt like the scapegoat from the first moment I stepped into her classroom. It was my first placement and I was in over my head. (My next two placements were the complete opposite: I loved them and they loved me, and I came away with glowing recommendations.) I believe that somehow, my size (I was in the high 200's at that time) was an issue with this woman.

Anyway, I got left in their dust the day of the hike and struggled on behind with one of the students who probably felt sorry for me. When I finished, the teacher told me that if I was going to be a teacher I would have to lose weight. I felt about 3 inches tall, very ashamed. Now I wonder if she would have told one of my classmates who had an artificial leg that to be an effective teacher, he would need two good legs.

Obviously, I did lose weight. But at the time, it seemed as possible as my friend regrowing his leg, and there are many, many people who are still suffering who can't "just do it" or "say no" to food. Even if hiking was not then my forte, I had many good qualities that enabled me to be an effective teacher, even if I was fat. We're not stupid, or lazy, or any of those other stereotypes. It really does seem impossible, and that's because it is close to impossible to permanently change so much of one's character and habits, your whole way of dealing with the world through the filter of food. Imagine taking your computer's operating system, Windows or whatever you're using, and rebuilding it from the ground up.

Uh huh. That hard.

Skeletons: Not Just for Christmas Anymore!

Santa Skeleton reborn as Skeleto Bunny...
Creepy, yes, but stuffonmycat.com has the subversive-cute front covered!

And I wonder why the inlaws think I'm wierd.

Funny, this year I haven't had any cravings for chocolate bunny ears or any other bits. I don't know if that is because I have almost daily doses of very good quality 70% + chocolate and face it, most Easter chocolate is of awful quality. The only exception I ever had was last year when we picked up some Jacques Torres chocolate in New York. And then it was still not satisfying because I had a big urge to eat the whole thing, about 8 oz, in a flashback of Easters past, and that would just start me rolling down the hill to binge-dom. Doling the bunny bits over several days was quite unsatisfying as the inner monster would just roar "moooore!", and I ended up taking the remains to work at the greenhouse for the ravening hoards (mostly my boss, actually!) to devour. Getting rid of it just made my life easier.

Growing up, Easter was second to only Hallowe'en in my sugar consumption. Wow, I'm getting a body memory of the buzz now!

One of the interesting, if sad aspects of my life is that I have such strong food memories, the chicken in the basket and flat orange soda Friday suppers at the lunch counter at Zellers, covering a big hatbox with wrapping paper to hold all my Easter candy, carefully stocking my little play kitchen set with all the loot I got at Halllowe'en...and yet other bits of my life memories are MIA. I know that some therapists believe that there is good reason I do not remember parts of my childhood, but there are even parts of my adulthood that are very fuzzy, possibly because I was so deep in my depression and self loathing to actually absorb what I was experiencing. For instance, Fuzz will mention part of a trip to the other side of the world, and I will have to struggle to remember the details.

The exception seems to be if the memory is particularly embarassing or painful, because at many points in my life I seemed to collect bad memories. I think one tends to keep the memories that confirm one's self image or philosophy of their life. Like making a sculpture out of dust bunnies that collect more dust bunnies that would drift along the floor of my psyche and cling to the earlier ones. It was almost as if I was gathering evidence to convict myself. Today, I'm working on the other side of the courtroom, gathering evidence for the defense of my soul and my happiness, but changing the habits of decades takes some real work.

I've always liked this quote from Carolyn MacKenzie:
"If you have a skeleton in your closet, take it out and dance with it."

It's our choice. It can be the wellspring of our art or our madness.

Survived Easter!

Interesting that when I started typing in the post title, the little wizard that suggests things suggested the last time I started a post with "survive" which happened to be Christmas/New Years... interesting, huh?

I spent a couple of hours on the phone this week with my closest friend as she gnashed her teeth over her latest clash with her crazymaker mom. Holidays are so hard because it's when the harsh reality of a screwy family is thrown up in such sharp contrast with what we wish they would be, one of those Norman Rockwell/Hallmark Card stereotypes...

Anyway, we survived dinner with the Outlaws. It was, fine, whatever. But I couldn't overcome my impulse to repeatedly yawn after dinner. It was 830 and I was exhausted by the stress of trying to think of something, anything safe to talk about. Hilariously in a twisted way, there were 4 desserts there. I coped by having a sliver of everything, but the one of my bundt cake was bigger because of course, it was the best dessert there!!!

But jeez, what is it about Fuzz's family and ham? They aren't poor, but they buy the wierdest mystery meats known to man. I could swear this stuff was Spam with a rind. Fried bologna would have tasted better. Seriously, this stuff had the consistency of the kitchen sponge, smoked and cured.

After we had stayed a polite amount of time we fled gracefully and were on our way home when we went by the home of my friend, she with the insane-making mom. They just happened to be on the front porch, bidding goodbye to some other friends. We pulled in, they put on the coffee, and we hashed out the problems of the world, our families, the kid's school, stuff. After we left, Fuzz said, "You know, I could sit in their kitchen all night." I know. Me too.

Although family is family and they'll always be ours, like them or not, different but just as important are those families we create. They may be less permanent, or not. After all, my parents are dead, but I've been friends with this woman for over 25 years and our friendship has just deepened, widening to include partners and a child.

Easter Anxieties

Fuzz's brother phoned at 8:30 last night to invite us for Easter dinner today. Yeah, the invite is a little late, but then we aren't the closest bunch in the world. Fuzz is kind of the black sheep of his family, so I guess that makes me Mrs. Black Sheep. Neither side of the family is bad or good, we're just different. We suspect they think us wierd. By choice, we don't have children. We don't like hockey (just about a criminal act in this country), nor deer hunting, and we have way too much education which never seems to make us much money, which I suspect is the only valid reason they can see for so many years in school. And we eat wierd food with tofu and spices and all that stuff. These folks barely eat vegetables, period. I swear Fuzz's mom was going to fall off her chair when Bro announced last fall he had developed a taste for brussels sprouts. With garlic, yet!

But we still like each other. They're generally nice folks. Well, except they're kind of zenophobic. (Yes, I'm looking for a polite euphemism for "racist".) And something like that always comes up, showing up at the dinner table smelling like a warthog from the underbrush. I wish I had an air horn to shoot off during the silences in our conversations.

Fuzz asks bro: can we bring anything? "Nope, we've got everything" says Bro. They don't even drink, so the usual gift of wine is out. My last dessert was a washout with them. It was an apple crumble topped pie with a whole wheat crust and half the sugar was replaced by splenda. Ok, so it wasn't my most successful effort. It was...um... sturdy. But, hey, it was pie! And we're all trying to watch our weight.

So what do I do at 9 pm last night? I set out in search of the ingredients for a lemon bundt cake. No whole wheat flour this time, only the fluffiest whitest of white. Oh boy, there's a metaphor for you... I know it's just anxiety that is driving me to make this cake. I need to bring something. I know, I know, I don't really NEED to bring anything. Allow me my security bundt. Something that screams "Like me!!!" or at least sighs, "Well, if you don't like me, at least I can have my cake, and I'll eat it too." But just one piece.

Nice to know what my motivations are going into this. Sigh.

Cringing During the Balancing Act

A part of me cringes when I read yesterday's foodblog-ish entry. What if it was the first thing read by someone desperate for help with obesity? Ironically, I was so absorbed in writing about the food, I forgot to eat breakfast. That never happens. Well, I guess now it's "almost never happens". Welcome to the planet of a compulsive overeater. I am still obsessed with food, but at least I can turn that obsession into making very tasty and nutrious meals. Just because I'm not overweight right now doesn't mean I've turned into a self-flagellating, hair shirt wearing nun of abstinence.

Hm. In that previous paragraph, I originally typed "I'm not overweight any more" rather than "right now". If my own history has taught me anything, it's that I am perfectly capable of regaining the weight. I know that I am also prone to mentally abusing myself for being less than perfect, so it requires a balancing act between the tendency towards perfectionism and honesty about how healthy my behaviour is in the present moment. My biggest goal has to be acceptance of my humanity, right now.

Which leads me to that coin in my hand. I was given this a few weeks ago at my celebration of one year's abstinence from compulsive overeating (which in my case translates to binge eating and, while it was rare and I don't like talking about it, purging). The engraving I had added is the word "tolerance". To me that is tolerance for others because it is amazing how incredibly intolerant I can be of those who are struggling with the same problems I am. I get locked up in fear and blame. Even more important to me is the struggle to be tolerant of my own humanity. I am meaner to myself than I am to anyone else.






I keep this coin with me as much as I can and rub it like a worry bead in times of craving, fear, or when I need a little comfort. Notice how those things always seem to come together? The coin's less bulky than a teddy bear, and doesn't object to being lugged around the way the cat does.

Serve Me, II, Well, Not Always...

Ok, another food on my Better-to-Eat-Out list: Dairy Queen soft serve, medium cone. No leftovers. Comes in a cone.

Despite my claim that I'd much rather eat tofu out, sometimes I do cook it at home, and my Ma Po Tofu (below) is a pretty simple recipe---for Chinese food, that is. If you aren't raised Chinese, and you can see I'm not, it never becomes really simple, but there are a couple of things that will help. Ok, I'll come clean here: we lived in Hong Kong for 2 years, so I did learn some things about Cantonese cooking, which usually uses very fresh ingredients.

The only hard and fast rule is when coming to stir frying (chowing) food, is: make sure all your ingredients are chopped and measured out before you start to fry, because the frying part is really quick and you don't have time to chop out stuff between adding it to your pan.

The other secret behind urban Cantonese cooking: the veg and meat may be fresh, but most people rely on bottled sauces and spice pastes for the added flavour: soy sauce, hoisin sauce, black bean and garlic sauce, chili bean paste, chili sauce, sesame oil. I use enough fresh garlic (in EVERYTHING, ok, not chocolate cake. Yet!) and ginger that I keep it on hand, but I have friends who regularly resort to the bottled stuff and it's usually fine.

I use Lee Kum Kee sauces a lot, and in fact, I just discovered they make a ma po tofu sauce that makes the whole thing pig easy. I've never used it but you can go here for their recipe. Let me know how it tastes if you make it.

Another cheat that people keep in the closet --- powdered stock packets or cubes. I often make my own stock, but if you just want a half cup or so in a recipe where you've got a whole bunch of the other stuff like soy and chili sauce, you can't really discern if it's real stock, so go ahead and use the quick stuff. Just be careful about how much total salt is in the dish, because so many of the bottled sauces and pastes already have a lot of salt.

Oh yeah, about rice: You know why most Asian families/restaurants you know have a rice cooker? It makes rice STUPIDLY SIMPLE! I have a family size one, (you can get smaller ones) but it's not the fancy expensive type with lots of insulation and a flip up lid, it's the cheap type that you can buy for under 30 dollars with the glass lid. It still makes great rice, it just doesn't keep it warm nicely all day, more like an hour or two. Even though there are only 2 of us, I will make enough for a few meals and refrigerate or freeze the rest to throw in the nuker later. The only extra secret is: forget the directions (if any) on the bag of rice, follow the directions that come with your cooker.

Anyone who thinks of tofu as a bland, tasteless food hasn’t tried this dish. A Chinese restaurant staple, Ma Po Tofu is incredibly easy to make at home and can be assembled and cooked in far less than the amount of time it takes to cook up some plain rice. Since there is a little meat in the dish, people who aren’t overly fond of tofu may find it more palatable here; the soft cloudlike blandness of the tofu makes an interesting counterpoint to the other crunchy and spicy ingredients in the dish.

I usually use broccoli in mine, but I have to admit that my favorite Chinese restaurant uses frozen mixed veg in theirs! To my mind, this is supposed to be humble weeknight home cooking, not chichi-poopoo stuff, so go ahead and use whatever veg you have on hand. I have to admit that I often forget to buy scallions. Guess what? I’ll use a little chopped white cooking onion! I just don’t bother garnishing with it.

Ma Po Tofu (from somewhere on the web with my own variations)
about 20 minutes
serves 4













1 package tofu, soft, regular, or firm [not silken], about a pound drained weight
8 oz lean minced pork [or substitute lean ground turkey or pork if you prefer]
4 cups broccoli florets (about 1" size pieces) or your favourite stir fry vegetables
3-4 cloves garlic
3-4 stalks scallions (reserve a small handful for garnishing the dish)
2 tbsp chili bean paste
1 Tb soy sauce
1 Tb of hoisin sauce, optional, if you like it a little sweeter, or a half tsp sugar or honey
1 tsp sesame oil
1 heaping Tb cornstarch mixed with 1/4 cup water
1 tsp cooking oil (more if you want)
½ to 1 cup water or low sodium stock (just because there is already a lot of salt in the soy and chili bean paste) a stock cube or packet will do fine in a pinch
a few coarsely crushed peanuts or cashews for garnish, optional

1. Mince garlic and chop scallions finely. Drain 1 package of tofu and cut into ¾" cubes.
2. Add oil to a wok and heat on medium high. Stir-fry the ground meat. When meat is no longer pink, add the chopped garlic and stir.
3. Add the broccoli, scallions, chili bean paste, and soy sauce, then stir.
4. Add tofu at this point if it is the firm variety, if soft, add later because it will start to crumble too much at this point. Add enough stock or water to almost [but not quite] cover, stir.
5. Let mixture come to a boil, stirring occasionally, and cook for 5 minutes or until broccoli is almost crisp tender.
6. Taste; add more soy if it doesn’t taste salty enough, more chili bean paste if it’s not spicy enough, the hoisin/sweet stuff if you like it a little sweeter.
7. Stir in the cornstarch paste; cook until the sauce starts to thicken. Add soft tofu at this point if using, stir gently to cover in sauce but try not to break it up too much.
8. Pour into a shallow bowl - it's supposed to be a little saucy or soupy - and drizzle with sesame oil. Sprinkle with the remaining scallions and the nuts, if desired. Serve with plenty of steamed brown or white rice.

Sigh... once again I stray into foodblog territory. Terminally Unique? Not really, just another food addled bozo on the bus!

Serve Me, Puleeze!

I was just thinking about what foods I prefer to have someone else make for me. I'm a very good cook, I actually did it professionally for a while. I don't mind making many things from scratch, and I believe in trying to make most things at least once. I've made bagels and pies, smoked brisket, ribs for many hours (until I smell like I've been smoked too!), put up preserves, pickles, all that stuff. Bread and jam are two things I don't make any more because we don't eat enough of either to justify it, and besides, for this compulsive overeater, having a couple of loaves of fragrant bread sitting on the counter is just asking for trouble! I don't know about you, but after all that kneading and proofing, I start to think that I deserve to eat that whole crusty sucker by myself! I still bake things, usually containing chocolate, but only for occasions where most of it will be eaten by others.

Ok, as you can see, when it comes to food, I can go on, and on, and on. Back on topic, chick: Like good bread and jam, I now prefer to buy what others have made, usually of the highest quality, but sometimes I have a junk food fix outside my home. My disease is not so much what I eat, as how much. My compulsion thrives on quantity. So, despite all the talk of portion inflation in restaurants, eating out sometimes is a good way to limit my quantities: ie, I have a craving for french fries. So, occasionally we will go out for a medium sized portion of really good, hand cut fries. I don't own a deepfrier. That would be like a pyromaniac with a Zippo collection!

Also, for all my talk about healthy eating, I don't particularly like making tossed salads. Maybe it's something about an enjoyment vs. effort ratio: Salads are generally good, but do they make me salivate? Not really. So, that's something I'll gladly pay someone else to make for me.

Tofu is also something I will pay someone else to prepare for me, usually in an Asian restaurant. It took me a long time to tolerate tofu, like 10 years, and then another 10 to actually start liking it, and now I crave it, but I still like others making it for me: the gentle cloudlike soft tofu contrasting with spicy chewy minced pork in ma po tofu, or the firm tofu that was first fried in blocks to give it a chewy rind at my local Vietnamese joint. The other bonus is the tofu usually comes with vegetables I'm not very familiar with, like pak choy or chinese broccoli (guy laun), so I'm learning how good they can be too.

Other things that leap to mind:

certain deli sandwiches involving multiple meats, cheeses and olives (see the pyro rule) or that will topple if I try to assemble and jam into the home pannini press
mussels or any seafood that comes with the head still on (cowardly carnivore)
slice of pie
good hamburger
crepes
gazpacho
a beautifully made cappucino
pizza from Grimaldi's in Brooklyn (an original)

Lucky or What?

I was feeling ashamed the other day. Or, to be more accurate here, I was aware of feeling a lot of shame. Shame is a default setting for me. I think I start feeling it even before I'm consciously awake. Years of training, my friend, a good Irish Catholic upbringing and the fine examples of my parents before me, have made me a champion in at least that one area. (Am I being sarcastic or ironic? I think that Americans view me as sarcastic, the British as ironic. Canadians, well, we go right down the middle, of course...)

What am I ashmed of? To be blunt, of being a lazy bum when it comes to housekeeping. We were on our way to dinner at the home of some people I respect a great deal. In other words, they intimidate the shit out of me: smart, funny, creative, and I want their house. It's in a funky urban neigbourhood and of course, their brother in law, the architect, has updated their 150 yr-old farmhouse so that it's comfy and cool.

Our place could be funky too, if I had energy. And that's where the shame comes in: I just haven't had the energy to do much to our place over the many years we've lived there. A few things, but Fuzz is responsible for most of it, and he's the one whose also held down a full time job and oh yeah he just finished grad school too. I know, I've been dealing with a lot of crap, among other things... parents died, then grad school, and all that stuff with eating disorders, losing my health, gaining my health, learning how to exercise...

Then I realized, hey, over my forty plus years I've known a lot of people who were overweight by at least a hundred pounds. Personally, I can't remember one of them being able to lose weight in a healthy manner and keep it off for any amount of time, outside of my friends in OA. I know those people must exist, I just haven't met one that I can remember. So I've done something pretty unique, one small chink in my armour of shame.

This shame can be a killer, and when I feel shamed I feel hungry. Just as when I consider a diet I get hungry. If I can get some relief from the shame without using the food, then I have made a step forward.

Am I an Exercise Fanatic?...

... or is this a really cool desk? I'm going to make up a drawing so Fuzz can build a simple table top like this one that I can attach to my treadmill. Some researchers at the Mayo Clinic have deduced that restless (fidgeting, pacing, even just standing around) people basically burn more calories, to the tune of 350 extra a day.

One of the study leaders is Dr. James Levine (pictured below in a Mayo Clinic photo), nutritionist, endocrinologist and medical professor. He built a desk over his treadmill because "Standing still is quite difficult," he said. "You have a natural tendency to want to move your legs. Zero point seven is the key. You don't get sweaty, you can't jiggle too much. It's about one step a second. It's very comfortable. Most people seem to like it around 0.7."


I tried that speed out on my treadmill while reading a book and watching tv. It's very slow, kind of the speed you might use just browsing clothes at the Gap, and it's pretty comfortable. After a few minutes I barely noticed I was moving. I also wonder if it might be the answer for the sore butt I get after spending too much time slumped in a chair or bed while on my laptop.

Dr. Levine talks about other benefits he's noticed from his new desk: "Walking at work, first of all it's addictive," he said. "It's terribly good fun. I actually feel happier, particularly in the afternoon. You might think you come home exhausted, but you don't. You come home energized."
For him, the treadmill has supposedly eliminated his afternoon slump, when a lot of people feel sleepy and crave candy and/or caffeine.


Another intriguing thing noted by Dr. Levine's studies is that when participants' diets were altered to make more obese subjects lose weight and the leaner subjects gain weight, the subject's activity levels did not seem to change, leading the researchers to believe that just altering diet will not necessarily make someone more or less likely to exercise or move more. There may be a setpoint factor when it comes to activity levels, or it may have to take a conscious effort to change activity levels. Ugh, "just" changing habits has got to be one of the hardest things in the world.

Or as I heard a guy in a Manhattan OA meeting say with a sigh once, "I gotta eat less and move more!"

A Health Policy Headshaker

I was just reading an article about a "bootcamp" for diabetics at Beth Isreal Medical Center in NYC that was able to reopen its doors after receiving a charitable donation of six million dollars. The center teaches diabetics skills like how to monitor their sugars and using diet and exercise to help avoid serious complications from the disease. The main problem in the center's funding is the fact that they will most likely lose money on every patient they treat:

"Unless you have this kind of support, you really can't do this," said Dr. Leonid Poretsky, the chief of endocrinology at Beth Israel who will head the new center.

He estimates that the hospital will probably lose about $15 a patient for every visit.

Since he expects at least 9,000 visits in the first year alone, the lost money quickly adds up.

One reason for the shortfall is that the center will focus on prevention, using a team of educational nurses and nutritionists. While insurers will almost always pay the $375 for dialysis, getting them to reimburse even $75 for a nutritionist can be a challenge. (New York Times)

This makes no sense, even financially.

The Joy of Ice?

This seems like an appropriate post for a Canadian, despite the fact that this was our warmest winter in 40 years. We barely had one, in my humble opinion. Once again my cross country skis collected dust, but then, I live in southern Ontario.

Ok, like, I've been depressing even myself with the saga of the weight & diabetes rollercoaster I was on over the last 10 years, so I think you'll forgive me if I take a couple of posts off, and write about something other than that. I think I need to build up some mental energy to tell the tale of how I dropped into a significant hole after while finishing grad school, after that high of losing some significant weight in the late 90's. I now wonder if that feeling of being high is telling. Never fear, the tale ultimately concludes happily...as of today, anyway. Who can speak for tomorrow?

Lately I've been discovering the joy of icing. Ok, maybe "joy" is pushing it. Fuzz, as an aging runner and high school sports coach, has always been a fan of the sports injury cure-all RICE: Rest, Ice, Constriction, Elevation. Particularly the ice and elevation parts. As a former non-athelete (oy, I still am amazed by being able to call myself athletic --- shiver of joy!) I always thought, "ick, ice??? How gross...". My reaction to pain was always heat, effective with monthly abdominal pain.

It took the discomfort and sleepnessness with shoulder spasms in hospital post-hysterectomy for me to finally ask a nurse for an ice pack, and I've been a convert ever since. There was a brief "yowww, cold!" reaction to the ice pack, and then a slight numbing and an ahhhhh... as the pain quickly lessened. It Didn't completely disappear, but I was much more comfortable, and I knew that the ice is important in quickly reducing inflammation and speeding healing, so for the next few days, I tried to ice at least 2 or 3 times a day. Within 3 days, the pain had disappeared.

I did it again this morning for a neck strain, probably caused by too many books and laptop in the shoulder bag. Fuzz recently sprung for a couple of fabric covered gel packs, really worth the twelve dollars because they are so soft and moldable. Amazing the things you learn. Maybe this aging thing ain't so bad.

Rolling Through the Diabetic Valley

When I was first diagnosed with mild Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, I went into a real funk, understandably enough. Luckily, it was intense, as my fear mixed with my grief over the deaths of my parents, but it was fairly brief. For the next few weeks I half-heartedly toyed with getting a little more walking in, and trying to limit my eating, but it was only half hearted. The next visit to my family doctor was a shock. Normally my gp was a pleasant young woman who didn't lecture me on my weight, and even though she insisted on weighing me, did not even tell me what it was if I didn't want to know. After hitting the 300 pound mark I really didn't! By that point in my life I thought I was through with dieting. They didn't work, and I was just trying to accept myself as a large woman.

This visit was different. She asked me how I was doing with the "lifestyle changes" and I waffled and hmmed and hawed... She sternly told me that between the hypertension and the diabetes, I was dealing with two life threatening diseases which also had the potential to make me suffer greatly over a long period of time by losing kidney function and developing neuropathy as the nerves in my extremeties are slowly starved of what they need. It was sobering enough to make me cry, right there in her office.

My switch got flipped. So, I was scared straight and off and running, trying to reduce my weight before the grim reaper caught up with me. Well, not running, walking, actually. I had been on a zillion diets in my 35 + years by this point, but this was the first time I was doing it for my health and not just my self esteem. I was scared back on the diet wagon again, following my old weight watchers diet that I had been off and on since my early teens.

There's an observation in the Overeaters' Anonymous Guide to the 12 steps that points out how, contrary to popular belief, overeaters often exhibit a great degree of willpower, and it's true of me: For periods up to a year, I could maintain incredible self-discipline around food. I can remember being 12 and being on my first big weight loss diet where I lost 60 pounds, going from 180 to 120 in about 9 months. I didn't eat sweets at all at that time, and I can remember even boasting that I was fine just smelling chocolate. Sigh, the hubris of the young...But it was a cycle, the old roller coaster. I would lose a large amount of weight and then gain it on again, plus more.

Well, hubris isn't just for the young, because I was back on the wagon, with more zeal and big talk than a born-again televangelist! I squirm when I remember how self righteous I could be to friends who asked me about my secret, "just common sense, really" I'd smirk. Over the space of the next year and a half, I lost over a hundred pounds, and the symptoms of the diseases greatly lessened: I was still on vasotec, but my blood sugars were in a normal range.

This time would be different, I vowed. I celebrated my new found size by taking some of the money I had inherited from my parents and going back to Grad School. I was a new person and I was going to realize on of my dreams: studying painting in New York City. What could go wrong? In many respects, it was a great couple of years. But I had absolutely no idea of how to cope with the world without the filter of food. Inside, I was still the woman who coped with stress by boxes of chocolates hidden under the bed.

Diabetes Saves Life!?

Well, it might have saved mine.

I'm a real slug today. I thought there was something wrong with my abs, they were all crampy, but add up itchy eyes, dizziness, and rumbly tum and the fact that I was falling asleep at the computer after over 9 hours sleep and Fuzz said, "hm, sounds like something I had last week", and I discover I may have a virus. That may also explain my depressed mood. Everything was fine yesterday, today I have as much energy as an icecube.

I got to thinking, illness is interesting, because the diagnosis of such is not always as bad as it initially seems. In fact, I'm grateful they discovered it in me about 6 years ago, because it was enough of a kick to the head to start me on a path to better health, both physically, and emotionally. It came at a particularly loaded time: 4 months before, my father died of a massive stroke. Six months, to the day, before that, my mother died from lung cancer. I was an only child and I felt like death was now breathing down my neck. For a couple of days after the diabetes (and, oh yes, high blood pressure was found too), I was a mess, depressed and pessimistic at my chances.

I struggled through a seminar for the newly diagnosed that my doctor sent me to. The other participants also looked pretty solemn, and in some of them I saw defiance --- I have to do what??? I was lucky, though. My disease was still mild, too mild to even warrant any medication yet, so the prescription was basically thus: monitor your sugars, and "lifestyle changes". Oh ugh.

The old mantras were back: diet and exercise. How many times had I been on a diet in my life? Off or on, always the same thing... At 300 pounds at age 37, I knew it was a good possibility my arteries were already half full of cream cheese (minus the lox, alas).

But I couldn't shake that image of the grim reaper coming for me, and that, as a visual artist, I'd have a hard time if I went blind. What I couldn't imagine was the trip I had started on. Ok, gotta hit an OA meeting... I'll write a little more on my wild trip into the land of life threatening disease tomorrow.

I was reading a series of articles on diabetes treatments and challenges on the New York Times archive today. I'm amazed how good their website is, and except for some editorial sections, free. You have to sign up as a user, but that's it.

Mind Watching

I'm reading Eckhard Tolle's The Power of Now and while I'm not sure about his cult status these days (having grown up in the original cult, you know, the one with lots of incense and relics and men who get pissy when the girls want to wear dresses like them, I tend to be very skeptical of cults and gurus), I'm finding his book useful so far.

He is a great proponent of developing a detached awareness of one's thought processes, and I tried doing that during a couple of nights while whirling thoughts threatened to hijack yet another night's sleep. I just tried to step back from the maelstom of plans, regrets and worries, and observe that I was having them, not judge them, just see them as thoughts and also be aware of my physical presence, lying in bed. I found a surprising amount of peacefulness or well being, even, and a new appreciation for my comfortable bed and the quiet night on my street that actually existed outside of my brain.