Even MORE Namaste...

I blogged so enthusiastically about my first belly dance class last Sunday (I have been practicing the bun isolations while doing dishes--seriously, individually clenching first one buttock and then the other is harder than it might seem....) that Birdnerd expressed an interest in doing it, too, and will now be joining me starting this Sunday!



We've got our respective yoga pants and our spaghetti-strapped tank tops (and I've been searching out a spangly hip scarf to shake, as well), and I gave her a lesson last night after dinner in isolations and posture and relaxed knees and all that.

We also indulged in a short-lived bout of forwarding bellydance mpegs from YouTube to one another, but she prefers the more traditional form whereas I dig the Tribal/Gothic/Fusion sort...(my point being that the traditional sort reminded me of every Berkeley art fair I'd ever attended as a kid; not a bad thing, necessarily, but....)

And, when I finally get the Belly Dance DVD from Amazon that was recommended by the instructor, perhaps she and I will have an occasional mid-week practice session....

Will there be a recital in the future?

Who knows!

Fun!

A Little Namaste

It has occurred to me--as a burgeoning Life Coach--that, in order to coach well, I must practice what I preach. I can't encourage my clients to grab the world by the balls, so to speak, if I'm unwilling to do so; how hypocritical would that be? I mean, "Go and try what scares/thrills/titillates you the most, while I sit back, hide out, and merely TELL you to try what scares/thrills/titillates you the most--oh, and that'll be $65 for the privilege......?"

Hm. That doesn't work for me, and I doubt it'd fly with my clients. I need to practice what I preach, and tonight, I did that.

Belly dancing falls into the want-to-try category for me, and I've wanted to take it for a long time. In college, I took jazz, modern & ballet. In high school, it was tap. I love moving my body, although I've often let my own biases stop me. This, I decided, would be another (forgive me) EMPOWERING step toward eradicating my negative body image issues.

So tonight, I had my first class. The instructor was great, tiny, beautiful, and completely supportive and encouraging to her room full of beginners. The class itself consisted of about 10 or 12 women of all ages, shapes and sizes, and we just let it all hang out. I decided that, if I was gonna do this thing, I was gonna commit fully, me and my belly--and arms, ass and tits, because there are a LOT of isolations in belly dance and each area kinda snaps. The most difficult part, I can see, is putting it all together.

Trust me: it only LOOKS easy.



And it's so, so, SO fun, I cannot begin to TELL you. The entire studio was an homage to femininity (right down to the complimentary menstrual pads and tampons tucked on a shelf in the dressing room next to the incense burner), and even though I walked in solo and didn't know a soul--something that is very, very difficult for me because I can be shy and self-conscious--I felt very comfortable as soon as I opened the door. The lighting is soft, the costumes are beautiful--I wanted to buy some better, more elaborate dance clothes. And I will.

And the music was wonderful, too. I really wanted to cut loose and work it, because it's quite rhythmic, but of course, I had to follow the instructor closely. I'm sure my arms are going to be sore as hell tomorrow morning, but it'll be a good sore.

And, wow. I've never done butt isolations before, one cheek at a time. Wild.

So there it is. I can put a check mark by that item on my list of goals for 2008, although I'm by no means finished; I bought a card of 12 classes for a ridiculously low price. Personally, my goal is to perform, and once you're at an advanced level, there are many opportunities for performance.

I followed through. I can be afraid, notice it, and go do "it" anyway, whatever "it" happens to be. I doubt fear will ever NOT be a part of new experiences for me....but it certainly doesn't have to STOP me.

So that's what I can share with my clients: that I know walking the walk can be intimidating and scary, but it's a lot more gratifying than merely talking the talk, which is just that: talk.

I can't wait for NEXT Sunday!

Namaste....

Glam Cats

Check out this page, sent to me by a friend.

For the Glam-Diva-Drag-Queen-Zsa-Zsa kitty in your life, or someone else's.

Enjoy.

I {Heart} Goodwill

I'm talking about the store, not the omnipresent disposition most commonly associated with Christmas.

Now, I'm sure some people shudder at the very thought of buying or possessing used (or "pre-owned," to get lofty about it) items, but I don't. Goodwill is, to me, a delicious treat of a store full of serendipity, cause I just never know what I might come across.

The best Goodwill stores in the entire universe are, I'm pretty sure, right here in Portland, and I missed them terribly when I lived in Minnesota. They had a few anemic resale shops there, but they were hard to get to (generally somewhere in the 'hood), small and, I think, not even Goodwill. Maybe Salvation Army. But there wasn't the same Resale Romance there like there is here. I think we're proud of our Goodwill stores here, and rightly so: in a nutshell, they rock.
I mean, clean public bathrooms--AND a cafe? And really decent shit? For real.



And it appeals to my need to live more simply and to search out treasure, which I love doing. I love rummaging around in other people's stuff (literally AND metaphorically, actually), especially their cast-offs. It seems voyeuristic to me, but legitimately so. Everything has a story--as a gift, an impulse buy, a souvenir, a thoughtful purchase, something. And then these same items--some of them perhaps once highly esteemed--were eventually discarded, shunted aside as useless.

And really, there's nothing better to do on a rainy day, of which we have many in Portland, which is perhaps why Goodwill does so well here. I had the pleasure of wandering around an enormous Goodwill this evening with a friend, and here are the items I came away with:

A great lighter-weight Columbia Sportswear women's anorak, practically new, in some of my favorite shades of light blue, $24.99. I've been needing one for a long time; in fact, I really could've used it for my recent New Year's Day birding trip.

Cutie ceramic cat food dish with little paw prints all around it, .99. Time to graduate the tabby from her purple plastic bowl to something a little nicer...

Box of large cat pan liners, .99 (total steal, since these are like four bucks retail; cat shit maintenance can be a costly proposition....)


3 smaller-sized nesting stainless steel mixing bowls (this size is handy for, say, whipping up eggs or making frosting or holding a bunch of grated cheese), $1.99 for all 3 (Williams-Sonoma, BITE me....)

Awesome and BIG stainless-steel insulated to-go coffee cup, obviously unused cause the lid was sorta dusty (needed for rainy commute days), .99.

Grand total: $29.95.

If the definition of neurosis is the inability to accept ambiguity, then wandering the tchatchke-stuffed aisles of Goodwill is one area of my life where I am, blessedly, NOT neurotic; ambiguity, in this circumstance, is part of the fun.

Or as the saying goes, One person's trash is another person's treasure.

I'm all into it.

Another Auld Lang Syne

So:

This is the third time I've edited this particular New Year's post. I started one, got too tired, then saved it. I revised it and got all philosophical and existential and navel-gaze-y and all this shit, and then saved that; now I'm back with revision #3, having deleted most everything I'd written before, all this sentimental pap about the hopefulness of a new year and how bloodless and fresh and unblemished it all seems and how excited everyone is to let the days and weeks and months unfold until we find ourselves dragging through December and wiping our brows with exhausted relief the following January 1st that ANOTHER year has finally come and gone, and hoo-boy, isn't this NEW year gonna be SO much BETTER!

Ah, the return of Caitlin Cynicism!

Okay, okay, I'm actually really glad it's 2008 and I have some new things on my own plate to look forward to and I'm really not a Grinch at heart, I swear it. Just a bit of residual grumpiness today, for no real reason.

Chalk it up to my period, thanks. Or the fact that I went to an Al-Anon meeting today and even though--most of the time--I leave feeling refreshingly re-grounded and relevant and completely able to cope with life, I left today instead having wanted to bitch-slap pretty much everyone who spoke because they seemed annoyingly, well, neurotic and self-righteous and just so pathetically sorry for themselves, mostly young women who blathered on, one after the other, and all in that "You Oughta Know" Alanis Morrisette vein of angry you-done-me-wrong-and-I-WILL-tell-all bitched-out chickie narcissism which I simply cannot stand (as if you couldn't tell).



Whew. Now, I realize the above rant is terrible PR for recovery, and I certainly don't mean it to be. Like I said, recovery has been an enormous gift in my life for so many reasons; but on the rare occasion, a meeting simply doesn't "take." Meetings are comprised of people, and sometimes I just don't like being around people very much. That's how it goes. There's always another meeting.

Just like there's always another year, which is the whole point of this blog entry. Here is my list of resolutions--or, preferably, goals, because "resolution" sounds too restrictive and diet-y to me--that I want to carry out for 2008, and which I initially jotted in my new Day Planner, which seemed as good a spot as any for jotting such things, being a calendar and all.

Without further ado:

~Continue to practice intuitive eating, because diets simply do not work. I've had what I consider to be moderately disordered/fixated/compulsive eating and a very strained relationship to food for a lot of my life and I blame the diet mentality for most of that. And I've known so many people (me included) who've gone off and on so many diets and they're still heavy...if they worked, it'd only have to be done once. And there wouldn't be so many of them out there!

~Stop what I call "elliptical thinking"--in other words, no more "Someday, I'll....." If I want to try something, the time, I'm seeing, is RIGHT NOW, not next week/year/decade. Belly Dance lessons falls into this category, and I plan to start this Sunday. With the future potential to perform. Now that would be something. Not to mention, fun as hell.



~Never say anything negative about my physical appearance again. I've done it for a lot of my 42 years, and have let up considerably in the past few years that I've been in recovery. There's no room for that sort of self-criticism in my life anymore. Enough. I am who I am, and have been for 4 decades.

~Eat more "power foods," such as salmon, kale, blueberries, legumes, and green tea (I had sauteed kale with dinner last night, and I'm drinking my daily mug of green tea as I write this).

~Walk 10,000 steps a day for at least 4 days a week. This is easiest when it begins staying lighter longer, since I hate exercising in the early morning. And in the rain. But this IS Portland, and you can't have everything.

~Date. For fun and practice. Without being neurotic. Maybe one of those 3-minute dating things again, since I don't cotton to the online approach. Or try some live singles things that seem interesting. Something.

~And, of course, continue on my religious/spiritual path, continue with my (occasionally vexing but mostly blessedly satisfying) journey of recovery, and prepare for Life Coach training.

There it is, in a nutshell. If I add too much more, I'll short out like an over-lit Christmas tree and won't do any of it. You know the saying: The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Life is all about first steps, many of them, over and over and over. Until we die.

So let me toast you and your own list of goals for 2008 with my anti-oxidant mug of green tea.



Happy New Year.

My Big Gay Life....

...or, can a Real Girl be a Drag Queen....?

I'm thinking of using that title--or some variation thereof--for some sort of autobiographical (yet funny/comedic) solo performance-type theatrical piece yet-to-be-created.

I think--no, scratch that, I know--I need to create this, because first of all, if I don't some other straight-yet-fabulous chick will, and I'll be sitting there fuming and kicking myself, wondering why I didn't strike while the iron was hot and creatively exploit my status as a Fairy Princess (of which, I might add, I am fiercely proud).



I also--most importantly--have the experience of a Life Lived Gay. Or Gay-ish. Or Gay-like.

I mean, how many 42-year-old straight women celebrate their birthdays at a gay club (having eaten sushi beforehand with primarily gay attendees--to whom my father fondly refers as "my court") in honor of World AIDS Day, get spanked by one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and win a raffle prize consisting of a Christmas Crafts Kit and an Anal Bumper ass dildo?

Together?

And who is now considering joining the Sisters in some capacity as a helper (apparently, straight women can do this)--if only to put my helpless energy around HIV/AIDS to some practical, altruistic and pro-active/productive good use??

I recently saw "The Nutcracker" and during the "Mother Ginger" scene, my mind drifted briefly but deliciously to an idea for a fantasy sequence in the piece I want to write wherein I am Mother Ginger, my face made up in heavy drag, and when I open my voluminous skirts, instead of a gaggle of merry children, out run a gaggle of Queens clad in tight leather shorts, harnesses and Doc Martins.



It would be so, so appropriate, you do not even know.

Well, certainly some of you do.

I'm sure one could go to town with a Freudian Analysis of such a scene, or of the very desire to create such a scene. That's okay. I'm used to the perplexed sidelong glances and random lifted eyebrows associated with my Haggish proclivities (from both straights & gays), and I no longer feel any compunction to explain myself. I had a friend in Minnesota say to me, "I hate to break it to you, but you're really not a gay man. You're an ally, and we need our allies."

My dreams of Honorary Queen-dom were smashed to bits; I was heartbroken and crestfallen. All this time, I'd really thought of myself as a gay man in women's clothing. In so many ways.



But then, I came back to Portland, and just last night, one of my friends said he totally disagreed with that assessment. He said, "You're not an ally. You're family. You get it."

I was flattered and touched and took it for the truly heartfelt compliment I knew it to be. This particular friend of mine would not say anything merely for the sake of filling dead air. He is not a gushy, superficially complimentary sort; that's why it was so meaningful to hear.

So I think it's time this Real Girl writes a piece about her exploits as honorary "family."

Starring, of course, ME.

Work it.

Am I Blue

I finally did it.

I finally got it about the phrase, "Someday, I'll.....[insert elliptical subject here, i.e., skydive/get a tattoo/find a date/write a novel/visit Tut's tomb/quit my job, etc...]" with the help of recovery, in that "some day" is not tomorrow, or next week, or next month or next year, but right now.

Cause who knows what might happen in 24 hours. So if all the elements are right, if the planets are aligned and God is smiling on you and the opportunity for whatever you've been craving yet studiously avoiding exists, right here, right now, in front of your face, then grab it. Do it. Go for it. Don't pussy-foot.

Carpe Diem. Seize the Day. You know.

Case in point: I've always wanted to see Blue Man Group. For years and years. In fact, I'd wanted to see them in Las Vegas when I turned 40, but for numerous reasons involving my lack of recovery and the assembled mostly-resistant attendees, that didn't happen.

I told myself that patience was a virtue, and in the interim, I contented myself with a Netflix DVD, though I get the distinct feeling a Blue Man performance would be vastly improved not viewed on a 13-inch color TV.

Recently, tickets went on sale for the Blue Man Group "How to be a Megastar" tour in January '08.



And I realized that here, in front of my face, at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon, was my right now.

Birdnerd and I will be enjoying the Blueness together, and I can't wait. Patience may be a virtue, but the time is nigh. I get to party with The Men. Finally.

Carpe Diem.

A Can o' Whoop-Ass

I have been dressed-down.

Dressed down in a way that was--oddly--flattering, because it had to do with putting out.

Words, that is.

The other night, over sushi, a friend of mine who reads this blog regularly looked at me over his relatively untouched mound of Volcano Roll and said, "Why do you have a blog?"



I fidgeted with a hangnail on my thumb.

I'm a writer. I have an MFA in playwriting. My family plays joyfully, indulgently, with words (and we all suck at math, badly). I have written plays, I have written short stories, I have written impassioned, emotional over-the-top fuck-you letters to former friends (many of which were used merely as therapy and were never sent, mind you, although the temptation to stamp 'em and drop 'em in the nearest mailbox was enormous). So it makes a certain sense that I have a blog. In hindsight, perhaps a better inquiry would've been, "How come you don't update your blog regularly?"

Well, oy vey. What can I say? Laziness? Some, but not just. Perhaps an overall momentary lack of creativity....it's like the whole Facebook thing: do I rate--and is it interesting, but really?--if I don't have, you know, 500 friends in 25 different networks and constantly post every little thought, twitch, burp, fart and bowel movement? I mean, must I? And does anyone really care that much?



Can there be such a thing as too much narcissism?

Well, you know. Yeah. But that's how this 24/7 online look-at-me-cause I-matter, Madonna-as-Eva-Perone-singing-You-Must-Love-Me low self-esteem-isolated-virtual-culture of ours works.

Anyway, it was weirdly flattering, albeit a mite confrontational, because the message was: my writing, my thoughts, my take on my life or life in general is actually interesting enough to check up on fairly regularly and I actually have fans and God knows one mustn't disappoint one's fans....



Okay, forget the navel-gazing deconstruction. Actually, I think it's cause I'm still recovering from having been spanked by a drag nun on my birthday. Ha.

Little bit o' this and a little bit o' that

Okay, I haven't posted anything lately, so I've decided to post a summary of what's been filling my time these last few weeks.

Without further ado:

Went 'round & 'round with the DMV over a case of, well, not "mistaken identity," exactly, 'cause MY identity was never really in question....but they'd somehow managed, in the 6 years I've been gone from Portland, to mesh the record of one "Clayton Clifford Willis the 3rd" (obviously a GUY) with my OWN, thus indicating that I was a no-show in court for some vehicular infraction or other, which totally held up the issuance of my new Driver's License and necessitated my calling Salem headquarters a few times to rattle the cage (helpful hint: NEVER, never, NEVER stand around passively if some Civic office that has fucked up YOUR information says they'll be getting hold of someone to straighten things out, who will in turn be getting hold of YOU at some vague date in the future with the ostensible outcome. You will grow old and gray and will probably die waiting for some kind of resolution. Grow instant balls, pick up that phone, and DO IT YOURSELF. It works. Take it from me) and finally getting some guy on the phone named "Mike" who stated the obvious right off the bat (something that had eluded the lowly DMV employees just a week earlier) when he blurted incredulously, "Well, it's obvious to me this is just a mistake on your record! I mean--you're a woman! I'm talking to you and even I can tell that!"

People!! Give this man a RAISE!!



So after a bit more pontification around the obviousness of it all, "Mike" worked his magic and sent me back to the DMV and I marched up to the desk and said, "I spoke to 'Mike' in Salem regarding my file and I will be getting my license today, and if you can't help me, I would like to speak to 'Shelly' (the manager to whom "Mike" directed me in the event of further mishegaas) to get this rectified once and for all."

The clerk smiled weakly, acknowledged that "Mike" was, indeed a great guy, opened my record, and--voila! The line item was mysteriously GONE!!! Seems that Clayton's Court Crap went back to CLAYTON, and I left with my temporary license, which has a lovely new photo of me in my new short pixie cut with a discernible scowl on my face. But that's to be expected.

So that's obviously taken up a lot of mental energy, but now I've gotten the damned license and no longer feel like a Woman without a Country. Or at least, a State. Phew.

What else: Last Sunday, November 11, (after house and cat-sitting for my Antarctic-bound BirdNerd buddy), I went to a Life Coaching open house at the Baraka Institute, where I'll be training in the Spring. It was called "Friends Free" and it's really practice for the current term's burgeoning life coaches. I had a great coach and I found the experience to be very energetic, intentional, focused, supportive and FUN--nothing like my experience of therapy, which mostly involved me and a box of Kleenex hunched miserably on a sofa sobbing out my life's woes while an MFCC scratched notes on a pad and nodded appreciatively as I got deeper in touch with my angst.

Now, therapy has its place, certainly, but Life Coaching is not therapy. And thank God. It serves a different, more pro-active purpose.

The woman who runs the program has the best haircut, too, and fabulous highlights. Good hair is a good sign. She rocked. I'm excited for the Spring.



I've also been learning to crochet. My roommate's mom has been teaching me, and aside from the fact the tension in the yarn is a little all over the place, I've seriously learned to wield that crochet hook pretty well! I'm up to my 5th row of stitches. Not bad, not bad.

Signed up with two staffing agencies. Was sent on an interview with a hyper, egomaniacal photographer with a stuffy British assistant who had an amazing stick up her Anglophilic little ass (when I asked her how long she'd been in the position she was now leaving, and for which they were interviewing, her mouth twisted into a tight little smile and she replied elusively and with a touch of chill, "A while." You'd think I was talking smack about the Queen or asking if bangers & mash make her fart or something else really inappropriate. I mean, really.) The studios were quite cool, though, and if I'd been right out of college, perhaps I'd've taken it, because it's sort of "altie" and "hip," but the pay was shit and the photographer (a Spaniard who made a habit of grabbing the stiff li'l Brit) was WAY high maintenance. So I thought, naw. Scratch that. Back to the drawing board.

I've been going to Al-Anon (I love this group; this one guy piped up and quoted a line from a book called From Survival to Recovery, in which it says, "hurt people hurt people." Yes. I have been hurt by hurt people. It's very simple--deceptively so--and very true), which always helps to center me when I begin feeling crazy.

I went to church here for the first time a few Sundays ago, too--St. Michael & All Angels, the Episcopal church my roommate goes to. Very hip. I liked it.

I recently had the dubious honor of being the first straight chick in my friend's hot tub which, up until the moment my naked ass took the plunge, had only had men in it. This came about because a female friend of my friend's partner--who herself would've been the first Straight Chick in the Tub--was too self-conscious to go starkers, and the tub's owners have a "naked-only" policy. I mean, dig--this IS the west coast. Clothes are basically optional here. That's how it goes.

So the Diva reigns, again. Of course. :-)

I got dragged onto FaceBook by a friend who "invited" me to be a friend, and the rest is history. What more can I say. There I am.

I bought my plane ticket home for Christmas. El Cheapo! $138 R/T! I've missed this....beats nearly $400 out of MSP every year. And I finally get to meet Olivia, the latest Williams Family Pug.



I've been doing stomach crunches on my recently-purchased, big pink fitness ball. It makes core workouts way more effective. I love it. The cats were a bit agog as I inflated the thing and beat a hasty retreat from the living room, but they've finally gotten used to it.

I've been indulging in Season I of "Ugly Betty" with a friend who has it on DVD. I'm not even watching this season's episodes until these are finished. Then I'll watch them back-to-back on DVD. No commercials makes a HUGE difference!

Getting ready for Thanksgiving, which I'm planning to spend with BirdNerd, who will no doubt be needing to recover from her 2 weeks spent birding at the bottom of the globe. I'll cook, she'll blog or chill or something. Low-key. The best kind of Turkey Day. And a week after that, my 42nd birthday! I'm planning to gorge on sushi and then dance my ass off. I can still bust a move.

As a friend of mine in Minneapolis said, "We're only in our forties, we're not DEAD."

And finally, let me end with a culinary tip: take a Delicata squash, slice into 1/4-inch rings, scoop & discard the seeds and toss with olive oil, salt & pepper, then spread on a baking sheet and bake in a hot (maybe 375) oven till tender and the skin crisps. This is a winter squash with an edible skin and an INCREDIBLE flavor. It blows mere acorn squash out of the water!

Total yum. It's my new favorite.

Why I love Portland, Part I

...or perhaps, why I love the West Coast, the first in what will no doubt be a series of short & quick observations.

I went to my Al-Anon meeting yesterday and, while the room was full and most of us sat around in folding chairs or on the sofa, one guy sat on the floor for the whole hour in the Lotus position. A chick came in a bit later and promptly kicked off her shoes and hoisted her ass into the Plow, audibly popping numerous formerly-compressed vertebrae in the process.



And none of us skipped a beat, involved as we were in sharing our respective Experience, Strength & Hope. I loved it.

Recovery, West Coast style.

Ice, Ice Baby

So there I stood at the counter at Macy's in Lloyd Center, a pair of "Cuddle Duds" wicking long underwear bottoms in my hand.

I must digress a brief moment to share that this quest for long underwear (long johns, base layer, whatever) has been ridiculously difficult and drawn-out, probably because, at least to a certain extent, I've made it so myself, and I didn't need to.

I have come across other long underwear in the last week or so, but simply haven't liked them; I don't care for waffle-weave, I DO appreciate wicking, I don't want black, and I obviously need them to fit.

And while I value my warmth, comfort, and ability to be "wicked" of sweat, I don't really want to have to take out a sizable loan to achieve this state of outdoorsy coziness. Decent long underwear isn't cheap; it's ridiculous.

But, so: I found what I needed, and was paying for them at the counter when the formerly youthful and very skinny, frost-haired saleswoman who rang me up noticed that my driver's license still said Minnesota, and suddenly disclosed that she was from St. Paul (the "other" twin of the Twin Cities). It was enough, it seemed, to bond us as Sisters of the Far North; she chatted me up and tried to get me to open a Macy's account (apparently, I already have one, according to all three of my incredibly impressive, filled-with-green and zero negative ratings credit reports that I checked when I got home).

However, just moments before I proffered my license, she'd been doing the Tilda-Swinton-as-Ice-Queen-in-"Narnia"-routine when I initially accidentally pulled out NOT my debit card and driver's license simultaneously, but TWO debit cards instead (just a spacey moment on my part). I slapped my forehead and gave her my proper I.D.



But the license changed everything, and she went from pinched to pleasant (though artificially so) in less than 60 seconds.

As has been my ongoing issue with Minnesota, I experienced her new-found jocularity to be painfully superficial, at best; she had previously been ready to write me off completely, to draw & quarter me for my innocent oversight. But then, deciding I was somewhat tolerable because I'd spent some time in her former neck of the woods, she immediately backed off and offered me complimentary pink (in honor of breast cancer awareness) Frango mints and bottled water, and when the transaction was finished and I gathered my things to leave, she waved me off with a chirpy "We Minnesota girls have to stick together!"

I thought, no we sure DON'T. I'm not there anymore, I'm not and never was a Minnesotan, and I didn't just leave 'cause the weather dips to -40.

"Minnesota Nice" is not a concept I created, nor is it something I fabricated; it absolutely exists, and I experienced it in numerous ways, shapes and forms for six years. I found the instant changes in warmth and receptiveness, grim-to-grinning-in-60-seconds totally confusing and difficult to deal with among the natives. And I got a little wee taste of "home" again today when this saleswoman just about had a fit because I'd initially offered the wrong combination of plastic to pay for my purchases and then did a complete 180 in front of my eyes.

I think I must've looked utterly dumbfounded by her sudden garrulousness. What could I possibly say?

I find Lutefisk utterly repulsive and a total, complete culinary joke.

Man! Frozen lakes scare me! Guess it's this irrational fear of falling through!

So, why do you "Minnesota Girls" fry your cheese curds, anyway?


I just said nothing, grabbed a few more pink mints and beat a hasty retreat.

There are two things I'm pretty sure of: if you're older than 20, you're not a "girl."

And it's not just the winter in Minnesota that can be icy.

The Novelty Aspect

So, there are items--food items, specifically--I am coming across at the Fred Meyer stores here (a PNW chain the locals like to refer to as "Freddie's") that I fondly remember from past years spent in either Olympia, Washington as an undergraduate or Portland, Oregon as a post-grad.

I am referring specifically to Tim's Cascade-Style Potato Chips.

I am not on my cycle, nor am I particularly craving salt and/or fat. I was in Freddie's today, doing a little banking, and when one's bank is situated handily within a grocery store, one usually always finds something AT said store to pick up for a future meal or two (various items are suddenly "remembered" or "needed").


As I did, both "remembering" and "needing" (for no real reason other than sentimentality) the potato chips.

And since it occurred to me that I had not yet bought nor consumed the "Welcome Back to Portland" bag of Tim's Cascade, I decided it was high time.

Even though they are a good 2 bucks MORE than the leading national brand and even though it didn't occur to me to read the ingredient list, which includes MSG, a somewhat headache-inducing no-no if consumed in certain vast-ish quantities.
So I try to avoid this flavor-enhancer whenever possible, but sometimes, I simply space it, as I did today, blinded as I was by an impromptu trip down memory lane.

So I bought a bag and threw it in the cabinet and I'm not sure when I'll rip it open and consume a few chips, but there it is. My bag of Tim's.

Guess I'm back. As if I couldn't already tell.

Yum.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig

So, it has happened. The Big Move is now a thing of the past, or of past tense: I have moved. All those months (since January '07) of nervous expended energy planning, mulling, organizing, finalizing...the moment came and went, as moments do, and I survived it, all of it, all the myriad details. Although I had never done this before, I knew that many, many average citizens such as myself had rented trucks of all sizes and hauled their crap uneventfully from one end of this great continent to the other. No big deal.

I quite my job on Friday, 9/21/07, and spent the next week cleaning my apartment from top to bottom. A week later, the following Friday, I was a noodle and living in an empty (though really clean) space, which felt weird and sort of generic. The landlord was coming to do a walk-through and about 45 minutes beforehand, I'd run into the building's caretaker in the hall. He became all sentimental about my time as his (and his girlfriend's) neighbor and heaped upon me many kindnesses, which caused me to burst into tears that would last through not only Friday's walk-through (I'm sure the landlord thought I'd come completely undone, but true Midwesterner that he is, he totally kept his cool and seemed completely unfazed by my histrionics) but Saturday's pack-up. I was a veritable waterworks; I'm amazed I have any salt left in my body.



I left Minneapolis early on the afternoon of Saturday, 9/29/07, after picking up the 16-foot Penske truck at 9:00 that morning, loading it with the help of a few good friends (5, to be exact) who came not only bearing strong backs, biceps and quads, but lattes in to-go trays, a thermos of coffee, and all sorts of bakery goods to quell mid-moving hunger pangs.

I was too nervous and sad, really, to eat anything myself, although I did finally inhale a croissant once we were on the road. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Everything was loaded according to plan; B. carried out the vacuum and when I protested, saying I'd meant to do one final sucking-up of bits of detritus, she replied, "You know, at some point you just gotta say 'I'm done.'" So I decided I was done.
The cat was put in her carrier after being forcibly extracted from her spot in the dark, dank nether-reaches of my under-sink cabinet where she'd fearfully wedged herself, and after my final teary curbside goodbyes, which included kissing the neighbor's fuzzy-headed black cat and hugging my helpers, Friend, Cat and Self were off on a moving adventure that included a quick pit-stop at the corner hardware store for a padlock to keep my possessions safe in the truck.

I have to say, I profoundly hate goodbyes. They never feel like enough; there's this small, final window of shared time to say whatever you need to say for closure--for now, as it's understood, because plans are always made to write/call/visit, futons and extra rooms are offered for crashing, yet still--you can't possibly fill that tiny, final moment with all the meaningful, relevant thoughts bouncing around your head and your heart.

I want to say, take care of your cancer, I don't want you to die, or your presence has been such a comfort here, and I appreciate your friendship, or, simply, thank you for accepting me, but I can't; it's just too full a moment, too loaded and too poignant and really, actually, very hard, so I hope, in my face and my tears and the few words I do manage to squeak out, that the person I am having closure with understands fully just how I feel and how difficult the letting go is.

And I had a lot of those moments leading up to the Big Day, weeks of them, in fact, with friends, co-workers, neighbors, my entire 12-step group, even my hairdresser, culminating Friday, 10/5/07, when I put my intrepid roadtripping friend B. on a Minneapolis-bound plane after we'd shared months of planning, traversed 6 states & 1700 miles, crashed in 3 motel rooms, downed an assortment of road food (I will never eat beef jerky again), snapped digital pix of much whizzing western United States scenery, listened to a wide variety of tunes on her iPod, spent two days in downtown Portland, and downed a few steaming cups of Stumptown coffee.



That was the very final goodbye, the final, teeny, absolute last connection to a now-finished piece of my life that was at once nurturing, fun, hard, lonely, responsible, enlightening, challenging, deeply painful at times, important, relevant, full of personal revelations and good growth, and very, very, very cold.

I could not have returned to my roots had I not gone and lived there first and experienced all of that. Things happened that helped me become the person I desperately needed to become, and I have come back here better, and different, and calmer, and more adult, and more me. That's how this journey needed to unfold. I know this now.

And so I'm back here, finally, in Portland, a new roommate to my old friend D., our respective cats, the tabby & the tuxedo having finally made an uneasy peace, my room all set up with my familiar bed and duvet and the cat's hammock and my night table and basket to hold my assorted reading materials, almost exactly as it used to be, the small framed Winter lake scene oil painting my boss gave me as a going-away present hanging on the hallway wall, a reminder (minus the chill) of what I will be missing in January, and February. And March. And so on.

More significantly, I feel like I've resumed a relationship with that lost 20% of myself that I'd been missing for 6 years in the Midwest, where, as I explained to others, I was really only living 80% of my life. I couldn't be truly who I needed to be there; I was in the minority, sort of, in terms of my values, and my food choices, and my outlook on life in general, my pop cultural proclivities and my outspokenness about various things political, or gender- or animal-related, whatever.

When the VP of our group at the big corporation at which I worked heard I was returning here, his reply was, "She seems like she belongs on the West Coast." I'm not sure it was entirely a compliment, although his observation was nonetheless correct.

I've come back to my home soil--that is, the west coast, since I was raised in Berkeley--and to that formerly lost 20%, which seems to have been waiting for me here right along. I fit in effortlessly here. I'm not stared at. No one says, "That's different," when they're not sure how to disagree. I don't feel ignored, either; I just feel....typical.



And I like that, very much.

So I learned I could survive the slight, repetitive ripping of numerous goodbyes and big transitions and months of planning and driving a 16-foot truck through unfamiliar states when I hadn't driven a car for 6 years, that all of it was just something else I could undertake and follow through on successfully, and now I can move on to my life's next thing.

'Cause, as I've also learned, there's always a next thing.

Coon Bones & Kate Bush

Last Sunday (the 16th), I had my neighbors over for dinner. I wanted some sort of closure with them, especially because, as a result of K.'s cancer diagnosis last Spring, we'd become closer; not necessarily intimate, although K. has shared intimate details of her cancer with me, but more involved--I cared for their cat whenever they left town to visit her doctor in Boston. I was happy to do it, because we're mostly just helpless onlookers in the face of a cancer diagnosis, and it was, at least, something.
The other something I could do was cook, and when K. hasn't just emerged from a barfy round of chemotherapy, she actually has an appetite and appreciates good food.
So I made a couple of spinach quiches and had them over, and K.'s boyfriend (the building's caretaker) somehow got himself on the topic of lucky mojos--charms or spells.
Specifically, raccoon penis bones.
Also known as a "coon bone" or a "pecker bone."

I don't know how the conversation navigated to this esoteric, somewhat voodoo-esque topic (I may've well been dining with the spirit of Marie Laveau), but he told me he'd ordered a number of them and passed them out to his friends, and he even wore his proudly on a lanyard around his neck at a friend's wedding.
For lucky heaps of marital sex, I supposed.
K. grimaced and said, "Eww, it's so disgusting. I hate touching it."
Apparently not having learned when to shut up, move on, or change the subject altogether, I thoughtfully chewed a forkful of balsamic vinegar-sprinkled baby greens and asked what a raccoon penis bone looked like.
"Well," he said, grinning broadly, "I'll show you!" and then ran down the hall and retrieved the thing for my viewing pleasure.
There, swinging at the end of a black silken cord was something that resembled a giant white fish hook. The first thing I thought was, wow. Lady raccoons get it good or get it bad, depending on your perspective.
He then put it on and we continued uneventfully with our dinner while K. and I emphatically ignored the curved baculum swinging on the lanyard around his neck.
The evening was, in spite of the interim pecker bone viewing, very pleasant, and I'm glad I had this time with them.
We ate the apple pie they'd brought, and then I sent them home with the second quiche.

On quite another topic, I curse the commercials for CSI that moodily play Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work" in the background. It wormed its way into my brain and I was finally compelled to download it.
Of course, being in the midst of transition and after a heavy week of teary goodbyes, it was probably the absolute wrong thing to do.
It's desperate, tremulous, scenes of slow-mo driving-into-the-sunset please-don't-leave-me vein-opening music.
Not that I'm planning to open a vein any time soon or anything, but I could easily conjure a painful moving day departure scene in my head, replete with soulful, long-held regretful hugs and final stumbling words of farewell and crumpled, tear-dampened Kleenexes pressed to reddened noses and rheumy eyes, which was all overwrought and dramatically self-indulgent and highly unnecessary.
Yes, time for BirdNerd's Mash-Ups. I need to happily rock this house, not bring it down.
But I still love that song.

A Good Year for Bad News, part II

I watched Hedwig and the Angry Inch last night, for a couple of reasons: because it had been reintroduced into my consciousness when my friend told me he was HIV-positive and showed me his Origins of Love-inspired tattoo on the inside of his arm, and because it was time, before I pack it in a box for the long schlep back to the west.



I seemed to enjoy it a lot more this time around, and found even more humor in it, which was nice. It was good to laugh.

And the kid who plays Tommy Gnosis didn't bug me this time. In the past, I really wasn't all that keen on that actor; he seemed doughy and uninteresting and kind of not real committed to the role.

This time around, I had a whole different take and really enjoyed his performance.

And I got misty during Midnight Radio, which is my second-favorite song on the soundtrack next to Origins of Love, and the message about becoming who you need to be and being set free (even if it WAS Hedwig who ultimately frees Yitzhak, although perhaps that doesn't need to be taken literally, since there's an element of fantasy about the whole story) really hits home with me.

But I have been contemplative since having received this news about my friend's positive diagnosis; I saw him at work the following day and he looked happy, his cheeks rosy, because he'd had a good check-up and I realize that this is how his life will go forward now: ups and downs based on the status of his health.

I thought about how I have known other people with HIV or full-blown AIDS who were already positive and living with it when I met them, but I have never known anyone pre-HIV who then transitioned into the status of being positive during the course of a friendship. This is something new for me, and I'm resentful that, as I get older, bits of innocence are being stripped from me.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't resentful about so much pertaining to this, in fact--that he's so young, that it's preventable, that it's a complex combination of personal responsibility and societal oppression that leads to risky behaviors (in many groups, not just among gays), that I feel like the Dominant Culture--of which I am a part--has won, once again. And it enrages me.



Which brings me to my next thought: I had this notion that the Midwest would be insulated, so much so, in fact, that I wouldn't be exposed to what I'd been exposed to on the west coast and maybe I'd get a bit of a break. And I see now how ridiculously naive that mindset had been. It all percolates here--Cancer, HIV/AIDS, child abuse, pet abuse, homelessness, alcoholism...it's just not as in-your-face as it is out west, and it all lies, radioactively toxic, beneath the surface of a benign celebration of "Family" as the only pursuit--hetero love, 2.5 kids, picket fences and corporate jobs. In spite of this culturally-ingrained Midwestern message, I feel as though coming here brought me face-to-face with my life in a way that living out west just never had. Which is weirdly ironic. If I wore rose-colored glasses when I moved here, I certainly lost them somewhere along the way for good.

But I also think I knew innately I needed to open myself to the world in the very ways that frightened me the most, because this was the only way I knew that would push me to grow. No, I have no control over what information is shared with me. I didn't know those words were going to spill from my friend's mouth when he said he had something to tell me. I don't purposely seek out bad news, and I can't un-know what I now know, but I don't hide from it anymore, either. And in a weird, profound way, maybe that was the best gift I could give myself, picking up and moving 1700 miles outside my comfort zone.

My friend's diagnosis was not my diagnosis; it's still his life to live, but now I am connected to him and his life in a way I had not anticipated. And, although this is not about me or my ego, it kind of is; it wasn't just his life that changed.

I get a sense that cosmically, more will be revealed to me, because I think I have finally learned that there are no accidents in life.

breathe feel love give free
know in your soul
like your blood knows the way
from your heart to your brain
knows that you're whole
and you're shining like the brightest star
a transmission on the midnight radio

A Good Year for Bad News

I don't think it's been a bad year, really, as far as years and accumulative experiences go. There've been trips home and new pugs and good, enlightening moments in recovery and a road trip that brought me and a friend and her dog to gaze upon the majesty that is Lake Superior, and last fall's Paul Simon concert and newly deepening friendships and a few cool purchases off of eBay and some really good meals. So overall, it's been a really good year, mostly, for which I am deeply grateful. All things considered.

It's the moments of bad news I could do without, but hearing it isn't as awful, ultimately, as being the one sharing it, because the one sharing it has to live with the bad news in a different way than I do as the mere listener.

I was on the receiving end of some of that bad news today.

A friend of mine at work--a kind, sweet, soft-spoken young man--came to my desk and asked if I had a few minutes to talk. I said yeah, and asked if this was something I might need Kleenex for, because of how quiet and serious he seemed.

He said no, but I'm not sure I believed him.

I chided him about the fact that he was a no-show at my going-away party as we walked down the hall in search of an empty conference room, even though he'd accepted the invitation and seemed enthusiastic and excited about attending. He just smiled and looked at the floor, but didn't say anything.

We found an empty room and sat across from one another. I folded my hands in front of me and asked what was up.

His voice was soft and nervous when he spoke. "Remember when I was out this summer and I told you I had Mono?"

I looked at him and nodded.

"Well...." he said carefully. "It wasn't Mono. It's...." His voice trailed, and I watched him watching my face, measuring my reaction through my expression. I felt my heart thump, because I knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"I'm Positive," he said. And I looked at him and said, No, no, because this is the first time I have been told but not the first time that I've seen this virus. It explained so much--the long absences, the huge weight loss, the sunken cheekbones and eyes, the new raspiness in his too-young voice.

I reflexively covered my face with my hands because I started crying and I could see that he was, too, that telling me was hard for him, and then I stood up and hugged him, and in that moment our somewhat casual friendship became much less casual and I knew something new and profound and awful that I didn't want to know but it was too late. And I remembered so many other men I'd seen, the blue-haired costume designer from Evergreen who died, and my mom's friend DeeDee pulling out clumps of hair, and the splotches of Kaposi's and the once-strapping, beautiful, vibrant men at church who whithered to such shocking thinness, too many to keep track of.

He knew the night it happened, and with whom. It wasn't a mystery. A one-night stand, he'd said. And we talked about his self-care and he said with as much frightened conviction as he could muster that he was going to fight it with everything he had or die trying.

And then I really, really wished I'd had a Kleenex because we'd hurtled straight into Major Kleenex Territory and I started crying all over again, a little harder, and he was put in the position of comforting me, which made me feel really ridiculous, but I pulled it together enough to thank him for trusting me enough to share such awful news with me. I told him how honored I was and how much I appreciated his vulnerability.

"Really?" He asked. And I reassured him. "Really," I said.

And we talked for an hour and he says he's taking it one day at a time and doing everything right, everything that he could possibly do, and he even got a new tattoo on the inside of his left forearm, a little split-in-two animated character from Hedwig, which I identified right away. And that surprised him.

"Well, I love Hedwig," I said, and told him about my poster and my video and my book and my CD. And then I apologized for razzing him for not coming to my party, cause I felt like a total ass, given the circumstances.

And then we tried to crack a few jokes even though a giant gray cloud of heaviness permeated the room and he told me he'd been keeping a little fan at his desk because he periodically broke into sweats, and I smiled and put my hand on his shoulder and said, "Welcome to my world."

A 41-year-old straight girl in perimenopause and a 30-something gay boy afflicted with HIV and we actually have something in common.

But I believe on some level that I have really always known that.

Beginning to End

And so it begins. The ending to my Midwestern Adventure.

Last night, right after work, was the Big Going-Away Party at the home of one of the managers from work, who offered his house just for this occasion (I really didn't want some random happy hour at a downtown bar. Boring.) He likes parties (he kept thanking ME for having a party last night, when he is the one who offered to throw it!) and has a Christmas party every year (albeit for select members of whatever team he's currently managing), and he always says he thinks his house was built for entertaining, and indeed it is a good house for that very purpose, with an airy floor plan, two levels and lots of gathering spots for various groups.

And a pool table, if you're in to that sort of thing.

He shares this house with his incredibly sweet and mostly-always-grinning partner, who bought me a big bunch of Mylar balloons (in rainbow Pride colors, no less!) with a top balloon that had cheery scrawl across it that read, "Good Luck!" The bunch is now slowly leaking helium in a corner of my kitchen, since they insisted I take them home with me afterward.



There were about 20 people there, a good combination from various aspects of my life--work, church, writing, etc. The food was great, and unbeknown to me and the host, my boss's husband and son showed up at the house mid-afternoon with a ton of catered Indian food--two enormous trays of samosas (vegetarian and lamb), tabouli, hummus, and enough gigantic middle eastern flatbread to feed a small nation. The manager who hosted the party had taken the day off from work to prepare (I feel honored by this alone) and had bought a ton of wine and other beverages, which is about all he had in the fridge (everything from bottled Seagram's Peach-flavored Fuzzy Navels, which are practically liquor-less and taste like liquid Jell-O shots, to decent white & red wines, waters, soft drinks, beer, Mike's Hard Lemonade, you name it...and of course, the top shelf assortment in the liquor cabinet).

He'd laid out shrimp and cocktail sauce on ice, crusty baguettes and some good cheeses downstairs; a friend of mine brought a magnificent chocolate cake--the same one she'd baked using Scharffenberger Chocolate for my birthday in December. I contributed my famous spinach-artichoke dip.

My boss' son arrived with his keyboard a bit later (a Sophomore at UC Santa Cruz) which he set up downstairs, lending a mellow, cocktail-y verisimilitude to the gathering (I joked that he needed a brandy snifter for a tip jar on his keyboard--he was really good!); there was a group card on the sideboard for signing, and many gifts. In fact, it felt like a shower, really, and as I unwrapped gifts with everyone watching, a friend bundled the discarded curly ribbons into a corsage and made me wear it on my wrist. The gifts and cards were lovely and heart-felt; a few favorites were a small, serene framed watercolor from my boss of a lake scene in winter (she said she wanted me to "remember the colors,") and a book from my brainy, hip church friends called "A Slice of Organic Life" with chickens on the cover, all about raising chickens, planting gardens, collecting rainwater...essentially, living with consciousness and lessening that Carbon Footprint.



I love that the people I've met here are people that reflect my own values and respect them and appreciate ME. I feel really good about that.

I got a few cards I read in private, because they were wordy and sentimental and made me cry, and I was touched by how deeply and sincerely some of my friends here feel about me and how they've shared that they will miss me. And I also feel touched that so, so many of them have said I'll make a good Life Coach. It's so affirming to hear that.

It used to be hard for me to hear that people would miss me; it made me feel bad, like I was doing something wrong by leaving. I'm healthier now, and I appreciate that they can and do express that to me, that I have had some meaning in their lives and have left some sort of imprint.

When the evening ended and everyone departed in a flurry of sentiments, well-wishes, and offers of moving day assistance, I was sent packing with a ton of leftovers, and drove home with a friend of mine and her boyfriend (who were given 2 grocery bags full of leftovers themselves) while the host and his partner stood in the driveway like a sweet married couple and waved us away.

I had a hard time sleeping for all the good, loving feelings this gathering elicited, and I woke up this morning feeling overwhelmed with emotion. For sure, I will miss these people here with whom I have bonded, but I am also leaving for good reasons--there is no pain involved in this decision, no resentment, no need to flee for negative reasons (except, perhaps, the weather). It's just time to take another step on my life's journey, and I'm excited to be back near the ocean and my oldest friends and my family.

And to start the Life Coach training.

Perhaps the nicest thing is knowing that I really did build a life for myself here, and that I can come back to it and visit on occasion. I did that; and I know now that I can do that again.

Two weeks to go at work, a few more lunches, the department-wide email announcement...then a week of packing, a few more goodbyes, and that stretch of highway 94--and a new chapter to my life--before me.

Laborin'

Good day for labor, it being Labor Day and all.

Hell, any sort of labor; I'm sure plenty of babies have been born on this very day.

And speaking of labor, every Monday leading up to the Big Move (since I don't work Mondays anyway), I've made it a point to pack some stuff. I usually scrawl a to-do list on a page in my little bitty pocket-sized Day Planner so I can see what my packing goals are--things like, "wrap/pack framed chicken prints in kitchen/bedroom" and "pack books" or "pack chicken tchatchkes" (yes, lots of chickens in various shapes/forms/sizes, etc.).

Today was a recycling/cleaning storage locker/packing photos & cards sort of day.

I've gotten a significant amount of stuff bubble wrapped & boxed up; in fact, thanks to the recycling room at the biggie corporation for whom I currently work, I've no doubt saved a bundle on all sizes of cardboard boxes and rolls & rolls of wrap. We regularly receive huge boxes with fixture samples, since we're in the business of building Big Box stores with a lot of "stuff" in them, all of which is prettily & helpfully presented to you (and me), the general consuming public, on various fixtures. And these samples are sent to us from their respective hopeful vendors, and all are wrapped like mad, just swathed in yards and yards of large & small bubble wrap.



As a kid, I loved popping the bubbles on the wrap between my thumb & forefinger. The big wrap is the most fun, for a louder pop; as an adult in the midst of a major move, I now see how wasteful (though thoroughly enjoyable) this popping pastime had been. But what do you know of Big Moves when you're a kid and most moves are done FOR you (basically, you're an accessory to be hauled along, like a lamp or a chair or the family dog, when all is said and done; seriously. I'm not being negative. It's just kind of matter-of-fact).

I also got my AAA Triptik made--this has got to be one of the coolest road trip accessories known to Motoring Man (and woman)! It supposedly takes them a week, but it was done in 2 business days; it's a little narrow vertical flip book, spiral-bound, broken down into 200 mile chunks with highlighted sections and cool fold-out pages for a larger frame of reference. It describes the scenery you'll see as you're motoring along--for example, as I pass through North Dakota, my route "...traverses gently rolling, semi-wooded farmland, once the land of the Sioux and Objibway tribes. Noted for water recreation, dairy and granite products."

I mean, I love this! If cat, friend and I must traverse nearly 1700 miles to get to my ultimate destination, it may as well be poetic!



So I'm feeling very good about my progress on this transition; my ducks are falling into a tidy little row and I can feel like I'm leaving as organized and prepared as I can possibly be. And this Friday is the "Bye-Bye Caitlin" party at the home of one of my managers, who offered to throw a party for me. Kind of an after-work cocktail thingie, good combo of straight/gay/single/married/co-workers/church folk/writer buddies, etc. Have a little closure here, then I'll have the "welcome back" party there. Which is, of course, one of the best and sweetest parts about going from one place to another.

On the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin' music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again.....

Not the best idea....

....in the midst of transition, when one is a bit more sensitive, open and sentimental, AND trying to pack, to listen to a resonant mix that includes Judy Collins ("Who Knows Where the time Goes"), John Lennon ("Oh, My Love") James Taylor ("You Can Close Your Eyes") and Cat Stevens ("The Wind").

Amazingly, I kept it together and got some more boxes packed, even though "Beautiful Boy" makes me want to crumple into a heap of depressed inertia and weep buckets.



Not to mention any version of "The Rainbow Connection."

And have I mentioned the late Israel Kamakawiwa'ole doing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow?"

Anything with a gentle, earnest vibrato and rousing acoustic guitar and I'm a total goner.

Thank God I'm generally bubbly and happy and don't have a propensity for fondling straight razors. Oy vey.

Yep, it's been a while....

...time to update ye olde blogge.

No real excuse, except perhaps indifference, a touch of pre-moving stress (a friend in Portland, Oregon, to where I will be moving at the tail end of September, said something to the effect that he thought this was probably the longest transition anyone has ever made moving from one place to another, and who knows, he may be right. I mean, I've known since January of this year that I was going to hightail it on outta the Midwest sometime during the summer or shortly thereafter. "Shortly thereafter" won out, cause I figured, why suffer through something like 8 months of winter just to ditch out on the summer? Even if it's humid? The days are bright and long and the sun is a blessing. And I love the Farmer's Market which stretches along a main street of downtown, right in front of my office, so I can buy a few things on Thursdays, like fresh green beans and bread and black plums), and a lot of time spent participating in an online Intuitive Eating (IE) support group, which I've really liked. It's how I want to encourage my future Life Coach clients--those who come to me seeking solutions/direction regarding their potentially unsatisfactory relationships to their bodies and food and the self-loathing, punitive and sometimes dangerous practice of "dieting"--to eat.

I know a lot of people--myself included, and primarily women--who have had very dysfunctional relationships to their bodies and food (most of whom have dieted unsuccessfully, only to regain their weight), and Intuitive Eating seeks to examine the root cause of unconscious eating, how food is used emotionally and as comfort, rather than as nutrition. The outcome is a healthy relationship to food, mindful eating, increased enjoyment in the process of eating, and, finally, a natural release of weight.
Not "thinness," because everyone's body is different and "thin" is an artificial construct perpetuated by crappy, bulimia-inducing pop-culture chick-mags like Cosmo and a bunch of bratty, wealthy, bored, narcissistic chickie-babes with too much time on their hands (think Paris or Nicole).
IE is an interesting process but one I deeply believe in--even when I was struggling with weird off-and-on diets all my life, I still read "Thin Within," "Diets Don't Work," "Eating Awareness Training" numerous of Geneen Roth's books, and most recently, "Intuitive Eating." All are excellent.
I do feel most women have some level of disordered eating, and I am convinced it's rooted in emotion. I had very disordered eating most of my life and only now, at 41, have really begun to let go of it, probably because I am already in recovery and this is one more "leftover" dysfunctional practice that doesn't serve me anymore.
A lovely outcome of IE is a renewed, positive relationship to one's body (and no more diets!). I no longer see mine as something imperfect and disgusting that needs reigning in or to be "controlled" or punished (the hallmark of diets). It's served me very well for my entire life and it needs love and nurturing. As Geneen Roth says, "Many people want to lose weight because they believe it will make them happy and stop their pain. So it's not so much the weight they want to lose, but the pain."
Examining that pain--the reasons we eat that have nothing to do with true body hunger--is the crux of IE.
Most people don't trust IE or its practices; I have a friend who has expressed discomfort with the idea of eating quietly, without distraction (in this case, the TV in the background); she said she didn't like to hear people chew, and I thought a lot about that in the ensuing days.

Anyway, the recent bridge collapse here in Minnesota (for a change, it wasn't something collapsing in California) served as a stark, tragic reminder that life is short and shittily random, and I'd hate for my last day's worth of meals to be some horrid, low-fat, low-carb, low-salt, low-suger, high-fiber, under-1200-calories misery. I mean, what IS that?
There is a saying that goes something like, Life is unpredictable so always eat dessert first.
I would rescind that to say, eat what makes you hum.
And, just quickly, back to the bridge: yes, we all hate paying taxes, but when they're earmarked in ways that positively support a society--good, accessible, affordable education and functional, well-stocked schools, say, and a sound, reliable infrastructure--then they're necessary.
Levees and bridges shouldn't collapse (this bridge was in need of repair but our moronic twice-elected current governor vetoed "upgrade funds" in favor of other pet projects like, oh, a new stadium...ahem)....
And human beings were not meant to diet.
And that's where I'll conclude this entry.