Stress Relief Manual

In order to reach a goal that has eluded me for three years I think an important step is to list out as many stress reducing activities as possible ahead of time and promise myself to look at the list every time I am feeling stressed, like a restaurant menu, to see which stress relieving activity might work to get me through that moment. All these posts I've been posting this week will be printed out and put in a notebook for reference. To be read frequently as a reminder and to strengthen my resolve. It will be like my personal manual. Incidentally- I'm also going to be writing a family manual for the three of us kooky people. We need rules and regulations and to have strict schedules just like employees. I've also thought of putting helpful labels all over the house like:

"This cabinet is for condiments only" mostly for my own amusement. I think it's seriously funny that me and Philip and Max would actually benefit from such labeling.

So, here is the Stress Release Manual:

• Quick Change Tactic: If feeling really stressed out about something I'm doing- do something else for a while. Doesn't matter what. It's about changing the immediate energy. It works for dogs. It works for people too.

• Take Deep Breaths: Every part of my metaphysical cosmic upbringing says this is important and the little rebellious punk in me wants to say "hyperventilate instead!!". However, this really does help. Sit down for a few minutes and just concentrate of breathing deeply.

• The British Method: Tea. I'm not allowed to drink much caffeine on account of my "delicate" heart condition (I love to make fun of the palpitations) but I can drink as much herbal tea as I want. Best bet for me: Yogi brand "calming" tea. No, it doesn't fix the whole world or turn me into Mother Theresa, but the British have the right idea in taking a tea break whenever the going gets tough, awkward, dull, stressful, or anyone has just said something truly stupid.

• Stretch Muscle Matter: stretching does help relax the body. It is harder to maintain a deep level of stress when your body is feeling mellow. Even if it doesn't release any endorphins- your body will listen to you better when it's stretched well. It also distracts the mind temporarily.

• The Roman Method: take a hot bath. Preferably (if you're not Pam) with lots of herbs, salts, and essential oils. Light a candle too. Hot baths with home made herbal infusions dumped in with oils help make my skin feel smoother and less dry which always makes me feel happy. I don't take long baths because I like them hot and if I sit too long in any heat I will pass out. Bathing with additives is a luxury and one that has always had a tremendous ability to make me feel calm and pampered.

• Work on an art project: I used to calm myself by making collages. I haven't done this is years because all of my art efforts have been for business rather than strictly for pleasure. Now I have the freedom to sit down in my room and make whatever I feel like just because I feel like it and it doesn't have to be cost effective in the production end. Because there will be no production end. I can glue and lacquer, sew and bind to my heart's content. I may not always have time but I have whittled things down quite a bit so there should be room for more spontaneous creating.

• Write myself a good old fashioned pep talk: I write every single day no matter what. But writing for my blog (I consider a professional effort in spite of not being paid) and writing to relieve stress aren't always exactly the same thing. I got through a lot of really crazy bad times without alcohol or much cheese by writing the crazies away. I have notebooks filled with pep talks to self. They aren't masterpieces. They are silly and sound like cheerleader type crap- "yay! You're so special! Woohoo! You can get through this little peanut!" OK, I have never called myself sweet little names. More like "Alright old bag, you are strong and you can get through this!" Whatever works. I am alive today because of these little self-talk sessions and it's time to implement them again.

• Trim The Roses: Going out in the garden has been a great method of relieving stress in the past. Due to all this crazy job hunting and then having five jobs...I have gotten out of the habit of weeding for pleasure and mental pain relief. Deadheading my roses is relaxing and meditative for me. Weeding is like picking off the parasites of life one at a time with violence and satisfaction. Picking flower arrangements is like bringing new life into the house. It's also like art.

• Review my inspiration binders: I have binders full of fashion pages I've saved for the past twenty years. They are the best of the best of what I've seen that I like. Clothes, jewelry, gardens, and layouts that inspire me over and over again. It's important to remind myself why I'm going to work so hard to lose weight. So I can use that inspiration on myself.

• Listen to the chickens: Chickens make the best noises. They scuffle, they squawk, they coo like babies, and they chuckle. Plus they're curious and pretty. So, go out in the run and squat down on their level and talk to them. They love it- I love it. We all feel better!

• Do some hand stitching: Hand stitching is meditative. You get into a minute rhythm with it. The added bonus that my Capricorn soul loves is that all this meditation results in something useful and pretty like a quilt. I could embroider too. A newish skill of mine that is wonderfully relaxing as well.

• Knit to untangle: knitting isn't something I want to become a master at. It scares me to think of it on that level. However, just making a knitted scarf is very relaxing. Easy and repetitive. I have dreams of knitting a blanket too. I also have dreams of crocheting and if I start to learn to do that too it may turn out to be just as relaxing.

That is a pretty good list. I can add more to it as I think of all of the things I do that make me feel refreshed. The trick is to promise myself that I will review this list every time I find myself so stressed I want to grab something like a hunk of cheddar to gnaw on. If you all have things that help you, don't hesitate to tell me about it. I'd love to hear what things you all do to turn your mind from stress.

I'm Sorry For Every Punch You Threw

I am always apologizing. To friends, to family, to the helpless for not being able to help them, to the abusive for not being good enough, to the weak for running over them, to the plants for starving them.

I have let the longest streams of apology trail behind me and they get longer and heavier every day. I apologize to people who have hurt me as though I deserved it, asked for it, or somehow brought it all on myself. And maybe there are times when this is just. We all invoke trouble on ourselves sometimes. But all the time? No. I am hearing my commenter Kim's words now- her suggestion that my anxiety stems from anger, from rage.

I disputed it hotly. I will hold to much of what I said in response, but I think she got a piece of me right. She got the anger right, but the subject of it wrong. I am not angry at the world or at social convention or at constrictions that make me uncomfortable. I am angry with myself. Me. I hear myself saying I'm sorry for causing others trouble, for making a commotion, for making someone else uncomfortable...I am so sorry to have gotten in your space, for not being perfect, for disappointing your endless expectations. I'm sorry I'm fat, I'm sorry I'm insecure, I'm sorry I have mental illness, I'm sorry I didn't make your spotlight brighter.

Each time I say I'm sorry for someone else's disappointment in me or for someone else's bad trip I see myself prostrate at every one's feet like an inconsequential piece of shit wearing a posture of constant shame. It pisses me off that everyone lets me do it when I think maybe, maybe if someone really loved me or valued me they would tell me to shut the hell up and stop apologizing and maybe they would step up to the plate and offer their own. But really? That's so secondary to the real issue.

The person I'm most pissed off at is myself. Just as it isn't up to my friends and family to pick up my pieces every time I lose a few on the floor of my freak outs, it isn't up to anyone else to tell me to stand up for myself and stop apologizing for the sun setting every day, for lady bugs being crushed under the feet of careless gardeners, or for babies passing away in the night across the world. It is enough to feel those events and to carry them with me everywhere I go.

I have only one person to whom I owe a real apology: myself.

I have let myself down. Not because I am less than perfect. I expect to always be less than perfect. I have let myself down because I kiss other people's shoes when I ought to be standing tall next to them without words. Let uncomfortable silences hang. Let conversation shred into meaningless confetti rather than offer up apologies just to fill the silence. Just to evade the fear I might otherwise have to feel in seeing a difficult moment come to pass.

I am so afraid of being hurt all the time I would rather admit that I must be wrong rather than let someone accuse me of it and then have to refute them and defend myself. I put myself in the losing position before anyone else can.

I wasn't really going to say this tonight, but I see that to get to the next step in redesigning my intentions this year I am going to have to face this and it scares the fucking shit out of me. Here is my boogie man. The bones buried in my back yard. Here is what I have been running from as well as trying to protect.

I am used to disappointing people. I have known what it is to be beat down, beat down, and beat down again. The mark of an abused person is to cower at a suddenly raised arm. It is also the mark of an abused mind that it profusely apologize for any transgressions that may be made later...sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry...I will fail you so I will proffer my apologies now and I will lay on my own head all the curses you may be inspired to slug me with so that you won't have to.

I don't know how to say this. I've never tried to say this before. I have, since I was impossibly young, learned that if I anticipate the pain that will inevitably be inflicted on me by others and instead of letting them do it to me I inflict the pain on myself...it doesn't hurt as much because I'll know what evil is coming.

You want to tell me I'm not good enough? I'll tell myself that right now, I will beat the crap out of my own hope and pride until it hurts so bad that if you come along and actually do tell me I'm not good enough you will have no power because I will have already turned it on myself.

It is such a dangerous way to protect oneself. Extreme and crippling. Sometimes the cure can be as dangerous as the disease.

I have always had a hard time explaining the cutting until this year when I found the words to go along with the instinct that motivated me to saw at my own skin with steak knives. What blow to my solar plexus delivered by someone I trust could be so bad if I have already hurt myself worse? It is a form of controlled pain. It makes the sting of unexpected blows dull by comparison. I can't control you if you want to split my lip with your fist but I can see my own razor draw my life up out of my veins and if I can see that, if I can live through that, what else could possibly be worse?

I am endlessly frightened of how you are going to turn against me. You, strangers, anyone. The world is a dangerous place for me; it has abused my body and my head. I have never had anywhere to go but inward. I have never had anyone to protect me but myself. When I first remember needing protection I was only six years old and my stomach still feels the blows.

I have only ever done the best I could for myself. But it wasn't enough.

I am so much older now. I am middle aged and the only person I haven't apologized to is myself.

As though I don't deserve it.

Before I take a step forward I must acknowledge that my habit of trying to take every one's ability to hurt me away I rob them of a genuine right to express their own grievances to me. If I always anticipate what is wrong with me and tell everyone how I will disappoint, or see that someone is gathering themselves up to deliver a complaint and I try to diffuse the moment by apologizing for everything under the sun- I am stealing other people's rights. I am taking something from them that I have no right to take. I never let them tell me off because I'm afraid that if I hear it I will have to shrivel up into myself until I disappear completely.

It doesn't really protect me the way I think it will. It's a subversive way conduct relationships. I would rather die than face conflict with people.

I don't know if anyone will understand what I've just said. These are very steep crags in a troubled personal landscape. I've said more tonight than I ever thought I could, out loud.

I'm not six years old any more.

My fear of people is extreme. To grow up emotionally I am going to have to learn to take other people's blows like an adult. I'll have to learn to let people say what they need to say to me without trying to beat them to the punch and then I need to not apologize immediately. I need to learn to recognize when I've truly done something worthy of apology. I have the right to withhold them and sometimes I deserve them from other people. And I'm going to have to face the fact that I will not always get them.

My heart is pounding right now. In case you wondered what it feels like to write this stuff out. I feel feral right now. I might bite you. I feel like biting you because you're there on the other side of these words.

It's time for that apology to myself.

Virgin or Whore
or how 1 apple is not the same as 52 apples

This post is brought to you by an anonymous commenter who says "there is no difference in shopping 'only rarely' at Wal Mart vs. shopping there weekly. If you patronize the establishment then you are no better then the people you criticize. Once a year or once a week, it's exactly the same." regarding my criticism of Wal Mart and my efforts to shop there as little as possible.

This commenter brings up another enormous pet peeve of mine which is the all or nothing mind set. Here they are:

virgin or whore
black or white
life or death
all or nothing
good or evil

First of all, thinking in such stark terms is infantile. It is the first way our brains learn to evaluate the world. When my kid was five he was obsessed by the idea that everyone was either good or evil, nothing in between. It is natural for a kid to think like this. It takes more brain development and critical thinking skills to learn to evaluate the many shades of grey in between two opposite poles. An understanding of simple math can really be useful here and in a minute I'll show you how.

But first let me ask a few questions:

Is a girl who's had sex once a whore?
Is slapping a person the same as killing them?
Is stealing one dollar from someone the same as stealing their life savings?
Is being civil to a person the same as loving them?
Is shopping at Walmart once a year the same as shopping there every week?


Let's plug in some numbers: 1 is the number of times I generally shop at Walmart every year. My commenter is suggesting that going once a year is the same as going fifty two times a year. Is there any way we can prove his/her theory? Here's how it looks mathematically: 1=52. True or false? The only way we can make 1 become the same as 52 is if we somehow add another 51 to it. This means that in order for it to be true that shopping at Walmart once a year is the same as shopping there 52 times a year is if one shops there another 51 times. Which isn't at all the same.

I am bringing this up because this stark and irrational way of evaluating our life choices is something that is getting in the way of progress. If you believe that the only way a person can make a difference is to make 100% change, then you will probably not make any effort at all. Because, why bother? People aren't perfect. People aren't capable of 100%. Ghandi, who I look up to very much, wasn't perfect. Neither was Jesus.

I have gotten annoyed so many times by heckling commenters at my friend Riana's blog. People who seem to be lurking around waiting for her to do just one thing that they think isn't congruent with her efforts to live a slow life. They always end up sounding so stupid. Yes, I said stupid. They say things like "you spent $2.00 on eggs while you're supposedly not spending any money. You're no better than anyone else." What a tiny mind it must take to heckle people who aren't trying to be perfect in the first place for not being perfect.

Most people who are trying to make positive changes to help clean up our planet and their bodies and their homes aren't doing it to be better than other people. People cannot reasonably make huge changes all at once. You need to take it in degrees. Which is how virgins become whores. It takes a whole lot of work to get from one point to the other. To get from one pole to the other. To transform good into evil or evil into good.

The message I want to give today, very clearly, is that everything we do counts. Every dollar we spend in one store is a dollar we aren't spending in another. How we spend our money is one of the most powerful ways we can speak politically. Money is what drives a business to success or failure. Who gives a business money? Customers. So if you normally shop at Walmart every week, it matters if you decide to start spending a little of that money at an independently owned local store. They need you. If someone says to me "Normally I shop at Walmart for all my office supplies but now I'm buying some of it from my local stationer's shop." I would applaud that person's efforts to support a local business. I wouldn't say "Well, that won't make a difference. If you don't stop shopping at Walmart altogether then you are doing nothing worth talking about." Because EVERYTHING WE DO MATTERS.

Every single time you recycle something instead of throwing it into the trash is one less item in the land fill. It's one more item that may be able to be made into something new. You have to consider the sheer numbers of people on the planet. There is power in that. If every person on the planet decided, today, to sing "Amazing Grace" we would hear it all across the universe. One voice may seem insignificant but when we work together we are powerful. Every gesture, every interaction, every choice we make today is a chance to do something positive and it always matters.

If every person who shops at Walmart decided to cut their spending at Walmart in half, Walmart's CEO's would panic. The company would hurt. The company would be less powerful. So why not aim to make change in steps that you can handle?

This has all reminded me how cool math is. But that's for another post.

Anyone else want to leave some naggy little comment? You anonymous people are giving me such good material for posting this week, so thank you.

Eat Local Challenge
redesigned

Ten months ago we embarked on our eat local challenge which was our own not too stringent version of the 100 mile diet. The main point of it was to learn about the food that comes from my area by trying to limit ourselves to what has been grown and/or produced locally. I wanted to see what it was like to get through the winter eating seasonally. It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought. It wasn't nearly as expensive as I thought it would be either.

We know a lot now about the food that is produced (and not produced) in our area that we probably never would have known if we hadn't embarked on this adventure. Do you sense closure in my tone? Yes, I've been thinking about our challenge for the last month and seeing its meaning in the bigger picture of change. I've been assessing my needs versus the things that need to change for the earth to keep on spinning on its axis.

As our life has been restructuring (I'm working 3 days a week and spending the rest of the week looking for work etc.) its been getting more difficult to stick with our challenge. A lot of the things that make cooking healthy food quickly can't be bought (at reasonable prices) from local sources. Pasta, for example. Tofu. Rice. I haven't bought any of these things in 10 months. I've made pasta from scratch quite a lot but I just can't do it quickly and as a consequence we rely a lot on grilled cheese sandwiches for quick food.

I've gained more weight in the past year. It's true that that needn't have been the case if I wasn't a beer chugging cheese gulping freak without sense enough to stop at ONE beer and ONE thin slice of Tillamook. One doesn't have to turn to grilled cheese sandwiches whenever there's no time to make pasta from scratch. Yet we do because we love them (!!!) and they are satisfying. Since I can't get feta from local sources I eat everything with cheddar. I have no self control when it comes to cheddar. You get the picture.

I miss garbanzo beans. I haven't bought them in 10 months either.

So while I dripped rivers of sweat off my sun screened nose out in the great sweltering blueberry fields today I thought about all these things for the hundredth time this month. And I came to a decision. I have learned all I can learn from my challenge as it is. I've decided not to engage in any more "challenges" because just being me is challenging enough. The point of challenges is to stretch ourselves in new and positive directions. To find out our limitations and also to learn new things.

Rather than engage in more challenges with rules and time periods I am just going to commit to change. Steady change. It never happens over night. I've become not just enamored with the effort to eat local and shop local- I am committed to it in that my eyes are always open now to both the contents on labels but the origins of everything I buy. I don't buy anything without looking. That is change. I not only know the ingredients I know as much as a person can about where it came from. I will always choose local when I can.

I intend to buy more of my food in bulk to reduce overall packaging waste. I still won't buy much produce that isn't seasonal and doesn't come from within my general region. I may sometimes buy bananas for smoothies but I won't ever again buy apples from New Zealand or kiwis from out of state. I won't buy avocados but for very special occasions and the same goes for oranges and tangerines which do not grow here. I may buy some lemons and limes on special occasions but only until I grow my own (which will have to be protected in the winter).

I will buy feta cheese again but only until my new friend Sarah teaches me to make my own. I won't buy store bought ricotta because I learned how to make my own from scratch while on my local food challenge.

I will buy tofu again. My friend April has found locally made tofu in Portland but I've yet to find any here.

I will wait until things are in season here to buy them. Watermelons from Hermiston instead of from California or Mexico. Tomatoes from Bernards Farm or from my own yard.

The big picture is that there is life as a whole to make decisions about that impact everyone. It isn't just where your food comes from but what's in it and how much packaging or energy it took to get to you. You have to consider what you can afford and not surprisingly- buying in bulk and using u-pick options whenever you can will make your groceries cheaper. Learning to make things from scratch will bring you closer to your roots, to your familial food history, and is hugely satisfying. But being able to rely on dried staples that may not come from your region makes life a whole lot more comfortable.

How are you getting your groceries? Do you take four trips a week to the grocery store? Do you bring your own bags? Do you drive a giant SUV? Or do you ride your bike (I don't and need to!!)? These are all important things that go into the equation.

What all our problems boil down to is that we often don't live thoughtfully enough. We don't weigh our choices and make decisions with an equation that includes all these factors. We don't look at ourselves and the choices we're making and why enough. Taking on challenges helps us hone in on areas in our lives that we want to see change.

In a couple of more posts I'll go over more of what I've learned from my challenge and share with you the most pertinent and permanent changes we've made to our diet as a result. Then I'll move on to share the other changes that are on my mind. Things I'd like to accomplish, not as a part of a specific challenge but just in my ongoing quest to make good change.

Right now the kid is clamoring for a good old Bionicle battle at the top of the stairs. I'm tired from frying myself in the 100 degree heat. It's time for some beer (my mom bought us lots this week!!) and after a rousing game of Bionicle ball busting I intend to watch some Sponge Bob (or whatever Max wants) and pretend I'm not a giant cut of roast human.

Even when life is pretty damn good there are bound to be those days when you find out that the Royal family is not the only one capable of producing hemophiliacs and the events that bring about this new knowledge are precipitated by your dog trying to kill a six year old boy who comes flying through the yard like a warm rocket. This could happen to anyone.

Right?

It occurs to me that little boys with hemophilia should not enter into strangers' yards that may or may not contain a large black salivating guard dog. While I have no fear of Chick biting anyone we introduce her to, I can't say the same of people randomly racing through the yard unexpectedly. To say I was scared is to put a pretty casual veneer on the whole event. I made apologies to the mom who lives in (or was visiting?) one of the assisted living houses next door. This is when her father disclosed the hemophilia and his own dog* biting saga which led him to court and left him asking lots of questions which he freely shared with me.

Yesterday was just one of those days that starts off feeling pretty good. Pretty hopeful. But then the hours slowly fall away to reveal one unpleasant situation after another. A little reality sandwich is sometimes a little too much. I was feeling the panic out there in the world, the rising food prices, campaign madness, crashing economy, housing crisis', lost jobs, world darkness...all the good apocalyptic stuff I was brought up on. It's always nice to see that everyone still believes the end is nigh.

Christians have been talking about the Apocalypse for two thousand years. What I would really like to know is if the earth's deer think about the end of the world. Do they worry about it? Or is their Apocalypse every day the hunters crawl through the woods with guns?

There are so many phone calls to be made, little pesky chores to be accomplished, and steps to take to be ready for my trip. The worst realization is that it is just about May and I leave in ten days. When will I find time to sew? I really want to make some things. It isn't that I feel I have to (though the fact that I desperately need a few new items of clothing is a true fact) but I have been really looking forward to doing it. It's been a long time since I had the genuine urge to make some things for myself. I would like a chance to dig into my fabric piles.

Although yesterday was filled with stressful events and realizations, there was good in it too.

I got a lot of boxes unpacked. My bedroom is nearly all unpacked which is a relief. I was realizing that maybe it's more important to finish getting moved in than to make clothes. The ghetto look is slowly disappearing from my porch and I was actually doing and folding laundry yesterday. I vacuumed too, all of which helped to give me that same feeling I used to get when I cleaned my house: as though I was simultaneously cleaning my aura as well. I slept well because of it.

In spite of the fact that I had to fight a large husband, a 58 pound dog, and two kittens for space and covers. By six am the melange included a seven year old sleepy boy.


*His dog bit a kid.

Letting The Future In

(by letting the past go)

(a classic)

I am in that terrible state between lives where your new one is so wonderful and exciting and you want to dig yourself in up to the elbows, but in order to move on you have to deal with all the niggling clean up details of the chapter you recently closed. I still have to pack stuff up from the old house and then I have to clean it. The original plan was to pay someone to clean it to give myself a little break. Things didn't turn out as planned and the financial belt must be tightened somewhere, so I will do the cleaning myself. Well, but not BY MYSELF. My mom has volunteered to help me with the heinous task tomorrow. I sure am going to owe her big for that!!

The kittens went in for a check up yesterday and while everyone at the vet's office raved about how healthy they look and how much they've grown- they are not released from quarantine yet. ANOTHER TWO WEEKS. Most of the ring worm is gone, but some lingers on their faces. One of the ladies who met the babies the day we brought them in admitted that when she first looked at them she really didn't know if they were going to pull through. Most of the bare spots are filled in again. Penny has the prettiest white fur where it was pink and swollen and whiskerless before. Pippa's chest is also growing the fur back. Ah well, they are awesome little girls and are worth every pain in the ass.

I can't say I've stopped missing Ozark at odd moments. I don't miss his cranky aggression to the dog, but I miss his orange personality. We found his medical equipment and it totally smacked my heart around to see it and know that he has been buried for well over two months now. I don't tend to dwell on these sad events in life much but I suppose it can't be helped that sometimes you revisit your sorrow for your dead loved ones. It's so Victorian!!

I love all the ideas you all had for a magazine. Now if only someone would produce such a thing!!! Any takers out there? Ha ha. You all (who commented) seemed to be on the same page as me. Not one person suggested nude pictures of fat farm girls on tractors. Nor did anyone suggest how to articles on stock-piling weapons of mass destruction, for which I am very thankful.

I have wanted to produce my own magazine for a hundred years. I don't actually have the necessary skills but learning desktop publishing is something I've had on my mind for so long and I think it's time to start the process. This will take a while. And since I'm poor it also means using what I have (always a better idea anyway) which means using humble old Microsoft Publisher or Word. We do have Photoshop, so that helps. But we don't have anything like InDesign or Quark or any of the more sophisticated programs used to publish these days. My feeling is that I am so unskilled I may as well learn on a simpler program. My plan is to get some "Dummy" books from the library (so no buying books for this), and then begin designing a first, and possibly only issue of what my dream magazine would be like.

If it came to nothing else, if I can do this, I will have skills I have been wanting for a long time which will be incredibly handy for a lot of different applications and will be freeing because then I will be able to do projects on my own that I have previously depended on Philip for. I think this is all part of a fundamental exercise in freedom. The freedom of press is pretty powerful. It comes with responsibilities, of course, but how many rebellions have been empowered by the use of broadsides? How many ideas have spread by the clever printing of small presses?

I actually did produce a book of poetry once. I made fifty of them and did all the writing with a typewriter, then arranged the layout with glue and rulers and eyeballing spaces, and figured out the very confusing layout of pages so that I could copy the bunch and staple it and have all the pages line up the way I wanted them. I was quite proud of it, actually. Even though most of the poems were not very good. I'm not proud of being a mediocre poet but I am also not ashamed. I'm proud that not being particularly good has never stopped me from continuing to work on them and present them to others and in truth- my poetry has continued to improve over the years. Perhaps by the time I'm ninety I'll be quite praiseworthy!

I doubt very much that I will be able to make a living producing a magazine. There are a thousand tales of failed magazine ventures. So this is a project that I will approach with minimal output of money and a maximum input of quality writing, crafts, contributors willing to work in trade, and great photography. It will take time. Lots of time. But I think I'm going to try to do one super excellent issue of what would be my ideal magazine. I want it to be satisfying to open, to read, to look at. It must in every way be a pleasure to have in the same way that I opened my first Vogue magazine when I was thirteen years old and sat on the curb of the street next to the grocery store where I had bought it with my allowance money.

Vogue continues to have reputable writers contribute to it's content, but in many ways it has become a great disappointment to me over the years. It has become a fashion magazine for large labels only, for rich women who wear fur coats and get surgery as routine care, for society people who do charities, for people who know the Trumps personally. That's not a place where I feel comfortable. In fact, it's a world I have a great deal of contempt for. Harper's Bazaar is even worse because they haven't got a single lick of decent writing in it. Elle is the only good fashion magazine left. They feature a lot of indie designers, up and comers, cutting edge fashion, interesting writing without a whiff of the sycophant's piss in it.

I have also decided that I will definitely finish producing my first apron pattern for sale. Only because I can do it with a minimum of investment. I already have the master pattern trued and ready for layout and instructional writing. If I make one finished pattern and no one wants to buy it? No big deal. I will have lost five dollars and gained the pride of having produced my first professional commercial sewing pattern. Something I have been working on since I was born. (That's what my mother says. I only remember wanting to be a fashion designer since I was eight or so years old. Thirteen was when it became a determination.)

I have also decided to reopen my Etsy shop for a few select things like bolts of fabric I don't want. I have lots of bolts of fabric and I think I will sell them for slightly less than wholesale. If anyone buys them? Awesome! If no one does? I don't know. But at least I will not lose more than a few cents listing them. I won't list anything for a while. I have to pay my current bill of $1.20 before I do anything and honestly I will probably not work on any of these projects until I return from my trip in May. My first priority is to prepare our old house for sale and to unpack and settle into this one.

It's strange though, this refreshed feeling that I'm not done with Dustpan Alley the business yet. Or other dreams I've laid aside. I have felt so resentful of how much hard work I've put into for four years to yield next to nothing in return. Our earnings for the last two years have been below poverty level. The reason we have survived is on proceeds from the sale of our California property and equity credit. I put everything I had into what I believed was such a great company, so many great ideas, and so much encouragement, yet so few sales. I grew bitter because everything I tried that worked for other people didn't work for me though everything I tried cost money because I wanted to "do it right".

I threw the company to the floor. I screamed curses at it, I crushed it with the heel of my orthopedic shoes, and I sent it to hell for wasting so much of my life and energy and running me ragged for nothing. For sure, it will die now and I will be released. I thought. I will pay the piper now in debt and ruin. I will pay the piper in working a job I loathe which I might have avoided doing in the first place if I hadn't spent so much time chasing futile EXPENSIVE dreams. Yet I came to a place of peace about it. Let it rest. Let it all go. Let the expectations back into the place where dreams begin and end. Move on.

Yet it's still breathing. On it's own it keeps breathing. As though, like that annoying stupid Pinocchio, it has come to life.

What's different now is that I really am a turnip. Or a stone. I have no blood left to give it. there is no money to drain from us. We are earning below poverty wages. The upside of this is that the government has to give us a very large credit and this will sustain us (hopefully) long enough to sell our old house. If we can get a decent price on that house, we will be sustained for a little longer while I can try to write some articles for other people as well as for my own project. Be the writer I am. And give what freebies I can to my discarded abused company- throw Dustpan Alley the bone of a professional pattern to sell. I can tell you that I'm a very good pattern drafter and I'm a fair technical writer and so I'll feel good if anyone buys it, I can stand by such work of mine with pride, but I will not take it personally or fiscally in the gut if no one cares to purchase my work.

This is all good. To have let go of the bitterness. To have no expectations, yet to still have something to give. To go forward with no money but still have creativity and materials and ideas. I have a home that will nurture all that is good in me but is not more expensive than the one I'm selling. There is a lot of trade outs going on. A lot of possibilities. The dream would be that something will pan out into an income from home. But if not? I will do whatever I have to to support my family (except for prostitution, we all know that jock itch is not a known sexual fetish and dandruff is generally not sexy either)...but always with the view that I will do what I have to only for as long as I have to until I can return home to be a housewife, an urban homesteader, a writer, a mother. Not necessarily in that order.

Next month the A Is For Apron book is coming out and in many ways this is a huge dream of mine. It is the first time I will be appearing in a professional publication that I didn't make myself. No, it isn't some exciting piece of brilliant prose, but a pattern I designed, drafted, and wrote instructions for will be out there for others to enjoy. My first official time in print. That is huge for me and kind of perfect that it combines two dreams in one: writing and design. Being published in a book and having a design of mine commercially available.

I am reminded of a spiritual tenet that shows up in a lot of different forms, here are a few ways people express it: "If you really love something you must let it go, blah blah blah...", "Follow the path of least resistance", "To heal pain you must let it go.". ETC.

There is deep value in those axioms. Philip and I have a tendency to get very stressed out when looking for socks in the morning. Because we are not the most organized people in the world we have spent a lot of frustrated time looking for things accompanied by extreme cursing and pounding our temples against closet doors. I've noticed, in the years we've bloodied ourselves in frustration that getting angry and pent up doesn't locate socks. As surprising as that may be, it is true. I have never located a sock just because I screamed out "Where is that son-of-a-bitch sock!!!!???"

However, if I calmly pretend I don't have any need for matching socks, or any need for socks at all; if I turn my back on socks all together and take some deep breaths and pour a cup of coffee or pretend I have all the time in the world to sit around not looking for socks, I will suddenly see the very sock I was looking for right there on top of the dresser where it was the last three times I looked for it in exactly that same spot.

So ever since I threw Dustpan Alley into the dirty carpet and ground it down into dust and let out all my bloodcurdling heart cries into the atmosphere where they hung like sharp bright shards of desperation and then walked away from it, things have been falling into place. When I stopped caring so much. Stopped hurting so much. Stopped hanging on at all. When I let it all go sincerely and freed myself of all the tangled knots inside, life has stopped getting choked up in the complicated fretwork of emotions I'd created, it began to feel as though it was moving, flowing, working, and although nothing about what the future holds is clear, I am not worried anymore.

So here's my advice to anyone who's looking for socks and seeing no socks, or for anyone who is deeply unhappy with their life and allowing bitterness to settle in their spirits: let it all go. Scream out loud, raise your fists in frustration, express it for real for once and then let it all go completely. Bitterness serves nothing and no one. Resentments, trying to change others, expectations, and unhappiness do no one any good. We can only change what is in ourselves. It may not fix all your problems. It isn't magic, after all. But it will be better than hanging on to what isn't working. What isn't flowing. Let it go.

My Blue Heaven

Papers have been signed in dizzying masses with fresh blood from the turnips that have come to stand in place of an income. Promises have been made, barters with the heavens have been forged and redemption has been temporarily issued. The gates of heaven await only the key. The key won't come to us until tomorrow. (Though we can go through the side gate and peer into the windows of our blue farmhouse nest.)

It has been hectic. It has not all gone as planned. Will it be worth it? Will we regret it? Will a brand new cycle of doom and fear and shit luck trail around at our heels like a determined hound from hell setting fire to a half a lifetime of hard work and wholesome dreams? I don't know all the answers.

This is what I know: This house is my idea of heaven and I can't wait to get my life settled into it.

The ultimate sign that this was the right house (besides the fact that it tied it's spiritual apron strings around my waist the minute I entered) was the discovery of the custom made spice rack. I've seen a lot of houses and these are rare finds. Three out of four houses we've bought had them. Perfect custom made spice racks. A spice rack is something I consult almost every single day and so few things in my home have the power to please me so constantly with their utility, beauty, convenience, and good design.

What's really weird to me is that I have had to temporarily resurrect the business to get this all to go through. I never officially closed it down. People have been ordering from the website even though we took the store feature down. They've been getting to the products by way of links. There's life there. And then I was realizing that maybe I'm not quite finished with it yet. Maybe with some love and using only what I already have on hand I can rebuild. Rebuild what I want to and discard the rest.

The book "A Is For Aprons" in which one of my apron patterns appears is coming out in May. I had planned on completing the instructions for one of my patterns to put up for sale when the book came out. I might still do it. I understand that I am THMR* so it would be with no expectations and almost no investment capitol which means I would produce it one at a time in a fashion I could afford to do in. My pattern work is excellent though (one of the few things I feel confident about) and I enjoy doing it. So who knows, maybe this new homestead is what I needed to clear out my head. We'll see.

Queer, isn't it?

The main thing is the nest. The farmhouse. Can I give it a ridiculously pompous moniker? Such as "Thistle Lodge Park"? Or how about "The Williamson Sanatorium"? Or how about "The Rose And Thistle Farmhouse"...just like a pub. I love pubs.

I haven't packed a box. Not a single box. We're moving in two days.

But I'm not worried. I'm going to take a lukewarm bath and then I'm going to pack like I've got fire ants in my pants. I'll leave you with that charming image.

*The Human Money Repellent. I say this with fondness now. I've embraced it and the sting is gone. Whether or not it continues to be true, it still amuses me.

A Brand New Chapter

In which Angelina takes up knitting needles once more
(but will not be knitting anything challenging)

So very much has happened recently that when life gets quiet I get nervous about what it might be brewing up. On the other hand, I feel a line has been crossed. A finish line in an endurance race which just makes me think of the time my Dad made my try out for the track team in sixth grade and I had to run the four hundred run in front of T, the love of my life* from the time I was 8 until I was 12, and I passed out on the field. When it comes to endurance I'm clearly not a champion.

Still, the atmosphere around here is clearing up. I have that feeling that a new era is dawning.

Total random side note: I love Janeane Garofalo in Mystery Men. I love Mystery Men**. The guys are watching it in the other room. Seriously my kind of hero movie.

Anyway... there's always room for more crisis in life, there's always room for more tragedy, we all know that. That's a given. There's no point where you can't experience more. People like to say that "God" will only give you what you can handle and I take great exception to that. If God only gave people what they could handle then people like the Yates woman wouldn't have murdered all of her children in an act of desperation. My great uncle wouldn't have spent the latter part of his life in an insane asylum. People wouldn't be going postal all over the planet. Those are people who couldn't handle what life gave them. You could argue that they're all examples of truly insane people, but aren't insane people still people worth God's consideration? Shouldn't God be especially considerate of their limitations?

No, lots could and still will happen in our life here. Both bad and good. Life doesn't sit still. But today feels quiet. In a good way. You know, if I can just stop my mind from wringing it's hands, so to speak. Even with all that could continually go wrong, it really feels as though a corner has turned. Or a new leaf. A fresh day. Pick your cliche, they all work here.

Max apparently told Philip that he can't go any amount of time without cats in the house. So we are putting the word out that we're looking for two kittens. We want them young (8 weeks old) so that Max can have the experience of having kittens instead of an older cat which is what Ozark already was when Max was born. So if anyone local to us hears about some one's cat about to have kittens or whose cat just had kittens- please let us know. Although I do not feel that getting more cats really soon would dishonor the memory of our recently departed cranky old bastard cat that we loved so dearly, I must admit that I can't think of getting an orange male tabby any time soon. Also, we won't get purebreds. Not only couldn't we afford them, but we prefer our animals of mixed heritage. We also prefer them free.

My visit with my new psychiatrist went much better than my visit with my ex-therapist. I feel that I am now in competent hands to deal with my head. You know when you have found a good match because you just feel relief. The Doctor gave me a much needed medical vote of confidence.

Now that I don't have a business to run or worry about, I can take up some dropped projects and reluctantly abandoned activities such as knitting. Three years ago I promised Philip a knitted scarf. I bought the yarn and still had it sitting around. I think I knew I would have to return to knitting at some point. Although I do want to learn some crocheting as well, I don't know any crocheters here in my town to show me the ropes. So I will wait a little to tackle that one. This week I re-learned to cast on under the supportive eye of my knitting friend Lisa E. and am working on a very simple garter stitch scarf for Philip.

I just talked to my sister last night who has also started knitting. It gave me such a warm fuzzy feeling. My sister is a very urban, cool, chic, hardworking person and I absolutely LOVE the idea of her knitting because it is so domestic (yes, I know, all kinds of non-domestic type people knit these days...I maintain that it's still a very domestic activity) and there's a part of my sister that is very home centered, though she has not been able to focus on that for a very long time. Knitting is something you can do anywhere and although maybe, like me in the past, Tara won't keep at it, but it still made me so giddy to hear that we are both knitting now.

I have a cold. I'm alright with that. I mean, I wish I didn't have a cold, but I'm just rolling with it as though I was a really mellow person who isn't bothered by the small stuff.

I haven't been able to focus on my yard in such a long time. I turn my eyes to it now and feel that stirring of excitement I often feel when I have all the planning in the world to do. In my Master Gardening class yesterday we spent half the day learning about growing berries. Berry growing is so much more exciting to me than conifer growing, so I was in heaven. I'm thrilled that I don't like raspberries much because to grow them here is to sign a binding contract with ROOT ROT. We learned about strawberry growing as well and they come with a butt-load of diseases and problems in this region, yet when grown well produce a better quality fruit here than when grown in California. Philip loves strawberries so I keep wanting to grow them for him.

Yes, I said "Butt-load".

I finally have my new camera back from the shop. Fixed and ready to record all my new adventures.

One more tidbit before I run off to do some dishes and take a shower...

If anyone has been hoping for a bath bomb tutorial, Whipup will be posting one I wrote on January 31st, so be sure to stop by and check it out. Obviously if you have any questions after reading the tutorial I will be more than happy to answer them either here or there.



*Fully unrequited love. Just as well. I heard that later he dropped acid like it was candy.
**On line reviews of this movie aren't too great but that's such a crock. It is brilliant.

Snow Bird Comes Home
(but without the snow)

It's fitting that after such a rough day yesterday I would wake to a ghost landscape all covered in white; the last gasps of past dreams clinging to stems and freezing in whorls on glass. For a few minutes the sun cut itself a hole in the clouds and made glitter fall from the sky. Tiny icy particles in the air lit by sun as though the finest fairy dust was drifting down. I made Philip look to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Because that would have been alarming what with me not being on drugs and all.

My garden has been hugely neglected since we've lived here. We have done some things in mad spurts only to have to let it go wild again while we were trying to make the store work out, or looking for work, or making stuff for my business. My last garden got so much more attention and even though I am not the kind of gardener to stay on top of weeds even in the best of circumstances, it was a wonderful place to hang out.

At last I can turn my attention to my house and garden. I can make things for us, rather than others. I can spend more time cleaning up my yard and shaping it. This year is shaping up to be one in which everything is pared down, streamlined, simplified, and returned to some kind of rhythm. It's been a long time since I've had a daily rhythm.

It also seems symbolic that today my first seed order arrived from Territorial. Symbolic because seeds are the ultimate in new beginnings; hope in the tiniest package; promise of abundance and they bring us from the present to the future seamlessly.

Everything still feels raw, which isn't surprising since my whole life shifted yesterday, so I'm not yet feeling the relief of lifted weight off of my shoulders, not entirely. A small little part of me, though, is already beginning to feel a great whoop of freedom explode from my chest. A great big happy holler that I'm so ecstatic to be returning to my life of "drudgery" as:

A HAPPY HOUSEWIFE!

An Urban Homesteader!

Being a housewife or a homesteader is only boring and drudgery if you... damn, I will never understand why some people find it boring. We're all different, let's leave it at that.

I do have to buckle down on Friday to produce a tutorial for Whip Up who have kindly expressed interest in posting my instructions on making bath bombs. But I'm not doing it for pay or for traffic to my blog. I'm doing it because this project I'm going to share is so cool and really fun for kids. I'll keep you posted on when they might post it (which will depend on me giving them the tutorial in a timely fashion!)

A new/old/loved chapter of my life is opening up. I'm glad it's still midwinter so I can adjust before having to kick into gear in the yard. Tomorrow is my Master Gardening class and I intend to bring healthy food so I don't raid their nasty donut stash. So I'm off to make potato salad.

Really, I think my life may have just turned a corner. It's too bad it had to be so painful, but at least I'm home again.

A Retrospective

There are a lot of things I've worn that I wouldn't be caught dead in at this stage in my life, not because I'm fat now, but because, well- I mean...what the hell was I thinking?! Believe it or not, this outfit is not one of them. I would wear it minus the bridal-style veil and with slightly less dramatic make-up. I was seventeen in this picture and though I was headed for an epiphany which would save me from killing myself, I still didn't believe I would live to be thirty years old.

There weren't many things I felt confident about when I was seventeen, but my sense of style was something that caused me zero qualms. I remember the day my friend Carrie and I took these pictures in San Francisco and I remember feeling that the only powerful or commendable thing about me was the way I could wear almost anything and carry it off. Naturally there were about 180,000 San Franciscans who would have disagreed with me. But who the hell cares about them anyway? The point was how I felt about it. The point was that I could wrap this piece of Indian print cloth that my mom gave me around my hips, knot it, and call it a skirt. If I had the body for it now, I'd wear this outfit today.

Sometimes, it was getting dressed everyday that kept me going. The love of texture in clothes and makeup, the fun of making fun of fashion gave me pleasure. The colors that could be combined, the little pieces of theater my garments could inspire. I could be anything I wanted to if I dressed the part. For me, clothing always had the potential to confer power on the person wearing them. I could believe in myself when I dressed like a person who believed in herself.

I could get a PHD based on the power of clothing and how un-trivial it is to human beings on so many levels. In fact, the only thing trivial about clothing is the ridiculous industry of labels that has been built around our need for covering our bodies which has so much less to do with shame and so much more to do with protection from the elements and a celebration of ourselves.

St. Andrews graveyard, Scotland, 1995

I didn't actually sit down to write a discourse on clothing. This is the end of the year. It is not my wont to look back with longing on the past. I don't enjoy aching for what didn't come to pass or mourning what did. As a person who has suffered life long depression, it might be easy to suppose this would be my normal mode: to regret, to be sad for the past, to worry at the unsatisfying fraying corners of life. It is absolutely because I deal with depression every day that I work harder than most (I believe) not to become enmeshed in self pity, sorrow, or mourning.

The end of the year, for me, is a pleasurable opportunity to assess my life's progress. Mostly it's an opportunity to measure how far I've come away from the trenches. I like to laugh at myself a little, learn from my stumblings, and think about how I want to move forward as the new year dawns. I'm not the only one getting introspective. Alice at FutureGirl is also looking inward as well as forward. A long time ago I used to scoff at the idea that a new year meant anything. I saw time (or thought I did) as a continuous ongoing never ending collection of days into nights into weeks into years. What makes tomorrow a fresh start? Why do we draw the line every year at the 365th day and say "tomorrow is a new year, a fresh start!"?

It's just tomorrow.

I'm not sure when I started feeling the renewal at the new year's approach. I think it started catching me in 1998. (The year I predicted in a journal that I would have one boy child and no other children.) Ten years ago. I started feeling the lifting of the spirit at the prospect of a clean slate. I started making resolutions, even though I don't really believe in punishing one's self when resolutions don't work out.

I like resolutions because they are powered by hope. Hope is something none of us can live completely without. One universal factor in suicides is that they've lost all hope. I think of resolutions as a great declaration of hope. Making resolutions is about voicing intentions, seeing how we want to be and coming up with a plan for manifesting positive change. When you are at the bottom of the dark, you don't make resolutions because there's no point. If you don't think you will live another ten years what difference does it make if you keep smoking, keep eating crap, and become obese? It makes no difference. Why should you stop hurting yourself if you have no future?

January is my month. The month I was born. A month of renewal. It's a time when all of nature shows it's bones. Pestilence is killed by the cold (unless you live in the south or California, or Australia) We all have a chance to rebuild. I love January best of all months. It seems that everyone spends January in quiet meditation.

I have a lot of work to do this year. I wanted to end this post with a current picture of myself. But I can't. I can't bear to do it. I will leave it blank. The blank represents what I can achieve in the next twelve months to reclaim myself physically and mentally. For two years I have been living in fear. I am going to walk away from that now.

It's A Mad Max World Out There

What I've been wondering a lot about in the last couple of days is how come watching "Dark Angel" and "Firefly" doesn't depress me. They really should. The same way that "Blade Runner" should, but doesn't. I'll admit that I can't watch Blade Runner very often because it's too intense and darker than the other two shows I mentioned. "Mad Max" is so intense that I will not be ready to watch it again for another 11 years, but still, there's something about all those films and shows that I find oddly hopeful and appealing.

It has struck me while re-watching the "Dark Angel" series that it's not such an unrealistic view of the impending future. I mean, o-kay, I don't believe we're going to be over-run with genetically engineered super-freaks, but the way the world looks in that series, the scrabbling nature of life, the necessity for recycling (as opposed to the choice to recycle or not) as a way of life seems completely in sync with all probability. Waiting in a long line for two gallons of gas to get you to the next town...areas of cities blocked off permanently due to toxic contamination... everything you get being old and used and having to learn to make it work... the grime... squatting in abandoned housing (there are lots of people who have to do this now, what if that was the common housing solution?)...

I think what appeals to me about Firefly is the same kind of futuristic vision, where life goes so forward that it also doubles backwards. The future isn't going to look shiny and robotic as Asimov liked to see it. Covered in clean machines. As much as I think that Joss Whedon tends to see through the eyes of a hormonal teen boy (breasts, people, hot babes with breasts), I think the world he created in Firefly has an organic element to it that reflects a hopeful view of a hard future. Even he kind of describes it as a mixture between a science fiction and an old western. I love that the crew of the Firefly can take old parts to other ships and make them work for their own. Theirs is a kind of happy scavenging way of getting by. Life is tough but they enjoy the scrapping.

So I've been thinking a lot about the world in it's current state and extrapolating how things might turn out. I know that lots of people fear (and some hope) for an Armageddon type situation. Whether it be that God shakes his angry fist at us and floods us all to Kingdom Come or that man wields his mighty nuclear power and blasts the bejeezus out of the planet. People love to imagine huge chaos, it feeds the wilderness in them. It seems so much more satisfying than a slow decline in which we all die of environmental disease and starvation. The Victorians may have found glamor in the slow death that is consumption*, but modern people don't want their tragedies to be so slow and wistful.

My main thought is that it doesn't matter if you "believe" in global warming or not. You can tell yourself all kinds of lies about how no one can really be sure if oil spills on the ocean are really the fault of mankind or nature...I mean, couldn't those poor birds and fish have accidentally jumped into an oilfield and poisoned themselves? As for those ice caps melting? Does anyone really have any proof? I mean, proof other than the measurable shrinkage of the ice caps? Maybe scientists have made mistakes and their measurements are faulty. Because, it's not like the earth has ever had serious climactic change before. That whole ice age thing? That's just something Satan made up to trick good Christians into doing the devil's work...

But seriously. Global Warming aside, life will not go on indefinitely as it is now. Your hummer will not continue to run for all eternity. Pollution is not something liberals made up to try to run the world. Pollution is something you can smell with your own nose and see with your own eyes. You have but to visit your local land fill to see the truth in the claim that we are trashing the planet, one big pile at a time. I am amazed that arguments are still going on about whether it's necessary to recycle. Arguments seem to hinge, for many people, on whether or not global warming is real, but forget about global warming. In Los Angeles there are days when people are advised not to go out because the smog is dangerous. Hello, is that not indication enough of the need to clean up our acts globally?

The fact that people are being warned not to eat fish that come from certain locations because the fish have been proven to have mercury poisoning? Is anyone still arguing that those fish may have been poisoned randomly by non-human means? That it may not be our fault that the ocean is full of nasty minerals and chemicals that weren't there before we came along?

Part of my thoughts for today are being influenced by a long piece I read by Stephen Fry last night about a brangle he got in with an American man who isn't sure he "believes" in global warming. An oilman. It was really a fascinating post and brought up some really good points. If you have three hours to read it, do so, because it's also pretty funny.

The world is changing. It's been changing ever since it came into being. It changes due to many factors, but always with reference to what's going on on it's surface. The dinosaurs used to roam the earth. But they ate through their viability, apparently, and they became the fuel that is currently running our species at top speed towards it's own viability limits. It's kind of ironic actually. The fossilized flesh of another big group of beings is currently propelling human beings ever faster towards their own doom. Or whatever the future holds.

We are all connected. The only way anyone can think that humans have not had a huge hand in the current changes we are seeing on the planet is if they truly believe they live in a vacuum. That there is no connection between them, other people, the surface of the earth, the air they breath, the food they eat, and the relationships they espouse. Everything and everyone are connected. You may not like me (and why would you?) but you and I breath the same air. So if I shit all over your air, I'm shitting all over my own air too.

There's so much hopelessness being felt among those who see clearly what's happening and where humans are headed. Yet, while watching Dark Angel and Firefly, I can't help but see that even though things seem to be deteriorating faster than any of us can fix it all, there is a new kind of possible life emerging. Maybe there's some beauty to what the future holds. For those of us who are learning to make changes at a comfortable pace right now (while there's still time), the future will hold less discomfort and desperation than it will for those who refuse to see what's coming at all. Those people who don't engage in change now will be in an acutely uncomfortable situation when the oil finally runs dry. When living the good life means having some life skills like growing some food of their own, or fixing what's broken, or sewing their own blankets.

I care about people. Even people who obstinately remain blind and disconnected. So it isn't my mission to bash the environmentally blind in the head. Compassion will be called for in the future.

I think it's more important that those of us who see clearly and are trying to make positive change keep at it. Keep developing our scrapping skills. Learn to use what we have and buy less new. Learn to grow more of our own food, while supporting farmers who are farming in a sustainable way. Let us not lose hope. Let us support each other in learning to acquire the skills we'll need to get by as the world continues to change. Somehow, the rest of the world will follow eventually because they will have no choice.

If I have to live in a future that is darker than the present, let it be filled with hot people like Max and Logan who find junk on the heap and turn it into useful tools. If life isn't going to be easy, let it at least be smart and virile like Mad Max's world where every drop of water counts and you don't ask "should we take our private jet to see the show?" because there are no private jets and you will walk across the desert with no water and you will survive because that's what's called for. Maybe my favorite view of the future though is Joss Whedon's view of it in Firefly. Where there is still beauty, there is still camaraderie, people still have good marriages sometimes, and there is humor.

By the way, (in case you were wondering) if I could be any character on Firefly I would be Kaylee. I'd like to be Zoe, obviously, because of her kick-ass fighting skills and her total unquestionable babe-ness, but I would never be able to carry off the leather vest. Let's face it, even when I was a thinner person my rack was never able to impress me. I was always the sidekick to hotter girls, I was the one that most men (besides Philip) overlooked.

Am I complaining? Hell No!! After all, I got Philip.

It's a Mad Max world out there already, we just have to catch up.

*Now-a-days known as tuberculosis.

Food Redefined=Life Redefined

I am late with this post today and I'm not sorry about it. I'm not sure how I ended up there, but I have spent the last two hours reading a blog that many others have been reading for almost a year now: No Impact Man. I'm agitated with excitement just to read what he has to say. He and his wife and baby girl have engaged in a year long project to live a life creating no net impact on the environment. This family lives in a tiny apartment in New York City. The practical terms of their challenge mean that they have no air conditioning, eat only food produced and grown within a 250 mile radius, they produce NO TRASH (buy no products that come in disposable bags or packaging which means no yogurt, no store bought condiments, etc.), and they don't use any transportation that is not self propelled (which means their own feet and bicycling wherever they need to go).

What I'm noticing is that so much of our environmental problems stem from our agricultural practices and anyone wanting to make big change has to come face to face with the question of where they are getting their food, how it is produced, how far it has traveled, and what kind of packages it comes in. You simply cannot get away from it. Consumerism is certainly the broader issue in our culture, but when it comes down to it, some of the most enormous problems come from how we raise beef, and the fact that our culture demands so much beef eating. Beef comes at a great cost to us all. To our land. How we use our land, how we treat it, how we cultivate it, has an incredible impact on our air quality, our food quality, our health.

I can't type fast enough.

Choosing to eat locally will automatically make positive change in both your own life and health, while also making positive change for the environment and your local economy. But mostly it will redefine how you eat and what you eat and more than likely it will improve your diet, rather than make it worse.

There's a message that is beginning to write itself in the air in front of my face from some of the blogs I've been reading, specifically Riana's blog These Days In French Life, and No Impact Man which is that when you turn off the Television, when you unplug your cell phone, when you use your own feet to get places, when you have to prepare almost all your food from scratch and when you only buy used things, when you live a life that takes so much more time to live- you have a lot more time to enjoy your life. Hmm, that is not elegantly said at all.

Riana was just writing recently about how so many people see the life she's living as one of deprivation and drudgery. Her response is that living a slow year has helped her become happier than she's ever been before, to connect with herself, her community, her husband, and it has forced her to slow down. Living life takes time. When you spend your time being resourceful, preparing your food thoughtfully, you no longer have time to waste watching television or chatting on the phone or rushing around trying to save time so you can spend time doing more rushing around. When you slow your life down, your rhythm changes, your focus changes and you no longer have to rush around trying to eek out quality family time because everything you do is quality.

Colin at No Impact Man has essentially the same message. Rather than life getting harder, and sadder, and emptier, it has gotten fuller and healthier and happier. They are more fit because they don't use elevators, cars, buses. They use their bicycles and their feet which means they don't have to try to squeeze time in to get to the gym. They are working out all day long getting from point A to point B and enjoying it. Eating local means their diet gets a little less varied in the winter (he speaks of lots of apples and cabbage on the menu) but it also means that their diet is much healthier and cleaner and when new fruits and vegetables come into season they taste infinitely better not only because they are only eating them when they are in season, but because they haven't tasted a berry for months. It's made all the little details in life become more meaningful.

Amber at Berlin's Whimsy was just recently talking about how discouraging it can be to try to make a difference when every time you do one thing, you find out that there's this other thing you didn't do that is completely negating the positive changes you thought you were making. It's frustrating and it is easy to get discouraged. To lose hope. I think we all have to remember that there is a huge machine out there trying to keep us tied to the great commercial engine that our culture depends on. Or thinks it does. Information is purposely obfuscated by industry in order to confuse us into an apathetic stupor. If we lose hope, industry doesn't change.

Colin says that part of what inspired he and his wife to do this no impact challenge was to see what they could personally do to help make change because waiting for the big industries to make good environmental choices was taking too long. Politicians are taking too long.

I know this is going to sound hokey, and I don't care, but think about this: there are billions of people on this planet. If every single one of us was choosing to live as Colin's family is, or as Riana's family is, Industry would be FORCED to change because they are nothing without us. Without our dollars they will collapse. The power really does always lie with the people in the end. We are the pockets that are truly funding McDonald's and cheap crap from China, we are the ones who are funding poor treatment of animals, we are the ones who are funding oil consumption and war.

I don't think everyone needs to change their entire life immediately. Not all at once. But everyone needs to make change. All of us. No one excluded. If you only make one change this month, you make a positive impact. The minute you get accustomed the change you made, where it becomes easy (because it will become routine), then you challenge yourself to add another change to your life. Make your own yogurt, for example. Or only buy local produce. Or grow a few things on your balcony. Or compost your table scraps. Or buy only used things. Or walk your kid to school every day even if it's half a mile away. Not only will your life begin to improve in quality, your actions will help you feel more hopeful, your actions benefit us all.

I'm not trying to preach at you. I'm just trying to tell you that those "little" things you already do, they matter. Capello of No Appropriate Behavior once commented that eating locally for them was a real challenge* but that they finally stopped buying their favorite imported apples to buy the locally grown ones. She mentioned this as though this tiny little change amounted to nothing. So what I'm saying is: all these little things we do are important and don't belittle yourself for starting someplace. Every single time you buy an apple that was grown by a local farmer is money you spend to support that local farmer. It's gas you have opted not to spend on importing your food. Every single apple counts.

I'm saying that once you've made one little change, it's not that difficult to challenge yourself to another one.

That being said, I must look to myself first. Always look to yourself first. I am so inspired right now by doing my eat local challenge- even though it is a big adjustment. I just bought what may amount to all the produce I will be buying for the next month from Oakhill Organics. Do you know how happy it makes me to have bought 10 stalks of Brussels Sprouts, 6 bunches of chard, 6 bunches of kale, 15 pounds of carrots, 6 heads of garlic, 2 bags of salad (oh man, I am so excited to get salad this week!!!!), 3 heads of cauliflower, and 4 celery roots?

What makes me happy is that every time I make something with that food I see the faces of the people who grew it. Casey and Katie are growing a lot of the food I eat right now. I love being able to talk to the people that grew my food, ask them questions about their practices, and it's great to know that since Casey and Katie know most of the people who buy their food they can gage what their customers want the most, they know what's important to the consumers of their goods. This is how food buying should be.

Here's my next challenge: ride my bike to go grocery shopping. I have to take the scooter out at least once a week to keep the battery charged but I have been using it way more often. Considering how much weight I need to lose, this is the ideal plan. I used to do most of my grocery shopping on my bicycle in Sonoma so it isn't as though I have never done it. I sent Philip out to Winco to get 14 pounds of baking soda for bath bomb making and he bicycled there (at night, in the rain) which made me ask myself why I don't do that more often? Getting my exercise while I get my groceries is total efficiency.

I'm finding inspiration everywhere. Even from my own husband. (I need to tell him that!)

All I need to do is get myself some rain gear. I think I'll check out my local used clothing place first and see if they have any slickers, if they don't maybe I'll just get wet. Getting wet really isn't all that bad.



*I feel it should be mentioned that she also shops her local farmer's market which is such an important thing to do.