Tally

We're heading to visit Helen's parents for Thanksgiving. Should be fun... I'm taking Clean (and vegan) peanut butter truffles.

Also, it's grey out and misery has settled into this invalids poor bones. Yes, I'm being over dramatic. Whatever! I'm so over this.

I could tell you a LOT about teeth right now, if you wanted me too

We just finished up a fun section in Bio Anthropology- living humans, living primates, and the first 50 my of primate evolution. This included some of my favorite topics! Woohoo. Birth processes in primates, diet/nutrition, and phylogenies. I thought anatomical science was a weakness of mine, but I flew through those portions of lab.

The semester's going pretty good. I am at a point now where the pace is alternating between too much and easy. Now it's paper writing time, SERIOUSLY. I am falling WAAAAY behind on my papers.

Oh, but what was I saying? Oh yeah, eating/breathing/sleeping ANT. Things got sort of strange when I was wandering around holding my notebooks and murmuring things like "Is it Y-5 or Plus-5?" and living on loads of coffee, (mostly) unprocessed food, and promises to pay the piper.

When things get crazy I remind myself that it's all for a purpose.

But I don't want to get lost in the shuffle of bilophodont molars and plesiadapids and all the other great stuff. I'm still here. I am in here. (sorry, a Hal Incandenza moment, COULD NOT help myself)


One of my best friends, Michelle, had a baby girl last week- Lorelei Maestas.
I can't wait to see her- need to search airfare asap.

My friend Teresa is moving to CA. I'm missing her already, and jealous, and wistful, and optimistic.

Cora lost her first upper incisor. My baby is honestly growing up.

Amy and I are still talking gardens, and honestly, she's doing a lot more gardening than I. I miss it, but those freakin squirrels cut me to the quick with my watermelons and now I'm afraid to commit! I started easing back in by resuming my compost habits last week, but I really have a gripe about leaves in there. This might be the downside to low tech composting. Are the decomposing oak leaves bad? neutral? ok? HELP!!!

But regardless of my compost woes, I'm excited about the community organic garden, and our first event. More on that later ;)

Geez! You know I love you. (just not as much as I love anthropology)

So, I guess I left you hanging. For all you know, I was eaten by bears or decided to stay in NC or whatever.

Well, I'm back, I've just been busy. I DO have all As though (in the 2nd best Anthro Dept in the nation) and 2 of them are OVER A HUNDRED PERCENT. Yeah! That's what I mean when I say I'm going to school to kick ass.

SO I guess I need to post more about the trip (which was freaking amazing!!!). Right now I have to go catch up on reading for archaeology (tomorrow's morning class) and hopefully get my lab homework done. I'm analyzing the fossils of euprimates (fun!)... I would have had it done last night but H wanted to watch Kill Bill in the dark and I let homework go by the wayside for a few hours. I'm pretty easily convinced to take a break.

But I know that for any measure of fun and relaxation I take, I have to pay the piper :-\ and I'm off to do just that.

I will add though that this weekend I was productive in prepping clean foods for the week to keep me on track (nutritionally and financially). I made spaghetti squash spaghetti w/ a completely from scratch red sauce, a pot of chickpeas with garlic, onions, and peppers, a veggie chili with kidney beans, sauteed and diced 2 chicken breasts, steamed Asian veggies and sauteed some garlic-ginger tofu, and started a big container of ceviche.

I am so tired of my kitchen right now :p

Up to my ears

At least it's anthropology and not recycling that's piled up around here!! (took the recycling to the drop off center yesterday)

Here's the update:

Archaeology- not too challenging so far. Easy in fact. I know a lot of this stuff already. I've been asking pertinent questions about the lecture material in class and Dr. Roos appears to know me and says hi when we see each other in the halls.

Bio Ant- well... I have a 100% so far on quizzes and 2 extra credit points added to the final total. Whew. John Trainor's personal research is of particular interest to me, especially now that I am eating (somewhat) differently; human diet and evolution.

Bio Ant Lab- My prof for this is such a sweetie, but she's a VERY ditzy one. The manual we're using isn't that great, but it's interesting. I just wish I had more of a bio background.

Methods- Prof is rather vauge and undetermined to influence our decisions, seems to be wanting to be accepting of whatever choices we make and uninvolved at the same time. The general consensus among the students is one of fear and insecurity re: lack of parameters for the big ethnographic projects we'll be pumping out. I met with him today and he was rather helpful (considering his in-class attitude), so I feel somewhat better about mine...

Linguistics- Dr. Smid thrilled me today when she tied primatology into the lesson. Love that a) it all comes full-circle in Anthro and, b) Everyone I'm surrounded by ALL WEEK LONG is passionate about the stuff that I'm passionate about.




So on a very different note- still prepping for the trip to NC. B brought over the pack I'll be using so I can start planning and weighing my gear.

I've been working out as usual, but started amping things up about a month ago, even before I decided to hike the Art Loeb Trail. I'm still doing a full body weights routine rather than splitting up the lower/upper stuff like some (most??) people do. I've gone up about 15% all around in how much I'm lifting, too. Still Eating Clean too, minus a single beer yesterday at a Labor Day BBQ and minus a Subway sandwich- chicken and veggies on wheat bread, no mayo, today (forgot my food at home, doh!). The bread or chicken is giving me a bit of a stomach ache though. I haven't had bread in... oh I don't know, 2 months?? Ugh. No more.

Anyways, I do expect to find that my bf % has dropped when Megan evaluates me this week... I'm pretty excited to see where I'm at, but also pretty nervous.


I'm naturally concerned about food during the trip. I know how much protein I need for my active life (between 10 and 20 grams per meal, 5-6 meals a day) and I know I need lots of good carbs. But they HAVE to be lightweight and shelf stable too. Hmmm...

Hellooo there. Remember me?

This past week was really great and challenging...

- At the last minute before school started back up, I rearranged my bedroom, hung a white paper globe lantern, put together a bookshelf from Ikea (Yep, Justin, I ended up getting something particle board after all. Sheesh). Carried a sofa downstairs BY MYSELF and got everything 100% nice and tidy up there. If you know me, you know what a feat of heroic proportions this must have been.

- I prepared lots of Clean food, packed them in little containers (some frozen, some just refrigerated) before the week started so I could go back to school with a fully automated morning routine. Grab and go. Delicious.


- Monday morning Archaeology class was cool, and my prof looks JUST LIKE JOHNNY DEPP. It's a full class (50 students?), and lots of anthro majors in there. Many of them seem to be getting into archaeology too. Awesome to have the chance to spend time with people who share my passions.

- Parking at USF is an all out nightmare, even though I paid nearly $200 for the privilege.

- The drive there from here seems to take about an hour or so in the mornings. Parking there takes about 40 minutes. Coming home takes 40-45 minutes.


- Tuesday I had tea with B.W. in Tampa. We're going to meet up for Scrabble sometime in the next couple of weeks. He's studying for the GRE and promised to give me a run for my money.

- After that, was Methods in Cultural Research, BioAnt, and Anthro Linguistics (all Tues/Thurs classes). All of them completely magical in their own ways. Going to be a lot of reading though, upwards of 12 hours per week outside of class.

- Wednesday: Archaeology, then BioAnt Lab

- I hit up the yoga class on campus after Linguistics yesterday (Thurs) and it was awesome. Very challenging and just what I needed after being cooped up in the driver's seat all week. Then Charles, Amy, and Aves came over to my house and we drank wine, celebrated Charles' new United Nations job, and just enjoyed being together!

a few days away from all out insanity? nahhhh

"Everything will be ok, everything will be fine..." I chanted to myself as I lay huddled on the floor between the kitchen and living room.

My kids were playing upstairs, I could hear them, so I let myself just wallow for a bit, not wanting them to see me upset and knowing they would make plenty of noise coming down the stairs. At least the "everything will be ok" motivational speech was an improvement. Minutes before I was crying out that I just couldn't take it anymore.

"It" being the constant cooking and cleaning (and scrubbing, on hands and knees), over and over, with no appreciation.

First, I was making lunch. Fresh fish. My mom's recipe for red snapper; a tomato, onion, and garlic sauce. The kids had just informed me that they weren't going to eat fish (even though at the grocery store, 24 hours earlier, I asked them if they wanted some fish this week and they said YES) and then they ran upstairs to play, when I splattered red sauce all over my brand new white wrap style blouse. And then, I took to the floor, fetal-style.

Once I got up there was a blur of activity. Helen and I nearly ripped the shirt off of me as I poured ginger ale on it, and then I got out some of the spray-on stuff she has around that is miraculously formulated.

White blouse was saved.

But what about my mental health? Seriously. I'm in a bind here.

This is the situation- I have been eating mostly clean un-processed foods with the exception of some beer and a tortilla at Brian's house a few weeks ago, and a little Greek dressing on a salad I had at Ikea yesterday (origin of the dressing unknown). And this kind of eating takes more work than eating just whatever. And I honestly need to eat every 3 hours.

Planning, shopping, washing prep stuff, etc. Now, with school starting again, I have to really be on the ball, but time will be a big factor.

Now, I love my roommate, you know that. She is as important to me as my own family. And I want what's best for her, and I'd love it if she cut out fast and highly processed foods... but she's not capable of doing it for herself and I just can't do it all! I can't do all the shopping and cooking and cleaning for both of us to eat clean, and I feel terribly guilty to do it just for myself... that seems so selfish.

So I don't know what to do. Can I just lay on the floor and moan a bit more? Can I have a snack? I'm starving already.

Layin' Low

I've been getting things in order here, waiting for the (inevitable?) maelstrom that comes with a full time and then some course load.

Did I tell you that GPAs start anew when you transfer in to USF? I know!!!

I can have a 4.0 :D

I applied for a pretty decent sounding job today, but if I get it, I'll have to drop down to full time status, instead of full time plus. Which is fine. Whatever. If I get it, cool. If not, hopefully the person who does needs it more than I do.


But I'm just at home alone today, listening to music, cleaning, menu planning (healthy eating doesn't just HAPPEN. you have to make it work), and still more cleaning. No gym today. Bike ride, instead...

um, wow, so I really neglected you guys

Here's what's new:


I'm eating only really healthy unprocessed foods all of the time now, and by all the time I mean every 3 hours.

I'm leaving for Pensacola in the morning, looong drive.

I finished IJ last week.

And I'm in love with RJD2 right now, look him up on Pandora if you've got a minute to spare.

a personal victory, ordinary run of the mill moments of clarity, & a startling IJ revelatory moment

This morning, I jumped out of bed (ok, what really happened was that I cheerily responded "Hello!" to a text that woke me up instead of the more typical "argh. do I know you?" See why for me that constitutes jumping out of bed?)ready to face my day and head to the beach.

I put on my bathing suit and checked my midrange sideways view in the small mirror of my jewelery box... and... kinda flattish tummy area. I mean, not flat flat. Not like before kids. Not like Matt V's prescribed "rock star lean abs" but people- in the past few weeks alone I have enjoyed cake and milk, several pints of beer and a hot dog, a sushi feast, more beer, ice cream with Reese's peanut butter cups smashed in for good measure, and arepas with cheese. [I also have had countless meals made solely of vegetable matter and have stopped using cream/sugar. I've worked pretty hard, in spite of the stuff I listed above (hitting the gym, riding my bike, and so on), so I guess I shouldn't be so surprised, it was just a startling moment.]

In that tiny little mirror, for about an hour, I just didn't look completely pregnant. And then I had an apple for breakfast.


Also- moment of clarity for me: I don't know how to flirt anymore. Uhhh. Ok, now what? Dang.


Thirdly, for the IJ readers out there: I read a DFW quote yesterday re: the use of endnotes vs footnotes. He and his editor needed a way to shorten the original draft of the book so they hit upon the idea of weeding out some information into notes. The editor thought it would be more reader-friendly to use footnotes instead of endnotes but DFW said that the use of endnotes "cutely mimics some of the story’s thematic concerns"...

In case you don't follow, what happens when you flip to the back and then back to your page and then back to the back and then back to your page? What are you reminded of? (Answer is a good tennis rally)

Then I was ruminating on how the whole narrative seems to be a tennis rally of sorts, bouncing balls off of different topics and they keep on coming with a sick speed. And then, like that, I knew what those orbs are in the book, marking various sections... And it was so obvious (not the moon or the sun or simply just a pretty, lightly shaded circle). They are tennis balls, flying through the book. Fwap. fwap. fwap. fwap.

wrestling with myself (just skip this post, it's lame)

-Working on my class plans and also avoiding finishing them. I'm terrified of rejection because the job isn't officially mine yet (nothing's official till there's a check in hand), but the orientation gave me a really good sense that it IS mine. Tricky rock/hard place kind of paradox here. Feel like I HAVE the job, so I'm less motivated to win it. Fear that I haven't got a chance, so I'm afraid to hear the final verdict.


-Had coffee and a free Rays donut for "breakfast" today because I've been eating so healthily otherwise (minus some carrot cake the other night, but I seriously couldn't say no to that). And the donut produced a nearly instant stomachache! Turns out you can't go healthy and then have a donut in the morning. Cake at night is fine, apparently, but the morning is not?



At least my kids are happy. They're sewing at the kitchen table and got to go to the movie theater for free today (wherein they ate the free donuts mentioned above).

I don't know if you read those links

The one's I have posted to the right? Well, one of my friends wrote a post late last night that helped me somewhat today. OK granted I am terribly low today, but it helped by bringing me back from extreme otherworldly dark lowness to a more corporeal ordinary broken-life low which seems like an improvement, except this for some reason hurts more.

For the record, nothing awful is going on in my life, besides being so low- in fact I had a killer day yesterday all around; I had a nice breakfast, played tennis with my mom, went out for tea with her, hung out w/ John in the afternoon, watched a funny movie/drank wine with Helen, and enjoyed a really good homemade soup. I even have a an exciting job prospect on the horizon.


Anyways, B's post about camping/trail riding says that sure there are unexpected miserable parts (forgotten gear, inclement weather, mosquitoes), but they help to create the stories you'll tell your friends later, when you come back. And he says life is like that.


So here's to the uncomfortable, unplanned, undesirable, mosquito bite ridden, miserably low days.

I know I just posted my thoughts on Infinite Jest,,,

I couldn't decide if that should be followed by "but" or "so".

I know I just posted my thoughts on Infinite Jest, BUT I did a lot more reading and I have some thoughts and questions.

1) I felt funny about the chronology; years are labelled in a strange way (for example, The Year of the Trial Sized Dove Bar) and I wasn't sure WHEN things were happening. It was getting disorienting. I decided to trust Wallace as I had been instructed to, and when I got to endnote #24 it had worked itself out. Because Endnote #24 sort of lays out the (INSANELY LONG) chronology of James Incandenza's film-making history and uses the weird year labels.

2) Endnote #39, part a is freaking hilarious. Ha! "Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents, a.k.a. Wheelchair Assassins, pretty much Quebec's most dreaded [...] terrorist cell".


3) The similarities between IJ and The Royal Tenenbaums seems to be coincidental.

I will tell you about other things, too.

1) I'm still mostly eating crazy-healthy. I have re-introduced more variety, but still being pretty restrictive for the sake of getting fit and I think (fingers crossed) I'm making some progress. For fuck's sake, I hope I'm making progress.

2) One of the two hens got out when Conner was putting fresh water inside the coop the other day (or so I hear) and Sugar chased the poor thing for hours. It hid under Harry's house for the night and hasn't laid an egg since the ordeal.

3) Sewing a LOT. A lot of diaper covers. Hey- need any diaper covers??

Henny Penny, and her compadre

Two important things you needed to see:





Hens




& How we do bathtubs in Colorado

So...who else is doing the Infinite Summer? you there, in the back?

I want so much to discuss the first couple of parts of Infinite Jest w/ someone! Instead, I'll have to satisfy myself with telling you my own personal news:

So, I have a date on Sunday with this guy who's smart, funny, etc and it turns out he also Colombian. Wow, cool, I thought.

Turns out he was in my middle school gifted class w/ Mrs. Silos. Ha! Last night we reminisced: Remember when we had to memorized that poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley?? Remember when we mummified that chicken??? Haha!

Ans speaking of chickens... I secured 2 free range laying hens and a chicken coop for my kids today. For free. Just like that! Someone needed to get rid of them by Thursday.

Sweeeet. I love free stuff, even better when it's delicious free stuff.

stark raving mad, and still writing complete BS but nobody's reading anyways so who g.a.f.??

So I ate like a loon for 4 days (heh, pun, like it??), subsisting on lemon juice and vegetable broth and stuff like that, and then I had a couple of days where I eased back in grains (whole oats, mmmmmm) and corn.

I had some eggs last night, with spinach and cheese. That concluded the easing back in to normal phase, I think.

Had a *bite* of the kids' whole wheat bagel w/ cream cheese today, too. And some of the homemade blueberry pie I waxed poetically about the other day.


That concludes that shitty part of this blog post. Really.

Now on to the totally inane: I think I am going to flake out on quitting men like I flaked out on fasting and "finding myself". I don't know, it sounds like a good idea, but really... I don't know. This is tougher than I wagered it would be. It's not just quitting men in actuality, to COUNT they have to be completely out of my thoughts as well.

the kind of blog post I said I'd never write

So, I've been absent from my blog. Part of it, I guess is that I've been using twitter, which makes me feel lazzzzy for large-scale blogging.

And I'm in a bit of a funk. This is the very tail end of day 4 (really?) of an all produce diet I'm trying. It's possibly the ease-in-phase for a fast (a la cousin Alicia), but it's possible that I'll just go back to my normal healthy-ish ways and give up the extremity soon.

It's hard to say. I'm having a hard time remembering WHY I started down this path some of the time, and other moments it's fine. No extreme hunger yet. Just some moping over the unnecessarily odoriferous homemade blueberry pie in my fridge that I can't even sniff at lest I devour it, and the containers of fresh baked brownie that are stored behind cabinet doors now, because they mocked me all fucking afternoon. Thanks for bringing those brownies by, Sam.

So instead of my normal fare (lots of protein, whole grains, veggies, supplemented by plenty of junk like bagels, brownies, and chicken wings), I am eating produce. Only produce.

I started off doing just raw stuff but a certain craving hit and I needed hot veggies, so I went ahead and changed the parameters for myself.

And, so far so good. I guess. I mean, I guess the GOAL is to deconstruct reality and rebuild it. I have to unravel in order to reravel, etc etc so I guess going nuts is the desired effect?? I want to "clear my mind" and spend this time NOT eating "figuring myself out". Oh yeah, and resetting my palate.


And I'm not just off meat/diary (and in the next couple of days, all food in general)... I'm off men for a good while too. I think I need to figure a lot of things out.

So, Atlanta is always this healthy??

Last night was the Decemberists show at the tabernacle, and I will write a whole post for that when I get a chance, but I just wanted to say that I am kind of reeling.

I tend to consider myself a pretty healthy person (except when I get in a writer's funk and start binging on alcohol, coffee, and barracuda) but seriously:


Breakfast today was an apple.

For lunch, I sauteed 2 eggs w/ bok choy, a small handful of mushrooms, and red pepper flakes. Served with whole wheat flatbread.

Snack- some raw oats.


I love whole food, why don't I grocery shop like this for my house? The night before I left for Atlanta I had 2 burritos, some donuts, and a few glasses of wine for "dinner".

I could win THAT challenge

Is there or is there not some kind of chickpea eating contest out there? I really think I'd have a shot. Oh, not quantity, sorry; I mean constancy. I could probably eat them everyday for, I don't know, 2 months? forever?


Anyways, that has nothing to do with this but I am watching a movie that Drew left with me a year and a half ago. Remember that guy, Drew, that I dated? He was the friend of one of Cassie's friends. He said, "Oh, watch this (The 40 Year Old Virgin), it's really funny!" and I couldn't bear to, for all this time.

But it took watching 'I Love You, Man' (with Jason Segal and Paul Rudd) last night to make me google Paul Rudd (because he looks JUST LIKE my future colleague, Krebs) to see what else he'd been in. And apparently he's in this movie that's been sitting on my bookshelf for almost 2 years.

And that has very little to do with this, except it's hilarious, too.

and because comfort reading tends to be done with a snack in tow...

I'm also re-committing myself to getting back to the gym and in better shape.

Not that I've gained a ton of weight or anything, maybe just a few pounds in the past month or so, but I feel like improving my cardiovascular health has been on the back burner. And I don't see the same muscular definition that i saw a few months ago. I guess this means no more afternoon chocolate bars? No more late night snacks when I'm already full? No more carb laden breakfasts?

the berry-eaters

Dover, FL, was a success today. Mission accomplished. I'm tired, dirty, and daydreaming of how in touch with my humanity I would feel living on a farm!

In case you've never been "you-pick" berry picking, the story is that organic farmers hire field hands when their season starts. Those choice berries go to markets all over the place and then they open for "you-pick" when the general public can come in and get berries dirt cheap.

It's not easy work, since it's so hot and sunny and many of the remaining berries are small, buggy, dry, or still under ripe. But amid all of the duds are more good ones! Anthropologically, this is fascinating to me. The kids and I wandered the field and let ourselves be drawn to the right spots. My method is to let my vision blur a little as I walk and when RED and SHINY catches my eye, I drift over and focus a bit.

The sun heats the berries, which burst sweetly between your teeth. Gnats and small black ants are our cousins in the field, searching from row to row. The biggest ones seem to hide in the center of the plant, but the most flavorful ones are the ones that extend from the plant and are roasting in the afternoon light.

The berries continue to ripen throughout the season, so if I was to go next weekend, there'd be a whole new set of berries to pick. But, as it is, I have my work cut out for me... it's time to make my ruby-red preserves.