don't think of it as a diet...

...think of it as a newfound enthusiasm for tapas-style dining, that international food craze for "small plates" that's taken the world by storm!

---

In other news, I learned about my Chinese horoscope. I am a brown rabbit. I don't know what that means. But apparently, the unluckiest time in my life was ages 3-12. That seems about right. So, whew, that's over with--good news.

More good news: I got married at a lucky time, which will give me a long good marriage. The bad news: I won't be that lucky again til I'm 73.

Behind me there are two women and a baby. The baby is fussing a bit and the mother keeps saying the most irritating things.

"Normally she's such a GOOD baby, she doesn't whine like this at ALL."

"You're no fun today, you're no fun at all. And that's your only job as my baby, to be FUN. You hear? You're supposed to be FUN."

"Where's my perfect little angel? What have you done with her? Hmmmm? Where is she?"

"This is just no fun at all."

"When she's anything short of perfect I'm always asking her, 'Why aren't you perfect?'" (Turns to baby) "Why aren't you? Why aren't you?" *kissing sound* "Hmmmm? Why?"

more on the dead 'possum

[Really disgusting post—you have been warned]

Regarding the possum that Loopy posted about...there's more to the story of course.

Snog was very proud of himself for killing the possum at his advanced age and he strutted around like a big macho stud. Of course I made him leave it, shut the dogs in the house and went to dispose of it with the snow shovel.

(Note: Loopy claims to be the man but I'm the one who operates the power drill and disposes of dead animals and live insects. Of course, I don't believe in someone being the man. I'm just sayin'.)

So the first time I dumped him in the woods the crows dragged him right out into the middle of the driveway. The next day after Loopy headed out to work, I got a plaintive call: "Loooooopyyyyy, the possum's lying in the middle of the driveway and he's LOOKING at me!" She made me promise to get rid of him before she came home that night.

So back I went with the snow shovel--fyi, animals are harder and harder to snow-shovel as they become less and less, uh, physically coherent. So all I could do was kind of shove/roll him out of the driveway and into the leaves.

So then as she described, he was removed from the leaves and spread out on the stump—Loopy mentioned crows but I'm pretty sure it's a crow/raccoon team effort. Ugh.

But I'm not going to shovel him anywhere now because (1) he is DEFINITELY not coherent enough and (2) I don't even want to know how he smells and (3) I'm sort of fascinated by the disintegration/dissassembly process... specifically, all that's left now is some bones, some scraps, and the whole head and the tail.

Specifically, the tail.

Nobody wants to eat the tail, even though it's thick and meaty looking.

I wonder why. I mean, we think the possum tail is gross, but then we think the whole thing is gross. So what's stopping the crows and raccoons and such?

Just wondering.

update

"Five steps forward, five steps back. Five steps forward, four-and-a-half steps back."

That's a quote from one of my Buddhist tapes.

So I didn't solve all my problems last week. So sue me.

Rats.

In other news, here's the latest and greatest from CuteOverload.com:

spring flowers

see, procrastination is good for something....


helleborus



bluebell


click on either flower to see a larger size (particularly worthwhile with the bottom one; at the large size you can see the pollen all over the stamens!) or check out my "nature" set.

compassion muscles (not to be confused with love muscles, that's a whole 'nother thing)

Tonight Miriam pointed out to me that compassion is not just the absence of hurting myself, or the silence of the self-abusive voice in my head.

Compassion is actually a thing I do (anyone does). It's a thing in itself. It's a process, an activity, an action. It's opposite to self-abuse not because it's passive instead of active, but because it's an opposing activity.

I think of it too much as NOT doing things. But when I catch and stop the nasty commentary in my head, when I notice my muscles all clenched and relax them, or when I make dinner for myself instead of eating candy, it's not just a cessation of cruelty, I'm actually enacting compassion.

Somehow this is really useful, helps inspire me to (as Miriam said) "exercise the compassion muscles." When I exercise them they get stronger, and then they can carry me through things that were once too difficult.

Just like the muscles in my back that I've trained to carry me through shocks and strains that once would have me lying on ice for a week.

It really does get better. Slowly slowly. Having others around point out to me what I can do now that I wasn't doing before, is helpful. I'm grateful to all of you who help me in this way. Thank you.

Loopy-OLIF dialogue

That's "Our Little Italian Friend," our therapist, for those of you who haven't been reading lately

OLIF: So, percentage-wise, how much work would you say you've gotten done?

Me: Oh, uh....hmmmm.... I guess maybe.... twenty-five percent.

OLIF: Left?

Me: Done.

OLIF: (super-enthusiastically) Goooooooood!

Me: (starts laughing hysterically)

OLIF: I thought I recouped pretty well there.

Me: (still laughing) Yeah... almost.

all kinds of good news

So, I figured out why I was stuck.

Seriously. I did.

And now I'm getting a lot of work done. And it all seems pretty simple and I'm just tootling along and even starting to feel a glimmer of something like confidence.

No, I'm not shitting you.

Although I give credit to Our Little Italian Friend for a lot, this one is pretty much thanks to the meditation and related CD's I've been listening to, and a timely intervention from Loopy.

So here's the story.

I have observed that I seemed to compulsively hurt myself, all the time.

(This is the part that's thanks to meditation. It helps you stay present with your feelings and also to see your own mind. So I began to actually feel the pain I was inflicting on myself, and also to see myself doing the inflicting.)

Not that I was doing anything dramatic like slicing myself with razors or any TV-movie-of-the-week kind of thing.

But I was continually doing all kinds of littler things that added up to ongoing misery—from stripping away all my sources of self-esteem and confidence, to clenching up all my muscles until they ache, to making Loopy angry, or distancing myself from her and my friends.

I've been watching this for a while without being able to figure out WHY I was doing this. I'm sure I've posted about it more than once.

So last Saturday I tortured myself into a state of misery and hopeless despair and cried all the way to bowling (that's a whole 'nother post!—the bowling not the crying).

On the way home in the car, Loopy made some useful suggestions about how I could stop this compulsive self-abuse. I immediately told her why they wouldn't work. She observed that I didn't want to stop. I protested, but could see that she was right.

So I delved more into the tougher question: why don't I want to stop? What do I get out of this?

The only thing I could see myself getting out of it was self-pity.

But that triggered a connection to something else I've been thinking about lately (also as a result of the meditation CDs): how many compulsions and addictions are about getting some kind of pale substitute for something you profoundly need. Since it's just a pale substitute, it doesn't meet the need, but it seems like it might—if only you could get a little more.

I've been thinking about this particularly in relation to kids getting so attached to their IM'ing, their cell phones, all these things that are sort of like human connection but really aren't.

So when I thought about the self-pity, I could see that I could be addicted to it because it's a pale substitue for feeling loved—by myself and by other people.

As I delved into it it was totally clear that that was it.

Well, my meditation CD's have also been teaching me how to give myself real love and compassion. And, I'm extremely lucky to have real, living humans in my life who really do love me (thank you, you know who you are)(and hopefully I know who you are!).

So as soon as I saw this, it was actually simple—simple! think of that—to see that I didn't need the pale substitute, I have the real thing.

It's like I was wrapping myself in a dirty threadbare blanket when I have a big fluffy comforter right in the cupboard.

And that was it.

I came unstuck.

I still have to breathe, I still have to stay mindful, I still have to catch myself as I start to hurt myself and say—hey, you don't have to do that, you don't need that yucky blanket, remember the fluffy comforter?

Today I felt like I still needed something else, one more little push. So I called a dear friend and talked for forty minutes. Not about my problems, but about anything, just to connect with another person I love.

And then I was satisfied. Wrapped in that big fluffy comforter, I went to work for three hours without any trouble at all.

AT ALL.

---

In other good news: I finished all the work for one of my incompletes—the biggest one with the most work—and sent it all off. (This was all work I slogged through over the past couple months in a continuous uphill battle against the self-abuse stuff). Monday the prof emailed me and said she'd look through it and could I contact her by the end of the week to set up a time to talk next week. Yay!!!

I emailed two other profs in whose courses I have incompletes that have lapsed to F's. Both agreed to change the grade back into an incomplete long enough for me to have transcripts sent out with my job applications, and to read the papers when I finish them (one is already half-done) so I can get a grade in the courses. THAT was a huge relief. I was half afraid I'd have to go to another school and start all over. Yay!!!

I finished three and a half assignments for my correspondance course. (You can only send in four a week.) These are between seven and ten pages each, and I've mostly finished them since my big revelation this weekend (despite spending Sunday and Monday engaged in political activities). It's amazing how much faster I can work when I'm not working against myself. I'm savoring walking past those fat envelopes in the front hall. Yay!!!!

Now I'm gonna go eat dinner, with that wonderful feeling that I've accomplished plenty for one day and I can cheerfully goof off for the rest of the evening. I felt that a little bit last night. Tonight I feel it confidently. I haven't felt this way in years.

I can't even convey to you how it feels to have this incredible weight lifting from my shoulders.

I know there will be relapses, steps backward, lots of habits to change, more mountains to climb, etc., but now I know the deep dark secret, I hope the going will get a little easier.

Hope. That's another thing I haven't felt in a long time. :)

Time for dinner! Yay!!!!

¡Todos a la calle! - March for Immigrants' Rights

In case you didn't figure it out, the white girl in the photo at right is me

WOW! What a day! Ten thousand people in the streets of Madison—usually that doesn't happen unless there's a football game or block party with free beer. (Madison's total population is 200,000). The weather even cooperated—it was just gorgeous, not too hot, not too cold.

I was glad to see so many different nationalities represented, including plenty of non-Latinos. The organizing committee (Comité 10 de Abril) did a fantastic job getting everyone out. I heard that four busses came from Whitewater (a small town)!

We even had a surprisingly positive response from people driving past in cars and otherwise observing/passing by. The best reaction was from a group of (mostly white, from what you could see at a distance) construction workers, who were banging their helmets on a scaffolding—playing percussion to the chants—and cheering!

When we all reached the capitol square and crowded into it, and everyone was chanting "sí se puede," the noise was so thunderous that it echoed off the buildings in a huge crescendo. It gave me shivers!

It was really a wonderful day and I was honored to be a part of it.

One man looked at my pale face and said "thank you for coming, thank you for your support." I understood what he meant, but I thought about that for a while. I didn't feel I was there only to support him and his family etc.—I also felt I was speaking up for what kind of society I want to live in. This isn't about him, only, it's about all of us.

Another way to look at it: someone said the same thing to my friend D, who is US-born white & Jewish but lived in Nicaragua for years, married to a Nicaraguan man with two Nicaraguan children. She isn't just supporting other people's families, either. This really is about all of us.

This photo (yes, that's me! yes, I obviously know my picture is being taken!) was taken by K.E. Walsh and can be found at Madison Indymedia and at this web page.

Here are my other faves of Walsh's pix—visit my Flickr site for larger versions and some more info. (You'll notice that substantially the same text as above is posted with the same photo on the Flickr site. So sue me.)

"¡No soy terrorista—tampoco criminal!"	A group of over a hundred students from a nearby high school joins the main march

blame the chicken

persons with my predisposition toward worry and obsession should just not buy raw chicken. that is my conclusion.

i had kind of an unpleasant day for a lot of reasons. didn't get work done. had a flashback while doing my walking meditation. felt lonely.

i'm practicing staying with my feelings, breathing through them (you know, like lamaze, except all the friggin' time).

so far, that has not magically made everything better. but then, nobody promised that it would. the idea is mostly to stop making things worse.

so among the things i did today instead of working was grocery shopping.

when i got home with the raw chicken (the co-op didn't seem to have any frozen) i wondered what to do with it—it seemed i remembered Loopy doing something complicated.

i googled "how to freeze chicken."

long story short, i stopped breathing through my feelings somewhere during the chicken processing process.

first i messed up the entire kitchen and used up all the paper towels. then i cleaned obsessively and washed my hands about five billion times.

i'm still certain that i've contaminated everything and that the whole place is crawling with poisonous germs.

bring home some clorox, kay Loopy?

serious backlog

Lots to report on........way behind.

Let's see.

my birthday

(...which was what, almost six weeks ago now...(rolling my eyes)...)

...was wonderful.

I took the bus down to Chicago and Loopy had a surprise for me... dinner at a hipster sushi place... fun & yummy...if a little too hip, or did I mention that.

Then we returned to the apartment where I found... a kitchen table full of presents! Yay! Lots of lovely smelly things from LUSH and all sorts of other items I had wanted, only better than I had imagined. Perfect.

Then the next day, my actual birthday, we went to the DuSable Museum of African American History—we had wanted to go for some time & my bday seemed a good occasion.

There was a decent section on Africa, where I learned quite a bit; the rest was full of all kinds of interesting things, but somewhat inconsistently labeled and curated (looks like it lacks money, surprise surprise).

The most thorough and clearly-labeled section was a good-sized room devoted to Ms. Annie Turnbo Malone (1869-1957), an early-twentieth-century entrepreneur who created a multi-million-dollar corporate empire selling beauty products. That was interesting (I especially enjoyed the 1920's advertisements, with their engraved illustrations of "Famous Black Beauties of History," including the Queen of Sheba and Casseopaeia), and it certainly epitomized its time period beautifully.

And yet...I couldn't help wishing that there had been as much attention given to the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam, for example—there was only about five feet of wall space for both of them together, and they were tucked way back in a corner.

It was kind of a disappointment, because Chicago is so important in Black history—it should have a really top-drawer museum thereof.

Well, it looks like they're working on it all the time, so maybe it will get there. All in all it was a fun expotition (nother nod to Pooh) and I am glad to have seen it... I picked up a couple of posters and a CD—happy birthday to me, and contribution (a small one!) to the museum.

After lunch we went to the aquarium, which I'm going to talk about more under Amy's visit so I won't now.

And for dinner, to Salpicón! where we thoroughly enjoyed the chef's seven-course tasting menu (still can't get over the price—absolutely fantastic, delicious, fashionable cuisine—yet, seven courses for sixty dollars! Toto, I don't think we're in New York City anymore!) and some lovely wine as well. It was a perfect evening.

Patty & Fred visit

The next day we met up with Rebekah's sister and brother-in-law to wander around a massive RV Show (where Fred had to go on business). That was really a hoot.

We went into all these different RV's—who knew there was such a variety of options and prices? Everything from the tiny little pop-up trailer....to the luxurious cruiser with a roof deck with built-in grill & mini-bar. Un-&#$%ing-believable. And some of them even got decent gas mileage! (Not the one with the roof deck, though). I always love all the little space-saving things that pop out of the wall and so on.

Finished it up with a massive dinner (which in turn was finished up with a slice of carrot cake bigger than my head!) and back to their hotel room to watch a pay-per-view movie...

I accidentally ordered a movie while trying to see a preview, so we watched Yours, Mine & Ours, which, lucky for us, was actually quite enjoyable. ("That's your best screw-up this year," Patty told me after it was over... uh... yeah... thanks sis).

The next day we went to the Water Tower Mall in the morning, where Patty bought me two blouses from J.Jill (yay! thanks Patty!); then we hit my favorite Italian place, Papa Milano's, for lunch. Patty & I split the lasagna-the-size-of-a-cinderblock, which, turns out, was just perfect.

Then I hitched a ride with E, Loopy's roommate, back to Madison for a meeting I had to attend on Sunday...

...and thus endethed the best birthday week ever. Seriously. The absolute best. Heartfelt gratitude to Loopy (and the outlaws) for making it so.

*sigh* I was gonna post about Amy's visit, and about how we met my little cousin-once-removed and his mom for the first time... but Amy's visit has a buncha pictures to go with it, and it's already ten pm so I should really go to bed.

BUT...

some good news

Sunday night I finished all the major work for my most important and most incomplete class—when it ended in Dec. 2004, I had done NONE of the work. And now I've done it all except for this piddly little 1-page report thing. Yay for me!

That felt like the biggest obstacle, although more remain. It is a huge load off my, uh, load. Whew.

It was painful (literally, because I tied myself in knots with anxiety) and I had to talk to my therapist three times in the final 24 hours. (Hopefully that will not continue, both because it's totally insane and because who wants to pay for it? Yeesh.)

But. Yeah. A little bit of progress, a little bit of sunshine, a little crack in the cloudy gloom.

A little.

I was supposed to work more today and I didn't. And now I'm depressed, because when I'm supposed to work and I don't, I get depressed. I'll try to just go to sleep and get up and work tomorrow. Yeah. That's the ticket.

Oh and another little piece of happy: Saturday I had a blast taking a wonderful photography class from my (our) dear friend Miri. If you so desire you can read all about it and see the strange photos on my Flickr site...

Th-th-th-th-that's not all, folks, but it's all I have energy for tonight.

we interrupt this blog for...

an update from birdfarm:

1. the Phoebe has returned to her nest in the carport
2. snowdrops have bloomed
3. ditto with bluebells

which leads us to surmise that Spring is approaching our woodlands and even though the grass still looks like crap, we will be mowing happily (or not so happily) in a matter of weeks.

love,
loopy/sep/guest blogger