Cleansing, later that day: "The horror!!"

At some point during the afternoon of the cleanse, after I'd bolted the "salad in a glass," my stomach started to feel profoundly empty. My head started to hurt, and I got tired. I decided to nap; as I was also dogsitting at my parents' house during the cleanse, I had slept in a bed with a golden retriever, a springer spaniel mix, and my miniature wiener dog. I'm used to my 12-pound dog, but adding those other two big-uns really jacked up my sleep. A nap was definitely in order.

Sometime during what started off being a nap and ended up being a three-hour sleep, my brother came and was knocking at the door. I let him in, heard him peeing, and then he left. I don't recall if I said anything to him. Instead of feeling refreshed post-nap, I felt worse. "Perhaps I just need my allocation of green tea," I said to the dogs, who looked at me blankly, as dogs are wont to do. Sitting in my chair with the green tea, though, I started to feel really cold. My stomach dully ached. It dawned on me that I wasn't going to make it-- not only was I not going to be able to make it through three days, but I wasn't even going to be able to make it through one. I got up to make myself toast and had to lean down on the counter, my head on my hands, willing the toast to be done so I could eat and feel better. I felt the heat rise from deep within my core, my face flush, and beads of sweat form on my forehead as I smeared on the homemade strawberry jam. I'm not kidding; I have never experienced so rapid a turn in physical well-being. I gripped the plate of toast hard into the living room, and was only sitting for a second when I realized what was about to happen.

I'll spare you the details, dear reader. Let me just say that the vomit came so hard and fast that I burst a blood vessel in my eye. When I was done and was miserably chewing my toast, the shock of what had just occurred hit me. I had just made myself vomit by trying to be healthy. Now, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Am I really that unhealthy that when I try to do something good for myself, my body rejects it? I choose to believe that it was too great a shock to my system. When I told my roommate about it, the one who gave me the book with the cleanse, she was positively boggled. "I've heard of people getting weak and having diarrhea, but not puking!" she said. Well then. At least I'm unique.

I'm happy to report that after the toast, I had a diet cream soda and about ten tortilla chips and was essentially good as new. Yesterday I went to a Labor Day picnic and gladly dominated a burger and several different types of salads, and one piece of baklava. Today, still doing good. Perhaps the lesson is that, when I want to eat better, just eat the fruit and veg, don't turn them into juice to subsist on. Perhaps some of you already knew this, but at least I can say that in my lifetime, I tried a cleanse and puked. Now that's an accomplishment.

The Cleanse: Day One, lunchtime

Let me just come out and say it: I'm doing a juicing cleanse. I know that it might sound a little silly and new-agey, but its nothing I've ever done before and was curious about how it might feel. After several conversations and some research, I found the "Total Body Stress Cleanse."

Right. So, the whole point is that I throw all kinds of fruits and veggies in a juicer and live on that for three days. There are different combinations, of course. This morning, I had a glass of water with one lemon's worth of juice and two tablespoons of maple syrup, a glass of juice with parsley, carrots, an apple, and 1/2 a beet, (yep. I drank that) and glass of carrot juice with a teaspoon of wheatgrass (that was absolutely dreadful. I will NOT be consuming more wheatgrass during this cleanse).

I can tell you that it hasn't been bad so far. But now it's 12:30, lunchtime, which means that I'm about to have a "Salad in a Glass." It's celery, tomatoes, cucumber, green pepper, lemon, parsley, and chives. I'm looking at it right now, and I'm telling you that there is a vaguely pee-colored liquid at the bottom and reddish-orange sediment floating on the top. I'm horrified. How am I, dear reader, possibly going to get that down my gullet? I'm kind of for the "rip the band-aid off fast" philosophy of action, so I'm going to take care of my "lunch" and then let you know what I thought.

* * *

It's 12:36. That was pretty awful. It tasted like... like salty tomatoey lemony water. Not friendly at all. I made the juice about an hour and a half ago and put it in the fridge, which was a smart idea because if it was warm, I might have gagged. Luckily, it wasn't a massive glass and after half a glass of water, there is only a vague aftertaste in the back of my mouth. Perhaps that is the taste of health.

Honestly, even as I type, it's like I don't really want to be talking about it. It's wierd how a morning's worth of fruit and vegetable juice has completely taken over my thoughts. All I can think about is how I can't wait until 2:30 when I can have a big mug of green tea (yes, it's part of the plan). Dinner tonight? "Potassium Broth." That would be exactly what it sounds like--broth from a bunch of veggies boiled together.

Yeah, there will be more updates.

First day: Terror

The first day of class is here! I only have one class today and I'm thinking, "Yeah, this is going to be great. Super fun. No big."

Yep, five years of teaching full-time, and I'm still terrified to get up in front of those students and try to get them comfortable when I am NOT comfortable. And I like being the center of attention! But the first day... good lord. I start yammering about how the first day of class is like a blind date and everyone is looking around at each other and looking at me and wondering how it's going to be and if we're all going to get along, and then I have to take roll and slaughter everyone's names, and then we all do the "get to know each other" thing that no one EVER likes, and then I have to tell them things about myself, so I say where I went to school and how long I've been teaching and that ordinarily my hair is very straight and flat (I curled it today for the occassion) and that I have one small tattoo before I trail off and ask if anyone has any questions and a guy raises his hand and asks,

"So, do you think you're a better communicator in writing or when talking?"

Holy moly! What a question. I confessed that I was nervous and prefer talking in smaller groups and that writing is a different form of communication for me than speaking... right. I can't completely remember what I even said.

I'm through it now, though, so I can hole up in my office and do other work, work that doesn't involve standing up in front of a bunch of strangers with judging eyes. Give me a week or two and (I hope to hell!) I'll be comfortable.

Anarchy!!!

I have this new friend that I met through some other friends, as happens at times. He's this nice peace-loving kind of guy, a vegan animal-lover who wears his childhood dog's ID tag on a long chain around his neck, which I find endearing. He's also a philosopher and an anarchist.

This makes me laugh. Not that he's a philosopher, and not necessarily that he's an anarchist, but the term "anarchy" has connotations for me that are amusing. I think specifically about a childhood friend of mine, Amy, who, along with her brother were adopted and then the mother died. My assumption was that her childhood was not idyllic, but not through any fault of her father, who looked to me to be about the most mild-mannered fella a kid would want to have around. His only problem was that he was perhaps a bit too permissive, and maybe there was a pervy uncle or something in the picture, or she could have just made some "bad decisions," but at any rate, around the age of thirteen or fourteen, when everyone is all fucked up by their awkward bodies and hormones, Amy took a wrong turn down the expressway of life. This was right around the time of the advent of grunge music, and Amy started smoking, wearing the same flannel day after day, shaved the bottom hemisphere of her skull and wore the rest up in a ponytail, and skipped school. Oh yes, my dear readers, I'm sure she started participating in sexual intercourse with older boys and possibly even smoking that wacky tabaccy. This is, of course, a sad state of affairs, and the last time I saw her was over twelve years ago and she was pregnant and playing pool in a smoky coffee shop. I have no idea if she's still alive.

This is, of course, no good, and nothing about the story I've told you is funny. Amy is, however, a major player in why I think anarchism is funny. She would write the anarchy symbol all over the place: you know the one, the capitol "A" with a circle around it. On her notebooks, in the bathrooms, on her locker, on her hands. I've also seen it on t-shirts, and the font is cliche-- jagged edges, usually in red. It's a symbol that screams, "I am an anti-establishment badass!! This anarchy symbol shows you how hardcore I am!"

I have to laugh. After several conversations, I feel like I have a basic grasp of what anarchism is, and there is absolutely nothing "badass" about it. My roommate said it best: anarchism is best defined when you don't realize that it's happening. Case in point: in a functional household, adult members of the household work together to solve problems. If there's an issue, they come to mutually acceptable solutions to running said household and getting along with each other. This is anarchism. Anarchists don't like "the state" (I like to think of it as "The Man," simply because I want to keep that moniker alive and kicking) because The Man imposes rules on the people rather than allowing the people to form their own rules. You might say, "We elect those people who make the rules, idiot, so if we don't like them, that's our problem, not the problem of The Man." Well, yeah, but as we all know, politicians often either are corrupt or are easily corruptible because they are, in fact, human, and what about the 50% of Americans who didn't vote for Bush but are still subject to his administration's shenanigans? You might say, okay, simpleton, but we all agree to live in this country and will abide by its rules, so if you don't like it, go somewhere else (which is ridiculous: no one else wants us!!), and I don't entirely disagree with that. The fact is, though, that the anarchists aren't fond of The Man and think we can best solve our problems by ourselves. Power to the people!! (Or whatever.)

Anyway, the point is, anarchism isn't badass. It happens around us, in our homes, every day, which might make the angsty teenagers feel like it's actually a little lame. The problem of the name still exists for me, though. Travis suggests that I call it "Libertarian-socialism," but again, there's the problem with label connotations with libertarians (I know this isn't all libertarians, but I always think about gun-toting hick uber-Republicans, and socialists are awesome, but tacking libertarianism to it seems wierdo). He then suggested that I go with what Peter Marin (sp?), co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, calls it, which was something ridiculous like "Peopleism" or some such silliness that I could never take seriously.

So I'm looking for a new name for anarchism so I can stop tittering about it and start taking it seriously as a philosophy. Perhaps we should go with humanist psychology...that seems a bit anarchistic. We could call it Rogerianism (from Carl Rogers, daddy of humanist psychology). Or maybe we could call it Symbiosis-ism. Insect-ism? Bugs are very small and are the majority of organisms, and without them we'd all be dead... I don't know, I can see the parallels. Anyway, if anyone has any good ideas for alternate labels, let me know, because I just can't seem to get past the branding of "anarchism."

Done.

Last Tuesday, I typed in all of my final grades for the semester. Since I started teaching seven years ago, I always put in the grades and then take time to look at each student and consider the grade that they're getting for the class before I click on the "Submit" button. The math says that they should get a C... when I consider their time with me over the course of the semester, do they deserve a C? It's always bizzare-o to me that math, my least favorite thing (next to avacados, mullets, and militancy, of course), accurately predicts whether a student, with all of his/her complexities, benefits, and liabilities, deserves a C or a D. This begs the question "What does a grade really mean, though?" which I shan't delve into at this point, as I have already entered my grades and am no longer interested in thinking about it.

The thing with getting done with grades, though, is that a person kind of has to keep it on the down-low. I finished on Tuesday, and grades weren't due until the following Monday. Coworkers' responses to the news that I was done with the semseter nice and early ranged from "Wow!" to "Hmmgrrph." I certainly don't think that I'm a big deal for finishing my grades early, by any means, but I learned quickly to downplay the gleeful tone gilding the edges of my voice. It goes something like this:

I say, "Well, Todd (no, I don't actually work with a Todd), how are you doing this fine finals week?"

Todd sighs deeply and/or rolls his eyes heavenward. "I'm working on it. I still have 5,492 quizzes to run through the scantron, and unfortunately, I asked twelve essay questions instead of two this semester, so I have about 140 hours worth of work left to do. How about you?"

"Huh!" I say. "That's a lot (it's critical to be appropriately impressed with the amount of work to be done. We teachers thrive on others being in awe of the awesomeness of our occupation). I'm totally amazed; I don't know how you do all that work. As far as I go, I have been positively swamped with work the past couple of weeks, and the students have really been on my case about hurrying up and getting the grades in; you know how it goes. I entered my grades today, but you wouldn't believe all of the filing and office cleaning I have to do because it's such a mess in there, and of course I'm finishing up my committee work for the year, too."

I stop, waiting for the critical reponse. Have I appropriately couched my stunningly wonderful news between awe and mention of the piles of work still to be done?

"Yes," Todd says gravely. "We work very hard, don't we."

Success!

So it's the end of a semester, but not just any semester, spring semester, which means that the summer is yawning before me. I stay up past 11:00 sometimes, and now that it's not randomly snowstorming in April, I can use my bike as my main mode of transportation (yes, this makes me feel very self-righteous. And buff.). I have also been reading through all of Jane Austen's books (yes, this too makes me feel self-righteous). What's fascinating about these novels is that it is sooo jacked up how propriety is postively critical to success in life. So I'm reading Northanger Abbey right now, and there's the heroine, Catherine, right? She's got this girlfriend who gets engaged to her brother, and believe me, when an engagement has happened at this time period, it's ON like DONKEY KONG. There's NO messing around. It's a done deal. So anyway, Catherine and this girlfriend, Isabella, are at this place where all the rich people hang out to talk and stare at each other, and Isabella is approached by this other dude (who happens to be the older brother of Catherine's sorta-secret love), and he gets all up in her grill about how she's teasing him and he wants to hook up with her. Catherine isn't supposed to hear, but she does. And what happens? She sits there, all disturbed, pretending that she doesn't hear, and over the next couple of days, it is practically eating her alive. Now, if YOU were Catherine and you had this best bud Isabella who might be screwing over your brother, wouldn't you be apt to sit her down and ask, "My dear, what could you mean by all of this carrying-on with Captain Tilney when your sentiments are already most agreeably engaged to my dear brother, James?" Please. Instead, Catherine hems and haws and finally brings it up with the not-so-secret love and brother to Captain Tilney, and because she's so totally in love with him (the brother, not the Captain), and he says, "Hey, sweet pea, don't worry about it. Everyone will get a good chuckle out of this little bit of sport in just a few months' time," she's like, "Oh, you're SOOO right; how could I be so foolish." It's just silly. Then there's this other guy who is a total jerkface who keeps hitting on Catherine, and she has to be very nice to him even though he's such an ass. Any other gal might slap this dude upside the head, but because he's a dude and it's 1700s England, we all have to maintain appearances. It's both insane and fascinating.

Anyway, sorry. I got a little caught up there. It's just that once I'm done with Northanger it's on to Persuasion, and then I'm done with Austen's books. I only had one break for Love in the Time of Cholera (I'd give it a 5--neither inspiring nor insulting). So it's been a bit consuming. If you haven't read any Austen, go directly to Pride and Prejudice, do not pass "Go," do not collect two hundred dollars. Then watch the movie... Colin Firth??? Delicious.

Whoops, sorry, caught up again. Let me end this post with a trite cliche lest I lapse into the almost Christ-like goodness of the main character of Mansfield Park:

I'm totally looking forward to this summer! It's going to be sooo much fun!!!!! I hope to talk to all of you soon! :) :) :)

Yep.

I got yelled at by a flight attendant.

I went to Florida after New Year's with my mother, and this story comes not from the resplendent views of the Atlantic Ocean, nor does it come from the inside of Spaceship Earth (that's the ride that's inside the globe at EPCOT). Nope, this story comes courtesy of Northwest Airlines, somewhere between Detroit and Duluth.

It had been a pretty long day up until that point. We took a bus with a bunch of families (read: gobs of tired kiddies) from the hotel to the airport, and then had a flight from Orlando to Detroit that was 2 1/2 hours, and then we had to sit in Detroit for four hours, waiting, waiting. The flight was delayed and I had been sick with a persistent cold all week, so I was pretty much ready to be in my own house, sleeping in my own bed at that point. All that stood before me was a one hour, twenty minute flight on one of those itty-bitty commuter planes that only has one potty and one flight attendant, an older, balding, beady-eyed man named Hugh (that'd be the flight attendant, not the crapper).

From the start I thought it was going to be a decent flight. The plane was only half full, so my mom and I had aisle seats across from each other and an empty seat next to us until Random Fella comes and sits next to me. I move, of course, after some witty repartee with him, to the set of empty seats in front of my mom. Golden.

After we took off, I was feeling a little queasy. I don't usually get sick from flying, but for some reason, my system wasn't feeling this ride. It wasn't turbulent, I just figured it was getting to be a long day. So when the plane started to even out, I needed to hit the bathroom, just to move around and blow off some steam (insert your own gastric disturbance here). On my way back to the seat, I see that Hugh, the Uber-Professional Flight Attendant, is handing out drinks. I land in my seat and as I am fumbling for my seat belt, out of nowhere appears the moon face of one Flight Attendant Hugh.

He peered at me through his coke bottle glasses. "Excuse me, ma'am, but I am going to have to ask you to remain seated with your seat belt fastened," he said, somewhat sternly, I might add.

I looked at him, holding the ends of the seat belt in my hands. "I... I had to go to the bathroom."

"Don't you know that you should never get on the plane having to go to the bathroom? Please stay seated. It's very turbulent."

What? It's not turbulent! It's turbulent in my stomach, but not on the friggin' plane. Okay, it's ON. "What am I, six?" I say. "I had to go to the bathroom, so I went!"

"Well, I'm going to have to go back there and lock that bathroom," he snapped. "I can't have people moving around the plane."

"Great!" I said. "On your way back there, why don't you yell at the guy who went in there after me while you're at it?"

"Maybe I will!" he retorted. (Oooohh, Hugh, good one.) Suddenly, he softens his tone. "Would you like something to drink?"

I admit that I am a bit taken aback. "Yes. Water."

"Ice?"

Ice? What's ice? I suddenly remember that I am mad at this man. "No, thank you," I say snootily.

He brought me the water, and I'm happy to say that there were no further incidents on the flight (unless, of course, he spit in my water, which would have brought our conflict to a breathtaking climax, but I didn't notice anything amiss). I might also add that my mom and the guy I was first sitting next to were both crying, they were laughing so hard at this exchange. Lesson learned? If I need to go to the bathroom, I am going to go, especially if there is a flight attendant named Hugh present.

My dog hates the weather

This is a picture of my dog, Bean, standing on the sidewalk in front of my house. We got over two feet of snow within four days last week, and now it's been consistently below zero. She is NOT a fan of this (can't say I love it, either!!).

My Most Recent Craft Project

Historically, I've never been a huge fan of wearing dangly earrings, but something changed as of late and I started collecting and wearing them. I was tossing them into a decorative box, but then it became a literal manifestation of the proverbial clusterfuck. Inspired by a similar display at my hairdressers, I decided to make a window screen earring holder.

Initially, I thought I'd get an old wooden picture frame from an estate sale, staple some old screen to it, and call it good. Then I realized that I'd need to add extra pieces of wood to the back of whatever I got because it'd be hard to hook the earrings into the screen if it's flush to the wall. Then I was rooting around in a stranger's wood shop at an estate sale and ran across some pieces of wood I thought would work.

I get home and immediately pulled out my staple gun (which is *so* fun to use) and stapled the wood into the frame you see (yep, all of this happened in my dining room. No woodworking room for me!). I then painted it white with acrylic paint. First mistake: paint the wood BEFORE stapling it together. I don't think it was the end of the world, but the painting was a little awkward.

I then made the little earring bar from a couple of smaller pieces of wood I got from the same sale. I knew I needed this particular feature for my hoop earrings. Yes, I literally used a steak knife to saw notches into the little pieces of wood to be able to break them cleanly, then out came the glue gun and the acrylic paint again.

When the frame was dry, I stapled the screen on and then nailed the back pieces onto the frame to hold the screen away from the wall. The bar got glue-gunned on, I used a pair of pliers to screw in eye hooks, and used a wire to hang it onto my wall. Voila! The results aren't professional, but they're functional and *might* qualify for (albeit unintentional) shabby chic. I was even able to get in some episodes from season one of Scrubs while I worked!

In hindsight, a picture frame would've been way easier. I was having a hard time finding one, though, and got impatient (seriously, my earrings were a mess). This was more work, but I feel pretty good about it. It looks much better, and it's easier to see what I have for earrings, too.