I can feel it coming in the air tonight.

Food choices have been my ad nauseam personal development topic of the year, I think, so I was pleased to read Dom's post today about the changes brewing in his diet--pleased because for once someone else is sounding off about it, and pleased because it's all positive stuff about laying off the sugar-crack and giving up the meats. I was gunta spare you another post about my new experiment, too, but he gave me a little charge, so I don't mind telling you that I've gone weekday vegan. The mac and cheese was a nice little sendoff, though I didn't plan it that way. I just got up Monday morning and thought "aight, I'm going to try something else now."

I don't have a lot to report about the experiment so far, except that it hasn't been difficult and I feel good.

It's weird: I feel like I've been working through some resistance about various things over the past few months, without really knowing that that's what I've been doing. Take, for example, the biking: in the past, I always threw out a lot of reasons why it wasn't a viable choice for me, and while a lot of those reasons still stand (like, riding to a rehearsal is a bad idea, especially if the weather is crappy, because your voice will be thrashed when you get there, from the panting if not from the cold air rushing past your vocal folds), most of the reasons have evaporated in the face of how slick a mode of transport biking is, and how good it feels to do it.

Again I should reiterate that this is THE PERFECT time of year to start biking for any reason, and I'm kind of hoping that by the time the weather goes to shit, biking will be habitual enough that I will change my other habits to suit it. I will for example allow more time to get places (so far so good), and wear the right kind of clothes for the job, and shower at work if I need to, or buzz my hair off, or whatever.

Anyway, there's also been some food resistance going on, which I haven't totally thought through--I've just sort of noticed it here and there. It's possible I'm coming out on the other side of it now. But I have this feeling I'm going to go off coffee eventually. I don't know when. It just seems likely, based on everything else that's been going on.

I don't know what will be next, but I welcome it because it all pretty much falls under the grand question of "how will you live so as not to make a mockery of your values?"

PS: If you google "placatan" I'm in the top ten results. What.

I want to ride it where I like.

This morning I enacted yet another resolution for my well-being: I biked to work. I launched my freshly-showered and street-clothed arse out on a mission to bike commute once a week. It's sort of a wussy resolution, but one day of biking will save me almost a gallon of gas each week while injecting stealth exercise into my schedule. (It's stealthy only in the sense that it's a matter of transportation rather than being specifically a workout. I will be entirely aware of the fact that I am getting exercise. In fact, I will probably be engaging in the same type of exasperated hate [exasperhate] that is usually reserved for running.)

The plan seems very doable right now, but then I picked the perfect day to launch: 55 degrees and sunny, no big wind. Wait to hear how loudly I moan when it's 85 and about to thunderstorm. The genius of my plan, though, is that I can choose the day I bike commute based on the weather report (and whether or not I need to see people when I get to work).

Today I learned some things:
-My bike is slow, but then I myself am not fast.
-My helmet hair is not so tragic as I forecasted.
-I took a slightly stupid route that I won't repeat on the way home.
-I should probably get some wicking underwear.
-Being sweaty for the first half hour of work is no big deal.
-I will probably end up buying a different bike if I keep doing this. Or at least skinnier tires.

Where every seat is a nosebleed seat.

I got a nosebleed today, which probably hasn't happened in 20 years. I was playing the piano when it started, too, which made it extra-dramatic, though there was no blood on the keys or anything.

Hours later, I'm still sitting here with tissue stuffed up my nose because, as you may remember, I have a cold and I am still snotty and it is almost impossible not to blow my nose. And if I blow my nose the nosebleed will start over and I will have to go to the school nurse just like skinny little bleeders in elementary school.

Irrigate your schnozz.

I don't remember where I first heard about neti pots, but I started using one about 10 years ago for both prevention and treatment of upper respiratory crud. I may have heard about them from another singer. Singers loooooove neti pots, since we like our respiratory tracts clear and primed for optimal performance.

Mine looks like this:

It is the entry-level model you're likely to find at your local food co-op, hippie store, or Whole Foods. You can also order them from any number of internet stores.

The basic function of a neti pot is to irrigate your nasal passages with delicious salt water in order to keep things moving along, thereby preventing irritation and infection from taking hold. It's especially useful if you have allergies, sinus problems, the delightfully-named post-nasal drip, or are waging war against invading virus or infection. So basically, that means all of yous.

This is the instructional video for the neti pot, a work of film that is notable for its dead-eyed neti practitioner. It's particularly spooky with the sound off, which is the only way I've watched it. Not surprisingly, there are LOADS of neti pot videos on youtube, so if you are not sure you're doing it right OR you simply would enjoy watching a bearded comic book artist flush his nose with various liquids including coffee and bourbon, please be my guest. (It's the "Jackass" of neti pot videos.)

To harness the power of the neti pot, fill it with warm water and mix a fat 1/4 tsp of non-iodized salt (I use pickling/canning salt) into it. When it's all dissolved, I taste it to make sure the water is salty enough. Too little salt and the shit will BURN. Too much and ditto. Anyway, tilt your head to the left, plug the pot into your right nostril, and let gravity do the work. When the water has run its course, blow gently to clear things up, and repeat on the left side with a new tank of salt water.

Also, be sure you are standing over a sink.

Under normal circumstances, you will blow out mostly clear and innocuous stuff and you will feel light and cleansed. If you're on the downside of a cold, like I am, you will blow out all the sticky noxious stuff that is hanging around up in your grill, clinging to your sinuses, and refusing to be blown out into a kleenex. It is a totally gratifying process, one I could probably be doing 3 times a day with copious results each time.

There are simple yoga stretches you can (and should) use to make sure all the water is out. You don't want water sitting around in your nose.

There were years when I did this every single day. More recently I've felt like I cannot possibly add another thing to my pre-bedtime routine; it's hard enough to take an extra minute for flossing. However, you can bet that if I had any chronic schnozz problem I would be doing this on the regular. In conclusion: neti pots are rad. Clear nasal passages: radder still. Taking control of your respiratory health: raddest of all.

More linky for you, plus the best cold EVAR.

Again through the magic of flickr clickage, I have found some more reading material, this time from a nutritionist--a strict vegetarian who breaks it all down for you with cold hard facts. Go check out BeanDiet, where you will be enjoined to up your fiber intake in order to save your life. I love this kind of stuff. This post about great-grandparent nutrition is a good starting point for omnivores--it tackles the question of how our great-grandparents could've been so much healthier than us even though they ate meat, eggs, and dairy.

(Insert segue here.)

So you know how I was laid up with a cold earlier this week? It has turned out to be the most classic, predictable cold I have had in years and I am weirdly proud of it. I've known exactly what to expect each day. I also think this is the first time in years that I haven't been stressed out about being sick and I am proud of this as well, though really that's just an accident of timing. It's amazing how just saying "oh laaaaa, I guess I have to call in to work and cancel some lessons this week" has allowed my bod to protect and regulate itself.

In years past, when I was singing constantly and always having to be performance-ready, I dreaded getting sick and stuffed my face full of supplements at the slightest hint of a cold. (You get kind of high-maintenance as a singer, since sick=can't sing=canceling gigs=no payment.) I used to swear by Zicam, until I read about people permanently losing their sense of smell as a result of shooting zinc up their nosies. And you know what? I don't think any of that stuff helped me get over a cold more quickly, though maybe it reassured me that I was being proactive. This time around, being relaxed and pragmatic, sleeping a lot, eating whole foods, and using my beloved neti pot are all doing the trick and I should be back in fighting shape in no time.

I'm sure there's some lesson here about not getting fussed that I can apply to the rest of my life.

Green Smoothie update.

I've now had a solid week of drinking my greens every day. After day two or so, I even got the Brit on board. I make a blender full in the morning, drink a glass while I get ready for my day, and fill a 16 ounce bottle for snacking on throughout the morning. I'm not really kidding about the snacking--that's how it feels, since there are enough greeny and fruity bits to chew on a little.

My anecdotal evidence goes like this: I am feeling better, I am less tired during the afternoon, and I am uninterested in snacking on crappity crap. Drinking coffee in the morning even feels kind of counterproductive (though I am having some anyway, because I love the stuff). And I feel a little silly about this, but last night I told the Brit that I was already excited about this morning's green beverage. Don't mock me; I had a fresh pineapple to cut up and add to the recipe, and fresh mint to go with it. Have you never sprinkled chopped fresh mint over your pineapple chunks? It is the bomb.

I have a horror of becoming an obnoxious evangelist about anything, but I have to admit that I can kind of understand why raw foodists are always going on about their energy levels and using lots of exclamation points. By 11 AM I've had 10+ grams of fiber, all the Vitamin A and C I need for the day and then some, a pantload of potassium, a really nice start on the day's calcium and iron, and a whole bunch of other vitamins that do I know not what. Also, this stuff is delicious. I wouldn't bullshit you.

In other news, I dropped my laptop yesterday and apparently destroyed the connection to the screen. Green smoothies won't keep you from doing stupid stuff.

Progress.

Yesterday I finally, FINALLY joined my favorite co-op. To give you an idea of how stupid it is that I hadn't joined earlier:

• I have been shopping there since I was an actual child.
• I lived in the neighborhood for 3 or 4 years, and did about half my shopping there during that time.
• Prior to that, I lived just a few neighborhoods over, for 4 years, and did a quarter of my shopping there.
• I am a fan of the co-op model.
  
• Their share price is one third that of other area co-ops.

When I lived nearby I kept putting it off, and then when I moved out of the area I thought I wouldn't be going there so often. As it turns out, I'm there once a week, if not more. So yesterday when I was loading up on green smoothie supplies, I finally joined up.

Along the same lines, some friends and I have been trying to sort out which CSA we're going to join for the growing season and how we're going to divvy up the food. I'm pretty excited about this move. I'll pay about $250 up front to split a share of local produce for 18 weeks or so, starting in June. That ends up being about $14 a week for 4-13 pounds of produce, depending on the season. Sweet sweet! And then, as Anna said, we will have Ladies' Nights where we have to use the vegetables we have no idea what to do with. I think she was talking about potluck dishes, but it sounded filthy.

These items, along with the green smoothie experiment (basically, I've started drinking my greens every day), are helping me along on my little food journey. What WHAT!

Food problems.

My diet seems to be undergoing some kind of revision, and I can't yet tell where it's going to end up. What I do know is that for the past few months, I've been clicking away on vegan blogs. And then on raw food sites. Going vegan makes good sense to me; going raw is appealing for reasons I haven't quite parsed yet. I can tell you that it seems right to me because basically we are just fancy monkeys, and a raw diet is a monkey diet. Of course I capped off reading about the raw diet the other day by having a delicious toasted ciabatta roll with earth balance and apricot fruit spread, none of which bore any resemblance to the green smoothies and what have you.

One thing I haven't personally sorted out is what happens to farmers if we all stop eating dairy products etc, bearing in mind that I don't really give a shit about what happens to factory farmers. I also wonder what happens to the animals that have been domesticated for farm life and for use as food in one way or another. Obviously you want them to live out their sweet ruminant lives in a field somewhere, but they can't live in the wild anymore, can they? Does this mean cattle, goats, sheep, and all the rest of them are going to die out and/or go feral if they're not being raised for cheese? I'm not being flippant; I am actually wondering about this. I wonder about people like the Reads, profiled in this excellent article in City Pages not so long ago--people who tend their animals with great love and who make (apparently fabulous) cheeses, on a small scale.

I also wonder about how to reconcile the food choices you make for yourself with the ones you should rightly make for the health of your pets. This is especially potent at the moment, because we're switching Ace to wet food and the mass market stuff is repellent in terms of what it contains, and the alternative is expensive, but both contain meat because he is a carnivorous beastie.

Then of course there are leather goods, which are infinitely superior in every way to their vinyl counterparts.

Sigh, sigh, sigh.

It's boring to read about other people's food dilemmas if you don't share them yourself, I'm sure.

The thing is, I don't really see myself becoming rigid about any of these things. It's more likely that I'll just go ahead and exist inside a paradox or two for the rest of my life.

I'm turning off the computer for the evening, FYI.

I have been severely chastised in some quarters for my failure to update, though I DID do that meme AND tweak (read: mess up) my template yesterday. Today I am home with proto-sickness, mostly sitting under a blanket and chugging tea. The goal is to prevent the sickness from becoming full-blown, by abstaining from going to the office. Everyone I know has had The Plague this winter, with ferocious respiratory consequences, so I'm not messing around. Also, I am supposed to have Willa tomorrow night, and I don't want to jeopardize that. She is rolling over and she actually talked to me on the phone today, and I am overdue for smooching her cheeks and posting new pictures of her.

So far I am not that impressed with March, are you? My car was covered with snow Wednesday morning, and then there were the wind chills and seriously lame high temps. My high school students speak longingly of Spring Break, which is coming up in a few weeks, and I groove to the academic calendar until I remember that Spring Break is no longer part of my year. But the fact is, I never really went anywhere springbreakish in the years that I could legitimately celebrate Spring Break. My last two years in high school, I went to Chicago with a friend to stay on the floor at her aunt's house and shop and eat and go to the museum. Fun yes, warm no. One year in college I went to El Paso with my old boyfriend Schmalec, to stay at HIS aunt's house. I was just remembering this trip last night, because I was describing how Schmalec returned to Wisco from Spring Break in El Paso the previous year with longhorns bolted to the hood of his 80s Volvo station wagon. (I am astonished that the car made the trip more than once. It used to stall out at intersections.) Then a few years later, Foolish Boy and I went to visit Mammoth Cave and the distilleries of Kentucky. Again, fun, but not exactly SPRING BREAK WOOOO! and certainly no relaxing on beaches.

Since my Awesome Day of Projects, I have stayed on my organizational rampage. Arc's Value Village did a pickup this week, so a few bags went out the door. The BFS is hosting a clothing swap this weekend, and I am unloading many, many things, including pants that created actual disbelief deep in my soul when I held them up for inspection, because I can't believe I ever fit into them. All the collective leftovers will go to Goodwill--that will be a satisfying trip.

Dom (who is back at home growing his immune system) has started a PR food blog: Cuca's Puerto Rican Kitchen. I will probably have to make some recaito. He gave me a frozen wad of it years ago and it cheered up my rice and beans many times.

Friends, I have updated, but I am fuzzy-headed and dull. See what I do to please you? I am going to brew another pot of Echinacea Elder and make some mac and cheese for the Brit. Oh also: I moved up to 15 pound dumbbells for bicep curls this week, so grating the cheese is actually going to hurt.

Walk on by (now with photos).

Want to hear something pathetic? I've been signing up for all of these workplace wellness initiatives because the institution I work for actually PAYS employees to do things like take an online health-assessment survey etc. One of the programs I signed up for challenges people to take 10,000 steps a day and gives you a free pedometer. The free pedometer was in fact why I signed up. It's an extremely entry-level pedometer, but it gets the job done. I didn't want lots of data, anyway--I was just kind of curious about how much I've actually been moving my ass on a typical day and I've been wondering this for awhile. So.

I think I've been wearing the pedometer about 10 days now, maybe more, and today is the first day I have even approached 10,000 steps. I'm at 9500 right now and I feel like marching in place to crack my goal. It was a fairly typical day. I did some household chores, went up and down the stairs a bunch of times, went to the gym. But see, that's the thing: I went to the gym, which is only part of a typical day 3 days out of the week. I walked longer than usual during my workout today, too, with the express goal of logging some steps. The thing about running is that you cover more distance with fewer steps, so my usual slow jog thing does little to advance the 10,000 step cause.

I don't know, maybe this is all very boring. I've just been appalled about the whole thing, the whole 6000 step average I seem to be hitting. I've started walking around the kitchen at work when my lunch is in the microwave. Stomping in the copy room. Basically, I need to add a vigorous walk every single day, including the days that I go to the gym. This will be easier, I keep telling myself, when it is not fiftyleven below zero, which is true enough, but the fact remains that it is winter and I am doomed to fall pathetically short for another 2 months.

I have a friend who is in fact a workplace wellness coordinator and I remember she chirpily told me that she logged 14,000 steps the first day she wore a pedometer at work. But then she gets paid to arrange fitness outings and go for runs on her lunch. You could hardly avoid being virtuous in that position.


Just so I haven't killed you with this content, let me tell you a few kid stories. First, I had 4.5 hours with Willa all to myself today. She is cuter than everyone. Also, she is for sure going to be a singer. I decided to try out a little Rossini aria on her today and she LOVED it, smiling and singing along. I contemplated taking cell-phone video of the proceedings, but how big a jerk would I be, holding the baby in my lap, singing an aria which you could hear on the video, and capturing it all with a cell phone? I refrained. I can literally stare at her and say "goo" and other nonsense for a full hour, I mean theoretically I could do this if she could stand for it. It's just that at some point, the effort to coordinate her arms or to process all the information in the pattern on my shirt manifests as crabby exhaustion and she has to be rocked to sleep.



Okay but here are some other things. Jude is very good at doing puzzles, which is a joy to behold because generally he's one of those kids who gets so full of his emotions that he needs to giddily punch people when he walks by them. But he can drop into intense concentration when it's time to assemble a jigsaw. At a family gathering last week, he was working on a puzzle and said under his breath, to no one in particular, "first I will finish this puzzle, and then I will wrestle with [the Brit]." I think this was actually the way things played out, too. Wrestling is a good way to get rid of the urge to punch, and my brother-in-law is good about wrestling his children. Later that same night, BIL had an overjoyed Jude pinned in his lap, holding Jude's legs between his knees and stretching Jude's arms up over his head, the better to tickle his exposed armpits. Then BIL scrunched Jude up into a ball and held him there, at which point Jude, in the spirit of retaliation, said "SMELL. MY. BREATH." It was the only weapon he had at that moment. Remember this. It may be useful to you in a fight.

I don't think you can handle me.

I don't know why I thought I might be motivated (or at least interested in motivating myself) to blog every day in 2008. I don't think I can still claim to be "turbo-blogging," as Melinda suggested. Mostly I've just loafed around stealing content from other people, and today isn't really going to be an exception, though the linky-links I'm about to drop on you are less "I find this entertaining" and more in line with the Values Manifesto project I'm working on.

I've been reading WiseBread (Living Large on a Small Budget!), the frugal living blog, and so far today there have been TWO posts that have interested me a lot. The first mulls over the things to which we attach value, and how in the end, material purchases don't say very much about who you are--they're just about what you have. I especially like this bit:

There are many reasons to [be] frugal--it's light on your wallet and light on the planet--but the most important is that it maximizes your freedom.

One way it does that is by giving you more career options: The more frugal you are, the less pressed you are to choose the most remunerative career (and the less pressed you are to stick with a poor choice simply because change would be risky--the frugal person can bear risks that others can't)...What I've come to realize just recently, though, is that another advantage of a frugal lifestyle is that frugal people are free to spend the money they haven't sunk into stuff on experiences instead.

The second post discusses how to tell the difference between what you want and what you need, and this is something I'm just starting to take to heart.

I've never been particularly self-indulgent or ridiculous with my purchases or possessions. I'm not a big spender, so most purchases haven't cost enough to engender any guilt or regret. But I've definitely done retail therapy--who hasn't? I particularly remember an evening in 2004 when I had a small breakdown and went from breakdown to the mall to buying a SUIT which is no longer ready for this jelly because my body is too bootylicious for it. Plus, I am definitely guilty of buying things just because they are good deals, though I do that less than I used to.

Anyway, there are a couple of practices I'm focused on adopting as life-long habits, and they're related to each other. The first is to decide what I truly need and get rid of a lot of the rest of my stuff, and try a quality and ethics-based approach to future purchasing, even if that means spending more on single purchases than I have in the past. This is going to involve some more ebaying, some goodwill trips, some consignment selling, and general cleaning. It might be awhile before I get to that part of the process. The more immediate steps: applying a new logic to my purchasing, i.e., "Am I going to use/wear this all the time and love it tenderly?" By that logic, the earrings the Brit gave me for Christmas would have been a solid purchase even if I'd made it myself. They are handmade, they are perfect for my style and aesthetic, and I can really see myself wearing them almost every day.

The second and probably more daily-life kind of practice is to eat only food for which I am actually hungry. Let's be clear about this. I don't have a weight problem, I don't have a particularly complicated relationship with food, and I am on the whole a healthy person. But over the past few months I've developed a creeping bad habit of eating food because it's there, or eating more than I need to as a default. I've also eaten a lot of crap, and I've complained about it a lot, which bores me and you and everyone we know.

I'm not interested in dieting, because it's not supportable in the long run. I want to reshape my habits, and trust that my body is going to get into better balance as a result. It's only been about 10 days of thinking this way, but I am definitely experiencing detox symptoms which I will spare you here. (Some of them are snot-related, and then there are others.)

An adjacent issue: I've never been a caffeine addict, but I've been off coffee since the laryngitis episode. I've often noted that when I am laid low by a cold, my body clearly doesn't want sugar or dairy or alcohol or caffeine, and none of that stuff even looks good to me. So far I have heard this message but pretty much chosen to file it away rather than, you know, adopt it for realsies. It's obvious that I need to eschew some foods in order to return to a state of health, but what about just existing in a state of health in the first place and conscientiously maintaining that? I bet lots of things would feel better.

I'm also tracking my daily spending this month. Surprisingly enough, it's an exercise I've never done.

One attractive thing about me is that I am reliably good at making lifestyle changes.

Hot pants make you sure of yourself.

Yesterday I caved and bought some fat pants, but it seems that I jumped the gun. After a day of wearing them they are falling off me, which has put my winter pudge into perspective. It's temporary. Even though it may be from the last two winters.

Here ends winter pudge blogging, I swear.

Lover of a life of leisure.

Raise your hand if you feel like you need to go on a juice fast.

(I'm raising mine.)

Nothing is more boring than moaning about how you've been eating a bunch of junk (well, not junk, but a surfeit of delicious baked goods and assorted holiday foods) and you're fat, right? So I won't, though it's kind of interesting to me to have these meaty pads atop my hipbones. Let's just say that I'm looking forward to the clean slate feeling of January 1, when leaves are turned over and raw vegetables are consumed and gym activities are undertaken with renewed vigor and the Christmas chocolate is out of the house AT LAST.

We got the last of the opera singers (I think, at least those who can legally get married) married off last night, in a very lovely and Christmassy service at which I predictably cried. There is plenty of evidence of the karaoke reception in my photostream. A really gratifying moment was when I was singing "Always" with my friend Andrew and there was a group slow dance out on the dance floor (thank you, my friends). It was also gratifying whenever the Brit danced with me, both jokingly and for serious, because I do love to shake it like a polaroid picture. I shook it so hard that my neck hurts today, in fact.

This has been a leisurely little holiday season, I tell you what. It's going to be shocking to go back to a regular schedule after days of reading entire books and evenings of family fondue night and playing Apples to Apples Junior with Henry, who is sounding out all the words on the cards like a pro. I gave him The Electric Company for Christmas and he is as into it as I'd hoped--I mean it's perfect for him aesthetically and pedagogically. Apparently he asked his dad to give him some skin the other day, so he is learning already.

We saw "No Country for Old Men" today, which was crazy and incredible. Highly recommended.

Shut it up, just shut up, shut up.

Shutting up really is interesting, man, even if it's forced. I don't think I'm huge talker anyway, depending on the company, but you know, what if you had to think carefully about every single thing you said because your speaking resources were so limited and delicate? It really cuts back on the driving-related swearing, I can tell you that. This all kind of makes me want to go on a silent retreat. But without the sneezing, fatigue, coughing, sore throat, and (unrelated) backache that seizes every time I cough or sneeze.

On the plus side, there are bagels and schmearing materials in the kitchen here at work (and I didn't bring lunch).

On the other plus side, here's my sister Em's response to my health-related complaints and feeling old:

Sorry you feel so shitty. I was just emailing back and forth with a couple of my friends about 2008 resolutions and concluded that our goals are totally old people goals. Like one of Sarah's was "stick to The Budget" and the other Sarah’s was "less dairy more yoga" and Elizabeth’s was "7 healthy bowel movements per week" mine had something to do with my retirement fund.

Then I said if we were really old our lists would look actually more ambitious but stupid and would include like:

• take cruise
• audition for broadway musical
• asian cooking class
• sky dive
• make love to a woman
• learn the computer

So I know what you mean about feeling old.

If you are bored at any point today, Free Rice is only like the best game ever, I mean if you're a vocab jerk like me (not that you would necessarily glean that fact from my recent entries). I am determined to get up past level 48. (Update: I hit 50. These are the things that make me feel good.)

Convenience is the enemy.

Yesterday I had that day where you wake up and suddenly realize you are fatter. To celebrate, I went to the gym and listened to a Russell Brand podcast. You know what's funny? Listening to a comedy show while you try to lift weights in the very very serious weight room. Everyone is grimly exhaling and looking at their muscles in the mirror and meanwhile I'm trying to curl 12 pound dumbbells with noodle arm due to audibly laughing at something that no one else can hear. I was truly entertained, but it was probably not my most efficient session with the freeweights.

This brings me to my next point. Getting exercise 6 days a week is easy when your schedule is pretty much your own AND the weather is beautiful. When it is cold crappy soup-and-baking weather and you can't find time to go the post office, you're lucky if you can get gymified twice a week. In other words, my 30 day experiment to see whether I could manage to exercise everyday was successful but not, apparently, sustainable, unless I want to give up other things such as lounging around watching sitcoms or picking outfits for other wardrobe remixers.

So I have a new 30 day experiment about cutting out sugar and stuff. I've done this before, so it shouldn't be too difficult, and perhaps it'll help me control the inevitable winter logeyness that I usually address with baked goods and naps. Also I think my mind easily becomes a dark and scary place when I am not eating well. Would someone please just come over and chop vegetables for me? Thanks.

This little light of mine.

One pop-cultural thing that is bumming me out: the re-voicing-over of the Clear Blue Easy commercial. It now says "the most sophisticated piece of technology you'll ever...ahem...you know" instead of "the most sophisticated piece of technology you'll ever pee on." Did someone really object to the idea of peeing on things? Or was it the dangling preposition? Either way, I'm far less interested in the product than I used to be. I mean I guess it still sounds and looks like a men's razor commercial instead of a soft-focus pastel joyride, but still. Copping out on "pee on"? Come on.

One physiological thing that is bumming me out: kidney pain. Yeah, my fuckin kidneys. Remember how I told you to seek medical attention if you have kidney pain? I followed my own awesome advice even though the nurses I talked to on the phone were unimpressed by my description of dull ache combined with my lack of: fever, burny pee, vomiting etc. Sooooo I'm on antibiotics again. I still believe in the d-mannose regimen. If I'd started it properly right away, I probably could've avoided the visit to urgent care, where it was cold and I sat in the exam room for 35 minutes thinking about how gross it was to be filing my nails in an exam room. Also, the doctor who spent thirty seconds with me instructed me to get a big jug of cranberry juice and drink it all.

One culinary thing that bummed me out yesterday: tempeh. I did my usual fry/braise thing with a package of tempeh, cubed, and then I sat in bed and ate the cubes absentmindedly while looking at the internets. Eventually I realized that I'd eaten all of it. And then I felt very, very bad, in ways upon which I will not elaborate, until it resolved itself, in a way that ditto.

Also, and this is not bumming me out: my boyfriend up and bought a Mustang (which I plan to refer to exclusively as "the Staaaaang"). He called me from the dealership last night as he was about to trade in his giant Chrysler, and then suddenly offered it to me instead. So I am going to buy a Concorde. Can you see me driving a large gold car (named, in fact, "Golden Large"?). Me neither, but let's get used to it together because he's cutting me an awesome deal. Do you think it's because I sleep with him sometimes?

Now I just have to figure out what to do with Fatty. Oh Fatty. She's been through a lot with me. If she were in better condition, she would still command a price of $3500. In her current condition? Maybe a buck 380.

Are you some kind of hypnotist?

Here's some follow-up UTI information on why cranberry is probably doing you wrong. I do dig information and it primarily makes me feel good, but it also makes me mad. I would like a refund from every practitioner who has ever told me to drink cranberry juice to ameliorate my bladder situation. I would also like money back from the practitioner who blithely prescribed birth control pills to me in 1994 without suggesting that they might make me fat, depressed, and uninterested in sex (all of which turned out to be the case).

It's true that you need to be your own health advocate, people.

Music loud and women warm, I been kicked around since I was born.

You probably know that I'm kind of a hippie, right? I am. So it will come as no surprise to you that the reappearance of my UTI from a few weeks ago has inspired an herbal onslaught, though last night all I could think about was getting some gotdamn antibiotics. Why, you wonder, am I telling you any of this, when I could be regaling you with hilarious nephew tales and rants about sexism and advertising and housekeeping (never fear; those things will come later). Oversharing is what blogging is all about, my friends, and also I want to tell you what I have learned, because I know most of you are women, which means most of you will get a UTI at some point in your life.

When that day comes, you will find that you would almost rather die than pee because your peehole is on fire. But you have to pee SO BAD and then when you go 5 PALTRY DRIPS come out. If you are lucky like me this feeling will come on close to bedtime so that you cannot get medical attention without paying emergency room/urgent care fees, and you have a huge deductible anyway so nothing will be covered.

If you DO seek medical attention, you will be told things you already know, such as:
1. Drink lots of water.
2. Pee after sex.
3. Wipe front to back.
4. Wash your junk, but not with soap, and don't use "feminine products" that are a crock anyway.

If you are LUCKY, your medical professional will also tell you:
1. Avoid spermicides, which irritate basically everything.
2. If you're using a diaphragm, you may want to try a different BC method. Diaphragms can press against the urethra and prevent the bladder from emptying completely, thereby providing an idea breeding ground for bacteria.
(I must stress that no one ever told me this stuff; I had to find out for myself, the hard way.)

This is all sound advice. Here is some more.
1. You may be advised to drink cranberry juice. Do not. The stuff that's easiest to get is full of sugar, and bacteria just love that.

2. You can also take cranberry pills, which is preferable to drinking a bunch of natural cranberry juice anyway. Anecdotal evidence, and I am not going to cite any although I will give you some of my own, suggests that cranberry supplements are good for prevention but not perhaps for treatment.

The anecdote for my evidence goes like this: when I started feeling the ominous UTI feeling, both a few weeks ago and last night, I took a handful of cranberry pills and drank a pile of water. Shortly thereafter, my pee became so acidic that my urethra melted and I peed it out. Not really, but what I'm trying to tell you is that things suddenly got much, much worse, even in conjunction with phenazopyridine hydrochloride, the OTC analgesic that's always prescribed with antibiotics for UTIs. I do believe the cranberry pills f-ed me the f up.

3. In light of this discovery, and annoyed that the antibiotics probably hadn't gotten rid of my UTI in the first place, I read a bunch of things on the interwebs and decided to give myself another day of hippie self-care before going to the clinic, and today is that day. Self-care items include:
-Baking soda.
-Water, and lots of it.
-D-Mannose.
-Uva Ursi.
-Marshmallow infusion.
-General immune boosters (garlic, echinacea/goldenseal, good food).

4. I decided to alkalinize my system. I've had three cups of water with a half teaspoon of baking soda dissolved in it. This beverage tastes about as bad as you might expect, but the peehole burning has ceased, so huzzah. I've also been eating too much sugar lately, and generally being lazy about food prep, so I bought some kale and some asparagus (both allegedly good for the bladder) and other stuff and now I am wallowing in whole food delights.

5. I also read a bunch of stuff--even digging into university online science indexes and shit--about D-Mannose, a simple sugar that binds to the sticky-fingered bacteria in your bladder, enabling you to pee them out. Ta-DAAAAA! It's sold as a supplement now and though the websites selling it often look like quacky informercials, the evidence supporting its efficacy seems legit.

6. Uva ursi (or bearberry) is also endorsed fairly universally for treating bladder complaints--but if your pee is too acidic, the herb will not be effective in getting rid of bacteria. Can I get another huzzah for baking soda?

7. Marshmallow is supposed to soothe the urinary tract. I'm doing a cold infusion (a wad in cold water over 8-12 hours), so it's not ready yet, but I'm sure it will be gross.

I mean marsh mallow the herb, not marshmallow the sugary gelatin pillow.

8. I am very grateful to live in a big metro area where these things are all readily available. I spent 50 friggin American on supplements (including some I was just replenishing--I don't know where all my damn vitamins are) today at Whole Paycheck, but it turns out I could've gone to any of my local co-ops and gotten the same supplements. I took the D-Mannose. I took the Uva ursi. I'm finna drank the marshmallow. I feel a tad listless, but that's probably because it was 87 degrees today. I feel miles better than I did last night.

9. I am not suggesting that you avoid medical attention. Burny pee ain't no joke. Your local Planned Parenthood, Minute Clinic, or other clinic can diagnose and treat a UTI very quickly. Make sure you get your urine cultured (you know, high class) so that you are diagnosed properly, and GO TO THE DOCTOR if you have kidney pain or a high fever or barfing.

10. Alls I'm saying is, antibiotics kill all the friendly bacteria in your body, sometimes leading to secondary infections like the yeasty beastie, and antibiotics may not knock out the infection you have (see above re: my peehole). I will keep you posted on my hippie remedies.

So there you have it. More public service for the ladies.

Another piece of public service: two year old boys are inappropriate. From his apparently restrictive yet arousing carseat, on the way home from church no less, Jude wailed "My penis is hard and I need to touch it NOWWWWWW."