Everyday Glory

Retreat Morning Schedule

2012-01-17T18:21:00.000-05:00

So, how did I spend my semi-silent retreat? This one was a little unusual in that usually retreats either allow speaking, or they're conducted in silence. In this one, we were in silence from 9 p.m.- lunch the next day, with silence always maintained in the dormitories. Most people spoke during the non-silent times, but a few retreatants chose to maintain their silence and the group respected that. Here was our weekday schedule through lunch, with some explanation. The afternoon and evening schedule will be my next post.

6:00 a.m. Wake up: Because I was fighting for a spot amongst eight other women in a tiny bathroom, I roused myself around 5:45 a.m. to allow adequate time to use the bathroom, wash my face, and brush my teeth. I'd dress and mosey over to the main lodge, where all of our retreat activities took place. I had a couple of glasses of water and a cup of coffee, in silence, before I settled on my meditation cushion.

6:30 a.m. Meditation (aka "Sit"): This was seated meditation. Some people sat on cushions that they brought. Others fashioned impromptu meditation seating with pillows, blankets, towels and yoga mats. Some people always sat on chairs, and people who spoke with instructors about it first were allowed to meditate laying down, if appropriate. I had to do this, especially by the end of the day: my back isn't strong to begin with, and the 3-4 hours of seated meditation we did every day really took its toll on me. The first night I was there, I needed a narcotic to calm my pain enough to sleep. The original purpose of yoga asana, poses, is to give yogis the strength they need to sit in meditation for hours. I never really understood that until this retreat!

At one point I asked an instructor when would be a good time to leave programming to lay down on my heating pad to soothe my back and neck pain. He said, "What would keep you from bringing your heating pad to meditation and laying on your back?" I said, "Nothing!" As someone who has chronic pain, I have learned how to meditate laying down. I have tricks to ensure I don't fall asleep, like not practicing this way when I'm too sleepy, keeping my eyes only 3/4 of the way shut, putting my knees together, or holding my hands in such a way that if I fell asleep I would jerk to attention. I think I only came close to falling asleep once in this position. My preference is to sit on a meditation cushion with blankets supporting my knees, but I utilized the cushion, a chair, and laying on my yoga mat at different points in the day, depending on what my body needed. Usually, I started the day upright and ended up laying down late afternoon before returning to a chair or cushion again.

7:15 a.m. Chanting: One of the most amazing gifts that came to me from this retreat is the knowledge of how much chanting moves me. This is a common Eastern spiritual practice, but instead of Sanskrit, we chanted Hebrew. We did three chants from the morning blessings in the schacharit service (see below) every morning, and then did a few other chants based on other Jewish sources. There was something tremendously powerful about living in an intentional, albeit temporary, community, our voices joining together in praise of God. Four things resonated with me: the meaning of words we were chanting, the beautiful tones of the chants we were singing, the group nature of the activity, and the vibration of my voice inside my body. All of those elements combined to make it a powerful spiritual technique for me.

At home, I have continued my chanting practice after my morning meditation, and although it's not as potent as it is in a group, it's still useful. It's a meaningful way for me to give thanks to God and to set my intention for the day, and the verses have become mantras for me. Sometimes I'll find myself humming them throughout the day, which of course reminds me of their meaning. Verses from schacharit like, "My God, the soul You placed within me is pure," are things I need to remember, especially when I get drawn into the Trance of Unworthiness. Reminding myself that God made me in God's image is one antidote to the Trance.

7:30 a.m. Shacharit: This is the Jewish morning service. Other than on shabbat [sabbath], all of the prayer services were silent, so people could pray in the style most appropriate for them. We had a huge range of religiosity from people completely a-religious and Jewishly uneducated, to people who were Orthodox and had learned in yeshivot for years. I think it was easier to have unstructured prayer time than to try and conduct a service to make everyone happy, and that kept us in our silence, which was particularly nice after a night of silence and 30-45 minutes of seated meditation. During prayer time, some people prayed, some went to get cups of coffee, and others did yoga or meditated.

8:00 a.m. Breakfast (silent)

9:15 a.m. Sit & Instruction: The instruction was basically Vipassana (insight) meditation 101, where the instructors explained the basics of meditation. The first day they gave instructions on posture and using the breath as an anchor. Other days they talked about using alternate anchors (like sounds or sensations), how to handle emotions that came up during meditation, etc. We also had instruction on topics like the five hindrances to meditation, which will certainly come up in most people's meditation, and some of the antidotes to those hindrances. We covered the traditional Buddhist lovingkindness (metta) meditation; I didn't love the way the teachers taught that one, but since I was already familiar with it, I just practiced the form I'm more comfortable with.

When I went to Tara Brach's talk and guided meditation class the other night, I loved that she led us in a body scan and relaxation exercise before we started to meditate. It really provides a nice transition from "up and active, engaging with the world," to "on my cushion now, settle down." I need to start incorporating this in my home practice, and if I had experienced it before the retreat, I would've let the leaders know on my evaluation form that this would've been awesome.

9:45 a.m. Walk: this was walking meditation performed in the room we were using. It's just another form of mindfulness where instead of using breath or something else as an anchor, you are very focused on your feet hitting the floor. After 45 minutes on my butt on a cushion, I was always very eager to walk. I really zoned out and got into this, and I could see why Thich Nhat Hanh encourages this so enthusiastically (there are videos on You Tube of Hanh and others teaching this). I have tried to make one of my daily dog walks one where I practice walking meditation.

10:00    Sit

10:45    Yoga: The daily asana practice was so amazing it's getting it's own post later.

11:45    Sit + Group Interview: For more details on what transpires in group interviews, please see my earlier post.

12:30    Eating Instructions: This was only on the first day of retreat, but it was instruction in mindful eating. The teachers passed around a bowl of different foods, including different types of nuts, raisins, and granola. The guy with major food allergies practiced this with an apple. We were instructed to first smell the food; touch it to the lips; put it in our mouths and slowly move it around, seeing how it tastes and feels in different regions of our mouth. It was really enlightening for me to see how mindless my impulse to swallow is: the teacher said, "notice the impulse to swallow," after I had already swallowed my raisin. Oops! After mindful, deliberate chewing and experiencing all these bites of food had to offer, we were instructed to swallow in our own time.

I had heard of this "raisin meditation," and after hearing a friend's jeering review of it, I was skeptical. However, I liked it and found it put me in the right head space to both of my daily silent meals in mindfulness. After all, that was the point: not just not talking for the sake of not talking.

12:45    Lunch (silent)

After leaving dining hall, continue silence or enter speech.

Retreat Logistics

2012-01-13T11:57:00.000-05:00

Most of my friends haven't been on meditation retreat, so I'm getting a lot of questions about logistics that I wanted to address. I attended Pardes' "Awakening to the Divine" retreat. They first hosted this in 2011 for college students. The 2012 one was broadened to include "young adults," but apparently the scale has shifted: the retreatants this year were between 20-40. There were 21 women and five men.

Location: I was retreating at Pearlstone Retreat Center in Reisterstown, Md., outside of Baltimore. This is a really lovely, hilly, wooded property with lots of places to duck away and take walks. There is a central housing unit that has has single, double and six-bed dormitory style rooms. All of the activities took place in the central lodge, or outside. Kayam, an educational farm, is connected to this facility, so every day I tried to spend some time hanging out with the goats and chickens.

Food: Luckily for me, Pearlstone has a strictly kosher kitchen under the supervision of the Star-K supervising agency of Baltimore. They are so strict that they don't allow in any outside water bottles into the lodge building. Small amounts of food can be kept and consumed in your bedroom. I was a basket case about this part of the retreat: I follow a strict food plan that eliminates gluten and sugar, and requires that I separately weigh everything that I put in my mouth. That means foods like casseroles don't work so well for me. Most of the time, I handle this by bringing my own food, but Pearlstone's strict kosher standards meant I couldn't do that.

I had to contact the dining coordinator and tell him all about my restrictions. I called, emailed, and even sent him a copy of my food plan. He assured me everything would be ok, but didn't actually provide answers to specific questions I asked, like, "When you serve pasta with cheese at lunch, what protein could I get at that meal?" Ultimately, I had to just jump in and know that I did my best to get my dietary needs met, and that I would have to turn the results over to God. I knew I wouldn't eat compulsively, which is the reason I am so guarded with my food in the first place. To my delight, everything worked out beautifully and deliciously! They had separate foods for me that I could weigh at any meal like chickpeas, tofu, hard boiled eggs and plain tuna fish. We had three scheduled meals a day. Every night I eat one protein and one fruit serving as a snack, so I always grabbed a hard boiled egg and fruit for later before I exited the dining hall after dinner.

Every meal had a large garden salad and fresh fruit. They even got us gluten-free and sugar-free challah for shabbat [our Sabbath observance]. Typical entrees included hearty bean soups, stir-frys or acorn squashes stuffed with quinoa and tofu. We had fish twice. No meal except Shabbat dinner had meat, and when there was meat or fish there were always vegetarian entrees. They made delicious veggie side dishes like eggplant salads and ratatouille, and one lunch was falaffel, homemade hummus (to die for!) and Israeli salad.

Everyone was surprised at how awesome the food was. Pearlstone puts a lot of emphasis on fresh, healthy meals. They try to use seasonal produce when available. Furthermore, there is always hot coffee, a tea station, and a basket of fresh fruit in the lobby. I loved that the dining hall is green: they provide compostable to-go containers if you request them, but otherwise we ate on real dishes.

Accommodations: I was expecting to share a room with one other woman. As it turns out, I had four other roommates. I have to say, I'm glad I didn't know that ahead of time; if I had, I probably wouldn't have gone, and thus would've cheated myself out of an awesome experience. When I realized I had four other roommates, I initially freaked out: I'm 35 and used to doing things my way, turning out the lights when I want to, etc. I took a deep breath and realized that this would be a good opportunity to stretch my comfort zone and prove I can be flexible when circumstances require it. It turns out my roommates were really cool, nice women; if anything, I inconvenienced them more than they bothered me, because I was usually last to sleep and first to wake up.

Sharing a bathroom was probably the hardest part of the accommodations. There were 9 women sharing one primary bathroom; you could duck into others on the floor if they were empty, but each small bathroom -- containing one sink, toilet, and shower -- was basically shared between one or two rooms. I have big issues around bathroom cleanliness to begin with; if nothing else in my house is clean, the toilet is. People were slovenly in the bathroom, leading me to tape a little note to the mirror kindly asking people to clean up after themselves to make the experience of sharing a bathroom as pleasant as possible. That made an immediate difference.

This is going to sound ridiculous, but I was inordinately proud of myself for handling the shared space issue so well. Before I left for the retreat, someone told me, "I'm very set in my ways; I wouldn't be willing to share a room." I decided I didn't want to be that way, personally. I didn't like sharing a room, but I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it if I wanted to. That said, if I go to another retreat at Pearlstone, which I hope to do, I would spring for a private room if I had an option to do so. It would be much easier to maintain silence in solitude at night. Having my own room would be essential for my Sabbath observance in a group setting, but on the Pardes retreat, everyone agreed to be Shabbat-observant in public spaces and in dwelling quarters.

In forthcoming posts, I am going to write more about how we spent our time on retreat.

On Honesty, Openness, and Vulnerability

2012-01-10T15:22:00.001-05:00

I just came back from a six day meditation and spirituality retreat. We were silent from 9 p.m.-1 p.m. daily, and during the afternoon we had religious study related to mindfulness and transformation, and were able to engage in mindful speech if we chose to. We had a lot of opportunities to share our personal experiences with the whole group, and I took advantage of that.

If you look at my blog from 2011, you'll see that I have virtually no posts. It was hands-down the worst year of my life. Here's the summary: February, massive pain flare leading to huge setback in physical ability; April, my husband gets very sick with mystery illness I; May, lose my 59 year-old father to cancer; June, lose my nine week old baby to God-knows-what; August, my husband gets terrifyingly sick with mystery illness II; October, major depressive episode; December, husband needs emergency surgery. The whole year, since May, was set against a backdrop of the after-effects of my father's poor estate planning, which left me with a lot of emotional pain, anger and resentment. I was so raw, I didn't want to write about anything going on, and I didn't feel able to write about anything else. I also really struggled with the idea of how open to be on this blog. My readership on my blogs has always been highest when I'm raw, transparent and vulnerable. That's a scary place to be among loved ones, or just yourself, let alone on the void of the Internet where the crazies loom.

Anyway, I decided if I was going to get anything out of the retreat, I had to be honest about where I was. The group of people I retreated with made a really safe space to do that in, but even before I knew them, I took the leap. For example, the first group interview on the second full day of the retreat was a little intense. The background is that six of us were in a circle, and each of us, in turn, had a personal conversation with the meditation instructor about our practice (we had individual interviews at other times) while the others just listened. Most of the other participants said things like, "I can't keep following my breath during seated meditation. What do I do?" or "I get really sleepy." Some delved a little deeper, touching on the general nature of their distractions. Finally, James gets to me and I pour out the following:

"I'm anxious. The focus of that anxiety during my meditation is how many needs I have, and how terrified I am of not having those needs met. I'm scared of there not being food here I can eat, I'm scared I won't be able to sleep with four other women in my room and how badly that will make my pain flare, I'm scared of there not being an available bathroom when I need one. I'm scared of having to wait 25 minutes for a shower! Worse, I hate that I have all these special needs, and I'm just so aware of how fucked up that makes me feel. I feel fundamentally broken, screwed up, weird and unlovable. And I hate it."

Tara Brach, a popular D.C.-based meditation teacher, talks a lot about the "trance of unworthiness" that people, particularly Westerners, feel. This was at the heart of what I was expressing to James in that group interview. I heard this come up in other guises at the retreat, and was shocked to learn that even seemingly perfect people, like Demi Moore, feel this way. In a February interview in Harper's Bazaar magazine, Moore described her greatest fear: "What scares me is that I'm ultimately going to find out at the end of my life that I'm not really loveable, that I'm not worthy of being loved. That there's something fundamentally wrong with me ..."

But back to me. James says in his lovely James-ian voice (now permanently etched in my head), "It's ok to have needs. The first thing I want you to do is acknowledge that you want things: you want to have food to eat. You want to sleep. You want to shower. That's ok. The second thing is, when you encounter this, I want you to say, 'not me.' It's not you. You may have needs and you may have anxieties, but they are not you." I'll have more to say about this in another post about Jan. 6, but in the meantime, I'll leave this with a comic illustration of this proposition.

I felt so odd after I spilled my deepest-held feelings about my trance of unworthiness in front of five strangers. After our interview, two retreatants who were there came up to me and thanked me for sharing so openly. They said it took guts and helped them. Emboldened by the votes of confidence, I started putting out really personal, embarrassing things during our afternoon group discussions if I thought it could help other people, or would otherwise be relevant to our discussion.

At the end of the retreat, when we were saying goodbye to each other, the feedback others' consistently gave to me was how thankful they were that I shared such intimate things. That it helped them immensely, and gave them hope that they could be resilient and make it through some pretty awful times. After about 15 people said that to me, it really reinforced for me that I am most myself when I am open and honest, especially on my blog. I don't do inauthentic well. It's not that I'd share everything (ok, I would share almost everything...), but I am going to just try and be myself and accept the consequences. I also take a lot of inspiration in this from Heather Armstrong, who was so open about her mental health problems, especially as they concerned her second pregnancy, and has taken a huge amount of crap from the true Internet crazies for it.

So, I hope that 2012 is a much more active year for this blog, and that I can be myself, make myself vulnerable, and hopefully enrich someone else's life because of it.

Link to Other Blog Post

2011-10-17T18:59:00.000-04:00

Hi! I just wanted to include a link to my latest piece on the Georgetown Patch. It has to be exclusive content or I'd post it here.

The Problem With Invincibility

2011-07-03T18:25:00.003-04:00

"So, what doesn't kill me doesn't kill me..." Diana in "Another Day," Next To Normal original Broadway soundtrack

"I created the sound of madness/wrote the book on pain/somehow I'm still here to explain/that the darkest hour never comes in the night..." Shinedown, "The Sound of Madness"

What the fuck was I thinking, attending my friends' sons' britot [ritual circumcisions] one month to the day after I was wheeled into an operating room and had the remains of my first, and only, pregnancy extracted from my body? I wasn't thinking. If anything, I was just feeling, and feeling good. Feeling, dare I say, invincible. I have been put through a crucible the past eight weeks. Losing my father tragically and surprisingly. The shock and indescribable excitement of learning I was expecting one week after we buried my father in the ground. My husband presenting with dramatic and scary medical symptoms with no obvious cause. Heartache caused by my father's handling of his estate, which by the way, I'm executing. Finding out at 9 weeks that the baby ceased to grow past week 6. Waiting around to miscarry. Not miscarrying. Listening to the obstetrician's gruesome description of a D&C, then being wheeled later that day into an operating room. The incredulity I felt when the administrator who checked me into the hospital asked me if I was ok, even though the reason for my admission was printed on the stack of forms in front of her. "I am anything but ok," I answered.

I never thought about how I'd react in the situation I found myself in this May. I wanted to curl into a ball. Instead, I've opted to pour every ounce of energy I have into healing myself physically, mentally, and spiritually, so God willing, one day I can try to be a mom again. For me, this means treating my physical therapy like my life depends on it, because it does. It means upping my meditation past my comfort zone. It means getting back into a yoga practice, and doing challenging cardio workouts to boost my mood and sate my anxiety. Most importantly, it means working through my physical pain through all of this.

Much to my surprise, the result of going through the crucible is that I feel friggin' amazing. It is exhilirating, in a way, to walk through the seventh layer of hell and come out the other side, burned but not broken. After avoiding most things pertaining to babies or small children for four weeks, I started testing myself. Can I look at a pregnant woman's belly and not feel a pit in my own? Check. Can I enjoy Shabbat dinner with my friends' darling toddler? Check. Can I hold an infant without my heart breaking? Check. All of this, to me, meant that of course I'd go to my dear friends' twins' britot. I was thrilled for them, and wanted to celebrate the miracle of their sons. I also wanted to catch up with dear old friends I don't get to see often enough. I'm sure somewhere in my intellect I thought, "This might be hard," but that was drowned out by feeling good. By feeling invincible. But, the problem with invincibility is that you're not invincible.

Everything started off just fine at the celebration. I have a rough time at these things anyway, because religious obligation aside, I'm not totally copacetic with circumcision, which is why I only attend the britot of close friends' children (usually a whole religious community is invited to these things). At no point did anything set me off or trigger me. A feeling of darkness just gradually crept in. I tried mindfulness to distract myself, to no avail. Almost instinctively, I sought out my husband, David, my comforter in chief. When he held me close to him, wiping tears from his own eyes, my walls came tumbling down. The atmosphere became oppressive; all I saw and heard were babies, and missing my own. After the ceremony, I knew I had to bolt. I gathered myself to wish the new parents a final "mazel tov," and planned to discretely make my exit. Then I knew, if I opened my mouth to say those words, a wail would escape me. I made the choice -- against all my schooling in Southern manners -- to leave without saying goodbye, and to not run cry on a friend's shoulder, which would've put the focus on me and not on the celebration and the celebrants. David held me while I sobbed in the stairwell, and then I made my way to the gym, sobbing all the while on the bus. I almost asked for a Xanax, but then remembered, "That doesn't help a broken heart."

I had a killer workout. I poured out all my grief, sorrow, and anger on that cardio machine, and I became one of those gym rats I admired but never come close to: someone who sweats through their clothes. I was soaking wet and heaving, but calmer. Somewhere, in that workout, I stopped chiding myself for being so foolish to try and go to that bris. I let admiration fill its place -- I tried to do something positive, with the best of intentions. Instead of viewing it as a moral failing that I couldn't stay the whole time, I just worked on accepting it as what was. I felt compassion for what I've been through instead of remorse for this perceived failing.

I've gained insight that your stuff will grab you when you least expect it, so you just run with it and make it work. Truly, the darkest hour never comes in the night.

Spa World

2011-06-27T17:48:00.000-04:00

Groupon opened my eyes to whole new experience yesterday. My friend Rachel and I went to Spa World, a traditional Korean spa, in Centreville, VA. It is in a strip mall, but has more than 50,000 square feet of Korean Spa Pleasure. I thought I would enjoy it, but it surpassed my expectations.

Spa World can best be broken up into its wet (single-sex) and dry (co-ed) parts. The most important thing to know about the first part, the wet one, is that nudity is the word of the day. They don't actually just encourage nudity, they actively discourage covering up. It is outright prohibited in the bade pool, and if you had thoughts of hiding your butt in a towel, think again: they only have hand towels! The bade pool, which you can see a diagram of here), is a large jacuzzi tub with different types of sections and jets kept at a perfect 95 degrees. Sounds relaxing? Rachel and I spent an hour schmoozing in this tub along with about 20-30 other women at a time.

I was a little scared about the nudity: I have lost about 116 lbs, and I have lots of hanging skin, stretch marks, and cellulite. Furthermore, I am still about 15-20 lbs overweight. I decided to suck it up, and I'm glad I did. First of all, it was strangely freeing to hang around nude, and for the first time ever I saw what was appealing about nudist colonies. It was even more freeing to realize that a) people didn't seem to be checking other people out, but, when you looked, and don't tell me you wouldn't, b) all women but a few of the very young 20-somethings had wobbly, imperfect bodies. Even people who were at a healthy weight, and look like they've always been a healthy weight, had cellulite, stretched skin, etc. And nobody cares. I was totally impressed by the obese women confident enough to be there, and there were plenty, including one with a tattoo on her ass of Taz holding a whip that read, "Hurts so good." Not going there!

Surrounding the bade pools are smaller hot tubs of differing temperatures, and a cool tub, as well as a sauna and a steam room. There's also a marble slab you can lay on that purportedly had "infrared healing rays," but I laid there and didn't feel anything but cold. Off to the side are these sinks close to the floor with accompanying stools where Korean women washed their hair (or each others') and groomed themselves. There were also showers with no doors. There was a walled-off section of 10 tables with Korean women giving traditional exfoliations and massages. I didn't partake in that this time.

After spending about an hour and a half in the wet area, Rachel and I donned our prison uniforms to head out to the poultice rooms. These were hideous, shapeless, orange, cotton shorts and t-shirts that we had to don when we headed out to the co-ed dry area. There was a massive central room with tatami mats spread on the floor and piles of little plastic-covered pillows. There were loungers, sofas, free wi-fi, and a snack bar in that room. This is also where you can access the Korean restaurant. Apparently, many Koreans use Spa World as a community center, which is probably why there are year-long memberships. If you take a flight of stairs up, there is an arcade, a sleeping room, a salon, gift shop, and more massage rooms.

Off of this main room are six different poultice rooms, which are rooms made of different natural materials that allegedly have healing properties, like an amethyst room and a salt room. All have dry saunas and range from 114-148 degrees, and comfortably accommodate 8-12 adults. There's also a 65 degree ice room where you can cool off. All of the poultice rooms are very quiet, and there are men and women laying down or sitting in them. The most fun, to me, was the clay ball room, which is filled with thousands of clay balls the size of marbles. They felt marvelous to roll around in!

Two surprises lay in store for me in the dry area: first, although I personally don't believe that physical things like rocks or other natural elements have healing properties*, I felt strangely calmed in the amethyst room, on an energetic level. It didn't hurt that the room was gorgeous: the walls were a soothing nature-scene mosaic done in earth-tones, and the ceiling has brilliant amethyst and another red stone for you to gaze up at while the sweat stings your eyes. This room felt so calming to me that I went back to it. The other surprise was how relaxed and cleansed I felt after all this. I was a little tired, but mostly invigorated. My skin felt marvelous, and I could see how Scientologists put so much stock in a good shvitz.

At $35 a day sans Groupon, it's not cheap, but I will definitely go back to Spa World. I can see myself doing it once a season as a pick-me-up, cleansing thing.

*Please note that hope still springs eternal: In spite of my doubts, I deliberately tried a room that claims to up your sex drive, to no avail.

Stronger Now

2011-06-19T19:21:00.000-04:00

This is the first time I've looked at my blog since May 5, the day my father died, and it's a little surreal. The last seven weeks of my life have in many ways have been the hardest -- and this is coming from someone disabled from Lyme Disease, who at her worst was unable to wash her own hair or write more than scrawling her name. In the last few weeks, I have been tested and pushed in all capacities, most of which I'm unwilling to write about at this point. It is fair to say that my problems started just as my father died, and got worse from there. My therapist, in a moment of candor, said, "The book of Job comes to mind," after I summarized the startling difficulties of the past few weeks.

That said, I'm actually doing ok, much to my surprise. I have my ups and downs. A week ago I thought I was in a deep depression, but it was just a couple of crummy days, and they passed. Many people have reassured me that after the hell I've been through, some dark days are justified. Today is Father's Day; I thought I'd be a basket case, and I'm sad, but not a basket case. Losing my father has sucked, and it felt worse than I thought it would. For the first few days after he died, I felt like I had been turned inside out. The worst part was waking up, in a good mood, thinking, "That must have just been a terrible dream," and then remembering that, no, my dad was dead. For a few days, I woke up to this startling realization each day and promptly burst into tears. Now the grief comes in waves, like when I think, "Oh, I haven't talked to Dad in a long time," and then remember, "And you never will." Over the past few weeks, I've wanted to share with my dad the trials David and I have endured, desperate for his assurance that everything would be ok. I always felt like he had my back. It's cold comfort that I could imagine exactly what he would have said if I was able to converse with him about what is going on.

I don't mean to sound all grim. First of all, I am extremely grateful for the blessings in my life which I celebrate daily -- the first of which is always David, followed closely by abstinence (sobriety) from compulsive overeating. Secondly, I am finding out I have vast reserves of strength that I didn't know I had. It's actually kind of astounding. I don't mean this to sound arrogant; on the contrary, until recently, I think I (wrongly) viewed myself as fragile. But nothing in my demeanor the last seven weeks even hints at fragility.

Strangely, I want to end this post with a homage to Jani Lane, the singer/songwriter of '80s hair metal band, Warrant. I saw a TV clip of Lane where he said he literally would have blown his "[f-ing] brains out" if he had known how writing "Cherry Pie" would've ruined his credibility in the music business. I think of that sad TV clip when I hear Warrant's ballad "Stronger Now," which I find myself humming often nowadays:

"I held you for a moment in my hands
The moment with you slipped away like sand
Through my fingers now
In front of me a choice I have to make
To carry on or simply fade away
I lose you either way
I'd like to say that it was easy, it was hard
To say goodbye, I thought that I would die

Letting go of you, was so hard to do
And I thought that it would kill me but I made
It through somehow, and I'm so much stronger now..."

So, Jani, if you're reading this, I think you are a good singer/songwriter, which is why I identify with your music and lyrics a decade after you wrote them. And I still think you kick ass, which is why I can't bring myself to throw away the framed, autographed napkin you signed for me.

The Journey

2011-05-05T04:29:00.000-04:00

I am in Phoenix helping my father die, and move on to the next leg of his journey. It's 1:30 a.m. I'm physically, emotionally, & spiritually exhausted, but sleep is elusive. I just listened to Sia's song "Breathe Me"; it captures my feelings pretty well at this moment. I'm writing, with sore arms, on my iPhone, so more later. Please pray for my Dad to have a peaceful death, and for my family. Blessings, Sarah

Clutterama Follow-up

2011-04-06T18:05:00.000-04:00

Now that I've quit vomiting for a few minutes (I seem to be the lucky recipient of the stomach virus going around the metro area), I wanted to write about my previously aforementioned session with Scott Roewer of Solutions By Scott. I feel awful, so my writing is clunky. Sorry. My appointment with Scott was four intense hours, and at the end of it, I wanted to collapse and felt pretty overwhelmed with all the information I took in. What's great, though, is that I am thrilled I had this appointment and definitely felt like I got my money's worth. Many things came out of the appointment, including:

1. Specific suggestions for better organizing our home and life as we live it, including a simple "active projects" organizing system for me to handle all the incoming stuff that I can't handle right away.

2. Ideas for specific rooms of the house, such as putting a 3-hole punch in my husband's man cave (aka the "music room") so he can put the pages of his song lyrics in a notebook instead of them fanning out on the floor. Scott also suggested many more hooks for cables hung out of the walking space in that room, which there isn't much of. He also suggested saving the guitar stands, which take up room on the floor, for gigs, and instead, hanging guitars on the wall.

Scott also made a good suggestion for covering the drafty vent that comes into our living room in the winter; our current solution is a towel, which, frankly, just looks really ghetto. We don't like it, but didn't have another idea in mind until now.

3. Very detailed suggestions for turning our file cabinet from the abyss that it is to a manageable system containing only information we really need to save -- which, it turns out, is actually shockingly little. Furthermore, we're ditching our desk, which takes up a lot of room to just hold stationary and clutter. Scott pointed out we can keep all of our office supplies on one small shelf.

3. Great suggestions for Web sites/applications that I've never heard of that can be integral to managing my clutter and organization problems. I plan to write a separate blog post on these once I get more adept at using them.

4. Very detailed discussions about some home projects we need to undertake to facilitate organization in our house. For example, Scott recommended installing Elfa shelving in our cellar -- our only real storage space -- to turn it into really usable, organized space instead of the disorganized clutter room that it is. I agree this is ground zero for us, and as Scott and I toured the rest of our home, I could see how so many organizational solutions came back to the cellar. Ditto with our bedroom closets, which are the achilles heels of the house. Our 100 year-old home does not have a linen closet, which we could integrate into a closet redesign. This is something we scoped out as part of our major home renovation, but we scrapped it due to budgeting. What Scott recommended was significantly cheaper and less extensive, with more focus on maximizing utility than what the general contractors suggested.

Perhaps one of the most important things I got from my session was a sense of confidence. As you can read in my last blog post about this, I was very down on myself, feeling like my organizational issues were a character defect. While I can't say that I'm not lazy, I can say that until my session with Scott, I didn't really know how to be organized. No one really taught me the advanced organizational skills you need to successfully run a multi-person house. This alone made it worth the fee.

I have been in the middle of a severe pain flare, so use of my arms is very limited (I wrote most of this 4 weeks ago), so it sucks to not be able to implement Scott's ideas as rapidly as I was hoping for. Oh well. All in good time!

Update

2011-03-10T22:52:00.000-05:00

I'm in an acute pain flare after a severe vomiting spell due to a stomach virus. My arms are in extreme pain, so minimal typing for me. Will be back to blogging as soon as it's safe to. Thanks!

Clutterama

2011-02-27T11:43:00.000-05:00

I am completely powerless over clutter. We have clutter of all types in our home, but I am especially completely powerless over paper: so much of it comes into our home, it overwhelms me. I'm fine with immediately shredding or recycling the junk. What confounds me are the things to keep, or to come back to later, like appeals for charity or bills to be paid. Basically, I've never been great at organization; it's just something I never learned how to do.

This clutter causes me no end of grief. It makes it hard to clean when I have to declutter first. It makes it hard to find something, and yes, some bills don't emerge from their hibernation before I get a "friendly reminder" from accounts receivable. I get nervous if someone stops by unexpectedly, because I typically tidy up for guests before they come. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, it keeps our home from being the restful place of respite that I want it to be. The world is tough, and I want my home to be a place of comfort, shelter, and restoration. Clutter kills that mood fast.

I have tried different methods of dealing with clutter including many self-help books and organizational Web sites. None of them made a lasting difference. I even hired a self-proclaimed "organizer," who ended up being completely unprofessional and unhelpful. She was an entrepreneur, and organizing was just her latest venture, and after three hours I felt like her therapist.

A friend suggested that I work with another professional organizer named Scott who won the local organizer-of-the-year award, and seems very competent and accomplished. Most importantly, he provided a valuable service to my friend that she believes is worth the money. I struggled with whether to hire him for two reasons: one, he is expensive. Two -- and this is the major reason -- I realize that there something going on that no one can fix for me. I analogize this to my struggle with food addiction. I saw all kinds of diet doctors and nutritionists, followed dozens of diets, had therapy (including with eating disorder specialists), and read all the self-help books on the market, but none of these resources on their own were enough to help me conquer my food addiction. I had spiritual and emotional problems galore that were at the root of my eating, and only serious spiritual and emotional work on my part could clear the passage for me to heal from my food addiction.

So, part of the reason I hesitated to hire Scott is that I realize there is a piece of my clutter problem that only I can fix. There is some reason I hold on to it and perpetuate the behavior, or I wouldn't continue to do it. People only hold on to dysfunctional ways of being if there is some payoff (caveat here: some people want to change their dysfunctional patterns but don't know how). I've spent the last few weeks thinking about what might be behind some of my clutter. One ugly answer is plain old laziness; I'd rather do other things than organize. Another is that it might strangely give me some kind of comfort, like a kid making a fort with stuff around the house. Perhaps it perpetuates an old tape I play in my head that I am "overwhelmed." This is one I can confront directly: that feeling of being overwhelmed was a vestige of my food addiction, when I spent all of my energy procuring, eating, and hiding the evidence that I binged. Thank God, in recovery through the 12 steps, I have shed that addiction and with it, the feeling of constantly being overwhelmed. My life is significantly more manageable than it used to be, so I can let that old label go. Most of the time, I am not overwhelmed anymore, with the weeks before Passover a notable exception!

Those are the things that Scott can't fix for me: I have to get to the bottom of this coping mechanism and constantly remind myself that I deserve the kind of home that I want, and that David and I are worth putting the effort in to get that home. Scott can't do that work for me, but he can give me insights, and I've talked with his assistant about the concerns that I'm expressing here about the limitations of his services. I had to send back a pre-appointment questionnaire with answers to questions about what I hoped to get out of Scott's services and for insights into what I think my problem is and why I'm motivated to change.

I have a relative who was very condescending about my decision to hire Scott, and I considered canceling the appointment in light of that reaction and my own hesitations expressed above. However, after some helpful chats with my trusted friends and David, I decided to go ahead and keep my appointment with Scott. Because while there's a piece of me he can't fix, he is a professional organizer, and I need the services he sells. I don't have a good organizational system, and have been unable to put together one that works. The food analogy works well here, too: yes, I needed the 12 steps, but I also needed a nutritionist to tell me what to eat and a therapist to help me sort through some of the larger issues that came up through my step work. OA minus those auxiliary professional services would not have yielded the same level of excellent results that I've been blessed by. I needed all of it.

OA sponsor. And yes, I am seriously considering at least dialing in to a Clutterers Anonymous telephone meeting. I have dedicated a lot of my life to self-improvement and enlightenment in different forms. I'm grateful for all of the tools I have used including therapy, Judaism, books, energetic work, yoga, meditation, exercise, etc., but nothing has ever been as transformative to me as the 12 step program of recovery.

I have started applying the first three steps to clutter:

1. I admit that I am powerless over clutter and that my life has become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity.
3. Became willing to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand God.

My lengthy, personal email to Scott was my step one, detailing exactly how my life is impacted by my organizational problems and how unmanageable it has become. For me, the higher powers I'm trusting to restore me to sanity are God and Scott, in that order. Step three is a process of letting go and surrendering my problems to forces greater than me, combined with footwork on my part. It's not enough to say, "God, make my house uncluttered." I have to do the aforementioned homework/opportunities.

In spite of the progress I've seen in my food addiction, there is a piece of me that considers that a once-in-a-lifetime kind of miracle. I believe adults can change with a ton of hard work and tenacity, but it doesn't happen much. Lately, I've been blessed with profound, positive changes in two areas of my life: intimacy and anxiety. I see these as reminders from God to me that my recovery was not a once-in-a-lifetime miracle, and that if I put in the work I need to and turn the results over to Him/Her/It, that I can grow and recover in other areas of my life. My fondest wish for myself and my family is that we can grow and heal in this area too. I'll keep you apprised of my progress; my appointment with Scott is Wednesday. Like my food issues, I'm sure there will be periods of regression, but I have the tenacity of a terrier, and am determined to give this my best effort.

Quick Updates to LOL Playlist

2011-02-10T18:44:00.000-05:00

I wrote about my laugh out loud playlist recently, and have two updates, which won't surprise you if you've caught on to my sense of humor:

16. "The Sex Is Good" by Saving Abel: "I have to fake it/I'd leave if I could/I'm not in love but the sex is good" and "we don't get along that well/not much for talk, but you're hot as hell" never fail to make me crack up.

17. "F**k You" by Cee-Lo Green. Brilliant, just brilliant. Once I finally listened to this, I could see why it created so much buzz. That this song is so cheerful and soulful, and yet so relatable, is great. My biggest problem is not singing this in public. Maybe I should listen to the radio-friendly version, "Forget You," in case I slip.

I had a super-busy day and have a super-busy night ahead, so peace out!

Book Review: Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives

2011-02-06T18:23:00.000-05:00

Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives by Annie Murphy Paul

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is full of fascinating facts based on research into fetal origins. Some things I found especially interesting include:

* According to some researchers, about one-third of gay men are gay because their mothers had more sons before them. The researchers hypothesize that this is because the mother's immune system manufactures antibodies directed at proteins secreted by male fetuses. When she becomes pregnant with another son, these antibodies allegedly affect the baby's developing brain in a way that predisposes him to homosexuality. According to these researchers, the more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he is to be gay.
* Babies reap the same benefits their moms do from cardiovascular exercise: their heart rates and heart-rate variability are lower than those of fetuses whose moms don't exercise.
*One emerging consensus coming about due to fetal origins research is that one's disposition to heart disease may have as much to do with prenatal nutrition as one's diet and activity level. Specifically, a lack of healthful nutrients during gestation seems to predispose offspring to cardiac and other organ problems.

These are just a few examples of the interesting research that Murphy Paul writes about. The reason I can’t give the book more stars is that the author seems particularly prone to confirmation bias; she is all too eager to unquestioningly accept research that supports her theories, and is apt to confuse causation with correlation. One example of this is Murphy Paul’s descriptions of the effects of obese mothers on their babies. She cites a study comparing the obesity rates of children born to the same mothers pre- and post- gastric bypass surgery. The kids gestated post-surgery were 52 percent less likely to be obese than siblings born to the same mom when she was obese. Murphy Paul takes this as proof that the changed physiology of the mother causes the changed obesity rates of the post-surgery offspring.

I found this conclusion arresting, because anyone who successfully loses and keeps weight off after bariatric surgery has made major changes to her diet and presumably her household environment that supports that diet. Murphy Paul erroneously drawing these conclusions, and blindly accepting research results and/or confusing causation with correlation, cast a pall over the rest of the book for me. It made me doubt whether I could trust her reporting of the clinical studies. Fortunately, the book is well-sourced, so I can personally look up any studies that I have questions about.

Another thing that disturbed me was how Murphy Paul blindly seemed to use the research she found to justify her own experiences. She was pregnant at the time she wrote the book, and it flows between data about fetal origins and how that meshes with Murphy Paul’s experiences as a pregnant woman. Both of her sons were born via cesarean sections, and I found myself rolling my eyes when she was extolling their virtues, such as the assertion that children born via c-section are less likely to experience pain as infants. There was no information whatsoever about the very real risk of c-sections to fetuses. In the interest of fairness in a book about fetal origins science, I would have preferred a more balanced look at the pros and cons of vaginal and caesarean births for the baby in light of current research on the topic.

Overall, this is a very entertaining read, but take it with a gigantic grain of salt.

View all my reviews

Reflections on an Intense Day

2011-01-27T18:14:00.000-05:00

If I had to rate my Wednesday on a scale of 1-10, I'd give it a 9. We buried David's grandmother yesterday. She strongly influenced me, and I wrote about my deep feelings for her here. She died at the end of October, but because she was having a funeral with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, and the men and women dying in our current wars get first priority (rightly), this was the soonest Grandma could be buried. My in-laws were staying with us; they are perfect house guests, but having any house guests comes with challenges, so the week was already not normal for us. Tuesday night was Grandma's wake at a funeral home. The closed coffin was in the room with us, and it was mostly like a party without any food or drinks. People laughed and caught up with relatives they haven't seen in a while. A few people told mostly-funny stories about Grandma.

Since I didn't react emotionally to the coffin in the funeral home on Tuesday, I was surprised by the cry that welled up in my throat on Wednesday morning, when we arrived at the church for her funeral mass, and I saw her coffin draped in the American flag, lying in the back of the hearse. The cry left my throat by the time her pallbearers, her grandsons, had carried the coffin into the rear of the sanctuary, where the priest covered the casket in a cloth the same color and with the same pattern as the ones on his vestments.

Grandma was a devout Catholic (she was even a member of the perpetual adoration society), so I was glad that she had a service that reflected her beliefs. However, it was a little surreal on many levels: first, the fact that with the exception of one Grandma's sons (and his wife), the rest of the family are ex-Catholics. There were not very many people taking communion at this mass. But what really made it surreal was how antithetical the tone/content of the mass was when compared with Judaic beliefs and philosophies about death. There was a lot of liturgy talking about what a happy day it was, and much to my shock, included a lot of hallel (!!!), in English, of course. Hallel is a Jewish prayer composed of Psalms 113-118 that is said on joyous occasions like Jewish holy days, or Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of the month, when we welcome the new moon. Hearing it said at a funeral was the spiritual equivalent of having a bucket of ice water tossed on you. It really highlighted the difference in religious philosophy between Christianity and Judaism: Judaism thinks that death sucks and finds no joy in it whatsoever. This is one of the reasons that it is in poor taste to send flowers to Jewish mourners. That said, I think the mass was a fitting way to say goodbye to Grandma, and it certainly would have met her approval. All of her granddaughters who were in town for the funeral participated in the church service, and my mother-in-law delivered a lovely eulogy.

It was perfect weather for a funeral: cold and rainy. The rain turned to hail during the short ceremony at Arlington. Attending a military funeral is intense in its own right; I can't imagine someone not being moved by it. I started to cry, again, when I saw the horse-drawn limbers and caissons -- I should've taken David's advice to bring two handkerchiefs instead of my one, which was soaked half-way through the mass. The firing of rifles, playing of taps, and folding of the flag covering the casket -- all by other sailors who performed perfectly and in unity even as they were pelted, hard, with hail, was profound, but not as profound as the relief of Grandma finally being buried next to Grandpa, and her son, Michael. One of David's cousins handed out roses, which we all laid on the coffin as we touched it and whispered hurried goodbyes; they were hurried because Arlington officials want you away from the grave as soon as possible. As soon as the service is over, they ask you to return to your vehicles. I really liked that option of going up to the casket, and it's one I've never had at a Jewish funeral. As a Jew, it feels deeply wrong to me to leave a casket above ground; people at a Jewish funeral all pitch in and shove dirt on the coffin. It felt weird to me at Grandpa's funeral to walk away from his casket, and it felt weird to me yesterday. As soon as the family cleared out, Arlington's crew was there to lower the casket and fill in the grave.

It was touching to see Grandma's kids, grandchildren, and great grandchildren support each other and celebrate her complicated, but authentic life: a life really devoted to service of God, her family, and her country, probably in that order. After the funeral, we gathered at David's cousins' house, which felt satisfying, but soon we had to brave the storm to go home. A 22 minute drive took us two hours, but thank God, we made it home safely. To say that the day was emotionally draining was an understatement: we all had headaches and sore eyes from crying all day, and by 9:30 p.m. I felt like I had run a marathon.

Today has been all about rest and revitalization. My massage therapist and I mutually agreed to cancel my appointment today. I showered, prayed, meditated, did my physical therapy exercises, roasted a chicken and brussel sprouts for dinner, took Kacy on a short walk, did one load of laundry, took very few phone calls (although I chatted with my sister for almost one hour), and watched "The Girl Who Played With Fire" on my Netflix instant que. Oh, and now I'm blogging. And that's it! I needed to have a self-care day to decompress from the tensions of the week. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, which might be the subject of my next blog post.

Shomeret Duty

2011-01-24T11:04:00.000-05:00

Last night was my first time acting as shomeret at the mikvah since I fell seriously ill in early 2007. A mikvah is a Jewish ritual bath composed of tap and rain water mixed together. It is used at various transition points, such as after a woman's menstrual period, before marriage, and as the final step in conversion to Judaism. A shomeret is a woman who witnesses another woman's immersion to make sure she is completely covered by the water and has correctly prepared her body pre-immersion. Some mikvaot [plural of "mikvah"] have paid shomrot [plural of "shomeret"], but the one at my synagogue is completely staffed by volunteers. Participation is critical, because an immersion usually isn't valid unless it is witnessed.

I was struck last night by how gratifying this service is. Women using the mikvah may be vulnerable; some of them are desperate to conceive, and others may be using the mikvah for the first time after a miscarriage. I'd argue that anyone using the mikvah is a little vulnerable, since you're naked in front of a peer for a short period of time. There can be a lot of emotion caught up in mikvah use as well; I believe there is a conspiracy of fantasy among Orthodox Jews when it comes to discussing taharat hamishpacha (the laws of family purity, which govern when you can be physically intimate with your partner). There are many books talking about the "gift" of taharat hamishpacha to your marriage, usually all along the same lines: your marriage will be revitalized by the regular cycle of abstaining from sex. When you are finally able to make love again, it'll feel like the first time, and other bullshit along those lines. I'd love to write a real-life manual for Orthodox women, which would include the following:

*You are most likely to be amorous during the time that you're forbidden from having sex
*You will resent the assumption that you will have sex on your set mikvah night. Furthermore, since you can only go after dark, you will be too tired to have sex after a long day at work followed by preparing for immersion and actually running the errand itself.
*Going to the mikvah will usually not be the ultra-spiritual experience promised in books on taharat hamishpacha.

I think this would be a self-published book, as I don't see Feldheim Publishers picking it up. I don't mean to be negative; my feelings about using the mikvah have waxed and waned over 14 years of use, and there are some really beautiful things about it. I just resent the rose-colored glasses that color traditional forums that discuss this topic.

Anyway, back to shomeret duty. For the reasons mentioned above and many others, I feel like the quality of a woman's mikvah experience can be the difference between her choosing to follow this mitzvah [commandment] or not, or the difference between her finding it tolerable or not, and I think the quality of her shomeret has a lot to do with that. Last night, I felt like by being pleasant, hopefully soothing, and respectful of women's privacy to the degree that I could be, I made a difference in the quality of their experience. I think being a shomeret carries a lot of privilege with it: at the very least, you make a routine errand pleasant; at the most, perhaps you give positive energy to someone who hopes to conceive that month. I was grateful to be able to be of service in this capacity.

Ironically, one of the women who immersed last night said, "Weren't you one of the people who started this mikvah?" I said I was the president at the time it opened. She went on to effusively thank me for my work and say how much she enjoys using this mikvah. That really touched my heart, especially because she identified herself as non-Orthodox. To me, that is really a mark of success for what the D.C. mikvah has accomplished: if people from outside the immediate religious community feel comfortable there, we must be doing something right.

In an odd twist on this, my ability to give service in this capacity is dramatically tied to my recovery from food addiction. There are minimum observance requirements for shomrot stipulated in Jewish legal texts, and one of the most basic is that the shomeret keeps kosher, which means adhering to Jewish dietary laws. Most of the members of my synagogue keep kosher kitchens at home, but don't fully keep kosher, meaning they eat food prepared in non-kosher establishments (I try not to have judgments about this, until otherwise-smart people go to great lengths to convince themselves that their fish is not being handled by the tongs that are toasting the BLT next to it. Or that their vegetarian pizza cooking in the 600 degree oven is segregated from the pepperoni and sausage pie one tray away. As someone who worked in food service, I can tell you this is laughable). Because most of my synagogue members don't strictly keep kosher, we have trouble finding qualified shomrot in our community.

When our mikvah opened in July 2005, I was still leading an outwardly Orthodox lifestyle, but bingeing almost daily on non-kosher food. I came to a crossroads: was it more important to spend a lot of money at Burger King and feel guilty all the time about my hypocrisy, or could I actually make something in my life more important than food? Because that's what I'd have to do if I wanted to give much-needed service to the mikvah. I chose to put the needs of my community above my own desires, which happened to be soul-killing, and that dovetailed nicely with recovering from my food addiction. I make no promises about not eating in non-kosher restaurants "forever," but for today, I'm sticking with that choice, and I'm glad I made it.

My "Laugh Out Loud" Playlist

2011-01-18T20:49:00.001-05:00

Today has been really crummy. Nothing bad has happened; the problems are of my mind's own making, mostly stemming from my (unfair) comparison of myself to a friend. I write a list every night of things that I'm grateful for, and tonight's top honor goes to my "laugh out loud" playlist on my iPod. I can't not laugh when I listen to it. Here's what made it on, with brief comments. Please leave other song candidates for this playlist as comments.

1. "Thank God for Jack Daniels" by the Sex Slaves. Winning lyric: "Thank you lord for Jack Daniels, thank you lord for saving me/the only thing that keeps me from the devil/is another glass of that good ole Tennessee ... the only thing that's better than Jack Daniels, is drinking my Jack Daniels for free."

2. "Fever For the Flava" by Hot Action Cop. I laugh at the mere thought of this song, an ode to cunnilingus. I can't decide what's funnier: that a band actually wrote this, or that my husband heard it played on a radio station in Florida. I guess the only funny lyric I'm comfortable quoting is, "Here we go, yo, here's the scenario: gonna strip you down like a car in the barrio."

3. "Totally F**ked" by the original Broadway cast of Spring Awakenings. I guess the opening line says it best: "There's a moment you know, you're f**cked/not an inch more room to self-destruct."

4. "Schadenfreude" by the original Broadway cast of Avenue Q. This whole song is a riot, with examples of schadenfreude abounding, including "Watching a vegetarian being told she just ate chicken/or watching a frat boy realize just what he put his dick in." But my favorite example of schadenfreude has always been, "Being on an elevator when somebody yells, 'hold the door!"/No! 'F**k you, lady, that's what stairs are for!'" I've been on both sides of that elevator door.

5. "Betty and Me" by Jonathan Coulton. Lest you think that I'm only amused by sex and vulgarity, here is a clean song that makes me laugh! This is just a clever little ditty.

6. "Flakes" by Frank Zappa. Kudos for me being sophisticated enough at age 13 to get the brilliance of this song! Years of homeownership have only affirmed its wisdom: "Flakes flakes! They can't fix your brakes/You ask em, 'where's my motor?'/'Well, it was eaten by snakes'/You can stab n' shoot n' spit/but they won't be fixin' it."

7. "I Won't Be Home for Christmas" by Blink 182. Scrooge at its best! "It's Christmas time again/it's time to be nice to the people you can't stand all year/I'm growing tired of all this Christmas cheer."

8. "Merry F**cking Christmas" from Comedy Central's "South Park." What's up with the Jewish girl having two Christmas-related songs on her playlist? After a string of other ridiculous insults to other faiths that don't celebrate Christmas, Mr. Garrison says, "Hey there Mr. Shintoist, merry f**king Christmas, God is gonna kick your ass, you infidelic pagan scum." Even typing that makes me laugh.

9. "Ikea" by Jonathan Coulton. Sheer genius! "Long ago in days of yore/It all began with a god named Thor/There were Vikings and boats/And some plans for a furniture store/It's not a bodega, it's not a mall/And they sell things for apartments smaller than mine/As if there were apartments smaller than mine." Ikea totally deserves a song.

10. "If You Were Gay" by the original Broadway cast of Avenue Q. Nicky trying to lure Rod out of the deep closet he's in is just funny.

11. And on that note, "My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada," also from Avenue Q. Watching Rod dig deeper into that already deep closet makes me laugh.

12. "Ebay" by Weird Al Yankovic. This song is to Ebay what "Ikea" is to, well, Ikea! A parody of the Back Street Boys' "I Want it That Way," Weird Al nails it:

"Wanna buy (a PacMan Fever lunch box)/Wanna buy (a case of vintage tube socks)/Wanna buy (a Kleenex used by Dr. Dre/Found it on Ebay."

13. "The Internet is for Porn" also from Avenue Q. Kate exclaims, "Normal people don't sit at home and look at porn on the Internet!" Trekkie Monster replies, "Oh?? You have NO idea! Ready normal people..." I think it's a testament to this song's social relevance that my mother quoted it at me yesterday when I told her we learned to fix a toilet by watching how-to videos on YouTube. Her response? "See, the Internet is not just for porn!"

14. and 15. "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" and "You Can Be As Loud as the Hell You Want (When You're Making Love). "More genius from Avenue Q, but what do you expect from writers who thank "Lithium" in their CD liner notes? "Everyone's a little bit racist sometimes/Doesn't mean we go around committing hate crimes/Look around and you will find/No one's really color blind/Maybe it's a fact/We all should face/Everyone makes judgments/Based on race." My mom actually uses this song in her presentations about diversity. She doesn't use "You can be..." that I know of!

Ok, there are a few more Jonathan Coulton songs on my playlist, but my arms are sore and there's a little dog who needs walking, so later!

Elvis's Birthday Fight Club

2011-01-09T11:44:00.002-05:00

If the rest of 2011's weekends are as good as the first two, I'm a very lucky girl indeed. Last night, David, two friends, and I went to Elvis's Birthday Fight Club. Yesterday would've been Elvis Presley's 76th birthday, and some geniuses got the idea that nothing would better celebrate the King's birth (no, not that King! That was Dec. 25) than fighting and "hot ta-tas," as the evening's hostess explained.

They had two shows planned, both of which quickly sold out, but we were lucky enough to get tickets for a hastily-added show. We went out in the freezing cold to get these, then had to go back home for a while before heading out again. We waited 20 minutes in the freezing cold to get in, and it was totally worth it. We were treated to an hour of fake boxing, complete with punch and whammy sound effects. They pitted Abe Lincoln v. The Washington Monument. Abe was kicking some ass, but when he stopped to catch his breath, the Monument opened a panel on his front, pulled out a gun, and shot President Lincoln! His dying words were, "Every time I go to the theater!"

We also enjoyed a round between Sarah "Mama Grizzly" Palin and a really fugly "she-male," which is their term, not mine. I'm still trying to get the image out of my mind, but you can see his/her backside in my photo stream. Another winning bout matched Colonel Sanders against a giant chicken! It looked like the Colonel was going to be victorious over a chicken yet again, until he stopped and said, "In my day, we used to keep the white and dark meat separate ...," which was met with a resounding cry of boos from the audience. At that point, the chicken put the KFC bucket over the Colonel's head, tied the Karate Kid-style headband around his chickeny brow, and did the famous crow karate kick made famous by Ralph Macchio in the final scene of the competition in "The Karate Kid." This was complete with that cheesy song, "you're the best around, nothing's gonna ever keep you down," just one example of the care that went into selecting great music for this. Another example was the two burlesque dancers mock-fighting to Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It."

The picture above is from the fight between Mr. Roboto and The Washington Monument. It was comforting to hear the mega geeks behind us loudly singing the chorus to Styx's "Mr. Roboto." Mr. Roboto later was defeated by the chicken after she laid eggs and pelted the robot with them, thus ruining his delicate electronics.

At this point you're probably thinking, "Ok, sounds like a good fight club, but what about the hot ta-tas promised?" Don't worry, we were treated to excellent burlesque between the rounds by Reverend Valentine and L'il Dutch. I've seen L'il Dutch dance before and I've enjoyed her both times. Her best number was a striptease done to "Viva Las Vegas." She had fuzzy dice attached to the back of her thong, and her pasties were roulette wheels. She had a cute poker chip hat as an accessory. Rev. Valentine did a good striptease to "Jailhouse Rock," complete with a ball and chain attached to her ankle. My friend Shoshana and I found it oddly comforting that L'il Dutch, though beautiful, has a little meat on her bones, and it cracks me up that she says on her Web site that she is a lifetime member of Weight Watchers.

The only thing that could've made this night better (besides doing fake blow in the bathroom with my fake Elvis TCB (Taking Care of Business in a flash) cash) would've been kicking ass at Elvis trivia. Oh yeah, I did that! The hostess asked if anyone knew a lot about Elvis and all four of my companions started loudly pointing and saying, "Oh, she does! Pick her!" I was completely unprepared for this, and thus was wearing brown Uggs with a heather gray cashmere sweater. Oh well! It was me vs. a punk daring to call himself "Elvis Aron." Announcer "Elvis" stood between fake Elvis and me, and we fake-punched his arms with boxing gloves to ring in to answer a question. We battled it out over Elvis-related trivia in front of an audience of 100-120 people. I beat the punk solidly, and received a trophy: a banana-shaped dish in honor of Elvis' love of fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. By the way, you haven't lived if you haven't eaten one; you laugh and judge it now, but make one, and you'll be an instant convert. Must be cooked in lard or butter for the full effect (that includes you, vegans), best summed up as "cardiac bypass on a plate."

I went into last night feeling pretty crummy from a cold-virus thingy, and I've undoubtedly prolonged my illness from the late night, hooting and hollering, and being so jazzed I couldn't fall asleep until 12:30 a.m. It was completely worth it, and it made me grateful to live in the city where we could access something so fun at the drop of a hat. In a strange way, events like that also solidify David's and my partnership with each other, because how many couples share that bawdy, gross, adolescent sense of humor? How many women are like, "Hey, honey, want to see burlesque and a fight club Saturday night?" Bonding over this type of shared humor is fun, and usually ends up with David giving me some kind of warm-fuzzy complement like, "The fact that we're doing this is just one more reason that you're the perfect woman for me." Aww... everyone wins!

A Long Weekend Of Good Art

2011-01-04T11:56:00.000-05:00

I heard about the band Gogol Bordello for the first time on NPR's On Point radio show, my favorite podcast. Host Tom Ashbrook was interviewing GB's singer, Eugene Hutz, and asked him to describe the world-famous GB concerts. Hutz's response: "It's like a great, cosmic orgasm." I knew I had to hear this band. The group is best described as gypsy punk, but they are a group of eight people from all over the world, and their collective cultural heritages seem to come out in the music. Besides their great sound, what really captivates me about GB is their catchy, yet profound, lyrics. This first struck me when I heard "Zina-Marina," a catchy-as-hell little ditty that happens to be about ... sex trafficking. Hutz told Ashbrook that the song was inspired by a trip back to his native country, Ukraine, when he noticed that all the beautiful women were gone. He asked someone about it, who said that they are recruited as overseas "models" and are sold into sex trafficking.

In a similar vain of catchy, but pointed, songwriting, Hutz sings in "Break the Spell," a song about prejudice against the Roma, "You love our music, but you hate our guts. I know you still want me to ride the back of the bus." Ouch!

A great GB classic is "American Wedding,"(video link here), which manages to capture the boring nature of most American weddings. This is where attending mostly Orthodox Jewish weddings has spoiled me: they make most other American weddings, including other Jewish-but-not-Orthodox weddings, seem lovely but ... boring (no offense meant if you had one!) Thus, "American Wedding" cracks me up.

Anyway, back to their show: it was as close to a cosmic orgasm as I could imagine -- I have never seen a band more masterfully work their crowd. The fans, and GB, were loving it, and they played a good mix of old favorites and lots of stuff from the new album. It was a great time, and even though my feet were killing me from standing for 4.5 hours (the club is standing-room only), it was really worth it. In the coolest move ever, after the encore, one of the band members announced that they would meet fans at the after party at the bar across the street from the club! How cool! If I had the stamina, I would've gone.

Kudos to the 9:30 Club for having free Wi-Fi so I could play my Scrabble games against David and my sister in between the acts. One of those opening acts, Man Man, was the most hilarious performances I have ever seen. These guys, whom David points out have not one, but two, xylophones, had their faces painted and all started off wearing white shorts that look ridiculous on grown men. The singer ended up wearing a bunch of different outfits, including a flasher-style trench coat, and a beaded ladies' tunic. Man Man's act was so bizarre and funny to me, I literally had tears of laughter streaming down my face. As for their music, I can't improve upon David's description: "Imagine if Frank Zappa hired Devo to play klezmer music, and added Tony Clifton as a frontman."

Our second great arts experience of New Year's weekend was seeing the Shakespeare Theatre Company's production of Candide. It had gotten rave reviews from media in D.C., but it really upped the ante to see it when my mom -- who lives in Memphis, TN, -- said she had heard it was incredible. In a moment of serendipity, the day after that conversation with my mom, I got a Goldstar notice that they had $30 tickets for Candide over the weekend. I never read "Candide," so I had no idea what to expect, but I really enjoyed the show. The subject matter at hand is whether the doctrine of Optimism -- whether everything that happens is for the best and furthers God's plan -- is viable or true (Voltaire's answer, and mine, is a resonant "no.") Interestingly, I have a devout Mormon friend who believes this, that everything that happens is part of God's plan. This has come up with her in several discussions, and I always have a universes colliding moment, because that is so not my worldview, or that of my faith. Anyway, back to the play: it managed to be amusing, cheeky, provocative, and entertaining for a full three hours. The acting, music, and sets were really awesome, and I felt privileged to have seen it. I was pleased that the male and female leads were both in the Broadway show "Rock of Ages," which of course you knew about since you read my blog post about when I met Dee Snider.

We had a tiring weekend, since both the concert and musical meant that we couldn't go to bed until past 12:30 a.m., but we really enjoyed ourselves and got to experience two very different kinds of great art.

One of the things that occurred to me when we saw the play was how awesome Washington theater has gotten in the past decade. I don't recall D.C. being a great theater town when I moved here in 1994; the Kennedy Center was the most prolific professional theater around. Now there are tons of great theater companies doing all kinds of quality theater, and what limits my theater going is money, not lack of desirable options. There is such a variety and glut of good choices, David and I have resisted subscribing to any one theater, preferring to not be locked into one company and being able to pick and choose. My dream would be some kind of collective theater subscription, where a bunch of theaters pooled subscriptions and I could pay for a package of shows at different places.

Quick Update & Abstinent Cranberry Relish

2010-12-10T15:28:00.000-05:00

Hi. Sorry I haven't posted in such a long time; I've been busy and my arms have been sore, so I've had to be choosy about how to spend their limited capital. Some great things have happened, like my disability status was approved by the Social Security Administration. That whole ordeal is worth a blog post in itself.

So, I need to post something short, so I want to share my abstinent cranberry relish recipe. By "abstinent," I don't mean a cranberry relish that is saving itself for marriage; I mean abstaining from compulsive eating, which for me means not eating foods with added sugar. Cranberry sauce is tough to make without sugar, but I've tweaked a recipe that turns out really well. I'm happy to share it; it's really tasty with turkey or even on yogurt.

Abstinent Cranberry Relish

1 bag of fresh cranberries (can substitute frozen)
1 sweet, red apple peeled, cored, and diced
1/2 can crushed pineapple in natural juice
1 small, very ripe banana, mashed
Optional: sweetener (sometimes, depending on the natural sweetness of the berries, I need to add some Truvia)

Cook the cranberries on the stove in a saucepan in 2 cups of water for about 10-15 minutes. Add apple and cook for 10 more minutes. Remove from heat and add 1/2 can of crushed pineapple and mashed banana. Sweeten if desired. Enjoy!

Creativity

2010-11-12T16:11:00.000-05:00

I was listening to the Nov. 7 Tranquility Du Jour podcast about creativity and the importance of creative expression in one's life. It really resonated with me, especially after my flight out to Phoenix two weeks ago. I sat next to a woman who was knitting a baby bonnet, who was kind enough to let me do some stitches. I had to give up knitting when my Lyme Disease (LD) struck, because my disability mostly manifests in my arms. I had very limited arm capacity, and it was more critical for me to save my arm strength for necessities instead of spending them knitting. It broke my heart, but I basically packed up that part of my life in a bag, stuck it in a closet, and tried to forget about it. I wasn't a good knitter, but I really enjoyed it and it relieved stress. Knitting those few stitches on the airplane really reminded me of how much I missed it.

As I've chronicled on this blog, my LD journey has been arduous and painful. At my worst, I was taking narcotics every six hours and it barely took the edge off my pain. I couldn't write, push a grocery cart, cut a vegetable, or even wash my own hair. But as painful as that was physically, it wasn't as awful as the heartache of not being able to express myself. I lost my ability to write, knit, and cook/entertain -- my three primary creative outlets. So in addition to losing my arms, my job, and my social life, I lost my voice. I felt powerless to create and share my experiences with others. It is part of what made 2007-2009 the darkest years of my life. Yes, I tried voice-activated software, but it really sucks unless you pay $2,000 for the software designed for quadriplegics. Example: I told the program to "scroll down," and instead it typed "scrotum." It takes many hours to train the voice-activated software to your voice and way of speaking, and it is so sensitive (it is based on software developed by the CIA), if you are tired, in pain, or otherwise off your game, it will impact you training the software. I was all three.

The podcast I heard reminded me how nurturing and important creativity is to my spirit, and that I need to make time for it the same way I prioritize taking care of my body, my 12-step program, and my marriage -- my top priorities at this stage in my life. Writing is my primary outlet for creativity, but -- you'll notice if you look at how often I post -- I fit it in around the edges. I'm also very wordy, so posting takes a very long time. I need to schedule 15 minutes a day to write, so I'll have my creative outlet and get a lot more writing done. I have tons of things to say! I am thrilled that I am starting to knit again -- I'm working on a scarf and I'm hoping to re-learn the things I've forgotten and pick up more advanced skills. I hope to chill out about it this time around and enjoy the journey instead of worrying about how to make the perfect X.

I encourage you to think about your creative expression and how you can build more of that into your life. We think of creativity as projects you have to take on, like scrapbooking; if that's your thing, go for it, but there are as many creative outlets as there are people. Music, decorating, making home-made cards and cooking are a few that come to mind. I like to make seasonal centerpieces for the dining room table, and arrange a little autumn tableau on our front stoop with gourds and other seasonal items. My husband teases me for this and finds it a little odd, but I think it's a nice creative activity that frankly doesn't take a real investment of time or money.

My recent thoughts about creativity came at the same time I'm learning another lesson from another area of my life I'm working on: the importance of play. When we're kids, it's natural, but we forget the importance of play as adults. It keeps our minds and souls young, and if anything, it probably becomes more important as we age and take on the burdens of adulthood. Play is also critical for a healthy sex life, but that is easily forgotten as our society becomes more and more obsessed with the state of the body. The connection, of course, is that many creative outlets also allow us opportunities to play. Enjoy!

What I Learned From Grandma

2010-11-02T19:21:00.001-04:00

My husband David's grandmother, Maurine Brannigan, died last Friday. I felt closer to her than to my own grandparents as an adult, and I'm devastated. Death can be a great teacher, and naturally leads us to reflect on how the deceased lived his or her life. I don't have to think real hard about what Grandma taught me; the lesson is obvious.

For lack of a better term, I came from what I will call a "limited" family. There always seemed to be drama and strife among different branches of our very small clan. I had an extremely insular, stingy view of family. So what an eye-opening experience meeting David's family was! First of all, there are a lot of them. They are loud, but loyal and united. Above all, they are extremely inclusive. The most dramatic example of this the Brannigan's relationship to the adoptive parents of one of David's first cousins. The cousin, Jon, was given up for adoption as an infant and raised by a local family. His biological parents ended up marrying and having two other children. When Jon turned 18, he got back in touch with his biological family. There are many ways this could go, right, most of which is the stuff of talk shows, therapy, and advice columns, right? In the most stunning display of peace and generosity, the Brannigans have bonded tightly with Jon's adoptive parents. They are at every wedding, holiday, and other family celebration. At Jon's wedding, both his biological and adoptive parents were represented in the wedding party.

The Brannigans also easily adopt "strays"; people who don't have any family nearby who are absorbed as naturally as any blood relative. They, too, are invited to every single family gathering. I experienced this open generosity first-hand as an outsider. From the first time I met Grandma and the rest of the family, I felt totally welcome and accepted. This is all the more remarkable to me when I reflect on what a friggin' mess I was back then; angry, self-centered, judgmental, and wearing all of that for the world to see on my 250-pound body. I feel like they accepted me even when I could not accept myself.

I see this welcoming family culture as Maurine's doing and family legacy. She was the matriarch of the family and set this open-hearted culture. I and many others are the lucky beneficiaries. Very importantly, my exposure to Maurine and the family she led truly changed me and helped me expand my own definition of family for the better. This was not a easy or quick transition; there was no come-to-Jesus moment. In fact, I was initially very overwhelmed and puzzled by the Brannigans' acceptance, openness, and love. I was baffled at how they could have normative relations with Jon's adoptive family. It just seemed, well, wrong. I can only shrug now and see how what I was exposed to in my own family, and what I thought was normal, was comfortable and fit into my little, tiny box labeled "Family: The Way Things Are." I am so grateful that Grandma showed me a more selfless, loving, and inclusive definition of family. It's one that David and I have tried hard to replicate in our own lives, viewing certain friends as "family-by-choice." They are closer than regular friends and no less important to us than blood kin.

I've found myself over the last few days surprised by my grief at Grandma's death, especially in light of the fact that she was not my blood relative. Then I quickly remember that that is exactly the lesson she taught me: blood is thicker than water, but love is thicker than blood.

Health Care Chills

2010-10-28T14:45:00.000-04:00

I just got health care chills, and as a veteran consumer of health care, I don't GET health care chills. Nothing was shocking, until today.

I am in Phoenix, AZ to go to my father's first appointment with his oncologist. He was recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma (MM), a cancer of the plasma cells. Plasma cells are blood cells that make antibodies called immunoglobulin. I am a firm believer that you need lots of people paying attention to health care matters. I take advocates with me to important appointments and think everyone else should too. If you disagree, maybe this will change your mind. Too many cooks can spoil the broth, but not enough cooks can also be devastating. The doc we saw today will not be my dad's main doctor, but he was who was available for us to have a consultation before my dad is scheduled to begin chemotherapy next week. Let me say from the outset that this is no slacker practice; it's definitely a top oncology practice in the area.

For this instance, I had read up on MM to brush up for this consultation, and had read from two excellent sources that if a patient uses certain chemotherapy drugs, it rules out the option of the patient getting a bone marrow or stem cell transplant later. One of my questions for the doc today was, "Is my dad a candidate for a marrow or stem cell transplant?" I got a very non-committal, "We'll figure that out later as we see how things go" kind of response. I told the doctor, "I read in the book your office gave us and on the Mayo Clinic Web site that use of certain drugs rules out this option. Are you planning to use one of those drugs?" The doctor looked at the chemo order and said, "You're right. We are planning to use that drug and it would rule out the transplant option. Clearly we need to figure this out before we begin treatment." The doctor said he would consult with my dad's oncologist and their practice head and get back to him. He added, "If that delays therapy a week or two, it's worth it." We said goodbye and my dad and his wife said that they were really grateful that I was there and had brought that up.

I went to the bathroom, shaking. It is the most dramatic example I have of the need for patients to be their own advocates. Gone are the days where you can assume that doctors have your back and all you need to do is listen and trust. Sorry, hon, you need to take a crash course and become a bit of a doctor yourself, or you can be totally screwed. It is harrowing to think that if I hadn't read the info I had and challenged the doctor on it, my father could have had one dose of a drug next week that would completely rule out his options for treatment forever. Doctors are too stretched to give every patient the best care they can; I happen to think it's an effect of our insurance-driven health care system: docs have to see 35-50 patients a day just to earn enough to pay their bills and draw a decent salary. No doctor can keep great tabs on that many people a day; it would be super-human.

Another dramatic example of the need to be your own advocate from my own health care saga, is that I had to ask my doctor for IV antibiotics for my Lyme Disease. I had read that people with my degree of infection rarely, if ever, get well from just oral antibiotics alone. My doctor was about to discharge me from his care with just four weeks of oral doxycycline therapy, when I said, "I've heard from many sources that people with neurological damage from Lyme need the IV antibiotics, too. Is that right?" He said, "Oh, you want to try that? Sure." I saw a dramatic improvement after the IV treatments; until I had them I could not wash my own hair because I couldn't lift my hands to my head. I had and still have a long road to go in my healing, but there's no way I'd be where I am without those four weeks of IV Rocephin.

I am superbly grateful that I have the wherewithal to be this kind of advocate for myself and my loved ones, and that I have people in my life, like my husband, who do the same for me. I shudder to think about the people who don't have the resources, intelligence, or communications skills to do the same. It's scary to think that your entire quality of life -- or your life itself -- can hinge on the extent to which you do so effectively.

My Celebrity Encounter

2010-10-23T21:08:00.000-04:00

I recently got back from a whirl-wind trip to New York City, where I pushed myself entirely too hard, but had a great time. I love theater, especially musicals, so was glad to buy deeply discounted tickets for two shows through BroadwayBox. The first was Rock of Ages, a show with a weak plot that basically is an excuse to string together every hair metal and arena rock anthem from the '80s. Nothing could be more my cup of tea, so I was super-excited to see this show. Luck was on my side that night; I bought really cheap seats in the back, but the box office informed me that they were upgrading me to 8th row center. Whoo-hoo! My next lucky break was when I noticed the guys next to me were holding LED "lighters" to wave during the ballads. They were handing them out of the door, but I was oblivious to that. I got out of my seat to track one down, but the theater employee told me that they had run out. Oh well! I walked away, but the employee ran after me -- she had found a "lighter" on the floor.

I sat down to read my program, and saw Dee Snider listed in the cast. For the uninformed, Dee Snider is the awesome, awesome singer for 80s hair legends Twisted Sister. He is also the host of the hair metal radio show "House of Hair," and was one of the artist leading the fight against Tipper Gore's Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). My mom still teases me for having a hand-made "I hate the PMRC" sign on my bedroom door for much of my adolescence. Interestingly, Dee and Alice Cooper are heavy metal's family values guys, having been married and staying faithful to one woman for many years. That led to Dee Snider recently taking a great snap at Al and Tipper Gore when they announced their separation. So, back to me: when I see that Dee Snider is in this show's cast, I lose it; seriously, I get so excited that tears are leaking out of my eyes. This led me to text my sister and my husband the following message: "I am 8 rows away from Dee Snider. Give me one good reason I shouldn't shout, 'I love you, Dee!'" My sister replied, "Because I'd have to disown you as my sister ;)."

The plot for Rock of Ages is feeble, but I enjoyed it anyway. How can you not like a show that turns REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore" into a gay love anthem? I have to say that the audience sucked; they were not into it, and the show is meant to be a big old sing-along. On the plus side, Dee Snider looks amazing.

I have always wanted to hang out after concerts to meet stars, and the various people I attended with, usually rationalists like parents or husbands, always nixed my plans. Finding myself alone in NY with no one to nix my plans, I decided to try to make a go of meeting Dee. I sniffed around outside until I found the stage door exit, and watched various actors leave, including the lead, Joey Taranto (what a cutie!). I asked some of them to sign my program. A group of people were hanging around, prompting the security guard to ask who they were waiting for. I appointed myself the spokesperson of the group and said, "Dee." The guard replied, "You know, he's really new to the cast, and he has family in town and he's showing them around. He'll be at least an hour." This was met by a massive groan, and all but about six people left. "That's ok, I have nothing better to do," I lied. After the crowd dispersed, the guard looked at me and said, "You are a true fan. I was screwing with those people. Dee won't be an hour. If they were real fans, they would've stayed." Yeah!

Ten minutes later I was rewarded with Dee Snider. I said, "Dee, I have been a fan of yours for decades. I read your book when I was a kid, and it helped me." Yes, he wrote "Dee Snider's Teenage Survival Guide," and I am probably one of 50 people in the country who has read it. In fact, note that the first review of it on Amazon says that it was "published in one of the Russian teen magazines." At the news that I read his book, Dee gave a warm, huge laugh and said, "YOU DID?! That's awesome!" before taking me in his arms. He was really sweet, genuine, and kind, and it was a huge rush for me to meet him. Yes, he signed my program, but no, I don't have a photo, but that's ok. When I was hanging around the stage door, I was slightly nervous that I'd meet Dee and that he'd be an asshole; I specifically thought of the line from "Limelight," a Rush song : "I can't pretend this stranger is a long-awaited friend." So, I was relieved by Dee's friendliness.

In a tangentially related closing, I just became full of gratitude for my parents and their senses of humor. Between me buying books like Dee's survival guide and "The Satanic Bible", the anti-PMRC sticker on my door, and the six-foot posters of Motley Crue, Poison, and other guys who looked like chicks literally covering my wallpaper, I give my parents a lot of credit for tolerating that stuff and not laughing when I could hear them. I can't imagine what they were thinking, but I'm grateful because I really think I might have attempted suicide if not for the outlet I found in music. Junior high through high school was the worst time in my life, and rock music made it bearable.

A Happy Weight

2010-09-01T18:18:00.001-04:00

I heard a podcast today that featured an interview with Kathianne Sellers Williams, a registered dietitian, life coach, and artist. She made a comment about helping clients find their "happy weight." She defines this as a weight at which you feel comfortable and at which you don't have to do anything extreme to maintain it. The distinction is more holistic than the traditional mode of thinking about weight-loss goals: the ever-ambiguous, just-out-of-reach "healthy weight," which varies based on whatever chart you're using.

I've lost about 103 pounds but am still about 25 pounds overweight. For about a year, I have been trying to lose more weight, but in reality, I have gained and lost the same four or five pounds over and over again. I perked up when I heard Sellers Williams talk about the "happy weight," because I've felt very dejected by failing to get my body to release more weight by cutting down on my calories and increasing my exercise. I've tried, and it's not budging. I've worked with my registered dietitian to change my food plan, and I already weigh all my food, so I have exact portion control. I can't exercise any more than I am due to my physical limitations from Lyme Disease, so I'm really doing all I can. The truth is that my dietitian could cut more food from my food plan, but that leaves me hungry and unsatisfied, which then makes the temptation to binge quite unmanageable. I'm just not willing to walk around hungry and cranky all the time just to lose some more weight.

During this weight plateau, it also has occurred to me that I would mostly be satisfied at this weight if I didn't lose another pound. I can buy clothes off the rack, not in the plus size section. I no longer take up 1.5 seats on the bus, and people sharing an aisle with me in an airplane can have their full (albeit, tiny), seat to themselves. My weight doesn't limit any of the physical activities that I want to participate in. There was a time when I wouldn't ride a horse, or be able to walk to the movie theater close to my home, or feel comfortable swimming because someone would see me in a bathing suit. Thank God, that's not the case anymore. Do I love my body? Hell no! I wish. My body shows the scars of my eating disorder: stretch marks, cellulite, and hanging skin. It's not gorgeous, and as much as it pains me to say this, it probably never would be -- even if I lost these last 25 pounds. But by dressing semi-well and occasional judicious use of Spanx Higher Power Panties (they're the bomb!), I manage to look ok clothed.

When Sellers Williams works with clients to help them find their "happy weight," one way they arrive at that number is by looking at the client's weight history. I have had two nutritionists I've worked with tell me that given my weight history -- how obese I was and how young I was when I became obese -- that it would be extremely unlikely that I'd ever get to be an ideal weight on a chart. One of the nutritionists said, "If you ever made it below 150 pounds, that would be incredible. Much more than that is not realistic given your background." Happily, I am below 150! I've exceeded their expectations.

Although I find the concept of a "happy weight" quite freeing, there is still a piece of me that resists it. My rational brain says, "You need to be as healthy as possible, and it's not healthy to carry extra fat." True, but we can't say I haven't tried to lose it, and again, we have to acknowledge that my health history makes it unlikely that I'll ever be thin. More critically, we need to take a more holistic view of what health means; it certainly is more than a number on the scale. It includes data like blood chemistry, lung capacity, and endurance, but also sanity, balance, serenity, and other non-quantifiable markers of a quality, healthy life. For the record, with the notable exception of my Lyme Disease, I do seem to be quite healthy. I used to have elevated insulin levels and triglycerides, but those and other health markers normalized after I lost 40 pounds.

Another thing that conspires to keep me from embracing the concept of a "happy weight" is some peer-pressure from inside OA rooms to be a good role model for the program and demonstrate three-fold recovery: emotional, spiritual, and physical. When people see me, they see an average-looking American woman, meaning someone who could stand to lose a few pounds. They don't know how much weight I've lost and how hard I've worked to facilitate that. I think I just have to let this one go: if some people in OA rooms judge me for still being somewhat overweight, oh well. I can't control what they think, and they have the right to their self-righteous judgment. Whatever. It also occurred to me that fighting this weight my body seems to have settled at (which, by the way, it is evolved to do -- if you lose enough body weight it triggers the "starvation" switch in your brain, at which point the body fights like hell to hold on to every last pound) is very antithetical to Step 3: became willing to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Step 3 is about surrender, not fighting. Isn't what I'm doing by trying to nudge the scale down -- and failing -- fighting? It sure feels that way, and I'm tired. And I think I'm done. If God, my body, or whatever sees fit to release more fat in the future, great, but I think I've given it a good go and now I need to let go, and enjoy my new, mostly healthy body.

Yoga

2010-08-30T11:20:00.024-04:00

About eight weeks ago I was longingly looking into the "Mind-Body" studio at my gym, wishing that one day my body would be up to taking a yoga class. Damara, the group fitness instructor, came up to me and said, "You should take that class." I replied, "I will, one day." "No, you should do it now," she said. I launched into my explanation that my Lyme Disease has left me so disabled that I couldn't possibly do yoga. Damara told me that the instructor is amazing, and that I should just pull her aside and tell her about my disability and that I'm a newbie. I went into it with a good attitude: that I would do only what I could, when I could, and that was fine. No hurting myself, no pushing myself into pain, no worries about not keeping up. I stuck to that, and found the class surprisingly enjoyable. It challenged me in a good way.

I went back to that class and another led by another instructor that Damara recommended, and now, I'm hooked. My body is getting stronger more rapidly than it has in years, and I'm seeing some surprising (and welcome) strength gains. Lifting free weights triggers the pain in my arms, but evidently my body can handle supporting its own weight most of the time. If this was all I got from yoga, it would be enough. In fact, watching my husband's face as I used my arms to lift myself to sit on the kitchen counter would've been enough. But I'm finding that the yoga practice I'm beginning is changing my life in profound, unexpected ways. It's thrilling. I am certainly becoming more mindful, and calmer -- yoga reboots my nervous system. I had a good example of this one recent weekend, when I was feeling very irritable and discontent for many reasons. Since it was my Sabbath, my usual options for blowing off steam for prohibited for me: I couldn't call a friend, write a journal entry, escape via TV. My husband was at synagogue, so I couldn't talk things out with him. I didn't have an immediate outlet for my restlessness, so I unrolled my yoga mat and started doing the little bit of yoga that I know. 35 minutes later, I felt significantly less tense.

Through yoga, my senses are deepening: I am acutely aware of how the breeze feels in my hair, or how the sun warms my skin. On the best days, everything feels more vivid, like when "The Wizard of Oz" movie changes from black and white to technicolor. My existence is becoming more colorful. I'm also definitely noticing differences in how I relate to other people. My compassion is growing. I get annoyed less often (but we don't talk about yesterday!) The other day a car cut me off when I was trying to cross the street in a pedestrian crosswalk. The driver accidentally sped through the intersection, realized it, and made some kind of "sorry" gesture. Instead of getting pissed and giving her stink-eye, I found myself waving and nodding "it's ok" to her. Whoa! What have you done with Sarah?

For all these reasons, I'm enthusiastically trying to practice yoga regularly and learn as much as I can about it, with all the zeal of the recently converted. It certainly is not just about the asanas (postures); yoga is geared to strengthen people in the areas where I'm personally weak: mindfulness, judgmentalism/criticism of self and others, contentment, being reactive, etc. This point about the holistic nature of yoga became very clear to me recently, when I hung out with a friend who is currently training to be a yoga teacher, but was acting distinctly non-yogic. Where I saw the improvement in myself is that I reacted to her harshness with compassion and sadness for her, instead of any feelings of judgment or superiority. We are all on a journey, and hers has been especially difficult lately. I was in one of the really shitty situations she's reacting to harshly, and I was able to explain how I've been able to approach the issue with more compassion to the offending person as I've grown older.

No authentic spiritual discipline is all pretty, in my opinion, and that includes yoga. My practice is bringing up all kinds of psychic sludge that I carry, and my little brain is looking for e-s-c-a-p-e. Illegal substances? I want them with an intensity I haven't had in years. Inappropriate actions? I want to indulge in them. I have spent more time thinking about foods I abstain from than I care to admit. Honestly, I feel like a petulant toddler, if toddlers had PMS. The cool part about all this craving is that I understand why it's coming up; uncomfortable things (the aforementioned psychic sludge) are coming up, and greeting them is unpleasant. My mind is trying to distract me, "Nothing to see here! Move along!" Very importantly, I'm acknowledging these things and working through them instead of numbing out. Pretty nifty!

Elvis Week

2010-08-16T17:22:00.000-04:00

When I was 16, I started working at Graceland, the famed Memphis home of Elvis Aaron Presley. What began as kind of a joke ended up being by far the most rewarding and interesting job of my life. Back before the pre-recorded, stock tours visitors to the mansion listen to now, I was a tour guide at Graceland mansion and the accompanying attractions like Elvis's two airplanes, and the really awesome movie that plays in the plaza every 20 minutes. I've watched that movie around a thousand times, and I never got sick of it.

The biggest event of the year for Elvis Presley Enterprises (EPE) is Elvis Week, the extravaganza that brings in thousands of Elvis fans around the world to celebrate and mourn The King of Rock n' Roll. Elvis Week culminates with the Candlelight Vigil on the night of August 15, the night before Elvis died at his home. Tens of thousands of Elvis fans walk up the long driveway to Graceland and around to the grave sites of Elvis and his family on the side of the estate. To say that I was snarky about Elvis's hard-core fans when I started at Graceland is understating it; I wondered what kind of losers flew from Asia and Australia to stand in line for hours to file past a grave at a very specific hour. My attitude would soon change.

I had my first unusual siting during Elvis Week as I was walking from the employee parking lot up to the ornate gates of the mansion with my coworker. In Memphis, there are not many homeless people on the streets, and they definitely don't hang out in Whitehaven, the neighborhood where Graceland is. "Oh, Mike," I said. "That's so sad! Look at those homeless people sleeping outside the gates." Mike, a seasoned veteran, chuckled. "They're not homeless -- they're fans!" When I looked again, I saw that the family had an extension cord plugged into an outlet they found somewhere, and they were watching TV on the sidewalk like it was the most normal thing to do. That family, and many others, were camping out to be among the first people to ascend the hill during the Candlelight Vigil. In case you're planning a trip to Elvis Week, please note that no matter how early you camp out, if you are not affiliated with a registered Elvis fan club, you will be behind the thousands of official fan club members, so wear really comfortable shoes. Additionally, book your hotel room really early, or you'll end up commuting in from far out in Mississippi and Arkansas since every hotel room in Memphis and its close environs will have been sold out for 11 months.

As Elvis Week progressed, the elaborate floral arrangements you see above start to roll in from the fan clubs. There are so many of them that few get displayed, and the ones that are displayed on the driveway and at the grave site are rotated frequently to showcase others. I was new to this whole Elvis Week culture, and was a little intimidated at first by the Fans. I mean Fans with a capital "F": the hard-core, Elvis fans. They are easy to spot, as they are usually clothed head to toe in Elvis paraphernalia. Some, but not all, are middle aged and they literally come from all over the world and will eagerly tell you that they saved their money for years to make the journey to Memphis. Some come every year, like the haj. I was afraid the Fans would be really hard on me as a tour guide, or try to usurp my role. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Fans are frikkin' awesome. They are the nicest, most genuine people. They love EPE employees whom they believe are carrying on the King's life's work, and they are eager to show their appreciation. Accepting tips was strictly forbidden, so the fans would bring us roses or get us tickets to exclusive Elvis Week events that their fan club was hosting. Cool stuff like that.

As Elvis Week went on, God softened my heart to the Fans. How could it not be softened? I had hundreds of conversations with the Fans, and a theme became very clear: Elvis made their lives better. They loved Elvis as much for his philanthropy as for his music, and they were totally committed to charitable works and service in the name of the King. I don't know of any other entertainer who has had a similar effect on his or her fans. People are fanatical about many musicians, but how many times have you heard people say, "I work at a soup kitchen because Michael Jackson influenced me to help people in my community" or "I raised $10,000 for a charity because Lady Gaga made me realize the importance of doing my part to make the world a better place"? The Fans truly look up to Elvis and try hard to impart his generosity and charity in the ways they can. How can you not respect that? People often ascribe a religious fervor to Elvis Fandom, but they don't get it: they think that the religious undertones are veneration for Elvis's music. It's not. It's that call to service, to making the world a better place, that illuminates the fans and bonds them together. The Fans love of all things Elvis is critical, of course, but secondary.

My first year at Graceland I was eager to experience the Vigil for myself, so I volunteered to work the night of Aug. 15. I am so glad I did. It was truly overwhelming to see tens of thousands of people holding candles, making their way up the driveway all night to pay their respects at Elvis' graves. They cry. Elvis music plays all night on speakers. I cried. I drove home the next morning after being awake and on my feet for about 14 hours.

Today marks 33 years since Elvis died, and the fans are no less passionate now than they were in 1977 or in 1992-1994 when I worked at Graceland. In fact, 15,000 fans withstood Memphis's 118-degree heat index last night to walk up the driveway and pay their respects. Elvis, I was a doubter when I went to work at your house, but my admiration and respect for you grew during the two years I worked there. I came to revel in your entertainment and respect your commitment to your friends, to Memphis, and to the world at large. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. Rest in peace, Elvis.

Walking Away From Health Insurance

2010-07-29T18:50:00.000-04:00

Given what I wrote in my last post about how many out-of-network health care practitioners I see, why do I bother having health insurance? I use it more than I let on: for every prescription drug that would be $270 without insurance coverage, I pay $40. My $1,200 lab bill ends up being $23. And God knows I couldn't afford hospitalization without health insurance.

I am supremely grateful that I have health insurance and that our premiums are very low in exchange for ridiculously high deductibles. However, I would really like to see the United States move away from this model of health insurance. Normal insurance is not for everyday things: it is meant to cover large costs when catastrophe hits. We don't get car insurance to cover oil changes, but car accidents. Health insurance as we know it is an anachronistic concept; it was born during World War II when companies had to freeze wages, but wanted to attract employees. Thus, health insurance was invented. It didn't cost the companies much since health care was so much simpler, and people were just more likely to die if they became seriously ill. Another reason to abandon our current ways is that insurance companies are for-profit entities that care above all about earning money. That's not necessarily evil, but when it comes to a contest between making shareholders happy or patients getting the care they need, insurance companies can't be expected to advocate for their customers. It's against their interests. The system is completely adversarial: I want my claims paid, my insurer has a strong incentive to dick around and deny it, or cover a paltry sum.

I would like to see health insurance function more like car, long-term care, and homeowners insurance: used to cover extraordinary, high-cost events. I would like to see all other health care priced for and offered on an open market. I'd like to be able to go to a web site for Radiology Clinic A and see how much they would charge me for an MRI of my cervical spine and compare it to the price of Clinic B. Cost is only one factor that I consider when choosing my health care, so that's not all the information I'd need. In this example, it would be helpful to know whether Clinic A or B has the most powerful magnets, and yes, they differ widely in the Washington area. One clinic in particular, owned by radiologists, has invested in higher-end MRI machines that yield clearer images. In this change that I'm proposing, clinics A and B -- and pharmacies and laboratories and every other player in the health delivery system -- would be competing for my business the same way every other part of the commercial sector does. I could use all of the resources at my disposal to compare the variables meaningful to me and make a choice about where I get my care. After all, we are not just patients: we are health care consumers, which is why drug marketing directed at the public is called direct-to-consumer advertising, not direct-to-patient advertising. Let us be educated consumers and consume!

I used to take a prescription vitamin for acne that was amazingly effective, but not covered by my health insurance. My jaw dropped when I inquired about the price at my local CVS pharmacy, and I thought, "I have to be able to do better than this." I found a pharmacy in upstate New York that sold me the same drug at a fraction of CVS's price. It was a much smaller business than the behemoth CVS, so theoretically CVS should be able to use its bargaining power to get the vitamin more cheaply; instead it imposed a higher markup, and I took my business to New York. Wal-Mart took this type of price discrepancy to heart and started manufacturing and selling its own brand of insulin several years ago to sell it at a much lower cost than even generic insulin already was retailing for.

I think the model that I'm advocating will allow the advantages of a free-market economy to prevail: health care providers who give the best service and who keep their prices competitive will be rewarded with business. It would also lift the ridiculous veil of secrecy around medical pricing. Once, I called the office of a neurologist who has opted out of insurance to ask how much a consultation with him cost. I was told between $400 and $900. That is a big, big difference. Doctors can't reasonably know everything that a new patient visit might entail, but they should be able to narrow the gap by more than $500.

Perhaps best of all, doctors would be freed up from the bureaucratic red tape of insurance companies that tie up their valuable time and resources. They would no longer be beholden to insurance companies' rules that they will not compensate doctors for visits longer than a set period of time, or bully doctors into changing their patients' medication for the convenience of the insurance companies. I'd like to think that removing the insurance barrier would make health care more accessible to all. Without our current system, don't you think it would allow clinics like CVS' Minute Clinic -- an in-store, walk-in clinic staffed by nurse practitioners (NP) or physicians' assistants (PA) who treat common illnesses -- to proliferate? Not everyone can afford health insurance premiums, but many more people can afford the $30 the Minute Clinic charges to test you for strep. I envision many stand-alone clinics staffed by PA's and NP's who have substantive medical education, are authorized to prescribe pharmaceuticals, and who are thoroughly trained to refer patients who need to see a doctor to an appropriate caregiver. Savvy operators of this type of practice would be open late into the night to accommodate people who find it tough to make it to appointments during business hours, and it's that kind of service that would make such outfits stand out from their 9-to-5 competition.

Obviously, in my proposal, insurance companies would shrink dramatically if they only covered catastrophic care, and I think that's a good thing.

Sorry, We Don't Take Health Insurance

2010-07-25T18:35:00.002-04:00

"Ok Sarah, that will be $1,576 for today's visit," the receptionist at the doctor's office said. That was for a new patient consultation including labs sent to a private laboratory (not Quest or Labcorp, the only ones that have contracts with major health insurers). Granted, the appointment was for a very, very specialized doctor who is one of only 30-40 practitioners of this kind in the United States. I look forward to sharing the details about this with you once the problem is, God willing, solved.

One of the harsh realities of living in the Washington, D.C., area is that fewer and fewer doctors and other health care practitioners take any health insurance. I first encountered this with my therapist, thinking it was an anomaly, but its not. There are whole medical practices here, including gastroenterology practices that charge $3,000 for a colonoscopy that have opted out of health insurance entirely and have no trouble attracting patients. One of my friends from a country with a robust government-run health care system paid $4,000 for all of her prenatal care (minus labs and sonograms, which she got from in-network facilities) from a local pair of obstetricians after being treated like a farm animal at a massive ob-gyn practice that did accept her insurance. She doesn't regret it.

That there are healers who have opted out of taking insurance used to offend me on a deep, guttural level, and frankly, for the therapist, it kinda still does. The main thing that helped me get over resenting doctors who opted out of the insurance system was experiencing the higher caliber of care that I receive from them. At this point, most of my health care practitioners do not take any health insurance. This isn't because I love spending $200 for a follow-up visit to my Lyme doctor when I could see an internist for $10; I need the complex care that these doctors and complementary medicine practitioners excel at providing. They schedule adequate time for appointments (45 minutes) that insurance companies would cap at 10 minutes. My calls get returned promptly, instead of my message languishing at the bottom of someone's in-box.

A good example of this is the time I had a tricky problem involving a drug contraindication. I needed to take an antifungal drug for a gastrointestinal yeast infection, but the drug my yeast was susceptible to impeded metabolization of another drug I take that could kill me if not metabolized prompty. I called my doctor who prescribed the drug I was on already and he told me it was a tricky situation that would take a few days to work out. When he called me back later in the week, he had formulated a plan for me with the National Institutes of Health's lead investigator in the clinical trials of that drug. I thought at the time, "This is why I pay you $500 an hour." In an ideal world I could expect the same degree of effort and resolution from my internist who does accept insurance, but let's get real!

Besides the noticeable increase in the quality of care, the other factor that softened me to seeing docs who don't take my insurance is that I feel like its the crappy policies of the insurance companies themselves that have led to this phenomenon. They pinch pennies so hard, they scream. They will not compensate doctors for appointments that last more than 10-15 minutes, and their reimbursement rates for docs are based on what a doctor's visit cost circa 1969. Most disturbingly, all of the insurance company policies actually put them in the position of practicing medicine without a license; how else can I explain the menacing letters my doctors get asking them if it's ok to switch a prescription drug of mine for another one that is better placed on their formulary? How else can we explain restrictions on the length of appointments they will compensate docs for? One of my doctors told me that he doesn't feel that he can ethically practice medicine within the restrictions set by the insurance companies, so he doesn't try anymore.

Then there's the good old principal of supply and demand: if people in D.C. have the money to pay out of pocket, would you rather make $35 or $200 for an appointment? I thought so. The one thing that sticks in my craw about this is that although medicine is a livelihood, I still harbor some idealism that it is a calling, and that doctors should want to maximize the people they can heal. Limiting their practice to a small subset of the population means that some of the people who most need their care can least afford it. I'm sympathetic to this: my husband David and I made the choice to completely go outside the system in 1999 when money was very tight for us. We just decided that my health care was a top priority, and that we were willing to go into debt to do so. That means that quite a few doctors visits were paid for on credit cards back then. Granted, you have to be at least basically financially stable to have this option open to you; if we were living on the streets, we couldn't have charged doctors visits to Visa. Interestingly, David has had a complete conversion on this issue; he initially went along with my out-of-network jaunts begrudgingly, and now has seen the difference in my care and has come to Jesus, as we say in the south.

Another interesting twist on this is the increase in concierge medicine, like MD-VIP. My old internist joined that program. He still accepts many insurance plans and you still pay for every visit, but in addition you fork out $1500 a year for the privilege of retaining him as your doctor. In return, you're promised good customer service and communication and same- or next-day appointments. It also includes a really thorough annual physical. Of that retainer, my physician gets $1000 per patient and MD-VIP gets $500. I was one of only a few patients who declined to follow him into this program, but he still is my pulmonologist and he's an amazing doctor. When I learned he was joining MD-VIP, I wasn't surprised; not any slouch can command a hefty retainer fee. I wish I had thought of concierge care first.

After reading this, if you're asking, "Why does she still pay for health insurance?" I will tell you in my next post.

Columbine: Everything You Know is Wrong

2010-07-20T15:58:00.000-04:00

I read Dave Cullen's book, "Columbine," months ago, but still feel passionately enough to write about it, and it seem appropriate for Tisha B'Av. "Columbine" is a remarkable, detailed account of the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO. Cullen painstakingly combs through mountains of legal minutia, forensic reports, mass media, and personal accounts of the attack. He weaves a narrative of the events of April 20, 1999, that manages to be both riveting and respectful at the same time. Two factors kick "Columbine" up a few notches and set it apart from any other accounts you will read about this tragedy.

First, Cullen proves that everything you think you know about Columbine is -- beyond a shadow of a doubt -- wrong. For example, you probably think the perpetrators set out to stage a school shooting. You're wrong. High school murderers Eric Harris, the charismatic ringleader, and Dylan Klebold, his flunky, had meticulously planned for several large bombs to go off and cause mass fatalities at the school. Thank God, Harris was inept in his bomb-making and they failed to detonate; the killers' plans for destruction quickly were downgraded to a school shooting only at this time. That was why Harris and Klebold had only a couple of guns on them for self-defense and ran out of ammo; school shooters would have needed to pack way more guns and ammunition. The irony of this is stunning: Cullen, who read both shooters diaries (in which they foreshadowed their mayhem), illustrates that Harris had incredible contempt for school shooters, whom he thought of as wusses. These guys were planning Armaggedon, and had their plans come through, thousands, not 13 people, would have been murdered.

Cullen also sensitively debunks most of the Columbine mythology, like the myth that Harris shot Cassie Bernall after asking her if she believed in God. Cullen uses recordings from the school library (audio from the four hour ordeal was recorded in its entirety), forensics, and victim testimony to prove that this exchange never happened. In fact, we know that Harris bent down and said only "peek-a-boo" before murdering Bernall. I give Cullen huge credit for pointing out this and other myths in ways that are honest, but also show great respect for the survivors' families. Setting the record straight in the Bernall case was especially delicate because her parents chose to publish the inspirational book "She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall" even after Littleton police told the family that the encounter did not happen as reported.

This brings me to another point that makes "Columbine" amazing: Cullen's deconstruction of what factors collided that allowed myths to be created and perpetrated. Some of these were as innocuous as the fact that the emergency alarms beeped for all four hours, leaving people trapped in the school unable to hear and hampered by tinnitus and pain (oh yeah, and how about trauma?). Some of the myths were born out of the peculiar psychological quirks of the human brain that make eyewitness testimony so unreliable, like the brain's need to fill in gaps in information. Still other myths were born of police ineptitude -- the police were way out of their league and refused help from larger jurisdictions better able to handle an investigation of this magnitude. One of the biggest sources of false information was the role of the mass media during the shooting. Klebold and Harris had TVs on in the school during the attack and used information from newscasts to determine their actions. Simultaneously, students were calling in to the same TV programs on their cell phones giving real-time updates on the situation, only some of which were accurate. This dynamic set up many falsehoods that dominated the media for weeks.

The other thing that makes "Columbine" a stand-out book is Cullen's analysis of the root causes of the tragedy. He reveals the ugly truth that none of us wants to acknowledge: that this tragedy was not preventable. We can have our talk shows, cry, spend money on school security, blame Marilyn Manson (hey, because when is it not fashionable to blame musicians?), and even blame K-Mart and the NRA if you're Michael Moore, and it will not prevent another tragedy like Columbine from happening. I bought Cullen's conclusion entirely: Harris was an angry psychopath and magnetic leader. Contrary to what you heard, he had many friends and girlfriends. Harris found a co-conspirator in Klebold, a depressed, suicidal loser who followed Harris blindly and viewed him as his ticket out of a hellacious world. The combination of the two proved deadly. These boys were raised in good homes by loving, present parents. They wanted for nothing. On the contrary to having no self-esteem, Cullen makes a convincing case that Harris' narcissism was a major player in his psychopathy (it's worth it to look at David's post about the narcissism epidemic). Astoundingly, Cullen manages to pull all of this off without sounding patronizing or seeming like an armchair psychologist. This was a gripping, informative book that reads like fiction.

Time Stand Still

2010-07-15T16:20:00.000-04:00

I am not a picture person. Other people snap photos of vacations and occasions to remember them, but when I take photos I am too focused on getting the shot instead of being in and savoring the moment I'm trying to capture. When I spend my time taking pictures -- which I'll never look at again -- I always regret it. My way of remembering is to form an imprint in my mind of the event I want to remember, and writing about it solidifies that memory. So, even though it happened a week ago, I need to write about last Thursday night. If anyone reads it, that's just gravy!

David and I went to pick up a Dustbuster that someone offered on Freecycle. I am trying to be more spontaneous and romantic, so I suggested that we visit a national monument since it was such a beautiful night. It was around 80 degrees and breezy following a day of brutal sun. We decided to head to the Jefferson Memorial, because neither of us had seen it in years and never together. And, let's just be honest, because Thomas Jefferson kicked serious ass.

Let me diverge for a second: I've never understood adults talking about summer unless they had kids or took regular summer vacations. The concept of "summer," as a season during which routines change, never made sense to me. I felt like I was missing something, at odds with a culture that reveres summer. Off the top of my head I can think of several songs that perpetuate this vision: "The Boys of Summer," "Summer Nights," "Summer Loving" from Grease, "Cruel Summer," and "Stone in Love," with its chorus, "Those summer nights are callin', stone in love, can't help myself I'm fallin' stone in love." When people asked me how my summer was going, I'd think, "The same as the other three seasons, only hotter." In fact, remember those magic pictures where you had to focus just right to see the hidden image? I feel like everyone else saw the image -- the iconic summer -- except me.

But there was something in the quality of last Thursday night, where I got it: a magical, balmy feeling, like we were living in an alternate reality. The reality of summer. The windows were down and we were headed down 16th Street, passing iconic D.C. architecture like the Mason's The House of the Temple. We heard one of the most beautiful modern songs that I've ever heard, Live's "Run to the Water." It has a melodic, flowing chorus and lyrics that can be interpreted as a profound religious experience or a profound relationship. Or more accurately, both, like the Song of Songs. If you are at all inclined to enjoy rock music, please do yourself a favor and spend 4 minutes listening to "Run to the Water" on YouTube or Grooveshark. Seriously, this song is so beautiful it makes me cry and get goosebumps.

So it was in this hazy, altered mood that we drove past the White House and toward the Tidal Basin to the Jefferson Memorial. It was a good 15 minute walk from the parking lot, and David and I enjoyed a conversation about what makes a monument work. At first I thought it was a "they just don't make 'em like they used to" kind of thing because I dislike the modern FDR Memorial so much, but David reminded me that the Air Force Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial are also modern, yet totally effective. We concluded that the single biggest predictor of whether a monument is effective is whether it picks a point of view and sticks with it. The FDR Memorial tries to be all things to all people, so it succeeds in touching no one (or more fairly, neither of us).

We got quiet as we walked up the steps to the memorial, stopping to turn around and have a clear view of the Washington Monument. My heart filled with gratitude and awe as I held hands with my beloved, and then looked at my beloved, adopted city -- the place I had planned to live (and be buried in) since I was 14 because it held such a magical sway over me. I looked across the Tidal Basin at the city and back up at the pantheon surrounding the bronze statue of Jefferson. At that moment I was completely in the moment and stupendously, ridiculously happy. I totally had a moment out of the iconic Rush song "Time Stand Still," a testament to mindfulness:

"Time stand still
I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now
Time stand still
See more of the people and the places that surround me now
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Experience slips away
Experience slips away"

David and I took our time at the memorial, exploring it from all angles, and listening to a tour by a Park Service ranger. Stealing a long kiss behind one of the columns seemed like the most natural thing to do, and a ranger even moved away to give us privacy after shooting me a "get a room" look. I assure you we were not inappropriate.

It was really late and we had to be up early the next morning, so we headed back to the car, but not before paying a visit to the George Mason memorial, which neither of us had ever heard of, let alone seen. We eased back into reality, laughingly, when an Iron Maiden song came on the radio. I don't know what made that summer night so remarkable and magical, but it was, and I loved it. I felt grateful to be alive, grateful to be with David, grateful to feel up to having that adventure that night, given the delicate nature of my health, and grateful to live in this remarkable city.

Bizarre Massage Triangle

2010-07-15T14:30:00.006-04:00

I need a weekly massage to keep my neck and shoulders mobile; they and my arms are the primary places I still ache and have stiffness from my Lyme Disease. I have a fantastic massage therapist I see every Thursday, but circumstances conspired that made me miss two weeks of massage back to back, and I knew I couldn't go another week without body work. I decided to take a chance with a massage therapist I found on Yelp, my chief source of referrals. It's generally quite accurate, but fate had an adventure in mind.

I could tell right away that Katherine, the new massage therapist, was a little flaky. She handed me an intake form asking about basic health history. As I took it I said, "The primary information you need to know is that I have Lyme Disease." About seven feet away she started to look up Lyme on Wikipedia. "There's nothing in that entry that will help you with the work that we're about to do. I get a massage weekly, and I'm happy to tell you exactly how Lyme affects my bodywork and how we can make it a good session for both of us," I said. Katherine sat down to review the intake form and asked me where the car accident that I had a decade ago took place. Here's how the rest of that conversation went:

Me: "D.C."
Katherine: "Where in D.C.?"
Me: "Northwest."
Katherine: "What intersection?"
Me: "Why do you want to know?"
Katherine: "Because I like to ask my clients questions."

This struck me as very odd and unprofessional, but she topped the weird factor by asking me who hit me in the accident. "I think that's irrelevant and it was a long time ago," I said. By this point, I was definitely not feeling the love toward Katherine, but I was thinking, "I need the massage badly. I'll roll with it and not come back to this weirdo."

So it was a huge shock to me when she shook her head and declared, "You know, I don't think you're a good candidate for massage. There are other healing things you should be doing, but not this." Incredulous, I replied, "Massage is an essential part of my care plan. Like I said, I get one every week. In fact, I have a prescription from my pain doctor for massage so I get the expense reimbursed from my flexible spending account." I was dumbfounded. Katherine answered, "You also need to change your diet. Honey will help you."

Cue Alice Cooper's "No More Mr Nice Guy." I was astounded and thinking, "Do you know to whom you speak?" But what I said was: "Ok, Katherine. That is completely inappropriate. You know so little about Lyme that you were looking it up on Wikipedia five minutes ago, but now you know enough about it -- and about me -- to give me unsolicited nutritional advice? I don't see an R.D., L.N.D., M.D., N.D., or CHC after your name that would make you qualified to give such advice. And by the way, I've lost 109 pounds, largely because I don't eat sugar or honey. This is way over the line. Give me that intake form back; I don't trust you with my personal information." To my great credit, I said this without yelling, cussing, threatening, or calling Katherine any of the adjectives and nouns I was thinking about her. I wish I had remembered to tell her that the bacteria that causes Lyme actually thrives in sugar.

"Fuck," I thought as I left. "I really need a massage. What am I going to do?" I cursed that I didn't have an iPhone for Internet access, and called the only place in the area that I knew had a massage therapist, NustaSpa. I asked if they could take a walk-in, and they could. It wasn't ideal, because I need a therapeutic massage more than a spa-like massage, but it was better than nothing. NustaSpa was gorgeous and I decided that since I was paying a fortune for a sub-par massage, I would eat it up and enjoy the spa experience. My mindfulness practice became very helpful because every time my brain slipped back into "#@#! Katherine," I could say, "Ok, focus on what Ileyna is doing to you now, in this moment." Rinse and repeat about 10 times.

The massage saga had an interesting end: I was going to call Katherine's boss the next day, but she beat me to it and called me back the night of the breakdown. She was extremely apologetic and mortified, and offered me a complementary session with her head massage therapist. I saw him Monday and he was pretty good and very pleasant, but I can't wait to get back to see Gail, my massage therapist today. I usually hug her when I leave her office, but today I think I'll hug her when I see her.

Book Review: "And Falling, Fly"

2010-07-07T13:30:00.002-04:00

And Falling, Fly by Skyler White

My rating: 2 of 5 stars I have very mixed feelings about this book that I randomly picked up in the library. On the one hand, it explored some interesting questions about mental health and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. On the other hand, it is very pretentious and preachy. The pinnacle of this is a conversation in the Garden of Eden between the snake and the lead male character, Dominic. The snake says that he has already had an apple before tossing one to hungry Dominic. "But I have seen people chewing different fruit from the same damn branch fly planes into buildings secure in what they ingested here." Oh, puleeeze! Seriously? White takes several other thinly-veiled shots at religion and believers throughout the novel.

Another strike against "And Falling, Fly" is that it is quite confusing; I'm still not entirely sure what the precise connection is between Olivia, the main female character -- literally the fallen angel of desire and a vampire -- and the godchild of philanthropist Madeline Wright. Likewise, the book hints that Gaehod, who runs the L'Otel Matillde in what is supposed to be hell, is Satan, but we never really find out.

The book has lots of explicit sex, but none of it is titillating, in part because the entire book is so cheesy and over-the-top. For example, we learn that Olivia's vagina, once stone, magically becomes fully functional with the right partner. Author Skyler White also frequently refers to this organ as "her sex," which I find pretty distasteful. Seriously, there are a few slang words that come to mind that I think are a lot better than "sex" used in this context. This is a big pet peeve of mine.

I rolled my eyes through the whole book, but it must be a success to some degree since I felt compelled to keep reading. Dominic's neuropsychology work held my interest most closely, and I was curious if Olivia would find "her loophole," the thing that might end her torment and allow her to escape the unsatisfying life of a fallen angel.

This is White's debut novel, and I'd urge her to tone down the preaching in her next endeavor.

View all my reviews >>

Team Jacob

2010-07-05T13:15:00.000-04:00

If there was any doubt about my loyalties, I am Team Jacob all the way. I finally made it to "Eclipse" last night with my sister-in-law, Jannie. Many film critics have declared it the best of the Twilight Saga movies so far, and I think I agree: it didn't change Bella's sulky character, but did a better job balancing it with other more interesting, animated characters. Like Jacob. And Jacob. Jasper's character got a lot more developed as he trained the Cullen clan to fight the newborn vampire army, and at moments, he even lost that deer-in-the-headlights look. Dakota Fanning was great as creepy Jane.

To me, the case for Jacob is very clear: Bella wouldn't have to undergo an excruciating process to become immortal that will isolate her from her family for decades [disclosure: Edward discourages Bella's desire to be turned vampire, but that clearly is a condition of their relationship on her part because she doesn't want to age while Edward stays perfect at 18. I guess plastic surgery, laser and Botox won't cut it]. Jacob is warm-blooded, not frigid; Jacob can make love to Bella with abandon without having to worry about literally tearing her apart; and Jacob is far more industrious and way less creepy. And let's not forget that Jacob is way hotter than Edward, who looks like Cedric Diggory who smoked some skanky weed.

I understand that there would not be a Twilight phenom if Bella chose Edward over Jacob, and it would dramatically change an important part of the last book and last two movies, but I can't help but sit there and think, "Go for Jacob!" I realized for the first time last night that Edward v. Jacob is really the fight between the privileged upper class and the salt-of-the-earth working man. Looking at the Cullen's ultra-sleek house and luxury cars, they're a stark contrast to Jacob's exposed studs on his bedroom walls and refurbished motorcycles.

Another thing that struck me last night: Stephenie Meyer, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which is vested in a very traditional family structure, makes one of the best cases for polyamorism that I've seen in mass media. This comes through in the "Eclipse" novel, but is particularly glaring in the film, where Bella clearly has romantic love for both Jacob and Edward. She admits to herself and to the guys. "Nu? Go for it!" I thought. Unfortunately, our culture makes her choose, when -- assuming Edward and Jacob didn't otherwise detest each other -- they could've lived as a happy poly family. Of course, one reason that monogamy has won out in most circumstances is that it rarely does end up being a happy family; it's one of those ideas that sounds better than it actually is, according to reliable sources. Ah, but that's another blog post. I wonder how many other people thought of the "Eclipse" poly angle. Then again, I am the girl who thought of sending an email to True Blood's producers begging for a Sookie, Eric, and Bill three-way. When I thought through the plot ramifications, I ditched the idea.

Beshert

2010-07-02T16:29:00.001-04:00

Sorry I haven't been blogging. My arms have hurt substantially lately, albeit for reasons that make perfect sense. I haven't had enough juice to type.

Last weekend, David and I accidentally ended up watching an indie movie called "The Timer" that really struck me. The story takes place in the near-future, but half the population has a timer device implanted on the inside of their wrists that starts counting down to the days when they're going to meet "The One" -- Mr. or Ms. Right, soulmate, beshert (Hebrew word referring to your intended -- your One), whatever you want to call it. In the make-believe science of the film, the timer works by reading levels of oxytocin output. When you and your intended make eye contact for the first time, your timer beeps, so you know your match.

"The Timer" follows 30-something year-old Oona in her desperate quest to meet her One. Along the way, she ends up falling for a grocery clerk. What ensues leads to a movie that is original, entertaining, and yet, profound. The film explores the societal consequences of the device, including:

*What happens when a 13 year-old (the youngest age at which you can get a timer implanted) meets his One when he is that young? How does it impact the families of both kids?
* Is being alone worse than being with the "wrong" person?
* Can we ever be sure about love? What do we do when our hearts and our heads conflict?
* What do you do when you're waiting for your One? Enjoy random hook-ups at will? Stop hooking up? Hook up, but only a couple of times, since you know it's a dead end?

About 10 minutes into "The Timer," I couldn't help but notice the parallels between Oona's desperation and the straits that many Orthodox Jewish singles find themselves in. I don't think this is a phenomenon unique to Judaism, but I think it is very pronounced in the Jewish community, where family is given the highest priority and young people worry about meeting quality Jewish singles past their mid-twenties. In this paradigm, people lose themselves in their quests to find another. They mistakenly think life will begin or that problems will disappear when they meet their partner. Instead of looking inward, they look to external sources like Rabbis, educators, or shadchanim (matchmakers) to validate that another person is their beshert.

Few people stop to consider the implications of the term beshert anyway. It implies that there is just one other person on this planet, which I just don't believe. I think it's more like there's Mr./Ms. Right Now instead of Mr./Ms. Right. If there is only one person for everyone, how do we explain happily married divorcees and widows? I saw how much this beshert concept falls short when I introduced my husband to a childhood BFF of mine. They were so alike (same geeky, obscure books on the shelf and everything), and got along so well, I sat there and thought, "If I weren't married to David, I'd set these two up!" It was a little surreal.

Back to "The Timer." The movie was a good reminder that many paths lead to happiness; there is not one way to travel life any more than there is one beshert for you in life. Different paths lead to different outcomes, but they can all be happy outcomes. I find that both liberating and scary, and I hope I can recall this when I am trying hard to make the "right" choice in a situation, fearful of choosing the wrong path.

Turning Tide

2010-06-12T23:43:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while; I felt really crummy all last week, and I had a lot to catch up on before I could blog, like finishing my second application for disability through Social Security (that's a whole other post). I have a third segment to write about my emotional recovery in OA-H.O.W., but I feel like there's a more timely and urgent matter that I want to write about: what I see as a gradual increase in socially acceptable anti-Semitism.

I grew up in Memphis, Tenn. -- not the most progressive city on the continent -- but felt quite sheltered from any anti-Semitism. I heard of the yeshiva bochurs [male students at a Jewish school] on their way home from synagogue one Friday night being beaten by a gang of thugs just because they were Jewish. The worst thing I ever experienced was some redneck yelling something derogatory out his truck window when I was walking to synagogue. Thankfully, I considered myself very sheltered from anti-Semitism. I'm not one to see things in that light, anyway. Whenever I encountered some difficult person, my great aunt Bettye would say, "Maybe s/he is anti-Semitic," as if this was the most rational explanation for their behavior, as opposed to having a bad day, not liking me because I was a twit, etc. I found her response slightly amusing, a holdover from the unenlightened World War II era she grew up in.

Two big news events this week have put chinks in my armor that lets me rest safely in the delusion that anti-Semitism is uncommon and certainly not socially acceptable. Most recently, the Helen Thomas incident, in which the White House correspondent said that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go "home" to Germany and Poland. Right, cuz that worked so well after WWII when Jews were greeted with pogroms and mobs to celebrate their homecoming to those countries. Apparently, Thomas' feelings about Israel were well known to conservatives reading different media than I do; I had never encountered this side of her personality, partly because she's been pretty irrelevant as a news correspondent for the past decade or so, and partly because the Liberal media I consume never said a word against her. In fact, Thomas' remarks cited above only garnered mainstream attention when she resigned as a result of the reaction to her comments. I dreaded the inevitable apologist letters that were printed in "The Washington Post."

This would be a good place to state that I have no illusions that Israel is saintly or blameless when it comes to handling Palestinians or anything else. It's tough to be civil to a population that considers your destruction a religious mandate, and there are many situations where I think, "That was crummy; the Israeli government could've handled that better."

The second thing that has raised my anti-Semitism antennae, is, of course, the flotilla fiasco [If you'd like to see a video summarizing the event, click here. Disclaimer: the music on this clip sucks beyond belief, so mute your speakers.] It has been painful to watch the public and the media buy this charade hook, line, and sinker. The flotilla organizers (a radical Islamist group suspected of terrorist activity and known to fund Hamas) staged this to deliberately provoke and antagonize Israel. When the media descriptions of this vessel said things like it was "carrying humanitarian aid," I knew it was bad; I watched a video depicting the content of the flotilla, and last I heard, bombs, knives, sharpened sticks, and TNT were not humanitarian aid. Granted, there were humanitarian items on the boat, which Israel astoundingly still delivered to Gaza. This blows my mind. I can't spend all night debunking the numerous pieces of misleading propaganda about the flotilla that dominate the mainstream media, but you should educate yourself, perhaps starting with the links above. Seeing the jaded, misinformed descriptions what happened on the flotilla is depressing, and definitely contribute to my feelings that anti-Semitism is on the rise in mainstream America. And then I read Charles Krauthammer's column last week, "Those Troublesome Jews," and it hit me hard.

As if I needed any more ammunition, I found the unedited version of an intro to the "I.S.R.A.E.L. Attack" video game on the Comedy Central Web site, which began, "You lied to me, Jew producer!" The acronym stands for Intelligent Smart Robot Animation Eraser Lady. And this from the network that pussed out over depictions of Muhammad. The fact that Comedy Central incessantly pisses on Christians is the only thing that makes me think that the video game is part of their general irreverence as opposed to a specific attack on Jews or Judaism.

I can definitely get scared and paranoid, so I asked two very optimistic, rational, grounded people if my instincts about the upswing in anti-Semitism were off-base, and both confirmed what I've been feeling. I see a situation developing in which anyone who defends Israel's right to exist and right to protect and defend itself (which includes things like enforcing blockades, which are totally legal, btw), will soon be branded intolerant and ass-backwards. We've definitely seen this in the Washington, D.C., area, where anyone who objects to gay marriage is automatically labeled a "homophobe" or "hate-monger." As enthused as I am personally about the recent legalization of gay unions here, I still understand some people's objections to it, and I think they have the right to feel that way and civilly express their opinions without others assuming hateful things, or calling them names.

I had a friend who believed that Jews needed to always keep updated passports close at hand so they could flee America when its good graces ran out. I found that shocking then, and I don't want to believe it now, but I can see that he's onto something. One important lesson that I've taken from the last couple of weeks is that I need to make a serious effort to vary my media. Getting all of my news from "The Washington Post," is very limiting. I don't need to read conservative or libertarian blogs every day, but I need to check in a few times a week to keep some perspective, and check some facts.

It took me two days to write this post.

Reflections on Three Years in H.O.W.: Physical

2010-05-31T22:13:00.000-04:00

There's a saying in 12 step rooms: "First things first." So, first things first, on this Memorial Day, I want to publicly express my humblest gratitude for the men and women who have given service to our country in the military. Thank you.

There's another saying in OA, "Came for the vanity, stayed for the sanity." I can't say I was vain, but I am extremely happy that I have lost 103 pounds sensibly and safely -- without surgery and mostly without exercise. I love exercise, but due to a very serious ankle sprain and two subsequent surgeries, I was unable to really move around too much. Consequently, my weight reduction was mostly caused by my dramatic change in eating habits. This entailed giving up all trigger foods, and retraining my palate to like foods I previously eschewed, like whole wheat bread instead of white bread, and natural peanut butter instead of the sugary junk that passes as peanut butter.

When I came back to OA in June 2004, I was a size 22-24; my jeans were bigger. My hips were so wide, I would sometimes activate the emergency break in the car when my extra fat spilled out of the front seat and into the middle console in the car, actually raising the emergency break unintentionally. I took up 1.5 seats on the bus, and was so easily fatigued. I look back in amazement that I wouldn’t walk to the movie theater that’s just a 15 minute walk from my house, or to the dog’s obedience class only about 5 blocks away, because it was so hard for me to move. Now I’m a size 10-12, and though I still have about 25 pounds to lose, I’m working on it, and I’m mostly happy with my body (except when I see something like Scarlet Johansson in a cat suit. Then I compare and despair).

The truth is, if I never lose another pound, I'll be ok with that. I feel like I pass for normal in society, even in the fittest city in America, meaning, that my weight is no longer so high that it attracts public attention. I'm glad I'm mostly accepting of my body, because I've had two excellent registered dietitians tell me that because of how much weight I gained at the particular time in my life I gained it (mostly in high school), I am unlikely to ever be a "healthy"weight, as defined by height-weight charts. Hey, I'm glad to move brackets from "morbidly obese" down to just "overweight." That's great! At my current weight I have much more energy, except as compromised significantly by my Lyme Disease. I walked to the movie theater today, and I don’t take up 1.5 seats on the bus.

I've had another miracle of physical recovery in OA: my life is no longer dominated by food cravings and my attempts to fulfill them. Those cravings used to control me, as I described in detail in my last post. Because I've eliminated all trigger foods from my food plan, and because I don't allow myself the option of volume eating because I weigh all my food, I am mostly craving free. This is as miraculous as the weight loss itself. Now, when I occasionally have cravings, I can usually pinpoint the source to PMS or emotional turmoil. Most importantly, I understand that just because I have cravings doesn't mean I have to heed them, and I choose to use an OA tool instead.

One last thought: I told a friend that I hated myself at my old size. That comment alarmed her because she was afraid that if I gained all my weight back, I would hate myself. Don't get me wrong, I felt terrible about myself when I was so obese. However, what was really behind my comment was that I can't like myself when I am practicing the behaviors that got me to 250 pounds. Its hard to respect the self-centered, conniving, dishonest woman I have to be to reach that weight. We're not talking a slightly unbalanced diet -- it was an addictive feeding frenzy.

So I'll end this post where I began it: with gratitude. I am grateful to be in recovery now, and very thankful to has a husband who totally supports me in this. A few minutes ago he asked, "How is your program?" So sweet.

Reflections on Three Years in H.O.W.: Spiritual

2010-05-27T11:42:00.002-04:00

This is the first part of a three-part post discussing the spiritual, emotional, and physical facets of my recovery from an eating disorder.

May 25 marks three years of back-to-back abstinence (which is equivalent to sobriety in AA) in O.A.-H.O.W. HOW is one just one way of working the Overeaters Anonymous program, but it is a very structured approach. It is the reason that I do things like a daily writing assignment, making at least three calls to other people in OA, and committing and weighing all my food (yes, even my vegetables).

I chose to work the HOW concept because I was attracted to the spiritual, emotional and physical recovery that I saw in HOW meetings. I first began attending HOW meetings because I was desperate to see living examples of people who had as much weight to lose as I did, who did it safely and without surgery. I couldn't find examples in my local, traditional OA meetings, so I started hanging out in HOW circles. At the time, I thought people in HOW went overboard, and I found their approach quite threatening. Thankfully, I was able to find abstinence in traditional OA, albeit still with a strict sponsor. A sponsor is your guide in a 12-step program; people work with sponsors in a variety of ways, but at the very least, your sponsor is usually the main person who helps you work the 12 steps and holds you accountable.

I had my right ankle ligaments reconstructed in June 2006. It was very hard for me to leave the house, so I started doing OA phone meetings at that time in lieu of face-to-face meetings. The very first HOW phone meeting had just started on Wednesday nights, and I called in every week. In HOW meetings, we read a lot from primary 12-step texts. Anyone can do those readings. We also read summaries of the eight tools of recovery, and then HOW sponsors (and only HOW sponsors) share their personal experience with using those tools for up to three minutes. At meetings, only I grew frustrated being on the sidelines, and not being able to fully participate in the meeting since I was not a HOW sponsor. At the same time, I became willing to do the two things that up to that point had kept me from jumping into HOW with both feet: weigh my food in public, and give up alcohol.

At the time, I thought it was slightly amusing that I was taking all this on. After all, I was at my sickest with my Lyme Disease: I couldn't write, type, or cut vegetables, among many other things. I can see clearly now how much the HOW concept has saved my butt over the course of my extended illness. The reality of having to talk to three other people in program and my sponsor every day means I can't isolate. The emphasis on service both in and out of the program has really allowed me to get out of my head and think about how I can help others, which is especially useful when I'm full of self-pity about having been so sick for so long. The fact that I sponsor two amazing women who need to speak to me six days a week before they start their busy days means that I have to wake up by 7 a.m. instead of sleeping until noon like I would otherwise.

A major thing HOW has done for me is really spur my spiritual growth. The most poignant example of this is my change in my observance of kashrut [the practice of keeping kosher aka adhering to Jewish dietary laws]. One of the most painful and shameful parts of my food addiction was the discrepancy between my public face of being an Orthodox Jew, and my private hell of binging five days a week on McDonalds, Burger King, etc. I felt like a fraud. Oh yeah, that's because I was a fraud. I prayed and prayed to God to keep me from sinning in this way; I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't stop. Now I know that as long as I was putting addictive foods in my body that triggered my compulsive eating, and as long as I engaged in compulsive eating behaviors, there was no way in hell I could have stopped. When I am eating sugar, my compulsion is off to the races, religion be damned. This is really like the alcoholic who has only one drink, but soon is blacking out. For an addict, one is too many and a million never enough.

The feeling of sneaking all of this treif [non-kosher] food was one of humiliation, fear, disgust, and exhaustion. It took a lot of planning to procure the cash to binge, because I wouldn't use a debit or credit card at a restaurant that would allow my husband to see how I was drawing down our bank account. He used to wonder why I was regularly withdrawing $60-100 in cash a week that mysteriously disappeared. When I ran down our bank account, I would go to a drug store and buy junk food there, since that was a "legitimate" looking charge on our statement. Then there was the whole element of how I would avoid seeing Jewish friends when going on my daily sprees; I had ready-made excuses about why I was buying such-and-such thing. I was always looking over my shoulder.

Thanks to recovery, that dark time of sneaking around fast food joints is long passed. It feels so light, clean, and honest to be able to look in the mirror and have my outward appearance and behavior match my inner faith and values. Please don't think I'm never tempted: the other day I walked by an Italian restaurant and could feel the texture and taste the mozzarella sticks and tomato sauce in my mouth. I'm thankful that I can have cravings today and know that they're just cravings -- I don't have to give in to them, and they will pass. Now, when I go into a McDonalds, it really is just for a diet coke or bottle of water!

Thanks to the work I've done in the HOW concept, I feel closer to God now than I ever have. I have true joy in celebrating my faith, and have made it a priority to engage in regular, formal prayer, in addition to my freestyle prayer in the mornings. I'm even becoming one of those people I've wanted to be for so long: the type who regularly checks in with God, not only at set times of the day or when I need something, but just to check in. More and more, when I have to make a decision, I try to discern God's will for me instead of making it all about me. It's good.

***
Insurance company readers: this post took me two days.

A Very Un-American Wedding

2010-05-17T22:35:00.002-04:00

"Have you ever been to American wedding?

Where is the vodka, where's marinated herring?

Nothing gets these people going, not even Gypsy Kings
Nobody talks about my Supertheory
of Supereverythings!

So be you Donald Trump
Or be an anarchist
Make sure that your wedding
Doesn't end up like this.

I understand the cultures
Of a different kind
But here word 'celebration'
Just doesn't come to mind."

-- "American Wedding," Gogol Bordello

I am spoiled by Orthodox Jewish weddings, which are marked by copious celebration, complete with skits, costumes, and tricks. The bride and groom -- who are likened to a king and queen for a week after their nuptials -- are seated together on the dance floor, and their wedding guests entertain and delight the couple. Collectively, this is all called "shtick." For example, people dress up in wigs and costumes and write messages on poster boards to the couple, or do magic tricks or gymnastics. My husband and a friend always find empty wine bottles, fill them up with water, clink bottles, and down the "wine" while the couple looks on. Occasionally, some dumb yeshiva [Jewish institution of learning] student will coat his black hat in lighter fluid and set it on fire. That one is not one of my favorite pieces of shtick.

Ironically, I used to dislike shtick: I found it annoying and less-than-classy. I thought that weddings should be tightly-scripted, formal affairs, and that anything with that level of spontaneity was untoward. It took going to several lackluster American-style weddings for me to see the error of my ways. Now matter how joyous, without the shtick, I found them boring, and somewhat soul-less compared to what I'm used to. Gogol Bordello's song "American Wedding," quoted above, captures this perfectly and is worth Googling and listening to if there's a remote chance you'll like a song in the genre Gypsy Punk.

With this in mind, I was pleasantly surprised by my dad's wedding this weekend in Phoenix. My dad loosely affiliates Jewishly, and his wife Maria is a Mexican Catholic, so I was expecting a yawner of a wedding. Luckily for David & me, this was most definitely not an American Wedding, but a Mexican wedding! The ceremony was short and sweet, and took place outside at a beautiful resort in Tempe. We had dinner inside, and then the crowd quickly segregated: Caucasians sitting around drinking, and Latinos on the dance floor. I knew which of these looked more fun, and I was completely determined to enjoy myself. One of the blessings of being so sick is that it has made me want to embrace all of life that I can, and participate fully whenever my body allows it (this is why I went down the water slide -- twice -- at the pool even though it scared me). So I hung out with the Mexicans, who quickly took me on as a protege, showing me how to do the dances, patiently encouraging me when I felt like I had three left feet. Forget pilates, by the way; meringue dancing makes pilates look like a vacation for your core!

The Mexican dances were really cool and most were choreographed group dancing, similar to the Israeli dances I see at Jewish weddings. One of the funniest moments was David and me doing the group dance to "Achy Breaky Heart" in Spanish! I was surprised to see three massive cardboard boxes full of shtick. There were masks, Elvis-style glasses, glow-in-the-dark rods, pulsating rings, Mardi Gras beads, crowns that have jewels that light up, and all matter of maracas (neon and plain)! One of the neatest things about this, and a way that it differs from Jewish weddings, is that much of the shtick was dance specific. For example, in one dance describing the bride/groom as kings and queens, the women put on the tiara-type crown, while the guys wore a more basic one. In one of David's and my favorites, a singer croons that you shouldn't call someone "dear," because of the association between deer and cuckolding. We all wore dear hats for that one (see above; thank you to David, my photographer).

I was grateful that I was able to get David into this, because we ended up both having a fabulous time. Neither of us knows how to dance all that well, but at some point in my adulthood I decided, "F-it. I'm just going to go for it and move to the music, and I don't care how dumb I look." Let's be honest: most amateur dancers look goofy anyway, so I might as well join them and have fun. We had to wake up at 5:30 a.m. to make our flight, and planned to stay until 10:00 or 10:30 p.m. Every time we tried to leave, people started chanting "Stay, stay!" in Spanish. How can you leave with that fanfare? We partied until about 12:15 a.m. They went on until 2 a.m., and the partying continues tonight and for a few more days. This is another similarity to Judaism, where couples have seven days of parties thrown for them after their weddings.

So everyone won: the Mexicans were glad that David and I were interested in their culture, my sister laughed so hard she nearly peed herself, and we had a great time and killer workout. In fact, I got the greatest compliment: someone asked Maria, my dad's wife, who the white girl was dancing with the Latin contingent. She said, "Mike's daughter." They said, "Really? She looks like she belongs with you." Awesome.

Home Sweet Home

2010-05-06T11:08:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry for not blogging more recently, but I've had a very rough few weeks with the extreme fatigue caused by my Lyme Disease. I have needed to sleep a lot, which doesn't leave a whole lot of time for creativity when I deduct time spent on my obligations. I've had "writing" on my list for a while, and today feel full of inspiration and possibilities that I wanted to share about.

David & I are working with a designer, Susan Covell, to redecorate our living room. I'll provide more specifics in a later post. I've been thinking about furniture and design a lot lately, and I hesitate to admit that in some ways I have become my mother, who is truly attached to her home. I have become more attached to my home as years have gone by. We bought the house in December 2003, and have completely gutted and replaced the kitchen; finished the basement to make a guest room, bath, music room and laundry closet. We've also moved and completely redone the upstairs bathroom, and replaced all of the upstairs doors with lovely five-panel doors. This is in addition to smaller improvements like interior and exterior painting.

As David & I have customized our house more to our liking, my fondness for it has grown, but that alone does not explain the new-found passion I feel for it. I've experienced a shift in how I view my life and my home. I used to see this house as the best house we could afford in our area, and the way station until we moved somewhere else different, bigger. I've come to plan to stay in this home, because I hate moving, but more importantly because this house genuinely has a lot of charm. I lack self-confidence in general, and that doesn't exclude the arena of home decorating, so I'm so grateful to the litany of really classy, stylish, more sophisticated people who have said to me, "Do you know what a gem this house is? It is good and could be fabulous." They have helped build my confidence, which I think is also just increasing with age; the older I get the more I trust myself and my taste.

I now view my home as my nest, my safe place. I've embraced that I hate traveling, and that I want to spend as much time at home as possible. Therefore, I want to invest in it properly and decorate with an eye toward longevity. I'd like quality furniture and art that will serve us well over time, and that we'll continue to love. I'm excited our living room renovation is giving us a chance to do this.

Concerning the shift in my attitude toward my home, I see another significant factor at work: as the years fly by and most of my friends have left (or are planning to leave) the city for far more spacious and affordable homes in the suburbs, I have become keenly aware of how much I would hate to live in those areas. I used to think that my distaste was limited to the Maryland burbs where Orthodox Jews settle in our area (a prerequisite for our religious observance), but I've realized that I just don't like suburbs in general, anywhere; let me be clear that I do not mean "suburbs" like Alexandria, VA, which is in itself a small little city, where people can live and walk to commercial spaces and have ample access to public transit. My distaste is for the areas where you have to get in your car to access commerce and recreation. Sorry to sound so dramatic, but I feel like my soul is muted when I have to spend more than a few hours in the burbs. I long for the safe, enclosed feeling of my neighborhood, and I long for the safety of sidewalks. I miss the noise (I remember growing up in a single-family home in Memphis and thinking, "If anyone killed us, no one is close enough to hear us scream." BTW, according to my definition above, Memphis is a suburb).

Furthermore, I view the burbs as the complete antithesis of what I love about city life, which has actually morphed into my values. For example, I recoil at the idea of living in a place where I have to get into my car to run errands. The costs of over-dependence on cars are environmental ruin and physical decline, since running errands in the suburbs only requires walking from the house to the garage. I love that I walk to my dry cleaners, grocery store, pharmacy, pet store, gym, library, Kacy's veterinarian, and several neighborhood gift stores that I patronize.

Another example of how my values and location are synergistic is diversity and inclusion. I love that we do not live in an area almost completely surrounded by other Jews. I recognize the importance of Jewish community, yet have never liked the ghetto mentality of living in a predominately Jewish neighborhood. I love that my neighbors are black, Asian, gay, bi-racial, and that our block has so many different types of families on it. I loved our block's holiday party, which was actually a floating party: you started at one house and went to another for the whole night. I acknowledge that I don't live in the most diverse neighborhood on earth, but I would miss even this level of diversity. There are certainly different types of people and families in the burbs, but my Jewish friends who live there seem to have little to do with their non-Jewish neighbors.

I understand that the suburbs are a good choice for some other people, and that in many ways their qualities of life can improve, like not spending two hours driving their kids to Jewish schools or being close to a kosher market. They're just not for me, and I'm thankful that David is like-minded. If anything, he's more rabid than I am. I'd take a condo in the city over a manse in the suburbs any day. I write a gratitude list every night with at least five things that I'm grateful for. Living in the neighborhood that I live in is often on that list.

This post took me three days to write.

"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"

2010-04-11T22:17:00.000-04:00

Stieg Larsson's novel, "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" is one of the best books I've ever read, and not just because I love Sweden. It has multiple, very intricate and tightly-woven plot lines that individually would have been good stories, but together constitute sheer genius. The book is part financial thriller: Swedish journalist Mikael Blomkvist initially is found guilty of libeling a financial magnate. In the wake of this, another captain of industry hires Blomkvist to his remote village to investigate the disappearance of his favorite niece, Harriet, forty years ago. The twists and turns that this investigation yields are nothing less than thrilling. While reading "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," I actually found myself grinning multiple times at Larsson's ingenuity, along the lines of "You go, Stieg! How did you think of that?! That was awesome!"

Blomkvist's path converges with Lisbeth Salander's, a 20-something genius hacker cum sociopath. This heroine has a huge chip on her shoulder, and initially comes across as crude, nasty, anti-social, and generally unlikable. However, like most of Larsson's characters, what you see is not what you get, and I could not help but fall for Salander's street-smarts, self-preservation, and unwillingness to get with the program and conform. I began to sympathize with -- but never pity -- Salander, for her character -- as sad as it is -- defies pity. You get the sense that she could go through literal hell, pick herself up, give the offender the middle finger, and enact her own brand of vigilante justice, as she indeed does in what I will only call the tattoo scene (because I hope that you choose to read this treat). Salander is one of the most moral characters I've ever encountered in literature: she firmly believes in doing the right thing, albeit her own version of doing the right thing, which eschews police in favor of more poetic, swifty justice. Another aspect of Salandar's character that I admire is that in spite of being the victim of brutal sexual assaults, she exudes healthy sexual confidence.

Besides the intriguing, well-crafted and well-written plot, this book (and the sequel, "The Girl Who Played With Fire," which I'm currently reading) is a window into the mind and heart of the deceased Larsson, an investigative journalist not unlike Blomkvist, who spent much of his career exposing the Swedish Nazi party and advocating for women's issues. This interest in women, especially violence and abuse of women, comes up repeatedly in Larsson's books, either directly in the plot, or in the random facts that open the chapters of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," like "X percent of Swedish women have been caused bodily harm by a partner." I heard a podcast with the American editor of Larsson's trilogy, who said to the best of his knowledge, the facts are accurate.

I want to tell you that I have never had an adrenaline reaction like I had reading "The Girl..." I distinctly remember feeling like hell from my Lyme Disease pain after going to a museum exhibit with my in-laws for a couple of hours. I came home, ate lunch, got into my pajamas, and intended to read for 15 minutes before sleeping for the rest of the afternoon. I hit one of climaxes of the novel much earlier than I anticipated. When I became aware of my body, I realized that I had arched my back up off the bed and rigidly held my arms still. My mouth was dry as a bone, my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth. My heart beat so hard I could feel it pounding in my chest. So much for sleep that afternoon; I just read another 50 pages.

I should give fair warning that "The Girl..." has brutal violence, but I never thought that it was gratuitous. The violent and non-violent tension throughout the book meant that I should not have picked it up after 8:00 p.m. to ensure that I could get to bed on time; the excellent, addictive nature of this narrative ensured that that never happened.

Today, I went to see the Swedish film version of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo." I heard somewhere that there was an English version in the works, but haven't confirmed this. The concession guy's condescending attitude when hearing which movie a few of us were going to see made me think I was heading for suckville, but I can only guess he's not a fan of the books. I am so fond of the characters, I think I was destined to like the movie because the characters felt genuine. Blomkvist is as every-mannish and non-judgmental as I imagined him to be; Salander was as contemptible/sympathetic as she was in the book.

However, I found it irresponsible and annoying that the film's writers went so far in hinting at the genesis of All The Evil -- the event, or events, that were the tipping point in Salander's psychopathy. The first book of the trilogy shows you the aftermath of All The Evil; presumably, the precipitating factors emerge during "The Girl Who Played With Fire" and the third and final book, "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest," which will debut in the U.S. on May 25. Yay! This spoiler only helped the movie a little by trying to shed light on the origin of Salander's mental health problems (to put it diplomatically), but mostly succeeded in just annoying me.

I am sad that Larsson passed away, so will not be gracing our world with any more excellent novels, but I'm grateful to him for handing in three excellent manuscripts before he died.

Ratings: book, 5 stars; film, 3 stars.

The Worst, And Best, Of Humanity

2010-04-04T17:28:00.002-04:00

I have been snowed under by Passover, so sorry for not posting. I've had a couple of experiences lately that are completely juxtaposed that I wanted to share. I always believe in delivering bad news first, so we'll start there.

I was working out at the gym when I spotted a 30-something year old man wearing a t-shirt that caught my eye. It said, verbatim: "Yes, I have lots of spare change, you homeless piece of shit. Thanks for asking." The bottom of the shirt depicted a pile of change. I was astounded that someone would consider designing, producing, and selling such a vicious shirt -- let alone wearing it. I don't exaggerate when I say that I would rather be naked than wear something that mean, and I don't have a beach-ready body, to say the least. I was stunned by that shirt, and walked away shaking my head. The gym's manager was exiting his office and said to me, "Is everything ok?" I told him to go read the shirt on the guy working out on the Arc Trainer. Later he said, "Next time I see that guy I'm going to say something to him about it."

I left the gym with that shirt on my mind, feeling bad for whatever exists in humans that would allow someone to feel ok propagating that message. It's easy for me to start feeling crummy about the whole human race when I encounter people like that, so I'm glad I had the following experience a few days later:

If you don't live in a big city you might not know that some homeless people ride the buses all day to give them air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter. So, when I got on the D2 bus to head home, I wasn't surprised to see a homeless woman with terrible cataracts that I often see on that route. She must have said something to the bus driver about being hungry, and I started paying attention when the driver offered the woman an ice-cold bottle of water and a quart-size ziplock bag full of trail mix. The following exchange ensued:

Woman: "I don't want to take your lunch."

Driver: "You aren't. I already ate my lunch -- two tuna sandwiches!"

Woman: "Than what is this food? Am I taking your snack?"

Driver: "I always carry a snack and a bottle of water in case I see any of my homeless brothers and sisters and they're hungry or thirsty. I figure that it's my duty to take care of my fellow man."

I sat back watching this, stunned. In fact, tears are overflowing from my eyes right now. It's so rare to see such kindness in motion, especially the premeditated kind. This man goes to work every day with a meal for someone else. Wow.

I debated the rest of the bus ride home about whether to say something to the driver on my way out. I didn't want to embarrass either the homeless woman or him, but I felt so strongly, I couldn't help myself. I struck a balance by leaning over to him as I was getting off at my stop and said quietly, "I saw that interaction when you gave away your food. You are truly awesome, and I so admire you." He said, "Thank you. You're awesome too. Thank you for riding my bus today."

The interaction on the bus challenged me to think critically about what I actually do and what I should do to make the world a better place and take care of my fellow brothers and sisters. I donate money to charities that serve the homeless, but I'm considering buying a box of granola bars from Costco and carrying them in Kacy's dog-walking bag, where I keep spare bags, my iPod, treats, etc. I encounter homeless people several times a week who ask me for money or food, but I don't carry money when I walk the dog, nor do I feel sanguine about giving money to random people on the street.

The bus driver helped many more people that day than the homeless woman he fed. He helped me, and anyone else on board paying attention, by showing me humankind at its best. He gives service in a very tangible way, with a humble bearing, and an open heart. In a way, he helped restore my faith in humanity.

----

It took me two days to type this post.

Loving-kindness Meditation

2010-03-17T13:46:00.001-04:00

My friend, A-Team cheerleader, and meditation enthusiast, Stef, graciously sent me a CD of some of her favorite guided meditations to help me meditate when my pain is so distracting, I can't even stay with one breath. It has been a few days since I meditated, and I noticed the effects on my spirit. I am so imperfect about my practice, yet I feel like it is an integral part of my spiritual life, so I keep trying.

After a few days of whining that I hadn't left adequate time for prayer or meditation in my busy mornings, this morning I turned words into deeds and sat down to listen to Jack Kornfield's loving-kindness meditation that was on Stef's compilation. This is a traditional Buddhist meditation that is designed to help us have a compassionate and loving heart toward all. For the record, I am not a Buddhist, but loosely consider myself a student of Buddhist meditation. The loving-kindness meditation first had me focus on repeating phrases that would open my heart and encourage compassion and love for myself. Then, I repeated the process, first focusing on people who are dear to me, and then later, extending the loving thoughts toward strangers and even enemies (which I gratefully do not have).

I felt fantastic after this, getting up from my meditation and the prayer that followed it, feeling truly at one with the world (Dan Brown fans: at-one-ment). My body and soul felt harmonious. Then it was time to walk Kacy before my chiropractic appointment, and I was trying to lead her out of the shadowy side of the block and onto the western side of the street, which was bathed in sunlight. Being a terrier, she wanted to go east, to Wisconsin Ave., so she was reluctant as I led her across the intersection of 33rd and Volta. At this point, a lunatic ignores the four-way stop at the intersection, and rolls through, stopping just two feet away from hitting Kacy and me, yet staring me down with a clear "Hurry up!" look. "What the fuck?!" I say, and my body and soul fill with rage. So much for my loving-kindness meditation! He then rolls down his window and says something vitriolic to me; luckily, I couldn't hear his phrase over my iPod, but I distinctly caught the f-bomb and the word "puppy."

So this rage-a-holic dude was mad at my dog for being slow when he was rushing through a residential intersection. I seethed for a few minutes, beating myself up for letting the harmony get away from me so quickly, while simultaneously laughing at the idea of this guy "ruining" my loving-kindness meditation. Then I stopped and did two crucial things: first, I decided Mr. Jerky Driver wasn't going to take away any more peace from my day, and I let it go. Really. Then I decided that there was nothing to "ruin" from my meditation, that I could accept myself for the volatile, imperfect human that I am, and more importantly, that I could extend loving-kindness to other people I would encounter over the course of my day.

And I have: I had compassion for the ridiculously slow and frustrating receptionist at my chiropractor's office, as well as for his assistant who carries a boatload of attitude toward anyone she perceives as "privileged," which she deems me. I complimented the receptionist on something she did well, and I asked the assistant how her kids were and how old they are now. These actions were not for show; they were sincere, and I believe they emanated from the intention of my loving-kindness meditation. Even with the jerky driver, I'd say this is a very good day indeed.

Doctors: Your Patients Know Obesity Is A Problem

2010-03-13T23:08:00.003-05:00

I have no doubt that my obesity compromised my health care. I'm not referring to my health, but to my actual health care. When I weighed 250 pounds, I felt dismissed and looked down on by many doctors. I felt disrespected. So it was gratifying to see that my experience was not unique, and indeed is quantifiable: scientists reported in the November issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine that the higher the patients' body mass index (BMI), the less respect doctors have for them. The irony is not lost on me that the patients with the highest BMIs might also be the people most likely to be in dire need of quality health care from an empathetic practitioner.

Being an obese patient caused me enough anxiety that I searched online databases of "fat-friendly" doctors to try to find a practitioner who wouldn't make me feel like a freak. Some of my concerns were very tangible and practical: Would they have a gown big enough to fit me? Would they weigh me in a public hallway? But what really worried me was the disdain that I often encountered.

Upon seeing an internist for the first time, he chided me about my weight and told me. "If you just reach for baby carrots instead of Oreos when you're hungry, you'll lose weight." I nodded sheepishly, my cheeks burning. What I really thought was, "You dumbfuck. Congratulations! You just solved America's obesity crisis. Who knew it was that simple? Wow, carrots instead of Oreos. What a chiddush [insight/epiphany]!"

Another barrier to health care for the obese is the presumption that anything wrong with you must be directly or indirectly related to your obesity. I saw a jerk of an orthopedist shortly after a car accident in which I sustained whiplash. After ruling out major injuries with an MRI, his #1 recommendation to me was to follow the South Beach Diet. My pain persisted, and I sought follow-up care from him, but he was very dismissive. "If you'd just lose the weight, your back wouldn't hurt," the mean orthopedist said. Here I am, 102 pounds lighter. To be fair, my back is substantially better, but I still need chiropractic care. By the way, I ran into the aforementioned orthopedist on the street last year. He didn't recognize me at my new weight, and I seriously considered pulling him aside to tell him how hurtful and harmful his derision was to me, and to tell him how I finally did get a handle on my eating disorder (not with the South Beach diet). I chickened out.

Before losing the 102 pounds, I asked my ex-chiropractor if he thought my weight was causing my back problems. He replied, "Look around my waiting room. Most of my patients are not overweight." I'm not arguing that obesity does not cause or aggravate some health problems; just that the assumption that this is always the case is erroneous and damaging. I have run into this assumption so many times, it's infuriating. I feel like obesity is the biggest scapegoat in health care; it's far easier for a doctor to say "lose weight" than to take the time to address the complex factors that might be causing the complaint.

I'm sympathetic to health care providers who have to walk the fine line of counseling patients on their health -- which includes information on attaining or maintaining a healthy body weight -- but who risk angering their patients. I think whether or not a doctor broaches this subject with patients depends on their relationship, the patient's health, and other factors. However, if doctors choose to go there, they have to be tactful when broaching the subject, and I have some tips for them:

1. Context is everything. If I'm going to a dermatologist because of an acne flare up, it would be inappropriate for her to offer unsolicited advice about my weight.

2. I think doctors need to acknowledge how difficult weight-loss is, especially for obese people. I give my old internist, Dr. Graves (no, that's not a made up name!), a lot of credit in this area: he would suggest that I lose weight but always said, "I know it's so hard, Sarah. In fact, I haven't had any patients who have really been successful in the long run, but please keep trying." I found this simultaneously comforting and discouraging at the same time, but I appreciated his candor.

3. Providers should be prepared with suggestions beyond trying Weight Watchers or the latest fad diet. Those might be helpful tools for some people, but I personally believe that most people who are as obese as I was are true food addicts, not merely people who need a cheerleader and a public, weekly weigh-in to motivate or shame them into compliance. Many of you know that the Overeaters Anonymous-H.O.W. Concept was and is my gateway to recovery. I don't think it's an answer for everyone, but I do my best to educate my doctors about OA-HOW and its role in my recovery. Therapists and nutritionists with specialties in binge-eating disorders are other resources doctors could refer patients to.

4. Doctors in glass houses should not throw stones. It was very hard for me to take seriously any exhortations for me to lose weight when the doctor nagging me was overweight or obese himself.

5. Finally, health care providers should approach obese patients with the understanding that no one in this country thinks that his/her obesity is not a problem. Often doctors would speak to me as if they were the first person to bring this up, when in fact, they were the hundredth. This is akin to smokers; there are no smokers left in this country who don't know that smoking is dangerous to their health and their social lives. The same is true for overweight people. They understand the danger, but don't know how to control the compulsion that leads them to overeat, or how to overcome the deeply ingrained lifestyle habits that contribute to their body mass.

I am grateful that Dr. Huizinga published her research on doctors' disdain for obese patients. I hope that it sparks some soul-searching on the part of doctors to think about how they relate to their fat patients and how their attitudes might compromise the care of this already vulnerable population.

Health Update

2010-03-04T18:41:00.000-05:00

I had my follow up appointment with Dr. F and Gladys, my nurse practitioner and got some interesting lab results. I am still positive for Lyme Disease and Bartonella, one of the co-infection I'm presenting symptoms for. This wasn't surprising, but it was gratifying. We added the Rifampin back in, but at half the dose I took when the flaky naturopath prescribed it for me; the hope was that I wouldn't have the Herxheimer reactions I describe in this post. Unfortunately, I have. My symptoms are exhaustion and burning in my forearms. Additionally, my forearms feel like they're in a vice.

Dr. F is taking me off the Rifampin, and I'm trying Factive instead. If this doesn't work, I'm not sure what we'll do, but I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it.

So, here's how my antibiotic regimen looks now:

Sundays: off

Mon./Wed./Fri: 300 mg Azithromycin

Tues./Thrs./Sat.: Minocycline

7 days of Factive (320 mg) followed by 7 days off

My energy is very low, and my mood is crummy: it's hard not to get sucked into self-pity when I'm this incapacitated. All I know is that we have to get this sorted out before Passover, because I can't cook for a seder if I'm in this condition. More later when I can type with less pain.

Magical Mystery Meal

2010-02-17T17:21:00.001-05:00

We had a really amazing shabbat (sabbath) meal on Friday night. I made Indian food -- a real treat since there are no kosher-certified Indian restaurants anywhere near D.C., and because it's a nice departure from typical shabbat foods. I have never used as much fresh ginger in one meal as I used to make this one. Specifically, I made the following recipes:

Garden Vegetable Soup (ok, this is not Indian, but I didn't have it in me to make rasam): . I cut the olive oil in half, and omitted the corn and potatoes to keep this soup starch-free for my food plan. I also added a parsnip because I had one that needed to be used up. The leeks and lemon juice gave this soup an unanticipated freshness.

Indian Spiced Chicken: Because the laws of kashrut [Jewish dietary laws] forbid mixing milk and meat products, I substituted equal amounts of plain soy yogurt for the yogurt and plain, full-fat soy milk for the half-and-half. Having had Indian food consisting of meat cooked with dairy for much of my life, I can attest that by the time I added all of the wonderful seasonings, you honestly couldn't tell that I used soy products in my adaptation. I also substantially cut the honey in this recipe.

Chickpea curry: I used Muir Glen organic canned tomatoes, which Cook's Illustrated ranks as the best-tasting canned tomatoes. The garam masala spice blend is from Penzey's, an amazing spice company. My Orthodox rabbi told me their spices are acceptably kosher even without certification, because we verified that they do not use any drying agents, which are the chemicals that can pose a problem with the kashrut of spices. This does NOT apply to the Penzey's blends which have cheese, of course, but any straight herbs or spices, or regular spice blends, are fine, according to my rabbi. Yesss! If you are uncomfortable using Penzey's without certification, McCormick's Gourmet Collection includes garam masala, or you could make your own. Just remember to toast the spices in a hot, dry skillet or you will not get the taste you're looking for.

For my curry, I used fresh chick peas instead of canned. I've recently started using the bagged beans instead of canned to cut down on exposure to BPA, and I've found they are so much tastier and have a firmer, more pleasing texture than their canned counterparts. I cook a whole bag at once and then freeze any excess in individual portions, then defrost them as needed.

Roasted Cauliflower with Indian Seasonings: Spicy and yummy!

Additionally, we served basmati rice. Lydia made delicious challah, traditional Jewish egg bread, and David made his amazing home-made applesauce. Our guests also complemented the wines we served.

But beyond the food, the meal felt really special: we had two lovely guests visiting from New Jersey who contacted our shul [synagogue] for shabbat hospitality. You never know who's coming your way when you accept hospitality guests -- crazy and/or inappropriate guests do show up -- but these young women were really delightful and contributed meaningfully to the conversation. They were also superbly grateful, which was nice. The conversation was a nice balance of serious topics and humor.

Finally, I felt really good about the spiritual tenor of our shabbat meal. I lapsed into a bad habit of shabbat being a passive day where I observe all the restrictions of the day -- no phone, computer, driving, manipulating electricity, hard exercise, cooking, etc. -- but otherwise, shabbat had very little spiritual content. I'm trying to more actively observe shabbat, dwelling in the spirit of the day, really internalizing the spiritual rest that it is supposed to convey, and remembering that shabbat is a partnership with God. We (and all of our animals and "servants") rest because on shabbat, God rested from the work of creation. To that end, I'm trying to attend synagogue more regularly, although certainly NOT every week; nothing gives me pleasure like slipping back into bed with Kacy and the Washington Post after a leisurely breakfast on shabbat morning. Shul or not, I've committed to saying at least one liturgical prayer service over shabbat as part of my "put spirituality back in shabbat" campaign.

Another way I've tried to become more actively shabbat observant is by singing zemirot, shabbat songs, at our shabbat meals and by learning/talking more about the parsha. That's the weekly portion of the Hebrew bible, the Torah (aka "The Old Testament" -- a term I find objectionable because obviously it connotes that it has been supplanted by a newer testament) that we read at our synagogue. At the meal I'm writing about, we had a nice discussion about the parsha, and a meaningful broader discussion about the challenges and rewards of more actively observing shabbat, especially for busy professionals who are exhausted at the week's end and kinda eager to get through the ritual so they can crash or read.

All in all, it was a really special shabbat meal, and thinking about it makes me smile in the midst of what has been a challenging week due to an ethical conflict I'm navigating, and self-pity about my limitations caused by my Lyme Disease. Ironically, I ordered a pair of the warmest mittens I've ever worn from Ewe2you.com and they were delivered with an elaborate brochure, geared for Christian readers, urging them to more actively observe the sabbath. I think that the importance of a shabbat, whatever form it takes for you, is more relevant than ever in our fractured, multi-tasking, 24/7-connected world. Whatever your faith, I highly recommend it.

P.S. This post took me four days due to my disability -- now I see why!

Yamuna Body Rolling Is Amazing!

2010-02-04T18:34:00.001-05:00

Sorry I've been silent lately; I've been super-busy, and due to the nerve damage from my Lyme Disease, I often don't have the physical ability to type after I go about my other, regular duties. By the way, most of the posts you read take me days to write, because I can't type for too long at a time. Anyway, I had a blog-worthy event happen on Tuesday that I wanted to share about. My brilliant acupuncturist, Michele Masset, is also a physical therapist and certified in a lot of other therapeutic techniques, including Yamuna Body Rolling (YBR). First, let me state what YBR is not: it is not the classes at the gym with people rolling around on Swiss balls or on foam rollers. YBR is the original small ball therapy using specially designed six- to ten-inch rubber balls to release muscular tension, improve flexibility, decompress the joints, increase range of motion, build core strength and help realign postural imbalances. This is a system for total body care that includes elements of rolfing, weight-bearing exercise, stretching, core strengthening, and neuromuscular reeducation. I think my experience Tuesday is testimony that YBR is a simple program with profound results.

The bottom, middle of my feet have been hurting badly lately. I'd seen my podiatrist, but like most of the time I leave a doctor's office, I felt like we were addressing the symptom, but not the cause. I was excited to see Michele, because she has so many different therapies she can draw from, and she has literally lived around the world learning best practices, and continues to take seminars around the world to further her education to better help her patients. Michele did a thorough physical therapy evaluation, and said it was no mystery why my feet were hurting: my arches are collapsed, which is making the muscles in my calves and butt work way overtime. The rest of the muscles in my legs are atonal, virtually floppy. This muscular/postural imbalance makes my knees turn inward, exacerbating the foot problems. Fortunately, she thinks YBR is perfect for this.

There are two main ways to do YBR on my legs. The first involves laying on my back on the floor with my rump bumping up against the couch, and my legs up on the couch. I put the YBR ball, which is inflatable to the desired pressure, under my calf just below the knee and slowly work my way down. Michele taught me how to apply pressure using the correct body rolling technique. The other method is to kneel, and put the ball on my calf and keep it there by applying pressure with the back of my thigh. Either way, it feels so good! I basically felt those muscles lengthen and unwind. We followed the YBR with stretching. One of the stretches we did has caused me excruciating pain in the past, but after rolling it didn't, because body rolling decompressed the muscles being stretched. We worked only on my left leg that day, so I could see the difference between it and my right one, and it was profound. Not only did my left leg feel open, longer, and more relaxed, it actually looked different -- my left knee was facing forward, correctly aligned, while my right one remained turned inward. It was such a dramatic and amazing thing, I had to call my husband and tell him about this after I left. For those of you wondering, of course I bought a ball so I could treat my right leg at home, and I've been using it!

The other part of my new regimen is to use the YBR Foot Wakers pictured at the top of this post. A few months ago, I took one of the monthly lunchtime YBR foot classes that Michele holds regularly. Instead of using regular YBR balls, you use the Wakers, which stay flat on the floor and are covered in little nubbins. Standing on these is intense, no doubt about it; my house guest tried and said, "I thought those would be cuddly and comfortable, but they hurt!" The intensity is necessary to open and relax those neglected and cramped bones, muscles, and connective tissues in your feet. Although they're intense, the Wakers are tolerable, and are made easier by the YBR technique's emphasis on relaxing into the balls while exhaling. Michele told me using my wakers every day will go a long way toward improving the underlying foot problems that are causing my imbalance and the resulting pain.

Although I bemoan the lack of holistic health care options in our area compared to the West Coast, I am so very grateful to live in a city with more holistic options than most places east of Oregon. Practitioners like Michele, and my massage therapist, Gail Messier (who also uses some alternative, very effective techniques), really make my life manageable by offering some tangible relief from pain.

If you're someone who has any ongoing physical problems, or if you just want to free muscular restriction caused by stress, improve bone density, and rebalance your body, I'd definitely encourage you to check out YBR. The Web site I linked to above has a directory of trained practitioners around the world. I just commented to my husband that this post sounds almost sales-like and gimmicky, but I really am that enthused about this. I promise it's my natural enthusiasm, not a paid endorsement!

Sex and the Sickly Girl

2010-01-17T17:01:00.000-05:00

We were in the kitchen cooking and my mom, in a moment of tenderness, rested her hand on my shoulder. "Ouch!" I yelled, because touching me near my neck was excruciating, as a consequence of my late-stage Lyme Disease. "That amount of touch hurts you? How do you have sex?" she asked. I was mortified, but not surprised, that my mom went there.

I am not someone who has an abundance of libido to begin with, and it is hard to overstate how un-sexy illness makes you feel, between tubes hanging out of your arms and suffering from terrible pain. When the brain is caught in a pain feedback loop, it is not so interested in lovemaking. I think this must be a survival trait! This says nothing of the myriad medications I took/take which made/make me nauseous and sleepy. When I took hydrocodone (Vicodin) for pain relief, that caused its own sexual issue: making my body incapable of orgasm. It took me a while to catch on to this, but I finally brought myself to ask my neurologist if the drug and dysfunction were related. I'm proud to report that I was his first patient who ever mentioned it! That's me, a regular Nancy Drew. The doctor agreed with me that it made perfect sense since Vicodin is a major depressant -- it's hard to excite and depress the nervous system at the same time, right?

I think I have some image of what sexy means and that does not include someone with chronic health problems, so I have a hard time viewing myself as a sexual being. Obviously, sex is so corporeal, it's tough to feel sexual when your body is falling apart on you. Although sex is my greatest weakness in my marriage -- I think it will always be my Achilles heel -- it is also extremely important to me, which my therapist says puts me way ahead of the game. I know people who live in sexless marriages and seem ok with it, but I think it's corrosive. Even if my husband wasn't very sexual, it would still be important to me, because I think sex is an important part of a healthy marriage. It does encourage bonding, and I can't help but think the world would just be a happier place if people got off more. Look at Betty Dodson: she's 81 and looks like she's in her 60's, and she attributes it to a lifetime of orgasms. And who am I to second-guess Betty? Besides, it's nice to do something pleasurable for your body when it's hurting.

Poli-Ticks

2010-01-10T00:16:00.000-05:00

When reading my Lyme Disease (LD) posts from this summer, I was struck by the paradigm shift that has occurred in me since that time. To frame this, I need to lay out the two competing theories about LD today:

A. LD is a limited infection, easily treatable once diagnosed. First-line treatment is a month of oral doxycycline, sometimes followed by a month of intravenous Rocephin for severe or persistent cases. This is the position laid out by the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society.

B. LD and its coinfections can be persistent, sometimes active, sometimes hiding. This makes it more like herpes. Cases like this require long-term antibiotic therapy. People can be symptomatic for years. This is the position of Lyme-literate doctors, whom you can find through the Turn the Corner Foundation or your local LD association.

I used to be firmly (and smugly) ensconced in the first camp, but three years of suffering later, I find myself hesitatingly in the latter. Hesitatingly, because I used to fancy myself some champion of evidence-based medicine. That worked for me until the evidence-based medicine didn't.

One thing to know about LD and coinfections is that the diagnostic tools are pretty bad. Most insurance companies only contract with LabCorp or Quest Diagnostics, which means lab work processed by other labs won't be covered by your insurance. LabCorp and Quest removed two of the most common proteins that can identifying LD (outer surface proteins A and B; for an explanation of why read this) from their serological tests. Currently, IgeneX is the primary lab used by Lyme-literate physicians to test for LD.

Another thing complicating Lyme diagnosis and treatment is the elusiveness of Borrelia burdoferi, which often quickly leaves the blood stream to hide out in nerve or brain tissue, which is how one presents with the neurological symptoms that I have. Those include lovely punctuated white-matter lesions that appear on MRIs of my brain. These lesions, which are one symptom of very critical LD, are similar to ones seen on patients with multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus, or cerebrovascular disease.

So here I sit, three years after first presenting with symptoms -- or six years, depending on if you count my diagnosis with fibromyalgia, which in hindsight seems to be my first presentation of Lyme. I am living with a real-life example of persistent Lyme Disease, which a year ago I didn't believe existed. The conventional medical path hasn't worked for me, and I'm embarking on treatment with a Lyme-literate doctor. My choice to embrace this path basically came at a critical moment, surrounded by evidence of so many seemingly disparate health problems including arm pain, stiffness, and baffling gastrointestinal problems that could not be attributed to anything else. One clear moment was a conversation with my medical nutritionist who noted that I didn't display any gastrointestinal inflammation markers, which usually shoot up at the sign of anything amiss that is originating from that part of your body. I said, "That means this is coming from something else, right? It's a symptom, not the cause." The minute I said it, I knew it was true. Have you ever known something, intuitively, is true to your bones? Like nothing can shake you from that truth? I've had it a few times, and this was one of them. I have been tested for everything under the sun, and yet the total portrait of my symptoms points most clearly to persistent LD. This all led me to a search for someone who would treat my whole being to help me heal.

My first stop on this new journey was with a naturopath who prescribed mega-doses of antibiotics, which is the standard treatment for persistent LD and coinfections. Unfortunately, she did some things to compromise my trust in her, and I decided to search for another practitioner. I found him, and I had to actually sign a waiver agreeing to not blog about him by name. So let's just call him Dr. F, and if you have any need to see him, email me and I'll put you in touch. Dr. F agrees that I am suffering from persistent LD and coinfections. He gave me a few blessed days rest from the antibiotics that have made my arm pain symptoms and excessive fatigue so much worse; this lovely phenomenon is called a Herxheimer reaction (known colloquially as "die-off"), which occurs when large quantities of bacteria are dumped into the body and create a toxic effect. In this case, they were being purged by the antibiotics. Believe me, I was feeling it! Tomorrow I start on a different pulsed antibiotic regimen, which means instead of taking them all on the same day, I alternate days, so I'm not pounding my systems as badly. I'll take minacycline and azithromycin instead of doxycycline, Rifampin, and azithromycin. Dr. F's hope is that this will kill the bacteria without causing such a severe Herxheimer reaction.

In addition to my $600 consultation fee, I spent about $750 on laboratory tests as part of my initial visit to Dr. F, which excludes what I will pay LabCorp for things like running a thyroid panel and checking my vitamin D levels, which we don't need to pay a specialty lab to do. Add to this my massage therapy ($110), psychotherapy ($160), a visit with my physiatrist-pain management doctor ($?), and a dental cleaning plus pre-paying for my two $%@#$ fillings ($255), and it was a very expensive week in health care! Oh, and I spent $347 on antibiotics at CVS. I will be happy to reach my $2,400 in-network deductible, though that won't do much to help me pay for Dr. F, who does not participate with any insurance, and my out-of-network deductible is close to $7,000 anyway. I might actually meet it this year, sadly. I am very, very grateful that we have the financial security to pay for this stuff.

My depression in November and December was really bad, but fortunately I've gotten that under control. Let's face it: being debilitated for three years can be pretty depressing! I had several well-meaning friends urge me to get back on antidepressants, but I wasn't interested in doing so as long as I stayed functional. Luckily, I've dodged that issue for the moment, thank God, by focusing on thoughts that help me keep my spirits up. The key seems to be staying in the moment, or at least the day. My mood heads south when I think of longer-term issues like, "When will I be healed?" When I focus on having the very best quality of life I can have today, I find my mood much more manageable. Meditation helps me put this into practice. Exercise definitely boosts my mood, so I should do that again, soon! It's tough when I have so much to do and so little energy; I really have to carefully mete it out.

I told my friend, S, that I felt like I had learned all the lessons my illness held for me, and now there were no more lessons, but I still suffer. She gently pointed out that maybe acceptance is now the lesson I have to learn. I've come around to that point of view, and I feel like if I can gain even a little mastery of accepting things as they are at this moment, it could be a watershed thing. I think of the cascading effects that would have on my anxiety and other challenges.

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake ... Unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes." -- Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 417

What Doesn't Kill Me Doesn't Kill Me

2009-12-25T11:30:00.000-05:00

Whoever said "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," was a moron and a liar. What doesn't kill you doesn't kill you.

My body is so run down from antibiotics and antifungals, my arm pain is flaring badly, so it's hard for me to type. I'll resume blogging when I'm able.

Merry Christmas, if you celebrate the holiday!

Sectionals

2009-12-16T11:34:00.000-05:00

I'm still gushing over the Glee mid-season finale, and the season overall until now (for ease, this will hereafter be called "season", even though I know it's not a full season). Glee is on hiatus until the spring, when the back nine episodes will air. They were renewed for season two, which will start in fall 2010.

The first part of this season was a lot lighter than the end, but I really enjoyed the heightened drama. Of course I couldn't wait for Terry Schuester's pregnancy to be exposed as fraudulent. I fully expected Will Schuester to flip, but I was pleasantly surprised by the intensity of his reaction -- he was physically violent. This was very out of character for him, but because the reaction was appropriate, and Matthew Morrison played it so well, I found it powerful and believable.

The writers have done such a good job building up Emma and Will's attraction, I knew they weren't going to let her go and marry Ken, but I didn't quite anticipate him dumping her (good for him, btw). I have been gunning for Will and Emma this whole series, so although it made me sad that she didn't let him sweep her off her feet at her would-be wedding, it was totally the right thing to do. Anything else would've been too cheesy and inappropriate. I LOVED Will & Emma's kiss at the end, especially as it was set to the performance of "My Life Would Suck Without You." I wished their kiss weren't so chaste, but I guess Fox didn't want Sectionals to become "Sexionals."Realistically, mysophobic Emma wasn't going to let Will put his tongue in her mouth first thing anyway.

I feel bad for Finn that Puck, his best friend, knocked his girlfriend up, but I'm glad Rachel exposed Quinn's lie. I eagerly hope that Finn & Rachel will get together later this season. I'm not getting the sense that Quinn's going to change her mind about letting Puck co-parent this baby with her, and I don't really blame her.

I'm enough of a dork that the fact that Glee has had three overlaps with my other favorite show, True Blood, truly excites me. Patrick Gallagher, Coach Ken Tanaka, was Chow on four episodes of TB. Kevin McHale, who plays Artie on Glee, was the assistant helping the coroner at the scene of Sookie's grandmother's murder on TB Season one. Later, in another episode, he was at Fangtasia and Sookie overheard his mind worrying that she would recognize him from the crime scene. Finally, Anna Camp, who played the pretty sectionals judge, Candace Dykstra, on Glee was Sarah Newlin on True Blood season two.

With Glee and TB off the air for the moment, what am I to do for mindless entertainment? First, I'm still enjoying Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books that TB is based from. Luckily the Glee DVD for this season is out Dec. 29, and I'm re-watching TB Season 1. No news as to when TB Season 2 is coming out on DVD, but I look forward to it. TB Season 3 isn't planned until June 2010, but I'm thrilled HBO picked it up for a third season.

Update: I'm super-excited that Glee and TB got well-deserved Golden Globe nominations! I look forward to reading about them winning.

Ticked Off: Installment III of my Lyme Disease Journey

2009-12-06T23:07:00.002-05:00

Things have been majorly sucking here lately. I am being treated for suspected Bartonella, a co-infection of Lyme Disease. One of the reasons that Lyme is so debilitating now, versus 15-20 years ago, is that most people who get infected with Lyme now also are infected with 1-8 other viral or bacterial co-infections. Your immune system can't easily fight off that many assaults, so it goes haywire, which is how you end up with a perpetually ill patient like me. Additionally, I've been diagnosed with intestinal candida (yeast); we're working on how to treat that since the fungicide the yeast is resistant to is severely contraindicated with another pharmaceutical that I take. I have been feeling very down, angry, and cynical. I'm totally pissed off that I'm 33 and have been knocked on my ass sick for so long. My husband (and several other people) gently suggested that I might be here to be of service to others. My response to this is basically, "Fuck service! I don't want to be of service in this way. This really fucking sucks, and I'm tired of it. Tell me my life isn't merely to be an example to others." I still feel that way most of the time, but I think it would be a real pity if someone suffering in the same way I've been didn't get a chance at healing just because I'd rather write about vampires than the rough stuff I'm living with. So, in the spirit of service, I'm getting back to telling my Lyme Disease journey. See Installments I and II if you missed them.

IV Rocephin=Good

When I reflect on how sick I was at the time my doctor diagnosed my Lyme just before Passover in spring 2007, it feels like a hazy, bad dream. I could not wash my hair, because I couldn't lift my hands above my chest level. I don't know what I would've done if I hadn't been married; I have no family here whom I would feel comfortable showering with. I could not chop a vegetable. I couldn't always sign my name; I certainly couldn't write any more than my name without excruciating pain. I could not type. I could not turn on my computer without feeling an electric shock traveling up my arm, nor could I push an elevator button for the same reason. I couldn't open the door to a commercial office building because I was too weak to do so. My arms burned deeply all the time, and I felt like I was being tortured. I had constant numbness and pins-and-needles feelings.

I almost wept with relief when I finally got a diagnosis. My disease had a name, and it was treatable! I wasn't really looking ahead to a time of wellness; I just dreamt of some pain relief. My doctor first prescribed a month's worth of oral doxycycline, a really common antibiotic that I used to take for acne. That plus acupuncture got rid of the worst of the pins-and-needles sensation, but nothing more. I knew that intravenous (IV) antibiotics were usually needed to treat Lyme as severe as mine, but I was shocked when I had to suggest it to my neurologist. He shrugged, "You want to try the IV? Sure." Typing that kinda takes my breath away; it's one of about 1,500 health care moments that I can identify that if I wasn't who I was, with the resources (including chutzpah) I have, I would have a very different life than I do now. I will do a whole post on this some other time; I had such a moment earlier this month trying to get information about when to stop my drug for my digestive study.

Anyway, eventually I'm sure I would've sought a second opinion that would've led me to a truly Lyme-literate doctor who would've prescribed IV antibiotics, but any delay would have been detrimental. In hindsight, I wonder if I needed more than just a month of IV meds.

I had to get a peripherally inserted mid-line catheter placed in the vein in the crook of my arm (see here for drawing). It was a thin, plastic tube that snaked way up my arm, came out of the vein and was covered by a thin piece of plastic to keep it sterile. I remember driving to Reston, VA to have it placed; the nursing company would come out to my house for other care, but told me in no uncertain terms that I would not want to clean up the mess in my home that would result from placing this line. The nurse was very skillful, but it hurt like hell; yet, at the time, I distinctly remember feeling exhilarated, thinking it might be "the trick" to get me well. Sitting here two-and-a-half years later, I can see how naive that was, but I'm grateful for that innocence because it would've crushed my spirit to not have it.

I had a home health nurse who came every week to change the dressing covering the midline insertion site and check for infection. She showed me how to sterilize the cap, flush the line with saline, and hook up the IV Rocephin that was shipped here weekly from the nursing company's pharmacy and that was stored in our refrigerator. I'd be lying if I said I didn't like having the midline or using the IV every day; medical stuff is cool. When else was I going to get the chance to give someone an IV? My friend Dionne, God bless her, knit me a little cuff to keep the long line from blowing in the breeze; I could tuck the plastic tube up into the cuff when I wasn't mainlining. That was good because any time that tubing got caught, it pulled painfully at the skin in my arm and I lived in fear that I was accidentally going to rip it out.

Four weeks of the IV Rocephin had a noticeable impact on me. The pins-and-needles and electric shock sensations subsided. A lot of the other details of when I saw improvements have escaped David and me; was I able to wash my hair again immediately post-IV, or later? Who knows. I couldn't write well enough to take notes, nor did I care to. I lived one day at a time, trying to find a way out of this pain. I was heavily sedated by narcotics, which took the edge off the pain and made me sleep.

There was a lot more to healing; I need to go to sleep but will remind myself here to write about: Cathy, physical therapy, cranial-sacral therapy, etc. Good night.

Team Jacob!

2009-11-29T22:58:00.000-05:00

I swear, if pharma is ever able to get a female libido drug on the market, I'd be willing to bet there's a little vampire mojo in there. I was going to write that if you are a straight or bi female you should definitely see "New Moon," the sequel to the "Twilight" book and movie, but I've since amended that sentiment to include gay and bi men.

I've been counting down the days until I could see "New Moon," and it didn't disappoint. In fact, it was a lot better than I thought it would be. The movie was very entertaining, and not just because Edward was gone for most of it. The film flowed well, and I liked the look and feel of the production. Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black climbs with the grace of Legolas in "The Two Towers," but manages to make Orlando Bloom look a little ordinary. Who knew that was possible? Even though I chuckled at the cheesiness, I liked the CGI effects of the werewolves, and how the ground shook when they ran.

The chemistry between Kristin Stewart as Bella Swan and Lautner was electric, and dare I say it, the acting was good. I have to give Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen) props for the scene where he dumps Bella after correctly determining that he and his family are a mortal danger to her, and that it's in her long-term best interest if he leaves her and Forks, WA, altogether. In that scene, Pattinson manages to lie through his teeth, saying he doesn't want Bella, yet convey through his acting that he hates every second of it and that it's killing him to say it. This is a reasonable thing to expect from a principal actor who reportedly earned $12 million for this film.

I had no idea before today that Michael Sheen was cast as Aro for this movie. I find him delightful all the time, but even more so when he's playing an evil character -- basically the Godfather of the vampire mafia, the Volturi. I definitely hope they keep him for "Breaking Dawn," the final movie, where Aro and the Volturi are very pivotal. Sheen was a high point of the film for me.

Now let's get to the heart of the matter: As I've opined before, Edward Cullen is the Morrissey of vampires. He's so sullen, over-dramatic, and walks around like someone pissed in his Wheaties. He seems so depressed and self-absorbed that one antidepressant wouldn't be enough. Simply put, he's a whiny little bitch. I would love to hear a convincing argument that Edward is actually better for Bella beyond the teenage-girl refrain of "He's her true love!"

Jacob is in every way a better fit for Bella; he is safer, handier, warmer, better looking and, unlike Edward, does not seem to have a personality disorder. I was thrilled he got so much screen time because Lautner turned into a 100 percent hottie for this movie. A week ago I scoffed at the tween's mom who asked Lautner for his underwear at a promotional activity; now I get it (but hope that if I were a tween mom I'd be able to restrain myself even if I thought that). Cue the cougar music! One of the funniest moments in the movie wasn't in the movie: it was when Jacob took off his shirt for the first time to clean blood off Bella's head. There was literally a gasp heard across the theater, including from the two men in front of me. Oh my God, Lautner is stunning. I could barely look at anyone else in a scene with him when he was shirtless. I'm sad he cut his hair once his werewolf gene activated, but that was a major plot point of the book, and couldn't have been disregarded. The shorter hair also made him look older and more cut, which was an important part of the were character.

All that said, I'm not an Edward hater. As someone who believes in romance and who is fortunate to feel a soulful bond with her husband, I do believe in true love. Once it's clear that Jacob is not a real option, I do root for Edward and Bella.

Stay tuned. I'll try to write a short piece about why vampires should most definitely NOT sparkle.

Excuse Me, God, This Is Not The Life I Ordered!

2009-11-25T19:10:00.001-05:00

You might be depressed if:

A. You cry whenever you hear REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore"
B. You watch the Pixar movie "Up" and tell your spouse "This makes me want to kill myself!" [not literally!!]
C. You've been chronically ill for nearly three years
D. All of the above

The answer is D. Thank you for all of your emails, phone calls, and text messages inquiring if I'm ok. People got concerned that the blog was quiet, and with good reason. Life lately has been very, very hard. I hadn't wanted to write about it, feeling like it drew me deeper into the depression that I'm fighting tooth and nail, but it's what's going on, so here we go:

I have not eaten a normal meal since Oct. 21, since I have been suffering from undiagnosed gastrointestinal (GI) problems. I have become a stalker at my GI doctor's office (I told him, "Hey, at least I'm nice and smart!" and he agreed), and have submitted myself to a battery of undignified diagnostic tests that mostly are coming up with no clear pathology. If you have never had persistent GI issues, you can't know that when that part of your body isn't feeling well, no part of your body can feel well. Of course, the GI tract is the massive engine that powers your body, and it's always working, so it's not like a sprained ankle that you can stay off of for a while. Even doing two days of bowel rest, which means drinking only clear liquids, calmed my system only a little bit. Until I had to eat again.

The depression that is nagging at me is a bigger threat than my GI problems, I think. I used to be a freakin' mess, to put it nicely, and at one point took 4-6 psychotropic drugs at the same time. It took me years of patience and determination to get off of them, and I have no desire to get back on them. If I have to, I will, but one day at a time, I've been giving my depression the middle finger and telling it it won't get me today. I've handled this by exercising, which hurts my tummy, but gives me yummy endorphins that stave off the depression. I've been very selective about my media, choosing light, fluffy, and funny over dark and depressing, which is part of the reason that the first half of "Up" threw me for a loop. I'm doing lots of service work for OA, which keeps me out of my head, and I'm doing my best not to isolate, though I'm not feeling social right now, to say the least. Prayer and meditation help, too.

The fact that it was December 2006 that I first started having serious pain leading up to my Lyme diagnosis certainly adds fuel to the fires of depression that I'm fighting. More on this later when I'm not giddy with the fact that David, unbidden, sought out and got me vampire erotica from the library. Could I be married to someone more attuned to me? I don't think so. I'm also giddy with the fact that I just watched and enjoyed "Twilight" in preparation for seeing "New Moon" on Sunday. I recognized the Stephenie Meyer cameo in the diner this time, and enjoyed the film a lot more since I didn't watch it immediately after reading the novel.

Back to brooding: In spite of everything crummy going on, I do sense the hand of God somewhere in all this. I have felt led to schedule a consultation with an integrative medicine clinic. This is a medical practice I've previously dismissed as being too expensive and too fringe-y for me to have an interest in it, but three years later, I'm willing. I have a friend who had great results working with them. I've surrendered myself to the several thousand dollars of debt that we'll accumulate if I decide to seek treatment with them, which I believe that I will. At this point I think they'd have to advocate overt idol worship for me to run scared.

After two years of being out of touch, two weeks ago I ran into the aforementioned friend who was healed at this clinic, and she urged me to give them a second glance. I checked out their Web site again, and saw they had a free Webinar about Lyme Disease with a naturopathic practitioner, which I attended. I found it surprisingly informative and credible, and began to seriously pray and meditate (haha, I just typed "medicate" instead of "meditate." Is that my Freudian slip showing?) about whether to seek a consultation with the practice. The overwhelming message I got was to go for it, so that's what I'm doing. David is going with me, and is being amazingly supportive, even though this type of health care definitely falls farther out of his comfort zone than mine.

Something that piqued my interest in the Webinar was the discussion of Lyme Disease co-infections. One of the reasons that Lyme has been so much more debilitating over the past 10-15 years than ever before is that when someone is bitten by a Lyme-infected tick, they usually are also being co-infected with up to eight or nine other viruses and bacteria. The naturopath giving the presentation said that in over a decade of practice treating Lyme, she has only had two patients who were not co-infected. There is not a lot of medical literacy about the co-infections in mainstream medicine; I was lucky to have had a neurologist who even knew how to properly check for Lyme. I was never tested or treated for any of the likely co-infections, and one of the most predominant symptoms of those lingering co-infections is GI trouble. In light of the fact that we have no other clear ideas about why my tummy is so upset, this theory is intriguing, so I am embarking on a different path to see if we can clear this up.

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In related news, I'm pleased the Lyme-documentary "Under Our Skin" has made it to the next round of consideration for receiving an Academy Award for Best Documentary! I have a few beefs with this movie, but overall I support it because of the incredible job it does spreading Lyme literacy. At some point, I'll formally review the movie on my blog, but I recommend it. Check it out!

Glee!

2009-11-09T13:21:00.005-05:00

I've had a terrible few weeks due to GI problems that leave me very uncomfortable and depressed. So, I started writing about that in another post, but it was making me even more depressed than I already am, so I'm putting it aside for now to focus on a happier topic: Glee!

I am obsessed with this show. Part of this is unsurprising if you know me: I don't really do anything half-assed, other than house cleaning. I am totally into this show -- the last time I gave a damn about any non-cable network TV show was when Babylon 5 was airing circa 1996 when I was dating my husband. Now I'm a semi-regular (read 3-D Loser) on the Glee fan boards. So what has Glee done to win me over?

First of all, singing & dancing is just cool. I love musical theater, and since Glee follows the ups and downs of the Glee club at William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio, there is lots of singing and dancing. Their musical numbers are really fun, and so far my favorites are:

1. "Somebody to Love" (from the episode The Rhodes Not Taken)
2. "Halo/Walkin' On Sunshine" (from Mash-Up)
3. It's My Life/Confession (ibid)

I've been listening to the Glee Cast album on Grooveshark, and the only song from the show that I really can't handle is their version of Amy Winehouse's "Rehab." I think this was a poor choice on the part of the producers because the treatment of it by a high school chorus completely misses what makes that song so awesome: that everything about Winehouse's performance makes you totally believe what she's singing is plausible. She sounds like someone who needs to head to rehab but is saying "No, no, no." I'm sure this song was chosen because of its overwhelming popularity, but the overly-produced high-school glee club version just doesn't work.

The Glee overlords have done a bang-up job with casting. The producers auditioned 2,900 people; apparently it's tough to find people this age who are required to be good actors, singers, and dancers. I think the characters are believable as typical Mid-Western kids. I have found Lea Michele totally captivating since the first time I saw her, and she shines as the self-important, star-obsessed Rachel Berry on Glee. Jayma Mays is another stand-out on the show as the obsessive-compulsive guidance counsellor with more than a crush on Will Schuester (played by the charming Matthew Morrison), the leader of the Glee club.

The humor in Glee really appeals to me, and largely is driven by the brilliant Jane Lynch, who is cast as Sue Sylvester, the sadistic cheerleading coach who has a personal mission to destroy the Glee club and Schuester. You know Lynch, maybe as the lesbian handler of Rhapsody in White, the poodle, in Best In Show. More recently she was in Role Models, and she was the store manager in The 40 Year-Old Virgin. If you still don't know whom I'm writing about, you could just look up, since Lynch is in the icon at the top of this post. I listened to an excellent Terri Gross interview with Lynch that you can check out here. Lynch is so good, I literally can't imagine anyone else cast in this part.

Still, nothing is perfect. My biggest complaint with Glee is that they use damn auto-tone on all their choral numbers -- luckily they haven't applied it to solo numbers. I'd take slightly imperfect harmony over the excessively-engineered, phony, auto-tone any day. My other complaint is that due to the !$@# World Series, Fox has deprived me and millions of other obsessed fans of new episodes two weeks in a row, but that will be rectified tomorrow.

Bariatric Surgery for Children = A Terrifying Idea

2009-11-05T10:29:00.000-05:00

Recently, I had a shocking conversation with two health care providers from Baltimore. They work in an inner-city hospital that soon is planning to do bariatric surgery, such as gastric bypass, on children as young as five, and it hopes to do the procedures on babies as young as two in the next few years. How is this horrifying? Oh, let me count the ways! But first, some background.

I am a grateful member of Overeater's Anonymous, which has helped me lose 99 pounds and has given me the support to not eat compulsively since Dec. 31, 2005. The program is patterned after that of Alcoholics Anonymous, but helps people who have any kind of disordered eating whether they are compulsive overeaters, anorexics, bulimics, or some combination of all three. All of the local OA meetings are under the umbrella of the D.C. Intergroup, which purchased a booth in the exhibit hall of the Obesity Society's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. I was the co-chairwoman of this project, primarily taking care of scheduling and working with volunteers from OA who handed out OA literature and spoke with conference participants about the program and how it can complement their practices and help them help patients with eating disorders.

I felt like the Obesity Society booth was an amazing project to work on, because we were talking with doctors, therapists, nurses, researchers, nutritionists, and anyone who works to cure or manage obesity. They came from as far away as Argentina, Australia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. I asked each person I spoke with about their jobs so I could give them relevant information about OA. This is how I learned about the Baltimore hospital's plans for pediatric bariatric surgery. Until then, when I've heard the adjective "pediatric" modifying bariatric surgery, it has referred to teenagers aged 14-17. Note that it is controversial to do bariatric surgery on kids in this age range, and it's tough for teenagers to find docs willing to operate on them at that age. So, when the women told me they plan to do this surgery on two year-olds I repeated what they said to make sure I heard them right.

When someone has gastric bypass surgery, a surgeon sections off part of the stomach to make a tiny pouch that can hold very little food, and rearranges the intestines to join that pouch. There are other forms of bariatric surgery, like the Lap-band, an inflatable device that goes around the top of the stomach and that the doctor inflates with saline to reduce the amount of food the stomach can hold at one time. Bariatric surgery, especially gastric-bypass, is a serious procedure with a not-insubstantial risk of severe complications and death. Of course, since it's only performed on people who are morbidly obese (typically defined as being 100 pounds or more overweight), one could argue that the patients were dying from their obesity anyway and that their obesity puts them at risk for surgical complications. Even if it's true, I don't think even that warrants surgery with high complications and spotty efficacy.

People who work 12-step programs have sponsors, who are like your guides on your recovery journey. I have sponsored several women who have had bypass surgery, and guess what? They're all doing the same work I'm doing every day for my recovery, like making 3 phone call to other food addicts, doing a daily reading and writing assignment, and weighing their food, but they struggle with nausea and/or diarrhea and/or vomiting, and have to get intravenous iron infusions because they're anemic as a result of their surgeries. Moreover, all of my sponsees who have had bypasses have gained nearly all or all of their weight back, which shouldn't surprise you, because the things that cause someone to be eligible for bariatric surgery are not in the stomach. They are in the mind, heart, and soul, and no surgeon can fix those things.

I have several friends who have had gastric bypass, and all of them suffer complications -- some major. My friend, H, lost more than 200 pounds in OA and had so much hanging skin, she had to walk with a cane. She had to get that extra skin removed via a body lift, which is a really nasty and drastic surgery. She was hospitalized for nearly two months because her wounds wouldn't heal. Granted, they are enormous -- they cut from both sides of your navel and cut all the way around your circumference, stopping just before your butt crack. But one of the reasons she wouldn't heal is that she couldn't assimilate enough protein to heal because of her bypass surgery.

The women from the hospital in Baltimore told me that they have two year-old patients who weigh 80 pounds (normal is up to 30 lbs.) How did these babies get so fat? They're not in the kitchen baking lasagnas or going to CVS for Ben N' Jerry's and Oreos. Their caretakers are overfeeding the kids and making them obese, and unless these kids are reassigned to foster care after their bariatric surgery, the same parents are going to overstuff their kids post-operatively. Why would this be different with children?

I think if this trend of operating on very young children catches on, we're going to see a lot of kids who are both fat and sick. It's one thing for an adult to choose a life disrupted by potential diarrhea or vomiting, yet another to impose it on helpless kids. We also should be freaked out about this because we have no idea how weight-loss surgery will affect growth and development when done on a young child. What will be the consequences of limiting dietary calcium on bones that are still growing? Bariatric surgeons will tell you that patients will take supplements, but we already know that the body does not integrate nutrients from dietary supplements the same way it does from food (duh). Could limiting food quantities adversely affect neurological development? We don't know, and the professional hubris that says it's safe to do gastric bypass on 2 year-olds is really galling.

If you're thinking, "Kids are fatter than ever and getting comorbidities of obesity like Type 2 diabetes, which was unheard of 20 years ago. So, what would you propose instead of pediatric bypass surgery?" First of all, I'd tell you to chill with the obesity horror stories -- I think it has become the healthcare boogeyman, which I'll discuss in another post. I won't solve the obesity crisis on my blog, though I hope to explore its many facets. But I did read a summary of a clinical study with impressive outcomes that might be a step in the right direction. A facility in West Virginia created a summer camp for overweight kids that was followed up with family programming throughout the year. So after the camp, the entire family participated in healthy cooking and exercise classes. The kids responded really well, both losing weight and keeping it off. I don't think that cooking and exercises classes are of much use to true food addicts, but hopefully we can intervene with overweight kids before they become addicted. I strongly believe that bariatric surgery on two year-olds is most definitely NOT the answer to our obesity problem.

Liberal Graffiti Fail

2009-11-02T15:50:00.003-05:00

Do you think that Obama has heathcare on his agenda? Friends, if you're going to graffiti, please spell correctly. This is at O and 34th Sts. NW.

This Is Shit

2009-10-31T21:41:00.002-04:00

My friend Rachel and I went to see the Michael Jackson (read Kenny Ortega's Big Cash Bonanza) movie, This is It. I think a more appropriate title would be This Is Shit. Watching it was like watching the last public video taken of Elvis a few weeks before his death; you're watching someone who used to be a vivid, electrifying entertainer, and now you're seeing a decaying, shell of a man, and it is uncomfortable. It felt invasive, like watching someone you don't know well get a private medical procedure.

The footage for This Is It came from Jackson's rehearsals for his farewell concert series in London; it was for his private archive, and clearly was not shot with the intention of having anyone see it, and it should've stayed that way. There was not enough material for a two-hour movie, nor was it high-caliber. MJ (as he's called throughout the film) looked frail and stiff -- almost arthritic. He didn't sing a lot of the lyrics to his songs, but whether that was because he was trying to save his voice or because he was bombed out of his mind, we'll never know. Well, actually, I do know that he was bombed out of his mind. MJ was barely coherent when he spoke; at one point he told his musicians to let the music "simmer" for a while longer. Another example showing how drug-addled his brain was: MJ filmed a new film noir-style concert video for "Smooth Criminal." At one point a nighttime cityscape fades into a movie marquis that says "Smooth Criminal." MJ and his dancers were trying to arrange a cue that depended on this video, and Ortega, the concert producer, asks Jackson how he can gauge the cue when he's standing in front of the monitor. MJ's response? "I'll feel it."

Rachel's opinion of the movie seemed to mirror mine; she said that about half an hour into it she was thinking, "It's dead. Now, can we eat it?" In spite of the half-hearted singing and arthritic dancing, many of the people in the theater clapped after every number! There were a few minutes of cool in the film: the new concert videos they had shot for "Thriller" and "Smooth Criminal" were neat, and his dancers and musicians were amazingly talented. They mentioned that the dancers did physical therapy and pilates a few days a week, which I thought was interesting, but makes sense in light of the physical demands of their job.

The movie left me no doubt that London concert goers probably were going to see the best performance of their lives; every aspect of this concert was completely over the top, and Jackson said so when he reminded his co-performers that they were going to show fans "talent like they've never seen before" and take them "places that they've never been before." Even the rigor of the rehearsals, let alone the concerts, would've been daunting to a healthy 25 year-old, let alone a 50 year-old addict (that last descriptor was said with compassion, no judgment). I left the movie feeling certain that if Jackson, emotionally and physically decrepit, hadn't died in June, he certainly would've died during this concert series.

I'm leaning toward the opinion that this movie never should've been released because Jackson, the epitome of a perfectionist, would not have wanted us to see this. However, I have sympathy for the Jackson family, because MJ was millions of dollars in debt, which is why he was doing his London concert series in the first place. No doubt This Is It will earn the three Jackson kids a nice royalty, but in the end, it's their dad who loses, and Kenny Ortega who wins. For shame.

Twilight: Unrealistic Expectations?

2009-10-25T20:33:00.001-04:00

I recently finished the Twilight saga series, which is about a teenage girl falling in love with a male vampire. The books make certain people uncomfortable for a variety of reasons, including the fact that, ultimately, a teenage girl ends up screwing a 100+ year-old man. I shrug at that one, but a friend of mine has a concern about the series that I find far more potentially damaging and problematic.

The series is written with the teen audience in mind, and Edward Cullen, the vampire, is basically an adolescent girl's emotional equivalent of a wet dream. He is a SNAV -- Sensitive New Age Vampire. Forget Bram Stoker's Dracula, who treated his victims like the prey and vermin that they should be to a vamp. Edward adores Bella Swan, his love interest. He dotes on her. He doesn't want her to have anything less than the best in life, God forbid, like her beat-up truck that suits her just fine. He wants to buy her fine things, give her diamonds the size of golf-balls, and pay her college tuition to Dartmouth. Additionally, he is forever emotionally available, always letting Bella know how much he adores and loves her, and how beautiful she is. Edward is totally self-effacing and self-sacrificing. In fact, he's the vampire equivalent of the iconic Lloyd Dobbler in "Say Anything." It would not have been at all out of character for author Stefanie Meyer to write dialogue for Edward that would virtually mimic Dobbler's unforgettable, "Sir, I just want to hang out with your daughter. It's what I'm good at."

So, already we can see the problem: most men are not as generous in word or deed as Edward, and I can see that if a teenage girl expects her boyfriend to buy her jewelry or cars, or be effusive with praise and declarations of love, that girl will most likely be disappointed. When I was talking about this Twilight expectations issue with my husband, David, I admitted I had a little hesitation because he is the equivalent of Lloyd Dobbler in terms of looking out for me, his devotion, and his unending comments to me (and to everyone else, sometimes to my chagrin) that I'm beautiful and sexy. I know from talking to my girlfriends that most of their husbands are more reserved than mine, but surely there have to be some other guys like mine out there who leave a glimmer of hope for teenage girls that they'll find their Edward in shining armor, right?

Perhaps, except for this: Edward is content with being sexually abstinent with Bella, happy merely to stay in her bedroom all night and watch her sleep. It is Bella who is dying to do more with Edward, and she is the catalyst advancing their physical intimacy every step of the way. This really is the heart of the matter, and I believe poses the biggest problem of Edward's character setting girls up for disappointment. I don't know any straight men in relationships with women who would be content to be chaste (excluding men who might have other physical or emotional issues that interfere with libido).

There are certainly social factors that contribute to this, but simply put, testosterone makes people horny, and men certainly have a lot more of it than women do. I know of a female therapist who got a prescription for topically-applied testosterone for one week to see how it affected her sex drive, and she said it was revolutionary in terms of truly understanding the libido discrepancies that couples come to her with. She wanted sex all the time for a week. *sigh*

Anyway, Twilight certainly could mislead teen girls into thinking that teen boys are only interested in watching them sleep, but they have many personal experiences and cultural references reminding them otherwise. I don't think the covers of Maxim or Razor magazines leave any ambiguity about men's expectations of women. But girls aren't the only ones being lured into unrealistic expectations in our society; I feel like boys get misled by things such as pornography.

I fear for boys who learn about sex from porn, thinking that it's normal for women to have 24-inch waists and 50GGG circus titties. These same boys will become men who will believe that women will have ridiculous, screaming orgasms from one minute of intercourse, when many women can't come from intercourse at all. I have a dear friend who is a nurse, and a straight-shooter of a mom, and she is raising three sons. I give her a lot of credit because she has told them, repeatedly, why the porn she knows they're seeing somewhere is not realistic. Hopefully her kids will have more realistic expectations. For the many boys (and girls) getting their sex education from porn, I feel bad for all of them.

Whether its Twilight or porn, I feel like media should come with one big disclaimer, especially for teens: "Reader/Viewer beware! Ingest this with a big grain of salt. Real life is unlikely to meet your expectations."

Spiritual Forecast: Clear and Sunny

2009-10-20T20:07:00.001-04:00

I wanted to reflect a bit on the fall Jewish holidays that recently passed. This is the first year since 2006 that I've been able to enjoy them, because my Lyme-related pain interfered, and this time last year I was newly released from a hospital after being admitted for colitis.

Rosh Hashana: I used to really enjoy praying in a community when I was a teenager, but several years ago something changed that made it almost unbearable for me to sit in a synagogue. I had this crummy, self-conscious feeling whenever I attended services, like every part of my being was screaming, "Let me out of here!" I have no idea why this happened, but something magical happened on Rosh Hashana: it went away. I wasn't trying to get rid of my aversion; I suppose if I had tried, it would still be with me. But instead, sometime during services -- and not even at a point where I was particularly moved -- that discomfort went away. It was quite dramatic, as it was accompanied by physical feeling of going back in time. I felt transported through the last 15 years, and found my spirit back in synagogue when I was a teenager and I felt very connected during group prayer. I savored those few minutes, which cheesily brought me to tears, and then felt myself come back to 2009, very contented and not self-conscious. It was damn cool, and one of my new year's resolutions is to attend shabbat (sabbath) services more regularly, though definitely not every week. I am still Sarah, and I relish nothing more than reading the paper and falling back asleep mid-Saturday morning.

Yom Kipur: Yom Kipur was powerful too, because it was the first time in about 8 years that I fasted. I used to be on medication that could send me into kidney failure if I couldn't drink for 25 hours, and after I cut out that medication I was so sick from my current health problems that I couldn't fast. Add to that the fact that I'm a food addict in recovery who eats like clockwork, and I feared being triggered by fasting. But here's the kicker: if you're unable to fast on Yom Kipur for medical reasons, the way you have to eat is something like an ounce or two or so every 9 minutes (something like this), which actually triggered my food addiction worse than I thought fasting would, and I was right. So this year, I fasted, and enjoyed it in the sense that I felt very connected to God and my religious community.

Sukkot is my favorite Jewish holiday by far. I relish sitting outside in our sukkah, a cozy little hut, surrounded by friends and eating good food. Being close to nature always makes me feel closer to God and God's creations. David & I decided to honor this creation this year by not using a single disposable paper or plastic product in our sukkah. Those things are staples of entertaining in sukkot for reasons of convenience and ease, so foregoing them meant a lot of late nights washing dishes, but David & I both felt it was worth it, and high-fived each other for being totally sustainable this sukkot.

Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah: I went to a local service, Rosh Pinah, which describes itself as a "dati [observant] community built around a common commitment to halakha [Jewish law], tefilla [prayer], and equality." This group sprung up inspite of intense opposition from my Rabbi at Kesher Israel, who very actively lobbied against it.

I tried to attend Rosh Pinah with an open mind and no expectations, and I found I really enjoyed the service. Women participated in leading services and reading Torah much more actively than they can in my regular congregation, yet it felt very natural to me. I think that one of my difficulties with attending services in recent years is that in an Orthodox congregation, it always feels like I'm a spectator. Men and women sit separately, which doesn't bother me, but my choices are to sit on the main floor of the sanctuary where I feel crowded and there's a lot of talking, or to sit upstairs in the balcony. Looking down from the balcony feels like watching a play; I don't really feel as engaged as I'd like to feel. I felt much more engaged praying at Rosh Pinah, which had a modest mechitza (divider between genders) and equal access to the bimah (altar) from the men's and women's sides. Additionally, people were super-friendly and glad (and frankly, surprised) to see me, which was nice.

Really sorting through my feelings on this has led me to a somewhat freeing, yet also uncomfortable, realization: I am much more committed to observance than I am to Orthodoxy. For years now, when people have asked if I'm Orthodox, I answer, "Well, I'm not really orthodox about anything. But I am an observant Jew, yes, and I belong to an Orthodox synagogue." My husband is quite invested in the Orthodox community, but we manage to maintain a comfortable, congenial space around our religious differences, in part, because day-to-day our religious practices don't look that different! The acts I do to worship God like strictly keeping kosher, praying mincha [afternoon service] most days, and keeping shabbat and holidays are all things I do because I feel like they are God's will for me and I desperately want a connection with God. I don't do them because Jewish law says that I should. It's probably bad that I don't find that so motivating, but I don't. My spirituality is driven by something different, but no less powerful. But certainly less reliable; I realize I could decide that God doesn't care about me keeping kosher, and then it would go out the window, but it wouldn't. Because:

I don't entirely disregard halacha. It's important. I believe that God gave some form of oral law to Moses at Sinai, but I have a hard time squaring what that might be with some of the misuse of power (or, just well-meaning errors about things like how electricity works, etc.) that I think Rabbis have engaged in in the name of halacha. I realize, by the way, that this is not air-tight theology I'm expressing, nor do I claim that it is. I'm just trying to give voice to some of my thoughts around this.

I never want to be uncomfortable praying in an Orthodox synagogue, and I am inherently very lazy, which means I won't be huffing the 30 boring minutes to Rosh Pinah alone all that often, but I'm glad it's there and I do hope to go back to services there.

*****
Sorry I've taken so long to post; I've had a lot of physical challenges lately that have made typing time very cherished, and I'm spending a lot of time on the computer for a big community service project I'm working on. That will be over in 2 weeks.

True Blood Season 2: The Good, The Bad, and The Sexy

2009-10-04T11:32:00.001-04:00

Contains spoilers

I hope that season 2 of True Blood is the worst season of what I hope will be a long, fun series. I know this analysis is three weeks late, but hey, my pain was uncontrollable, and I was literally unable to write this then. Let's start with the bad: I hated that Maryann story line. I admit that in the beginning I was intrigued by this beautiful, mysterious, do-gooder who came to rescue Tara from jail and give her a new chance at life. But as she got more and more bizarre, she unequivocally ended up in the "too weird" camp. Even though season 2's numbers were twice that of season 1, all of my friends who watch the show agreed that the Maryann story line -- that she is a "maynad," a mythical, immortal god who wields humans like puppets for her own amusement and carnage -- was just too darn weird. This took up a tremendous percentage of the episodes, and frankly, it got old. It did provide some important moments to further the story overall, like illustrating that Sam, once again, genuinely loves Sookie and would even die for her. It was ironic for him to literally trust his life to Bill -- basically his arch-enemy for winning Sookie's affection. Sookie's grief when she thought that Sam died was palpable. Could this foreshadow Sookie ending up with Sam (God forbid) at the end of the series? Clearly, she cares for him deeply.

Fans have reacted pretty harshly to Queen Sophie Ann; many have said they expected her to be much meaner. Produce Alan Ball's hilarious response to this was, "You don't want to blow your wad the first time you introduce a character!" I'm keeping an open mind about Queen Sophie Ann; Evan Rachel Wood is beautiful and talented. I really liked her in the beginning because she was witty, classy, and cool. I loved the line, "I haven't enjoyed sex with men since the Eisenhower administration." Did anyone else notice how quickly she seemed to change her tune? By the last episode of the season it looked like she wanted to rape Eric! Do you agree?

Another bad move: Bill, what in the hell were you thinking proposing to Sookie so soon? Season 2 took place over the span of eight days. During those eight days Sookie, while travelling to an unfamiliar city, was: kidnapped, at the scene of a suicide bombing, almost raped, and totally traumatized by the scene in the finale leading up to Maryann's death, when she thought Sam was killed. And at the end of this, Bill proposes to her? The plane tickets to Vermont threw me until I remembered that Vt. was the first state to legalize vampire-human marriage. To her credit, Sookie didn't do the lame heroine thing and immediately said yes. She had a nervous breakdown and excused herself to the restroom, where she had an epiphany that she really, truly loves Bill and wants to be his wife. By the time she got herself together to come back and tell him that, Bill had been very obviously abducted. This was a great setup for the next season, so I can't rate the proposal as all bad!

Now, for the good stuff: it started with the Best Apology Ever that Bill offered Sookie in episode 1 after she confronted him about killing Uncle Bartlett, who sexually molested her as a child. After Sookie threatens to break it off because of his casual disregard for human life, Bill blocks her exit at the door and says:

"Sookie, I cannot and I will not lose you. For all the ways I have dismayed, aggrieved, or failed you, I swear I will atone. But I am not sorry. I refuse to apologize for what you have awakened in me. You, you are my miracle, Sookie. For the first time in 140 years, I felt something I thought had been lost to me forever: I love you. And for that, I shall never feel sorry."

Men, memorize this. Tattoo it on your arm. I really think this is the absolute Best Apology Ever. It was, of course, followed by an amazing make-up-sex scene. Wow. David just asked me that since Bill cries blood, does he also ejaculate blood? I told him that hadn't been discussed, but it wouldn't surprise me.

More good stuff: I loved Jessica's evolution this season. "Making" Jessica, meaning turning her from human to vampire, was Bill's novel punishment for killing Long Shadow, the bartender at Fangtasia, who was about to kill Sookie when Bill staked him. Vamps killing vamps is very taboo, and the usual sentence is 500 years chained to a coffin in silver. But since Bill has never been a maker (due to his ambivalence about the lifestyle), the Magister wanted to play with him and force him to turn Jessica, a sheltered, home-schooled child of abusive, right-wing Christian parents. I hated Jessica last season; she was such an impetuous brat. But she's growing up to be a sweet vampire, and really coming in to her own. I have always loved Hoyt, the good ole' boy in Bon Temps who is intrigued by vampires. I love Jessica and Hoyt together, and hope that in season 3 they can reconcile. I also really liked the little detail that for Jessica & Hoyt every time they have intercourse is like the first time -- literally! Vampires quality of immediately healing anything that is breached or injured sadly applies to her hymen too. Poor Jessica! I'd investigate other sexual outlets if I were her.

Oh, Godric! He was a fan fave and for a very good reason. Godric, Eric's maker, was seemingly kidnapped by the rabidly anti-vamp Christian group The Fellowship of the Sun (FOTS). It turns out that ethereal millenium-old Godric is sick of the hatred and ways of the world. He's tired of vampires acting like sociopaths, and we learn that he willingly turned himself over to FOTS as a sacrifice, since they were hell-bound determined to torch a vampire come hell or high water. The drama around Godric going missing, which was the whole reason Eric summoned Sookie to Dallas in the first place, led to another great line in the season. Sookie asks Eric if Godric is his maker, and Eric replies, "Don't use words you don't understand." Sookie retorts something like, "Well, whoever he is, you clearly love him." Eric dryly replies, "Don't use words I don't understand." Loved it! I want to quickly mention that I liked the show's treatment of Jason in FOTS; I think his character grew as much as poor, witless Jason can grow.

Episode 9, "I Will Rise Up" was a high point in the thick of that Maryann-Maynad crapola. When Eric and the Dallas vamps foiled Godric's suicide plot by "rescuing" him from FOTS, Godric decided to literally stay up and watch the sunrise, which would kill him. I sobbed at the exchange when Eric bid goodbye to his beloved maker. I was touched by Sookie's innate kindness and devotion, staying with Godric to the end since Eric couldn't, and then trying to comfort Eric for his loss. Godric proved so popular, Alan Ball hinted that there might be many Eric flashbacks with Godric -- after all, they have 2,000 years of history together, so there's a lot to mine.

In conclusion, I strongly preferred season 1, but the high points of season 2 still made it a worthwhile use of my rec time. I can't wait to see where things are going in season 3. I plan to catch up on some of the Sookie Stackhouse novels until then, and of course, the Eclipse movie comes out at Thanksgiving for more of my vampire needs.

Not Dead ... Only Resting

2009-09-26T23:37:00.002-04:00

Sorry it's been a zillion days since I've posted anything. For the past week, I have been in the worst pain cycle I've had in months The hard work leading up to Rosh Hashana, and in fact, some of the celebration, pushed my body over the edge. I was back on narcotics round the clock and everything. Yuck! I'm feeling better after a restful shabbat, and plan to write about vampires soon.

Feldenkrais Evangelism

2009-09-14T16:04:00.000-04:00

My friend Sandra says that everyone who does Feldenkrais is evangelical. I think she means it pejoratively, but I don't, when I count myself among the zealously converted. Even though I still struggle with the after-effects of my devastating Lyme Disease infection, I have had some dramatic healing the last couple of months since working with Steve Shafarman, an amazing Feldenkrais Method teacher who lives nearby.

I have always experienced all movement, including walking, as awkward and uncomfortable. Even when I was four years old, I had these special shoes to correct some kind of walking problem. As an adult, I blamed my unease on my obesity. Losing 94 pounds made moving easier, but it still felt forced and awkward. So David and I have always known that I needed some kind of movement re-education, but we couldn't imagine who did that kind of therapy. I first heard of Feldenkrais Method (hereafter called Feldenkrais) while reading up on Fibromyalgia when I was diagnosed with that pain condition in 2004. Simply put, the goal of the modality is to use gentle movement to increase awareness of one's body to learn how to move it optimally.

Feldenkrais was born out of Moshe Feldenkrais' need to rehabilitate a sports injury, and was inspired by watching how young children in his wife's pediatric practice organically learn to move comfortably and efficiently. We all started out with the flexibility and curiosity of babies, but as we grow up we pick up bad habits and settle into ineffective and uncomfortable ways of moving. Can you remember the last time you thought, "I wonder if there's a way I could do [fill in the blank] that would exert less energy and be more comfortable than the way I do it now?" I certainly didn't think about this until I started working with Steve, whose version of Feldenkrais is called FlexAware.

FlexAware exercises are designed to be playful and simple, but if you have images of mindless exercises, think again. This work has been far more challenging than I thought it would be, both somatically and cognitively. My body tires from using under-used muscles. My brain gets a workout as I connect how a slight change in my positioning makes movement more or less efficient, thus learning to erase decades-old patterns of tension and unskilled motion.

I actually have a 10-minute old example of how FlexAware is making a difference in how I feel. I just got home after being out for five hours. Since I ran out of time to do so this morning, I sat down to meditate and my lower back and neck were stiff. When I got up from my zafu (meditation cushion), I knew exactly which exercises I needed to do to make myself feel better. I tell people that my body now "talks" to me since doing Feldenkrais; it's more accurate to say that it has been talking all along, but I haven't understood its language. Now I do. I spent a few minutes practicing some exercises that I do standing up that have been marvelous for everything from my neck to my lower back, and followed it up with a few more exercises I do on my yoga mat. There is a lot of emphasis in FlexAware on working with gravity -- not wasting energy fighting gravity by holding your body up in some artificial position -- and on breathing more fully and comfortably. When I got up to come write this, everything felt nicely well-adjusted. This reminds me that I haven't seen my chiropractor, whom I used to see at least once a month, since I started working with Steve. FlexAware exercises essentially let the body become self-correcting, which is saving me time and money. Hooray!

I've noticed that in bodywork, even more than in medicine, the quality of your practitioner or instructor makes a tremendous difference in your experience. I saw another certified Feldenkrais practitioner, "Jill," for a few sessions, and sought Steve out because although Jill was pleasant, I felt like something was lacking in our sessions. However, since I had never done Feldenkrais with anyone else, I had no basis of comparison, which is why I decided to book one session with Steve. Within an hour, I knew that he was totally the person I needed to work with.

Jill also is certified in The Alexander Technique, which is often compared to Feldenkrais. I've done a fair amount of Alexander both with Jill and my old cranial-sacral therapist, and although Alexander can feel good, I think there's no competition between the disciplines. I perceive Feldenkrais as so much more robust, cognitive, and nuanced than Alexander. Feldenkrais focuses a lot on the pelvis, since it's the center of gravity and the largest part of your body. Alexander focuses mostly on the head and neck, so Jill pushed the Alexander Technique on me because of my serious neck problems resulting from my Lyme infection. I've found that Feldenkrais more than adequately takes care of my neck problems, and because Steve teaches me exercises I can do at home, I don't have to wait to be manipulated for relief.

Steve continues to coach me to move gracefully, an adjective that I can't imagine could apply to me, but I persist. And I'm determined that one day, it will feel truly natural to walk.

Twilight

2009-09-05T00:45:00.004-04:00

Warning, contains spoilers. Thank you to Alisa, for the entertaining photos she took on a recent trip to Forks, Wash., where the Twilight series is set.

This shabbat (sabbath) I finished "Breaking Dawn," Stephenie Meyer's last book in the Twilight Saga. I picked up "Twilight" in the library earlier this year, way behind in the fad, which is why I could get it at the library at all! I was very contemptuous of the novel, assuming that anything that had teenage girls so captivated just had to suck. For the two people left on the planet who don't know the premise, it's that Edward Cullen, a teenage vampire, falls in love with a mortal girl, Bella Swan. I had an instant aversion to Bella in the first 70 pages of Twilight, then light dawned on my marble head: the reason this girl is so whiny, self-centered, and obnoxious was because she is 17. Meyer is accurately portraying a teenager.

Edward's attraction to Bella presents a problem, because she's technically his prey. But the Cullens are "vegetarian" vampires, subsisting on animal blood and abstaining from hunting humans. Edward has to go through an incredible acclimation to be able to be around Bella at all. This is where, bizarrely, I got very interested. My friend describes "Twilight" as "abstinence porn," and I think he's totally right. Most of the novel is a painfully slow ramping up of Edward and Bella's emotional and physical relationship. Basically, it's one very long tease, and I found it titillating, to put it mildly. I'm not sure what it says about me that I was drawn to teasing, teenage lust, but I'll leave that to the professionals. When Edward finally kissed Bella, I distinctly remember sighing aloud, "Thank God!" and feeling a palpable sense of release.

"Twilight" and the two books following it, "Eclipse" and "New Moon" are mostly fluff fiction. Here, I need to diverge: it has become apparent to me living in D.C. for 15 years that people here are as snobbish as they come about literature, with the possible exception of the New York City intelligentsia. For example, take Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love." I thought this book was hilarious, moving, and enlightening, as did the millions of other readers who have kept it on The New York Times Best Seller list for multiple years. The general impression among my friends ranged from incredulousness (with a strong undertone of jealousy, I think) that Gilbert got an advance large enough to travel for a year around the world and write this book. They seemed to allege that this somehow made her experience less credible, which I disagree with. Then there were the snarky comments about Gilbert's "Oprah-esque" spirituality. I've seen that sentiment about "Eat, Pray, Love" echoed in popular culture.

I don't think "Eat, Pray, Love" was fluff. But the older I get and the more complicated life gets, the more good fluff appeals to me. Reading is a much healthier escape than television, drugs, or food, right? What's wrong with writing fun books that people want to read? James Joyce, William Faulkner, and Charles Dickens might be brilliant writers, but no one other than my father-in-law wants to read their work! I feel the same way about Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." Again, people were so down on this book. I'm not usually into the thriller genre, but I found "The Da Vinci Code" a really fun, fast-paced read. This book isn't as pure an example as "Eat, Pray, Love," because a lot of the heat surrounding it came from Dan Brown's stalwart defense that the sordid secrecy of Opus Dei that he alleges in the novel is real.

Anyway, back to the Twilight saga. I didn't enjoy "Breaking Dawn," as much as I enjoyed the first three books. Partially because once Edward and Bella are fornicating regularly, the tease and the details were gone to keep it salable to a teenage audience, and the other literary tension of if/when Bella is going to be turned to a vampire is resolved early in the novel. I am a slow reader, but I flew through the first three books. I read "Breaking Dawn" much more slowly; partially because I wanted to savor it since it's the last book of the series, and partially because I didn't find it to be the page-turner the earlier books were. However, I gained a whole lot of respect for Meyer as an author who could write more than just fluff. I thought she spends way too many pages on the unplanned half-mortal/half immortal daughter of Edward and Bella, Nessie. But this is where Meyer's writing shines; she aptly captures well the fierce, maternal protectiveness moms feel for their kids that I can only imagine from the 1/100th of a percent that I feel this way about Kacy, my dog. I can't help but stroke her as I write this. Meyer could easily stay in realm of intense emotion, but she puts Bella's devotion to the test by having her emotionally and practically prepare to send Nessie away and never see her again.

Something else that gave the Twilight series depth is Meyer's exploration of what it means to be a family, exemplified by Garrett's speech on the last paragraph of page 717 to the Volturi, kind of the martial royal family of vampiredom. I might have just invented a word! This notion of family was especially interesting in the context of vampiredom, where at best most vampires live in covens, not families. I'm not suggesting that Meyer has written some brilliant social treatise; only that there was some depth in this ultra-popular series that made it more than great fluff.

My next post will be an exploration of the unintended consequences that Twilight might have on adolescent girls' expectation about male sexuality. Good night, or more accurately, good morning!

Ticked Off: Installment II of my Lyme Disease Journey

2009-09-03T21:32:00.001-04:00

The Diagnosis Continues ...

In March 2003, my neurologist was open to anything being wrong with me. The MRI of my cervical spine didn't show any orthopedic problems, so my doctor zeroed in on other things known to have detrimental effects to the nervous system, including lupus, multiple sclerosis, syphilis, diabetes, etc., and Lyme Disease.

This is really, really important. If you ignore anything else I ever write (probably a good idea), you should commit this to memory: If you ever have a Lyme Disease test, insist that your doctor follow it up with a Western Blot test, which is an analytical technique designed to test for specific proteins in blood or tissue samples. This test will find things that the regular Lyme Disease titre will not catch, because the Lyme test has a 50% false negative rate. Think about that -- half of all people who are told they do not have Lyme Disease, really do, so it goes untreated. To put this in perspective, can you imagine a pregnancy test on the market with a 50% false negative rate? No one would stand for it.

You might think that doctors would automatically know to use the Western Blot test, but you'd be mistaken. Unless they are experienced in diagnosing and treating Lyme, most doctors don't know how unreliable the regular titre is. The Western Blot is what confirmed my Lyme diagnosis. Thank God my neurologist did his residency at Yale, near Lyme, Conn., so he was a pro.

When we got the result from the blot, pieces began to fall into place. As I foreshadowed in my first installment , I experienced neurological problems in 2004, after I was plagued with aches and exhaustion starting shortly after I bought my house in 2003. I was in so much pain, I essentially took two months off work to rehab. I was ultimately diagnosed with fibromyalgia when the Lyme Disease and other tests came up negative. This is purely conjecture, but my neurologist and I believe that the 2003-4 event probably was my initial infection with the Lyme bacteria. My doctor at the time did not understand the terrible handicap of the Lyme test; it is especially unreliable if you're newly infected, which I presumably was.

Lyme is a tricky bacteria. If you catch it quickly, a 30-day course of oral doxycycline -- an innocuous antibiotic commonly prescribed for acne and periodontal infection -- can nip it in the bud, and you might get a yeast infection, but be no more worse for the wear. If left to do its thing, however, Lyme takes its time invading your tissues, which is why it can wreak havoc on all of your systems including your neurological system and gastrointestinal tract. Have you ever heard about syphilis making people crazy? It's true that it can, and the bacterial species that carry Lyme are most closely related to the bacteria that carries syphilis. In fact, much of what researchers have learned about Lyme has been gleaned from syphilis research.

The mysterious pain and exhaustion I had experienced for three months apparently was the result of total systemic breakdown due to Lyme Disease that had gone untreated for years.

I have more to say, but no more time or energy to say it. So, good night until next time. I'm about to finish the last book in the Twilight series, and I have a post brewing on that, and I'll certainly have something to say after the finale of season 2 of True Blood. And a rant about manners/bad parenting. Good stuff!

Ticked Off: Installment I of my Lyme Disease Journey

2009-08-28T13:39:00.001-04:00

My friends know that I have been severely incapacitated by Lyme's Disease since winter of 2006. Because I have several new readers, and I've never been able to write about my illness in-depth, I'm going to do a series of posts describing my experience of the past two and a half years, culminating in a post about why I abandoned my old blog when I was able to start writing again.

Onset and Pre-Diagnosis

In December 2006 my forearms started to hurt me during and after typing. Since I was working as a journalist, I assumed I had developed carpal tunnel syndrome, so I took a week's vacation from work that December, during which I kept my personal typing to a bare minimum. When discomfort persisted, I made an appointment with the head of arm and hand orthopedic medicine at a major medical center. After a cursory exam, the doctor concluded that I had some nerve irritation and prescribed occupational and physical therapy with a hand specialist.

By February 2007, I started getting pins-and-needles sensations in my arms, similar to the ones you get when your feet fall asleep. Not comfortable! By March, when I touched a button, such as pressing a button in an elevator, an electric shock would travel from my hand and into my upper arm. At my doctor's suggestion, I took two weeks off work in March and refrained from typing while I got a crash-course of occupational therapy (OT). In spite of the rest and the therapy, my pain worsened. I took various medications and had some fancy wrist braces made, but the pain persisted. and My occupational therapy got increasingly painful, and I began to doubt the competency of my occupational/physical therapist (OT/PT; these are not the same field, but she is dually licensed). I asked the orthopedist for a referral to a new PT, whom I saw in March 2007. She was just out of school, which perhaps made her humble enough to acknowledge that something was gravely wrong with me that she couldn't fix. She asked an OT colleague of hers, whom she held in high esteem, to evaluate me.

This OT took the time to do what the orthopedist should have done but didn't: she had me perform simple tasks to assess the neurological function of my body, such as holding my arm above my head and seeing how long it took for my hand to go numb. It's supposed to take minutes, and it took my hand about 8 seconds. "This is not an orthopedic problem," she said as she shook her head. "This is a neurological problem. A big one. And you need to see a neurologist tomorrow."

This is a good time to diverge for a minute and talk about the pitfalls of what traditional, Western medicine has become. I think there was a bygone time when people were looked at as whole human beings, with interconnected parts and systems working in harmony to function, heal, and thrive. I am not knowledgeable about the history of medicine, but somewhere, somehow, we lost our way. Medicine became more and more specialized, which means our bodies got broken down into more and more "distinct" parts; so much so that now the adjective "holistic" (whole-listic) usually refers to complementary medicine, when really all medicine should be whole-listic. So when I saw the orthopedist, he only thought of my arms in the orthopedic context and neglected to do a very basic exam that would have tipped him off that I was at the wrong specialist's office. This will probably be the kernel of another post, because it needs exploring further.

Back to the sickness. Unfortunately for my close friend, she had a traumatic brain injury and was able to refer me to a neurologist who could see me quickly. He's a jerk, but he's also a brilliant diagnostician, thank God. He began the diagnostic process with neurology's favorite toy, the electromyograph (EMG), which is a nerve conduction test. Unfortunately, I knew what I was in for because I had one of these in 2004 (remember this in a few paragraphs). The exam is comprised of two parts. In the first, the surface EMG, the technician takes a little wand and administers electric shocks to your body; the patient is hooked up to electrodes, and the EMG machine transmits and captures nerve conduction data. The shocks feels like someone is taking a rubber band and repeatedly smacking it, hard, on your skin. That's the good part.

The intramuscular part of the exam involves inserting the longest needles I've ever seen into your muscles. They have to be long to get deep in your tissue. It hurts when they're inserted, but the real torture begins when the test administrator tells you to flex your muscle with the needle in it. My doctor was doing this on all my cervical vertebrae, and I ordered him to stop before he finished because I couldn't take it anymore. I was sore for two days afterwards.

The EMG showed some significant nerve damage, so my doctor ordered a battery of laboratory tests, and sent me for an MRI of my cervical spine. At this time, because of the excruciating pain in my arms and neck, I could not: drive a car, chop vegetables, push a grocery cart, open a jar, turn on the computer, open the door to an office building, use my fingers to hit an elevator button, write, type, or wash my own hair because I couldn't lift my hands above my shoulders. David, bless his heart, washed my hair for two months. I was so tired that I slept all day, which I guess is good since I couldn't do anything other than watch TV. I couldn't read laying down because my arms weren't strong enough to hold anything in the air. Simultaneously, I was bedeviled by random pins-and-needles feelings and the sensation of my arms being electrocuted. It was torture.

The only thing worse than the pain was not knowing what was causing it.

Stay tuned for the next installment about my diagnosis and beginning treatment.

Like I Needed Another Reason to hate PETA?

2009-08-20T13:23:00.000-04:00

I can think of few institutions that I abhor more than PETA, which ostensibly stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. But don't let them fool you; PETA is much more interested in perpetrating cruelty to humans. I'm embarrassed to say that I used to be a dues-paying member of PETA in high school. I was a vegetarian and regularly spent my weekends protesting the local department store that sold fur. I don't know if PETA was a reputable, beneficial organization back then, or if I just thought so in my youthful naivete.

I adamantly believe now that PETA not only doesn't help animals in any meaningful way, but that they actually harm both animals and people. Let's start with the billboard that is the inspiration for this post. It's just plain cruel, mean and nasty. It reeks of PETA's sense of humor, which tends to be either vicious or sexually explicit (I hesitate to link to this Bad Cats commercial, but if you haven't seen it, it's very funny. If only PETA stuck to such unambiguous animal rights issues!)

My second issue with the billboard is that it's totally false and misleading. Here's the bottom line: you can be fit or unfit regardless of whether you eat animal products. I was a vegetarian for 4 years in high school, and again after college for a few more years. I was also very very fat. It is possible to be a thin vegetarian, of course, but many of them aren't. An old friend I recently reconnected with has to weigh between 350-400 pounds, and brags that he hasn't eaten meat since he was 13. I would even argue that it's easier to lose weight or stay trim if you're not a vegetarian, because they have to rely on many carbohydrate-heavy foods like beans for protein. But what about high-protein meat substitutes or tofu, you may ask?

Those veggie burgers and fake meat products are full of soy, a phytoestrogen. Estrogens have profounds effects on the human body, many of which are not well understood. It would not surprise me if our ridiculously high rates of female-related cancers are partly because we take in far too many estrogens beyond what our bodies naturally produce, such as through oral contraceptives and hormones, and even eating large quantities of non-organic dairy products. All of the vegetarian and vegan propaganda stating that cancer rates are so much rarer in Asia, where soy foods are very common, completely omit the important disclaimer that in Asia soy is used as a condiment! They eat a few pieces of tofu on top of a dish, not soy-products for main courses for two or three meals a day. Most of their protein comes from fish. As for tofu, it's decent quality protein, but not nearly of the same quality as meat. For example, I get four protein exchanges at dinner per my food plan, which delivers seven grams of protein per serving. Four exchanges means I get 4 oz of beef, chicken, or fish, but I have to eat 16 oz of tofu to get the same protein value!

I'm saying this merely to shed some light on vegetarian propaganda. I'll reiterate that I think you can have a perfectly healthy diet and maintain a healthy weight anywhere along the spectrum from vegan to omnivore.

But, back to hating on PETA. PETA certainly does not act in the interest of animals; PETA members routinely adopt dogs under the auspices of the group and then euthanize the animals themselves. I remember when this happened in my area. In 2005, PETA arranged to adopt dogs that would have been humanely euthanized in Virginia animal shelters; they told the shelters that they would find homes for the animals and arrange for the unadoptable ones to be euthanized. Instead, PETA employees who were not trained in animal medicine took 100 dogs to the backwoods of Virginia and killed them. PETA continues to euthanize animals and openly defends this on its Web site.

PETA also has a history of theatrical, dramatic, and offensive "advocacy" campaigns. Remember the "holocaust on your plate" exhibit which juxtaposed images from Nazi death camps with photos of factory farming? Let's not forget PETA's President Ingrid Newkirk's quote, "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy." I think that quote accurately captures PETA's position, which makes it very scary.

I love animals, and not just because they're tasty! I love my dog. I slow the car way down to avoid hitting squirrels. I take spiders outside instead of killing them. I go out of my way to try and buy body products that weren't tested on animals or that don't have animal ingredients. I spend three times as much money on the eggs from cage-free hens, and one day hope to have it together enough to get in on the kosher, grass-fed, organic beef that is now being sold in the D.C. area to groups who arrange to purchase the meat from the cow. I'm actually quite a reluctant omnivore, but I feel so much better when I eat animal protein, especially beef. I wish there were a way to have widespread better treatment of food animals; factory farming disturbs me, but I maintain a cognitive dissonance around it so I can eat food that nourishes and sustains me without feeling superbly guilty.

So, I love animals, but I can't stand PETA equating humans with other animals. "It's not that they bring animals up to the level of people; it's that they bring people down to the level of animals," my husband wisely says. I am truly sad that animals (especially primates) need to die for medical research, but I view it as a necessary evil. PETA unequivocally believes that there is no difference between a laboratory animal dying for research and a human dying from untreated diseases. I can't get behind that. I think we have a moral imperative to treat those research animals as humanely as their circumstances allow.

This brings me to my conclusion that the real heroes, the real animal rights advocates are the Temple Grandins of the world, who dedicate their careers to making animal lives as good as possible given the reality of our world. Grandin is a doctor of animal science who consults with the food industry to create humane animal livestock "best practices." On a smaller scale, I think the volunteers walking the dogs at the Humane Society make more of a contribution to animal welfare than PETA does. Some organizations have outlived their usefulness, and should just go away. Like PETA.

V Is For Vampire

2009-08-18T14:11:00.002-04:00

I think about vampires a lot. Not as much as men think about sex in a given day, but probably more than most women think about sex in a day. I think about how vampires, if they were real, would function in society. For example, would they need to go to the dentist? Would enterprising dentists start offering night hours to treat vampire patients? I think about whether they'd want human companionship other than for food. The title of this post comes from the fact that I spontaneously started singing "V is for Vampire" to the tune of "C is for Cookie." Vampire, vampire, vampire starts with 'V.'

These thoughts come out of my mouth at weird times, to my husband's amusement. The other night, when he walked into the bathroom to brush his teeth, I spit out my toothpaste and said, "It would be really hard to go back to human sex once you've had sex with a vampire." I wasn't trying to be funny or cute; it's just what came out. Its been a long time since I heard David laugh as loud as he did when I asked last night if we could go to ComicCon next year if there was going to be another True Blood panel. David takes all of this in stride, playfully biting my neck, trying to imitate the sound of fangs extending, and inventing the vampire smiley for texting :[. He's used to my obsessions and tolerates the harmless ones with good cheer.

Before you write me off as a poseur, I will write in my defense that although I never jumped on the Dracula bandwagon, I voraciously read Anne Rice's books in high school and probably watched "The Lost Boys" about 100 times. I am new to Twilight, True Blood, and Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels, which True Blood is based on.

One of the things I think about is why vampires hold so much mystique in our culture. Vampire myths have been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years. We never tire of vampire media, though its popularity certainly ebbs and flows. What is it that holds our interest through centuries? One possibility is that vampires usually mingle sex and death, which have always been inextricably twined. All the TV shows and films showing grieving people losing themselves in sex to numb out? It's real. Heck, look no further than the phrase "la petite mort," the little death, as a euphemism for orgasm. Sex and death are linked. I so wish I could take credit for the following, but my friend MB gets the glory. When I shared my sex-and-death theory of vampire persistence, she said, "And food! It mixes sex, death, and food." That's a pretty good summary of our id, right? Of course, since vampires are practically immortal, their lore also touches on humans' deepest fear and greatest weakness: death. If you combine this with the fact that it's hard to resist a scary tale (notice our persevering interests in zombies, werewolves, etc.), I think it's pretty clear why humans heart vampires.

Stay tuned for a follow-up post about why I love True Blood, and why Bill and Eric totally kick Edward's whiny ass.

Obephobia: The Last Acceptable Bigotry

2009-08-02T13:38:00.000-04:00

Megan McArdle has written a couple of intriguing blog posts arguing that obesity wrongly has become the new boogie man for everyone to get worked up about in the name of public health and lowering the costs of health care. She and the author she interviews assert that all of the "data" warning about obesity's dire health consequences and the impact on health care's bottom line are bloated, false charges.

Some day I might write about McArdle's posts, but now I want to approach this from the perspective of being a formerly morbidly obese person living in a world of obephobes: people who dislike, fear, and/or discriminate against fat people.

As of today, I have lost 92.9 pounds. When a reporter asked the first Survivor winner Richard Hatch why he lost so much weight, he allegedly said, "because being fat sucks." Having weighed nearly 250 pounds at 5'1, I can attest that indeed, it very much does.

I am nowhere close to thin, but if I never lost another pound, I'd be happy in my current body after inhabiting the morbidly obese one for so many years. I went from truly standing out in a crowd and barely being able to buckle my seat belt on an airplane to being just another average, overweight American. The difference in how I was treated at 250 pounds and how I am treated at my current size is pretty stunning.

"Fat" in this culture is synonymous with or represents lack of self-control, gluttony, and laziness. No one speaks up when fat people are humiliated for their weight. In a Washington Post review of Fox's new reality show More To Love, which is simply a super-sized version of The Bachelor, the reviewer refers to the plus-sized contestants as "porkers." This astounds me.

Frankly, the existence of the show astounds me, and further proves my point: when we're not busy ridiculing fat people, we're busy gawking at them. Note the 15 or so rotating shows on Discovery and TLC that offers you an hour's glimpse at the super-obese. These shows do nothing to educate or help either the subjects or the viewers; they exist merely as a kind of gross cultural pornography.

Obephobia is the last socially acceptable form of discrimination in this country. In fact, Washington, D.C., is the only province in the U.S.A. with laws to protect employees from being wrongly discriminated against because of their weight. People routinely denigrate and shame overweight people with no social consequences. It reminds me of my mom's stories of growing up in Memphis at the height of Jim Crow. Please do not tell me that black people are born black but "fatties" choose to be fat; I'll decimate that argument in another blog post. This one is already too long.

I could write for hours about the embarrassment that I endured because of my previous size, but I want to point out a select few:

1. Calling a restaurant that advertised the need for a hostess. On the phone they were enthusiastic and interested, and when I showed up for the interview about an hour later, the boss looked at me from head to toe and told me the position already was filled.

2. There are all these scam charities in D.C. where canvassers approach you on the street asking for a donation to "help save the children from violence." They get cagey and defensive when you point out that they have no non-profit status or address. Once when I was approached downtown, I said, "I'm sorry, I don't give money to this type of charity." The canvasser replied, "You need to be spending your money on Metabolife."

Sometimes obe-phobia is blatant, like the examples above, but I think the more socially acceptable form is the kind McArdle writes about; people justifying ludicrous behaviors that punish obese people in the name of public health. A junk food tax? Please. Under its Customers of Size policy, Southwest Airlines, which I still haven't forgiven for this, began requiring obese people to pay a discounted rate for another half seat if they're large. I just sat on hold for 11 minutes to verify that this policy is enforced. See what I do for my readers? I asked the rep at SWA how they'd handle it if you did not book the extra seat for whatever reason, and she told me that if you were really in the way of another customer they would require you to buy the extra seat on the spot if you wanted to complete your flight. The Rep tried to stress that it's not really an obephobic policy; she said her brother is a professional body builder with huge shoulders that creep into the neighboring passenger's body space, and he has to buy the second seat. I actually see the rationale here, but those types of policies really devastate fat people; I just wish the airlines could deal with this more delicately. One of my husband's super-obese relatives hasn't flown in decades because she's afraid of navigating the airlines at her size. I haven't been on a full flight in years; is it that hard to rearrange people, so maybe a fat person ends up with an empty seat next to him? Reading SWA's forums on this topic, people seem to have no compunction referring to overweight folks as "hippos." If this doesn't remind you of racists referring to black people as "monkeys" or "water buffalo," it should.

I want to close with a quote attributed to Plato, James Barrie, and a dozen others: "Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." This is so true. Obese people know they're obese. They are embarrassed. They know they're taking up too much room on the train, plane, or stadium seating. They have probably spent thousands of dollars on dozens of diets trying in vain to lose weight and feel hopeless. A warm smile from you goes a long way.

Virginity

2009-07-23T16:08:00.000-04:00

A friend told me how she recently attempted to lose her virginity: to a man who sounded really creepy and manipulated her into letting him have intercourse with her after she cried when he told her, "I don't go out with women who won't have sex with me by the third date. Clearly it means there's no spark, and no potential." I felt really sad for her that her first time almost was with a creepy guy who clearly didn't care much about her or her best interest. I'm sad that she chose to date this creep even though the warning signs were so clear that God might as well have swooped down and said, "Run!"

I've been thinking a lot about virginity lately because I've fallen in love with Alan Ball's HBO series True Blood. In season 1 episode 6, the protagonist, Sookie Stackhouse, loses her virginity to the sexy Civil War-era vampire Bill Compton. Everything about that scene (and the beginning of episode 7, which is the post-sex hot-tub cuddle) is perfect. The setting is gorgeous: Sookie and Bill are in front of a fireplace with zillions of candles lit around them (of course!). Their tenderness and passion are balanced perfectly. But what really takes my breath away in this scene is how this couple interacts when Bill's fangs come out because he's one turned on vampire. The actor, Stephen Moyer, looks at Sookie (played by Anna Paquin) with such a look of fear and vulnerability. Her response is incredible. No more spoilers for you -- off to your Netflix cue!

But I digress. I've watched this scene now more times than I like to admit, and it's made me so grateful to the first man I slept with. He was a trusted friend; kind, gentle, sensitive, and knew the gravitas of what I was doing. Basically, he treated me and the situation with the respect it deserved. Sex is difficult enough without the burden of having a lousy first time! I can't imagine how messed up I'd be about sex if my first experience with intercourse came about from fear and coercion like it did for my friend.

In my informal interviews with friends about their first times, it seems clear that losing one's virginity is an important life passage that has the power to affect future sexual experiences for better or for worse. I used to think only women could be traumatized by their first times, but I've heard men talk about their disappointment with less-than-ideal encounters.

Because it's a pretty momentous occasion that I believe has the capacity to influence one's future sex life, people and society need to treat virginity seriously. Men and women should choose their first partner (and hopefully other partners) carefully and try to set the stage for a positive first experience with intercourse. However, Americans also have taken respect for virginity too far. There are virginity parties where teenage girls pledge to their dads that they'll be sexually abstinent until marriage. This seems yucky to me. Besides the pledging to their fathers part, this type of thinking holds virginity out as some holy grail. Worse, it seems to directly connect girls or women's' self-worth with whether they're virgins. Hopefully parents will love their children regardless of their sexual choices.

It would be interesting to see how I would handle this issue if I had children. I don't really believe in waiting until marriage to make love for the first time; if you plan to stay married for life, I can't imagine signing up for a lifetime of bad sex. I think you can get a good idea of how someone is as a lover from intense fooling around, but most of my religious friends who hold out for marriage aren't seriously fooling around with their fiances. It just seems like purchasing an expensive car that would be a huge hassle to return without taking it for a test drive, so I can't see exhorting a son or daughter of mine to wait until they're married. But, I still would want a child of mine to make sex-positive decisions about whom to make love to and when. I would certainly counsel them that most teenagers (meaning under 18) are unprepared for the intense emotional issues that come up when you make love. But, lots of people have sex much younger than that and end up ok.

I also don't know how realistic it is to ask kids to wait until marriage. Do parents forget the intensity of puberty? Your whole being is basically radiating, "Go forth and propagate this species," and most parents either conveniently forget to acknowledge it, instill their kids with shame about sex, or tell them to subordinate the desire without offering an outlet. I can say for sure that I could not, in good conscience, try to defend or endorse Judaism's prohibition of male masturbation. All I can think of is this from Monty Python's Meaning of Life: "Every sperm is sacred/Every sperm is great/If a sperm gets wasted, God gets quite irate ... Let the heathens spill theirs on the dusty ground/God shall make them pay for each sperm that can't be found."

I wish I could wrap up this post in some nice little package. In summary, virginity needs to be kept in perspective: it's important, but not all important!

Self-Loathing Something, aka Shiks-Appeal

2009-07-14T10:22:00.001-04:00

An article in Saturday's Washington Post about parents hiring image consultants for their daughters ages 9-15 led to a lively shabbat lunch discussion between David and me. Although appalled, as a once-insecure teenager (ok, and as a now-insecure adult), I was far more sympathetic to the parents' plight than he was. We talked about what beauty is and who has it. David told me that I've bought in to some notion that Jewish women aren't beautiful -- a notion that he flatly challenged and rejected. Thank God, right, or he wouldn't be with me! He was on the money, because I could only think of one Jewish woman whom I think of as beautiful; David raised an eyebrow and told me that one of her parents isn't Jewish. Busted! I thought of a friend today who is, in my eyes, Jewish and beautiful. One beautiful, Jewish friend, out of many who are pretty, cute, or as we say in the South, "darling!"

I feel really bad about this, thinking that it's some kind of self-loathing. David thinks that I was socialized this way, and I think there's a strong likelihood of that. A friend asked me if my opinion extended to Israeli women, which it did not. That lifted my sprits, a little, until I found my heart (Bret Michaels would say, "I knew it in my heart, in my soul, and in my loins") thumping at the character in Spring Awakening who looked like he walked right out of a Hitler Youth march.

This led to more feelings of self-loathing guilt that, with a couple of notable exceptions, I'm generally not attracted to Jewish-looking men, something that was definitely in my husband's favor since he is not of Jewish parentage. I felt slightly better that I recognized the inherent cuteness of the Jewish actor playing the male lead, Malchior. But visions of Hitler Youth Hanschen in a field of daisies definitiely carried the day. Who was I kidding? I think the fact that his character is gay was a big part of my turn-on. Ugh! I am such a cliche! (I have to share David's very dry, knowing response to seeing a picture of Andy Mientus as Hanschen: "Oh, he looks like a vampire. That's why you like him.")

I hate to think that I don't see the inherent beauty in Jewish people. I can't blame this on some notion of "only tall, thin, Caucasian blondes are beautiful," because I easily see the diverse beauty in non-white populations. Just not my own. I feel guilty, but won't own all of this; I certainly have some cultural burdens I'm up against. David reminded me of an old Yiddish phrase that translates into "pretty as a shiksa" (colloquially translated as a non-Jewish woman). Today I was thinking of the phrase shiks-appeal. I thought of all the Jewish girls in Memphis who got new, non-Jewish noses for their 18th birthdays.

I've been thinking about this since Sunday (I still have to blog in pieces; I can't type as much as I used to pre-Lyme), but haven't had any great revelations. I read an article on the subject that basically confirmed that I'm not the only Jewish woman who feels this way, and that we indeed shoulder a huge cultural burden. I'm eager for comments, but particularly from Jewish women about their perceptions of Jewish beauty.

Worst of all, the Hanschen attraction persists and even has evolved. I'll just pretend it's because he looks like a vampire.

Groovin' in New Mexico

2009-05-10T02:47:00.000-04:00

I've been working for months on a long, RIP piece for Courtney Love/Martha Stewart. But that's on my hard drive in D.C., and I'm in Corrales, N.M., and I feel the bug to write. Yesterday was a big, big day for me. David & I spent the morning horseback riding at the Tamaya Indian Reservation.

When I was a kid, I rode every Saturday morning, and even showed some horses. Then, I had to start preparing for my Bat Mitzvah, which meant going to synagogue instead of to the farm on weekends. Boo! (As an aside, when I told my mom the whole story of what I'm about to tell you, she said, "I should've let you keep riding instead.") Unfortunately, by the time I regained my interest in horses, that wasn't the only thing I had gained. My weight crept up and up, and I felt guilty for putting 200+ pounds on a horse. I knew theoretically they could carry a grown man with armor, but I wasn't in battle, and didn't feel like some poor horse had to suffer because I was eating two gallons of ice cream a week. When my weight got low enough to assuage my guilt, then my Lyme's Disease pain came, and I couldn't do anything physical, let alone ride a horse.

David and I had a beautiful 1.5 hour ride on the Indian reservation. We saw all kinds of flora and fauna, and rode by the Rio Grande and some other not-so-grande river. The weather was perfect. Best of all, I felt awesome on Reba, like I hadn't missed a beat in the 22 years since I'd been on a horse. I was able to mount and dismount without any of the tourist step amenities, and I held my cool when Reba spooked in response to David's horse spooking (he deserves a shout-out here; he had never ridden and he handled George's spook like a pro). I have to admit at that moment, I questioned my decision to decline a riding helmet. I thought to myself, "All you've been through, and all it takes is Reba tripping and you can fly from her and get a traumatic brain injury. Just what you need!" I'd be lying if I said I didn't then offer a sincere prayer to God to get me through this ride safely, in spite of my stupidity. You have to love the frontier spirit out here; I can't see a place in Maryland making riding helmets optional.

It's time to leave the serene ranch, and David has a conference call. He asked if he could take the call from the ranch and then drive back to his parents house. I was hungry and said I'd try to drive, and would pull over if the pain got too intense. Keep in mind that until a month ago, I hadn't driven at all in two years because of the pain and weakness in my upper body. A few weekends ago I drove two miles, followed by three the next weekend. Any more than that would've been too much. I looked at the odometer before we left Tamaya; when we turned on to Eileen & Bruce's street, I saw that I had driven 12 miles without pain, numbness or tingling. I was overcome with gratitude and emotion; we weren't sure I'd ever be able to drive more than a couple of miles. I started choking back sobs, with my confused husband trying to comfort me and participate in his business call. I waved him away, assuring him, through a tear-covered face, that I was indeed, really ok.

My arms hurt, and before I go, I want to just relate that we had a very relaxing Shabbat. Eileen's best friend, Terry, whom I adore, came over with her mom and sister. After sunset, David and I laid on the lawn and soaked in the beautiful stars. Oh, stars! When we got up from the lawn, we saw a very dramatic full moon coming up over the Sandia mountains. I tried to photograph it, but the shot looks ridiculous -- a black background with a white spot in the middle. Some things can't be photographed, at least not by the likes of me, the Anti-Photo person (think Anti-Christ ... Anti-Photo ... that didn't work either.) Good night!