Habit Shift

Before I continue, I feel that I must address my absence.  I have been having an existential crisis with the blog.  When I was making a commitment to regular posting, I found that my journal writing suffered.  At this place in my life, I don’t have the time to do both public and personal writing, and I chose the uncensored, unpolished, unabashed journal as a compost pile of ideas eventually building up to something resembling a publishable form.  So that’s what I’ve been doing the past couple months, filling Moleskines.

That really isn’t what this post is about though.  This post is about food–big surprise, right?  I was inspired by the Food Stamp Challenge, which I heard of because some famous chef that I’ve never heard of decided to take it on and live on $31 per week–or $1.48 per meal.

I was intrigued because

• all of my students are on food stamps,
• I’m going to have to live on a $13,500 stipend next year, and
• I often go weeks between grocery trips and, although I hate having to skip meals occasionally, it’s fun to see what I can do with the remaining stores in my pantry.

Now let me clarify that the skipping meals thing is neither a personal choice nor a consequence of having zero food.  It’s a consequence of personal laziness:  I have food; it’s just not easy food.  Taking longer time in between grocery trips shouldn’t result in me eating less; it’s supposed to force me to actually eat the food I already have.  I’ll admit that it does work, but I also end up eating out more often, so I don’t know that I’m actually saving money.

I’m not officially taking the Food Stamp Challenge because the whole point is that people living off food stamps are suffering from unhealthy diets, but I wonder if I could live healthily and ethically off of $5 per day–or about $2,000 per year.  (I use Mint to manage my budget.  They send me emails when my bills are due or when I go over-budget in an area.  It’s awesome)  The key, I think, is simplicity, not needing to eat something new and different all of the time.  Just rotating a few options for each meal is enough variation for me, so I started listing the perishables and the nonperishables I would always want on hand and then other items that I would buy when they come on sale.

To my surprise there were only three items that included animal products–yogurt, Nutella, and butter–that made the first draft of the list.  I even surprised myself by not including eggs and cheese.  Whenever I discuss veganism with people, I always say, “I couldn’t live without eggs or cheese.”  But maybe I can.

I haven’t eaten beef or pork in four years and am just completing my first year as a mostly vegetarian, or meat reducer, or flexitarian, or whatever you want to call it.  I’m not one to work well with absolutes, so when I most recently tightened my dietary restrictions for ethical reasons, I allowed myself to continue eating fish, seafood, and free-range anything except beef or pork.  But I rarely ate these anyway, mostly because they are so expensive.  I would make a tuna sandwich every once in a while, ate occassional sushi, and partook in a local turkey on Thanksgiving, but on a regular daily basis, I lived vegetarian.

I’ve been trying to do Vegan Mondays or, later, Vegan Sundays for months with little success.  I often just forget because I don’t think of my egg on a bagel with cream cheese and maple syrup (which I know sounds disgusting, but I have EVERY day after a recent grocery trip until I run out of ingredients) as evil when I first wake up in the morning.  Even if I don’t forget, it’s hard to turn down the free doughnuts someone from work brought in when all I had for breakfast is oatmeal and all I brought for lunch is a peanut butter and jelly.  And every time I fail, I just say, “I need to be better planned next time, know exactly what I’m going to eat for all three meals.”

But the real problem is that one day each week, while flexible enough to comply with my resistance to dogma, wasn’t enough to compete with my daily habits.

So instead, I am heading toward a habit shift in the direction of veganism but without actually changing any rules.  The goal is to live vegan on a regular, daily basis.  I’ll add fish, seafood, eggs, and dairy products to the pantheon of animal foods that I am allowed to buy (though I rarely do) only if they are ethically farmed.  When away from home, at a restaurant or as a guest, I am allowed to eat unvetted eggs and dairy products when the alternative is going hungry.

These compromises are what I need to do to eat less animal products.  Would I prefer to go full vegan?  Probably, if I thought I could actually stick with it.  But if I ever do go vegan, it’s not going to happen cold turkey.  Hopefully, as more and more people start reducing their own demand for animal products, more options for vegans and vegetarians will become available and compromises like “eat cheese or starve” won’t have to exist.

We Need More Words

“I sincerely regret that…”

“I am pleased to inform you that…”

“We are pleased to inform you that…”

“I am pleased to inform you that…”

“I regret to tell you that…”

“We are pleased to inform you that…”

Dating You

is like reading in bed after dinner.

Waiting days for you to call pains me like when I realize that my eyes are closed, so I set the book down and let sleep take me.  All night, the underwire of my bra cuts into my chest, and the silver studs of my belt dig into my hips.  The light keeps waking me up, and I have to subconsciously redirect myself to roll over on my back since I didn’t wash my face and don’t want to soil the pillowcase.

But then you call, and it’s like when I fall asleep straight away, and the book smacks me in the face.  I get up, put on sweats, wash my face, and turn out the lights.  I’ve lost my page but content myself with burrowing my face into the pillow and breathing in the faint scent of your aftershave.

Influenza

“I think I’m allergic to you,” she says knowing that this is highly unlikely.  She has been tested and doesn’t react to any common allergens.

“No, I think you’re addicted to me,” he says laughing.  ”And that you have the flu.”

She spends the next day in bed sweating out the fever.  She takes a hot shower and steams her face over a bath with finely chopped ginger root.  As for curing the addiction, however, that can wait until the dependency is palpable.

She Blows So Hot for Murakami

For Matthew Burnside

Outside, the girl’s exhalations condense in thick clouds.  In the sauna, though, water poured over hot stones instantly vaporizes, and steam cavorts openly with the depths of her pores.

Her eyes slide down the neat rows of Times New Roman.  The pages of South of the Border, West of the Sun (Or is it Kafka on the Shore again?  Or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle?) somersault easily around the scuffed spine.

The steam opens her airways and moistens her sinuses.  Her muscles loosen.  Oxygen enlivens her brain.  She is at once alone and with her closest friend.  She accepts the world for what it is, but meditates on what it ought to be.  Sometimes the complex is infinitely simple.

Outside again, she radiates heat.  She moves in a visible aura of foggy ice crystals.  And when she can’t stand the pain of actually living in it, she’ll cry and go back in the sauna until the world is magical and beautiful once again.

Vegan Mondays: Failure to Launch

Saturday

My vegetarian friend and I–well, we are occasionally piscitarian, but that’s an obnoxious term–want to become more strict about our food restrictions.  We are–not quite, but just give it to us–vegetarian for different reasons but are both dissatisfied with the extent to which our diets have reflected our food goals.  She started eating a vegetarian diet because she wanted to eat healthier.  She does eat a lot better meals now but also a lot more desserts and baked goods.

In order to get that full feeling one gets used to from eating meat, you have to eat a lot of vegetables–a lot more than most people imagine.  Carbs happily fill the gaps, though.  And so do my guiltiest pleasures:  cheese and eggs.  I get most of my protein from eggs.  I usually eat two eggs every morning.  With a bagel and cream cheese.  (Notice how there are no vegetables in that “vegetarian” breakfast?)

My fridge is full of every kind of cheese:  cream cheese and Laughing Cow; fresh mozzarella balls; shredded parmesan; sliced Muenster, Colby-Jack, provolone, and Swiss; and a block of cheddar.  Forgive me.  I love cheese.

I went flexitarian for animal rights and environmental reasons.  I quit eating pigs five years ago when I learned the extent of their intelligence, cows four years ago because of their ecological footprint.  I only gave up poultry and other non-aquatic meats last year, finally succumbing to my conscience.  My knowledge of CAFOs had long disturbed me, but I continued to pretend that my chicken’s brain was too small to grasp the pain of torture in a factory farm.  Honestly, I’ll still infrequently eat a wild caught or humanely raised animal (except pigs or cows).  I ate some free-range turkey from a local farm for Thanksgiving.  It was the best tasting turkey we’ve ever had.

My food choices fail me in the eggs and cheese department.  I buy free-range eggs, but I also order eggs and dishes with eggs in them at restaurants.  Those eggs aren’t free range.

99% of the cheese I eat comes from cows–the worst environmental offender whose very, environmentally degrading teat I was trying to get off in 2008!  And again, I pretend that I don’t realize this fact because I simply can’t imagine a life without cheese.

So we decide to start Vegan Mondays–like how many carnivores out there are doing Meatless Mondays.  Just one day a week to start forcing ourselves to put the VEG back into our vegetarianism.

Monday Morning

I start the coffee, feed the cat, and throw the tennis ball to the dog while waiting for my warm cup to finish brewing.  I open the fridge and consider my options:  cow’s milk that needs to get used up because it expires tomorrow or almond milk that hasn’t been opened yet and is good for another two months or something ridiculous like that.  I choose the former.  After pouring, I realize, Shit, it’s Monday.  It’s not like I’m going to dump out this amazing cup of coffee, though.

Minutes later I get a text, “I forgot it was Vegan Monday and just ate a cupcake!”

I go to the fridge to see if there is anything I can eat today.  Why did I fry anchovies with all that cauliflower last night?  The only reason why I bought broccoli is so I could smother it in all of this wonderful cheese I have…

Let’s hope kiwi, steel-cut oats, and bean fajitas with stir fried vegetables (but sadly no cheese…) get me through the day, so Vegan Monday is not a total failure.  Next week, I’ll have to plan what I’m going to eat in advance, so I’m better prepared with recipes and vegetables and stuff.

Independence

I just discovered hitRECord on Friday, and I wanted to cry or vomit or have some physical side effect to the emotional elation I was feeling.  If you are an artist of any kind and haven’t checked it out yet, go now.  I’ll wait.

hitRECord is an open collaboration company directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and he’s asked us to work on the theme of independence for an upcoming Sundance production.  And when Joe asks me to write about independence, I write about independence.  If Joe asked me to write about equity derivatives, I’d write about equity derivatives.  Reading about equity derivatives gives me a headache.  Do you see where I’m going with this?

Independence doesn’t require rolling solo, although it definitely helps one gain independence to go it alone.  I think that’s true for art as well as for individuals.

Indie films are often detached from a major production company because most major production companies aren’t interested in making the same kind of films as indie directors are.  I am definitely not an expert on the movie business or even a self-identified film buff, but I feel a film registers as indie when its artistic purpose is higher than its commercial objectives.

I consider indie films analogous to literature.  The goal is not just to entertain but to say something.  Indie films don’t aspire to be blockbusters.  If they are wildly successful, they are a bit more quiet and cute about it.  Having people patron your art helps you continue to make it, and surely indie artists desire (and deserve) some level of success.  Fame and fortune are the hazard of the profession and don’t necessarily have to influence the character of the work and make it un-indie, although the tendency of money and power is to do just that.  Just as some literature is undeniably literature and some is up for debate, indie films are in the eye of the beholder.

Indie rock was also initially defined as music produced outside of a major record label, but it’s now more of an aesthetic.  The Flaming Lips, for example, signed to Warner Brothers in 1992 and proceeded to and still make some of the indiest music, art, and performances.  Despite corporate sponsorship, the band continues to follow an artistic adventure unconcerned with what the market demands.  They titled one of their songs ”What Is the Light? (An Untested Hypothesis Suggesting That the Chemical [In Our Brains] by Which We Are Able to Experience the Sensation of Being in Love Is the Same Chemical That Caused the ‘Big Bang’ That Was the Birth of the Accelerating Universe).”  They have released a 24-hour song.  Not that all indie art has to embrace the gimmicky schemes of the Flaming Lips, but they do it with purpose, they do it well, and they have a solid following for it.  That’s essentially what makes any artist or individual independent–just doing whatever they want to do without executing someone else’s purpose.

Which brings me to the independence that each of us gains to varying degrees as we mature in life.  As children, our independence is really just defined by our diminishing dependence on adults for physical things.  We start walking; we communicate; we wipe our own asses.  Moving out of their parents’ home is often the first major gulp of the emotional independence that leads to a person’s self-actualization.

As long as I had a roommate, though, I never really knew independence.  Personally, I needed to be alone to find independence, and I embrace her like a cherished friend.  An individual’s independence is both defined by independent actions (like doing whatever you want) and independent accountability (like changing toilet paper rolls, calling maintenance, and covering all the bills).

But my life is still a collaboration.  Every artifact in my apartment was brought in by me and represents some purpose or part of me, but it also has a history tied to the stories of many–some known and many unknown.  No one exists in a vacuum, and collaboration is a wonderful way to make new things out of old ideas.

So I guess independence is just being–wait a minute…

Free from outside control.

Sometimes a dictionary definition is as elegant an explanation as you can get.  Beyond that, it’s just a quality the soul recognizes.

Goals vs. Resolutions

New Year’s resolutions are stupid.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a little OCD, and whenever I start working on something new, I love to start it on the first of the month or something graceful like that.  Hangovers generally make January 1 an unideal day for me to start anything, but my issue is not with reassessing priorities at the turn of the year.

My problem is with the word resolution.  A resolution is a firm declaration of intent that either does or doesn’t happen–and in the case of New Year’s resolutions, it usually doesn’t.

“I’m not going to smoke anymore cigarettes.”  One moment of weakness, maybe even during that first week?  Done.  Resolution over.  Thank yourself that you didn’t tell too many people about it, and go back to your old lifestyle.

Even, “I’m going to quit smoking.”  By when?  Today or December 31?  How?

New Year’s resolutions are notoriously broken because they are generally statements of vast ambition but without weight or margin for error.  You either quit smoking or you don’t.  You either congratulate yourself or you wallow in your own failure.  Even realistic resolutions don’t allow for the natural peaks and dips of progression toward any goal.

Now there’s a fine word:  goal.

The cynical teacher part of me winces to promote goal-setting as the answer to any problem.  During first two years of teaching, my training program forced me to erect a Big Goal Sign claiming that 100% of my students would pass the end of year standardized test–when 0% of them passed last year’s.  Sure, I wanted all of them to pass, but it was really not a feasible goal, and the part that gets you excited about a goal is when you feel it’s actually reachable.  The fact that several students did pass the test was a major accomplishment, but we still failed to meet our Big Goal.  That’s because the Big Goal was actually an empty resolution.  It conveyed great optimism and enthusiasm, but the statement lacked the realism and practicality of what I consider a goal.

A goal is something you can actually do.  It should be a reach, but you’ve done some math and determined that it’s possible.  You can measure your progress toward meeting it, which is the strongest reinforcement.  And, perhaps most importantly, one or even several slip-ups don’t necessarily derail you from reaching it.  Even if you fail to reach a goal, you can still look back on the growth of coming close and feel validated.

Now that I’m unmicromanaged in my student goal setting (for the time being), we set goals about personal choice instead of Big Goals that look at hard to control test scores.  This past fall, my students met both marking period reading goals (the first measured in hours, the second in chapters) that initially seemed impossibly high to meet.  Hand-drawn thermometers and fuel gauges tracked our progress, and first reporting and then adding hours and chapters to the tracker was a physical act that produced visible signs of progress.

So this year, I refuse to resolve.  But I will set goals.  I need to read more, like 50 books this year.  Last year I only read 20, but I also had a TV for six months of that, so there’s at least ten more right there.  I also need to write more.  I’m going to do another novel challenge–but take 90 days on this one instead of 30, so it might actually be kind of good–and blog at least 50 posts, about one each week.  And I’m going to use stickers and graphs to chart my progress toward reaching each of these goals because it’s FUN.  Ask my eighth graders.

The Value of Stuff

Since I entered adulthood, I’d always been conscious of the most valuable thing that I owned–at least of the item with the greatest monetary value.  It’s not like I’m vain or anything like that, but snowed under mountains of student debt with the abstract token of a good education in exchange, I always felt better knowing I had one thing worth some actual cash.

First it was the Cavalier… until that broke down, and then it was the Wrangler.  That broke down too, though, and I think the most valuable thing I had for a while was my Wii and tons of accessories.  Those were times of little self-esteem.  After having a real job for a bit, I moved up in the world to my Mac and then to a modular sofa.  The couch was the best thing I thought I had going for me until today when I started opening envelopes from the stack of December’s mail.

As it turns out, the occluder device implanted in the interatrial septum of my heart is worth almost ten grand.  My heart in its newly complete form is worth $32,549.87.  We have a winner.

I’ve always valued my health and, except for the congenital ASD, enjoyed a pretty healthy life.  Don’t get me wrong–I subsist mainly on coffee, carbs, and cheese and never go to a gym, but my diet is better than most, and I get plenty of light exercise.  How sad, though, that it took a dollar amount and an account balance for me to seriously consider the tangible value of a heart that isn’t going to give out on me in ten years.

So, yeah, a new year, a new outlook on life, and a new balance to pay.  But really 2012 is no different from 2011:  We all still have those habits we resolved to break last year (like only opening mail every 30 days?), I’m still listening to the same music as I did in college, and the Lions still lose at Lambeau Field like they have for the past 20 years.  The Year of the Dragon isn’t a fresh start, exactly, but simply another chance for us embrace the intrinsic value of the things that truly matter–that is, those things characterized by the awesome quality of living.

Some Pros and Cons

…of being poor around Christmas time:

• You don’t have to wait in long holiday shopping lines.  Pro.
• In lieu of giving a gift, you have to do some symbolic gesture that shows that you care and that takes way more time, effort, and creativity than plopping down $20 for a bottle of tequila and a gift bag.  And the recipients mostly don’t care about or understand your haikus.  Con.
• You can expect to not get any gifts the following year now that you’re that girl/guy.  Con.

…of drinking with your co-workers on Friday:

• It’s the only reason why you all haven’t quit yet.  Pro.
• If they didn’t catch it live, 80% of the faculty have now seen a video of you doing karaoke to “My Humps.”  Con.
• You end up playing flip cup in a local dive… before 6:00.  Pro/Con.

…of playing Words with Friends:

• You feel smart when you play against your dumb friends.  Pro.
• You feel dumb when you play against your smart friends.  Con.
• You feel like the time you spent standing in line at the post office, attending a staff meeting, or sitting in Chicago traffic wasn’t a complete waste of precious minutes/hours you can never get back.  Pro.

…of the new Facebook Timeline:

• You can peep every single thing the person you are stalking has done since they emerged from the womb.  Pro.
• People can stalk every single thing you’ve done since you emerged from the womb.  Con.
• Every time Zuckerberg unrolls something like this, it makes you reflect on how much simpler things were back in 2004, which forces the realization that you’ve been facebooking for 7 years, which–along with not knowing how to even do it anymore–precipitates awareness of how old you are.  Con.