Organic Living Day 23

Today is day 23 of my month long trial of non-processed living and while I have made a few concessions along the way -- Rally's Burger, Fries, 2 Apple pies, and Large Diet Coke (Tuesday was a really bad day) -- I believe I have done exceptionally well and what I have learned to date is that I was eating an offensive amount of food prior to the start of this adventure. Just to give myself a reference point to the quantity of food I consume, I have been keeping a food diary. My daily caloric consumption is a healthy level for maintaining my current weight but I eat much less than previously and the foods I eat are much more nutrient rich. While it would be helpful to know how much my average caloric intake was prior to this diet modification but, quite frankly, I would be afraid to know just how much I was overeating. It is a sure sign of habitual over indulgence when you start eating a weight maintenance amount of food (about 1900 cal/day) and begin losing weight (about 1 lb per week so far).

Historically (and by historically I mean in the context of Emily History), when I make any sort of concession in my diet, the result is a slippery slope. Any time in the past when I have given up pop for a significant amount of time, if I allow myself to have even one diet coke with the intent to initiate a 1 pop per week rule, I inevitably revert to daily consumption and caffeine dependence. This go around, I have successfully reintroduced diet coke on two isolated occasions, and remained pop free the rest of the time. I give myself a firm pat on the back for this improved will power. Perhaps this is aided by the fact that I don't otherwise feel restricted by this eating plan. I am not starving, I have plenty of calories, and quite a wide variety of food. My food options seem to expand daily as I discover new non-processed foods and recipes. In light of this new found culinary hobby, perhaps it is good that the house I was supposed to close on a week ago fell through. I don't think a gally kitched would facilitate this domestic venture.

Smorgasbord v. Simple Spread

I acknowledge that at the age of 25, I lack credibility when I say things like, "When I was younger," but when technology turns over every 6 months, not surprisingly, we see persistent grow in the tech/digital entertainment sector. In a mere 25 years I have seen several complete technology turnovers (I gauge this mostly by the type of storage  media we use and their respective capacities 5" floppy to terrabyte external hard drive and everything in between...). The job market follows where the big money is being made, the more persons in a particular sector of the work force, the more man power is available to perpetuate the field. The result: In the 2010s, 900 professional films are released each year, an average household television carries a listing of 120+ channels and I cannot even begin to wrap my head around the number of gaming systems and games available.

Here comes the magic phrase...

When I was younger there were 4 national networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX-which launched in 1986), 2 mainstream game systems (Nintendo, Sega), a new Disney movie release was a national event resulting from 4 years of intense animation efforts, my computer was black and white with a monitor that was deeper than it was wide and there.was.no.internet.

It is a beautiful thing to live in a world where movies and tv channels exist for nearly all tastes. Continually advancing technology offers it's benefits to such fields as the military, medicine, education, entertainment, etc, and as a friend has often told me "The good of a good is not diminished by the abuse of a good," however, I feel this overwhelming smorgasbord of technological delicacies is depriving us of a certain cultural solidarity.

My sister sent me a video over the weekend of a computer game we played when we were children. The game is, Treasure Cove, an educational game published in 1992 by The Learning Company to promote reading, math, and oceanography. This rediscovery of a childhood gem unleashed so many fun memories of spending hours at the computer playing this simple, repetitive game with terrible background music. Since this game was released in a time when computer game selection was limited, it was a safe bet, that if we played the game, most of our childhood friends did as well. Take Oregon Trail; a game that defined a generation. I have yet to find a person who did not play or at least know of Oregon Trail.  In relating to others of my generation, there is a special connection between all groups when discussing a hunting expedition which resulted in 2000lbs of slain buffalo and transport capabilites limited to 100lbs, or weighing the pro and cons of fording the river verses traveling out of the way to locate a ferry. One of my favorite time wasters is a website called Sporcle.com and the most entertaining puzzle I have done is to name the components of Oregon Trail. It is infectious and as many times as I play that puzzle it never fails to draw a crowd and incite a meeting of the minds in attempt to recall the many aspects of the game.

TGIF was a Friday night ritual. To date there is not a single show that compares to Family Matters, Boy Meets World, Fresh Prince, and Full House. Two straight hours of family friendly television that my siblings and I looked forward to every week. There was no fighting about what to watch and all our friends were at their respective homes watching the same thing. I am fairly certain that while these shows were top notch, this TGIF movement was facilitated by the fact that there simply was nothing else on tv. Now there are new shows launching on a weekly basis and because they are instantly facing 120+ other channels of programming, these new shows are almost doomed to fail.

Feature films are being released on a weekly basis and if a movie doesn't make a killing in the first week, it is washed a side by the next wave of anxiously anticipated films. This does not allow for the Star Wars phenomenon where the majority of a society has all seen the exact same film. To this day, I remain shocked when I discover someone who has not witnessed the awesomeness of the Star Wars Trilogy (I don't buy into episodes I/II/III). Anymore, movies are spitting out so fast, I manage to miss hearing about hundreds of "blockbusting" films. I'll liken it to driving down the street and passing a Lotus, Maserati, and an Aston Martin. I cannot possibly pay adequate attention to all three cars. I am gonna miss scoping out at least one of the cars.

In sum, I welcome technological

advancements and were it not for the existence of hundreds of television channels, I would be without my daily reruns of Beverly Hills 90210 which I find on SoapNet in the mornings. I do, however, long for another Star Wars or Titanic, where no matter how many films are being released, they still manage to draw in the majority of the American population.

Solidarity Sister, YA!YA!

Organic Living Day 13

I am amazed how the combination of emotional distress and hunger result in a desire to binge (or, as is more PC, stress eat).

 It is difficult to believe it has been almost 2 full weeks since I began my non-processed food diet modification. I feel the last week required much  less conscious thought which was potentially aided by having copious amounts of eligible food choices in my apartment. The pot roast I made early last week fed me for nearly a week (gotta love left overs) and I kept an adequate supply of non processed snacking options available for between meals. I was also quite impressed with myself for successfully making my own corn tortillas. So long as I never allowed myself to get to the point of starving I was able to stick to the eating rules without feeling deprived. Not to be trite, but being really hungry feels like my stomach is digesting my liver. Not pleasant. Perhaps that is why I developed the habit of always eating something. If I'm always eating, I'm never hungry... But I digress

This has nothing to do with food
but I highly recommend this film
and not just as a cancer nurse...

 The point is, yesterday, was the first day I really felt the emotional strain of non processed eating. To be honest, I would have sold my right foot for a diet coke. In the interest of full disclosure, I did, in fact, cave (luckily sparing all appendages). I drank half a bottle of diet coke and, to my disbelief, I was unimpressed. This is kind of a bittersweet discovery. On one hand, it is wonderful for my health and overall well being that I am put off by diet coke, but on the other hand, diet coke was my cure all and with the mood I was in yesterday, I really could have used a pick me up. Alas, all the diet coke offered was some heart palpitations.

[sidebar: my caffeine tolerance several weeks ago was such that I could consume 80+ ounces of diet coke in a 24 hour period and still want a nap. Sunday, I had a movie size iced tea when I went to see 50/50 with my friend Jim and my heart felt like it was beating so fast I thought my head was going to take off like a helicopter].

I suppose now, without pop to serve as self medication, I will actually have to exercise legitimate coping skills for my bad days.

...I am much better at maladaptive behaviors like the above mentioned substance abuse.

Snakes and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Everything you need to know about Men may be learned from classic literature. 
As it happens, there's not much to know...

I married him because I thought he was a gentleman," she said finally. "I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe. (Chapter 2) 
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Men become old, but they never become good.
Lady Windermere's Fan, Oscar Wilde 

I don't like compliments, and I don't see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn't mean.
Lady Windermere's Fan, Oscar Wilde 

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
Oscar Wilde

A woman impudent and mannish grown is not more loathed than an effeminate man in time of action.

Troilus and Cressida (Act III, scene 3)

William Shakespeare

Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art:

Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote

The unreasonable fury of a beast:

Unseemly woman in a seeming man!

Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!

Romeo and Juliet (Act III, scene 3)

William Shakespeare

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,-
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.

Much Ado About Nothing (Act II, scene 3)

William Shakespeare

Well, I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.
The Merry Wives of Windsor, William Shakespeare 

The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, since she is the most dangerous plaything.  
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche 

When a man is in love he endures more than at other times; he submits to everything.
The Anarchist, Friedrich Nietzsche

Women speak because they wish to speak, whereas a man speaks only when driven to speech by something outside himself - like, for instance, he can't find any clean socks

The Snake Has All the Lines, Jean Kerr

It takes a woman twenty years to make a man of her son, and another woman twenty minutes to make a fool of him.

A Guide to Men, Helen Rowland

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

John Grey

How can a man marry wisely in his twenties?  The girl he's going to wind up wanting hasn't even been born.   
The Neurotic's Notebook, Mignon McLaughlin




 

Yours Has a Better Flavor

I find it fascinating to view the products of other peoples creative genius. It's very Being John Malkovich, the way it gains you entry into their mind to take a look at the world the way they see it. I have mentioned previously that when we see or hear something that resonates within us, I believe it is because it points out, whether consciously or subconsciously, a connection between us and that person stemming from some shared experience or thought. Often times, when I see a photo, hear a song, or read a passage, the artist has been able to capture and express a thought I have not yet found an adequate means of expressing. 

I am quite fond of quotations. When I was in high school there was a trend among the girls to have a quote book or some other quote compilation page. These pages were full of quotes that were thought provoking, painful, inspirational, romantic, and some were just simply hilarious. We had quotes for many occasions and we referenced them frequently. There are, of course, quotations that are overused, cliched, and even cheesy. I admittedly had several on my list which, as I read them now, are so very overdone I can't help but shake my head at my past self, but they meant the world to me when I was in high school. My perspective has changed as I have grown up and so with the emotional response I have to them. When I was 16, though, immature, and trying desperately to understand myself, people, and life in general, these words of others were as comforting as my childhood blanket. 

I do not believe people say things intending them to be words passed down through the ages. We say things to express the thoughts and emotions in our heart. Occasionally, when someone puts her thoughts into words, it resonates with us so we write it down and we share it. We don't take the words of others to plagiarize or to pass them as our own. We take the words of another because when looking to express the thoughts and emotions in our hearts, sometimes, someone else already said it best.

Here is a collection of things that today, Tuesday, October 11, 2011, resonate with me. No explanations. No rationalization. It is all the work of others but I could never say it, write it, sing it, paint it better

Mercy Matt Nathanson

I want a real love
to let me in
I want to zero out
and be born again
no more false starts and no dead ends

'cause I'm in no shape
to do whats right
I see up that's down and black that's white
it makes me dizzy I come apart
all this love love love in the dark

mercy mercy both hands
I need less drowning and more land
mercy mercy, understand
less drowning, more land, less drowning

you're fire in the crowd
just to watch you move
tie your hands and demand a salute
all these gardens full of snakes and fruit

you're the click click click
of the camera flash
its in the definite kick up in the fame ball blast
but they don't call and they don't last
and you're gone
outshine

mercy mercy both hands
I need less drowning and more land
mercy mercy, understand
less drowning, more land, less drowning

come on kill the light
leave it all behind
I'm right by your, I'm right by your side

lean on the tick of time
put your hand in in mine
watch your ...

mercy mercy, both hands
I need less drowning and more land
mercy mercy, understand
less drowning, more land

mercy mercy, I'm in your hands
I look into your eyes and see that I can
mercy mercy, understand 

less drowning, more land

less drowning, more land

Anders Zorn The Waltz

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.  
Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger



The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the 

lightning.  

Mark Twain

Crater Lake, OR
Taken by: Zachary Altenau

  

After a while, you just want to be with the one that makes you laugh.

Sex and the City, Mr. Big

Savior Rise Against

It kills me not to know this but I've all but just forgotten
what the color of her eyes were and her scars or how she got them
as the telling signs of age rain down a single tear is dropping
through the valleys of an aging face that this world has forgotten

there is no reconciliation that will put me in my place
and there is no time like the present to drink these draining seconds
but seldom do these words ring true when I'm constantly failing you
like walls that we just can't break through until we disappear
so tell me now

if this ain't love then how do we get out?
because I don't know
that's when she said I don't hate you boy
I just want to save you while there's still something left to save
that's when I told her I love you girl
but I'm not the answer to the questions that you still have

but the day pressed on like crushing weights
for no man does it ever wait
like memories of dying days
that deafen us like hurricanes
bathed in flames we held the brand
uncurled the fingers in your hand
pressed into the flesh like sand
now do you understand?
so tell me now

if this ain't love then how do we get out?
because I don't know
that' s when she said I don't hate you boy
I just want to save you while there's still something left to save
that's when I told her I love you girl
but I'm not the answer to the questions that you still have

one thousand miles away
there's nothing left to say
but so much left that I don't know
we never had a choice
this world is too much noise
it takes me under
it takes me under once again

 

Robert Doisneau

Lastly, because no one says it like a child:

Organic Living Days 3-6

The caffeine withdrawal hit Friday afternoon (Day 3) bringing with it a fierce headache which felt like a continuously tightening belt around my skull. Tylenol is no match for my lacking diet coke intake. Luckily, I had already begun to feel better, lighter, more full of energy by that point in the process so I had adequate incentive to trudge through the pain and persist with the non-processed food plan.

I have come to two realizations at this current juncture.

1. I am very lazy about my food choices:
   It takes a great deal of effort to be deliberate about what I choose to eat. I was completely unaware until now how much of my day is spent with some sort of food or drink in hand. I am hoping that over time the decision to select or reject food based on its content will become more natural and require less though but it is definitely keeping the wheels of my brain turning as I plan what and when I can eat.
2. My boozin is on the rise:
   I have been taking the beer/wine/spirits rule to heart as I omit most other unacceptable beverages. I am selective about the adult beverages I drink, but my overall alcohol intake has increase exponentially in the last week (don't worry mom, it's an increase in frequency, not a increase in quantity per sitting).

Friday-Saturday-Sunday were full of challenges. My friend David (Spinning Quarter travel partner) came into town for the weekend and we went out on the town for some fine dining Friday night followed by camping on Saturday and Sunday. Friday we met up with Brittany, one of my girlfriends from college, for drinks at Bodega which was exciting for 2 reasons. The first being that Brittany is awesome and since she moved away for medical school I haven't seen her but once. The second being that October 2, 2011 marked the arrival of Yuengling to Ohio and this was our first opportunity to drink it "legally" in Ohio, on tap none the less. Drinks were followed by dinner at M at Miranova. One of the benefits of fine dining is everything is made with the finest of ingredients, so while I was still more selective than usual about what I ate, I allowed myself to believe, at least for the most part, the content of the dishes were non-processed. All the food was superb so any guilt quickly vanished as the various courses arrived.

After dinner, David and I met up with his sister and brother-in law for drinks at Milestone 229 which is along the Scioto Mile downtown. I have a childlike affinity for fountains and the one constructed behind the site of this establishment is truly inspired. It is amazing to me how little I have seen and done in this city where I have lived for 7 years. How could I, a fountain enthusiast, possibly have missed this spectacular set up?

 Saturday camping was the trickiest yet. We packed a cooler with appropriate dietary selections, but arriving to camp where there was a spread including hot bacon, biscuits and gravy was torture. Somehow, organic yogurt and eggs paled in comparison. Sunday morning after David and I left the camp site we went to the local organic restaurant I frequent, The Northstar Cafe. As David had never been there for brunch, I insisted he get the Cloud 9 pancakes (they are the things dreams are made of). He was skeptical at first because, per him, "who dreams about pancakes," but then, gentleman that he is, he ate every last bite, completely forgetting to save a small piece for me. The waitress overheard be giving David a hard time for his selfishness in failing to offer me a bite of my favorite dish, and she brought out another whole pancake just for me. The woman should get a raise!

Today I return back to a "normal" schedule and dining out for every meal will go away (at least for a few days). I need to talk to Kristen to get a pulse check on how she and Tim are doing at this point and maybe get some new recipes for the week. For right now, I am headed out to do my weekly grocery stopping.

Organic Living Day 2-3

10.7.11

What is the proper etiquette for when a person gives your a gift of food that you are unable to eat whether for reason of dietary necessity or preference? Today in a computer training class, one of the physicians went to the coffee shop and when she returned, she gave me a white paper bag which contained what was certainly going to be a delicious raspberry and white chocolate scone. Now, I did have several bites, the whole time mentally trying to convince myself that it was a home made, whole grain scone with freshly picked raspberries and home made white chocolate in the ingredient list. I simply couldn't bring myself to say, no thank you to this gift she purchased specifically for my enjoyment. Somewhere out there must be some Miss Manners or Emily Post article regarding this very issue, but I have yet to find it.

As for dinner last night, the wine and spirits were certainly not lacking for the evening. After dinner, while sitting at the bar I had a Black Orchid which was in a martini glass and poured over an ice ball with an orchid frozen inside making the drink not only delicious, but pretty to look at and quite the conversation piece. I managed to almost entirely avoid the pre dinner bread. I indulged in two bites of pretzel bread but then was distracted by my wedge salad and the scallops we ordered as an appetizer. It is kind of a beautiful thing, dining at a nice restaurant. I was easily able to convince myself that all the ingredients in the creme brulee we had for dessert was unprocessed and since it was warm and perfect when it was served, I knew it had been freshly made. I certainly didn't make it through the evening proccessed free, but I certainly faired much better than I would have otherwise.