A Defense of College

Rick Santorum has declared anathema the hope of a college education for anyone who wants one. He calls it elitist. While I am still trying to find his evidence for this claim, as he proposes policy that would line the pockets of the rich and dismantle social programs, he assures us all that the academy will twist every young mind- liberalism that leads to the death of Godly belief.

It is confounding that at no point does he mention the relevance of acquired knowledge. Our economic recovery has included a mountain of commercials imploring America to return to school to enhance employability. Every year, we have a national angst-fest when international data show, once again, that the nation has slipped lower on comparative math and science scores. Every summer, millions of parents sit down, brochures and state reports in hand, to figure out at which school their child will have a shot at achieving an education that leads to the American Dream.

Santorum turns a blind eye to these realities. Or the reality in which he is a college graduate, married to a college graduate (incidentally, married college graduates are the most likely people in America to grow wealth and stay married), surrounded by advisors who are likewise college alums. I would posit that he got his because he partook of that hellish academy.

It’s difficult to argue against illogic. I honestly don’t understand what Santorum truly means when he uses “elitist.” In my use of the term, college education is elitist, but increasingly less so, unless Republican policy dreams are met, cutting funding that helps lower-income Americans afford to attend college. I attended two of the more discerning, and expensive, institutions of higher education on a cobbled package of scholarships, grants, loans, and faith that start of the semester, I would be able to attend class. Trinity College is regularly rated as the top preppy school, rightfully, yet 50% or so of students get funding aid.

I am left with the old-as-the-ages theory that the academy pumps us full of liberal ideology and makes us turn our backs on God, running after pleasure upon sinful pleasure and, eek, relativism. Be shocked, the God part doesn’t add up in the numbers (bears out repeatedly that the higher the educational level, the greater a person’s propensity to be religiously active), and as I will speak to my experience, doesn’t add up personally.

Don’t mistake me, I had pleasures in college. The bacchanal, I’m starting to believe is actually an intrinsic element of holistic preparation for the rest of our lives. Most simplistically put, college is a safe space in which I was able to learn that more is not always better; it’s just more. I got to embarrass myself enough with intoxication that beyond college, I rarely seek a pure revel.

College ramifications for outrageous behavior are rarely as serious as they are outside of the academy. I think humans have a need for butting up against the boundaries of our mortality, and the college years, infused with the belief we are eternal, are when we live this impulse. To see it through a lens that distrusts the academy, the sowing of oats is encouraged by the very institution of higher education. If only 20 year olds funneled their energies into full-time employment…

To which I respond, “look at the ages listed on your paper’s police blotter.” News-flash for all and sundry: young adults suck at decision making. Brain chemistry and hormones doom most young people to a middle-age of wondering just what the heck we were thinking way back when. What I find depressingly elitist is that those who go to college are able to be as dysfunctionally becoming adults as their systems make them, stumbling into bad decisions and having their futures protected by institutional understanding of the species, while those who cannot attend college are left to be bound to biology with no guidance or protection from consequences that could ruin their entire adult lives.

Side note: I am talking about what I would term “college dumbassery:” excessive drinking, drug experimentation, the poorly thought-out tattoo. It would be irresponsible to ignore that colleges have a dire problem addressing sexual assaults, stalking, hazing, general assault, and so on. Schools need to be pressured to improve policies, transparency, and use of law enforcement when necessary.

Here’s the genius of the academy: in spite of ourselves, college students learn stuff. I may have been too comfortable with the notion of opting out of class attendance, but the regularity with which I am asked, “how did you know about that?” assures me that something got through.

It was not the much-maligned liberalism. Sorry, Mr. Santorum, I think I came this way. As brain imaging advances, we’re learning to almost see thoughts in the brain. It looks like there may be morphological  differences in the brains of liberals and conservatives. Just as I knew I liked girls from a very young age, so too did I like the liberal side of the world. The data seem to back me up. Granted, kinda terrified too. Can understanding bridge biological difference, and what of eugenics?

Ok, so my professors couldn’t turn me into my little bleeding-heart self, but surely, they helped me leave my faith in the dust. Not quite. Aside from the obvious element of my agency in the matter, if anything, my professors gave the resurgence of my faith a much needed platform.

I knew of my instructors’ faith journey. I find some to be the ultimate in absurd- proof of God’s circuitous path into our lives. Others, astounding in their very existance. There are even a few of my instructors’ faith journeys that just make old fashioned sense. What they hold in common, of course, is the presence of faith on a college campus.

It’s huge. Trinity may be a bit biased, in that they have a center about all of this. However, Oberlin, the penultimate pinky liberal nutjob school, was equally steeped in discussions of faith. Liberalism actually makes faith discussion imperative in some ways. If I am to understand my world, in all of its variety, my assumptions must be addressed. What I believe impacts what I assume.

So my instructors spoke about God, G-d, the goddess, a benign Creator. For me, their being with their faith worked like raindrops on a rusting roof. Slowly, over years, as I reflected, learned more, and  synthesised knowledge, faith wore away and seeped in. By the time I saw the holes, a flood had taken me. And I am so ok with that.

Ultimately, I think Rick Santorum got it all wrong. We have been on a long march to pull down the elitism of ivory towers, bring the masses to the knowledge, and I contend we are much better for it. College strips us of nothing we weren’t ready to shed, and the gifts we receive from it are great. At best, he is guilty of misdirection, but something seems more like a politically expedient lie to make the masses froth, and I see that as a national loss.

C’mon, We’ve Got Our Backs to the Wall

I had once thought about becoming a social worker. And then decided I didn’t actually like humanity enough to help. Which of course leads to feeling called to ministry. Yup, life and winding roads.

Truthfully, I didn’t like myself then enough to value my knowledge, kindness, and compassion. Right now, I cannot state the ways in which I am thankful for my doubts, improperly understood as they may have been, because I have fallen into a place where I have a social worker. Whom I respect not at all, more the sad thing.

Being under the purview of job and family services could have actually been an immediately-recognizable blessing in my life. The changes Da and I have faced in the last six months cannot be overstated. I do feel overwhelmed to unmoving more often than I’d like to admit. But, but…

So, the social worker shows up just as I’m feeling my feet under me, seeing what I have done and not just all that is in my face to be done. And until she said “allegations,” I was all on board. Since faimily has disappeared, having a resource outside of my social/spiritual circles freaking rocks. In theory.

The Tampax post spoke to my problem. Social services don’t seem very keen on “service.” I am at their beck and call, found a failure when, being told that someone would be here in hours, I said that I have things I need to get done, and they’ll have to accommodate that. I don’t care. Da and the critters are a greater priority than the county.

Not to mention, I had told the social worker that Monday and Tuesday are my days off. Somehow, this translates to visits on Mondays and Tuesdays.

I feel like this system is specifically designed to put those under investigation straight into mental freakout. Everyone has asked me what the next step is. It would he a dream to have any kind of answer. I sit and spin; they pop in every so often to make sure my heart rate can blow through the roof some more? They’ll ask me what I need, and then tell me what I’ll get, assuring me that it is sort of like what I need, only, you know, not.

And Da. He forgets about it all, and then it comes up, and I can see his face fall as he thinks he’s a burden, not a person, not a father, and certainly from how the social worker has treated him, not someone capable of thought. Especially after a weekend when everyone treated Da so nicely, this breaks my heart.

The whole freaking thing breaks me, of course. Someone betrayed my trust. The system, which had been so attractive to me in the past, has failed in our case. My friends hurt for me, not knowing what they can say or do. I feel more acutely the break from family. I worry for our future, and mine specifically.

Of course, contrarian ever, I do see blessings in this. Always a great excercise for our egos to spend time as “the least of these.” I face long-festering fears. Accountability, no matter how ineptly foisted upon us, can serve our personal growth. Or maybe this is all stuff I tell myself to avoid an unwilling vacation on a locked floor. I’m ok with that.

I don’t think I will become ok with this system, though. No person enjoys condescention. Social services have taken a bit of my humanity from me.

Omits Tasteless Joke

I spent Eucharist today pondering an economy sized box of Tampax Pearl tampons. I couldn’t really help myself- either close my eyes or notice the bright blue and green box in the donation basket in front of me. Contemplative closed eyes may be, but a disaster they will be if I’m supposed to perform a physical act at the same time. For whatever reason, in a morning of a perpetually wandering mind, I noticed those personal menstrual care products.

Two things struck me. My attitudes of what constitutes “good” have changed, and aside from many foul jokes that all too easily come to mind, these wads of cotton and rayon, clutched in plastic, are a part of communion, a statement of consideration for community.

First to dispense with issues of changing identity. Menses are political in my little slice of the world. It’s as basic an element of life for most women that we get to experience it much more often than childbirth, kind of part of the definition of biological female, scientifically speaking. So, obviously, we exclude it from polite conversation.

Unless someone’s like me, and crunchy, curious, and possibly crazy enough to bring it up. All the time. I have taken stands on my menstrual health, products, attitudes, and annoyances. I stand firm on a few. We should talk about basic female anatomy. PMS sucks. I would totally dig not needing to track dates, just so I don’t end up unprepared. Because that sucks, too. And the products we use are ridiculously expensive, in monetary and ecological terms.

It’s the ecology that has me caught up on a barb. Dioxins, pesticides, fibers that foster bacteria, landfills choking the planet, clogged toilets. And applicators, well, they get their own list, but I’ll keep it to myself here. However…

This is the donation basket. Shouldn’t I be most passionate about the well-being of those who have less than I? I could offer a class on use your own sea sponge, or whip out my washable pad pattern. And, I’d be rightfully labeled douche.

I face a conflict. Communing with the planet and communing where I am. This is no news. Think globally, act locally, right? I wish I had an immediate solution, but I fear that there are times when I have to chose one good over another. Ideally, just for right now, until I figure out how to do both.

Food banks get produce, foods that are drygoods, the occasional bit of deer, or donated meat. EBT cards apply to food only. Ok, some weird rules and loopholes in that one, but ingestibles. For families on the edge, personal care items, if available, are gifts from church, school, and other community groups. People really, really need this stuff. I’ve certainly gotten creative when toilet paper has seemed too steep given I was, you know, hungry.

Beggars cant be choosers, only… Even when you’re poor, either you or life circumstances make you choose. For 2 years, we didn’t have an operational washing machine here. My reusable pads, environmentally wonderful and made from found material as they were, quickly fell out of use. Naughty crunchy, but the poor bachelors who use the laundromat do not deserve to know more about the biology of this family than was already on display. Hand washing, likewise not a particularly usable option.

How could I tell a woman, working two jobs and facing pocket change in the checking account, that her life would be so much better off if she set up a sewing machine, pumped out, oh about a dozen of these pads and holders, and then made sure they all got washed? I guess it’s an issue of asking instead of telling.

For all the great intentions we may have, if we’re not asking and then responding to what people really want or need, we fail to commune or provide a service at all. I do kind of wish that were a box of organic cotton reusable whatever. If I hit a foodbank and someone handed me applicator-free unbleached fair trade tampons, I would be over the moon. Then I think of months of stretching my supplies, getting 5 bars of body soap at the foodbank, and kind of wishing someone had thrown in some tampax or something instead.

I laud whoever had the foresight to toss in that blue and green box. They really got to the heart of need and love.

Biology Plays Kerplunk

We actually got through a news story tonight about flu transmission without Da asking if I had set up his flu shot yet. I am ecstatic. Not hopeful that this means progress; he asked me why I was leaving three times today. Only on the third round, as I was dressed to leave the house, did he say, “oh, I remember, and groceries?”

I have tired of explaining repeatedly, so now, if I get to explain a different thing repeatedly, it’s a kind of joy. We’ve addressed flu shots since late November, and keeping tightness out of my voice as I say things like pneumonia, nursing home, different strains of virus, and transmission limitation, is nearly impossible.

All of it would be much easier if I gave in to the voice that impatiently screams for me to forget details, share only what I must, as close to it as possible, and leave it at that. When so much is lost, wasteful I must be to tell Da what is going on. But..

Ok, to start, I never know what will stick in the sieve of grey matter. Like Alzheimer’s patients, Da’s recall of memory somewhat increases with time from the event. Unlike them, or at least from what I hear, he somewhat has a grasp of new memories. Da can compile some data, for some time, maybe. What he remembers comes and goes.

I get hivey when I don’t think I have the whole story, and now that I am getting to know Da, he’s proving to be equally uncomfortable with surprise. When his brain functions as it does, surprises are everywhere. I cannot imagine it, honestly. I hope, by explaining things, that he’s not so adrift in an uncontrollable sea.

He also has this fear that I will be a trailblazer-encased road pizza when I’m out. Every fricken time. Be shocked, this makes my anxiety go through the roof. Thankfully, also prompted me to make a plan. Yay, plans!

I haven’t a clue if Da ever remembers there’s a plan in place. 90% certain that if I ask him about the Burma campaign, however, pretty complete recall. I also know when next he expresses fear I had met an untimely end, I will trot out a two minute explanation on contingency plans. And hope that in that moment, at least, he can be like a child and assured that he is safe, well, warm, and fed. I’m afraid I can’t ensure much more than that.

Diatribe in f minor

I don’t know if I can make this rant intelligible, but I need to purge a flurry of arguments that are elbowing everything else put of my brain. The topic: the brouhaha over the legal edict that health insurance cover birth control, just like they do other medications and medical supplies. The Roman Catholic church is the heart of the maelstrom, with some evangelical communities surely in the mix, but from my sources at least, curiously subdued on the whole thing.

In the interests of fairness and all, I am of the ex-Catholic multitude. I decided to attend my Episcopal church after a very sad-face making Sunday. It was life month. Specifically, the day on which that priest elucidated the ills of family planning while not a single person in a huge congregation would welcome a new-comer, even during the passing of the peace.

Lest I sound like I have a huuuuuge chip on my shoulder, I love so much about my Catholic journey and the impact the church has had on those around me. My priest in high school rocked. I remember several of his homilies by heart and often turn to what I think he would say on a matter. My closest spiritual peer and really, in many regards, advisor, is Catholic.

As a woman, liberal, ex-Catholic, logic-embracing(I hope) person of faith, I am pissed. And disgusted. It’s not the moral stance about birth control. Decisions a Catholic woman makes, with her doctor, priest, husband, nun she’s known since high school, or in conversations with her God, are none of my concern. Edicts from the Pope to parishioners are matters for Catholics, not an ex-Catholic. I have removed myself from that by choice.

But I can speak to the services I receive. Funny, my moral obligations to my God are mine to understand. Let’s face it. For starters, birth control for me has never had a tinge of controlling pregnancies. It was supposed to drop in and whup my other hormones into shape.

In a way, birth control, for me, was a matter of keeping me alive. There is something about pro-life on this debate, yeah? With PCO, control hormones, control weight; control weight, control insulin production, blood pressure, and on. Keeping life going. And since birth control can raise blood pressure, the lower the dose, the safer the pill. However, in our world, the lower the dose, the more recent the patent, and the less likely it is to be affordable without insurance.

Can we please all agree that not all women go on birth control so they can go out and have consequence-free sex with every guy they meet? Maybe even a woman with that motivation may have other reasons for using it. Shock, I know. I know women whose doctors have virtually ordered them to not get pregnant for a specific period of time so that they might survive the next pregnancy. Is it the place of anyone to forbid these women, who are hurting in myriad ways already, intimacy with their husbands, lest they risk pregnancy and death?

Speaking of which… I have read what I can only term threats from Catholic groups to simply close all Catholic medical providers and institutions of learning, spaces that admittedly benefit a huge number of non-Catholics.

I do wonder, if I use a group’s resources, should I not also play by their rules? Some things gnaw at my mind about that, though. Catholic hospitals have become huge medical complexes and systems. The Catholic church chose to buy out other providers and attain monopoly in a lot of marginal markets. If they close, who else is able to provide care? Do I have any right to think that is a moral imperative? Is it moral to deny care when your insurance (which covers a number of people who do not share your religion) must cover one type of medication that can perform one (to you) morally objectionable physiological function, and treats other medical conditions? If nothing else, what about men, who are in no way medically impacted by this kind of birth control to begin with?

The other issue working on me is one of religious discrimination in the debate. Some religions do not believe in any invasive procedures, others, transfusions. I’m sure there is a world of moral medical declarations out there about which I know nothing, but if they have religiously-affiliated businesses and carry health insurance, these folks are paying into a kitty that covers a range of (to them) morally objectionable medical care. Yet, I have heard no one discuss how negatively they have been impacted for years. Why are they not part of the narrative?

I haven’t a clue where the answers can be found. It’s tough work for everyone, this finding the lines separating personal religious belief and liberty, the public good, and interests of religious communities. The threats don’t help it get any clearer. It makes me feel like I’m looking at a school yard bully, the kind with whom you spent a naked toddlerhood and first terrified day of kindergarten, before you started to grow up.

Requisite Public Service Announcement (for spammers)

Folks who blog won‘t be sursprised by this, and I’m just starting to get used to it: comment fields are fodder for spam. I was shocked for 2 primary reasons.

I have something like four regular readers. I am in no way some powerful mommy, meme, coffee, or foodie blotter. Basically, I use this space to whine, clear my mind, share a little something of what’s going on in my exciting Ohio life. I haven’t tossed up photos, and feel all poofy feathered that I was able to use, and fix, hyperlinking. Professional this blog ain’t.

I also have a long habit of utterly ignoring comments sections elsewhere. Read em like a junkie getting a fix on here and over at The Garret, in the land of “people I know.” The age of listserves and message boards exposed me to enough depersonalized flame-warring to last me for a good long time. I have so checked out of comments that this thing brewed up an an organization’s facebook page, and next thing I know, people are way put out, and I’m still not sure what was said to get to this place. Prefer it that way.

So, yeah, I just didn’t think about the whole “spam in a new-to-me format” thing. First, I love that wordpress sweeps them into their own ring of interweb purgatory. Time Warner email so could learn something from their metrics. However, being terminally curious, I need to scold scammers for not even giving me a fighting chance.

I read a spam comment his morning. I have to read them all. Probably an illness, but we’re all agreed I’m not quite right, yah? It referenced a recipe, but spoke of digital photography, I think. Notice how I’d mentioned I have posted no pictures. Thanks for a highly relevant sales pitch.

To boot, there’s a bit of an Engrish issue going on. In.every.spam. Call me an imperialist pig, but I can’t understand a single sentence on these things. “Buy telephoto lens sees lion on grass.” They’re selling camera lenses? Drugged out big cats? Do lions like catnip?

A lesson for spammer scammers: if, as I assume (again, kind of confused by their pitch), you want me to hand over bits of info best kept to myself, make it relevant and half-way professional looking. As in, not full butchery of the English language. That’s my job.

Challenge me. We’ve determined I’m not the world’s savviest, so it shouldn’t take too much effort.

Aww, Speedy’s Back

A list of terms I have used to describe myself:

Magpie (Oooh, shiny shoes!)
Speedy the wonderslug
Socially incompetent
Socially inept (Yes, we call this a variation on a theme.)
Stain girl
Braindead (Please note, use of said description, as one’s mom dies of a stroke will lead to appalled looks from family members. Sorry, folks, entrenched.)
Special (Can we all admit wlthis word needs a rehab?)
In my own little universe 
Confused
Best suited for people with extreme hair conditions
Scatterbrained
Antisocial (Sit back and enjoy the absurdity of that one for a moment.)

There are so many more, and honestly, I have a deep love of labels. Bad queer, I know, but I spend an appalling amount of time pondering how all of my labels fit together to equal something a single label could never encompass. Example: redneck preppy dyke. Gah, how much I adore that.

However, there is a pack of labels running wild through my mental tundra, bursting into conversation, bypassing the part of my brain that can be bothered to think about what I spew forth. See: hospital room incident above. These labels? Pure evil. Comedically useful sometimes, but yeah, more often, using their teeth to shred my wellbeing.

This will shock and amaze, I’m sure, but I am having issues with what life looks like right now. A huge part of this is that my precious routine has been blown to all hell. Even doing something non routine, I need to have a routine around the known parts or I will freak out. The good news is that I’m doing a lot better now. The bad news is that I’m doing a lot better now. Cause it still kind of blows. And new bonus- I can no longer hand off to Mum Da and his need for routine. Yay.

For the last three days, I have been binging over at stark.raving.mad.mommy, written by a mom whose life is, well, mad. Alas, I don’t read it as a trainwreck to make my life feel better. Ok, my life feels better, however, not in a comparison way. In a program setting, the saying is,”don’t compare; identify.” And ooh boy, while I may not have 4 children and a husband, I identify. Her DNA of crap? Yeah, we must share ancestors.

Somehow, admitting I am/was depressed is no big thing. Anymore. In college, took me absolute ages to pony up to the idea. I swore, being well-steeped in lesbian culture, I would never be codependent. The fates pause from their loom to laugh because at this very time, in my hole of depression, I thought it funny, possibly cute, that Mum was 800 miles away and just as depressed as I. Haha.

See? I obviously notice things going on, but hauling out “braindead,” do not catch it all consciously enough to do anything. I traipse along, convinced I’m making the calls, executing the plays, and controlling my life. And then beat myself up when I am so not doing any of those things. Or at least, well. And it snowballs. Tell someone I will do something. Because saying no is really rude, yo. Then the flip of not showing up because . Cue guilt for failing my friends. Rinse and repeat.

Whoa has it all gotten better. Generally, I now know what I can handle, and sorry to say this, whom. The age of cell phones means I have this great thing I call phonebrain (calendar, but seriously, Da and I only regularly get our meds due to its gloriousness). If nothing else, this means I have friends, yay!, and less guilt. Enough, though, falls through the cracks.

I am sick of just blaming myself, trying to psyche myself into “being a functional adult.” Sick of flailing, fluttering, getting excited when that one gear in my mind clicks, allowing me to give a crap about some essential element of surviving as a human. More than anything, I am sick of feeling so guilty about feeling ditzy that I have no mental room over the haze to not be ditzy.

SRMM mentions that ADHD in women is most commonly diagnosed in our 30’s, and provides a hugely persuasive argument that the pressures this decade brings to our lives highlights it, compels us to try to take action. From recovery fun times, I posit, or sets up the perfect context in which to groom and perfect addictions. Pressures? Never!

I didn’t figure calling myself ADD was any reason to, y’know, mention it to a doctor or my counselor. Dude, I rocked school. Little else, but put a book in my face and I’m hooked. Hyperactivity is certainly not my gig, nor has it ever been. Turns out, I learned, in girls and women, that head-in-the-clouds thing while being a magpie is pretty typical of ADHD. This may be TMI, but my undies drawer is some prescient vault of horrors: butterflies and sparkly stuff, and not a normal pair of white cotton to be seen. I am 34.

Maybe it is only because I feel called, but I feel like relabeling some things. Possibly, my aimless career search wasn’t so much that I am a “lazy asshole,” as a mix of fate and my not having tools to get myself focused on anything other than a narrow band of passions (religion astrophysics, neurology, cooking, feminism, no others need apply). Could it be that, rather than being a bint to friends and family by flaking, I was playing prisoner to anxiety and inattention that I didn’t always control?

Granted, I’m now cueing up a new self-attack playlist, once again kicked off with “well, how the mighty have fallen,” and “she who has hubris has a hot mess.” I suck no less for shafting folks. Maybe I’m only guilt-shifting, historically speaking, but I’m beating back my inertia monster by thinking that even a micron of reduced future guilt is a pretty rockin thing.

My Destiny, Manifested, Crud

I’m a follower, and starting to feel the love for this.

I also feel wholly unAmerican by claiming my follower status. But, But… we are exceptional. Our founders were pretty sure of this. Madison, as founding father and president, impressed upon a wild new nation that we were wholly new, and made up of individuals who were destined to strike their own path, succeed against a world not handed to us automatically. De Tocqueville wrote clearly when expressing how besotted he had become swig this amazing new nation of vistas, natural resources, and a specially hewn people. No student wants to say they see themselves in the support staff- Sakajawea, Alice Toklas, Ira Gershwin.

Assuming, of course, the students hear about them in the first place.

It feels weird to say I don’t want to lead. I don’t want to float to the top, a commander of many, setter of agendas. Seems weak, somehow, especially when I live in a society seemingly fixated on our 15 minutes of fame and defending a personal power base. How else does one advocate beliefs, leanings, ideas, if one can’t set the agenda and make everyone come along?

So I pull out my most beloved, and so I am told by many politicos, very unAmerican, notion: consensus. I love it dearly. For reasons beyond even being a hippy dippy, “can’t we all get along” feminist. I am lazy and sometimes given to anxiety over discord. Moreso, I abhor waste, and nothing is more wasteful to me than discounting a chunk of a group simply because they do not agree on a particular act/ideology/threat coming down from the leader.

Ironically, of course, even though leading gives me hives, I’ve become one in this house. I tell my father what he will eat and when, change up critter food on a whim, and force the cats and dogs who want lap time with me to come over where, eek, gasp, other cats and dogs are chilling. Our house is like a company with a new CEO, and middle   management all freaked out. Worse even, I am that jerk who changed out vending machines with the “healthy options.” Still not a non-smoking campus, if you will.

It’s been rough. I have to be someone I haven’t ever been. And I have stared to think that rather than joke about being ADD, maybe I should, uh, talk to a doctor about having ADHD. Which could help me lead, I guess. Would at least make me not feel like I’m drowning in stuff that people handle. Every fricken day. I don’t think, though, it can alleviate this feeling that my leading leaves my family’s needs unmet.

Cause this house is so not run on consensus. I save money on reusable bed pads (now that we have in-home laundry), so Da got no choice on his bedding. He is ok with it, but not sure I am. I no longer say, “I may..,” I tell him, “I am going to..” Things move much more quickly this way. Boy, though, doesn’t it feel great to tell a 74 year old man, “ok, you need to take a nap now.”

A huge part of me wants to be back at what was. I had a defined role, my responsibilities, and my chickeny way out- telling myself that since I didn’t make the call, I have no responsibility over outcomes. This is totally selfish, but I love the firewall of following. Works amazingly well at smothering anxiety.

Side note: also ramps up a different kind of anxiety, but such is life, and I knew the powerless anxiety.

I can’t go back. I can screw on my head and finally get some rainbow-colored dancing bear stickers on the land yacht, but that’s as close as I can get. I must lead. I do get one opportunity to stay true to my following self- seeking consensus that much more. Yay, my life, now I have to do it within myself as well as with those in this house.

Tangled up in Goop

My friend Rachel put it best, “Trader Joe’s isn’t very practical grocery shopping.” I am not a practical shipper, either. A beeline for chocolate croissant is my only active moment in the store. Most of these of my time consists of an ambling gawp. “Somebody actually carries… What the heck do ya do with that? These people are crazy if they buy one of those, here.” Needless to say, two nights after gleefully acquiring two bags of goods from this, to me, exotic retailer, left me staring blankly into the fridge. No plan.
And while the lit box held wonders, my magpie shopping ways hadn’t obviously set me up to feed myself. Yes, every night I do internally grumble about not buying snacky foods. Which is, I guess, why I have sense enough to not buy them to begin with.  I wanted food in my belly. As quickly as possible. Lucky me, I whipped up something tasty, filling, inexpensive, and, bonus when I crunched numbers, about 300 calories. Unnamed, recipe follows:

2oz angelhair pasta, cooked
1tsp hummus (I usually have roasted garlic variety on-hand)
3tsp tziki (my one Trader Joe’s ingredient, non, actual slices of cucumber!)
2oz sliced chicken breast

Mix it, munch it.

Finds Wall, Applies Head

I’m going to join Weight Watchers next week. Oddly enough, almost a decade after I lost the first hundred or so pounds. Long after promises to myself to cut the soda, trim the beef, and end forever my foodie adoration of every possible bad-for-human-consumption delight. Many years post-declarations of attacking this spot with walking, dumbells, yoga. No one who is reading this hasn’t heard or said exactly the same.
There are the hints of overcoming it all. Cut carbs. All fat is bad. Some fats are bad. Some fats help you lose. Eggs: America’s poison! The whites digest easily and renew our cells with a protein human tissues love. Omega-3’s will save your life and mind, so keep those yolks. And most recently, yolks don’t add to our cholesterol?
Adopting an active stance on losing weight hasn’t taken hold in me for reasons universal and individual. I care about nutrition, increasingly with age, surprise, but since I was a child, cultural diet schizophrenia has been the norm. What was food biblical truth in one year turned anathema the next. My mouth and media mixed my signals. At 5, I knew that somehow, real whipped cream tasted like it was better for me than coolwhip, aka chemwhip. To watch television in my childhood, a mother should sooner present her family with rat poison than a carton of heavy whipping cream. It should be noted that at this time, the sugar in either was never mentioned. My adult self refuses to believe that much of any nutritional advice will turn out true, although I want to believe so badly. I’m American. I know of the dream of a magic pill.
All of that said, I embrace my grandmother’s mantra that it’s not what we eat, it’s how much of it. She created a family in the Depression and raised her son during the War, using ration stamps in a kitchen she loathed. Every morning, out came the microwave dish, in went the instant oatmeal, water, and instant milk. A history of making do, accepting what you have, and colon cancer run-in had her embracing the same breakfast. Every morning. Even now, I’m the eight year old, grabbing my chocolate puffed cereal. My concession to maturity: the better-tasting generic and alternating in a 2:1 ratio real, good, whole grain 2 days, choco bomb 1 day. We’ll pay no heed to my serving size differentials.
Long/short, I completely agree with Granma’s idea, but I’ve not had the temperament to understand it to that level where I really engage in how much of whatever I’m really eating. To again blame my generation’s era, see: portion size at any chain restaurant. As a child, I ate seconds. I think the difference today is that the first has so much, probably more than the old firsts and seconds. I don’t intrinsically know anymore how much goes in. As an experiment, I added up Da’s salad today: 280 calories. Not bad at all (prosciutto, walnuts, parmesan, and dressing included), but I engaged. I’m determined to make healthy food for my father. His health is my responsibility now, and I embrace it. Mostly.
I’m not so great embracing when I fix dinner. It’s the one meal we eat together. Because my appetites are involved, I’m ashamed to say that I don’t often value it as much as meals I prepare only for Da. Superficially, the kitchen is now mine. If I want to experiment with lush foods, if I were to horribly mess it all up, I no longer guiltily have another involved in my kitchen misstep/waste of money. On the deeper level, which I find to be that level at which we really change ourselves, it’s still guilt, of that psychic sort. As ever, am I worthy of putting thought into care of myself. Am I too far gone as a modern American wastoid, indulging myself as others just wish they had five things in the fridge, let alone the explosion of condiments in our door. Have I gotten too set in my ways to make change even worth attempting.
They’re written as rhetorical questions because I don’t figure I’ll ever find a single answer strong enough to conquer the defeating thoughts underneath completely. Honestly, if I could, it’d be utter disaster. The id unfettered, shudder.
But life has me at a place where all the reasons not to do this have receded. It is enough to me to say that Da needs my health to be as good as possible. Better than that, I have moments when I am utterly convinced I’m worth my health and that I can change this crappy human shell to, ok, never Miranda Kerr, but my body, something I have improved, and not just because I took one white pill three times a day. I realized that sorting the mess of mixed information is to research, research, research. Funny, it’s the same behavior that made high school and college enjoyable and the prospect of graduate-level school anticipatory. I hope that Weight Watchers will help me bring it all together. Keep my foodie inside happy, the little girl still convinced that grandmothers utter only truths, and the person that I am on any given day a little bouyed that it is all worth it.