the harvest

*deep breath*... this winter has been a long one, in many respects reaching back further than the calendar would have you believe. The ground has lain dormant with a harsh and barren exterior. Underneath the surface however the seeds have been germinating, and the roots taking hold; reaching slowly and tenaciously deep into the earth. slowly (painfully so) those seeds have pushed up green shoots of hope through the bleak soil, revealing the growth that had been manifesting through this long winter. eventually trees have formed, matured, leafed out, and flowered; offering hope by showing signs of the fruit to come. tentatively i have watched and waited, working the ground when necessary, staving off unwelcome infestations that sought to undermine the trees health and growth. some days, or months, i felt this tree would never grow into anything; others i was sure it was destined for greatness. today, i can simply smile a peaceful smile knowing that the universe has offered me a time of harvest. the apples have come. they formed, ripened, and are glistening in the sun. they are happy apples, i can tell. they hang there from their tree as if polished and prideful, knowing that they were nothing more than an idea, or a hope, before this long winter. so now i will sit with my bucket of freshly picked apples, and examine each one; relishing in the deep color, sweet taste, and the years of labor it took to form this one simple beautiful harvest.

secret society

marriage, it's a sort of secret society between partners. no one really knows what goes on in a marriage except for the two people who are in it, and yet i am continually amazed at the judgement that gets passed by people outside of that marriage. i've been curious about, and observing, this for a long time now, on some level maybe for my whole life.

i grew up in a family that looked the part. we were a caucasian, all bio, hetero, blue collar-turned white collar, moving to the suburbs, one boy child/one girl child (that i knew of at the time), version of the american dream; held together by the marriage of high-school sweethearts. all seemed calm on the surface, and there were many family photos and vacations to document our happiness. meanwhile, the undertow was pulling each of us with growing urgency in other directions. directions away from our assigned spots in the family. i was always that one saying, "ummm, hey guys, do you feel that undertow? it's pulling us apart?" to which my parents and bro would promptly and uniformly reply, "what undertow? you are such a troublemaker!" until finally one day the undertow became too strong for even the most diligent believer in the farce to resist (my mom started schtooping the dentist). yeah, that'll knock you on your ass for sure!

when all of this drama began unfolding, refolding, and unfolding again, i remember looking around at the shock on the faces of my parents, bro, and everyone who knew our family. their shock shocked me. how could they not have seen this coming? it's like watching a passenger train barrel ahead towards a brick wall and then being shocked when it crashes into that wall.

i learned from a lifetime of living in a family system like this that no one really knows what is going on behind closed doors, what i also learned is that the ones who end up judging the marriages and families of others so harshly are really only projecting their own issues, fears, and insecurities. they see something of themselves in that train wreck and it scares the bejesus out of them, so they become defensive, irrational, and mean. i saw it with my family of origin and how we were individually and collectively judged as less than. i have also felt it intimately when my partner and i have struggled in our own marriage. it's difficult to realize in the times of greatest struggle that some of the people you thought you could trust, thought were on the side of your families highest good, will actually project their stuff onto you and make a hard time even harder.

when my parents divorced it was difficult on a lot of levels. there is so much loss when a family splits a part. not only the loss of that family unit and loss of the marriage, but also the loss of community. loss of a social network. loss of family gatherings and holiday traditions. i watched as my parents were both judged, and isolated, and i saw it turn them into worse versions of themselves. it magnified their insecurities and amplified their neurosis. it's been about 15 years now, and i have seen myself and my dad recover and heal in many ways. my mom and my brother however are the walking wounded. this difference further divides an already broken family unit. it seems especially sad and unnecessary. i wonder if it would have been any different if our family would have ben embraced by supportive family or friends when things began to unravel? given my particular families history, i tend to think i probably wouldn't have. like i said, we were broken before we broke. but that doesn't mean that other families going through difficult times (hopefully on a much smaller scale!) couldn't benefit from kindness and support, as well as reserved judgments. you may hear a story told by someone struggling in their marriage as one example of what their going through, this in no way gives you an accurate snapshot of that marriage. every couple is different. what may not work for some, is easily brushed away as no big deal by others. a value held in the highest esteem in one marriage, may not even be a blip on the radar of another. and here's the kicker: every single marriage goes through ups and downs. it's unavoidable. even when you love each other like crazy, and work your asses off to create and maintain the most authentic, honest, and caring partnership possible. expecting yourself to be immune to marital strife is tantamount to setting yourself up for it. judging others when they are struggling is a simple and clear sign that there is much work to be done in your own marriage (or if you're single, your view of marriage).

so keep your eyes on your own paper and next time you feel the urge to pass judgment on someone's private life just pause for a moment and consider what that says about your own.

fyi

I HAVE A SITEMETER ON MY BLOG!

**(it helps me stay motivated to write when i know people are reading, for those of you who just like my blog).**

to those few of you who don't care for me, have made that painfully clear recently, AND continue checking my blog OFTEN... having a sitemeter means that i know you are visiting my blog. [MORE than i do by the way...sad]. so this is my fyi for the, you-know-who-you-are's (and so do i). i am aware that i am not for everyone (duh!), and clearly your particular opinions of me are very low. that's fine, but please have some dignity, and follow through on your pompous, indignant, uninformed judgments of me by avoiding me altogether (ie- get off my blog bitches!)

...or don't, and open yourselves to blog fodder of immense proportions (and don't say you weren't warned).

No Impact Man: a review

i just finished watching the documentary, "no impact man". it's the story of one man, a writer in nyc, that takes his family on an exploratory year of trying to live without impact on the environment. the short version of my review would be," it was good". i am me however, so i have a little more to say about it.

i would start with the title, clearly thought up by man with his black and white brain, as "no" impact is not an actual possibility. that aside, i like the premise of exploring ways that ordinary people (and they are) can reduce their environmental impact on the world. the thought that individual action is meaningful in some way in the face of humongous world issues is something i believe very strongly in.

some of the things that drew me to watch this film are that his wife agreed to go along on this journey (with their young daughter) despite being a self professed "high fructose corn syrup and reality television addict" who works for a major national magazine. also, i like the fact that the man behind the philosophy does not have a long scientific history with environmental impact issues. he is a guy who had an idea and ran with it. because of this humanity his experiment was an evolutionary one, and a deeply flawed one; which in my view makes it more accessible to the masses, and thus more powerful. his contention is that by making these changes, and attempts at changes, he would inspire others to look for ways they could do the same in their lives, they in turn would inspire the people in their world to make some different choices, and so on and so on.

one of my favorite lines from the film was when he said (i'm paraphrasing), "i think idealism is one of the most powerful political acts". he was met with a lot of skepticism via his blog (which tracked his families journey), and it caused him to wonder a lot about why people were so afraid or opposed to believe in someone trying to make positive changes. i have to agree, i mean we are all pretty much on the same page these days that the environment is seriously f-ed up, and doing things to have less of an impact is a good thing (hello, massively simplified statement). it took us a long time to get to the place where there was mainstream acknowledgement of environmental issues, now is the time to open ourselves up to the ideas of others so that we can start to look at turning this pony around and having a positive impact (as opposed to "no" impact) on the world around us. we can learn from each other to find what works, and what doesn't, to reduce our negative individual impacts. another piece of good news is that what works for me, doesn't have to be the same for you. for me riding my bike everywhere and not having a car isn't something that would work well at this stage of my life, but maybe it would work very well for someone who lived in a different place or had a different lifestyle. well, that's great. i can contribute by not eating meat, recycling, composting, and eating locally. if we all did just a few things that we feel inspired to do it truly would have a big impact.

so while i don't think it's realistic for everyone to go whole hog (pun intended) trying not to have any impact on the environment, i do think exploring the vast array of ways in which we do make impacts is a good conversation to have because let's face it, simply recycling isn't going to cut it anymore. at it's core i think that was what "no impact man" was trying to convey. i also think that if you get past the black and white falsehood in the title, which i think makes it sound like a documentary that is only going to make it's audience feel inadequate and defensive, that it's message is a good one, and surprisingly it is very accessible to the masses. overall, i recommend. let me know what you think if you've seen it!

muke-ASS

so i've gotten a lot of positive feedback on the whole becoming vegan thing, and the support is much appreciated! i'm about 2 1/2 weeks or so in (i've had small amounts of dairy 2x...why do i feel a need to confess that?) and the detox process has gotten pretty intense. intensely mucusy that is. holy phelm batgirl! it's more than phelm at this point, it's upper respiratory gunk and it sucks. is this what smokers go through? how do they live with it? i don't feel sick, i just have an intense keep-me-up-at-night cough... a cheesers cough if you will. oh i've been a cheeser for years, i'm tough like that. A blue, creamy, sharp, hard, soft, processed, unpasteurized, cow, sheep, goat, raw, domestic, international, any way i can get it, milk lovin' cheeser! (whew...that nearly became climactic!) yeah, i love cheese. a lot. more than you, i guarantee it. yet, now i don't miss it. this essential building block of my own personal nutritional pyramid, and general life philosophy, is gone and i'm totally ok with it (so far). every time i have thought for a second about putting some cheese on something or in something (ie: my mouth) all i see is a mommy cow who is tied up and being forcibly kept pregnant so she will continue to produce milk, a mommy who as soon as she delivers her babies has them stolen from her. baby girls sent to become dairy cows themselves, and the baby boys have their legs bound so they can't walk and are fattened a bit before being slaughtered for veal. every time. i'm a very visual reader, a whore for the word picture, a victim of my own imagination; sometimes it serves me well and sometimes it kicks me in the ass, this time it's doing both. something clicked in my head and i am no longer able to separate my love for cheese from these torturous acts. but i digress... (that should seriously be the name of my blog:)

back to a more pleasant topic, my mucus. being me means i'm hardwired to ask questions, so my question is where has all of this gelatinous goo been hiding in my body? Because it seems to be excreting from every pore, and it's freakin' gross. has it been lining my lungs, clogging my liver, coagulating in my colon, all this time without me knowing it? my skin is broken out, i'm hacking like a smoker of 35 years, and, well... *ahem* other things are happening too. d-i-sgusting .

what i'm told is that all of this should shake out (jarred by my relentless hacking no doubt) and i will feel like a rockstar in no time. or just a little time at least. in the meantime, i am acquainting myself (and my family) with new foods and recipes. this is the fun part. you will all be happy to know that i have mastered the vegan chocolate peanut butter cup, which leads me to wonder...will i be the only fat vegan on the face of the planet? perhaps i will. time will tell i suppose. i've also met some fabulous new grains, my favorite of which is savory mochi. look into it. one of the perks of veganism is the thoughtfulness with every bite i put into my body. it's a nice way to relate to food, and the world around me. my kids and i (who are still just as enthused about being vegetarians) have been doing a bit of reading about food and it's environmental impact, and i have to say that i had no idea the depth and severity of impact that my dinner was having on the earth. maybe i knew abstractly, but i never really knew, for example, that if every American eliminated just ONE serving of meat from their weekly diet it would be the equivalent of taking 5 million cars off the road. JUST ONE! while veganism, or even vegetarianism, may not be for you, one meal a week would be pretty doable! that fascinates me.

as my canine children finish up the last of their high priced dry meaty food this week they will become vegetarian too. it seemed weird to me that we would make this change for animal rights and health reasons, and not do the same for our pets...i'll post in the coming weeks about how they are coping/responding to the changes. one last thing for today, and it's a biggie... leather shoes and purses. *deep breath* the shoes are right up there with cheese for me so this is going to be a tough one. i figure i get to keep all of the ones i already have b/c... well the harm has already been done. as far as what comes next, i'm guessing a lot of scenarios that involve me weeping on the sidewalk in front of shoe stores. one thing at a time...

distillation

i love to cook, and for a home chef i am quite good (if i do say so myself:). one of my favorite methods to play with is the reduction. from a simple balsamic reduction of vinegar into a dark, sweet, and savory drizzle of magic; or the use of a wine or spirit to deglaze and reduce adding flavor and intensity to a dish in it's early stages. it seems, however, that as i age this concept creeps into my relationships as well. i am the vinegar. full bodied and flavorful with many uses, place me in a pot and simmer me on low until i reach my mid 30's, and i become something refined and discerning. lacking confidence in my youth i was willing to be used in a variety of dishes and ways; however i am now confident in my rich and dense attributes; and no longer will accept being dumped in mass quantity on anything in front of me.

in my adolescence and twenties it was about quantity, quality being a mere pleasant surprise. this was true of friends, food, hell - life in general! over the years i have sought my education through self analysis and experimentation. slowly but surely i have learned what my tastes truly are. i have learned a lot, and continue to do so. for instance i would prefer to drizzle my edible masterpieces with a small amount of thick, succulent, balsamic reduction; than to dress a large plate with a thin and unsatisfying cheap vinegar. similarly i would also rather savor the goodness of a small, high quality, network of friends than drown my schedule in a sea of semi-friends (definition- semi-friend: someone who may offer quantity, but not quality in respect to your relationship. aka-cheap vinegar:). despite knowing this i seem to be in the stage of life where every now and again i must test my theory and dowse my dinner in the old dressing of my 20's, thinking it will hold the same delights it did back then. always i am left feeling unsatisfied, until finally i say ENOUGH! enough dinners that are either lackluster or ruined altogether. enough mediocrity. enough.

the sex factor

so i'm watching :the biggest loser" and it's at-home week for them. i find myself wondering...who got laid? several of the contestants seem visibly *lighter*, and more laid (pun intended) back. so i'm curious, can we see the results of this sexual quandary on the scale? if we can, what will those results be? will the recently satiated contestants prevail and triumph over the scale, or will the continued sexually frustrated channel their efforts into big weight loss... it's interesting. because i am a wonderer i take it a step further and wonder about the newly laid, versus the old-married- laid folks as well. does the guy or girl who has been married several years and sees their spouse after an absence get the same euphoric results as the not-so-fat guy/girl who just got newly laid by a fan turned partner? how much does that new romance factor, factor? in other words, we've secretly replaced darius' sexless existence with repeated romps in the hay...let's see what happens.