This Is How I Feel About the Pierce 2008 Cabernet

A conversation between me and my friend about two years ago when I moved from San Diego to Monterey:

Her (after tearfully hugging me goodbye): When I first met you, I couldn't stand you. You are such a weirdo. You were so superficial and silly and too opinionated about things you didn't know anything about. [This last one could be very successfully argued]

Me: I know you didn't like me.

Her: But I love you now. You've really grown and changed over the past two years.

Me: Do you think that maybe you've grown and changed a bit too?

Her: No. It's just you. I'm exactly the same.

Hungry for Change

A group of friends and I decided that the week of May 7-11 (Monday-Friday) we would eat on $2/day in solidarity with hungry of world. We had heard about it from Trade as One's Hungry for Change which sells packets that help you with your challenge. The packets cost $25 and have enough beans, rice, and oatmeal that mimic the caloric intake of someone who was eating at $2/day. That $25 dollars goes to supplying a farmer in an impoverished area with enough beans to grow and sustain him and his family for a year. Further, at the end of the five days, Trade as One encouraged use to calculate exactly how much we would have spent on food this week and to donate it to an organization that helps the poor of the world.

Later, I found out that this week is also Live Below the Line's $1.50/day (USD) global fast for the world hungry. How exciting it is to think of all those out there who are also (albeit unwittingly) together with me during this time. Live Below the Line nicely has a place where you can raise money in support for your fast as well as direct links to where the money raised goes. They don't have a proscriptive diet (which I actually like better but for others could be super hard), so you are left pretty much on your own to define the rules and ways you will eat on $1.50/day. One couple scavenges from the neighborhood. Another person gets free samples from various stores. People are definitely being creative. And most are limiting themselves to a very set diet with staples that are used around the world because they are filling and inexpensive if not perfectly nutritious.

Further, in my obsession about what I was not eating, I stumbled upon a North County San Diego couple, Kerri Leonard and Christopher Greenslate, who, way back in September 2008, decided to live on $1/day for the entire month of September in order to build awareness of world hunger. Since then, they've published a book and seem to be strong advocates of eating well and also providing out of our richness for those who don't have the ability to eat well.

I love these ideas (and still do). I could totally regale you with my own personal limited-food drama (lack of variety is the hardest thing for me) or how we need to act concretely to ensure that no children starve, that no families suffer hardship and malnutrition; however, all that's being done way way better on those other sites.

My thoughts during this week (besides the obvious) focused more on how this fast was marketed (and yes, I am using that term intentionally) to us. It was promoted as a fulfilling and exciting experience that would be fun, and baring all that, "at least you'll lose some weight." Yes, I suppose that at the end of this week, I will feel fulfilled in that I will be tangibly giving something to others. Yes, I suppose that at the end of the week, I felt a sense of success that I finished something that was difficult. Sort of like finishing a marathon or something, I guess. And yes, I suppose that at the end of the week, I lost some weight (not from the eating so much as the complete lack of alcohol these five days). And I was be stoked to be more svelte--however short-lived that was. But is that why I did this?

Is it about me? What I get out of this?
Or is it about the hungry of the world?
Is it about dying to myself?

Why can't we just do this fast solely because we are doing it for others? What happened to just doing something because it is hard and we need the mindful discipline?

We are a culture of mindless ease. We are inundated constantly with a paradigm that tells us to adamantly seek our personal comfort. We eat out because that is easier than making dinner. We choose the shortest line in the checkout and don't let the old lady behind us go first. We hire people to watch our kids so that we can pursue what is more interesting to us. We pay someone to clean our house. We stream movies instantly wherever we are. We have phones that will post to Twitter for us.

I am not against babysitter or housekeepers or eating out or Twitter. In fact, I love all those things. However, in the midst of all my food "deprivation" that week, I thought about all the times I say, "I gave myself permission to" do something. As if I lead this austere and deprived life of great discipline and that permission is my only treat.

When I say that magic phrase to people, they nod sagely as in "you are so self-sacrificing normally. You work really really hard. It is good for you to indulge." But really I give myself permission to indulge so many time a week, it is no longer an indulgent activity. I could have given myself permission to end this fast. I could have still donated the money and told people that I was just not able to be a good parent or friend or wife or something because I was so calorie deprived (I won't tell them that I chose to drink my calories in the form of wine). And people would nod sagely, telling me that I did the right thing that relationships matter more than an esoteric fast.

And they are right.
Except then it's back to being about me.

We aren't good at dying to ourselves.
I am not good at dying to myself.

If everything lived up to the hype about how awesome and fulfilling an experience it will be for us, then this world would be amazing and a much better place. If life were easier, there'd be fewer of us in therapy. If living a true and considerate and loving life didn't require dying to self, there'd be more successful marriages, friendships with greater longevity, more breastfed babies.

But dying to self isn't easy. And no amount of promotional hype will trick you into feeling it is because eventually there's that long night when it is really hard and you are all alone and sweating blood and all you want to do is just give yourself permission.

What then? Do you think, "This is so fulfilling and exciting. And I bet I've lost some weight"?
Probably not.

I think that if more people were honest about how hard things can be with little to no reward, we wouldn't feel so desperate and convinced that it just doesn't work for us because everyone else is fulfilled, excited, and skinny. I think that we would have more people completing hard things that actually change the world.

Part of dying to self is getting to the courage to say "I don't want to die to self": I don't like my kid most days, I don't want to be married anymore, or I don't really care about hungry people I don't know or see, I want a big mac. With that honesty, you may be received with scorn and appalled stares. Or you may be greeted with recognition and love in someone else's eyes and they say, "Oh me too." That's when real dialog starts. That's when we do get the benefits. That's when we can operate as a community to take our focus off our individual selves and put it on others. That's when we stop giving ourselves permission and simply do. That's when we realize that living a life of hard truth does entail suffering. But it's also when we know it's worth it because in dying to self, you get to live for others.

Seeing Miracles

The other day was one of those rare rare almost-summer days when the sun actually shone, the constant sea wind calmed down, and it was warm enough to not be in long pants and a sweater. So, of course, we went to the beach. While there the quintessential family, mom-dad-little boy-little girl, arrived. It was obvious by the careful way the boy placed his feet and the squeals of delight the little girl breathlessly released when sand filled the holes in her crocs that these children had never been to the beach before.


They took their shoes off and wriggled their hips to work their feet into the warm sand while Mom discussed with Dad where exactly they should lay their blanket (the beach was fairly deserted). "Should we moved closer to the water or is this fine?" She asked; it was clear this decision was important to her. She weighted the pros and cons of being closer to the water that seemed as if she were talking to him but were really her talking to herself. Eventually, Dad shrugged his hoodie-covered shoulders and dropped the motley of brightly-painted buckets with the CVS tags still on them. That seemed to settle it, and Mom turned to the kids. "Now we're going to make a sand castle," She chirped in that high-pitched kid voice that some parents use. "First, we need to put sunscreen on." Mom pulled out a newly-purchased bottle of spray-on sunscreen and attempted to take the label off. She picked at it with her fingers, pulling, until, frustrated with the impossible packaging, began gnawing on it with her teeth, impatiently brushing the strands of brown hair that had escaped from her ponytail away from her mouth. A few bites into it to no avail, she examined the packaging again, "Oh, you just twist this. There's no plastic seal." She declared triumphantly as she eased each of her sensible sneakers off, her white legs flashing in the sun. First she sprayed her legs and wrists (she too was wearing a hoodie) and then sprayed a bit in her hand to wipe over her face. The whole time, the kids hadn't stopped marveling at the shifting capability of the sand and were still moving their feet back and forth and back and forth, making excited high-pitched huffing sounds.


Mom applied sunscreen to the kids while Dad took pictures (he didn't take his sensible sneakers off). Then, "To make a sand castle, we need to get the sand wet," chirp chirp chirp, unmindful of the ten or so other wild, sand-covered, half-naked children nearby who were happily digging a hole and exposing the water table only six inches below the dry sand. Mom's excitement bordered on the frantic. You could tell she really really wanted this to be THE beach experience. The one that they would put in the photo album and show all the people back home, "Yes, we did this. Here we are at the beach. That is the Pacific. We build a castle." She pulled the kids from marveling at the miracle of sand and gave them each a bucket. "Follow me," she gaily called and crab-ran over the loose terrain towards the water. The kids followed for a bit, each wallowing in the unfamiliar shifting ground. As a larger wave crashed on the beach, the little girl gave up and turned back to Dad who was still happily photographing away.


Mom and son fought the wash, so intent on their getting non-silty water in their buckets that they missed the thousand upon thousands sand crabs that scuttle just in the break and the dolphin pod that was moving in and out of the breaking waves. They struggled back across the sand with their buckets, dumping them so close to the towels and shoes that a few got wet. "Here, here," Mom called, pulling even smaller buckets and cups out of a bag, "Let's make a tower." She packed sand in one cup, turning it over quickly. Her release was too slow or the sand wasn't wet enough, so the tower collapsed as soon as she pulled the cup away. The kids didn't mind. They were engrossed in the contrast between the damp sand and the dry. "I'll get more water," Mom cried, desperately shaping this experience into what she thought a beach day should look like as Dad continued snapping and twenty pelicans flew overhead.


This family made me remember that I need to be intentional about seeing. That times I can get so focused on what I think an experience or place should be like that I completely miss the point.


I miss the actual miracle of that place. I can miss things because I am so familiar with them. I find that being from California, I take the beach completely for granted. Both my parents are from SoCal beach towns and made going to the beach a priority since I was very young even though we lived in the Sierras, and since I was 16-years-old, I've never lived in a town that didn't have a coast. While there is an elemental part of me that responds to and knows I need to be near that magic cusp of sand and surf--of silence and susurrate sounds--still I don't really think too much about what a miracle it is to be here. To have the blessing of living on the edge of a continent.


I can also miss out on the new experiences because I already have the photo album laid out in my head and know exactly what pictures I need to take to record this experience. I am so focused on what I think something should be that I miss the miracle of what is.


I forget to bury my feet in the warm sand and instead am rushing, pail in hand, to the wash oblivious to the dolphins surfing through the waves.

Crossing the Road

Today, about twenty minutes into my stupid far run, I passed a crow pecking on the head of a baby bird.

At first I thought the bird was dead, but when the crow flew away at my approach, I saw the little one weakly move a wing. My heart was so sad for how much pain it was in, so I looked around for a rock or a heavy stick to smash its skull so that it wouldn't feel any pain. I couldn't find anything and I didn't have the willpower to kill it with my bare hands, so I kept running.

It didn't occur to me until I finished my run two hours later that I could have maybe rescued the bird. Stopped my run, picked it up, taken it somewhere where someone could have attempted to heal it.

When I ran past the place where I saw the bird, only a tiny bloody leg remained.

Train of Thought

There will be a longer post about the following, but I figured who doesn't love lists.

Things I think about when I am running:

Is is possible to drown in your own snot while running?

Why am I so slow?

That house has stupid outdoor space.

Why is that person so much faster?

I hate her (because it is always a woman who is faster. I am a sexist runner and am not bothered by fast men).

I hope she trips and horribly scrapes her knees so that she can't wear a dress for months.

How can my body hurt so much?

I love this song!

Why do my legs hate me?

Oh my gosh, I can't wait to drink beer.

Oh, look, there's that fast bitch again. I hope she gets pregnant and fat.

That house has stupid outdoor space too.

Does anyone in Monterey care about their outdoor space?

The bay is so pretty.

Oh shit, I just tripped on a stone because I was so busy looking at the bay. Stupid water.

Why do I jiggle so much?

How many more miles do I have to run before I burn enough calories to eat truffle fries?

Am I lost (the answer is usually yes)?

Can I stop yet?

Looking at this list, I see that I am a very negative runner (more accurately: yogger). No wonder for me running is not cheaper than therapy. In fact, it makes me go to more therapy. It also makes me want to key the cars of people with the stickers that read "Running: Cheaper than Therapy" or "26.2."

Screw you and your love for running.

How many times is that fast bitch going to lap me?

[Disclaimer: There will most likely be a lot of running posts in the coming months since, regrettably, that is what I am spending most of my time doing (besides drinking, but it's not P.C. to avidly post about drinking). Tolerate me.]

Two Things

I found two things of note today. One is that I am, in fact, a mom. The other, that I have a ridiculous number of hand-me-down jeans that have or quickly develop holes in the crotch. I will address each in turn.

First, after almost a decade of doing this whole mothering thing, realizing that I am a mom came as no great shock to me. What was a bit surprising was what kind of mom I can be. You see, I pride myself in that I am the anti-mom of moms who still actually cares for and nurtures her child (as opposed to the anti-moms who inspire books like Mommie Dearest). I am the mom who keeps a notebook of my "mommy fails" and delightedly relates them to people at cocktail parties. I am the mom who takes my kid to cocktail parties and art museums and wine tastings and the opera. I am the mom who throws her kid a kegger for his first birthday and stuffs his pinata with brussel sprouts on his eight. I am the mom takes her kid mud puddle splashing in the middle of a freezing rain storm and then "hot tubs" in the bathtub with beverages (of which I insist he calls his "kinderbeer"). I am the mom who rarely does play dates because I don't easily make mommy friends, so my son spends most of his free time with adults (he begs to go to school so that he can be with other kids). But I am also the mom who makes sure my son goes to bed at 8pm pretty much every night. I am the mom who packs cut carrots and "I love you" notes in his lunch box. I am the mom who reads to my son every day. I am the mom who takes him camping and hiking and biking. I am the mom who makes him bathe and brush his teeth. I am the mom who makes sure that when we hot tub in the bathtub, we wear bathing suits because no son needs to remember what his mom looks like naked. I am the mom who has taken him to horrific and germy kid birthday parties because other kids' moms seem to think those kind of parties are fun (hoof and mouth disease, anyone?). I am the mom who has sat up all night with him when he has been sick and struggled with him to learn a particularly hard spelling word. I am the mom who has left her dinner at restaurants because he was done for the night. I am the mom who has gotten him a bounce house for the last four of his birthdays.

These moms apparently war within me. The one who wants to just treat him like a little midget friend (I mean, who doesn't love a midget?) and the other who knows that she needs to let him be a kid. While he did come into my world and I don't have to be suddenly all Thomas the Train and Super Mario Brothers, I do need to respect that he is a little growing human who has interests and needs that are developmentally appropriate (though if he doesn't stop talking about Pokemon soon, I swear . . . ). It's not about sacrificing my person hood for his but about recognizing that I have chosen a pretty big responsibility and that I can chose to either help set him up to be a pretty interesting and functioning adult (albeit with some therapy bills) or a pretty annoying and fucked up individual. I hope and work for the former, but sometimes there are days like today where I think, "Holy shit, what have I become?"

Today, I got a call from a mom of a kid in my son's class. She was panicked and asked if I could watch her kid today (To quote, "I am reaching out to you, hoping . . . " How do you turn that down?). I don't know the mom at all, but I've interacted with the kid a few times, and he seemed pretty chill and my son really likes him. So, I told her to bring the boy over (side note: where my son is a petite little guy, this boy is a giant. They would literally be standing on opposite ends of the line if they organized their class by height). Suddenly, I morphed into June Cleaver. It was raining, so the boys played video games downstairs. I blithely trotted down with fresh-popped popcorn and napkins so they wouldn't get the controllers greasy. I served them beverages (kinderbeers). I made sandwiches with sliced cucumbers and the crusts cut off for lunch and for dinner I made them homemade fried chicken with steamed broccoli. I wore an apron. I mean, who does that? I don't even like chicken (it is a filthy animal) and I've never made fried chicken before in my life. What's next? Another child? Am I about to become a breeder? I can only hope that the beer I drank before noon counters these new developments.

The second is less remarkable really and sort of fits into the whole June Cleaver channelling I was doing. I do indeed have a large number of hand-me-down jeans with awkward holes. What's even weirder is that my jeans don't come from a single source. Every hand-me-down jean I have from every different person (well, except the ones from my 25-inch waisted friend since I can't even get my big toe into those) has these holes. How are they coming into being? I have never encountered this problem before in my own pants. Is it the quality of jeans these days? Is it the fact we are now women and our thighs rub together at a certain place, creating friction wearing? I don't know. But I love used jeans. Hand-me-down jeans are really the best jeans you can ever get (seriously, nothing destroys an already fragile self-image faster than jeans shopping . . .how you can look even more out of shape and pasty with pants on than you do naked, I do not understand). What can I do? I can't just throw them away; they are so amazing. So today, I didn't. As part of my homemaker sickness, I pulled out my sewing machine and darned the crotch on all the jeans I have. I threaded bobbins, used reinforcing materials, and stitched my way into whole jeans. It was an act of renewal second only to childbirth. 

Granted these jeans do have multicolored darns in my nether areas; however, I think June Cleaver would still be proud of me. And if, after a few early beers, she wore jeans and would let you look at her lady-parts area, you might have seen a darn or two there as well.

That Was Fun. Let's Never Do It Again

About three years ago, I ran my first marathon. I finished it. I didn't walk (that much). And most importantly, I felt good enough after it that I was able to walk, eat, and drink and enjoy the fact that I was in one of my favorite cities (I even ran a few miles the next day). Still, I knew that this marathon was going to my first and last. I couldn't understand why a person would repeatedly expose herself to such painful conditions (and these are not specific to super slow runners like me: I spoke to a friend who consistently does marathons and he admitted that even he experiences the moment of utter pain and death at some point in the marathon). There were plenty of painful things I could do in my life that would make me a stronger person that I didn't have to overtly pay for  on the internet (e.g. raising a child). And while most of these things didn't come with a kicky tee-shirt, I could alway just order one off Zazzle from The Bloggess or even better, buy a beautiful dress or muscle leggings to commemorate the non-marathon rite of passage of my choice.  So I had checked my marathon box. Been there, done that. Halfs for me from now on. I could put that annoying 26.2 sticker on my car, talk knowingly about distance training, etc . . .  

Unfortunately, I didn't fully shut and lock that door on my life. I distinctly remember telling people that I would NEVER run another marathon UNLESS it was somewhere cool and out of the country. My bad. I should have just stopped at the NEVER clause. Because for worse or worse, my lovely friend in Australia managed to get me drunk from half a world away and convince me to sign up for a marathon in Helsinki, Finland. Yes, it is definitely out of the country. And yes, it is also definitely cool--in the very literal sense. She covered both contingencies. And bought me muscle leggings to help me feel strong. 

So, apparently, I am running another marathon. And since I don't want to prolong my pain, my goals have shifted from "just finishing" to "finishing as fast as I can" (hey, there is valuable eating, walking, and drinking to do in Finland in addition to awesome death metal concerts that I must get to quickly). So I am now fully training to cut at least 30 minutes and ideally an hour off my last marathon time. Since the last marathon was super slow (5:34:??), that goal isn't too difficult. But it does require that I run more than I want to and drink less than I want to and just implement more all around discipline than I like in my life. 

At least I have muscle leggings.