I've moved from panic to... acceptance? Reflection? Internalizing? It is unclear, but my goal is to be gentle with myself during turbulent times. Iko continues to be supportive, hilarious & thoughtful. He's the only boy for me! I have a job, even if it is stressful. The stress is not pointless but the by product of growth and improvement and so easier to weather for that.
...

Come to think of it, everything that is stressing me out lately is not pointless but the by product of growth and improvement. Home, job, leaky brake fluid reservoir on the motorbike-- all of it is the inevitable heat of friction created by making room for bigger and better things.There are two exceptions: one, I feel guilty for not spending more time with people I love and miss, and am trying to simply be happy that things are going well with them and be our orbits will meet up again soon. The second is my mother and how to help her, which I am not ready to talk about yet.

Change is painful and weird, and necessary.

I am trying to write more frequently because I consider it a healthy part of therapy. More is better than none, let's call this success. I am between doctors and am as usual buffeted by the wind of the things I adore. Quod me nutrit me destruit, tattooed across my darling's throat. I think of her every day.

Forgot to enter for yesterday:
Baking things makes me feel better.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

I kind of forgot that food poisoning was a thing you could get. Forgot, that is, until I think I got it yesterday. This is pretty silly, considering all the food related weirdness in my life. Due to allergies and choices and whatnot the menu of what will sicken me is much longer than the happy hour tapas of what I can eat in the world. Anyway, I'm getting tired of being a slave to my tempermental digestive system. I've started an elimination diet.

First for the chopping block: wheat and sugar. And you know what delicious, life-affirming thing wheat and sugar make? That's right, booze fans: alcohol. More specifically, beer. Delicious, delicious beer. I'm sorry, sweetheart, but I'm leaving you again. It's not you, it's me. Really.

Here's the plan:
Feb 20-29: wheat, sugar & alcohol
March 1-9: soy
March 10: reasses

The other day Iko and I were toying with where we were 10 years ago, and what that younger version of us would think about where we are now. What might we say to that person if we could tell them one thing about how our lives progressed? I said 10 Years Ago Me would probably be blown away by how centered and sophisticated I'd become, if a little appalled at my apparent lack of urgency. But a homeowner! Twice! And all the singing! And motorcycles! I think I'd tell 10 Years Ago Me to keep her madness close to the heart, as she would need it more than she might ever expect to lead her to this calmness.

What would you say to 10 Years Ago You?

And just imagine: with all those changes,  think of all the things 2021 You might have to share...

Yesterday Leslie and I hosted the first "Naked Girls, Makin' Soup" clothing and soup swap at our house. It was an amazing success! We decided to go to another clothing swap that morning, which had some of the best clothes I've ever seen at a swap. We took all the unclaimed things from that swap-- bags and bags of it, my car was crammed-- to ours, plus friends brought lots of things. It made for titanic mounds of clothes, shoes, accessories, and weirdly, reference books. For a while there Leslie's place had more cool clothes than some boutique thrift stores I've seen. Luckily, Tina (and her SUV with lots of room inside for bags and bags of clothes) knows a lady that hosts clothing swaps for a living, and she took everything that was left at the end of the night away with her. Whew!

I myself hooked up with new work pants I've been wanting and some smokin' hot new pumps. Upon reflection it was a lot to do in one day. I just barely had time to zest the limes for my Cuban black bean soup and set it for the final simmer before our place was a giggling crowd of clothes and soup swappers. The soups were brilliant! Hominy soup, the aforementioned black bean, potato leek, split pea, turkey chili, and two different kinds of tom kha gai, flavored with lime leaves and great big chunks of ginger and lemongrass. I'll freeze them so they can be enjoyed all winter, and think fondly of the party that brought them to me when I break into them.

The moment when I became aware of real differences in social standing and impact happened on an ordinary day in an ordinary junior high. The class was itself was unremarkable, it could have been Intro to Psych or Humanities or something. I was probably 12. The class was talking about homeless people. Discussion was based on observation and simple judgement: teacher said, these people are homeless. Students said, they should get a job and a place to live. They don't want to work. Teacher said, perhaps they are alcoholic. Students said, well then they're worthless layabouts and freeloaders that obviously have no self control and are an irresponsible drain on society (though my peers didn't have that kind of vocabulary, but that was the gist).

Your humble narrator sat amidst this conversation of classist judgement and got angrier and angrier. Finally I burst out: but you don't understand. What if these people are your friends? What if (by now I had started to cry) they are your family? I could say nothing more, for I was sobbing at my desk in the center of the classroom. My white, middle-class Oklahoma peers stared back at me, impassive and disdainful. My pathetic attempt to explain that disadvantaged people had relationships had only further cemented my position as an outsider: not only was I a weirdo over-read know it all in tragically unfashionable clothes, but I was friends with alcoholics to boot. Alas, I did not have the vocabulary or understanding to express myself either: that their well-cared-for existence had limited their perception of others to the point that they could not have any other understanding of a situation other than their own; that they were passing judgement on people that probably made poor decisions but generations of oppression had stacked the deck hopelessly against any chance of them achieving any day-to-day life of balance or normalcy, and yet these people had to exist; that they had friends and family; that they had lived through hardships and impossible situations that would make these well-fed Okie kids pee their pants from fear.

The clarity of that day rang in me like a bell: I could not relate to the majority of people around me. I didn't understand them, they didn't understand me. I found I cared very little about what they thought of me, which made room for positive things like finding friends with whom I could share understanding and create hilarity out of everything else. To quote George Carlin, joke 'em if they can't take a fuck. It is from this crucible that my values began to solidify. I sought out peers that were capable and interesting, that took shop classes or were really good at skateboarding, or from exotic places that were different from mine, whether Spain or the local college town of Norman, OK. I started reading books with words like "society" and "paradox" in the title. I began to embrace my weirdo over-read know it all self, tragic unfashionable clothes and all. Having realized the circles of existence, and the very prominent one that I lived outside of, I decided I wanted no part of it whatever and purposefully antagonized it to push this fact even further.

So began what has become a life compelled to squash injustice, and the development of empathy by first defining barriers for it. My process of manifesting this through to where I am now-- and how I've grown more compassionate towards those both with and without privilege-- is a riotsome, terrifying, wonderful tale, but that is another story.

A few years ago at Burning Man a friend needed something out of a toolbox that wasn't his. Hey Jenna, he asked. Is this your toolbox?
Does it have a sticker on top in the middle that says, "The Dominant Narrative Sucks Ass"?, I asked him back. Yes, he said.
Then yes, I responded. That is my toolbox.

I went to college for a few semesters. I wanted to study art photography, but my school didn't have a program for that, so I studied art and photography which like a dual sport motorcycle was half good at both but did not accomplish either very well, for my purposes at least. I was bored to mischief with Art 101 that covered color-wheel concepts I learned in the fourth grade; I was impatient with the photojournalistic nature of my camera and darkroom work. For math I studied Logic and Rhetoric, which everyone called Math for Poets because it was the only math class required for art majors. One thing that really stuck from that class was the unveiling to my young mind that logic has no loyalty to reality, and upon this basis much of my critical thinking has been shaped. That, and I had a terrific crush on my study buddy, a quirky girl that could draw really well. We spent a lot of time goofing off, drawing Venn diagrams with art supplies and spent the whole course with our hands permanently stained with India Ink.

At any rate, I was really irritated that not only was I intellectually undernourished by my education but I was paying a princely sum for the privilege, Pell grants and all. The grant-making system for poor students was mystifying (hell, I work in grant-making and have for years and I'm still stymied by the by-academics, for-academics nature of it), I was completely on my own. When I think back to my feeble attempts to write letters asking for money to help pay for college, banged out on my old manual Roland typewriter and sent in hand-lettered envelopes, I have to wonder if the grant-makers laughed at my ignorance. I'd left my Father's house at 17, realized the game of school and what colleges want, so I not only finished school but signed up for every club or elective I could to up my chances, accidentally developed a support program for high schoolers that don't live at home with the faculty, all the while working to pay the rent and bills and living the ferrets-in-a-sack kind of fun life of a late teenager. Perhaps I'd peaked early just managing to get out of high school. In short, I didn't have the money for college and dropped out.

I like to think that I live by the Frank Zappa school: "If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library." Or perhaps Ray Bradbury is a good model: "I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years." I have chosen not to attend college, and instead let experience and curiosity guide me. I puzzle over my choices sometimes but stand by them. Unfortunately Frank Zappa quotes about getting laid are not really something you can put on a resume.

To be continued.

I read a lot*. I read a lot of fiction and non-fiction both. About half the time you can find me with my nose buried in a book, be it dark mysteries or University papers on the challenges of social policy reform or the battered, fluffy fantasy paperbacks I seek out when I am blue, reading like a woman possessed because I've a stack of borrowed books as big as my torso and this one was due back at the library last Wednesday. But I read a whole heck of a lot of science books. Mostly I'm drawn to development of the mind, and how minds function in a world full of other minds.

I am also an incredibly vivid dreamer, as anyone that has been reading this journal for any length of time will attest. Generally I believe that when we dream the brain is puttering around in the kitchen where soul meets body, mixing chemicals with ideas long forgotten but called forth by a fleeting glimpse of something, or washing up and putting away all the tools and ingredients we got out recently to deal with our every day lives, or just making stuff up because the rules that govern the physical world get tossed out the window and doing things that are impossible on earth are commonplace in dreams. I fly, breathe underwater, survive without protection in outer space. I have a lot of fun dreaming.

But because the brain is a processing organ full of electricity and secretions and whatnot, and sometimes cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined, the chemicals we make and the things that we feel when we are dreaming are exactly the same as they are when we are awake, and no less valid. People spend a lot of time trying to assign value to dreams, and I think this is why: because to invalidate dreams as nonsense would be to invalidate the very same thoughts and chemicals we have when we experience something in waking life. It's all beautifully, terribly tangled up in perception and imagination. I myself learned to fear spiders, though I did not fear them when I was young and haven't been traumatized in real life by spiders. My fear of spiders was born in the irrational chemical playground that exists between my ears alone, from my dreams.

And still I find myself feeling for the edges of things. I'll dream something glorious, then walk around all day thinking "what does it MEAN?!" over my own stupid private double rainbow. Perhaps all the reading and dreaming and thinking amount to the same thing: I believe in something bigger than what I can perceive, both inside and outside my own head, and though I am not interested in catching and dissecting it, I do so love to explore.


*If you want, check out my book list over at Goodreads. I love getting recommendations from smart people like you :)

Adapted from http://donteatoffthesidewalk.com/?p=129

Dough:
1 package dry yeast (about 2 1/4 teaspoons)
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup soy yogurt (plain or vanilla)
1/4 cup margarine, melted
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

Filling:
3 Tablespoons granulated sugar
3 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons candied ginger, coarsely chopped
Zest of 1 lemon (about 2 Tablespoons)
2 Tablespoons chilled margarine, cut into small pieces
1 cup toasted almonds
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Glaze:
3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Time: about 3 hours

In a large bowl (or stand mixer bowl), combine the warm water with the yeast and whisk together, let stand for 5 minutes. Add the soy yogurt, melted margarine, and sugar in with the yeast, and lightly mix. Sift in the first two and a half cups of flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface (or change stand mixer attachment to dough hook).  Use
the remaining 3/4 cup flour to flour the top of the dough and your surface a tablespoon at a time, as needed to keep the dough from getting sticky as you knead it. Knead the dough for about ten minutes, the dough will be elastic but soft and still a little sticky to the touch without being floured.

Place the dough in a large bowl coated with oil, turning to coat the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place (85°), free from drafts, for 45 minutes or until doubled in size.

(This is a great time to toast the almonds and allow them to cool.)

Punch the dough down; cover and let rest for 5 minutes.

Combine the sugar, brown sugar, flour, ginger and lemon zest in a small bowl. Cut in margarine with a fork until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add almonds, mix until just combined. Remove 2 Tablespoons of filling mix; set aside to add to glaze. Add cinnamon to filling, mix until just combined.

Preheat oven to 375°.

Roll the dough into a 12 x 10-inch rectangle on a floured surface. Sprinkle with sugar lemon almond mixture. Roll up the rectangle tightly, from the long side, pinch seam and ends to seal. Cut roll into 12 (1-inch) slices. Place the slices in a 9-inch square or round baking pan coated with cooking spray. Cover and let rise 25 minutes or until doubled in size.

Bake the rolls for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 15 minutes in pan on a wire rack.

Sift the powdered sugar into a small bowl with the reserved sugar almond filling. Add lemon juice, vanilla and almond extracts, and whisk until smooth. It should be thick, but easy to drizzle. If it’s too thick, add another 1/2 teaspoon of water.