A short blurb about nothing

I haven't blogged in 3 months. Nothing to blog about, really. I'm not in love, and I continue to watch my ovaries shed potential babies each month. Nope, nothing much has changed.

I did make up with my sister again. We're watching episodes of Sons of Anarchy on Netflix at her house. It's exciting. I daydream as I watch. I look back on times in my life where I was feeling confused, crazy, and alone. Maybe the loneliness had to do with people pushing my negative energy away. Or maybe I was keeping myself away. Self destruction is a confusing thing.

I'll never quite figure it out. I don't know if I want to. There's something safe and familiar about the fairy-tale land of denial. I can push my problems away simply by not thinking about them. It's a magical and wonderful place.

I'm Sad

I thought I had it all figured out. Smart me. I made up with my sister, got control of my weight, managed my finances with the money I earned as a nanny in NYC last winter, and began performing live music again. I've had so much fun since moving back to Tupper Lake that there were days I couldn't stop smiling.

But all that joy was sapped from me this week. How pathetic and fragile I am! I learned that my ex-boyfriend is in a relationship with someone new, and I am going crazy.  I feel like I'm dying, and I know sometimes there are old married couples where one partner dies within months of the other, due to a broken heart.

Foolish me, I'm so pitiful. I've been holding onto hope that Geoff would change, become somehow more spiritual, drink less, exercise more, eat less, and eventually desire a marriage and family thing with me. But it's not going to happen.

Men move on. They need sex, they need substitute mommies to feed them and nurture them. I'm just not that girl for Geoff. And someone else is. Ughh.

You know the saying, "It's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all," well, I say bullshit. I wish I'd never loved this Geoff. I'm so sad.

I was hoping to land a teaching job or have a hit single that would finance our future life together: traveling, dining out, and doing all those fun things we talked about doing over drinks at bars, growing up, going to college together, moving in together, blah blah blah. The memories, the fights, the laughter, lots of laughter! We'd spent ten years as muffins. I'd long envisioned what our baby muffins would look like. My mother worried I wouldn't be able to give birth naturally because Geoff's head is very big. Luckily, in 10 years of being irresponsible and experimental partners, Geoff and I never got pregnant. One of Geoff's friends once told me his sperm was "pickled" due to heavy drinking. I guess the new girl can have her go. Good luck to her.

Geoff and I had different visions of what a fun, appropriate, responsible, and healthy lifestyle looked like. We made mistakes and hurt each other. But the friendship that grew out of our breakup was beautiful. I went to live and work in NYC. We saw each other every other weekend and savored every moment together. Then I returned to Rhode Island and took up yoga and juicing, and Geoff took up comic books and card games, and we did our separate things, and I lived down the road, and we would go on bike rides as well as out for a cocktail and appetizer a couple times a week. It was like we were dating, but without any expectation of sex. This friendship lasted a year or so, then I moved back to Tupper Lake, and 6 months later Geoff moved on.

The worse part is the timing. My parents' 2 dogs (which I considered my dogs) both died this month. I don't think I've cried so much ever in my life. Lindsay was 9 years old, and her puppy Sherman was 7. Sherman mysteriously died only 3 weeks after Lindsay.

I think its good for someone like me to be dealt a little abuse once in a while. I don't pay any bills, I live with my parents, play the piano, go on walks, and work a couple very low-stress per diem jobs which I make my own hours for. When I get calls to substitute teach in the winter, I sometimes don't answer my phone. Like if I'm having a good dream, or just feel like being lazy, I ignore the call.

I'm lazy. I'm a wuss. I cried when I got blood drawn 6 years ago for my thyroid. I was tougher in high school. I donated blood a couple times then. I was humble and kind. I didn't have boyfriends, I was kind of chubby and had 80's style bangs. Yeah, I was nicer then.

I guess I need to take a piece of the pain pie once in a while. It's sad that the thought of a person can rile my insides like he has. I love you Geoff. I'm sorry I scratched your car last year when you went out for a drink with a classmate. Congrats on finishing your MBA. I do hope you live a wonderful life and find happiness. You deserve it. I'm sorry I couldn't give it to you.

Losing My Miniature Schnauzer: RIP Lindsay 6-21-13

Lindsay is my princess pie, my sweet girl, my sweetums, my precious angel, my Lindsay Loo Hoo. My baby. She will forever be these things to me.

I imagine that Lindsay's obnoxious spirit is entertaining all of doggy heaven right now. She is hopefully a bit thinner, but still prancing around with her buttocks held high in the air, as if wearing a bustle dress and proud to show off her rear end.

I enjoyed taking walks with Lindsay, despite her confusion about leashes. She seemed to think the leash was for walking me, and she would bite onto it and drag me all over. Eventually I introduced her to leash-less trail walks in the woods behind my parents' home. She loved this. One particular path led to a tiny private beach. When we approached the lake, Lindsay would lumber out into the water a little ways. She would sit when the water reached the top of her front legs and take a few laps at the water, smiling with her eyes and panting from the exhaustive quarter mile stroll. Here in the water she could relax her pudgy belly which eased the strain on her back. She would smile as she panted and take in the surrounding lakescape views. I would sit on a picnic table and do the same.

We took a hundred walks if we took one. My strongest memories of her will always be of these walks. Walks in the woods and in the water, and of her huge, round butt, and of her smiles.



I'll also remember her stinky breath. I completely tolerated it after she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. I couldn't conscientiously reject her kisses anymore. For the past 6 months, I let Lindsay slobber all over my face. I would take a deep breath, fold my lips into my mouth, and let her have at it. As I exhaled through my nose (careful not to inhale while she was licking), her excited tongue tried to wedge itself up into my nostrils and taste my breath. A few times she got deep inside my nose.

Even at 9 years old, Lindsay never quite outgrew her puppy phase, aside from physically. And although she was somewhat large and lumpy, her chubby girth was curvy and feminine. She was a beautiful dog. She carried her weight well, stepping buoyantly, and leaping gracefully about the blue room where we played with her toys. She didn't look quite like a miniature schnauzer should, given her extra curvy figure and the fact that we never had her ears clipped. I don't even believe she knew she was a miniature schnauzer. Her temperament was more like that of a pug, probably because she was rejected by her own mother and subsequently nursed and raised by a pug. Lindsay socialized with her faux-pug siblings before we bought her, and she displayed very puggish behaviors throughout her life, namely snorting as pugs do.

I'll miss Lindsay's loud barks and snorts. The house was silent tonight when I came home. It was strange. I'm not looking forward to waking up tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to anything really. This is pretty hard.

My dad dug a hole in our backyard for Lindsay. I think she took a piece of my heart down with her when we laid her to rest. I wrapped her in my large down blanket and my mother stood beside me as my dad shoveled the earth back over the white bundle, pausing to express hope that we might see her on the other side.

The dogs of my childhood and adolescence were easier to part with than her. She was my girl, my sweet sweet angel cream pie puff. She's been gone almost a day, and I already miss her like it's been years.

Running A Half Marathon For The First Time

I ran 13 miles this morning. It was my first race ever. I didn't train for it, but I was running up to 5 miles last Spring, and I went on a 2 mile jog three weeks ago.

I should have trained more seriously. And I should have warmed up and stretched before the race. I skipped the warm up part. Bad choice. Stretching cold muscles can leave them more susceptible to injury.

I saw people warming up. They were doing all sorts of things: skipping, running butt kicks, slow jogs, high knees, and gallops. I thought, How silly! They are wasting energy warming up! I'll just jog this entire race and be fine. I'll just stretch and I'll be fine.

Bad decision. I think the degree of pain I endured toward the end of the race could have been prevented or lessened if I'd warmed up properly. Maybe I shouldn't have stretched at all. It's probably better to not stretch if you haven't warmed up.

The starting gun went off at 8:00 a.m., and I took off in the middle of the pack, with a modest jogging pace, about a 5.0. Most people passed me by the end of the first mile.

At mile 4 I heard a woman say "forty eight", so I knew it was 8:48. I was running 12 minute miles. Great. I'll be done this thing in well under 3 hours. No problem.

I noticed that other runners had belts that carried various beverages. Most runners had a watch on so they could see the time. Many had iPods strapped to their arms and ear buds in their ears. I wish I'd thought of some of these things.

At mile 5 I felt really good. Mile 1 was uncomfortable, and mile 2 had a big hill. After miles 3 and 4 I believed the hardest part of the race was over. I'd probably finish this thing easy.

But then came mile 7. A severe pain crept into my hips, particularly my left hip, and also my left knee. The pain seemed to get worse with each step, each second, each breath.

Miles 9-10 were mostly off-road trails. I was all alone. My nature-enjoying moments in the woods were interrupted by fierce spasms of hip pain. I felt like I was being stabbed by a small, very sharp knife in my hip flexer bones.

At mile 9 some old ladies passed me. At this point I believed I was going to be the absolute last person finishing the half marathon race. I questioned myself. What's wrong with me? Why did I sign up for this? Why didn't I train? Will I die?

My walking pace got slower and draggier. It was like I was using my lower back and ass muscles to lift my legs, then letting them swing around the outside of my body as I took each step. I felt like a puppet on strings, or a physically handicapped person trying to walk. People sitting outside on their porches cheered me on, smiling and hollering at me as if I might appreciate it. I didn't. They probably saw the big grimace on my face and thought I was smiling. Really, I was grimacing in pain.

At mile 10 several runners lapped me as they were on their second 13 mile loop to finish a full marathon. They would complete 26 miles before I finished 13. How pathetic I look and am.

By the end of mile 10 I was back on pavement, and I tried to jog a stretch here and there, but had to quit each time after about a minute. My jogging form was non-existant at this point. I was trying to force some pep into my step but in reality, my brain was dragging my unwilling body along, and I wasn't thinking of anything except for finishing. I didn't think about my to-do list for the upcoming week, or anything funny that happened last week. I wasn't reminiscing, fantasizing, or getting introspective. My thoughts were consumed by pain and the image of a finish line a few miles away.

At mile 12 I made a valiant effort to jog so I could finish strong, but again, it was too painful, and I retreated to walking. I feared walking through the finish line, with people watching and cheering. I had to muster up some courage and take the pain head on, and just run with it.

As I turned a corner and hit the last quarter-mile or so stretch of the course, I made the decision. I gritted my teeth and ran. I didn't just jog, but I lengthened my stride and pushed deep into the pads of my feet with each step, and my hip pain exploded. It was worse than childbirth. And not just the pain in my hips. Now I could feel it everywhere! In my hamstrings, my back, my feet, my knees... And I kept running, at about a 6.0 pace or more (not a sprint by any means), but definitely my fastest race pace yet. I wanted to finish strong, and with some dignity, even if I was finishing last of the half marathoners.

As I neared the finish line, my mouth and face were horribly contorted in pain. I knew people could see the expression of pain on my face, but they seemed not to care! Maybe they thought I was smiling. A photographer took a picture of me and people everywhere were cheering and hollering. The bystanders seemed so happy, so content. But I wasn't. I wanted to rip somebody's head off.

But then I went through the finish line, at 3:03:50, and returned to my walking pace, and walked a quarter mile up the road to my parents' church and sat in the back row, catching the second half of the Sunday sermon. I probably smelled bad. But I didn't care.

After church someone asked me if I enjoyed my free massage. I didn't know about the free massage booth just beyond the finish line!  I immediately drove back to the finish line and had the masseuse work on my hip flexers, and he gave me an incredible overall rubdown. 

I didn't get any runner's high. I just got runner's pain. I experienced runner's high once, in college, when I was running more often and doing sprint intervals on a gym treadmill.

I'm too fatigued to feel happy right now. It takes energy to experience joy. But I just ate some white rice, a half avocado with lemon and Celtic salt, several spoonfuls of real maple syrup, and some fire cider. That made me feel a little better. Hopefully some endorphins kick in tomorrow.

Update: The results were posted. I didn't finish last after all. I finished 84th out of 98 half marathon runners. I averaged an unimpressive 14.02 mile. A great pace to work on beating next time.

Fasting: The Elimination Phase

Last month I weighed myself on my fattest-feeling winter day, and I weighed 132 lbs. I gained 10 lbs this winter. Blah.

Meanwhile two of my cousins completed marathons and biathlons and posted FaceBook pics of their quite epic, I must say, achievements.

I pondered my upcoming half marathon on May 19th and a 24 mile hike to Saranac Lake I intend on doing this June. Am I really ready? The extent of my winter workouts has been limited to a weekly yoga class and some nature walks. I stepped it up in March and used my treadmill at full incline 5-6 days/week. My legs were on fire and I almost threw up a few times. I noticed increased firmness in my entire body and felt great. But then I stopped doing the treadmill. I got bored of it.

Winter is such a self contemplative fog. People peek like turtles out of their shells every so often, but the town stays very quiet. The fog is clearing now, and I attended a detox workshop 2 weeks ago with my mom. I learned that the months of April and May are the most important months to do a detox. This is because so many toxins accumulate in our bodies during winter.

But seriously. Who wants to up and fast right after a season of Christmas cookies, Valentine's chocolates, and Easter candy? Not to mention all the hearty winter meals that literally keep Upstate New Yorkers warm on days that are 30 below.

That's why I am writing this blog: To introduce people to the "Elimination Phase" of a detox. This was the most important thing I learned at the detox workshop.

Anyone who wants to clean out the toxins in their body must go through an elimination phase first. This should take anywhere from 3 to 30 days, depending on your level of food addiction. Some people may choose to devote an entire season or year to elimination. For me, I needed 10 days.

During the elimination phase of a detox, you ween yourself off food in a patient, controlled, reflective way. For example, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you might give up meat. On Tuesday and Thursday you might have some meat but give up caffeine. On the weekend, you might give up wheat-based products (cereal, bread, pasta, crackers). Then on the following week, you might do the same thing, but you also give up sugar and diet soda on a few days.You continue eliminating toxic foods from your diet until you get to the point where you can give up all toxic foods for 24-72 hours in a row.

Here are 9 categories of toxic food addictions you should work into your elimination phase:

1. Gluten (wheat, barley, rye)
2. Meat
3. Dairy
4. Sugar
5. Alcohol
6. Caffeine
7. Nicotine
8. Flour
9. Soda

You can keep a chart or food journal and design the elimination phase to fit your own schedule. Maybe you can't give up coffee, but you could cut down to 1 small mug in the morning without cream or sugar. Maybe you could use almond milk and honey instead. Make substitutions, and adjust accordingly as you make progress in your elimination phase.

Learning about the elimination phase of a detox made me nervous. So right after the detox workshop, I went to McDonald's. I haven't eaten anything from McD's for probably ten years. But the anxiety I felt after leaving the detox workshop drove me to order an Oreo McFlurry with a squirt of hot fudge. I had my first real food addiction insight at that moment. I realized the scariest thing in the world for me was to give up sugar. That McFlurry was kind of a last dance with a true love who has always been there for me. I realized sugar would be the hardest thing for me to give up. Even when I did my 30 day juice fast last Fall, I got plenty of sugar. I juiced way more fruits a day than any normal person should. I drank 2-3 pints of fruit juice, 3 or 4 times a day, with very little vegetable juice worked into the fast.

I've never really had a time in my life without sugar. So this was scary.

The next 4 days after the detox workshop, and after that last dance with sugar in the form of an Oreo and fudge McFlurry, I eliminated processed sugar. I still ate fruits and juiced apples in the morning, and ate roasted veggies and veggie chips with sour cream in the afternoons when my 3:00 hunger pangs kicked in.

I was doing well. But then Thursday came.

I'd developed a severe cold (and a headache from sugar withdrawal), and felt awful. Snot was dripping down the back of my throat into my empty stomach, causing me to feel nauseous on top of everything else. I convinced myself that unhealthy food was necessary to soak up the virussey mucus entering my stomach. My mother conveniently asked me if I wanted anything from McDonald's and of course she was being sarcastic, but I said Yes, a small fry please. Before she returned with the fries, I helped myself to a bowl of Stewart's Cream and Coffee Fudge Ice Cream (thanks to my Dad for buying it even though I don't allow it in his home) and I ate a bowl of veggie chips smashed with lots of sour cream and Celtic salt, which I shoveled into my mouth with a spoon at lightning speed.

I felt better that evening, but the next day I felt so lousy for having lost my self control. So I spent the next few days sticking to tea, apple juice, roasted veggies with sour cream, and veggie chips with sour cream. It wasn't so bad. I realized last night on my 10th day of elimination that I was ready to start my fasting phase on day 11. So again, I panicked. Right before midnight last night, I wolfed down a multi-grain ciabatta sandwich roll, a couple bites of egg salad, and a thick slice of homemade banana bread with peanut butter. I woke up feeling extra sluggish and way under-motivated to start a 3 day fast. But here I am at the end of the first fasting day, feeling fine, albeit low energy.

During the fasting phase, I am supposed to drink lemon water boiled with a pinch of cayenne pepper and a tablespoon of local maple syrup. This is considered "The Master Cleanse."  Otherwise someone could do a juice fast, but I wanted to be hardcore and do the tea only, especially to limit my sugar intake more than a juice fast would.

The maple syrup I put in my lemon tea is absolutely imperative if this cleansing is effective at all. I'm so glad I learned about this. At the detox workshop, the teacher said our bodies actually start producing toxins after 16 hours without sugar. So the maple syrup in my teas gives me just enough sugar to prevent that from happening. I'll do tea again Wednesday and Thursday. And surely Friday will be a good day.

Come Friday I'll slowly reintroduce some foods back to my diet, but I'll do it in a controlled way. I'll probably stick to mostly raw vegan foods for the first couple weeks. I'll pay attention to how I feel after consuming sugar or wheat or meat or dairy, so I can really evaluate what these toxic food groups are doing to my body when I put them into my clean, detoxified belly.

I weighed 122 this morning, so my winter weight gain is gone after 10 days of elimination. Since I won't have any weight left to lose pretty soon, I'd like to focus more this summer on exercise. Diets make people feel sluggish, but exercise is supposed to make people feel great. Heightened energy levels, endorphin rushes, and physical well being. I'm excited to take it to the next level.

Winter Reflections 2013

I have been living at home with my parents for 3 months now. I haven't had sex in years. I didn't get the teaching job I interviewed for yesterday. My family's miniature schnauzers recently got diagnosed with heart murmurs and will probably die soon.

I love these dogs as if they were my own children. I love them more than fire cider, the glowing green smoothie, Skinny Bitch book, seaweed salad, banana-mango-strawberry-kiwi fruit salad, and Thai green coconut curry with tofu combined.

The locals are saying Sunmount will close in 2016, and we're going to have a lot of criminally insane and mentally retarded people let out to fend for themselves.  I heard a girl in the grocery store yesterday saying she is afraid. She's taking her four kids and basic necessities and "getting the hell out of here."

I, on the other hand, will probably spend the rest of my life in Tupper Lake. I'm comfortable here. I wouldn't mind caring for a couple adults with special needs myself. Lots of nurses live in Tupper Lake. We'll come together and find a way to take care of our community, even if it means building a large humane facility for residents to live in. The bible even speaks of having a plot of land set aside for people who are shunned from their community for doing something morally wrong. We can figure this out. Some of the convicted criminal residents would make excellent guards, and could keep order for themselves if we move them all out to a barren 20 acre plot of land somewhere and bring them supplies to build their own housing. They would probably like the responsibility and freedom.

That said, I will be purchasing a gun before Sunmount closes.

I feel bonded to the natural landscape here, the seasons, and the people. I don't really care if I never find a job. I was born with a special gift called denial. It's great. I rarely consider the consequences of my actions, and am mostly hopelessly lost in the moment-to-moment of everyday, seldom worrying or wondering what tomorrow may bring. Not ironically, I also have a poor memory. People have been offended at my forgetfulness numerous times. One time I introduced my great-aunt as my great-grandmother, forgetting my great-grandmother had died a year earlier. To boot, my great-aunt was my great grandmother's daughter, so I should have noticed the age difference. Sometimes everyone over the age of 78 looks the same. Who knows if they are 85 or 100. Really.

Anyways. I think my poor memory and inability to foresee future consequences may be related to an accident in my childhood. I was five years old and my uncle pushed me so hard on the swing that my swing went over the bar and I fell on my head from about 10 feet up. In the few years after, I was never quite right. My teachers noticed something was wrong with me but my parents ignored it.

I love my parents. I'm happy to imagine spending the next 40 years helping care for them. I don't need a lot out of this life. Just some personal growth and social interaction from time to time. And a good meal every few days. I don't have a desire to travel and see the world. I can look at pictures on the Internet and read entire books about countries, on the off-chance that I find myself remotely interested in that kind of boring literature anyhow. I'm a tourist in my own town. I won't belong to this world forever. I'm just visiting for a short time. The Adirondacks have plenty to explore. In a hundred years I will feel blessed to have experienced just a fraction of this mountain country.

I don't worry about what I haven't accomplished professionally or personally. I have very little energy invested in this materialistic world. I invest my time and money into fleeting thoughts and songs, road trips, yoga, food, and good conversation. And phone bill, college loans, and gasoline.

I don't know how some people do it all. How can a person function when she misses out on the beauty of nothingness. A quiet, boring, solitary day is a great gift! Play an instrument. Go on a walk. Write a story. Play with your dogs. Watch a movie. Bake cookies. Do a puzzle. Learn to knit. Drink tea. Say a prayer. Read a book.

Keeping up a home, taking care of kids, and working a full time job is too much. I can't fathom the stress and mindlessness with which overachievers function. People are turning into robots.

I spent the night at my sister's house last night, and this morning, as she got ready for a new job training workshop, Bethany said "I'd rather live as a starving artist than work for some asshole."  I agreed. We talked about inviting our handy-man friend Fred up to live at her house. The three of us could grow a vegetable garden, and Fred could fix Bethany's kitchen floor which is sinking. We could hike Azure Mountain which is nearby, walk along the campsites in the summer and cross the St. Regis Falls bridge, overlooking fast moving rapids and waterfalls. The water around here is loud and alive. The Amish people come out in their horses and carriages every weekend and set up tables full of zucchini bread and apple butter.  The population of my sister's town, just an hour from Tupper Lake, is about 1300. But if you drove through the main intersection of town, you'd think the population was barely 50. Lots of the others live far down dirt roads. Some of these long dirt roads don't have names. The people get their mail at the post office. I imagine these people to be unrecognized artists, nature-lovers, recluses, and druggies.  These people live in a different universe, a different time era altogether. I have yet to meet these people hiding in the woods. But I find the mystery of their lives enchanting.

My sister and I didn't speak for over a year. We had a fight last year (it was her fault) but I ended up apologizing because I missed her, and I have a reputation for holding grudges and acting cold and heartless, so I wanted to challenge myself. And I won. We spent a few days together this past week. We went to a funeral Saturday, then visited our 93 year old grandmother who lives on Lake Flower in Saranac lake. I tried to teach my Grandmother some simple yoga stretches but she finally yelled at me when I attempted to get her in a push-up (plank) position. I yelled back, "Grandma you can do this! Don't give up so easily! Do it for me! Do it for yourself!"

Grandma sat back down in her rocking chair and  rolled her eyes at me and did some kind of smacking noise with her mouth and picked up her crossword. She ignored me for the rest of my yoga demonstration and spoke with Bethany instead. Bethany took some pictures of my yoga poses and then we all took pictures together. We sat on the couch, Grandma in the middle, and we smiled.

Yesterday Bethany turned 30. There was no cake or candles or alcohol, unless you want to count a few hard apple ciders. We walked to the gas station and bought a chicken sub. On my way out, I saw a package of donut holes called "Pop-Ems!" And there was soda and candy bars and cigarettes. I got angry. This is very, very bad. All these "food" items. They're not food. They're addictive chemical concoctions. And I don't like buying the gasoline at the gas station in the first place. I am going to make friends with the Amish people in St. Regis Falls this summer. I will boldly ask them to take me to their homes and teach me everything I need to know in order to live without electricity.

And a lady from my church is taking me mushrooming this summer, too. I'm running a half marathon in May. And I've been walking on my treadmill 4-6 days/week at full incline for 20 minutes. Biggest Loser Finale is next Monday night. Woo hoo!

Anyways. The reason I brought up the Amish people after writing about the gas station, is I realized I want to ride a horse and give up my car. I will ask the Amish people to teach me how to take care of a horse and train it to be used for transportation. I'm not kidding. Maybe I'll babysit and do home school for their kids in return for use of a horse a few days a week. I hope the horse can walk 100 miles so I can visit everybody I want to see. I wonder how I'll clean up horse poop in town. Maybe the rain will wash it away. This will require some further thought.

A local woodsman named Ross Friend talked to me after church one Sunday about a friend of his who built a tee-pee. I want to meet this friend (not Ross Friend), but Ross Friend's friend, and ask him to help me build one in my parent's back yard. And my dad said he'd help me build a mini ecosystem greenhouse this Spring if I gather the information for supplies and assembly.

I babysit a boy who hunts squirrels and other small rodents very successfully. He once caught a squirrel barehanded after throwing a rock that stunted the squirrel. He said he cried after seeing the squirrel agonizing in pain for a moment between shock and death. This kid will definitely be on my team when the the world starts to end.

This winter I've realized the importance of hunkering down with one another. People need people. Conversations keeps our brains fresh with thoughts. We can give energy to one another. Or we can suck the energy out of someone if we are being negative. I wrote a facebook post today that said I declare today as "Be nice to everybody day". I think a lot of good would come if everyone was good for one day. The world would change. Nobody having a bad day? Means nobody taking out their bad day on someone else and giving that someone else a bad day. And the cycle continues.

Winter in Upstate NY is beautiful and bright. You need sunglasses just to look out on the fresh snowfall. Sometimes it snows for three days straight. I get a workout every time I brush snow and scrape ice off my car, sometimes five or more times a day. We're used to it. Nobody complains about it either. Ever. It's part of life here. Most people here have fireplaces. My parents have a small white ceramic wood-stove. Its warmth is soul-soothing.

Sharing a living area with other warm, breathing bodies, and cozied up on the couch with a blanket and a book, is pulchritudinous. Life doesn't get much more beautiful than this. We turn on Fox news occasionally. There's a smell of assorted veggies roasting in the oven. A dog or two sprawled out upon the cool hardwood floor, the scraping of ash from the fire and the forceful squeeze of one or two more big logs; the squeaky bathroom door, and the occasional stepping on a squeaky toy or tripping over someone's boot in the overcrowded entryway; just enough interjections to the potentially maddening stillness that takes some people down the bunny trail in winter here.

Winter can be hard on Adirondack people. I fall down the bunny trail sometimes, but God's grace is new every morning, just as the bible says. Everyday is a fresh start and a new full store of energy for the day. I do my best not to waste that energy on digesting big meals or being angry at someone. But sometimes the day is so screwed up I just throw in the towel. I become self-destructive. But I know tomorrow is a new day.

Life in Tupper Lake

It's nice being back in Tupper Lake. Lots of people I used to know in this town have moved away. Some stayed. Some new faces, too. I'm living with my parents until I find permanent work somewhere. It would be nice to afford a decent living here while working per diem jobs, but I'm not too optimistic. 

People who live here are tough and smart. Survivors to some extent, every one. There is no such thing as an easy life for any Tupper Laker. People have known hardship and simultaneously felt enough of a connection to the land and people to press on and create for themselves a life, a home, and a family.

Tupper Lake is like one big family. Perhaps a dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless. People here help one another. We are grateful for what we have, not focused on what we don't. People like to have conversations, sip on hot cocoa, bake pies, drink wine, dance, sing, pray, and make love. Of course I'm not making any love. But I suspect everyone else is.

Which reminds me. Last weekend I binged on pizza from Little Italy, a very nice restaurant uptown. I've been juicing all week to pay my penance. I don't mind it. It keeps mornings simple and feel-good. 

I'm "working" for a vacation resort in Lake Placid as an on-call sitter. I'm also on a sub call list for schools, but still have yet to get a call. I wake up at 5 a.m., weave in and out of sleep for two hours waiting for my phone to ring with a job assignment, then go back to sleep till 9:00. It's not so bad.

I've tackled the vacuuming and dusting of my parents' entire home. I found areas of dust that were several years old. It was disgusting. My mom has a powerful vacuum with lots of attachments, which I used for vacuuming walls, ceilings, lampshades, floors, heater rims, upholstery, and everything in-between, though my dad and I had to get a wood chip out of the hose at one point and it was quite the process.

My dad keeps the wood-stove burning around the clock. My mother works a home office job and sometimes travels. My dogs nap all day and get antsy for a walk in the mid-afternoon. I've been walking them down the street and letting them run freely on the snowmobile trails around here. I love it. Even when it's cold. You just have to bundle up. And if you gain weight, no one can tell, at least not during the months of November-March.

My mom walked with me tonight and fell and hurt her shoulder. She was in a lot of pain and could barely move, but I told her to try and walk it off. She did, and made it home. She was tough. But my dad is now driving her to the hospital because she can barely move her shoulder.

I've been making peanut butter cookie dough batches and cooking six warm cookies a day since I moved home ten days ago. I also made chicken vegetable soup and then added diced bacon and potatoes. It came out really well. I made so many things actually, that if I listed them, it would be obvious I have a cooking addiction. 

I'm very happy to be back, though it was good to escape for a little while. I prefer the people here to most I've met in the outside wider landscape of New England these past five years. People here are just more real. Or maybe they're just more like me. Tupper Lakers are my people. And I love the homes here. There are so many homes in Tupper Lake that have been built with hands and hearts, not by industrial-sized machines and big corporations. They were built on great spreads of land with wide roads and fresh air in-between.

Tupper Lake has very little light pollution, making for exceptional stargazing. It's just a wonderful, frankly overly well kept secret. Maybe I shouldn't be blogging about it so it remains a secret a little longer.

I hope Tupper doesn't get too much more populated. The town is a perfect community size, just big enough for anybody to know everybody through a mutual somebody. If that makes any sense.

The local economy is greatly comprised of care-giving jobs. This says a lot in and of itself about the kind of people that call Tupper Lake home. Towards the bottom of this article I show a picture of a friend of mine who is a fantastic nurse and mother of 3.

There are year-round outdoor activities in Tupper Lake. My current favorite activity is walking on snowmobile trails. I'm thankful to the snowmobilers for padding down a walkway into the woods for me. It's incredible. I've already discovered one secret house that a certain snowmobile trail goes by, set back and hidden from the main road. There are no overground power lines around it, but I did see a strange bright fluorescent light coming from some windows. I wonder if they are having seances, or does a movie star live there? Is this the ex-home of a vagabond or a rich widow who secretly murdered her husband? Is somebody hiding from the government and living off the grid, and maybe has extreme social anxiety? I don't know.

There are tight-knit groups here. Friendships are long-lasting.

You don't have to take yourself too seriously when you grow up in the wood.

You can even move here from Thailand and publish an Asian cookbook. Like my friend's mom did.

You can visit the Wild Center, a museum with penguins and stuff. Or otters. I forget. And they have butterfly hatchings every Fall and you can take your kids or senile grandparents to watch all the butterflies fly away at once. It's beautiful. And they make maple syrup there too, and give demonstrations, and free samples sometimes (just tell the maple syrup dude you know Erin Boyea) and make sure to buy a bottle to support the maple tree industry afterwards.

 You can fill up your own spring water from Lumberjack Springs (although this picture was taken from an Amish springs just outside of Tupper Lake, going towards St. Regis Falls):

There are plenty of bars that support live music, if you care to listen. And open mics, if you care to play.

You can air out your dirty laundry and your neighbors won't mind.

 This is my friend Christine, who started her own line of Adirondack Bloody Mary Tonic, sold around the country. I used to drink it before I quit drinking, and it does make the best bloody mary's ever! You can get it regular or extra spicy! It's sold at a few stores in Tupper Lake or you can find and order it online as well.

Tupper Lake is great for weddings. The country club is a beautiful venue.

Don't forget to invite me to your bridal shower first!

People are transparent and honest with one another. Families are close. Those few stragglers that don't initially fit in - often find their way in - after being shown kindness by a few Tupper Lake residents. We care for each other.  People come here to be cared for and others stay or move here to work in a care-giving capacity. There's a natural symbiotic relationship going on. Care-giving people don't profit in the way modern wall street tycoons do.  As promised, this is my friend Melissa, who is a nurse and mom of three. She amazes me. Just look at her smile! She's one of the most beautiful people I know.

We work hard for our money around these parts.

(That's actually money I made when I left Tupper Lake a couple years later and got a teaching job in Rhode Island)



'Round here something radiates. People don't drive like city morons around here, beeping like lunatics and running pedestrians off the road.

Chances are - if somebody did drive like that in Tupper Lake - they'd get gunned down.

Just kidding. Dogs can run around and children can play in back yards and even ride their bikes down the road and around town. There are a couple prisons here, but security is tight and trust me, if those inmates got out, they'd be running into the woods and making their break to Canada, which is just a hop jump skip away.  

Men can go hunting and fishing while women take care of the kids, although many women work a job and hunt and fish, too. I have a girlfriend who splits her own firewood. Her arms are stacked! It's sad that we've gotten away from that, in society in general. Tupper Lake, a six hour drive from NYC and a two hour drive from the nearest highway, is all water and woods. We're frozen in time, in a time before women had to leave their kids with a babysitter or nanny for 12 hours a day. Lots of family time is had in these parts. 

My mother stayed home with my sister and I when we were growing up, so I got some of that delicious spillover from the good old days as well. I got the taste of simplicity: a small television, curly-corded land-line phone, two-dimensional A and B and directional-button-controlled video game and cassette tapes and walkmen and dolls and physical toys and swingset and slides and sleds and snow and dirty knees and long walks to school and chores and allowance and rules and respect and naptime and imagination and Grandma's house. The past seems so distant now. But you can always go back. When you're here. You can taste it if you can remember, touch it if you can dream.

Things can get creepy and mysterious around here, too. Nature really owns this place, and we live the best we can with it. There are organizations and activity groups, several health food stores and small farms and co-ops, church communities, bar crowds, small successful businesses, and happily retired bearded mountain men (and some women). There was a saying when I moved here in 8th grade. I was told: "Tupper Lake: Where the men are men and the women are too."

There are beautiful sunsets, scary winter storms, mountain-lined horizons, snakes, bears, foxes, deer, moose, mosquitoes, black flies, rodents, skunks, frogs, fish, beavers, lakes, streams, waterfalls, and so much more. More animals than there are people, more trees than there are animals, and more oxygen than the entire state of NY can breath. It's fresh air. Robert Louis Stevenson started a movement 100 years ago, getting people from the city who had tuberculosis and other respiratory illnesses (probably caused by city air) to come vacation in the Adirondacks. The sick and dying bundled up and slept on cure cottage porches and within months (and sometimes weeks) were healed. Some returned to the city, most did not.

I'm so thankful for this place. There's a harmony here. You learn in school to separate logic from emotions, but that line dissolves when surrounded by the raw beauty and chaos of this town and the wild people who've weather it's storms amidst it.