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.

Substitute Teaching

I lost my nanny job three weeks ago and it's been pretty stressful. 

I applied for and then turned down a couple low-salary nanny job offers, then quickly filled out the substitute teacher paperwork for three public school districts. I had to fill out everything three times: W2's, I9's, 1040's, and application packets. I met various human resource ladies, as well as a police officer who did my background check. He was handsome and rolled my fingers very gently when taking my fingerprints.

I also tried to renew my teaching certificate in New York State so that I'd have the option of moving back there. But the state of NY won't renew it! They said the graduate program I took at Plattsburgh State is no longer accredited with them. I'd spent days filling out an online application, and in one of the final steps, I was required to enter my graduate program code. But it kept saying "invalid." I spent hours on hold and speaking to various people at the NYSED offices and the college, back and forth, to no avail. I will have to do my master's degree all over again if I ever want to teach at a public school in New York in the future.

On my second week of unpaid unemployment, I got a cleaning job and made $75.

This is week three. I submitted an application to work at a private school for autistic children. I really prayed hard about this job, and I really hope I get it. The school is hiring five 1-on-1 "treatment teachers" and I know one of the autistic children who resides at the center. I know his entire family actually, so they'll be a great reference.

I also substitute taught this week, for high school and middle school. I prefer the middle school. My personality doesn't mesh well with the complacent personality of most high school idiots or the hyped up personalities of elementary school energizer bunny babies. Middle school kids and I get along great. It must be the way I speak in fragmented phrases, and off-topic, incomplete thoughts. Like a weather-forecaster. I'm all over the place. They stare and absorb. It's awesome. And in the end I think they even learn something from me sometimes.

When I sub for a high school class, the kids take out their cell phones and start texting one another. They drink iced coffees and eat snacks, and usually one student takes a nap. It's rude, and insulting. And it doesn't help that teachers don't leave actual teaching plans for subs. Instead, they leave piles of worksheets to hand out. I take attendance and pass out the worksheets and sit there, telling them to keep it down, put your cell phone away, pick up the stick wad. They almost always ignore me. I'm just a sub. I don't even know their names. In ten years of subbing, I've never had a student tell me his/her real name when I decide to write them up. Other teachers have told me I'm too nice and I need to get tough. I don't know how to do it. It makes me uncomfortable.

The way that high school teachers talk, I've noticed - it's as if they wanted to become newscasters. They deliver their rehearsed lecture in a firm, smooth tone. If given the opportunity to teach high school, I think I could develop that fluid and assertive salesman-like rhetoric. But when I sub for different grades and subjects everyday, I just can't lecture spontaneously on any given topic. I can't develop professionally either.

But when I sub for middle school classes I can. I subbed for seventh grade English on Wednesday. The students and I read an essay called "Melting Pot" by Anna Quindlen, and another selection by Bill Cosby called "Was Tarzan a Three-Bandage Man?" I successfully started a group discussion about 1930's New York City and diversity. I told the kids to imagine all the races interbreeding until everyone was the same color and there was no more prejudice. But the kids were upset, and one white boy said he didn't want to be African American. A dark-skinned boy next to him covered his face. I quickly changed the subject and asked the kids what their ethnic background was. All the kids shared, one at a time. They gave percentage breakdowns that often added up to more than one hundred. One very Irish-looking kid said he was part Asian and I didn't know if he was being truthful. Then I made a comment that every culture has it's own unique foods, and this prompted a group brainstorm of everyone's favorite type of Italian pasta. We were all over the place, but ended up finishing the assignment questions and having a great time!

Middle school kids are crazy and happy for no reason. They don't know how bad life can get yet. But they feel grown up enough to want to socialize intelligently with one another. They enjoy challenges. They enjoy the activities I learned about in my graduate program years ago: Activities that the high school kids are too cool for.

I was certified to teach both high school and middle school English when I lived in New York State. But when I moved to RI five years ago, my middle school endorsement was not reciprocal but my high school ("secondary") endorsement was. So I can only teach high school English, unless a middle school wants to hire me and help me pay for the classes I need to take to get middle school certification. It's such a mess. My whole life. I just want to be normal and have a job and a baby like everyone else. And I don't even know where I'm going to live next month. I might sleep in my car and shower at the Y. Or try out the shelters. It's pathetic. But that's where a month of no paychecks has put me. I'll be blogging about homelessness pretty soon.

New apartment and sushi

Wednesday I moved into a half house share with a girl who was already living here but her housemate left. I found the place on Craigslist. The girl is really nice and made me a welcome sign on my door.

But this is just temporary, for the month of December. For the long term I'm looking at a furnished studio apartment in Ninigret Park.

I'm kind of excited about moving again next month. I'll be surrounded by hiking and biking trails, the ocean, and three large fresh water ponds. There's actually a small commune of people each renting out single rooms in what happens to be a refurbished motel, and I'm going to look at one of those rooms next week. It would be affordable, furnished, and highly therapeutic.

I'm only juicing a few mornings each week. I've been drinking the glowing green smoothie everyday for two weeks though, and that is made in the blender.

I've been seriously pigging out in the mid-afternoons and late evenings, mostly on candy and chocolate. It has been wonderful. I can maintain my weight-loss when I drink the glowing green smoothie all day in place of breakfast and lunch. I can afford a mid-afternoon snack and pig out for dinner (within reason). My mental energy is high, and I feel good all day when I'm avoiding crap food in general. I also bought a pro-biotic supplement at the health food store, to help digest my evening pig-out meals.

Some sad news. My weekly evening cravings for tofu green curry have disappeared completely. That dish and I go way back to '07. I am sad to see it go, but also relieved.

I have a new weekly craving in its place however:

Now I crave seaweed salad and sushi. I particularly like cramming a giant wad of wasabi into the center of a piece of sushi, then layering it with several pieces of ginger, and finally soaking the sushi in a bowl full of low sodium soy sauce for a minute. I use chopsticks. Words can't describe the explosion of sensations inside my mouth and mind and body when I chew down into the roll. I get the same face sweat action as with the green curry at the Thai restaurant, but at a Japanese Hibachi bar instead. I also love huge pieces of raw fish inside my mouth. Maybe in a past lifetime I was a wicket horny lesbian. The texture and flavor of raw fish to me is just wildly orgasmic. The thought of it makes me moist. My mouth that is. And my twat. It turns me into a little bunny.

I got a check for $477.53 from Geico from a scratch someone put on my car. It was awesome! I was praying about coming up with a security deposit for my next apartment, and then this check came. I wasn't even going to make the claim. But the person who hit my car did the right thing anyways and reported it. If you're out there, person who hit my car, thank you, and I'm sorry. I heart you.

I meant to write a blog on forgiveness this week, but having seen every episode of Oprah while growing up, and watching TedX talks on YouTube about forgiveness all this week, and reflecting on the Bible - I still don't know the first thing about forgiveness. All I arrived at in my searching, was that I have to do it because God says so. God probably thinks I could use a lesson in obedience and submissiveness anyway. I also figured out that I have to decide to forgive every morning I wake up. And I've been doing that successfully most of this week. At least when I die I can tell God in good conscience, I tried to forgive.

God also knows that I live in a nice little place called denial 90% of the time, which is probably why my life is the way it is, but I escaped into the great big world of reality recently. I want to blame the juice fast for this, but fasting is just a tool to remove the blinders. Blatant sober reality without any perks or fixes completely bares a person's soul to themselves. It's just so painful and ugly and meaningless, in the Sylvia Plath sense. I've shared some of that darkness with the world as opposed to letting my light shine. So naturally the vicious cycle continues, and I concur that I'm a horrible person, and thus do more horrible things, unless I snap out of it, and remember God loves me in spite of my sins, and took action to forgive me, so maybe I should forgive myself as well.

There. That said, I really enjoyed having hard ciders and nachos with my new housemate and her friends last night. One of my own friends came over with additional snacks, and just those couple hours of good food and conversation, with the distraction of the television, and some alcohol to boot, really swept me away from the robotic undertakings of the day. I mean, a person needs to live! Not just stay alive, but live and be happy. I'm going to fall short of my ideals for myself everyday, so I may as well get used to it now. I'm 31 years old. I'm never going to have a perfect day. Everyday I'll catch myself indulging in something I shouldn't be indulging in, or saying something I shouldn't be saying, or buying something I shouldn't be buying, or thinking something I shouldn't be thinking. I have to be okay with that. Maybe in acknowledging my own need for self-forgiveness, I can grow in my capacity to forgive others.

Facebook

I like when people have exciting news, and positive and uplifting insights to share on Facebook. I am uplifted myself after reading these comments.

I especially like all the nature photographs people share, and wish there were more in my daily scrolls down the feed.

I also like taking embarrassing pictures of my dad when he sleeps and posting them, since he refuses to learn how to use technology. He's a pretty good sport about it though, as long as I don't get his belly in the picture.

One particular FB friend shared some dreamy elephant pictures once. I love elephants. These pictures were so beautiful. I became fixated on one image for a long time, maybe ten or fifteen minutes, when I first saw it, just in awe of - maybe - I don't know, having had a glimpse of heaven. I'd love to go on an African safari someday and see elephants in the wild. I could watch them lumber around all day.

I read the book of Matthew today in the Message version of the bible. The Message is very plain and direct sounding, and I felt guilty of pretty much everything, but one verse shot out and got me right in the heart:

Matthew 6:25-26:

If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in the stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.

I also felt deeply convicted by Matthew 7:1-5, but it's too humbling to share those verses here. That's not what this blog is about. But it makes a good segue.

I feel that Facebook should be more of a prayer community and less of a gossip chain. I want to send positive vibes to people when I see them share about a struggle. I also have to admit, I want to see people struggle once in a while. Some Facebook users rarely, if ever, post anything. Well is your life perfect or is something too terrible to share happening? I don't know!

Even if you feel you have nothing particularly significant to say, say just that. "Nothing particularly significant to share today." If you don't want to say anything at all, share a song or a picture. You're on the computer killing time anyhow. Why not?

Some FB users are just the opposite. They clog up the news feed, albeit with many interesting things, but I don't have time to read it all and still catch up with my other friends' pics, video shares, funny jokes, good news, and life concerns. If Facebook put me in charge of the next design, I'd probably create a function that allows users to set a weekly/daily limit of post shares from each friend. I mean some people have like a thousand friends. Realistically, if we believe everybody is equally important in the big scheme of things, why make a habit of burying one guy's comment with five or ten of our own?  That may have been the only comment some user posted all day or all week. Certain friends I'd like to hear from more, end up sharing less, I believe, because when they notice others clogging up the feed, they know they're tiny concern or cute joke will probably just get buried, and they think, nah, it's not that important. Well, for what it's worth, it was important to me.

I'm going to try and post on FB just once or twice a day, three or four days per week. I think that's acceptable. And I vow to prayerfully consider all the struggles my friends share, and to celebrate with my friends in spirit when they share good news. Isn't it fun to share good news? Knowing others take part in your joy? Isn't that just awesome? Facebook has such potential. We could maybe even use Facebook to elect an Independent presidential candidate next election. Jesse Ventura maybe? I'd even vote for a kid if he ran. I digress.