Esoteric Lucubrations

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Guest at Mythcon
It seems I may be a special guest at the upcoming Mythcon in Connecticut which is really cool. That honor was almost not in the cards, as I misunderstood an e-mail asking me many months ago (I thought it was just asking casually if I'd present a paper) & then my paper proposal e-mail was lost in April. I just e-mailed to ask why I hadn't heard about the paper and found everything out, almost but not quite too late. I'm being inconvenient, which I regret & have apologized for, but would still love the participation and the honor. I have only six published pieces on Williams (and one on C. S. Lewis), but that makes me a more-than-minor Williams scholar, sadly enough.

Also, after not exercising for two days--for good reasons, overwork and a desperately sore neck--I did tread tonight for 16 minutes. I'd been up to 25, but with a small symphony of physical complaints, 16 seemed not bad. Tomorrow. Every day.

Mood: physically sore, gratified & happy overall

Weird Spiritual Term
Thanks everyone for comments about my report of my rebirthday experience in 1981. If people want to check back and continue discussion, I'd enjoy that. I'm grateful for all comments, including the ones to which I didn't reply because I couldn't figure out how to just blush & grin widely online.

I'm trying to write here regularly, and that entry reminds me of a term in my spiritual and practical lexicon: King Felix Culpa, or fortunate f*ckup.

King Felix is the happy or rightful king, a Christ figure in P. K. Dick's Valis, which this icon is in honor of. I've always liked Felix the Cat (the black & white cartoons were on TV when I was very young), and I love to think of G-d or Christ as a clever, happy cartoon cat with an endless bag of tricks to defeat bad things and help us out.

As you know, Bob, the Felix Culpa is the fortunate Fall: the idea that as it brought Jesus as a redeemer, the Fall in Eden was to that extent a good thing.

The King Felix Culpa, or fortunate f*ckup, is when you make a mistake (usually a ditzy error rather than a considered choice) and it turns out much better than what you'd planned. Often in my life, though not definitionally, coincidence is involved.

A few years after my rebirthday, very tired after a Lunacon, I went to the washroom in an airport. As I tried to exit, I pulled open the wrong door: instead of the door to leave, I opened a closet. Just then, someone in a stall called out that the roll of toilet paper was out--did anyone see any? I looked up, and the entire closet was full of new rolls of toilet paper. "Yes," I said, a little stunned; I handed one into the stall, closed the closet door, found the real door, and left.

King Felix Culpas, however, cannot be counted on. I told this story to eldersib, and she said, "I did that once. A bunch of girl scouts laughed at me."

So true. It's much like the Holy Man and the Shithead in Illuminatus!. I have a button made by Nancy Lebovitz that says, "Sometimes the girls scouts laugh at you, but sometimes you find the toilet paper."

Mood: chatty over early coffee

Please Allow Me to Complain
On the positive side, we may finally have our yard retaining wall fixed, after a year or two of being jilted by engineers, being turned down by the city, and a delay even at each successful stage. Today the engineer, the construction/landscaper guy, and the city inspector convened. That's good. Some things were surprises since the last time I talked to the engineer, all annoying or even upsetting:

1) The entire side wall may need to be replaced, rather than part of it. Since part of it costs about $20,000, you can imagine that I am not eager for the new estimate. We maybe could do it the other way, which the city has actually approved, but it would look ugly and maybe be vulnerable at the join.

2) The 3' is not how far back they have to dig, but the depth of the wall at its base. Legally, for the safety of the men, they have to dig 5' to 6' back. Basically, all the landscaping I've done on that hill over the years has to be transplanted or gets crushed.

3) Because of 2), our decades-old, lovely, over-two-stories-tall magnolia and arbor-vita trees may actually die, due to root damage. I have some hopes: the person leading the construction is also a landscaper, great with plants, and almost an old friend; he says they'll prepare the trees with transplant chemicals beforehand and try to keep major roots intact. Also, since it's a matter of shock rather than actually falling over, maybe even if there is damage, only part will die. But. Yipes. At least they can ball the azalea and replant it afterwards. And of course, all this is more money.

I repeat twenty times: I love owning a home. I love having a yard. I love gardening. I love owning a home. I love owning a home.

Mood: feelin' adult

Quizzical
from

epi_lj--I selected from fifty questions

2, Name one person that made you smile today?

supergee, cuddling me when he woke me up & telling me witty bits he'd posted on LJ.

3, What were you doing at 8 am this morning?
Reading comments to my latest LJ entry, then going back to sleep.

5, What is your favorite chocolate bar?
Lindt 85% chocolate. It's extreme!

9, What was the last thing you had to drink?
Coffee and more coffee, low-acid from Trader Joe's.

10, What was the last thing you had to eat?
I am right now eating "brekkie," a mixture of cottage cheese & blueberries with ground flax seed, Splenda, and cinnamon. My healthiest meal of the day, and it tastes much better than it looks.

18, Do you go to church every Sunday?
That's not even a goal right now, but I'd like to go a bit more often than I do, especially on Pentecost & maybe more on Holy Week before Easter.

20, Do you like Chinese food over pizza?
I aree with

epi_lj that this wording inspires jokes--but, yes. It's better for me and has more variety. The academy often buys pizza for lunch, and I have a slice with my fresh grape tomatoes as a side.

21. Do you drink your soda with a straw?
Unless I need a straw (lying down sick, lips sore) the only beverage I drink with a straw is iced coffee, but that doesn't seem right without it.

23, What are you doing tomorrow?
Working at the academy, treadmilling. If I'm lucky and have time, beginning a novel by Ramsey Campbell that

womzilla brought home from Readercon.

24. Have you ever had a threesome?
TEH BEST! Not that individual sex is less than wonderful, but-- I know threesomes feel weird to some, but I have always taken to them naturally, like I'm in my element. We call it Reindeer Games, as in, "You are welcome to join in our reindeer games." The only time it felt weird was when I was making love to Supergee but just having recreational sex with the other guy.

25, Look to your left, what do you see?
A cool nightlight thingie with stars and an anthropormophic moon that youngersib gave me, various hardware, a plastic figure of Eduardo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and a small statue of a cow at a computer, all on my main computer drive thing.

31, Who's the last person you talked to on the phone?
The woman who is currently being paid to pull weeds for me. No, the mother of a student I'm tutoring, because I'd become a bit lost and needed help.

33, How many states have you lived in?
Illinois, North Carolina, New York; college in Indiana.

37. Do you have a maid to clean your house?
We do plan to get someone in as paid help, but I'd feel weird calling him or her a maid.

39, Are you jealous of anyone?
No one entirely; specific aspects, like

fjm's book production.

40, Is anyone jealous of you?
I hope not. I try to be admirable, if anything, but not envied.

44, Do you hate anyone right now?
No, I'm happy to say, especially since I am long past working for Sphincter Boy.

Mood: chatty over morning coffee, ready for work

My Rebirthday Experience
A number of times in LJ, I've mentioned my religious/initiatory experience on April 1, leading me to call that day my rebirthday; I've even come close to writing about it at least once. Now seems like a good time, despite the fact that I can't remember if it was in 1980 or 1981.

I was in my early 20s and in graduate school. I had to finish two incomplete courses by a certain date or flunk; eventually the anxiety of not doing it overcame the anxiety of writing, very close to the deadline for four papers. Looking back, I realized that an academic set of all-nighters has many of the characteristics of sitting for a vision: little and then no sleep, little food, stimulation with caffeine and tobacco. Right before or during this, I got a copy of

supergee's amateur press association, The Golden Apa, with discussion of heightened consciousness, kinds of meditation, etc.

My last paper was about Sir Thomas Browne's "Hydriotaphia" and "The Garden of Cyrus," partly concerning how he uses the theta and the chi or X and quincunx (five points arranged as on dice), for death and life respectively, and combines them in a globe: two intersecting circles are seen as the theta from the side, the chi from above. (Frank L. Huntley figured this out based on an otherwise inscrutable passage in the latter work.)

Life, death, the globe. This is cool enough, but as I walked from my apartment to the library--through Duke gardens--I realized I could use that as a meditative technique, identifying chis and thetas (or at least circles), seeing that truth throughout nature as Browne traces the quincunx in "The Garden of Cyrus."

As I dropped off the final paper, right on the final day, awash with relief, weird things began to happen. Instead of the professor's door, suddenly I saw something more geometric, maybe the Platonic form of door. When I began typing up stencils for a Golden Apa zine, I fell into a playful, Joycean semi-gibberish and couldn't get out of it. It didn't bother me, though; I was too tired, too happy, not afraid. I typed out the famous end of "The Garden of Cyrus" ("To keep our eyes open longer were but to act our Antipodes. The Huntsmen are up in America, and they are already past their first sleep in Persia.") and was sure I'd go to sleep.

Instead, I had visions--at least starting out identical to hypnogogic visions--for 3 1/2 hours real time. At first a globe appeared, just meridians of gold against black. That was my guide, in a sense. I can't narrate everything that followed, but it was amazingly eclectic, in five stages. At one point I met Coyote; in the fourth, I felt my Kundalini rise, go out my head, and come back in, bringing something new & good with it. The only bad part was in the middle, a black and red encounter with some angry hunger, like the sow that eats its young.

The fifth stage was Heaven. At first I was also aware of myself, as in the other parts or stages. I knew it was Christian, and when I saw rabbits, I thought, "That's good. Rabbits are a good symbol. Sheep would've been cliche." Then, there was a chorus. And then I joined it. And then there wasn't any me but the chorus, the song, G-d.

For a long time, I would have done anything to recreate that experience. With time and with good advice, I realized that isn't the point. Kenneth Rexroth, on the spiritual alchemy of Thomas Vaughan, mentions "apostles of irresponsible do-it-yourself ecstasy," and says, "The great trouble with these people is that they confuse transcendence with sensationalism." That's a vital distinction. On the other hand, I suspect that what I experienced might be one thing that happens after death, in which case I am A-OK with it.

The envoi was the globe reappearing, and then morphing into a face made by the shining gold lines, like a basic computer graphic; I identified it with Hermes. As it withdrew, the face faded away until only a mouth was left. The mouth spoke a word, which I could not hear, but which I knew was, like whatever the kundalini brought in, a gift of the experience. In this case, the word was my purpose, what the rest of my life would accomplish. And then blackness, and the vision was over.

Later I recognized the Cheshire cat as well as Hermes. And I love the fact that the experience was on April 1.

One immediate effect was that I looked at the ashtrays full of cigarette butts and thought, "Drawing hot smoke into one's lungs and releasing it. What an odd concept." I haven't smoked since. Now, I was an occasional smoker, but a chain-smoker when I did smoke, and that had been getting more often. I really wanted to smoke only once after that, when studying for my Ph.D. comprehensives, and I knew once I took it up I might never stop, so I didn't start.

And the whole world was just wonderful. The next day, I saw a friend, and when he said "How are you?" I said, "Perfect!" The next day, he said, "Are you still perfect?" and I replied, "Yes, but now I've decided everyone else is perfect, too."

In fact, while I'm still a bit proud about the whole thing, I've also come to realize that maybe I was just so stubborn that no other method could reach me, and it was less that I'm a saint and more that I'm the mule that you hit with a 2x4 to get its attention.

I also emerged convinced not only that there is a G-d, but that I had experienced a meeting of sorts. But being an agnostic seemed more socially acceptable. I only half jokingly wailed to a friend, "Only weak, stupid people believe in God!" And he said the perfect thing: "As weak as Martin Luther, as stupid as Augustine...."

And then there's the question of craziness, which I grappled with for a while. Among other things, Philip K. Dick's experiences convinced me that one can be both crazy and undergoing a genuinely spiritual experience; I learned that it also makes sense to share certain experiences mainly with people who won't stigmatize them, who have productive ways to frame them. In a way, writing this up shows my extreme confidence now. I'm happy to answer any questions.

I began to read voraciously and spent years getting my basic bearings around the experience. Magic, religion, consciousness studies, synchronicity, more. As the years went on, my voracious interest shifted gradually from the issue of what exactly I experienced to the issue of, given what I experienced, how I should be living. I learned to pray--not just talking to G-d, but listening, not the strong point of a Catholic upbringing. I came to understand the benefit of a community, and sometimes I go to church, but in many ways I still prefer art, such as the words of Charles Williams, Thomas Traherne, William Blake, Sir Thomas Browne, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. I generally feel that I was lucky to have just enough religious training to understand religious art, but not enough to spoil the whole topic for me.

My sense of G-d is sometimes quite strong, sometimes not so. To me, faith is not believing with no evidence, but believing even when I don't feel G-d, knowing that it's temporary and I will again. I see no particular reason why anyone should believe in G-d on anyone else's say-so, though mocking believers or the concept just because of one's own lack of experience seems to me to be quite rude.

Mood: reflective, exposed, interested to see responses

Confession
I actively enjoy leaving the refrigerator door open while I pour milk, spoon some food out of a container, or otherwise use something I will be putting right back.

Most of the time I prefer to be eco-friendly, with a sense of accomplishment rather than resentment. When I'm not, usually I've made a conscious decision, as when I keep lights turned on all over the house during winter because I need light to avoid seasonal affective disorder. Even then, I don't enjoy it, just benefit from it.

But I do get a small charge out of not having to close and re-open the refrigerator.

Mood: confessional, amused

Family Lexicon
The guys are at Readercon; I wish I could be there, but I must work. By temperament, I don't like being alone, but this time seems not so horrible. The rats are getting even more attention from me.

Many of the families I know, with kids or not, have many terms of their own, sometimes coming from funny incidents. For a while, I've thought about sharing some of our family language & asking you guys if you feel like sharing yours.

1. "thank the pig": This is our euphemism for masturbation.

Not that we particularly feel masturbation needs a euphemism, but this one seems weird yet friendly & appropriate. It comes from a very odd scene in Babe: Pig in the City, in which a queue of animals each almost ritually takes some food, is told "Thanks the pig!" and says to Babe, "Thank you, pig."

womzilla and I, who saw the film, were just captivated by the phrase & figured all along it had to have some place in our life.

2. "Did you buy Beowulfs?": Or just a reference to wanting beowulfs, chocolate beowulfs, any mention of beowulfs as food.

This comes from my birth family. During one diet, all of us wrote up, on a page on the refrigerator door, what we ate and its caloric content. My oldest sister, who could copy my mother's handwriting almost perfectly, wrote in my mother's column, "1 beowulf 500 calories." My mother (very mentally sharp then!) actually wondered what a beowulf was, when she'd eaten it, and why she'd given in to something with so many calories.

Now,

supergee buys the grocery, and we always keep a pad of grocery lists up, each of us writing what we need or run out of. Perhaps it was the coincidence of writing up food on a list on a refrigerator door, but one day I wrote "2 beowulfs," spreading the joke to a new household. Alas, the supermarket never has beowulfs. They are always out. Can you believe it? Even sugar-free beowulfs, chocolate beowulfs--any kind! Even when one of us had heard it was beowulf season, or that beowulfs were on sale!

3. "make an offering" or "an offering to the gods": In full, "make an offering to the garbage gods," that is putting the garbage out in the can or the cans by the curb.

supergee says he started this as a complaint, actually, because the gods--capricious as so many gods are--do, alas, sometimes reject our offering, and sometimes it is indeed a big relief if the gods find our offering right & good. I just thought it was fun, a way to make an everyday task sound a little more glamorous or important.

What terms have you guys developed, and what are the stories behind them?

HEALTH: I'm past the "OMG physical movement!" euphoria for now, and it's best to just treat treading as something I have to do every day, which it is. However, my fasting bg is coming down for the first time since I stabilized with the Januvia added (c. 140 down to c. 120), which is really cool. I'm up to 20 minutes on good days, 15 minutes on less enthusiastic days such as yesterday.

Mood: sociable over morning coffee

Interesting Dreams
As I've been exercising, I've been having a number of fat-acceptance dreams. That's not new: two that stand out over the years are lecturing my childhood pediatrician about hunger rebound and setpoint; and discussing fat acceptance to a group of teenagers in a course I was teaching, some of them anorexics.

However, the dreams never have been this frequent. Last night I had two (two in one night is new): that someone actually took a doughnut out of my hand, as I was watching a play, because I was fat; and that we three were in a new house and met our sizist new neighbors. In the former, I made clear to the person (who was a nurse) that apart from health issues, there are issues of human dignity, and she'd never have just taken food from any non-fat, competent adult; in the latter, we sometimes joked ("He's still overweight" "You can tell we don't care much about 'overweight' around here!"), but when the parents called the heavier younger son a name ("Girdle"--only a fat insult in a dream, but I am old enough to have worn one) I argued earnestly. The father said that other people, such as classmates, taunted the kid, and I said that just made family taunts worse.

I think these dreams, as I am exercising as well as watching what I eat, to control my diabetes, are a very good thing.

I've heard that it takes about as long to undo a bad habit of mind, or injured way of looking at an issue or the world, as you lived that way. Well, for around 25 years, I believed that being fat is somehow bad--not that it has certain disadvantages, but that it is bad, and that what I'm doing now is mainly useful in order not to be fat. Then for several years I actively, even aggressively, worked past that, and since then I've consciously believed and tried to live knowing that idea is wrong, even evil. (I do not use the word lightly, but what do you call something that causes so much suffering to so many, can be used as a stick to hit someone with by any person who wants to hurt, and has been shown not to help in the way it might be intended to?)

The idea did occur to me this past week: so, about 25 years, then about 25 years--Could I finally be able to have equanimity on the issue, make practical decisions for my own good without either rebelling against or disregarding good advice (but advice given in the worst way for the worst reasons) or giving in to sizist ideas? Oh my good Lord, would that be great!

The fat-acceptance dreams may be a sign I'm not to that equanimity yet, but I really think they're good, a way of saying to myself that I have not given in to the bad WHY just because I believe (& I do completely believe and have for decades) the scientific WHAT of exercise and nutrition being good--for diabetes in particular, but for everyone, really, and not as a cure for the socially stigmatized condition of being "overweight."

Maybe eventually I'll be able to admit that I watch what I eat & exercise without feeling I have to explain that it's to control diabetes. Dare I hope that maybe, eventually, I'll live in a world in which, if I don't mention the diabetes, people still won't assume that I feel I'm too fat & that I'm doing it just to lose weight?

Mood: feisty yet contemplative; actually starting to like treading to Peter Gabriel videos

Could It Be This Good?
For a while, I've felt that I have a great job at the academy, if only I knew how make it so the rest of life wrapped around it, that there was room in there somehow. And that I had much of the rest of what I need, and I could have it all, if only I knew how, what choices to make.

It's the nature of the job to want me to work more than I want to work. A friend is right that for a freelancer life is either feast or famine, but since I've gotten well known at the academy, there are no big periods of under-work to compensate for the over-work. I do push back some, but I like the money, a lot.

And I like the work even more, most of the time. I did feel weird when I began the summer, different and raw after vacation, and all new students so I was saying the same thing over and over, over and over. Now it's more individual & much more fun. I continue to discover things to teach, about how to teach; SAT prep is a weird field, but I am doing the job of a professor, both teaching and exploring the topic in new ways.

Then there is the diabetes. It took a while to realize it wasn't under control any longer, a while to get well medicated, overlapping with a while to get back into good eating habits, and now I'm on to exercise. The increased energy helps me weave in social time, housecleaning, even more sex.

The huge amount of work I did in the basement during vacation makes treadmilling more pleasant, more serene. I'm lucky to have my own treadmill; I'm lucky the VCR was invented; I'm lucky I share the world with Peter Gabriel's genius.

Yesterday I posted on craigslist for paid help weeding, and I had eighteen eager responses overnight. I pick up one, a landscaper settling for a lower fee for a lot of work now, at the subway as soon as he calls. I loved looking at a great yard that was entirely my work, but that seems a small thing to give up; once I put them in, the plants do most of the work, whoever cares for them, anyway!

Still, I'm restless and somehow not quite there, but it all seems so good.

Mood: reflective

Coincidence
Reading poems from Anne Sexton's The Awful Rowing Towards God and seeing that we just bought Tom Disch's The Word of God: Was Anne Sexton rowing towards Thomas Disch? And is that why they both committed suicide?

Mood: irreverent

Exercise, Anne Sexton
EXERCISE: Thanks so much to everyone commenting on my two recent posts!

aqueri, in the more recent, agreed supportively that dance--spontaneous movement to music--is good for a person emotionally and spiritually as well as physically. I had said that I'd stopped doing it at all because of being too out of shape, but I realized & replied to her:

It's not just strength etc.--it's almost as though I've mostly lost the whole concept of expressing myself through motion (except during sex); I do think I'm getting that back while treadmilling to a good song, feeling and enjoying the rhythm in my body, especially the solar plexus area. I actually made my neck a bit sore tossing my head to "Shock the Monkey"! If I'd almost lost this feeling, then I really do need to be doing this, not just for the diabetes. In fact, I think things like this loss are what we think of as "growing old," and here it may not be necessary at all.

This (& great comments by

porcinea) made me think that (1) I need to include more dance-type exercise as well as treadmilling, though not right away, and (2) a dance icon might be better than the exercycle one. Or both types. Fortunately, I already have dancing pigs & this dancing rodent.

ANNE SEXTON: Due to Peter Gabriel's song "Mercy Street," I've been reading some of Anne Sexton's poetry and--wow! Yeah, I'm coming to it late, but through my thirties an early forties I was much, much more familiar with 17th- and 19th-century poetry than with recent poetry. I read Plath a while ago, both poetry and biography; oddly, I then read about Sexton's life but never picked up the poems. This may be because Plath was good but did not knock my socks off. Sexton leave me with not only bare feet but also tingly toes!

Alas, even though Sexton is fascinated by the palindrome "rats live on no evil star," her symbolic use of rats is ambivalent, even as bad things. Duh--clearly NO evil star means rats are NEVER evil!

womzilla sagely observed, "When it comes to rats, many have had an education of evil."

Seriously though, the poems I have read so far are well crafted, strong, and never whiny (which I do think Plath's poetry sometimes is). Sometimes a phrase will just stop me short; and I have had to pause after reading a few poems because of their sheer power, a literary response I rarely have (though I did to All Hallows Eve, cementing my admiration of Charles Williams's novels).

Mood: relaxed & chatty but need to get ready for work

Exercise: My Friends' List is Made of Win!
Thanks so much for everyone's encouragement and--even more!--advice about exercising. Btw, I used to avoid the term "exercise," which is what fat people have to do in order to be acceptably not fat, saying "physical activity" instead, but now I'm getting used to the term "exercise."

Besides the sizist associations, I have disliked the idea of doing physical things that are pointless except for being exercise. However, yes it is, and I think I have to accept that. Also, I'm more mellow because when I was out gardening the other day, I noticed that our neighborhood is full of older people walking comfortably, presumably for health--and no dogged young fat people obviously slogging to lose weight--which I think is very cool.

I really like the idea--brought up by

machineplay and

redbird--that I don't have to do the same amount of time every day, but can have long days & short days. So I don't wimp out too much, I think I'll make the minimum on the treadmill 10 minutes, but try to vary that with longer days. This was consonant with

gramina's excellent link and the idea of going up even by single minutes (but I like being able to go "back down" a little.)

Also,

aquaeri's point about going a little more slowly is spot-on. You put the two together, and tonight I trod for 17 minutes, just a bit less fast but it made a big difference, and I don't feel obliged to match (or exceed) that next time.

Second big wonderful idea is thinking of the time not in terms of its benefit per se, but in terms of building a habit, as said by

gerisullivan,

daedala, and

esmeraldus_neo. For that reason, I've decided I really need to tread even if I'm gardening. Eventually, if I tread for 50 minutes and want to garden for two to three (my usual), I may not have that much free time some days! However, that is a ways off, so I can deal with it then.

I was inspired by

wild_patience, who started off even easier than I am and now bikes all over! On the other hand, I am not inspired to try an elliptical, at least not for a long, long while. Actually, I did a little prayer while treading yesterday, and the response is, "You really should be dancing." Right now I'm not in good enough shape, but yes, I used to often do, to inspiring music, an idiosyncratic blend of yoga, tai chi, acrobatics, and shaking my booty, and it was good for me emotionally and spiritually as well as physically. Maybe again, in the future.

Speaking of music--

dreamshark and

quility, you don't have to worry about me getting bored. One thing in favor of the treadmill is it's right in front of the TV, now with a VRC and soon to have a DVD player as well. So far I've been treading to Peter Gabriel videos, which I enjoy and find very moving. I'm hoping to talk

womzilla into downloading other nice music videos--walking to the Discovery "Boom Da Yadda" commercial, double plus yes! Also,

classics_cat, I'm more likely to injure myself on an actual street, since I tend to trip if the surface is uneven. Even surface=I can just pay attention to the TV, not to walking.

Some of you, such as

wcg, are intimidatingly in shape. I used to be--a couple-three times in my life, maybe even four or five, a long time ago now. I took extensive training in acrobatics when I was young, and that's been enough to keep me in reasonable shape or at least able to get into reasonable shape relatively easily through my early forties, but one's forties are not one's fifties, and ten years may be the longest I've gone unexercised. OK, a woman in an incredibly sedentary job cannot stay in shape by gardening & sex alone!

Mood: resigned, semi-inspired

Not-At-All-Pointless Poll: Re Exercise
As I reported last entry, I need to exercise regularly, and I'm doing something about it, as

supergee has for years and

womzilla now is. Even many of the rats run on wheels, though far from all!

Tonight I did fifteen minutes for the second time, and it got less enjoyable around ten minutes--actually, around eight minutes, but I can't see using less than five-minute increments. I did make it to fifteen minutes without any problems. However, I'm wondering if I might be more tempted to do this every day, as I need to, if I didn't have that strenuous last five minutes. Mind, my goal is 45 or fifty minutes; however, I am happy to work up to it gradually rather than overdoing. Yet is less than fifteen minutes worth doing, and/or is some tiredness necessary for more stamina?

Poll #1222348
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Given the above information, should I

View Answers

reduce my regular treadmilling to 10 minutes
13 (61.9%)

stay with 15 minutes
8 (38.1%)

Also, How long do you think I should stay with a certain time of treadmilling, before increasing it?

View Answers

one week
1 (4.5%)

two weeks
8 (36.4%)

three weeks
2 (9.1%)

until it feels comfortable the whole time
11 (50.0%)

I'm lazy but cheered: my bg was 160 before treading, 120 afterwards.

Mood: blatantly fishing for encouragement as well as real information & opinions

A Social Life!
Yesterday Lise Eisenberg--who, despite peer pressure, staunchly resists the lure of LJ--came over, and we enjoyed chatting. Even though my work schedule may be intense this summer, I'm determined to have a social life. Also, the batik and tie-die clothes I've been buying on eBay are so nifty that they've gotten me to buy items that I know may or will need adjustments or hemming (minor things I can do, hand-sewing), and I wanted Lise to keep me company and maybe pin up some items.

We want to do it again, less last-minute on my part (I called her the night before) & getting started earlier in the day on her part (poor

womzilla was home very late from driving Lise back) but it was a lot of fun. Ironically, one topic was how much Lise wanted made-to-order clothes, in part so she wouldn't have to do the kind of sewing I was doing. Now my patterns are all in, my fabric measured, and plans made for what fabrics to get made into what, so I said I'd tell her how my Etsy people work out.

WORK: The big difference this summer is that I'm not teaching any classes, just tutoring. I find classes fulfilling but tiring, and I'm happy with this set-up. Now I have somewhat fewer than 40 hours/week, but that's fine with me, as everyone expects my workload to increase over the summer. I also have two students in Long Island on my own, whom I see on Monday, one of my two days off.

HEALTH: My blood sugar is definitely better. I am eating better, and I'm working up to regular treadmilling--

supergee has been walking for a long time (two years? three?) and

womzilla is walking, so I need to join the crowd! So far it's been just a few days of gardening or treadmilling, but I hope to work up to permanently treadmilling no matter what.

I also need to work on my schedule. Usually dinner is late enough that if I don't need a snack before bed, but if I don't have one, I often wake up hypoglycemic around 2:00-5:00 a.m. Have a small snack anyway? A bigger dinner--or a smaller one? For now, I'm trying for an earlier dinner and a small snack.

However, I do have much more energy than I did in the Winter and Spring. Part of this is seasonal, but it's largely health, I think.

Mood: chipper

More Spiffy Clothes
My items came longer to get here, coming from Singapore and all, but Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars on eBay has a nice selection of plus-size & misses sizes tie-die. Many or all of the items are tie-dyed on black, so the colors aren't as bright as usual, but they are rich and meld well. The tops do not drape down to your shape as well as those from LotusTraders, so you'll probably want measurements closer to your real size, rather than being safe with oversize. Also, the dresses with tie-backs are made for someone much taller or lower waisted than I am, but tomorrow I'm going to take the ties off and place them higher, and they should do OK. Still, it's fun colors, each item unique, on a nice, light rayon--fun!

Mood: enjoying life, clothes-horsey

All Ratdom Plunged into War
Or, the mad rats of nose-bopping have kneed us in the groin.

You'd think I'd be old enough to know better, but I am at or near the center of a Big Controversy in

ratties. Someone was castigated for saying she bops her rats on the nose to deter bad behavior; I did my own post saying I do that, too, to deter nipping fingers. Actually, one thing I've learned from the discussion is that I should (and will) call it "nose tapping," since many people thought I meant something painful or frightening, and it's actually like a tap on a human shoulder only softer. Over 150 comments!

Another thing I learned is that many people feel that no aversive stimulus (punishment) is ever appropriate in training an animal; I can respect that opinion, but it seems a bit extreme to me--I think any punishment should be done very carefully, mixed with rewards for good behavior, and never enough to hurt or cause fear, but in a very few circumstances it may be for the best. Actually, I came to think that the nose-tapping is a lot like yelling at a spouse: it's not the best way, and if you can get to the root of the problem instead that's better, but sometimes you just want to suppress the behavior & yelling will work, and it doesn't spoil an overall good relationship.

At least here, while I expect some disagreement, I also suspect it will be a lot more respectful and actually address what I am saying. :-(

Also, there is a members-locked moderator post, which I and some others feel goes beyond the mods' ambit, which I always thought was to keep discussion civil but not to take sides on the ideas in a controversy. So, 150 more comments, including more on punishment, then some on the mods' job, and, in fine internet style, comments wandering to discussion of child-spanking, how similar rats and children are or aren't, and even the death penalty.

My feelings about the whole tsuris? It's not rollicking fun, but it's been interesting. I honestly haven't gotten angry or threatened-feeling, though I probably am more wrapped up in it than I should be, and definitely more than it deserves. On the other hand, my last major row like this was a fan-feud in the 1980s or 1990s, so I guess written conflict is not dominating my life too much overall. There is some kind of weird pleasure in replying without getting riled, probably because that's been a learned response for me & I'm even a bit proud of it. But if you think I come off like a jerk, I actually do want to know that.

Mood: overall happy, ready for a nap

Excellent Vacation
We three are back from Michigan, and we had a great time. We three stayed at a nearby Holiday Inn, but spent almost all our waking time at eldersib's house.

The biggest event was celebrating the 50th birthday of youngersib (

nigelpuggle's human companion); I hadn't mentioned that

womzilla's birthday occurred while we were visiting, so as not to steal youngersib's thunder, but we did celebrate that also.

Activities were laid back but very amusing. We went to WallMart, which did not have a fabric section, alas, but did have cute/sexy panties in my size. As last time (& perhaps now a tradition), Math Guy linked his laptop to the TV set, & we enjoyed various online videos. We went through boxes of items that had belonged to eldestsib, sent by her husband, which fortunately was (for me at least) less sad and more enjoyably nostalgic.

Quinn, the new pug, is sweet and enjoyable, at least as long as he gets to cling to youngersib. Four dogs is a lot more like a pack than three dogs are.

It was nice to come home and see all our rats healthy & eager to be with us.

Now I have to get ready for my first day back at work.

Mood: happy

What're the Odd's?
I'm sure that every copy-editor, grammar guru, and punctuation maven is checking to see if my apostrophe is correct. Don't worry.

Just last entry, I was singing the praises of drawstring pants. And what's the one drawback of drawstring pants? In my experience, when the drawstring withdraws into its fabric tube and hides like a shy turtle.

I have two great pairs of yoga pants that I can't wear because of that issue. And I just got two skirts that seemed to need elastic or a drawstring.

Now, I knew there had to be a tool for this: like a needle, only much bigger, and dull, so it could be pulled past the fabric instead of catching on it. I was ready to ask at the fabric store.

And there it was on the wall: a bodkin.

Mood: archaically amused

2 Kinds of Finally
1) After three days more or less in bed with pain (menstrual and then stomach), I managed to pull some muscle in my back/hip area, so that it was painful to move. Heck,

womzilla was obviously distressed to watch me move. I knew that being in bed for three days had helped cause it, and I feared staying in bed would make it worse, but I tried for small amounts of movement & a lot of horizontal time (not at all the fun kind), and that seems to have done the trick. We leave for Michigan day after tomorrow, and I'll get at least some tidying up done today & tomorrow. Don't want the rat-sitting neighbor to think that people who own rats live like pigs!

2) When I took my measurements recently, one thing I could be happy about is that I still have a relatively hour-glass shape: waist 12" less than the bust, and hips only 1" more than the bust. Little did I know this was going to bedevil me when it came to getting summer trousers! I returned slacks, ordered them in different sizes, and returned them enough to begin to doubt my commitment to online shopping. If the hips fit, the waist was too large.

However, The order that arrived today had one pair that fit, and I instantly ordered more. Apparently, the secret is that I need drawstring pants for a perfect waist-fit (elastic alone doesn't always work). That's fine with me. These are inexpensive and of a nice fabric, very light but not cheap-looking. The only downside: the most popular colors are on back-order until early September. Still, khaki and white are summer basics of mine, and I do have blue- and black-denim jeans.

Mood: mollified

Not Yet in Michigan
Due to a number of factors, I'm still in NY; we're leaving for Michigan on the 28th and will return home late the 2nd. I got a really painful period, followed by stomach pain (from the harsh pain meds) and really sore muscles (from pulling something in bed?). Yuck. At ;east I didn't have to travel while in pain.

Mood: lazy