Detox, Meditation, and Apple Skoal....

So, the blog has followed suit of most of my other interests in life. I get excited about it and can't stop thinking about it or talking about it and after two entries I took a two month hiatus from writing. Typical. Which leads me to the topic of my latest endeavor that I have also had an on and off relationship with over the last ten years of my life: living mindfully. It started again when I read the book by Dr. Henry Emmons, The Chemistry of Joy. I got on a health kick, started taking a truck load of vitamins to combat incessant and usually anxious thoughts. I read about which vitamins help ease the suffering of "fear" or "fire" type personalities and even got suckered into buying the gold card at GNC on my monthly vitamin purchasing sprees. "Maybe I won't need to pop Celexa and Adderall everyday with the help of a natural supplement regimen and of course, mindfulness", I thought. Which led to the discovery of a class I became obsessed with taking: Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction taught through the University of Minnesota's Center for Spirituality and Healing. I roped my co-worker into this with me and wrote a proposal to get the course paid for and the journey to nirvana began just like that.
After the first class and having to bite the inside of my cheeks like a five year old to keep from laughing at the peaceful sound of the bells, I decided I was going to make a commitment to the class and my overall health and well-being. This just also happened to coincide with the registration for a June marathon which I recently began training for. Perfect timing. I am going to detox and get rid of the build up of cheetos, Dr. Pepper, Coors Lite and greasy pizza in my system. Again, I used the GNC gold card to purchase a 7-day detox kit with the intention of purifying my system at the start of my new meditation regimen and marathon training.
Day One of Detox: What the hell was I supposed to eat? Caffeine was banned, so no morning coffee. I ate oatmeal, which I don't even know if it was legit, but it was the only semi-healthy thing in my cupboard. I downed my detox vitamins and couldn't resist a half-caf coffee on my way to work. I deprived myself of my morning chew on the drive and had to jam out to MPR with my pitiful cup of "coffee". By 9 am I was crabby and wanting a Diet Coke. By noon I gave in and drank it, ate whatever I felt like and couldn't wait to put a big wad of apple Skoal in my lip on the way home. That was the end of detox. I have zero will power.
On the other hand, the meditation is going better. There have been a few bumps in the road, including a few laughing outbursts during awkward yoga in class and mimicking the use of words our instructor uses frequently: moist, as in..."notice how your hands feel, they might be warm, or dry, or moist"....blowhole, as in..."now if you like, imagine a hole in the top of your head like a blowhole in a whale and breathing fresh breath and air throughout your body". Sometimes its hard to focus in the class and I find lots of things funny, but overall, I am making a solid attempt to incorporate the strategies we have learned. In the meantime, I am of course, still popping the anti-anxiety pills and the stimulants as well as eating basically whatever I feel like....but balancing it out with multi-vitamins, fish oils, and breathing through my blowhole. Enlightenment here we come.

Musophobic....or just a sissy?

So, there I was...standing in my kitchen, shaking like a leaf after screaming like a sixth grade girl. I had been liesurely watching tv with my dog when I decided a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel would be delightful. I reached under the cupboard to get my toaster out and set it out on the counter when a tiny, brown mouse jumped out and scampered across my kitchen counter and disappeared behind my fridge. It was so startling, even my dog got off the couch. I was paralyzed in fear...
A trap was set (the live kind where the mouse gets lured in and captured so you have to go free him or her somewhere else where the mouse will then ideally re-seek shelter in someone else's house). A week went by with no capture. I spent at least one night terrified that the mouse would come get in bed with me and the dog, crawl all over both of us and disease us both with its toxic feces. One night in particular, I could hear the little son of a bitch squeaking and running on my hardwood floors. Was there a whole family of them?! I paced around my room looking for a weapon. On one hand, I like to think of myself as a pretty humane person, not to mention terrified of the little creature, but on the other hand, I wanted the thing out of my house so badly that I was willing to to attempt to kill it with the only weapon I could find: a football. I continued to pace around with the football in my arms wondering what the likelihood of me being able to throw a Kurt Warner spiral at the bastard and kill it. Eventually, after making a few phone calls (one to my mom) and being convinced that the mouse would NOT get in bed with me, I fell asleep.
After week one went by and the fear grew with the thought of the mouse breeding in my sock drawer, I upped the ante. I bought cheddar cheese and old-school, thirty nine cent, snap-the-neck traps. I wouldn't even set the traps myself. I made Alice do the honors. Thank God for Alice. That night, almost as soon as I went to bed, I heard the snap. I was hopeful, yet sickened by the thought of a dirty, broken-necked mouse on my counter. When my alarm went off in the morning, it was the first thing I thought of. What would I do if the mouse is really there? I can't leave it all day to decompose behind the microwave, could I? I didn't. I think over the previous week I had become desensitized. I crept into the kitchen and saw the mini tail hanging out immediately. I had already made up my mind: the carcass needed to go NOW. I dug in my drawer for a spatula-type kitchen utensil I am pretty sure I have never used and wouldn't ever miss. I scooped him up like a pancake and flipped the trap and dead mouse into a brown paper bag and threw it all out in the garbage bin. Luckily, it was also garbage day and all elements of the capture would be gone by the time I came home from work.
In summary, I guess I am not as phobic as I thought. Definitely a wussy when it comes to the removal of dead animals or dirty creatures crawling around my house and defecating in my cupboard. And when I think about the toaster incident, I definitely remember sitting on my ass drinking coffee and laughing from the warmth of the kitchen while I witnessed the squirrel launch itself at my friend's face out of the bird feeder. Karma is a bitch....

My ideal girl. Unrealistic? I think not.... ;)

All the girls I have dated are now married. Mostly to men....

As it turns out, I am a terrible homosexual. If I just look back at the last four girls I have dated, three of them are now married to men. If I go back even further, the ratio doesn’t change a whole lot. My odds aren’t very good and for someone who says I would like to have a wife and kids someday, I certainly don’t make the appropriate relationship decisions. Engaged? No problem! Nineteen years old and never been with a girl before? Sounds perfect! (as long as youre blonde, blue-eyed, and have a smokin’ hot body). I have finally decided there is probably something wrong with me.
I have a few theories. Number one, I don’t typically find myself attracted to other lesbians. I like girly girls. I mean, super hot, cleavage and high heels, make-up, the works…those are my kind of girls. And to be perfectly clear, those are the kind of girls that seem to like me. The curious straight girl loves me. But apparently doesn’t really love me. Unforunately, I love them…way too much.
Okay, so given the above, how long should it take to figure that out…maybe one or two girls? The bigger issue at play seems to be grounded in the fact that I can’t learn my lesson. Not just about girls, but also in day-to-day life. Like a kid who touches the hot stove and gets burned, but reaches out to touch it again after the wound has healed. Its as though I forget or don’t care that what the consequences are for certain actions or choices. It creates madness. I could make the same wrong turn everyday hoping it will eventually lead to a short cut. For someone who is relatively smart and well educated, I seem to completely lack any common sense.
Lastly, I sometimes consider the possibility that I have some sort of inflated sense of self. Not to say that I am self-absorbed or vain, but I definitely recognize the part of me that thinks, “Why wouldn’t she want to be with me? I am kind of a catch!” Even if that were the case, and if you took a poll and the results showed that the majority agrees I am a catch or a good mate, that doesn’t make a girl who is questioning or never been in a lesbian relationship turn her dial to the gay side. Instead, I find it leads to her feeling stuck, confused, upset, frustrated, and hurt; ultimately choosing the safe path that is well-traveled. Not the homo road filled with fear of being different and intersections that force you to shatter childhood dreams of getting married to Prince Charming in your white dress and have two perfect kids and a picket fence. For those girls, the heterosexual ideals are paramount in choosing their path even when there are real feelings involved and a genuine struggle with self-identity.
So, in the meantime, while I wait for the mythical hot lesbian who is everything I have ever wanted…or perhaps my next opportunity for misery, I have decided to try to focus my energy on other things. If I gave up girls, I would have more time, money and energy for all the other things I want to accomplish in life. Without a hot, unavailable straight girl sucking the life out of me, I could finish my basement, start training for a spring marathon PR, read, draw, teach my dog new tricks (or a trick), do my own taxes, learn to cook, and call my parents more often. In 2010, I will give up the straight girls and start doing more Yoga. Its only January….let’s see how this goes.