Rhubarb Pie

An incredibly fabulous weekend, with amazing people.

Hey there, lovely lady.  Did you have a good weekend?  I had a very good weekend.  I'm thinking about clues and envy, although I usually use envy as a slightly different signal.  I'll write more about that later.  I wanted to respond to your fear of smugness, though.  (And throw out a thought on inauthenticity.) 

Smugness doesn't come from having a great life.  Smugness comes from having a great life and thinking you deserve it because of some special merit that other people don't have.  You DO deserve a great life, because everyone deserves a great life.  When you have happiness, built on knowing what is important to you and what restores your soul and what fulfills your interest, it would be ungrateful to deny that happiness.   We were born middle class in a rich nation; we aren't scrounging for food or shelter; if we have the potential to be happy, it would be the height of insult to people without our great good fortune to be so comparatively wealthy and yet miserable.  We should say "Yes, we can make ourselves happy.  We should do that and bring as many other people with us as possible.  We were very lucky and wish this same luck on everyone."  Smugness would disdain others who haven't built on luck, notice and enjoy any relative advantage, and think it says something favorable about the happy person.  I have no fear you will do any of those things.  I am not worried about your potential descent into smugness, even if you are happy.

I learned a lot from your old blog, especially about exposing fears and being vulnerable.  You also wrote about your temptation to present a fabulous front, which is so interesting to me.  I do that too, but I hadn't noticed that I do it, or ever considered whether other people do that.  I had just assumed that their lives really were as fabulous as they presented.  I still don't think I detect it very well, which is why I was so interested that one of my girlfriends cannot stand Facebook for that exact reason.  It was nearly immediately aversive to her.  She can barely stand to see people only showing the flattering pictures of the families doing quirky unique things.  She looked at the fantastic parties and witty updates and she was DONE with Facebook.  She doesn't believe what she sees, so she wants no part of it.

You arrived at your drive for authenticity by thinking about it, and she just knew instantly, and I follow slowly behind my girlfriends, learning a lot.  But really, sugar.  I do not think you are prone to smugness and you have derived some guidance on inauthenticity.  Are those current fears of yours?  Are they leftovers?  If they slow you down, I'd say you should wonder whether you need those concerns in your life.

Clues

I've been thinking about clues lately.  Life clues.  When I talk to a student who says, I have no idea what I want to do with my life professionally we start talking about clues -- where to look for the signals that might contain some helpful information. 

Envy is a clue, I'm convinced.  When I notice envy, it means that I feel like I'm missing something, and I want it, and the person I am envying has got it.  Noticing the envy and seeing it as a clue is helpful in two ways: it takes away the destructive impulse, the impulse of not liking the person I'm envying, and makes me curious, helps me ask what I'm missing, what it is I want, and lets me see that person as a teacher who has managed to get what I want. 

(This is true about everything except love, I think.  Maybe also about body shape.  You can envy someone those things without learning much about how to get them for yourself.) 

I think dislike is a clue, too.  I don't dislike very many people.  I can think of only two right now.  There are people I don't respond to much, one way or the other.  There are people I think are silly or time-wasters or abrasive or grouchy or insecure or something else, whom I don't want to pursue as friends, but I don't particularly dislike them.  But the two I dislike are mystifying.  There's nothing wrong with them.  I should like them, on paper I would probably like them.  I want to like them.  I am ashamed of disliking them. But I can't seem to rise graciously above my little petty silly voice.  NBT points out that these people are a lot like me, and I think there's truth in that.  There's something I don't like in myself that I see in these two people, and I can't forgive it.  I am trying to figure out what to do with this hypothesis, how to make this a clue I can use.  Do you have any ideas? 

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UPDATE: Two things occurred to me after I posted.  One is that, oh yeah, there's another person I dislike.  Haven't seen her in years, but I am no more charitable about her because of the passage of time.  The other is that I now have a hypothesis.  I think what I don't like in these people is something I don't have great words for.  It's partly smugness.  And it's partly inauthenticity.  I am bugged because I don't believe that these women are what they are pretending to be.  They're trying to convince me that they are fabulous and happy and at some level I don't buy it. And usually that evokes sympathy and empathy from me, because who among us has figured it all out?  But what I see in them I am afraid is a terrible mirror of me. I am trying hard to be honest, most of the time.  I work at being vulnerable even when it makes me afraid and I would like to convince everyone who knows me that I am fabulous.  I don't want to be smug.  I think these things are hard to reconcile, because right now I'm really happy.  I can't believe my luck, and I don't know how to be graceful and true about that.  That's my current hypothesis about these particular people and why they provoke an unreasonable dislike, I think.  False humility, or inauthenticity, or smugness.  Something like that. I think it's my Achilles heel, what I dislike most in myself.  

Back at you, lady.

I keep wanting to do a grand unified essay about all these, but I haven't pulled it together yet.  My thoughts have been grimmer than yours.  I keeping thinking about becoming poor.  This terrifying essay sets the microscale, what it is like for a person to become poor.  Here is a story about a town being poor.  And a county, when one of their resources goes away.  The thing I keep noticing is that cutting back early is the key to lasting.  These people have what looks like a path forward.  But it worries me that the bloggers I read are all using a growth economy as the standard, rather than a steady-state economy or a descent-based economy.

So I'm thinking about that.  I was sorry to read about the tragic shooting in your neighborhood.  When you brought food to the relatives of the deceased, how did you find them?

I totally love this song by High Places.

You know what I would love to link to, but can't? All the resources for people who are interested in co-parenting.  I'd love to show you the forums I'm reading and the matching services for people who want to co-parent.  I'd totally link to the blogs where people write about their experiences.  Except, you know, I CAN'T.  I don't think they're out there.  There're a few in Britain, but that's all I can find.  I've called around and gotten confirmation.  There is no infrastructure for finding someone else who might want to have and raise a kid with you, not in Northern California.  Wouldn't you think it would be in California as much as it would be anywhere?  Yeah, there isn't any.

This is so frustrating for me.  I'm sure of my decision to have kids, starting soon, but seriously daunted by the prospect of doing it alone.  I'm willing, but I've seen what that's like.  My friends are awesome and generous about offering help and I'm sure that when I'm in it, I'll make the arrangements I need.  But it looks hard.  It also looks like the first thing to go is my workout.  I'll make that trade if it is necessary.  But I don't want to.  If finding another involved parent is possible, I'm interested. 

But I can't even get to the point of negotiating the difficulties of that, because so far as I can tell, there isn't a locus for potential co-parents.  Everyone I've asked confirms, yeah, it is all ad hoc.  That's ridiculous.  There are so many people who could be served by this.  Some gays and lesbians, of course.  But I think of the women I know who wanted kids but aged out waiting for a romantic partner.  Some might have been better off with a co-parent, even if that isn't the ideal of a romantic partner.  This gives men who want kids another option too.  So I don't get why this niche is nearly entirely unserved.

Odds and Ends

Once, back in the fall, I was at the supermarket near closing time and the guy at the deli talked me into buying this big bag of cheese scraps.  It was all the odd end pieces of those big deli hunks of cheese, that were too small to get more slices out of but too big to throw away, all gathered up in this one big bag and sold to me at a super low price.  I remember it because I was sort of put out when I got into the car, felt stupid for buying it because I didn't really want all this cheese and I felt like I had been brainwashed by this friendly and persuasive salesman.  Why did I buy this bag of cheese?  It's not like me to be bamboozled into impulse purchases.  But then I reached into the bag and nibbling on tidbits and started playing "name that cheese."

I've been saving all these tidbits of articles I noticed that I thought maybe I would write a post about, and it's becoming obvious to me that I'm not actually going to write a post about them, so I'm tossing them all into this grab bag, and it's an extra special delicious deal that you just shouldn't pass up.

Just You Wait Until July

Listen, I have already acknowledged that you win as far as agriculture and plant production goes.  So it's sort of silly for you to be rubbing my nose in it with all your flower pictures.  My small brown scruffy yard cannot compare.  Must I remind you that I live in America's most livable city, that we are always featured in hip architecture and lifestyle magazines for our arty sensibility and our good restaurants?  If we were forever smelling our flowers and sitting in the sun, how could we get anything done?  We PREFER our late spring.  I am GLAD we have another month before frost danger is over.   

We bought this house in the winter, and we never saw the yard without snow.  We live right downtown, on a hill, and the backyard is a secret surprise.  (Since we moved here I have become very snoopy, peeking whenever I can to catch a glimpse of other city backyards -- there are some unexpected hidden treasures here in the West End.)  It's small but private and we are interested to see what the shoots peeking up will unfurl themselves to become.  Here are some pictures of the yard as it is.  Want to redesign it for us?

We planted herbs and pansies into containers yesterday, and spent some time sitting in our green chairs speculating about what we might do in the yard.  I think it makes some sense to live in it for a summer before we start making big changes.  We need to see how the sun moves and where we like to sit in the evenings and what's already planted.  Also, of course, waiting and watching is much more pleasant than hauling around lots of rocks and mulch.  I like the idea of gardening much more than I actually like gardening.  Containers and window boxes are just about right for me.  My morning glory and nasturtium seeds are sitting in packets, waiting until it is warm enough to plant them outside.  That's my summer gardening plan.  When you move here, I would be happy to sit in one of the green chairs reading a book and talking now and then to you while you work in the yard.  I will make a pitcher of iced tea and pour you a glass and invite you to sit down and rest now and then. 

Just the facts.

If Margie came over to look at my flowers, I am sure the conversation would go like this:

M:  Huh.  Good return on those poppies. Self seed?
M:  Yeah.  I'm liking that salvia, too.
M:  Yup.  Bringing in the bees, I see.  You getting any slugs?
M:  Haven't seen 'em.  I think I keep the beds too dry for that.  I'm thinking of a straw mulch, but I dunno.
M:  Can get a bale pretty cheap by my place.  Let me know if you want to split one.

Then we would take another hit of chaw, hook our thumbs through our suspenders and rest our hands on our bellies.

If my sister came over, we'd say things like:

M:  See, if you look here, the sprinklers aren't reaching to the back of the bed.
S:  Transition to succulents?  You don't want people walking on them, though.  Have you noticed that your lawn is a mess?
M:  Yeah, I want to put in beds and flowers for bees.
S:  Ooh, that website lists plants for bees.  You want honeybees or natives?
M:  Where would I put honeybees?

Then we would wander around looking for a place to put a hive at my house.  It is all function with Margie and my sister.  Men, though.  Men are suckers for flowers.  Standing in front of my house, I just had this conversation with a lanky longhaired dude.

Dude:  Aw man.  What are these?
Me:  Roses.
Dude:  I know that.  Like, what kind?  What do they mean?
Me:  The variety is Scentimental.  I don't know if it means anything.
Dude: Red ones are for love, but this one is striped.
Me:  Yep.  Would you like to take one?
Dude:  Nah, man.  I don't have anyone to give it to.
Me:  (smiling)
Dude:  But if I'm ever walking by and I'm with someone, could I pick a flower for her?
Me:  (smiling even more)  Of course, dude. 

One time a man came by and told me, in tears, "My mother has been dying all summer and I get off light rail and walk by your flowers every time and every time they remind me how beautiful life is."  I tried to give him a bouquet to take to his mom, but he just thanked me again and told me to leave 'em out for everyone.

One time this kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen, young black guy, came by.  I watched him from my porch.  He must have spent ten minutes looking very carefully at different flowers.  Took a few pictures with his phone.  What was he thinking?

Based on my scientific study of people on my sidewalk, flowers turn men into emotional softies.  I don't know how the myth that women are the ones who react to flowers got started.

Making you long for posts about powerlifting.

I could not be more pleased with my two front flower beds.

More pictures and uninteresting garden planning below the fold.

We bought a flat of strawberries on the way back. Ate a basket each.

Hey hon.  I wrote you a longish post about food, but it crashed and I don't have the heart to write it again.  Instead, here are some pictures from a hike last Sunday. 

In real life, there were lots of little flowers in all that grass, mostly white, purple and yellow. Those are the Sierras in the background.  My friends were more captivated by the cows, which were picturesque.   But I gazed at the mountains every chance I got.

Here're some yellow flowers that follow a creekbed.

Things have been good here, quiet. I got my summer gardens in, in both Sacramento and Oakland. That was a couple weeks of effort. I know how you yearn to see them, so I'll put up pics soon. The beekeeper came by! We have bees in the hive in Oakland, but I haven't met them yet. I'm sure every single one of them is charming. I'm working out and hiking with friends and getting drinks with people. I found a local band I like. Anand and his lady visited and fixed my bike. It has been a good spring so far, pleasant and uninteresting.

The Cure: My Plan

I still haven't finished reading all the literature, nor have I settled on a specific plan.  So this will change.  But while I'm figuring it out, I've adjusted my eating habits.  I'm eliminating all the regular old bad stuff that people say to eliminate: no processed foods, no sugar, no white flour.  That's how I should be eating anyway, right?  I'm going gluten free, so there goes bread and baked things.  And I'm going a little further than that, because I like the Communicatrix and she's got Crohn's (and bad, too-- yikes) and swears by something called the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.  So I'm trying that out, although I haven't managed fanatical adherence.  (Just now I had some balsamic vinegar as part of my lunch, which is verboten.) So that means soy, grains, and most dairy are out, too.   

Essentially, there seem to be two general approaches to this condition: those aimed at the symptoms and those aimed at some theory about the cause.  I like the cause approach better as a mental framework; unfortunately, the scientific studies don't seem to support any conclusion about a cause, so those whose remedies are based on a theory about cause seem to be, basically, making everything up.  Not saying there aren't any empirical results -- on the internet you can find persuasive anecdotal and testimonial support for just about anything.  But when nobody agrees on the cause of something, it's hard to be systematic about evaluating strategies aimed at the cause.  Oversimplifying like crazy, I like to think of the cause folks as the "flowing meadow" school, because on some of the most earnest websites there is a lot of comparing the intestines to an ecosystem, full of swaying lush grasses and good bugs and bad bugs, all in harmony working to digest my lunch.  The premise of tinkering with diet is that someone mowed the meadow and killed off the good bugs, leaving the bad bugs swarming like a cloud of locusts.  The remedies are different, but the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is all about starving the bad bugs, repopulating the good bugs, and trying to keep things digestively simple (monosaccharides, not disaccharides or polysaccharides) until it's a flowing meadow once again.  It's more complicated than that, obviously -- I'm being simple partly for effect, and partly because I don't understand it much beyond this level.   

So I've been about 8 days being as compliant as I can with these eating restrictions.  (I'm allowed caffeine and certain alcohol -- dry wine, vodka, and bourbon are all ok.)  I cheat daily with half-and-half in my coffee, because life does not seem bearable without that.  Today as part of my big salad I had some tomatoes (allowed) that had been marinated in balsamic vinegar (not allowed).  Last week I mixed a can of diced tomatoes into an otherwise compliant chili recipe, I had four or five tortilla chips, I had a half cup of brown rice, and a couple of sips of beer, although not all on the same day.  Oh, and I made some smoothies with yogurt that probably wasn't compliant -- you're supposed to make your own yogurt, fermented for more than 24 hours.  But mostly I've been living the life.  It's more of a hassle than a drag -- hard mostly because I have to go out of my way to figure out what to eat, not because I miss any specific foods. 

What else am I doing?  I have an elaborate plan for monitoring my symptoms more stringently, which I am at work building now and will reveal when the time comes.  At one of our readers' suggestion, I'll try to make an appointment with an expert at a teaching hospital, either in Boston or New Haven.  I'm continuing to read everything I can find.  I see my doctor at the end of the month.  Keep your ideas coming.      

I could use some hippie eating suggestions, because sourcing and preparing food within these odd rules is taking up a lot of attention. 

You're Right Again

She spells her name Meghan, the sparkly-cool rock star girl who works at the Y.  Not the same way as you, just as you thought. 

But you needn't be jealous, and not just because she works in the evenings and I usually go there in the mornings.  It's something else that will keep me from inviting her out for a cup of coffee and laughing and asking her really good questions and giving her sincere compliments and noting with delight how the things she says remind me of something I was thinking about just the other day.  It's this: I do that at work, now, and I'm satisfied. 

Really, this is a deep change for me.  I realized it the other day when someone was talking about introverts and extroverts, although where I work someone is often talking about introverts and extroverts so that doesn't narrow it down much.  But I suddenly thought about my life and how my instinct to pursue new friends and organize parties and get people together and plan fun and learn more about that intriguing person who seems fascinating has dissipated.  I do that at work.  I love to do it, and I get my fill.  When I come home now, I want to read books, or walk the dogs, or cook something, or watch basketball. 

When I was in high school one of my friends wrote a poem about me, a poem that wasn't all that flattering (or all that good, I cannot tell a lie).  Anyway, it was about this tendency that has been lifelong for me: meet interesting people and find out more about them, get to know them relentlessly, win them over, establish some trust, look for the best in them, reflect it back if I can, and then its off to the next interesting person.  Not a good urge in a friend, necessarily.  But a pretty good urge in a college career advisor.

Anyway, you needn't worry about Meghan. I chatted with her for a few minutes tonight, asked her how she spelled her name, and then said goodbye.