Dr. Word

Haven't posted in a while. I fell off both my November challenges and started feeling crappy, guilty, fat. Lost motivation to apply to jobs, didn't return phone calls, that sort of thing. I'm feeling better today though. I went on a bike adventure around Seatoun. Found this black sand beach and a cliff to climb in the near future and the most amazing elementary school ever. These kids don't know how good they have it. Their school is nestled in between gorgeous grassy hills and the sea, and is made out of beach-faded wood in odd shapes and cubbyholes, with port windows. Rich but also rustic, like a pirate ship. I also rode to the Chocolate Fish and ate some granola while reading a fantastic Iain Banks sci-fi novel, Feersum Endjinn. Came home just now and found the cleaners still here. Guess they're having a slow day. Not too concerned (I used to get real nervous being home when they were here, something strange about the upper/lower class relationship, and I also feel in the way). I'm going through my hard drive right now and I found this strange story from 2003 about a man who is only cognizant on Saturdays. The story starts off sounding like I wrote it, but as it goes on it sounds more and more polished. Also, I can't remember writing it. Has anyone ever read this? I'll paste it at the bottom of this entry. I'm just so confused. It's incomplete, and google can't find it anywhere.

Oh yeah, I got my hair dyed purple and pink. I was at the salon for 4 hours and spent $250 NZ! But that's like $3 Canadian so it's all good. It seriously looks amazing but I really can't justify that kind of extravagance again. With that money I could buy: 1.5 months student loan payments, a few pairs of desperately needed pants, a used bike, a cross country plane ticket, Christmas presents for everyone..... I do feel rather good though, have to say. The salon peeps were so excited, apparently crazy colors are a rare occurrence and a couple of them hung around towards the end just gushing about my hair and getting me cups of tea while Amy the fantastic and funky stylist blow-dried. Here, have a picture:



Tonight we are going to attempt to wrap up filming. I will furiously edit it together before coming home and might even have a copy with a questionable level of polish to show you all. That would be neat. Also, an affordable present come to think of it.

All right, here’s that story. I would be honored to have written it (I just went through and corrected many spelling errors that are in line with my usual
errors, so maybe I did write it?!?!?!) :



There once was a man with a strange mental illness. He was perfectly reasonable on Saturdays, but the other six days of the week he was mute and dumb. Even more peculiarly, he could not remember a thing that had happened to him for the past week when questioned about the week on Saturday. For a long time his condition puzzled doctors everywhere, until he finally through his hands in the air one Saturday afternoon and said, “Enough! I’m going home and reading a good book.”

And so he did. He was actually quite brilliant on Saturdays and worked on math problems during his spare time. Unfortunately he didn’t have much spare time because of his limited “awake” time, as it were. And no one would hire him on a regular basis because of his lack of availability during the working week. So he lived with his mother, a kind, rather gray, woman. She bathed him and fed him during the week and on Saturdays he drove her to the park or the cinema or perhaps the city if she was feeling adventurous. And sometimes Universities hired out his mathematical skills for short periods of time, or invited him to be a guest lecturer for weekend conferences up in New England.

This man often tried to stay up as late as possible on Saturdays, for obvious reasons, and found it lengthened his clarity up to a certain point. However, if he tried to push it much further he invariably felt his mind “slipping away,” as he called it, which he found most disturbing. And so he let it be. Life was pleasant and too short too waste, especially when one considers that his conscious life would be at most 15 years long.

Unfortunately, life can never stay the same for too long. There are always car accidents and wars and love to deal with. His mother was out for a walk on a Thursday evening when she had the misfortune to tango with a tow truck. The truck immerged unharmed but she, alas, died immediately. Now he was not completely unprepared for such a disaster. His local physician was a primary contact in case of Ms. Graybells’s death, and so the police called up the physician Thursday evening just after the 10 o’clock news had started. However, this physician had recently flown to Thesaloniki, Greece to visit his anti-capitalist nephew, who had been badly wounded in a gathering of anarchist protestors the previous Saturday.

The second person the police tried to contact was also listed as a primary contact. Her name was Sheila Birk and she ran the used bookstore down the street from Ms. Graybell’s house. Sheila was a hard woman, stern with the shoplifters and even sterner with people who left books open and upside down on tables. Still, she must have had a soft spot in her heart somewhere because that Tuesday she was working in her bookstore alone…

…

And then it was Saturday. Peter opened his eyes and yawned loudly. He realized that he was quite thirsty. Upon further examination he noticed that he had wet himself. He was sitting in an enormous puddle of his own filth. It was a bit worse than that but we shall not elaborate on the details here. He stroked his chin, which was covered in a fair amount of stubble, and decided that something terrible had happened.

End.

There's a lot of weird stuff on this hard drive. I used to make a lot more voice recordings than I do now, diary entries, song snippets, monotonous self-harmonizing like Enya but without the new age.....

Wines and Sinuses

Yesterday I went to Toast Martinborough with a dozen or so other people. It's this wine festival they have here where the exhorbitant ticket price buys you...a wine glass. You take this fabulously expensive wineglass with you around town to all the participating vineyards, give them money, and get a bit of wine, plus some very tasty food. Francisco made a point of getting at least one plate of food at every vineyard we went to (we ended up making it to 9 out of 11 possible) and the rest of us struggled with the much more reasonable goal of getting wine at every location. It was a whole day starting early early in the day (had to get up before 7 to make our bus) of walking a bit, getting food and wine, and lying in an orchard/sitting at a picnic table/listening to mainstream bad rock coverbands at every single location. We all got sunburns. It was pretty great. Exhausting too. Our bus back to the city at 6 was into singing Disney songs but I could barely move. I crawled into the shower and then into my sweatpants. And then the allergies hit. I went through 3/4 of a roll of toilet paper in 3 hours. My sinuses slowly got fuller and fuller until I got to a point where it was impossible for me to communicate with the outside world. I kinda sat on the couch crying in pain and confusion for a while, until Francisco figured out something was wrong and led me staggering to bed. I had really poor muscle control for some reason and almost fell down the stairs. Once in bed I couldn't stop moving. I kept telling myself to stop but the body wasn't listening. It was crazy! I've never had this experience before. A headache? Sure! Pain is one thing but loss of body control and communication? Bizarre and scary. Luckily the sudafed kicked in before I panicked enough to call the hospital. Today I'm ok. My throat really hurts and I have a bad sunburn, but the sinus stuff is mostly gone. I dunno what's going on, the raw food yoga thing seems to make me very sensitive as soon as I go off it (I've kinda left the raw thing this past week and I was pretty drunk all day yesterday).

I'm sitting on the couch still in my sweatpants and wondering if it's worth it to go to yoga. If I stay home I could watch the Daily Show with Francisco and drink tea, and if I go to yoga I have a shot at finishing at least one of this month's challenges. One of those choices that's really not a choice at all. Discipline vs True Desire.

We've been planning our Thanksgiving today and I have to admit I'm intrigued by the raw recipe ideas being thrown around by Kris and Brenda. Of course I'm pretty damn excited about the regular processed pies, stuffings, and potatoes too. This is my second Thanksgiving in a foreign country and, as it was in Japan, I find myself grasping at it more strongly than usual. It's a good homesickness pill. It seems to be the most sentimental holiday of all.

Man, if my ride doesn't get home soon there won't BE a yoga dilemma.

Thinking about the future again (finally!)

This is a VERY rough draft, in that I haven't gotten very far into my gaia theory book, in that I haven't even proofread this, and in that I don't have a graduate program in mind to submit it to yet. Obviously it needs work, and I have a buttload of research to do. But my passion is there and my mind is clear: I'm ready to apply to school again.

(Please don't laugh!)




This is the story of my growing interest in the ethics and philosophy of science, specifically in the plausibility and implications of the gaia, or living earth, theory of life. It’s hard to understand a person’s motives without hearing a complete story so please bear with this tale, as it starts from the beginning.

Once upon a time I was a freshman student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I worked hard, got stressed out, and didn’t do a very good job of retaining core requirement information, such as Multivariable calculus, Electricity and Magnetism, and Chemistry. What I did a very good job of was passing tests, memorizing formulas, singing, acting, and cooking for my college collective housing experiment. Over the course of my MIT education I became involved in psychology research, which I was reasonably good at, and also bored by. It felt like there was a lot of following predictable research paths, little questioning of purpose by all except those at the top of the research hierarchy, too much research into what I thought were obvious or trivial questions, and a general lack of enthusiasm. My fellow students were tired or obsessed with medical school requirements. We started off with so much idealism and lost it bit by bit. There were definitely pockets of joy scattered about, such as Organic Chemistry with __ Kemp, one of the most challenging and yet most playful classes I’ve ever taken; and Neurochemistry and Neuropharmacology with Richard Weinman, whose zeal for drug/brain interactions and unusual teaching methods were exhilarating. But overall the atmosphere was alternatively stressful and dull.

As graduation approached, I decided not to apply for graduate school. So many people were applying for the wrong reasons. I didn’t want to make that kind of intellectual and monetary commitment until I found my idealism again. Maybe I didn’t need to save the whole world, but there had to be something important and deeply true to my work. So I went to Japan, a place so foreign that perhaps with all the routines, customs, attachments stripped away, a new revitalized me would surface. But as my fellow English teacher over there said, “You can’t escape yourself by moving to another country.” I did however get to experience the other side of the teacher-student relationship. It saddened me to see some students falling asleep with their eyes open in class, and excited me when I got to experiment with more freeform conversational teaching methods, opportunities that were rare indeed within the standardized teaching method employed by the largest private English school in the country, but that woke up the most timid or uninterested students from time to time.

After Japan I moved to San Francisco and worked for 2 years in customer service and office administration positions. I had decided the academic world was not for me and that what truly mattered were the people you interacted with on a daily basis and the little things (Of course I came to this conclusion after failing to obtain a neurobiology or cognitive science position, a failure I now attribute to a lack of fire and interest). San Francisco opened up my eyes to alternative ways of living and interacting with our planet in a more sustainable way. I rediscovered my internal artist, something that had been set to the side during the years I was set on finding a practical and profitable career, joined the vibrant and idealistic Burningman community, and started researching permaculture. My job as a Project Coordinator for a general contracting construction company was great at first because of its small family feel, something my teaching job in Japan lacked. Unfortunately administrative work is generally repetitive and lacking in creativity, so I welcomed the chance this year to move to New Zealand and get my hands dirty, literally, as a volunteer organic farm volunteer, learning about the realities of farming and building housing sustainably. A group of us recently founded a film-making club, to experience all the roles producing a short film entails. I did a little bit of casual film making while in San Francisco, but being in an organized group (of mostly Weta digital effects artists) gives me access to more equipment, actors, technological skills, and ideas than before. Since I don’t work a full time job at the moment I’ve also had plenty of time for reading. Two books were of particular interest: , by Charles Eisenstein, and , by . If Charles Eisenstein were still teaching at Penn State I would be applying there right now, because his writings embody everything I’ve been thinking about since my interest in science began. He writes about a new way of living joyfully and playfully, of teaching and learning because it’s fun to do these things, not because you have to. Of eating what you need by listening more carefully to your body, not by imposing strict and unnatural, doomed-for-failure diets. And most importantly, of interacting with this planet the way you would interact with yourself, because it is as much a part of you as you are of it.

I love thinking about long-term implications of our present day activities, even when it paints a rather dismal picture for the environment. Unlike many environmentalists though, I have the very positive opinion that any future upheavals required to overcome current environmental problems will be good for us, that humans are adaptive and ingenious creatures with potentials that are hard to imagine today, in this world we’ve created where few work and study with joy. I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to join a scientific community where people openly discuss this and other broad topics relating to where we are going, what duties scientists have to the world, and how to spread what we as educated individuals have learned to our communities. The possibilities are too long to list in this essay, and I’ll leave my ideas for spreading alternative scientific philosophies through music and film for another time. If you are interested in talking to me about this, exactly what your program entails, practicalities I have not thought of, or anything else, I would welcome the chance to speak to you! Thank you for taking the time to read this. I may not be the most qualified individual, but hopefully I have communicated my great enthusiasm and openmindedness for your program.

Day 14

I'm tired of this food. I'm tired of yoga. It's crazy outside, supposedly the wind is gusting up to 120 km/hr. There's rain, and the special-ed mcguyvers next door are putting more and more bricks and wood on top of their broken roof. See they have this clear corrogated plastic roof over their car park that's held in place with a nail gun or something similarly crappy. Wellington's windy so naturally part of it got disconnected and flapped annoyingly every time the wind acted up. So they "fixed" it by laying a 2X4 and some bricks on top of it. Today was finally the last straw for that solution so they just added more wood and more bricks. Hurrah!

I'm scared to go outside, really. I should go to yoga, I should get more veggies, I should apply for jobs, I should should should. But I have a fireplace and half a dozen sci fi books and a basic minimum of food. Also no car. Oh and a tv and 2 cats and a great view of the neighbors in my driveway with their problem-solving ingenuity. Really, could anything more be expected of me? I feel guilty almost every day because everyone else is working hard and being productive and calling each other and spending money, but is there really anything "wrong" with me? I gotta stop laying it so hard on myself. I'm being me, and that should be good enough. When I get desperate enough, I'll find a way to make money. It may not be particularly satisfying or sustainable, but it will do. Perhaps the great heights I have set up for myself will take many years to develop, or perhaps they will not manifest as material benefits. I should really try harder to be ok with that, rather than obsessing over the fact that maybe everyone is resenting me or, even worse, feeling embarrassed for my idleness..

Every night the past few weeks I fall asleep listing possibilities for starting my own business, new ways to change the world, use the internet, make a profit without having to manufacture material goods. So far nothing spectacular, or easy, has come to mind. But I'm on the task. God I really don't want to work at Starbucks or in admin positions all my life. I can do this. I need to pick something soon and become highly proficient at it. What to pick..........

Boy I really wish I could eat Starbursts or pie or soup right now. Damn.

Sweet Sunday

Had a really good time yesterday. I took a day off the raw challenge for bacon, chocolate, and a moroccan feast at Lucas' Sunday dinner. Oh man. I tasted and felt every bite, every sip of beer. It was wonderful. I think it's worth it to mostly eat raw just for that feeling.

Am feeling very whole and calm these days. Some of my social anxiety seems to be disappearing and last night I thought, This must be what Francisco always feels in large groups. Strangers are fascinating, not the enemy. A worthy goal to meet everyone indeed, my man. No one should ever be lonely again. I feel you people, and now I'm ready to meet you. We're gonna do some great things, cynics be damned!

30 Day Challenge Day 10

I have lost 6 lbs since starting this thing, which means I'm halfway to my weight right before I started college. Pretty neat huh? It wasn't really my goal to lose weight (I was after the mental benefits of clarity and life contentment and a wee bit o' motivation) but it's a nice bonus.

Yoga is getting easy. I'm a little bored with doing it every night, but at least it's not torture anymore. Plus all my friends are there, and we've been gettin lax about that whole, silence in the yoga studio thing, so it's more of a party now. Wooh! Party on dudes! I'll bring the lemon flavored water and you bring the coconut water!

Yup, lot's of fun here. Oh yeah, and I went to yoga totally trashed because I had a glass and a half of white wine that I drank while watching more Lost. Trashed. This raw food thing is making us cheap dates. It's awesome.

One of Joe's favorite authors, Rudy Rucker, is visiting us for dinner next week while on his New Zealand adventure (I like to call all vacations here adventures because that's kind of what comes to mind when you think of this place - mountains and cayaking, bungee jumping, sheep, caves, roughin it). I like this development a lot. I just read one of his books, to be prepared. It was called Master of Space and Time and it was great fun. We're gonna have a good time with this dude. I wonder what he'll think of all the raw food.

It's been very wintery the past couple days here so I haven't been on any of my own adventures recently. Reading about Miranda's Australian adventure has me inspired though. I'm a little too tied down with all these challenges this month. I might have to relax it all for a couple days and go on a train adventure, find some elves or, even better, money.

30 Day Challenge Day 8

Wooh, day 8!

Our house is so full of raw food, I don't need to think anymore, I just eat. Eat eat eat eat. And poop.

Yesterday Kris, Brenda, Clodagh and I took 2 yoga classes in a row. Yoga is becoming my JOB or something. I slept so well last night. My back hurts a little today though, but nothing I can't handle.

Actually, right now I just keep thinking about Lost (the TV show). I'm halfway through season 2 and we're gonna start watching season 3 this weekend and I'm so happy they're all holding off for my benefit but I still got 12 episodes to go and the video store didn't have em when I walked over today.

Why is this all I'm thinking about? I sound like Francisco or something. I guess I'm tired of the hunt for the next epiphany or life changing author. I just want to watch some tv and make some money. Maybe at the same time? I haven't bought any new clothes or, well, really, ANYTHING for myself since getting here, other than the basic food/house essentials/toiletries stuff. I would like some money for jeans and a haircut and adventures (and I guess student loans). Christmas presents will be homemade this year, people.

"Uh, umm, thanks for the pineapple can, Vanessa."

"I've got one too, so we can always stay in touch! Get it? Like those old cans on string that...you...talk thru?"

"Huh. Oh, yeah, neat."

30 Day Challenge Day 6

Good question, what am I eating?

-A fuckton of fresh fruit
-Dehydrated crackers and chips (I made some awesome sweet potato chips)
-Salads with homemade nut pates and dressings
-Mushrooms stuffed with chopped up fresh herbs and other veggies
-Energy salad, this amazing cuisinarted dish joe and kris made with every veggie and fruit we have in the house, topped with hot sauce
-Handfuls of dried dates and nuts/seeds
-Veggies rolled up in nori and dipped in shoyu
-Thinly sliced portabella and tomato marinated in fresh basil, oregano, and olive oil

I have future plans to make:

-Turnip based raviolis with raw marinara sauce
-More official-looking maki sushi using a cauliflower and/or sprouted quinoa based "rice"
-Desserts
-A fruit spread
-Something to use up that fresh asparagus we have, hmmm
-More sweet potato chips!

Am doing really good at this challenge! Saturday night I had some non-organic wine, but then I found out that still counts as raw! So I guess the only cheating I've done is when I had a couple drags of Francisco's cigarette that night. But I don't think it matters. My opinion is that if you're following such a healthy diet, you shouldn't really need to regulate drug consumption because it will just fall into place naturally, that you won't decide to use those substances as often because you'll be feeling so good but if you do it's not the end of the world. As long as you have plenty of raw snacks around to satisfy those inevitable drunk munchies.

Doin good at the yoga challenge too, although that one is harder for me. It's a lot of work. But I feel really really alive. Feeling alive doesn't necessarily mean feeling happy. There's a subtlety to sadness I haven't paid much attention to, which is sadness lived fully and within a rich and fulfilling life. I think maybe modern society views sadness as wrong (it does, don't you think?) because it is only in the depths of sadness that we see how off balance our lives and the whole system are. It's easier to ignore facts of your life that are stagnating or unendurable when you're riding on a happy high, than when you're upset. Being upset about one thing often evolves to being upset about everything, at least for me. But there is a better kind of sadness that perhaps I've felt at various times my whole life but that usually gets overshadowed by the kinda depressed numb or angry sadness I'm used to experiencing. I have to pay more attention. Controlled attention is the only way to see what's really going on, and make more conscious decisions. I don't want to be ripped along on a path that feels as though someone other than me is paving it. I want a life I can review in the end and claim as mine. One that reacts to circumstances fully, and not out of fear or anger or boredom. It makes it a better game that way too.

I would like Honey Nut Cheerios swimming in raw whole milk right now. With extra honey on top.

Also crispy bacon...

spanish rice...

chicken noodle soup.



Oh and canned corned beef hash, the nastiest thing humans have managed to can. They don't sell it over here, so I craved it even before starting this raw food thing.


Damn.

30 Day Challenge Day 3

I feel...good, I think. Kind of light. I got my period last night, which is probably part of why I was so achy yesterday and why I got a migraine. Cramping in the Female Zone less severely than usual. Ate a cherimoya (a tropical fruit) for breakfast today and couldn't get enough of it. It was satisfying a deep hunger. I remember one time I had the same reaction with a box of blackberries. I couldn't stop, and when I was done I was done. This is probably what the Instincto's are talking about (an extreme diet, google it if you're curious. It's weird.)

So, yeah. Feeling heaps better today, and airy enough not to be annoyed so much by small crap. My mouth corners are healing but still look strange. That's about it.

30 Day Challenge Day 2

I don't feel up to snuff today. I'm achy all over, and tired. Last night I had a bad migraine but didn't ward it off with painkillers because I'm trying to be all pure and caffeine/medicine free this month. We'll see if my pain pays off. Today I'm just in general pretty sluggish. A little gassy, but mostly achy. Towers of the health line would say I'm detoxing. Woohoo. I slept 12 hours last night. I hope this stage passes soon. My mouth corners hurt. I'm not looking forward to yoga tonight.