Words’ End

Last week, on the autumn equinox, was our first-first wedding anniversary. (We got married in the fall, and again on the spring equinox of this year.) We went camping, journeyed through the woods, gathered large sticks and cooked hobo stew wrapped in aluminum foil, drank prosecco out of the bottle and watched the fire crackle its way through the dark dark evening. Everything was alive, down to the myriad of spiders everywhere. I stayed away from the spiders and clung to my love, thankful and still amazed at the fortune of meeting him.

Today is my grandmother’s 90th birthday. Was, technically, as she was born in Baku (but is Jewish, not Azerbaijani) and it’s well past midnight there. I talked with her on the phone, and am pretty sure she didn’t really know who I was. She’s in that stage of Alzheimer’s where she sounds both lucid and calm, but that’s because she’s gotten used to the denial of going with the flow of whatever we say. Something to the effect of, You’re my granddaughter? Oh, that’s nice, dear. How nice of you to call.

Talking to her these days is creepy and sad. There’s no point in talking often: I’m a bad granddaughter, haven’t felt particularly close to her since my early teens and was terrible at writing letters from America when she was still living in Kishinev with my grandfather. He passed away in 1997, and she moved here in… 2000? 1999? something like that.

But they did help raise me, and I have many memories of their apartment with its dusty books and knick-knacks and tiny well-loved kitchen and grape vines overgrowing the windows and pigeons nesting in the vines. My grandmother read many newspapers and cooked tasty cheese wafers.

She had stunning black hair and a great sense of style. She flirted with my grandfather by leaning out the window, so that her shoulder-length mane would fall to the side like Rapunzel’s.

She waited for her husband to come back from world war 2 while caring for their three children with one other woman’s help. She watched one of her two sons slowly waste away when he, a chemist, was stricken by chemical poisoning and his workplace didn’t even acknowledge that this was possible, and didn’t support him at all.

She taught, first in schools (history) and then at the university (history of the Party). Her long-ago university students came to visit her up until she left the country. She played bridge with grampa and her friends. She would sit there and watch me eat, smiling with delight. She didn’t really drink, but smoked a pack a day until, I think, grampa died and she moved out of their place to a friend of the family’s, waiting for her emigration documents. They’d lived in that apartment since 1953.

She’s had a dignified, full life. Every once in a while the blind injustice of her chronic brain disease washes over me in a wave of dread.

Isn’t she beautiful?

Note to self: for the N^th time, when taking mood-altering drugs,* would you just please remember to take them at the right time in the day? Like, morning instead of 5pm?

Jeez. How long does it take to learn?!

*Thank you, modern medicine, for this relatively pleasant winter.

I’ve slacked some days, but so far I’ve stuck to biking at least 5 times a week. Given my track record with sticking to workout routines, this is pretty satisfying.

More satisfying, though, are the results I’m seeing. Weight loss, yeah, a bit; but also increased endurance. I can bike for a longer distance now, 7 miles as opposed to the 5 I’ve started with. Haven’t been pushing myself to increase the distance until I really felt like it, because that was a way to ensure I’d actually keep working out. The seven miles are getting much easier, today I felt that I could’ve biked for quite a bit longer. But there was work to do.

Dear body:

Thanks for the reminder, although you could’ve been gentler about it. Lessons learned (I hope):

- stopping exercising for three days makes me more randomly hungry, not less, and also unhappy;

- when feeling like the world is crashing down for no particular reason, eat protein; preferably in the form of red meat, fish or soybeans;

- in the past stress stemming from procrastination followed by being overwhelmed with work was a good motivator to do said work. That is no longer a viable option, as it is Not Worth It;

- maybe new moon does affect me negatively after all… or maybe this is a coincidence;

- I’ve got to find coping mechanisms to deal with guilt. It is the single most unproductive feeling I experience on a regular basis: it gets nothing accomplished and absolutely drains me of energy.

Now can I have my serotonin back please?

Sincerely,

-V.

(This isn’t intentionally cryptic, Reader. The suck of yesterday and today may have been caused by a combination of individually insignificant factors, but the problems I talk about above are quite generally applicable to my life. At least, to the unhappy moments in it. Which, now that I think on it, don’t occur often at all. But man, when they do, it’s bad…)

I like to ride my bicycle, I like to ride my bike…

Today I didn’t ride, but I’ve an excuse. Yesterday I did ride, seven miles instead of the five I’d been doing, and although the total is on the low side, it still feels good. Then, later last night, I went out to take a walk and ended up shoveling out a path from our porch to the road as well as the entire space around and on the car. It felt good! Aside from the fact that the people in whose driveway we parked (long story) were complete asses. But the actual physical work felt really good, and let me tell you, it doesn’t get much better than Peter Mulvey and Morphine on the iPod while shoveling metric %#@!tons of light fluffy snow.

Today, we shoveled again! The snow was much heavier by the time we got to it, and it was a different driveway, the one where we’ll be parking from now on (see above). But we also got to be genial with the neighbors, and although there was no iPod, there were two of us and thus bits of winded conversation were possible.

My back hurts like nobody’s business, and I don’t feel guilty at all for not biking. Will do it tomorrow. Oooh, I’m liking the physical activity gig. Really, really hope it lasts.

Here’s a gift from the green god on a white and sky-blue winter’s day:

Take come crushed coriander seeds, some garam masala and some black mustard seeds. No precise measurements, I went with about a tablespoon of each of the first two and 1.5 tbsp of the mustard seeds at first. Oh, and a dash of good chili powder. Heat up some fat-of-choice (olive oil and a bit of butter, here) and fry the spices until they smell amazing, and the mustard seeds are popping.

Add a large plastic package of frozen spinach, not the square-package kind but the kind that’s already broken up into clumps; dump in a bit of water; stir well; cover. Steam-fry, stirring occasionally, until the spinach looks unfrozen. Take off the cover and adjust seasonings (at this point I put in salt, garlic powder and more garam masala): you want the spinach to taste just a little bit overspiced. Fry some more at higher heat until it’s no longer watery. Let cool.

Open up a package of silken tofu and drain it as much as you can. Dump the cooled spinach and the tofu into the food processor and whirr until it’s all uniformly colored. Taste, adjust seasonings, refrigerate until tomorrow when you can dip carrots and anything else your heart desires into it.

Good night!

Snow! Oh my, the snow. I would like a small, lightweight digital camera that makes it trivial to transfer images from its card to my laptop, so that I might share the vistas with you. (This is a wish E. and I have had for a while, but other expenditures have taken priority. It’ll happen, though.) Meanwhile, our street looks something like this. (Image of Providence courtesy wunderground.com.) Not terrible, but considering this is how much snow we’ve gotten in the past twenty hours, pretty impressive. They don’t seem to be plowing the residential streets much: there’s no point until later today, when the snow and the wind stops. The wind is sending whirling clouds of minute dancing snowflakes flying all around, such that it’s hard to tell whether any new snow is coming down at all. Total accumulation, as per Wunderground, is 18 to 28 inches in Providence. Damn, do I ever wish I had cross-country skis!

Went clothes-shopping yesterday. We don’t do this often, and it was all kinds of fun – even though we did go all the way to Boston despite the blizzard warning. We managed to get back home before the worst of it hit, mission accomplished and even some food shopping done. The Garment District is an impossibly good second-hand store; next time either of us is jonesing for a change of wardrobe we know exactly where to go.

In other news, I have successfully bicycled several times already, thanks to the bike trainer we took off Molly’s hands. It makes me feel so good. I’ve finally found a gym-like contraption that I enjoy using, and can use without regard for the weather outside. I’ve long been complaining about feeling weak and blah, and have been gaining weight I shouldn’t be gaining – nothing tragic, just enough to make me feel sluggish and want to hibernate. Since today’s pace of life hardly permits one to hole up for the winter and suck on a paw, I’ve decided to set a specific weight-loss and exercise-gain goal for the next two months. Really, the wedding is just an excuse, a convenient chronological target in that it isn’t negotiable.

To this end, as of this morning I’m monitoring caloric intake, and also limiting it a bit. I’ve never done this systematically, and am curious as to what will happen. Hopefully in a week or two I’ll have enough data to be able to predict about how many calories I’ll need in a given day depending on the projected activities for that day. There’s some possibility that I won’t stick with it, but since I am loving this stationary-bicycling-and-iPod-listening thing, and also have a love who can nudge me when needed without making me feel bad about myself, optimism runs high. Plus, it’s two months. I’ve been wanting to change my health habits for a while now. If I stick with it for this long, perhaps maintaining in the longer term will be easier!

Doing things that make my body feel active and alive makes such a huge difference in how I feel on all levels. It’s time to live in the moment, I think.

Edit: Uni is closed tomorrow! W00t, I feel like… like… like I’m nine years old! SNOW DAY!

(Okay, I still get to work. But it’s at home, in PJs, with tea and hot chocolate and biking breaks.)

A December 2nd editorial in the Nashville Scene:

No doubt some might think it heresy for us to suggest how Jesus himself would come down on the medical marijuana issue, which state Sen. Steve Cohenpromises to bring to the legislature in the new year. But we’re going to do it anyway. Frankly, we think he’d offer a light to sick people who can’t get pain relief any other way.

And related, by Rev. Steven B. Thompson:

Cannabis was not only known, it was widely used in biblical times. Jesus would have been familiar with cannabis; it was used at the time in healing unctions and temple incense and was fed to both man and livestock. In fact, it is not outside the realm of possibility that the Blessed Virgin Mary used it to ease the pains of childbirth. There is a wealth of documentation attesting to the safety and efficacy of this natural, healing herb stretching back over 5,000 years. It’s mentioned repeatedly in the Bible. Yet, nowhere does Jesus caution against its use. Alcohol yes, cannabis no.

Look out, Mr. President. There are thinking people in the Bible Belt who do their research and have their priorities straight. Booga booga.

One thing last weekend revealed to me in technicolor, something that I obviously needed to re-learn, is that pushing my body the way I have of late is not permissible. Or perhaps it is, but I do need breaks, and also to pay attention to things like nutrition. The nutrition bit I added on my own; I haven’t exactly been starving myself, just not paying attention to balance in my diet.

So I’m trying to eat – among other things – more mindfully. One thing that just occurred to me (I’m recording it here mostly for my own benefit) is something I’ve heard before but only tangibly felt now: when impulsively hungry, before getting food check if the hunger is really thirst.

This immediately takes care of two problems: the erratic eating schedule, and also the amount of liquids I’ve been ingesting, which for a while now has felt too low.

J. wrote again. This time I will write back, despite my intense feelings of guilt over not having written for… oh, long. My daily work will be changing rather radically come fall (more on this later). One thing I sure am looking forward to is figuring out ways to save some time, my most precious commodity, for my personal life. Won’t that be grand!

I’m behind on my blogging, again, as ever. Been too busy living.

Whlie doing some online reading about modafinil’s possible interactions with alcohol (I’d like to know whether I can have a glass of wine every once in a while), I came across the following gem:

One healthy male volunteer developed ideas of reference, paranoid delusions, and auditory hallucinations in association with multiple daily 600 mg doses of Provigil and sleep deprivation. There was no evidence of psychosis 36 hours after drug discontinuation.

These people’s conclusion? “Caution should be exercised when Provigil is given to patients with a history of psychosis.”

One healthy male volunteer. One. Six hundred milligrams when the maximum recommended dose is four hundred, and sleep deprivation to boot. And they’re making pronouncements as to what they think should and shouldn’t be done with the drug? Aiie!

I would’ve been posting, but early last week suddenly found myself unable to log into my MovableType install. The lessons I learned from this are two: one, that it is always better to have one geek in the house than a whole support forum full of them on the Interweb; and two, that at any point your sysadmin might upgrade a database and not tell you. To be fair, the sysadmin didn’t know I needed to be told; hence the advantages of having a geek in the house.

They’re easy to feed, too. Unless you add too much chili powder and asafetida to your soup; then you just get to blush and feel remorseful.

The sleep study (sorry this is so late, Johanna) revealed that I do not, in fact, have narcolepsy in any form. On one hand, this is reassuring; because, hey, no narcolepsy – or any other sleep disorder they could see, for that matter. On the other hand, I’m still sleepier than I should be. Granted, my schedule is highly variable; but the doctor was realistic and did not even suggest changing my schedule (this would be entirely impractical, for me). Instead, she prescribed modafinil (Provigil), a non-amphetamine stimulant, relatively new on the market.

I’m still experimenting. I don’t know how well this’ll work. For the moment, it’s interesting: modafinil seems to be more or less a wonder drug, though that will probably change when there’s more research data on it. For the moment, it’s said to not be addictive, and there are no grave side effects commonly associated with it. It may or may not be affecting my mood, but the jury is still out on that one.

I’m no biochem specialist, but from what I’ve read, instead of supplying the body with a lot of stimulant hormone, modafinil seems to inhibit the brain trigger that tells us we’re tired. It does not make me jittery or “speedy,” and is thus far considered to not be habit forming. Its effects last 8-12 hours, and it does not make it difficult to fall asleep – unless, of course, you take a significant dose of it too late into the evening. Based on others’ reports, it does not seem to be effective in perking you up when you’re already tired.

Having started to take this stuff last Tuesday, here are some positives so far. I get to regulate my dose; they have you start at a quarter of the maximum, and find what works for you. (I’m at the minimum right now, and don’t intend to go much higher.) I’ve felt not only more alert, but more easily able to concentrate. However, there is a noticeable drop in energy level as the drug wears off, and it’s not so much the tiredness itself as the abrupt transition that gives me pause.

Since Tuesday, I’ve had maybe two cups of coffee, a few cups of caffeinated tea and less than a can of caffeinated soda. This is big, for me: I get habituated to caffeine easily, so it’s difficult to balance using it as a stimulant with absolutely loving a good cup of coffee. Separating the two would be grand.

There is a warning on its documentation that modafinil may interfere with the effectiveness of orally administered hormonal birth control, by making you process the hormones more quickly. This has been tested by one study, which used just over thirty subjects; only sixteen of them were given modafinil and not a placebo. They were all on the pill; so things like the Nuva Ring haven’t been tested. Also, these women were given 200 to 400mg of modafinil – the highest dose – for a month. This is all the information available about the interaction so far; the rest, for the moment, is up to individuals and their doctors.