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Before the gleam of your taillights fading east
To find yourself a better life.

Lists

I have to-do list hierarchies:

1. To do today
2. To do sometime soon
3. To do when I have unlimited time and have already done every other boring thing I can think of

List #3 is getting kinda long...

The tapeworm has returned

I am a bottomless pit. I can't stop eating. That is all...

I think I need to clarify something [a rant]

This has been weighing on my mind for a while and I think I need to break it down, since some people seem to be confused. It’s a subtle difference – I get that, so follow closely. When I hold the door for you (the metaphorical you, of course) I am holding it for you to grab, NOT for you to walk through. The only exception to this is elderly people and those carrying lots of bags. I am not your personal doorman. This seems to be a rampant issue, specifically with the people who work in my building. I view holding the door for the person behind you as a common courtesy; no one likes it when a door shuts in their face. But when woman, and honestly it’s always woman, view that as an opportunity to just walk through the door I’m holding, I start to reconsider. I get that guys often hold the door open for woman to walk through but I’m not hitting on anyone here.

Not to rag on LA but this is really the only place I’ve encountered this door holding dichotomy. Where men are the ones that hold the door and woman are the ones that always get the door held for them. I was actually having a conversation with someone once and when I told them that I hold the door for people, men and woman, they were perturbed and thought it was weird. Which I guess is what leads the ladies in my office building to think that I must be holding the door for them to walk through, rather than just grab, because they are so used to men doing this for them. I can’t explain it but the next time some girl tries to walk through a door I’m holding, I just might shut it in her face.

Vegan (ish) - an update

Today is the last day of my (half-assed) veganism. I have survived. And I’m happy to say, except for one dinner out that involved a pasta sauce which might have contained some cream, I did not cheat. And that aforementioned pasta dish was the closest to vegan I could get. Though it was not as hard as I thought it might have been it was also not that rewarding. Maybe I was being unrealistic, expecting to feel totally different after 14 days of no seafood and dairy, maybe I should have given it more time.

Though I did not cheat I don’t think a vegan diet is something I could maintain full-time. I like food too much. A pescetarian diet works well for me and I think allows me to eat a pretty healthy balance of vegetarian meals, with seafood on occasion. And also never feel like I’m missing out on anything I want to eat or limiting where I am able to eat.

In addition, despite trying other types of veggie cheese I can say that stuff is not for me. I have found some improvements but when I crave a grilled cheese sandwich, soy cheese just doesn’t do it for me.

Vegan (ish)

Starting today I’m vegan (the whole lent thing is a coincidence BTW). Ok, so not exactly. I’m becoming a half-assed vegan for 14 days. I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile now, more of an experiment than a lifestyle change. I already don’t eat meat so in effect I’m giving up seafood and dairy. I anticipate the hardest part of this will be cheese (and sushi). I love cheese, cheese is the one thing that has prevented me from becoming vegan in the past. So I embark on this cheese free lifestyle for 14 days to see if I can do it.

To prepare I made a trip to Wholefoods to stock up on vegan friendly items. I purchased coconut milk yogurt (fingers crossed it's better than soy yogurt – bah), almond milk creamer (which I have had before and know it is quite good) and soy ice-cream (also good), and last but not least soy cheese. I have gone down the soy cheese road before with less than desirable results so I’m hoping this brand has something better to offer.

It should be noted that when I say it’s half-assed it's because I’m not really excluding things that have dairy or eggs as an ingredient. Bread is a good example of this. If I can’t see the dairy or if it is not mentioned in the name of the food (cheese nips you are a no go), then I will probably not eliminate it. Clearly cheating if I were actually becoming vegan but for the purposes of my 14 day experiment that is just fine (so I don't want to hear any backtalk - I make the rules!).

I’ll be providing updates along the way!

Beauty products, the environment and corporate buy-outs

It's been about a year since I began the process of switching over to organic, natural and environmentally sound beauty products so I figured an update was in order. While I am not 100% natural at this point I have managed to find a more natural alternative to most products. I've listed some links below to companies and products that I've come across in this process and have enjoyed.

Jason - I use their Body Wash.

100% Pure - All of their stuff is awesome and smells amazing.

Tom's of Maine - I can no longer use regular toothpaste - tastes sweet compared to the more natural stuff.

Whole Foods - I use their store brand shampoo and conditioners. They work well and are very inexpensive in comparison to some other natural hair care products.

Kiss My Face and Trader Joe's make great body lotion.

I use Seventh Generation and NatraCare feminine products.


Makeup has been the biggest struggle for me in this process. Not only is it harder to find products they sometimes just don't work as well. The Body Shop is one of the places I've found that is pretty good. They have a ton of not only natural beauty products they also have great awareness initiatives going for numerous causes and work for fair pay for the workers in the regions that produce the ingredients used in their products. I'm still on the hunt for a great foundation so I need to do more research on that topic. My favorite website in this has been GoodGuide - they rank products and companies on their healthfulness, environmental impact, work environment and other important factors. It's a great place to look up products you are considering to get a little additional info. Though sites like GoodGuide have been amazingly helpful and I definitely recommend it, nothing can replace educating yourself about what you are putting on (not only in) your body. Being responsible and educated about what you buy can't always be achieved by a website or an app.

This brings me to another element of what I have discovered since I started focusing on natural products. Things are not what they seem. This article from AlterNet is a good introduction. Part of what draws a lot of people to natural products is the thought that they are manufactured by smaller companies (this was something that appealed to me as well), companies that focus more on quality than quantity (aka profits). As the AlterNet article (and research) shows this is not the case. If you can find it at CVS or Target that natural product is probably owned by a major conglomerate. Though most brands started out small their success has lead to them being purchased by large companies. The desire to support a smaller company with a conscience is something that I really connect to. So like the author of that article I was also upset to hear about many of the buy-outs that have taken place. I love Tom's toothpaste but hearing that they are now owned by Colgate is disheartening. It's a true dilemma. A company starts small with the best of ethical intention and it does well. People like their product and support it. It starts with the hippies (let's be honest) but once it catches on and large companies start to take notice there is a good chance of that company being bought out or merging with a large, less ethical company. So as the consumer we are in a somewhat damned if you do / damned if you don't situation. Support a company you like and that support might just turn it into a company you like a little less or don't support it at all.

Another important issue the article brings up is summed up well by this quote from Roger Cowe, a financial commentator "If you want to change what people consume on a grand scale, you have to penetrate mass markets. And you can't do that if you're a small, specialist brand stuck in the organic or whole-food niche, even if that means you are on supermarket shelves. It is a familiar dilemma: stay pure and have a big impact on a small scale, or compromise and have a small impact on a grand scale." I think the benefits of natural products are something everyone should embrace and making that market selective to just a few is limiting the good it can do. We should be striving for a balance.

I clearly have no answers. It's tangled, complicated issue if this is something you care about. I still use Tom's and shop at The Body Shop (even though it's owned by L'Oreal). Though for me it is important to read the labels, don't just buy something that has 'natural' or 'organic' plastered across the front. Even if I don't get it right all the time or go as far as I could in regards to seeking out and finding the small company with the 100% organic ingredients I think taking that step is important. While I keep looking for the best alternatives it's a process, and I think it's better to start than to let all the negative news about mergers keep you from finding products that might be an improvement - even if just a little bit.

Accepting my limitations

I don't make New Years resolutions. I don't see the point in setting an unattainable deadline only to fail and then hate myself for it (I won't lose 35 lbs before bikini season and I refuse to pretend to try). The few times I have attempted to take part in this cultural ritual have ended in feelings of discouragement, and unless my New Years resolution was to develop my self hate I don't think that's the point. I have for a few years now been selecting things I would like to focus on about myself or my current life situation and making them the focus, not necessarily of the year as sometimes they are resolved in a few months while others may take years. These ideas are more fluid than pounds lost or things to check off a list. This year however I did not really pick an area of focus it has just sort of presented itself through the experiences I have had. The issue of accepting my limitations (be they emotional, physical, artistic or just human) has come up again and again. I have taken this as a sign that I should make this a conscious focus and strive to accept where I am while working to expand in the areas that are important to me.

This leads me into yoga (see what happens when I go so long without posting? I have too many pent up ideas and my head goes in 12 directions at once). I have taken up yoga again this month and it has served to synthesize this idea of accepting limitations. Yoga bring to the surface a lot of my limitations and thusly my issues with them - which is also why I need to do it, and often. Everything hard about it is exactly what I need. The simple act of accepting that I am not in the a place physically (dare I say emotionally) to do every pose in the class is hard for me. As with most people I am my own harshest critic and to be ok with being the only person in the class not doing a head stand is unbelievably difficult for me. I have to make a conscious effort to tell myself it's ok to be where I am. At some points in my past I would have given up. Rather than be the least skilled student in the class I would just not taken the class - not put myself out there. But I have chosen to make this my focus, to take stock of where I am now, accept it and work to improve.

This goes beyond just accepting what I am not able to do, it also manifests itself in other ways. I need to be honest about what I am able to commit myself to, what I am able to do with my time. I hope to work on my ability to say no to things that are not really how I want to spend my time. Prioritize what is important to me so that I can give it as much focus as possible. Saying no to people is almost as hard for me as accepting I can't do a headstand (yet). So I'm a work in progress.

Come this summer you won't see me 35 lbs lighter but I might just be a little more accepting of where I am.