School's Out... for now

I took two classes last term. It was good because my former employer was footing the bill so I will get tuition reimbursement for the expense. It was bad because it was so difficult to do two classes in a two-month term and start a new job that I was exhausted and my relationship was stretched to the limit.

I am taking this term off; I am exhausted.

It's my dime now. I'm paying for 100% of the tuition and fees for my college degree from here on out. I'm not on anyone's schedule but my own, and I'm doing it because I want to do it, not because I have to. I know that I will finish, I am studying what I want to study. And yes, there will be a big party in New Hampshire when I finish because I certainly plan to walk and I have family and friends who are willing to come along to celebrate with me.

Tomorrow is the last day of October and I have to decide if I'm going to write another novel for NaNoWriMo. I know that my partner, lynxter, is not thrilled with the prospect of having me pull school out of my schedule only to fill it up with having to write 50,000 words in one month. I have a couple of ideas for a novel, though, and I am going to give it a try. And it looks like I'm going to be writing another literary fiction story. I guess that's the genre I feel most comfortable in, although I always thought I'd write mysteries, fantasy and perhaps some science fiction. I guess I'll get to those stories later.

And no, I haven't gone back to do any re-writing on last year's novel. It's on my to-do list as well.

The Best Laid Plans...

My apologies, dear blog followers. I can't believe that I haven't posted since the end of January. My intentions are good, my life is very full and getting even moreso. In February I decided to go back to college and enter an online Creative Writing and English program. The program features 8 week terms rather than 16 week semesters which can be really intense when you're taking a writing class, which I did in March and April. I don't have any good excuses for February but there you have it.

In eight weeks of class I amassed a writing portfolio of almost 60,000 words including a fair amount of poetry, a couple short stories, a critical paper, a lot of stream of consciousness writing and many story and poem ideas and snippets. I want to give public thanks to my instructor, Daryl Morazzini, for helping me get back in touch with and encouraging my inner poet, and to encourage you to read a cross-genre short story of his titled When They Come For You. It is a very good story although not an easy read. It tells a non-fiction story using elements of  folklore, mythology and comic books.  

When I decided to go back to school and began looking at this Creative Writing program, I realized that I would need to take two of three offered workshop classes in fiction writing, non-fiction writing and poetry. Although I had written a lot of [really bad to mediocre] poetry in my younger days, for some reason I had rationalized that I didn't have any more ideas for poetry and that perhaps I wasn't a poet at heart. The next natural step was for me to decide that when it came time, I would take the fiction and non-fiction workshops and avoid poetry at all costs. The best laid plans...

Then I had to take the Introduction to Creative Writing class. As expected, we started out with fiction and I wrote a few things that I thought were pretty good. I don't seem to be at a loss for story ideas and I'm lucky that I don't often suffer from writer's block. I came out of those weeks with solid grades, as expected. Then came the non-fiction weeks and I learned that writing non-fiction does not come as easily to me. Then we moved to poetry.

As you can well expect, Daryl gave us poetry writing assignments. I thought I had no poetry left in me and soon realized how absolutely wrong I was. A villanelle, a ghazal, free-verse, a pantoum. It has been like opening a floodgate. I did well on the poetry assignments. In response to one week's collection of poetry he wrote:

You have a strong eye for the "breath" in poems, your lines and your your images are just rolling off my tongue, the words stacked one on top of the other in a flowing and progressive manner. Your poems are slightly mystical, a tinge of darkness flows through them, and I believe that you will access the deepest levels of poetry if you continue pursuing your craft and and your interiority of Self through your brilliant and passionate writing..

Of the next week's collection of poems he said "[i]t was wonderful to read these poems out loud and see them on the paper. Please promise me you will read these at an open mic soon." Say what?!

Look, I have friends who are performance poets but I have never considered reading my poetry aloud at an open mic or a slam or anywhere else. I have a love of words, not a love of the sound of words. We listened to Ginsberg read Kaddish and I understood beat poetry but still don't think of it as my kind of poetry.

He did ask me to promise, though. So I committed to read some poetry aloud at the next salon my writers' group holds. After having done that, I thought "but that isn't an open mic." Daryl has been so kind about my poetry that I feel an obligation to keep the full promise. I will read at an open mic. Soon. I'll let you know how that goes. If you're in town I will probably ask you to come along for moral support. And while I was feeling brave about making that decision I sent off a couple of my best poems from my final collection for the class to a contest. I rationalize I can use it to start getting used to rejection. And I don't think I'll be taking the non-fiction workshop.

My Tuscan Lasagna

Today's post interrupts our irregularly scheduled blog to bring you a recipe for gluten-free Tuscan Lasagna that I have been getting lots of requests for.  But first, a little background.... and if you want to skip the background, scroll on down.  I won't be offended.

This is not a cooking blog even though I love to cook and I love to eat.  There are some really great blogs that feature special diets and I follow several of those blogs.  A few months ago I changed my eating habits in order to lose the weight that has crept up since I took a job with corporate America years ago.  To give my metabolism a little boost, I did a vegan/smoothie/juice/mostly-raw diet for a couple of weeks (see www.jointhereboot.com for their standard reboot if you want to know exactly how I began this journey) and then started reintroducing grains, nuts, meat and other foods back into my diet.

I have always known that I had issues with soy.  It started during infancy when my Mom couldn't produce enough breast milk and I couldn't keep formula down.  I eventually kept it down, but the doctor warned my mom that it wasn't because I wasn't allergic to the last brand they tried; my body had merely learned to tolerate what they kept putting into me.  I've read that most people outgrow that allergy but I never did.  I can eat soy sauce and a little tofu (hot & sour soup - yum!), but eating a TVP burger is a surefire way for me to get severe stomach pains.

Drinking glasses of milk have always made my throat feel like it was closing a little, but I like milk & milk products so I've stuck to cheeses and yogurts since they don't seem to do that as much.  Cheese has been a huge part of my life (and my waistline).  I didn't realize what I was putting my body through until after my reboot.  I had a slice of mozzarella melted on a portabella mushroom cap the day after my reboot ended and had stomach pains that reminded me of soy.  I still love cheese and yogurt so I still eat a little of it, but I am more careful now and keep it to a minimum.  Why put my body through that if I don't have to?

Finally, about the gluten-free thing.  I do not have Celiac's disease and I do eat some wheat and wheat products.  However, my mother has adult-onset diabetes and she told me that whenever she eats bread, even 100% whole wheat, it causes her blood sugar to spike.  Since my blood sugar has been creeping up over the past few years, I figured it was doing spiky things to my blood too so I've pretty much eliminated it from my diet.

Which (finally) brings me to the Tuscan Lasagna recipe.

Almost.

A couple of years ago, Lynxter and I took a trip to Italy.  On the trip we visited a winery in San Gimignano.  As part of the tasting, they served us a piece of the vintner's mother's lasagna so that we could experience the white truffle oil they sold.  We left with a bottle of the truffle oil and I spent the next year searching for a recipe that might replicate mama's.  It was the best lasagna I'd eaten in my life.  After a year of searching, I finally found something pretty close, a Tuscan lasagna alla Bolognese, and modified it as closely as I could to my memory of hers.  I thought it was a thing of the past when I quit eating dairy and wheat.  I might eat a little of those things and usually not together.  I was sad but really kind of ok with it because who wants stomach pain?

The day I saw brown rice lasagna noodles in the supermarket I wondered if it would be possible to make a gluten-free version of this recipe.  It features some cheese, but what's really important to the taste is the bechamel sauce, which traditionally includes both milk and flour.

As I said before, I love to eat.  So I am not going to modify my diet to include something that tastes nasty.  If the substitution doesn't taste good, I'd rather eliminate the food entirely from my diet.  With that in mind, I modified the recipe to what follows.  Along the way I have included dietary options I have tried and some thoughts on how it might be made meat-free (which I've never tried).  I hope you enjoy it.  I think it's good enough that if your audience didn't know it wasn't "real" noodles and cheese, they'd never guess.

I took a pan of this to my writer's group salon a couple of weeks ago and everyone seemed to enjoy it.  People have been asking me for the recipe.  Then this morning someone on Twitter asked for it.  So I thought I'd post it here where anyone who wants can have a copy.

And one final warning about what I'm calling "dairy-free".  Most dairy-free cheeses are made with soy, which is worse for me than dairy.  So I use Rice Shreds, which actually contains casein, a milk-based product.  So if you absolutely can't have casein, you'll probably want to use a vegan, soy-based cheese.

And unlike a food blog, there are no pictures.  Both times I made it, we ate it all down as though we were starving, which we certainly are not.

Tuscan Lasagna

PASTA:

10oz box of GF Lasagna noodles (I used Tinkyada brown rice pasta)

RAGU:

About 1 Tbsp olive oil

1-1/2 lbs. Ground beef (a good cut, at least 80-90% lean)¹ - subst. soy crumbles if you want to go meatless & can have soy, see comment below about possible soy-free option)

½ c shredded carrots

½ c chopped celery rib

½ c chopped onions

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp chopped fresh sage

½ tsp thyme

28oz can crushed tomatoes

½ c dry red wine (a chianti or other sangiovese works best)

½ c beef stock (you could use a beef-flavored broth if you are going vegetarian)

FILLING:

8oz Mozzarella Rice Shreds (use pecorino Romano cheese, grated if you can have goat cheese) or soy-based "cheese"

Bechamel sauce (recipe below)

BECHAMEL SAUCE:

1 Tbsp soy-free Earth Balance

1 Tbsp Bob's Red Mill GF All-Purpose flour

300mL Coconut milk (about 1-1/4c) - can subst rice milk, cow's, etc. if you like) - I used So Delicious Original

1/2 tsp Arrowroot powder

1/8 tsp or less! freshly grated nutmeg

1 tsp chicken-flavored soup base (I use Orrington Farms which has actual chicken but not all do)

freshly ground pepper to taste

freshly ground sea salt to taste

TOPPING:

White truffle oil  (pay more, get the real stuff.  If it's cheap it isn't real.  It is worth it!)

Start the Ragu.  In a large saucepan/skillet, heat the oil until shimmering. Add the garlic and cook over moderate heat until lightly browned, about 1 minute. Add the carrots, celery and onion and cook, stirring, until softened, about 10 minutes.  Stir in the sage and ground beef¹ and season with salt and pepper.  Break up the meat with a wooden spoon and cook over high heat until no trace of pink remains, about 8 minutes. Pour in the wine and cook over high heat, stirring, until reduced by half, about 15 minutes. Add tomatoes and stock. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 hours, uncovered, stirring occasionally.   You can actually let this cook longer than 2 hours – the longer it cooks, the better it tastes.

While the ragu simmers, prepare the bechamel.  Melt the "butter" in a heavy saucepan over low heat. Add the flour & arrowroot all at once, and stir rapidly with a wire whisk until blended. Add the milk at once to the butter-flour mixture, stirring vigorously with a whisk. Continue cooking over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the sauce has thickened and is smooth, about the consistency of a thin pudding. Add the nutmeg, salt, and a few grinds of pepper, soup base if desired.  Cool the sauce at least 15 minutes before using. It becomes firmer as it cools.

Preheat oven to 375°F.  Spray a 13 x 9 x 3-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.  Spread a layer of Bolognese Sauce on the bottom of the dish. Cover with uncooked lasagne, slightly overlapping the noodles. Spread some ragu over the noodles and dollop with scant tablespoons of the bechamel.  Then sprinkle with cheese  Drizzle Béchamel Sauce over the noodles and sprinkle with cheese.  Continue in this order until you use the last of the noodles, then top with the remaining bechamel sauce and cheese  This layer of bechamel should cover the entire top of the layer.  Reserve any remaining Bolognese Sauce for serving.  Make sure no dry noodles are exposed or they will not soften and that's pretty yucky (even true for noodles with gluten, in my opinion).

Cover with foil and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Remove foil and continue to bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven. Let rest 10 to 15 minutes until serving.

Serve with additional ragu and pecorino romano (or other "cheese") as desired, but drizzle truffle oil on the top of each serving.  You'll thank me.  It's what had me searching for this lasagna recipe for almost a year.....

¹NOTE: It costs a bit more, but it's really excellent to replace the 2 lbs. Ground beef with 1 lb. Ground veal, ½ lb. ground pork,  ½ lb. ground lamb and 1/3 lb. chicken livers.  Before adding the ground meat as described above, first stir in the chicken livers and sage and cook, stirring occasionally, just until the livers lose their pink color, about 3 minutes. Then add the ground veal, pork and lamb and continue the recipe as above. 

Looking for a vegan, soy-free ground beef alternative?  I haven't tried it, but am intrigued by Ricki Heller's "easily soy-free" veggie full-ground meat.  Check it out here and instead of Bragg's or Soy sauce, don't omit it, try Coconut Aminos.  I am going to give this a shot soon but probably not in the lasagna recipe.  If I keep making that I'm going to start gaining weight again.

Please let me know what you think!

And now, back to my irregularly scheduled blog about writing and thoughts and stuff.

Winter, Physics and Rosanne Cash

As the weather has turned decidedly colder, accompanied by snow and strong winds, I find myself hunkering down today, mindful of my cold fingers and toes.  No, I'm not outside, I just can't seem to get completely warm these days.  But if this is downside of losing weight, I'll learn to embrace it (and perhaps buy more polypro).  I've had a fairly productive day at work and now I'm taking a lunch break so I thought I'd spend a little time here.


Thanks to the magic of  technology and the internet, as I write this I am listening to a podcast of Rosanne Cash on Krista Tippett's APM show "On Being".  (It's a very good program, please check it out if you have any interest in spiritual discussions.  Here's a link to the Cash interview: http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2012/time-traveler.)  I am learning that Rosanne Cash and I have a similar interest in a creative force that we glimpse, that organizes the world around us.  She's talked a bit about her love of fractals and quantum mechanics.  If you follow her on Twitter, you probably already share my belief that she'd be a lot of fun to hang out and chat with.  Or play music with (if you're also a musician).  This interview solidifies my suspicions in that area.


In the interview, Cash told Tippett "it took me well into my 20s and early 30s to really find something that was mine. And to realize that art and music was the kind of deity I was looking for.  That it was all there.  The source of all creativity, light enlightenment, beauty, revelation, inspiration, all those things were in art and music. So I said well that's good enough for me."

I wonder whether art and music are merely the manifestation.  From my limited exposure to quantum physics, I have gathered that the more scientists learn, the more it seems to point to the existence of what might be called "God".  The fascination I have with the potential synergy of science and religion is one reason that I recently purchased books by Michio Kaku and Lisa Randall.  I didn't take physics in school and I wish I had.  Everyone in my family who has taken it, loves it.  The boys have even both considered (or should I say, "are considering") majoring in physics in college.

I fully realize that some people seek the solace of religious because they have had difficult times and need God to get them through, or they carry guilt about the poor choices they've made so far and don't want to end up in Dante's Inferno.  I have always been interested in God, or what's out there, or the force, or whatever you want to call it.  Yes, it's true that as the planet shifts into another year (already has or soon will, depending on whose calendar you follow), I am reminded more often of my own mortality especially when I hear more frequent stories of friends having major health issues or major open heart surgeries or even of passing into the next realm.  But the fact that I'm growing older isn't suddenly triggering this fascination with religion.  It isn't related to mortality or my behavior or anything like that at all.  It's been there most of my life and it's pretty simple:

I am curious.  I am in awe.  I find it wondrous.

I feel that I'm coming into a very good year.  I suppose I always think that, being an optimist, but I also have good reason to be an optimist and I am grateful.  I have so much compared to so many - from the material and the physical to the emotional and cognitive.  I am lucky by accident of birth and by making my own luck.  My successes are owed to others and to my own efforts.  To which degree each played a role, I have no idea and in the end, don't think it really matters, they are probably very related, whether they appear to be on the surface or not.   To get down to the science of it, we humans are social animals. What's important to me is that I try do the best I can with what I have to work with, and that I do it with other people and with kindness and forgiveness and tenacity to others as well as to myself.  Sure, there's an element of continuous self-development in there too, along with a healthy dose of the moral yardstick with which I was raised.


I was raised a Catholic and while I have many disagreements with the Church in Rome (a topic for another post, another day perhaps), those teachings gave me a strong belief in treating others as I would have them treat me.  I know that I don't always live up to it, but that is the standard I use for my behavior in every one of my relationships, in every encounter I have.  Because of that, I don't have to worry that I'm getting religion right.  I know that I am.  And I can view science and mysticism and religion and spirituality as objectively as I think a subjective human can view these topics because my soul isn't at stake if I get it wrong.  And what I keep learning continues to inspire me, sparks my curiosity and never fails to leave me with a sense of awe and wonder.


With winter everything seems to slow down a bit.  So let the snowflakes fall and the winds roar if that's what they'll do today.  I'll continue to reflect then say my quiet prayers of thanksgiving and hope for others before moving on to my afternoon tasks.

NaNoWriMo - What's Next?

I apologize for not posting something sooner to let you know that I was a National Novel Writing Month winner (anyone who completes the 50,000 words and has their word count validated on the site is a winner).  It was my first time attempting and succeeding at writing the complete first draft of a novel.  Despite the fact that I heard about NaNoWriMo late, had never written anything that long in my life, and was sick the first week, I jumped in and decided to give it a try.  I am so happy that I did.  I finished it with slightly over 50,000 words, which made me a "winner" among many thousands of winners.  The fact that there are so many of us magnifies the accomplishment for me.  I feel a sense of unity with the other winners, the joy of a shared experience that turned out well.

I am fairly certain that I will never write the same way again; that is, the way I wrote before NaNoWriMo.  That inner editor is still chomping at the bit to get out of the gate, but I'll keep her at bay in the future until after the first draft.  So what's the next step for me?  I'm currently taking the advice of some published writers and haven't yet re-read my first draft.  I will give it about three weeks and then start to work on editing.  I am sure that I will cut a lot of material and add a lot more.  The basic story is done, but there is still so much more to do with what is there.  I'm excited and can hardly wait.

And if you're a writer, I hope you'll join me in writing a new novel in 2012 because I'll be doing it again come November.

NaNoWriMo Madness Continues

I made a lot of progress and then the past couple of nights had some other things to take care of in the evening.  I am over 10,000 words which I find amazing every time I see the word count on the page.  The madcap idea of trying to write 50,000 words in one month is obviously working for me.  I have throttled the inner editor completely (well, almost completely) and I am just writing.

I am taking to heart the advice that Neil Gaiman gave in a NaNoWriMo pep talk, "You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days.  Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die.  Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny.  But that does not matter.  What matters right now are the words, one after another.  Find the next word.  Write it down.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat."

The novel that I am writing was a collision of ideas that fell into my lap.  I've been writing fantasy recently and decided to try something completely different for NaNoWriMo since one of the rules is that you have to start the novel in November and finish 50,000 words in the same November.  On a whim I decided to try literary fiction.  I didn't know that most literary fiction tends to be quite a bit longer than 50,000 words until I learned that the average word count of the world's "great novels" is about 135,000 words.  Good thing I didn't read that until after I was committed to my idea!

Ignorance is bliss, though.  I decided to try a literary fiction novel about a woman who is my age and feels vaguely suicidal.  She wants to escape from her life. I thought that I should be able to muse and ponder and toss about 50,000 words around that.  Literary fiction is, after all, more about the character than about the plot, right?

Funny how it happens, though, I started wondering why she'd vaguely feel these things.  It turned out that she was being surplussed at her job and wondered how she'd support herself and her young daughter.  It isn't easy to find a job when you're fifty, as plenty of currently unemployed people can attest.    And then out of the blue, she learns a secret about her recently-deceased mother that changes her life.   She thought her mother was an orphan but she wasn't.  Her mother has a sister and grew up in Hermann, Missouri.

As if that weren't enough, a few days after starting the novel, more plot fell into my lap.  I went to Missouri wine country and started reading about my own ancestor's contributions to early Missouri wine-making.  I've always been a genealogy buff and knew a bit about my third great-grandfather.  I read about a varietal that he'd cultivated that I've never heard of, mostly because I don't think it exists any more (dang prohibition!)

More to come later, but now, back to the novel, which has the working title of The German Diary.

NaNoWriMo Progress

Despite being under the weather for the past couple of weeks, I've decided that a late start to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is better than no start at all.  I've never participated in this before, but after some encouragement from others, I've decided to give it a whirl and I have no regrets.  I'm checking in with locals (#stlnano) and with others (#NaNoWriMo) on twitter.   I've joined the NaNoWriMo site and in three very partial days of writing, I've managed a 2,262 word count.  


I should be working on that word count now, but it's been so long since I blogged that I thought it was important that I take a little time out to write this.  Lynxter and I are still eating primarily vegan, with a lot of juices and smoothies, and we are still losing weight.  I went to the doctor to have blood tests about six weeks into the new regimen and had some odd results.  My protein levels were on the low end of normal, which I expected, but my vitamin D level was way below normal along with my platelets (could be a centrifuge error).  More on all of that another time.  


The novel I'm writing this month doesn't have a title yet, but it's about a fifty-year old woman who learns that she has been surplussed at her company and must figure out how she will support herself and her teenage daughter at the same time that she learns her deceased mother had unshared secrets that will affect the second half of her life.  I still have my other writing projects in progress but I put them on hold so I could participate in NaNoWriMo.

So back to it for me.  How about you?

Food and Change

There has been a dramatic change in my eating habits in the past month.

About a month ago, lynxter watched "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" and decided that we should go on a juice diet to lose weight.  Since I wanted to support my partner and was keenly aware that my weight had crept back up over the years we've been together, I thought it was worth a try.  Also, a colleague had recently lost a lot of weight on a juice diet, so I knew it could be done.  I went out to fatsickandnearlydead.com to find out what I'd gotten myself into.

On the website for the film there was a link that asked "Ready to start juicing? Visit RebootYourLife www.jointhereboot.com today".  I'm glad I clicked on the link before just diving in or I probably would have made every mistake possible.  I went through the quiz and dissatisfied with my results, looked around the site until I found the option that included a juice-only set of days.  They called it the "Reboot Standard" program and even though the fellow in the documentary did only juices for 60 days, the website recommends not doing one that long without medical supervision.

The website gave information on how to ease into a juice-only diet.  I went shopping that day and we started the day after that.  To get the ingredients for the suggested menus was not cheap, but it was a good way to find out what we did and didn't like and we justified it by acknowledging that we'd been eating fairly unhealthy for awhile (yes, toasted almond gelato, I'm talking about you).

I learned about the taste of raw foods and how they differ from cooked foods.  For example, while I am a huge fan of Ukrainian borsht, I don't really care for red beets in any juice recipe.  I will have to take a suggestion on the reboot your life site and try golden beets instead but I can't choke down the red ones.  They taste like dirt to me.

We extended the first five days of the standard reboot to seven so that we could do the juice-only days during the workweek.  After five days of juice-only, we've eased back into a schedule that is mostly vegan and includes juices or smoothies for most of our meals.  The goal has been to keep at this until we've lost our excess weight, but to gradually move back into eating solid foods with occasional "reboots" for those inevitable times we "fall off the wagon".

How are we doing?  Well....

I thought I would be starving, but between the juices and all the water I'm drinking, I haven't really been hungry for the past month.  I've noticed that sometimes what I used to think was "feeling hungry" was actually being thirsty.  I've also noticed that I experience the sensation of fullness differently.  I can actually feel my stomach being full, high up under my rib cage.  In the past I didn't feel it that way, my entire abdomen would have a general feeling of fullness.  So maybe describing this as a "reboot" is really the right description.

To that end, I've noticed how certain foods affect me when I've reintroduced them.  When I ate a little mozzarella cheese melted on portabella mushrooms, I had stomach pains.  I always knew I had a bit of a cow lactose intolerance/allergy, but had never recalled feeling it so directly before.  Feta did not have this effect on me, but then I'm not allergic to goat's milk... And while a couple of bacon strips had no effect, eating a six ounce piece of steak has given me stomach pains, probably because it's not the easiest thing to digest in bulk, especially after eating almost entirely vegan for the past month.  So, as much as I like cheddar cheese and cow's milk and steak, I'll be making some different choices going forward.  I may not eliminate any food entirely, but I will make different quantity choices.  Why make my digestive system work so hard if I don't have to?

Despite a four-day trip to Nashville where we had breakfast (twice!) including bacon, biscuits and gravy and grits at our favorite restaurant, the Country Boy in Leipers Fork, I have lost 20 pounds in the last 30 days.  That's a lot of weight, and includes gaining a couple of pounds after that Nashville trip and a couple of days where my weight stayed the same.  I admit that I was looking at calorie content to minimize the impact of eating this way, which I hadn't done in the past (what a shocker it was to see how many calories were in those breakfasts!), and except for those breakfasts I have been avoiding white potatoes and almost any kind of wheat product.  Breads were always my weakness (and a craving) and since diabetes runs in my family, common sense tells me I have to watch those things.  I am almost to the point where I'm going to need a new wardrobe, as I'm looking more and more like the youngest kid wearing too-big cast-off clothing from the older children in the family .

Most importantly, I feel fantastic.  I had a headache for the first three days, which I think was caused by giving up black tea (I have never been a coffee drinker, but I could put away a lot of tea in a day's time).  I found that when I drank more water, the headache went away.  I have had more energy, I haven't needed caffeine, and I have started to appreciate the smell of food without having to actually eat it.  I can walk through the bakery section of the grocery store on the way to produce and enjoy the yeasty breads and sweets and that's enough.  In fact, I think the aroma may be more satisfying than the consumption would be.  I'm not going to test that theory yet, but I am allowing myself to enjoy the smell of these things without feeling like I have to eat them.

While all of this has been going on for the past month, I've put swimming on hold, although I did go to the pool a couple of weekends ago with my mom.  The swimming lanes were all in use for a triathlon, so we walked around the other part of the pool.  I plan to get back to swimming now that I'm accustomed to the dietary changes I've made.  And I found my old pedometer and I plan to start walking as well.

Since getting all of our juices ready and grocery shopping for fresh produce takes up so much of my evenings, I have not been playing much guitar. Seeing the Americana Festival showcases in Nashville last weekend did make me want to start writing again, and even though I haven't written any music in the past month, I did finish the first draft of a short story.  That's a first for me, I start so much and finish so little.

Could the dramatic dietary change actually be a ripple of change moving throughout my entire self?

I like to think it is, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Carry On, Mr. Chopin

Tonight I attended a visitation for the father of a long-time friend who died in his sleep last weekend just three months shy of his 93rd birthday.  It was the most joyous wake I've ever attended, truly the celebration of a man who was well-loved, not only by his wife and eight children, but by friends who came to this visitation even if they hadn't seen him in close to 30 years. 


In high school, I loved to visit my friend's house.  I loved everything about it, from the chaos of so many kids under one roof, to her dad asking where we were off to and then telling us to "carry on."  Their house vibrated with the love and joy of the family within.  They even had a dinner bell hanging outside they rang to bring everyone home.  When they heard it, the kids came home and if they were out of range, they were in trouble.  I loved my family, but I always thought if I had grown up in a large family, this would have been the kind I would have wanted to be a part of.  It was like Cheaper By the Dozen come to life.

My friend's father is survived by her mother, and I chatted with her for awhile at the visitation.  She didn't remember me, and I didn't think she would.  I was one of dozens (hundreds?) of kids that came and went through their house over the years.  She told me that she'd asked one of her daughters if Jonathan Franzen had ever been to their house.  Of course he had.  In fact, their house is pivotal in a lie prepared for the police in one of the essays in The Discomfort Zone.

My friend's father was hard-working, funny and kind.  He was also passionate and articulate and lived life to the fullest, even up to the end.  He is an inspiration for how to live your life, surrounded by love and family and enjoying every minute of it.  There wasn't a family member in the funeral parlor who exhibited one shred of remorse or regret.  They were happy to celebrate the man they loved so much.  So it was no surprise to me that his obituary indicated that "if desired, contributions may be made in memory to the charity of choice and live life to its fullest."

I was happy to be there for my friend, someone I love, respect and admire.  I was also there for myself, to say goodbye to that happy memory of my youth, to see how the story ends, as it were.  Tomorrow my friend's father will be buried in the same cemetery as his relatively well-known grandmother, a St. Louis writer named Kate.  I can't say that I think he will rest in peace.  I'm sure he's at peace, but I can't imagine him resting.  So carry on, Mr. Chopin.

Murder, Mayhem and Radio: I Knew I'd Like Her

I was once the executive producer and co-host of a radio magazine program. The program ended about ten years ago (after a run of about ten years) and was a combination of music, news, public interest, interviews and other short pieces. I interviewed a lot of people over the years, from Ann Rice to Hilary Clinton to people you've never heard of.

One week I had the pleasure of interviewing two mystery writers that had come into town for a book signing, one a seasoned pro and the other a relative newcomer. The interview with the pro was fine, but the newcomer and I clicked. She did good radio. We stayed in touch over the years, and her career blossomed. She's received at least ten awards and published twenty-six mystery novels. I'm really proud of her and I really like her novels.

She was in town recently for Bouchercon, the world’s largest mystery and crime-fiction convention (that I'd somehow never heard of), and was part of an authors panel at Left Bank Books so I decided to go. I went to have the opportunity to say hello again in person to a long-time acquaintance. If she hadn't been there, I probably would not have gone. Even though I enjoy mystery novels, I didn't know any of the other authors on the bill. I did, however, relish the thought of being able to see her in person again after all these years. And while keeping in touch via social networking is great, nothing beats having someone be right next to you when you're talking. I thought it would be an interesting couple of hours.

It was nice to hear the authors speak about their work. They were: Neil Plakcy, Greg Herren, J.M. Redmann, Jeri Westerson, Ellen Hart, Jeffrey Ricker, Rob Byrnes, Michael Dymmoch, and Val McDermid. Hearing them talk about their work made me want to finish the mystery stories I've started and abandoned over the years, so that turned out to be a bonus for attending.

I recognized Ricker, the local boy, as the friend of a friend we'd had dinner with once, not as the soon-to-be-published novelist that he is. I'd had no idea he was a mystery writer. His friends were there, so I didn't have a chance to say hello but I was able to at least wave at his partner before the event started. I didn't know any of the other authors except Ellen.

During the Q and A I asked the final question of the evening and then everyone broke up to chat, peruse books for sale, and obtain autographs from their favorites. After it seemed that most of the books had been signed, we chatted for a few minutes. She got me caught up on the seasoned pro I'd interviewed years ago (Sandra Scoppettone now retired, but her books are apparently coming to eBook soon, which is nice to hear) and told me that she was absolutely crazy about Val McDermid's wife. Ellen was happy to hear that I was writing and encouraged me to keep it up.

When Ellen introduced me to Val, I had a feeling I'd like her. She's originally from Scotland but lives on the northeast coast of England now. My Dad always said that our family was from Scotland even though I've seen no proof, but maybe there's some truth to it. Val had a look about her that reminded me of my great-grandmother (years ago, when my great-grandmother was about my age!). It turned out that Val loves doing radio and does pieces for the BBC. I would have loved to chat longer with her about radio but I had to leave to meet my partner.

A few days later I caught a piece that Val did on the Chalet School novels, and guess what? She does good radio.

I knew I'd like her.

Less Than An Hour From Now

The big milestone birthday is here and in less than an hour I will have lived on this earth for a significant amount of time. Well, significant to me but completely inconsequential in a cosmological sense. So, I'm having a cup of tea in the "Warning! Today you are as young as you will ever be for the rest of your life" mug that was a birthday present from a friend. It's nice to have a reminder that every day I'm young!

Lynxter is taking me out of town this weekend for a birthday surprise but until we leave this afternoon I have more time to write in my blog, say thanks on social media for all of the birthday wishes, and to read.

You see, in addition to the soul-searching that I have been doing about my purpose in life, I've also been obsessing about bees. I know. So much obsession in one little head, right? This is how my brain works. I get interested in something and then devour as much knowledge as I possibly can about the topic. As a result, Lynxter might very well find me maddening to live with, but she handles it graciously. And as maddening as that might make me to live with, you should try being inside my head.

When I first read about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), I thought that keeping bees was a good idea for the sake of trying to help pollinate and re-populated bees as pollinators. It didn't go beyond the thinking stage because I thought I'd need a lot of space to keep bees. That thought went back into cold storage like so many others.

Then I went to Huckleberry's sixth birthday party.

Huck's parents are good friends of ours and they throw great parties, which we are always grateful to be invited to. At the party, one of their neighbors mentioned her husband's beehives and I started asking questions because less than a week earlier, I'd run into someone I hadn't seen in years who has a beehive that she said she was having to feed sugar to. That seemed odd to me in the middle of summer, so I discussed it with my friend's neighbor. Learning in the course of a week that two people with very small, very urban yards were raising bees yanked that thought right out of cold storage and right into the part of my brain where obsession thrives.

I learned a fair amount about bees from my friend's neighbor and came away from the conversation wanting a hive of my own. Knowing that I already live in a house filled with way too many pets to care for, I wanted to research how much time and effort bees would require before I committed to them, but I was already thinking about where in the yard I could put hives that bees would want to live in. If I got a little honey in the process, so be it, but for me, this was all about the bees. So I started reading on the internet and almost immediately discovered Warré hives and natural beekeeping. This is my kind of beekeeping. You mess with the bees about twice a year - once to harvest in the fall and once to add hive boxes when winter is over. Other than that, you leave them to do what they do best - not interact with humans unless absolutely necessary.

There is a ton of information on the internet. I even found plans to build my own hive. I emailed one of my closest friends who lives out of state because she's a wood-worker and I wanted to know if she thought the Warré hive plans I found would be difficult to build. She emailed me back that she'd built one of them already and that she thought I could certainly do it, especially with the right tools. Too bad she decided she had too much on her plate and gave the hive away or I could also pick her brain about keeping bees in this kind of hive.

I remembered that a longtime friend's father has kept bees for years and I learned that the local beekeepers association meets at the same location as my caving grotto (but on a different night). On their website I learned that a caver I've met who lives the next town over is a beekeeper and he said he'd be more than happy to answer any questions about beekeeping that I might have.

Lynxter said that before I put up the hive, I need to build and install the bat box we've been talking about for a couple of years. We might have too many trees for the bats to feel safe, but I'll do it. And building a bat box will be good practice for building a hive. The construction isn't very similar except it will involve measuring, cutting and attaching wood to create boxes. I found a bat box plan on the internet too - one that looks a lot easier than the one I gave Lynxter's son for his Eagle scout project.

The timing for this is perfect. I'm getting started while I'm young.

Milestone Musings on Mission/Purpose

I am sure that a lot of the soul-searching I've been doing recently is because I am approaching a milestone birthday. I find myself looking back on the choices I've made in my life, taking inventory, thinking about the things I am proud of and the opportunities I still have. I am looking forward to the next part of my life and in typical fashion I'm worried that I may not have time to complete everything on my list of things to do and see. I'm not a big worrier, but I do I love life and don't want to waste a minute of what's left of mine.

I have been reading a book about the stories we tell ourselves about our lives and how we can write new stories for ourselves that will take us where we want to go. Our destinies do follow our lives, not the other way around. The story we tell ourselves and others about ourselves is what creates our life. It's a book that discusses the power of story.

And it's a book that is causing a personal crisis for me.

Here's the thing. The author says that once you define your purpose - what really matters - that everything else can fall into place. And he says that whatever it is, it should be able to motivate you to walk across a plank 175 feet in the air, wind gusts or no gusts, seven days a week, no questions asked. It's the wind in your sails, the yeast in your bread. And I am having a crisis because I am not sure I can identify that thing in myself.

What's wrong with me?

The author of the book, Jim Loehr, suggests that you imagine what you'd like to hear at your eulogy or to have carved on your tombstone. For some people it's to make their parents proud, for others it's to be the most successful earner in their social circle, for others to seek out adventure and risk. He uses purpose interchangeably with "ultimate mission" and describes it as the thing that constantly renews your spirit, that motivates you when nothing else can. I don't seem to be able to land on one thing.

I think it was Steven Covey who suggested you make a statement about something you want to do and then ask why and keep asking why until you get down to that underlying purpose. When I try to do that, I end up with a bunch of whys. It doesn't strike me as having the focus I'm supposed to have with this ultimate mission. A tiny little voice in my head suggested "maybe I'm over-thinking this." I quashed it and began looking around the internet for ways to find my life's purpose. Mary Jaksch suggested that I answer 15 questions such as what would you do if money were no barrier? and what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? Another blogger suggested that I write "what is my life's purpose" at the top of a blank piece of paper and then keep answering it over and over until something resonated. All of this seemed like a waste of time.

Then I found Dr. Susan Biali.

A couple of years ago Biali wrote a blog for Psychology Today (check it out) and her confession in it sounded so familiar that I couldn't believe it. When she says "[i]f you're blessed with tons of different ideas or talents, celebrate them rather than bending to pressure to 'just pick one'" I can feel it resonate through my entire being. It's exactly the problem I am having with this book. I am like a kid in a candy store when it comes to life. There are so many choices I can't seem to settle down on just one. How can I possibly reconcile things like writing songs/screenplays/fiction/blogs, helping my son grow into a good man, playing guitar, cave conservation and exploration, being a good partner, motivating sales people, world travel and natural farming (I'm currently thinking bees....)?

Biali suggests that you should embrace all the different things you know. Give yourself room to try on the different interests and ideas you have. Some will stick and some will naturally fall away. For her, living her way into her passion and purpose has been the process, not honing in on one thing.

And that helps me answer the question for now because I think I am starting to have an understanding of what matters to me in this moment: to continually learn and grow. I have always been a curious person who takes things apart in my mind. It's one reason I was such a good interviewer when I did radio. I like learning how things and people tick, and then placing that in the context of my own life to make me a better person and hopefully more able to share it with others. I do really want to do my part to make this a better world. I have done a lot of things in my life. I have had so many blessings so far and I don't see that ending anytime soon. I am so thankful for everything that I've experienced in my life, good and bad. (You bet, I'll take them both!)

Maybe it's no wonder that a Charles Schultz cartoon I read years ago has continued to stick in my mind and always brings a smile to my face. In it, Charlie Brown is talking to Linus and mentions someone being 21 years old. Linus replies "don't be ridiculous, no one lives to be that old!" Or does that many things.

And yet, here I am.

Close Friends

I've been thinking about building close friendships again today. My partner Lynxter is my closest friend and I'm thankful for that. But I also believe it's heathy to have close friends outside of your primary relationship. And that's where things seem to be difficult for me.

I think most people who know me would describe me as a friendly, affectionate, yet somewhat reserved, person. I am not necessarily that easy to get to know and people probably think I'm more serious than I really am. I have not been a person prone to asking for help in my life, a trait that my son has unfortunately picked up from me. I think being "the smart kid" in school led to me missing out on some of the social skills that everyone else picked up. I have often felt like I don't fit in anywhere, and I still feel that way. It doesn't stop me from wanting or trying to connect, but it's often a lonely place of my own making.

Throughout my life, my closest friends have been women. I have had very close male friends in my life too, but it has been primarily women for a host of reasons that would derail this topic, so I won't get into that today. Reaching out to build friendships with women when your romantic partners tend to be women can be tricky, because there's always the possibility that someone is going to mistake your reaching out as interest in intimacy that goes beyond the platonic.

Let me just say here that I am in a monogamous relationship. In the past, I tried a non-monogamous relationship. I have some pretty strong opinions about it, but I'll only say that in the long run, it didn't work for me. I don't judge others. I have also been in relationships where my partner cheated on me. Those worked for me even less. I know that I am a monogamous person. It is what works best for me and it is a boundary that I won't cross, even if I meet someone I find attractive, which doesn't happen very often, maybe because I'm not looking for it. I have a really strong sense of "treat others as you wish to be treated" and I won't do that to anyone, especially not someone I love.

I had a friend once tell me that in all friendships there is an element of attraction. I think my friend is absolutely right, but I differ with him on the meaning of attraction. He meant sexual interest but I think that instead it can mean intellectual interest or emotional interest or spiritual interest. The hard part is juggling all of that along with the insecurities of everyone involved.

And I have had people mistake my interest in them for sexual attraction. It's a very uncomfortable situation to be in. How do you explain to someone that you like them, but not that way, without bruising the fragile ego of someone you really do like? It's happened to me more than once, so I wonder if I am somehow giving off the wrong impression. I was not a person who dated a lot when I was single, so that thought has occurred to me.

Then there's that whole business of sharing intimate thoughts and feelings. I don't make a habit of ever saying anything negative about my partner to a friend. I worry that they might take something I say when I'm temporarily angry or frustrated as something more meaningful and long-lasting, especially since some of them have the context of a partner I once had, who was pretty universally disliked by my friends. And I don't want anyone to think badly of Lynxter because she's someone I cherish.

I suppose I should trust my friends more and then something deeper might build from there. Maybe that's the crux of it. My oldest friends (and my partners) have seen the best and the worst of me, as I have them. They easily separate the wheat from the chaff and they still love me anyway. They reach out to me as often as I reach out to them, our relationships are equal. There is an ebb and flow to them, to be sure, especially since my closest friends outside of Lynxter now live out of town. What makes them so magical, and what makes me miss having close friends in town, is that when we get together it doesn't matter if ten minutes or ten years have passed, at their core they are still the same friend I have always loved.

Don't misunderstand me. I do have friends who would come if I called at 3am and I would come if they called me at 3am. But they don't feel the same as some of these old friendships and I think that's what I am missing in my life right now.

People Traveling Through Our Lives

Many years ago I read a book that discussed six different types of friendships. And while the book wasn't about friendships per se, that is what stuck with me over the years. The author said there are six different kinds of friends, from convenience friends to friends who come when you call at three in the morning. We all have them and each serves an important purpose in our lives.

Social networking, as I mentioned a couple of blogs ago, has enabled me to get back in touch with a lot of friends and acquaintances I've known over the years. I'm a curious person, and I like knowing where people's lives have taken them so I have been enthralled with social networking sites. At first I was insufferable, now I think I'm only moderately annoying about it since the novelty has begun to wear off. slightly.

I think about the friends in my life - neighbors and office mates, people who belong to the same organizations I do, childhood friends, older friends who shared their wisdom with me and younger friends for whom I've done the same. I have been blessed with having a lot of people in my life.

And yet, when I really think about it, I don't think I have been that successful in cultivating close friends. The truly close friends in my life would still come if I called at three in the morning, but most of them are no longer living in the same city with me. Rather than developing new close friends, I have relied on lovers to fill the void. I don't know if that's particularly unusual in a transient society like ours but I don't know.

What do you think?

Ebb and Flow

Death has always made sense to me as an inevitable part of life. When I say that, I mean death by natural causes. For example, I miss the two great-grandmothers I was lucky enough to know in my childhood, my father's grandmothers, but when they died, I understood that was just part of life and I remember thinking, they're old, that's what happens. It's supposed to. Of course, as I get older, their advanced ages (86 and 87) no longer seem that old to me.

I had a cat that lived into his twenties and even though he's been gone several years, I still miss him. His name was Ralph. In later years I took to calling him Ralph the Reiki Master. He knew when you were upset or unsettled and would come to calm you down, literally putting his paws on you. He was also a welcome cat, bounding out to meet any person who entered our home, and he never exhibited fear.

When he was younger, Ralph loved to leap from the floor to the top of an open door and then perch on his back paws and reach down the front of the door with his front paws. I wondered what on earth he was doing until one day I saw him doing the same thing to my aquarium and realized he'd been in training.

Ralph loved to ride on people's shoulders like a live mink stole, down to the shiny black fur. I remember once he startled a tall friend of mine by leaping unannounced to his shoulders from the floor. I always wondered whether Ralph was a cat who wished he could fly.

As he got older, he started getting thin and bony and then one day, lay down and said he was done. My partner called me and said I should come home from work because he wasn't going to last long. I came right home and Ralph died shortly after I came into the room, as though he'd been waiting for me to say one last goodbye and to ease my transition into a life without him. Oh, I cried. I missed him then and there are times today when I miss him so. I don't ever seem to wish that he were still alive, but rather that I could go back and revisit those days. And of course I do that in my memory, which ebbs and flows.

Several years have passed and we again have a really old cat. He's feral, so we don't know exactly how old he is, but he's been around our family almost 20 years and he's starting to get that old man cat look that Ralph had - bony and skinny. He's heading towards that point of ebb we all will hopefully reach in our lives. For now, Sky still has a lot of flow - he has a great and insistent appetite so I'm hopeful that he won't go soon, but when he's ready, I will be too. Perhaps Sky will join Ralph in the afterlife, he certainly will join him in the ebb and flow of my memory.

Well, Hello Betty!

I love that social networking enables me to get in contact with people I've lost contact with over the years. Recently a young woman who is now somewhere around 30, and who I lost contact with just as she was graduating from high school, contacted me to say that she was coming into town from L.A. and wanted to get together. I'll call her Betty since I want to protect my friend's identity because she is an actress and I'd hate for a tabloid to ever pull out my blog and use it against her, plus I love the phrase "Hello, Betty!" (in the archaic sense, not the urban dictionary sense); so there you have a little walk inside my train of thought.


One of my exes is a middle-school teacher and Betty was a student who used to come hang out around our house. My ex seemed to attract kids who would find our address, show up on our doorstep, and become somewhat of a fixture. We didn't mind. We remembered what it was like to be in middle school and think your teachers were cool but your parents were not; plus they were a great source of reliable babysitters for our own small children who always "adopted" them into the family as pseudo-siblings. That, and we were keeping them off the streets since they would sometimes show up very late at night (and we'd quietly call their parents so no one was worried).


The kids we tended to attract were a little on the wild side (at age 15, Betty showed up with a tattoo that her parents had not authorized, but that's another story). We allowed these errant kids to try out whatever personalities they wanted to try out, without the judgement a family can vocalize. After high school, Betty ran off with a boyfriend to another state and I thought I wouldn't hear from her again; I certainly didn't expect to see her again and thought that I hadn't really had much of an impact on her.


She found me on social media through my son, who is now about the age she was when I last saw her. We electronically traded the basic events of our lives and then one day she sent me a message that she was coming to town and wanted to catch up in person, so we made arrangements to meet at a wine bar not too far from my house. It was kind of a trip to think about sitting down to have a couple glasses of wine with Betty. She was still a teenager in my mind, even though the math proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that she is old enough to drink.


Over the years she'd gone from being a gawky, hyperactive, pretty teenager to a poised and beautiful woman. That same kid was still lurking in there, but I was so proud of who she had turned into. She said that after I last saw her, she had gone to college to study theatre and had been living in Los Angeles for almost 10 years finding work acting and print modeling. She dumped the boyfriend (one of those toxic relationships we all seem to get into when we're that age) and finally had one that she thought was a "keeper". She talked about how much she loved her work but also shared her frustration with 'casting couch come-ons' and the craziness of L.A. She explained how agents and managers worked and shared that people said she was good but that she sometimes seemed to hold back in her auditions. She had developed a pretty thick skin, realizing that not being cast isn't usually personal but was fiercely determined to deal with that block. I shared my experience working with actors and some observations that seemed to ring true for her.


As the afternoon was turning to evening, my partner showed up and we continued to talk about actors and acting and an indy project that Betty was really excited about. She didn't want to hold back emotionally and not give the role everything it deserved. She also said that because the role was someone who had been a real person, people on the project were being very secretive about sharing information about the woman, who had died from some pretty destructive behavior.


I said that from my limited experience as a director, I've seen that actors can get sidetracked looking at what a person does rather than who they are, but that the key is to really look at what is going on with a person that can lead her to make the choices she makes. That's what makes a character multi-faceted, that's what will give the actor interesting choices, and that what makes an actor's performance riveting to an audience.


My partner suggested that Betty talk with the people on the project who knew the person she would be portraying, and explain that she was asking to know about the person because she wanted to honor her. I thought that was fantastic and diplomatic advice.


I told Betty that she had to be fearless and to give up worrying that someone would see a really great performance and decide that she, outside of the character, was crazy. She was a little afraid she might lose herself in the emotion of a role because she knew she could be a little high-strung. I said that it's about the training, because we are creatures of habit and routine (did I attend that recent workshop so I could give this advice?) and she's had a lot of training, so I knew that she could do it. She needed to trust her training. I said that she could protect herself and know going in that when the clock stops, it stops, and you shut Pandora's play box and go back to your life. I said it was important she remember that because I knew so many actors who didn't learn it (usually demonstrated when they fell in love with co-stars) to disastrous ends. And I also knew that Meryl Streep gets up in the morning and puts her trousers on like the rest of us and that she can shut that box, and if she can shut that box, so can Betty.


I described some of the ideas I'd been hearing and reading lately around fear and the difference between the fear when something is truly life-threatening and the fear when you've worked yourself up about something, and probably magnified it to be way larger than it really is. We talked about the power of the mind. Betty told me she knew that was true and that she'd quit smoking based on something I'd shared years ago when she was a teenager - how I'd quit smoking in my early twenties by responding to my cravings by telling myself over and over "you're a non-smoker and a non-smoker wouldn't want a cigarette" until I really didn't want another cigarette.

I was surprised. I had forgotten that I'd given her that advice. In fact, I'd forgotten that she had ever smoked, but when I think back on it, I think all of those kids did. I asked "did it work?" and she said "you don't see me smoking do you? Of course it did!" She said that she'd always appreciated my advice, something another of those wayward kids I have kept in contact with has told me on more than one occasion.

Five hours went by like five minutes. She gave me a great big hug and said we'd get together the next time she came to town and insisted my partner and I come to L.A. so she could show us around.

We hear so many things in life. What sticks, what slides off, what sinks in and what surfaces later? None of us can know. That's why it's important to be as honest as we can be and to usher into our lives those ideas and people who help us grow.

What We Feed Will Surely Grow

I recently attended a workshop that explored managing the four dimensions of energy to become fully engaged in our lives. The related (but distinct!) dimensions discussed were physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. The premise was that we are creatures of habit and routine and that if we train ourselves in all four areas, that we can effectively manage our energy to realize our "mission" in life. None of this seemed entirely new to me but there was one thing he said that keeps replaying in my head:

What you feed in yourself will grow.


I thought about the times in my life I have proven that statement true in every dimension to successful and detrimental ends. Inactivity breeding inactivity. Rest leading to better recovery. Emotional distance causing more distance. Optimism building more optimism. Creativity leading to more creativity.

Since that workshop I have begun making small changes and trying to ask myself whether an activity I am doing or a thought or an emotion I am having is something I want to see grow in myself. I have often in the past said that I want people in my life who move me closer to my goals. When I have said that, I have always been referring to the goals I have about making myself a better person in this world. I want people around me who challenge me to be my best self, not people who bring me down ethically or emotionally. That hasn't changed. Since attending this workshop, I am now adding this consideration: are the things I am doing in all of the dimensions of my own life things that I want to grow in myself.

The good news is that we're creatures of habit and routine. I am working to slowly move the needle on my huge list of things I want to do in life by trying to look at small changes in habit and routine that I can make to keep me pointed in the right direction.

Things Are Happening Underground

Don't Forget the Umbrella

Supposedly April showers bring May flowers, but while my garden is blooming, it's also bringing more showers. More thunderstorms. More flooding rivers. I like rain as much or more than the next person, but even I'm starting to think "enough is enough!" You think that by now I'd remember to take an umbrella everywhere, but I still forget.

We spent the weekend in Nashville, visiting a couple of places we'd never been before. On Saturday night we went to Belcourt Taps & Tapas, a funky little place in an area of town called Hillsboro Village. There were songwriters performing throughout the evening, our server told us their publishers had booked them for exposure. My partner recognized one of the performing songwriters (Meredith Blis) because we'd all auditioned for the Bluebird Cafe on the same day earlier this year and the three of us briefly chatted. A guy named Erik Dylan did a couple of songs and I think he's got something going something with a song called something like "Jesus Was a Wine Man But I Prefer Gin". The crowd loved him and the publishers seemed to be all over him too. It was interesting to watch "the business" in action. I felt like the outsider I am, despite the fact that our server was a really friendly woman (and former song plugger) who said she hoped we did end up moving to Nashville.

We drove home from Nashville this past Sunday by heading west across Tennessee and then cutting over to Missouri and coming up I-55 north. The flooding was amazing, I wish I'd taken photographs. At one point a lane of I-55 northbound was closed because of the floods and they'd sand-bagged the shoulder.

I feel sorry for the farmers. They can only look up at the cloudy skies and shake their heads, wondering if they'll have to replant the corn or forgo it (and it's current high price yield) and plant soybeans or if the floods have ruined the year (and future ones?) completely. They have to be worrying about the future commodities they've promised.

Another thing that has me thinking of farmers this morning is the fact that I've been listening to Matraca Berg's new album "The Dreaming Fields". The title track is more or less about the death of the family farm (you might recognize it if you're a Trisha Yearwood fan). The chorus is so powerful. I hope to some day write these kinds of lyrics.

Oh I'm goin' down to the dreaming fields
But what will be my harvest now
Where every tear that falls on a memory
Feels like rain on the rusted plow
Rain on the rusted plow

Rain and farms and Nashville. Matraca Berg is certainly no outsider to Nashville even if she is unknown to so much of America. I listen to her lyrics and think, "man, she's seen a lot of heartbreak, but what resilience" and then I read a blog like Holly Gleason's review of this album and you think, "all that and she's a nice person, too? Wow."

The whole album is really good music and really great songwriting. Another current favorite of mine is "You and Tequila" (Kenny Chesney recorded it with Grace Potter on). The chorus is fantastic:

You and tequila make me crazy

Run like poison in my blood

One more night might kill me, baby

One is one too many, one more is never enough

But the bridge is downright brilliant.

When it comes to you, oh the damage I could do

It's always your favorite sins that do you in

Matraca's ability to connect with heartache and dysfunctional relationships is our gain. Hat's off, but don't forget an umbrella.

The Power of Us

I had a good conversation with Will Kimbrough on Saturday night about his guitar effects pedals. I've always been a fully acoustic musician so it's only been recently that I've had an interest in electric guitars and stomp boxes. He gave me his thoughts on the pedals that he takes with him when he travels (Civil War Fuzz and Garage Tone Axle Grease among others) and explained to me how he does this really cool ethereal effect that I love. I am planning to get delay and overdrive pedals in the not too distant future so I can play around with some of this on my own, although I'll also need a volume pedal to do that ethereal swell Will pulls off....

It sparks creativity in me to talk with other artists and I know I'm not alone in that. For me, seeing another musician at work, or any kind of artist really, spins my thoughts into new directions and leads me to places I may never have visited without that interaction. It makes me feel like when I was a kid excited on Christmas morning, or when I see the ocean or mountains again after a long separation, in awe of life itself. A riff or a bit of percussion leads me to explore that thing that sticks in my head in the context of my own writing, whether I'm writing music or a script. And it always takes me somewhere I enjoy exploring, whether anyone else would consider that place productive or not.

We spend our whole lives inventing and re-inventing ourselves. Like the oscillations of our internal physical and physiological systems, our interactions with others also ebb and flow and contribute to our own personal change in a synergistic way. For me, interacting with other artists reinforces the power that we are all part of, that all of us share. It reminds me how truly amazing we are as a collaborative and communal species.