Self-Help.

Guess I've been in a rut for some time now.  Spinning the wheels and not moving forward is getting frustrating.  Rather than calling someone to tow me out (there's quite a wait for that nowadays), decided to rummage around in the trunk to see what I have in the tool kit that might help.

Found my copy of the Feeling Good Handbook, which is probably one of the best texts on how to re frame one's thoughts in order to "find the courage to get things done."  This was recommended to me years ago by a counselor friend who understood me to be the tough cookie / anti self-help type that I am.  Am glad to have given her suggestion the benefit of the doubt, and am enjoying re reading / re working the exercises.

After years of sort-of following a low-carb diet and then not, finally picked up a copy of Gary Taubes's Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It.  It's a very good synopsis about the science around what causes obesity, how the current medical recommendations are incorrect, and what one should do to lose weight.  Had a hard time warming up to Mr. Taubes's style, but now we're doing fine.  Am currently following the guidelines in the appendix, as well.  I won't say that I'm doing Great (housemate tells me I'm suffering from "induction flu;" it's a mild case, though.).  Am finding it easier to fall asleep, stay asleep and wake up in the mornings, though, and that's Really Good.

Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner.  That's from college.  Was a woodwind player back then.  Afterwards, started playing the piano Very Poorly.  That Very Poor Playing made me so happy, though.  Somewhere down the road, I lost the music.  All of it.  Need to get back in touch with that part of me that luxuriated in playing Poulenc at half speed, that cracked puns in French with a Buffalo accent, that loved messing messily with color.  It's still there; I can feel it.  Just got buried under sadness.

Baby Steps.  Weekends used to be spent on mountain trails.  Now, am lucky if I can get the daily three miles in, and maybe a 30 second plank.  Broke two fingers on my right hand late last Fall, so the Hanon exercises need to Go Slow.  Poulenc's out of my range right now, so am playing some shorter pieces from a little album of Romantic Music very slowly.  Then, there's the Putting Myself Out There business.  That's never been easy.  Right now, even contemplating it is scaring the heck out of me, though the reasonable side knows that fear is irrational.  Baby Steps.

Oh Dear.



Don't know if I should be laughing or be crouched in a corner rocking myself calm after this.

And now, the Frenchie's Tuesday ticket has magically transformed into one for Sunday next week. Amazing how that happens.

For him, it's been fairly easy, though disappointing: he's just been cooling his heels at home. I feel terrible for all the other folks trapped Heaven Knows Where depleting their bank accounts in Limbo.

Makes this news seem all the more Onion-esque.

For What It's Worth.

Pavel jotted off a last minute note to our so-called representative the other night voicing all his unhappiness with the all but certain Yes-Vote that Capuano is going to make:

Count me as one more very disapproving constituent. Health care reforms, please, but NOT THESE REFORMS.

I may write you too late to influence your vote. I have just learned from here

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2010/03/capuano_yes_on.html

that you intend to vote yes for the so-called health reform bill as passed by the Senate in December. Still, you should hear my opinion as one more sample of those you represent.

I am one of many who believe this bill is an opaque, bureaucracy-building monstrosity that does little to address the true causes of excessive costs for health care, while adding dangerously to the nation's future debt burdens, and failing to enlarge consumer choice.

I am strongly opposed to a national individual mandate, on pain of tax penalties -- a provision of very dubious constitutionality.

Will my middle-aged premiums then become greater without all the young people compelled to bear the costs shifted away from me?

Well firstly, that's only just. Young and healthy adults in early career with lower incomes, and looking to start their own families, shouldn't be discouraged by shifting more of their earnings to aging generations than they do already. We oldsters selfishly kill the golden goose when we deter the child-bearing generations with a regressive tax.

(And an effective tax it is, when we are compelled to purchase what we would otherwise not -- no matter whether the actual collector be a private insurer, or government. If the President makes such a provision a law, then he will have reneged on his pledge not to impose new taxes on low and middle earners. Quite simply, he will be a liar.)

And secondly, I say give me the choice to elect for less comprehensive, catastrophic coverage and just pay fee for service in routine care, analogously as I insure only for car collision repair and not for fluid fill-ups.

Is the mandate needed to make the future system work, if insurers are not to deny coverage on the basis of preexisting conditions? Well then, just drop that misguided crusade against the companies, however heartless that sounds! Insurers are not to be blamed for running real insurance businesses in a rational manner. If my uninsured house burns, I can't then demand that an insurer cover it retroactively for pennies. The insurance business would be impossible with such incentives. No, my earlier irresponsibility is my problem. I want to hear an unsentimental realist of a politician tell this unpopular but necessary message to the people.

Will I eat those words if I lose my job and my coverage with it? I can't pay COBRA premiums beyond a limited term, even if I'm willing and able to. I am prevented even from being "responsible," as I called it, even if I have means. Extraneous eventualities -- my changes of employment -- may compel me to terminate one policy and begin another, and become an undeserving victim of the precondition trap.

Well sir, there is the real unaddressed core of the "crisis."

Why should the continuation of my relationship with my insurer be conditional on anything but my continued premium payments and non-fraudulence in my claims? Why do so many of us accept it as normal that one's health insurance is non-portable after a job change? That makes no sense: we should no more buy health insurance than home insurance through employers, indirectly. But an irrational tax code makes employer-provided insurance advantageous over individually purchased insurance. Worse, the incentive to use these pre-tax dollars even for routine care (thus turning "insurance" into a health-maintenance subscription, making nonsense of the word), and resulting over-consumption, is what causes the spiral of premium inflation that we all complain about.

So end that tax advantage! (As presidential candidate McCain suggested.) Fix the incentives. Employees should get more direct, not imputed, pay in exchange for the responsibility to shop for their own health insurance and maintain it, and to become smart shoppers for routine care.

We need a true national free market in insurance policies. The authors of the Constitution were wise to know that barriers to trade among the states should not be imposed at the will of state governments -- which would have retarded economic development and impoverished all. What's good for tangible goods is no less good for a financial product like insurance. The federal government should use its authority to govern interstate commerce, to strike down the states' barriers to health insurance purchases.

We need consumers to be free to purchase as much or as little coverage as they choose. We need incentives for individually purchased insurance to become the norm. We need a wider market of many competing providers keeping each other "honest" -- and no insulting nonsense (thankfully off the table, but which certain House members would have put past us last year, if they could) about setting up a costly new governmental entity just to get us a single "competitor" with the very unfair advantage of subsidy. (Don't insult me a second time either with the promise that this entity would remain funded only by premiums collected. Political pressure would change that in no time.)

The alternative ideas for health care reform are out there. The President was downright wrong when he suggested that the opposition to the reform bill have no alternative ideas. Any insinuation that opponents to this bill's "reforms" are opponents of all reforms, satisfied with the status quo, is very dishonest.

These alternative ideas require strokes of the legislative pen to change regulations and alter incentives in the marketplace from the perverse ones existing now. What they do not require are costly new bureaucracies to direct transfers of wealth. They are easily explained and understood and could be embodied in a bill one hundredth of the size of the one that is now pending.

But I wait for that in vain in the present, deeply dishonest political and media climate, where a bloated and overreaching government, colluding with insurers that are really only too happy to add the advantage of forced consumers to that of competition barriers, is instead portrayed as the white knight slaying the big bad corporate dragons preying on the widows and orphans. Such a sham insults my intelligence.

Mr. Capuano, you had the opportunity to surprise me pleasantly, when you wavered on this bill. But if you get on that bandwagon after all, then you may not rely on my vote for your reelection.

The people of our state voted FOR obstruction of this bill in the special senate election. That was an explicit appeal in Senator Brown's campaign and in the slogans of supporters. They do not trust this bill. They want it scrapped and redrafted along fundamentally different lines. I hear it in casual conversation even in my eighth-district neighborhood. I heard it even today, from a government employee no less.

Do not delude yourself about this.

***

Pavel is much better with written words than I am; feel that he explained it best for the situation of an awful lot of 'average' folks.

I'm totally against the so called reform, as, being a 'consumer' (or should I say 'victim?') of the Massachusetts Jailbreak, (that the current President has considered as a national model) have my own set of problems that are more considerably and consistently costly, not to mention subject to Bureaucratic Incompetency than whenever I had to deal with a doctor's office or hospital directly.

(Have been too tired lately to detail my problems of not being able to afford COBRA for MA inflated rates, my problems with hack state a/r folks and the lack of customer service with, the fact that I live in one of the maybe three states that my alma mater's catastrophic coverage insurance plan doesn't cover for new gradutates, and the fact that, the minute I try to send off the application for Commonwealth Care's subsidized plan, I am forced to tick off a box allowing the State of MA full access to my medical records. Much, much easier, not to mention cheaper to pay the state income tax penalty and to visit and pay cash for a doctor like one did for the 'back alley abortionists' of yore.)

Had noticed that, when I'm down, tend to isolate myself when the healthiest thing is probably to be reaching out.

Tried a bit at breaking the feedback loop I'm in and find that, actually, am feeling a bit better for having done so. Things aren't great, but they could certainly be a whole heck of a lot worse.

Yesterday, got a phone call from an old neighbor, then ran into another on at the grocery store. Ran into a third on the walk back. Somehow I think that someone's trying to tell me something - like maybe I should stop being so miserable, get out some and see friends? (Don't know.)

Moving On.

The diploma came in the mail today; Pavel found it wedged between the front doors. Brought it in, handed it to me with a grin and said, "Well, I guess that's done with. Maybe you need to get a frame for it."

Eventually maybe. It's awfully nice looking, but I don't know if I could stand having it on a wall staring down at me all the time. On one hand, it's a memento of a hard-won achievement. On the other, I don't much like thinking about that part of the past; it's painful. It doesn't make me physically sick like looking at the transcripts do, but it's not particularly happy, either.

Then there's the future. Goal achieved, a new question looms: what next? I don't see the use of another literature degree. Want to keep up with language but from a more technical point of repair. Translation? Technical documentation? I also want to incorporate new loves that grew from work-work: accounting, statistics. Took a few accounting and finance courses at the local community college to help with work. Am wondering, though, if this is a good thing to continue with given the current witch hunts targeting financial people. Took a statistics course in undergraduate years ago and really enjoyed that. Maybe there's something there for me?

For the moment, am fairly satisfied with the self-study in statistics. Will need to come up with another, more structured action plan, though. Need to think more on graduate/technical certification. Need to think on where and how that's going to take place. Also need to think on supporting myself again. I'm tired of being inactive and would like not to be broke anymore.

Kind of ironic that this is my second time being the unemployed, un-monied new graduate. (Wonder how many more times this is going to happen?)

Berbere goes well in just about everything, it seems. Threw a pinch in last night's hot cocoa and was totally bowled over. Pavel thinks that this requires some more work to get things a point for the holidays as there were a lot of other things involved.

I think I might be up to the challenge.

Pavel's still healing up from having a wisdom tooth pulled, so, when I've been cooking, have been making more soft stuff. (Is kind of a challenge to make soft appealing, especially during the Summer).

Yesterday, though we wanted soup, there was no way we were going to manage gazpacho - just too spicy. Checked the larder, consulted a few cookbooks, and ended up with something pretty darn good if I do say so myself:

Cucumber Soup

2 large American Cucumbers
1 medium-sized onion
1 large clove garlic

2 T olive oil
3 t chicken bouillon powder
2 c water

2 T flour

Crushed black pepper, thyme, dried parsley to taste

2 c lowfat yogurt (preferably w/out gelatin or pectin)
1 1/2 - 2 c non fat buttermilk

fresh parsley as a garnish.

1.) Peel and chop cucumbers, onion, garlic.

2.) Saute onions and garlic in olive oil until just soft (no further; don't want them to brown).

3.) Add cucumbers, 1 1/2 c water and 2 T of chicken bouillon. Bring to boil; cook until cucumbers are very soft.

4.) Make a white sauce of remaining water and 2T of flour. Add a bit of hot liquid from saucepan. Dump this mix back into pan and stir. Reduce heat; simmer until nicely thickened. Allow to cool a bit.

5.) Take cooled mixture and blend until liquid. Pour back into saucepan, add remaining tsp of bouillion, parsley, pepper and thyme to taste. Blend in yogurt.

6.) Chill until very cold. If you have room in your freezer, this works best.

7.) When ready to serve, blend in 1 1/2 - 2 c buttermilk (depending on how thick you want soup) and sprinkle with fresh parsley.

Makes about 6 cups.

***

Was surprised to see that the majority of recipes called for cooking the cucumber. Actually does a world of good, as, whenever I've tried to make something like this in the past, it's ended up awfully watery.

Tonight, am trying to decide between an ersatz (ersatz because I don't have any leeks) vichyssoise or a borscht. (We'll see.)

Surfaces to catch breath, then will be off again. Am looking forward to the week of quiet.

Decisions, decisions.

1.) Pavel limits himself to one fill of the suet, sunflower, thistle and corn feeders a day. I can understand why. The sparrows make things much more cheerful and much less lonely, so am thinking of doing a refill.

2.) Can't decide between pasta with saucisson sec, olives and Parmesan, or with leftover roast chicken and leeks.

3.) Do I want to continue the Eleanor of Aquitaine theme by re-reading what I'd dug up from the basement about Tristan and Iseut? It's sparked something in me that I'd not felt in years. (Different point of attack for something that used to take up a lot of time and mental/emotional/physical energy.)

4.) Or, Do I want to read more on the struggle between Absolutism and the Communard movement and how the Gothic Revival played in with that? If I do this, I might have to read the biography of Woodrow Wilson I got recently, as the French stuff, in addition to similar situations in Austria/Germany/Italy/Spain at the same time got the US the heck into a nasty war at the beginning of the 20th century.

5.) Or, do I continue reading stuff by dead Greek and Roman guys? Bought myself a couple Loeb Classics the last time the Frenchie was around (Tacitus - on Germany, V.1 of the Peloponnesian wars. Can read Latin. Greek, too, somewhat, but it's much harder - which is why I got back to back texts.) These two are Fundamentals, and have read around both.

6.) Have been doing a lot of work towards the ultimate goal of graduate school. Took the history courses mainly to get reaccustomed to academic writing. Have been taking courses in accounting, finance, etc, as that's what's been paying my way since forever. Was looking into translation, as it's much, much more difficult than literature (my degree), so could be an advantage. Accounting/Finance is having the rug pulled out from under it in this country as I write. I enjoy it, though. It's peaceful. Am wondering about statistics, though (didn't take much of this in college, so would kind of have to retrace my steps). Then there's actual formal training in business analysis. I'm a decent writer, have a good grounding in IT, speak (and write) proficiently some important enough languages to be useful. What the heck do I do?

7.) Kind of had an offer made is looking pretty difficult to refuse in spite of my security and attachment issues.

Wire drops were made in one of the rooms being updated. Lots of detritus carted off, as well. I had yet another Kafka-like interaction with a bureaucracy that's been dogging me for nearly 20 years. Will not let them get me. Eleanor of Aquitaine was imprisoned for the same amount of time by her husband - no money, no freedom, no interactions with others - and she bloomed. What I'm dealing with is far less severe and certainly far less important in the scheme of things. Still, it's important to me. Important enough to have consumed a good bit of my soul over the past several years, anyway.

While the guys were up knocking things around and singing loudly, I went into domestic mode and made some jam:



Queen Eleanor, King Marmalade and some confiture de pêches.

Peaches were $.99/lb at Stah, so went crazy buying. (If there's one thing I like better than eating cheap peaches, it's making jam out of them - ended up with 15 lbs worth of fruit.) Prepped stuff and sterilized the jars. Got about 1/2 way through before I had to clean up and head out to the doctor. Ended up with 15 jars, all of it slightly runny but jelled just the same.

Will finish the rest tomorrow. Then will have to go out and find more jars to start on the strawberries that I went wild over.

The job finally ended on Thursday, thank heavens. Took all of yesterday to recover but am still feeling somewhat out of sorts. Thank heavens for the sun and the warmth today. Might actually rouse me to get out and get some fresh air. That'd do a world of good.

Am feeling a bit tired and weak today. Hopefully this will pass.

Woke up to the hard rainfall on the roof this morning. Can't get back to sleep, though I am dog tired. Don't need this; have all sorts of stuff that needs to get done later on in the day and that needs a clear, not tired (and upset) mind.

Spring Cleaning.

Spent a good part of the weekend (when I wasn't trying to hide from the migraine) scrubbing the house. Am very pleased with the results: all bed linens washed and changed. All floors mopped. The bathrooms and kitchen cleaned. My room arranged to accommodate a guest.

It feels good to have the house all fresh, shiny and clean-smelling. It felt good last night curling up in the crisp cotton sheets instead of flannel as well.

Nice to feel, for a change, that I've accomplished something.

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

Monday.

Back to the land of the living? Well, we're going to give it a try, anyway.

So we *are* getting a tea party. Several, it seems. Good.

Yesterday, in an effort to forget myself, threw me into a bunch of mindless tasks that would show concrete results. Got four loads of laundry done. Mopped the house, cleaned the bathrooms. Vacuumed. Started cleaning up the back yard.

Today, I'd like to get some mending done, get tax stuff organized and start tackling my health insurance boondoggle. (Really don't want to be nailed on taxes for last year.) Also would like to tackle a bit more in the yard. It's been neglected for so long that it's going to take lots of time and effort.

I really should get some schoolwork done, too. It's Spring Break and there's some serious catch up to be done. Fell behind terribly in February.

Ultimately, it'll all get sorted out. It kind of has to.