I (heart) Dr. Wicked

 

Keyboard broken………………..

Originally uploaded by axemaniac

So no, I am NOT doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I am doing my own private, much less pressurized version of it. I have committed to writing a minimum of 500 words per day (not blogging, but either nonfiction, fiction or poetry) from now until January 1st.

Today was day one. I have not Written in so long, to say I am “rusty” would be a major understatement. I have entire limbs made of rust right now. So I enlisted the help of Dr. Wicked’s Write or Die program. I even sprung the $10 for the awesome desktop edition.

I told it I wanted to write 500 words. I decided to give myself 45 minutes in case things were going really bad. You never know.

Well, I ended up writing 513 words in 14 minutes!!! I could have gone on, but I didn’t. I thought, this is a good way to ease back in. But truly, I am very happy. And with all the leftover (ha) time I had enough for a blog post, my 2nd in two days.

It feels good. Day one, down.

 

Random Thoughts on Saturday Night

• 
• I wish I had more time to blog.
• I wish I had more time to do ANYthing.
• I, of course, have brought this on myself (having no time).
• But, it’s all good stuff.
• Like, I’m now a bona fide Weight Watchers leader. Which if you had told me this one year ago, I would have laughed, cried, and had you committed for insanity.
• Like, I’m now teaching a writing class for women writers in Afghanistan. It regularly brings me to tears. PLEASE READ their work, and comment on their pieces! They are mindblowing!!!!
• Like, I’m also teaching TWO sections of “Literature of Parenthood” and have equally mindblowing students! Who make me laugh and cry and clutch at my heart, regularly.
• I’m NOT doing NaNoWriMo this year! Thank God!!
• I had to postpone (indefinitely) my November Blogging Workshop because.. well, really, do I have to explain??
• Like… I’m now the grandma of an adorable black lab/pitbull mix puppy named Willie. The grandmotherly love and concern is shocking and big.
• Like, I really want Jean Quan to be the next mayor of Oakland, and the first Asian-American woman mayor of a major city!!!!!! So we hosted a fundraiser for her today. And are going to do a bunch more. She is awesome.
• I love hoisting around 12-lb metal weights. Makes me feel very … um, pumped!
• Also love twirling around and pretending I’m on a surfboard, that I’m an onion, a sailboat, twirling my long hair and breaking boards. That’s Nia! Big fun!!
• I messed up my ankle a few weeks ago and am sad that I’m not running more. Ah well.
• I used this crazy website called Stickk.com to help motivate me to maintain my weight for the last 12 weeks. Miraculously, I HAVE maintained my weight for the last twelve weeks and so I do not owe them any money. SO I decided to up the ante and do another 12-week commitment. This time I have exhorted myself to write 500 words a day of fiction, nonfiction or poetry (BLOGGING DOES NOT COUNT) between now and Jan 1, and if I do not, they will take $600 of mine and send it to some anti-gay marriage organization. A friend of mine is serving as Referee and will be letting them know if I do indeed fulfill my promises. I’ll be sending her those 500 words. Something tells me that this is going to be tougher than the weight thing, but if you had told me THAT a year ago, (that it would be easier to lose/maintain weight than to write) I would have not believed it. So please wish me luck on that one, and if you would like to be a Supporter or cheerleader for me, PLEASE do HERE.
• Tomorrow, because I have nothing else to do (ha ha ha) I am going to participate in trying to assemble the world’s longest California roll. Because I need to have some fun. And because I love sushi.
• Later in the week I am going to attend a 4 day poetry retreat (mostly silent) with Jane Hirshfield at Santa Sabina. Because I reallllllllly need some quiet. And some poetry.
• I read poetry at the AFAAD public gathering last night. And liked it a lot. I want to write more poetry. So this upcoming retreat is a good thing.
• I would love to play taiko again sometime soon. But I do not think that is going to happen. Unless I can figure out how to clone myself.
• I still want to learn to play banjo. Ditto on that.
• I am going to tear my hair and weep when our housemate moves out. Because how awesome is it to have a friend/cook/writer/artist/historian/snake owner/awesome person in our house? How awesome is it that she speaks Japanese to my mother? And that when I was at Nia this morning and my husband fell off his bike and injured his shoulder and hit his head, SHE was around to take him to the emergency room? And then when I later went to pick him up at the emergency room, SHE went to pick up our daughter who needed a ride home from crew practice? It’s like having another wife. But better. Way better.
• We will be taking applications for a new housemate soon.
• I wish I could be watching Frost/Nixon on TV with my husband right now but after this very brief microblogging break, I am going back to work. Of which there is much.

 

Ten Awesome Things About Having A Housemate

1. She makes homemade gyoza!
2. She is a great writer.
3. She is a phenomenal artist and has designed the cover art for my chapbook(s). See below. Isn’t that enough to make you swoon? Do you not want to immediately buy 10 copies??
4. She promises to kick my butt until said chapbooks are DONE.
5. She thinks my mom is a hoot.
6. My mom likes her back. She’s Japanese-American. Nuff said.
7. She has a snake (which has not yet arrived) which has younger daughter extremely excited.
8. She is a historian, which makes my history-buff husband very happy.
9. She is an INCREDIBLE cook and in the short time she has been here, has made homemade gyoza, homemade cornmeal crust pizza, homemade chicken soup. Which we have enjoyed very very very much.
10. She is just plain great to be around.

Can you guess who it is?? Look here!

 

Mad Men: A Window into my own Past

It took me a while to catch on to the Mad Men bandwagon, but now I’m ravenously gobbling up episodes of Seasons 1 and 2. It’s sooooo good. And incredibly illuminating. I’m fascinated, because the show takes place in 1960, and I was born in 1959, so it’s like this amazing window into the history of the time where I came from.

Even more fascinating is that there are multiple adoption-esque story lines. I want to discuss them all, but there will be major spoilers if you haven’t seen the show, so I’m going to continue after the break. Proceed at your own spoiler risk!

 

Calling all Adopted & Fostered Adults of the African Diaspora!

Hey hey! It’s almost time for the SECOND (wow how time flies) AFAAD Gathering! The first one, held last November was a truly historical and moving event and I was lucky enough to participate in a joint session with Asian adoptees. AFAAD rocks. If you know anybody who falls into the African American adopted-or-fostered group, pleeeeeeeease spread the word, far and wide. It’s gonna be another amazing event.

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When:

Friday through Sunday, November 6-8, 2009

8am-5pm, with some evening activities – Oakland, CA

What:

2nd Annual Gathering for Adoptees and Foster Care Alumni of African Descent:

Growing and Creating Together: Organizing Across Differences

Announcing the 2nd annual gathering of adoptees (transracial/international and same race) and foster care alumni of African descent in Oakland, California, Friday – Sunday, November 6-8, 2009.

AFAAD (Adopted and Fostered Adults of the African Diaspora) was formed specifically to support adopted and fostered people, to share our common and divergent experiences around race, adoption, joy, loss, family, search and reunion, and self identity and to celebrate our unique creativity, stories and community. AFAAD’s Second Annual Gathering, Growing and Creating Together: Organizing Across Differences is designed with you mind.

The purpose of our annual Gathering is to make connections, network, educate, provide healing space, and to celebrate the diversity of our amazing diaspora of transracial, international, domestic adoptees and foster care alumni. AFAAD uses “Black” in the widest diasporic sense, which includes African, African American, AfroAsian and AfroLatino, bi-racial and multi-heritage peoples. Growing and Creating Together: Organizing Across Differences will continue to develop our own contributions to the conversations about adoption, foster care, race, social welfare and African diasporic identity – not to mention just bringing all of us together for community. It is time to share our stories with one another, rather than always teaching other people. We will also take some time for the strategic planning for the long-term goals of AFAAD as a social justice and community support organization.

Where:

AFAAD’s 2009 Gathering is being hosted by the Washington Inn, at 462 Tenth Street, ideally situated in the center of downtown Oakland, CA; close to all forms of public transportation. Individuals visiting the Bay Area must make their own hotel reservations separately from AFAAD Gathering registration. Please see the website for more details about the Gathering schedule, hotel and conference registration information and for more information about our mission, community and legislative advocacy work and how to donate to our work.

Contact Info:

AFAAD – Adopted and Fostered Adults of the African Diaspora

PO Box 24771

Oakland, CA  94607

AFAAD website here

Email for more info here!

Phone: 510.836.0133

 

Obituary

I don’t write poetry very often, but sometimes I am just gripped by the need. I felt that way this weekend, when I got a call from an adoptee friend of mine. Her birthmother’s mother, with whom she had had quite a significant relationship, had just passed away. She scrambled to get across the country to the funeral. And discovered that she had not been mentioned in the obituary (written, I guess, by her birthmother). This brought up a storm of feeling in me.  And this poem came out.

Obituary

When one of them dies

We scour the obituary for any mention

Of our existence

But really, what would it say?

Beloved child lost to adoption

That one we left and forgot

Daughter/granddaughter of people whose names we did not know

The one we love in private but whom we still cannot mention in public

Although one would think

After emails and envelopes

After visits and phone calls

After seeing us face to face

After tentative, years-withheld embraces

That we would be worthy of

Less than an inch of newsprint

That they could see fit to speak our names

But after decades of invisibility

Of being erased from birth certificates

Of having our original names float into ether

Of having vital documents locked away

Of being told no no no no

You have no right

Is it a surprise, then?

That when we search the white space

Between the legitimate names

All we see is blankness

Pure as winter sky

Not even clouds with which to form

Vague shapes of the alphabet

 

Doctor, My Eyes

I started wearing glasses when I was seven years old (yes, this photo is ME – on stage for our production of “Up With People” – I was “Miss Brazil”).  My eyesight is really, really, really bad. When I started junior high, I got my first pair of contacts. They were hard contacts, and they always irritated my eyes. I went to an opthomologist who practiced this method of vision correction which involved wearing lenses that were just slightly out of fit. By the time my eyes molded to fit them, it meant it was time to graduate to a new pair of unfitting lenses. But miraculously, these lenses actually did change my eyesight.

My father would tape a newspaper at the end of our hallway and measure the distance I could stand and still read the headlines. When I began, I think my face was about four inches – maybe less – from the paper. At the end of two years and a ton of discomfort, I was able to read the same sized headline (he changed it every week, so I wouldn’t “cheat”) from about twelve feet away. But those contacts were super uncomfortable and I couldn’t really deal with the “retainer” lenses that I’d need to wear, virtually forever, to hold my eyes in that shape. I switched to soft contacts when I was in high school, and boing! my eyes went back to legal blindness, or 20/500 vision. Damn.

At a certain point in my mid-twenties, I decided that contacts were just a pain. I switched to glasses and have pretty much never looked back.

Until last week. I was up at the river, celebrating my 50th birthday with friends. I was so exuberant and happy to have everyone there, that I leaped into the river – yahoo! and it wasn’t until that split second in the air that I realized – OH NO – I  still had my glasses on. I felt them fly off my face as I plunged hard into the water. I scrabbled around with my hands but they were gone. DAMN.

I spent the next two days feeling my way around the furniture, holding books and food and everything up to my face. I am soo blind. Because not only do I have my old myopia, I also have old-age reading problems as well. I called my eye doctor first thing on Monday morning and arranged to get some emergency contact lenses. It was a real revelation when I put them in and wow! I could see a LOT better than I could with my glasses. Add a pair of dimestore reading glasses, and I was also READING a lot better than I have in years. (I was getting very sad about the horrible quality of my reading vision) Amazing!

I thought, THIS is the answer! Contacts plus reading glasses! Yay! I was all blissed out for about … three days. The the reality hit me. I wake up in the morning and I had to put in my contacts immediately, something I hated the feel of first thing in the morning. (I do believe that contacts need to come AFTER coffee) Then, I realized that they have a wearing time of about 8 hours, and then my eyes get incredibly sore and itchy and blood-red. Ugh.

I know, I KNOW so many people have touted the wonder of Lasix. I’ve asked my doctor. She said because of the many many complications of my eyes, that I am really not a great candidate. I’d still need reading glasses. Only one eye would work. Etc etc etc. Plus, my physician husband has been very wary of the 1-3% complication rate and has convinced me not to mess with my precious eyes. So that’s out.

I’ve gone back to the eye doctor and renewed my prescription (worse, yet AGAIN, after two years – it just keeps going!). During this vacation, I’ve been juggling reading glasses, 15- year old spare eyeglasses and sunglasses in my purse. I need a new big purse just to contain all my eyewear. It looks like I’m going to be doing a combo of contacts (nice for sports, but NOT swimming, heh) and glasses.  Besides, I think I look “funny” without glasses. In the years since I wore contacts, my eyes have developed old-lady bags underneath them. I do not like this, and think my glasses are a pretty good disguise. I can’t believe the time and energy I’ve expended thinking about my eyes and eyesight in the past few weeks.  It’s incredible.

I’m in awe of people who can just wake up, blink, and SEE the world.

 

She’s Leaving Home… Again

Anyone remember that Literary Mama column I wrote last spring (errrrr, yes, it’s the last one I wrote — I’ll be getting back to it soon! I promise!) – about our girl finding her first apartment?

Well, she moved in today. After a 3:30am wakeup, 4:00am departure from our house, minor snafu on my part whereby I didn’t read the boarding pass clearly enough (blame it on lack of eyeglasses which are at the bottom of the Russian River as of last week’s festivities there) and she missed her flight but then finally got on another one.

What a difference a year makes! Last year when we dropped her off at college – tears, drama, heartache. This time I got the tiniest bit moist around the eyes but did not succumb to major boo-hooing. It was a lot sweeter this year. Even though there are many miles between us I am feeling much closer to her.

It’s funny, now that she is 2,000 miles away I am feeling relieved and that our communication is going to be more frequent than it was during this long summer when she was happily up in no-cell-phone land. It was so great to be texting with her again! (this really IS the 21st century)

She Tweeted her excitement at entering her brand spanking new apartment in which I think there is not a splinter of furniture yet. Her roommate’s mom went with them to help them set up. I really feel like I am letting go, letting this all happen without me. I’ll visit soon. But it’s less wrenching – in fact, not wrenching at all – just really kind of exciting- to see her move into this new realm. I’m going to miss her a lot, but like I said, probably not as much as I missed her when she was only 175 miles away. She’s growing up. It’s great!!!!!!

 

Transition Time

I’m going to give up on trying to “catch up” with months of lost blogging, and try to get back into the practice of daily (or almost daily) blogging, even in very small amounts.

So what’s going on right now is a lot of CHANGE.  Big girl just returned from an ecstatic summer of being on adult staff at her idea of heaven on earth, aka Camp Winnarainbow.

I’m going to give up on trying to “catch up” with months of lost blogging, and try to get back into the practice of daily (or almost daily) blogging, even in very small amounts.

So what’s going on right now is a lot of CHANGE.  Big girl just returned from an ecstatic summer of being on adult staff at her idea of heaven on earth, aka Camp Winnarainbow. She leaves at the crack of dawn to go back to college but in a completely different capacity. She’s trying out new paths, and it’s wide open right now.

I’m dusting off (and I mean REALLLLLLLY dusting off) my physical therapy license, renewing it and getting it all polished up, and taking it on the road again. I’m thinking about going back to home health care, on a part time basis. This is both a scary and exciting idea. It is going to take a while but we’ll see how it goes.

I’m not in my forties anymore. It’s only been a few weeks, but it’s not as terrifying as I thought it would be. In fact, so far, I kinda like it.

I’m teaching two classes this fall: an online “Literature of Parenthood” class that I’ve taught before and have loved. There are a bunch of great people signed up already, and it’s on the verge of being full. Then I’m teaching an in-person, hands-on blogging workshop out of my house. I think this one is also going to be huge fun, and I’m including a Twitter bonus! Yay! I’m really eager and excited to get back to teaching.

That’s my mini-update for today.

 

Exercise As Pleasure, Not Punishment

I know I’ve been pretty much a slacker on this blog so I’ve decided to double-post some posts from my other blog, and meanwhile try and resume things here a bit. I miss blogging here but there’s only so much blogging one can do. Here’s something I posted this morning over at FoodFoodBodyBody.

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It was not too long ago – less than a year – that I viewed exercise (or “activity” as WW likes to euphemistically call it) as painful, something to be dreaded and endured. Even though I was going to a personal trainer twice a week, I rarely did anything on the other days. And I often could barely get through my workouts. Sometimes I cried. Sometimes I threw up (I am not kidding). Sometimes I acted like a total whiney wimp so my trainer would have mercy on me and go easy on my poor pathetic self. It wasn’t pretty. I’d also use exercise as a tool to flog myself when I ate too much. Again, NOT pretty.

But things changed when January 2009 and that blog and my diabetes diagnosis rolled around. I knew that I was going to have to step it up or my body and health were in for big trouble. So I upped the trainer to 3x a week, and started myself on the Couch-to-5k running program. It was not so easy at first, but eventually my 60 second runs turned into two minute runs, then three and five and fifteen minutes. Around that time I actually began LOOKING FORWARD to working out. Once I began working out 5-6 times a week, I began feeling that endorphin rush that I had believed was a mythical state of being. I started feeling happier and more energetic. I stopped wanting to take naps every single day.

For many months, I felt like the longer, the harder, the better. I would go to the gym and go at the elliptical like a mad woman. All this was good. I got a lot stronger. I lost weight. All good!

But I started thinking, how the heck am I going to keep this up when I am sixty years old? Seventy? The idea of it made me feel kind of nervous and worried.

Not long ago, a friend of mine brought me to a Nia class for the first time. It was really one of the most unusual exercise experiences I have ever had. I was not sure what to make of it. I sort of mocked it but I had to admit that it made me feel good, and after that class, I really wanted to do it again (that’s always a good sign!). So yesterday I went to my second class. It was even better than the first one. I enjoyed it so much. The teacher had fabulous dimples (I am a complete sucker for dimples) and kept using words like “juicy” and “gooey” and “yummy.” She was just like that – yummy! and really happy. At the end of the class she put on this song called “Dream” and she was singing along with it really loudly and joyfully, just like you sing in the car with the windows rolled up. I mean, she really belted it out and it was so great! I did not have the guts to belt it out along with her, but it was great to hear.

Today I went to another class, at another place. This teacher was super graceful, elegant and willowy and just beautiful to watch. She was so cool. The other two Nia classes I went to both made me want to laugh out loud (I did, actually) but today’s class had me almost crying in parts. I got really emotional and lump-in-throat as we were moving around. But in a good way.

If you look at the Nia website, one of the testimonials has this woman saying she used to pump iron and such, but now all she does is Nia and she is in super amazing shape. And I had to think, WOW, could you really be in such awesome shape from something that is so much FUN? It does not seem possible. And this is something that seventy year olds can totally do. And thirty year olds.

But I also did not think it was possible to lose weight while eating yummy foods like cheese, brownies, birthday cake and Prosecco. And here I am, doing just that.

It’s made me rethink all the ideas I had about “dieting” and “exercise.” Maybe it doesn’t have to be torture. Maybe the secret is that it CAN’T be torture.