Spring Already?

I used to have my desk in my bedroom. And I worked from home. And I was going to school. And I was homeschooling my kid. It seemed like I spent so much time chained to my desk. When I quit my job to devote more time to family + school, I decided to do away with my desk and just be a nomad with my laptop. I think it's left me feeling a little lost, though. Granted, it did serve its purpose. It broke that habit that I had of checking my email one last time. Just once more. Checking Facebook before bed. Lingering over Jacob's school a little longer than necessary. Reading the discussion boards on Blackboard and delaying my bedtime (and other bedroom activities) over and over again.

I decided though — with a midterm paper bearing down on me, pathfinders to create and CSS to code for my Web class — that I needed my desk back. I needed a place to sit and just hammer it out. Jacob had taken my old one and since has decided that "Megadesk" really just meant another flat surface in his room to gather dust and crap, so he was happy to return a desk to me. He was not, however, thrilled about giving up the Jerker (which is this crazy desk that nerds love from IKEA), so I got his old desk. It's taking up a little corner of the dining room and I'm actually quite liking the arrangement.

This weekend, a sparrow couple built a nest in our pine tree in the front yard. This morning, thanks to the new desk being nicely situated between two windows, I got to see them having a little lovefest on the branch. So, I guess that means this spring we will be hosting a family of sparrows. I need to get some off-the-ground bird feeders so that they don't fall prey to the feral cats. Not that those fatties are too interested in birds, really. I see them messing with snakes, cicadas and grasshoppers here and there, but they leave the birds well enough alone.

I feel very strange about this weather and spring breaking out all over the place. I have been waiting for winter to happen and aside from a few cold days and one day of sleet, nothing has really happened. Now everything is in bloom. My pear tree, sages, rosemary, phlox and whatever that thing is in the side yard are going crazy. Echinacea is putting leaves out all over the place. Onions have some buds shooting up. The chocolate mint is coming back with a vengeance and the succulents are going wild with new growth. Pine trees have yellow bundles ready to explode.

I have a bad feeling about it all. I fear that lots of bugs and pollen (and other allergical things) and sweltering temperatures are just around the corner. How mild has this winter been? I cut down the stalks of my pepper plants a month or so ago, thinking that they were all dead, of course and wanting to get that space ready for something else. Now, I have a new poblano pepper plant growing from the stalks, straight out of the ground. Not kidding. Pretty freaky.

On that note, I've decided that I am not growing any veggies this summer. I'm going to be too busy and if this summer is like last, then screw it. I'm done with that. I am going to grow some herbs in pots, though. I can't do without fresh herbs. Especially basil.

In other news, I'm toying with the thought of eating more raw foods. I never thought I'd say that. Maybe it's because summer will be here soon with its bounty of handheld, grab-and-go foods or maybe it's just because I'm sick of cooking right now with school and all. It may be because I had two severe reactions to coconut this last week, both requiring massive amounts of Benadryl and albuterol and one almost requiring the epi-pen. It's had me freaked out about food quite a bit and I'm finding myself drawn to known foods and single ingredient items only. I think I'm going to buy myself a Vitamix for graduation.

80 Pounds of Sugar

I'm angry at sugar right now. I make all these changes to my diet and lose all this weight and now sugar wants to hold me up. I got a kitchen scale for Christmas. Today, I decided to weigh the sugar that goes into my two cups of daily coffee.

110 grams. Yeah, I like it sweet. Plus I think that I've been getting desensitized to sugar or something.

So, that's about 80 pounds a year of sugar that I eat. And that's not counting what goes into things like my muffins and whatnot. That 80 pounds translates roughly into 105,000 calories. And it equals about 30 pounds of fat lingering on my thighs, butt, gut and arms if you consider a pound is worth 3,500 calories. And I wonder why these last 30 pounds are such a total bitch to get off. Lay off the sugar, superchunk.

I could at least be having some healthy calories, no? Sugar. Screw that stuff. I don't need it.

And, of course, that brings me to the slavery that is coffee. I keep having this battle. I get off it. I get back on it. Back and forth. I always feel better when I'm off of it, but I love the taste so much. The smell of it is so tempting, so hard to resist. And getting off it always makes me such a wreck. The migraines. The fog. The total lack of clarity for several weeks (yet it feels like eternity.) Right now, I'm longing to go off it again, but I have a statistics exam and several papers to write soon. So, I'm inclined to put it off.

But I should just get off it. It only takes those two cups to completely screw up my sleep, too. Just one little cup in the afternoon, and I will toss and turn in bed until 7am. Two cups early in the morning and I'm up until at least 3am unless my evening reading is very technical.

When I was younger I thought I had an insomnia problem, but I didn't at all. I was delusional. It was clearly a coffee problem.

And just think of how sweet everything tastes once I get off all the sugar. Every time I go off the coffee, a few weeks later I'm eating a piece of fruit and I'm practically writhing on the floor and moaning in ecstasy.

I'm talking myself into it here.

Okay. Fine. Tea. Two cups of tea for a week. Then one cup for a week. Then none except green since I like that without sugar and it's so low in caffeine. That's my final answer and I'm sticking to it.

Damn you, sugar.

The Librarian at Play

My lover gave me an early Christmas present. Something he picked up for a penny. The Librarian at Play. A book by Edmund Lester Pearson, printed in 1911. It made me cry. It's such a quirky little thing. I'm almost as fascinated by the cataloging details as I am the actual content. The binding. The repairs. (It was an old library book at S.U.N.Y. Geneseo.)

The index is the most amusing thing. I have the second edition. Here's what it says:

"Since the publication of the first edition of this book two or three readers have pointed out that it needs an index. By the addition of an index, they say, its value as a work of reference would become almost wholly negligible. Impressed by the force of their remarks, I employed expert aid, and the index now printed at the end of the volume is the result. It was prepared by Miss Narcissa Bloom, an honor graduate of the Philander Library School, and it may therefore be relied upon as the flower of modern library science."

Then, here are some of the best entries from the index. My favorite entries are those for genealogists.

Ancestor Worship, see Genealogists. 

Animals, library classification of, impossible, 170. 

Authors, Young, hectic vanity of, 8. 

Children's Librarian, nefarious plot against a, 141. 

Extra-illustrators, see Snippers. 

Feet, Pigs', not in public library, 85. 

Flippancy of librarian, deplored, 300. 

Goat, Wild, see Wild Goat. 

Gray Hairs, cause of, to librarians, see Genealogists. 

Highball, Scotch, as a life-saver, 36. 

Librarian, see also Children's Librarian. 

Misers, clinking habits of, 58. 

Nuisances, see Genealogists. 

Pests, see Genealogists. 

Scotch Highball, see Highball, Scotch. 

Telephones, slowness of, when librarian is waiting in rain, 29. 

Thorns in the Flesh, see Genealogists. 

Wild Goat, see Goat, Wild.

From 1906 to 1920, this author wrote a column called "The Librarian" for the Boston Evening Transcript, a newspaper that died in 1941. Ahead of its time in that way, I suppose, given the current climate for newspapers. (It was ahead of its time in other ways, though. It was the first major American daily to have a female editor in 1842.) I want to go find these columns and read them all now.

I've had to use the OED twice now to look up words and in one case was almost stumped. (You, too, can nerd out with this book. It's really quite humorous. Library stories.)

Anyway, I didn't know about cutting pages. What did that mean? From the book:

"As there were no gauges on the books about the Flemish Renaissance, I had no data to go on, except the fact that although she declared she had 'skimmed through' them all and found them 'very helpful,' she had not, so far, cut any of the pages. I did not mention this to her, as she might have retorted that we ought to have cut them ourselves. Which was quite true."

And it led me to this equally nerdy bit and subsequently here. Interesting to both of us, probably. I guess I'd assumed that cutting somehow meant making a copy of something and I was trying to conjure up what type of technology might be used to do that in 1911. But, no. It's referring to the unbound edges of a book not being cut open yet. How do these things get past me?

I guess I should have just asked him about it. Funny. And all this for a penny.

Oh Lordy. I'm 40.

Allergies. Today? Really? This is not the day. I am so behind on everything and have a paper to do. I do not have time to be this way nor can I function if I'm drugged. "Claritin clear" my ass.

Anyway... Today feels like a new day for some reason. I can't put my finger on it, but I feel optimistic and everything has this shiny quality to it. I haven't been drinking this morning, so I can only assume that this is coming from inside. I did turn 40 this weekend, so maybe that has something to do with it. Is it that? Is this what happens when you reach the top of the hill? Is there a shiny new world on the other side?

Maybe it's all the yoga I've been doing.

Maybe it's all the clearing out of clutter and junk that I've been doing.

Maybe it's that I can finally feel that this whole school thing is real and it is, indeed, about to be ending. At least the first stage.

Maybe I'm just in a post-laundry folding state of euphoria.

I wish that whatever it is that's making this morning seem like the best, most cracktastic morning ever (allergies aside) would also somehow affect the fingernail picking that I've been engaging in lately. Most of my digits are pretty much down to bloody stumps. If everything is so great, then why so nervous? Why so much anxiety? Why so fidgety?

I guess I'm just realizing that it's all going to be fine. There were times in my life when I was sure I wouldn't make it to 40. Many times and starting very early in life. Probably before most people even know there is a beginning or end to life I was either wishing for my end to come or constantly thinking it was about to. But here I am. So far away from all those moments. The further away I am, the better it feels. Time and distance really do a pretty good job of healing.

You know, I think part of my feeling today is that maybe I've just sort of given up a little bit. Given in. There's a lot of stuff that's up in the air right now and it's kind of been making me crazy. I think maybe this morning when I woke up, I just thought, "Screw it. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen." Maybe that's where this peace is coming from. It's silly of me to spend so much time thinking about things that may not ever come and that I mostly don't control anyway.

Relax woman. Just enjoy the peaceful damn morning. You're 40. You're at the top of the hill and you can finally survey your kingdom. Enjoy the view. Quit overthinking it.

Coo Coo for Cocoa Puffs

Are those even vegan?

I decided today upon waking up that I changed my mind about 3 pairs of jeans and 2 pairs of khakis. I'm keeping them. I can wear the ratty ass, too-big khakis with a belt around the house till they wear out and I will be in those jeans in literally 1 size down. What is that, like 5 or 10 pounds?

I've also decided today that I have lost my ever-loving mind. I could swear that the Sudafed permanently altered my brain chemistry or perhaps it's still floating around in my system somehow. I feel just crazy today. Granted, I did get a visit from Aunt Flo (or "Florence of your Labia" as boyfriend likes to call it) this morning, but usually that just makes me irritable and weepy. Perhaps it's because I've been feeling sick all week and I finally have some energy.

Here are the signs that I've lost my mind:

• More closet cleaning took place.
• I've been singing all day as if I'm in a musical.
• When not singing, I've been rhyming all my sentences.
• I'm making a carrot cake.
• I'm also making a chocolate cake with cookies and cream frosting.
• I went outside and did major maintenance on the worm bin.
• I've been skipping and hopping all day + robot moves.
• Cleaned out vegetable and fruit bins.
• Three loads of laundry + one of dishes.
• Watered everything outside (boyfriend is the waterer, I hate doing this).
• Said, "Ah, screw it," or other similar thing inside my head in response to many situations today.
• So busy doing stuff did not check for Mango update for my phone all day.

Too much for one post-sick day. Also renewed my newly-vegan.com domain, which means that it's been a year since I started writing about that. Which means that it's almost been a year since I went vegan! Oct. 4 is my anniversary. Need to take some time and reflect on all that. I was going to sign up to do VeganMoFo again this year, but the damn cut-off was yesterday which is way earlier than last year. Boo hiss.

Oh well, one less thing for me to worry about, I guess. Still, that kind of snuck up on me.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep chocolate cake is done says the oven timer. Now if only this carrot cake would cool so I could frost it!

Fast Forward on Clothes Purge

Well, since being back from camping, I've been plagued with allergies and what I think is the cold that I didn't really endure in full force when the boys had it last week. I've been a mess. Monday was spent mostly in bed, miserable, unable to breathe. Benadryl x 2 and it didn't even seem to touch it. I had to suspect that it wasn't just allergies at that point. Tuesday, I took some Sudafed and let me tell you, I understand just how they get meth out of that stuff. I'm overly affected by medications anyway (even Tylenol makes me drowsy) so I felt like I was losing my mind.

Today has been a better day, but I haven't been able to focus on much. I think there might be something wrong with my ears now. I feel really dizzy and when I move my head and stop my head, it feels like my head is still moving. When I close my eyes, I feel like I'm moving and everything that I look at has this vibrating quality to it. My chest and back are sore from coughing and sneezing so much. Still, my nose is mostly clear now so I won't have to take anything tonight but a nice steamy bath.

Since I didn't much feel like I could write in a very focused way, much less format everything all APA Style, I decided that I don't need clothes any more. I snagged 65 things out of my closet and they are on their way out of this house. Let go of some of my favorites. Got rid of some of the more disappointing pieces. Decided that I'm not spending a lot of money on clothes until I lose all the weight I'm going to or I'm ready to head back to the work force in an outside-the-home sort of way, but I'm not going to just keep buying crap, either. I'm so sick of shirts that shrink or fade after just a few washes and all this ill-fitting crap.

I've reached the limit of my focus right now. I'm really feeling so bizarre. I can't wait to feel normal again. I mean, you know, normal for me. Time for bed. At least now I'm down 65 items and that much closer to only owning 108 things. You never know what craziness an illness is going to bring. I got a cleaner closet out of the deal. I just hope that my lack of being able to see straight isn't going to make me regret some of my choices...