Tuesday, December 29, 2009

living better


one of the things about being alone is that you can ignore what others might point out. being with someone, you have a second pair of eyes which see events from another angle. those other eyes might notice what you don't, they might ask why something you accept is the way that it is. being alone you can ignore looking into the mirror, but one day you feel the other eyes and you are finally are forced to look and see what you have missed.

i have known for years that i have allergies. i spent almost two years starting each morning with a steroid inhaler. it kept recurrent bouts of bronchitis at bay, i would wake up unable to breath and would draw the gritty meds into my lungs, calming the clamped pressure that built up over night. this was about managing the symptoms rather than dealing with the cause, which was never clearly identified. it was clear that fresh beer, breads and dairy were all issues, but because i was sickest every year at the solstice a sad rumor of grinch-like christmas tree allergies circulated.

just after christmas 5 - 6 years ago, i was suffering once again. my general health was in question. i was gaining weight for no reason, i was exercising but could not maintain, when not exercising i was fighting to catch my breath, i was fighting mood swings and fatigue; all of which made me truly tired. it also impacted those closest to me; it's hard to live in a situation without solution. a solution was accidentally found one day, but it was too late to correct the underlying damage.

almost randomly i picked up a book that advocated removing large elements of the standard american diet to improve your health. i am not normally a person that corrects issues by elimination; i prefer to actively manage than draconian cuts. but i decided to give draconian management a try and a week later i stopped using the inhaler. by removing the things that were silently making me sick, i found i felt much better. all of my symtoms quickly disappeared, and i was the healthiest i have been in my adult life.

then i moved to malaysia, and as with all large changes i formed new routines. i remember the morning of the tipping point. i was driving and decided i could go to a bakery for breakfast, the decision was more about the need for comfort food then nutrition. i knew if i turned i would indulge in things i was better to avoid. this was the proverbial slippery slope, but i lied to myself reassuringly saying, "if it becomes an issue, i will stop going". even as i said it, there was another voice with a chuckle saying, "yeah right".

knowing your limits is a good thing, but even when you do you can still rationalize; for a while. i have slowly fallen back into the old spiral, and i have been paying the price. i have been living on antihistimines to manage recurrent coughs, nasal sprays for rhinitis and antacids for reflux. mixed in are my old friends joint pain, fatigue and weight gain. a few nights ago, i again woke up in a pool of sweat and with a mouth full of stomach acid. this is the first time in weeks that has happened, but its also the first time in weeks i didn't do my nightly regiment of imported medications. waking up choking is a really strong indication of the need to reconsider the idea of comfort foods.

so i have made a decision, it's time to listen to that little voice i have been ignoring. my sister and my mother have diagnosed auto-immune disorders, my other sister is having symptoms identical to mine and i clearly need to admit that having less than average is not acceptable if i am not average. i started making the changes i have avoided two days ago and i woke up this morning feeling the best i have in a year. i spent yesterday feeling clear and bright, i woke up early this morning and remembered how it felt to get up without being tired.

the downside is that i need to seriously alter my life. i need to avoid the sticky glutens that have inflamed my insides. i need to eliminate the things i crave, even if they are comforting they are not feeding me well. this can not be a 6 month change, it has to be for the long haul. i need to decide that no matter where i live, i need to follow the rules. the rules are not hard to follow, but they are easy to break a little bit at a time. the new rule is that even a little bit is bad.

elimination is the only way to a better life, i knew this before and rationalized it away. i think i need a mirror to make sure i don't forget this time.


Tuesday, December 22, 2009

happy drunk


there are moments that lead to unexpected places, happy moments that lead to tragedy, and the opposite. i was on a plane a few months ago, flying to the US for business and talking to a seat mate about life and happiness. which is when the random eastern european guy sitting on the other side of me stumbled his way back from the restroom. he was drunk when he got on the plane, and had been drinking unsteadily since take off. his completely broken english had only gotten worse as white wines were added to the fire, but his desire to speak had only increased. where do you think this moment was leading?

as he attempted to climb into his seat drunk guy braced himself firmly on his wine glass and tumbled forward. the drink was projected into my seat, it's wine splashing into my lap and onto my ipod. a drinker falling over is not uncommon and spills happen on planes, something about being bounced around at 37,000 feet while moving at 400 miles per hour has a way of helping both happen. i should have expected it, and that i could have protected the ipod better than putting it on my lap. i cleaned it off, drying it with my blanket and decided soon after it was time to get some sleep. drunk guy was dosing off, i thought i should do the same.

it wasn't until i got to the transit lounge that i took the ipod out again. the second song didn't play, neither did the fourth or the fifth; the feeling of dread crept into the transit. i decided to wait and see if more drying time would make a difference. i mean, how much damage can a cheap australian chardonnay do to a consumer electronic device. the answer was clear when i got to the US and found i was without tunes on the drive home. my ipod was dead, drunk guy was long gone, i was driving listening to the sound of my own wheels. time to decide on next steps.

being in the US, i decided to go to the mall before i left. being a US mall, it was not stacked 5 stories high, this single fact made the trip better than average fro me. i took full advantage of the ease of moving around and began looking for a new ipod. in the huge electronics store i convinced myself that my 80 gig classic should be replaced with a 64 gig itouch. i hadn't considered the purchase at all, but i was alone and bored. i decided even if it was a mistake i would enjoy it anyway. sleek, shiny and sexy, it was time to upgrade and try something new.

after a few weeks of use, playing with downloaded apps, using it as an instant on micro-laptop to do IMDB and wikipedia searches on the couch, and listening to music converted through the sadly un-slick itunes, i had come to the conclusion that i should have made myself the target of a drunk spill a long time ago. the only downside to the touch was lack of internet connection while mobile. the device lost all its charm and glamor when it was away from wifi.

it's a happy coincidence that the holiday season was coming, it allowed me to do the only sensible thing; buy myself a present i didn't actually need. i am now the proud owner of an iphone, a slightly fatter touch with a 3G connection ensuring always on internet. so i own yet another phone, yet another computer device, one more thing to carry and track. i have my blackberry as primary phone and the touch as a music device, but i love my iphone. it is a near perfect computer device.

i was asked if i got mad at the drunk guy for spilling a drink on me or for turning my ipod into a paperweight. i might have years ago, but now i think of the question as funny; why would i get mad at someone for a mistake? life happens, spills happen, things get wet and never dry out. songs are lost and can not be recovered. when it happens you can get angry and fume about it, you can spend time thinking about a random person you will never see again, or you can go out and buy a new toy.

if you are really lucky, you can go out and get two toys. my mom used to say, better to much than not enough.

the drunk guy certainly was working on that plan before the spill, why shouldn't i do the same afterwards.

festivus season


part of living in a foreign country is giving up the cues related to the traditions at home. this might not always be the case, if i were living in europe easter would be a shared tradition with the same springtime cues of softening weather and newly grown flowers. but attempting to get into the christmas spirit by listening to the playfulness of monkeys in the jungle, competing to be heard over the muezzin's melodic adhan (call to prayers), is harder than it sounds.

tropical days, monsoon storms and sweaty nights all hinder the ability for an american to sense the impending return of the giving season. after spending an afternoon of frustration at a local temple of commerce. the strange part of the trip was realizing that other than a few other mat salleh, no one else there was christmas shopping. there were lit trees, fake presents, signs of santa and carols playing over speakers, but most people were there to do back to school shopping.

the trip began and ended in the cork screwed patterns of congestion which derive from asian expectations of difficult lives. the roads, parking garages and escalators which are keys to the malls here all move in patterns of reversed decent. i was reminded of dante's inferno, the decline into the levels of hell with the warning "abandon all hope, ye who enter here" can only be appreciated after a trip to malaysia's malls. liberal arts students in catholic colleges back home should be required to travel here before exams. it is the only way to truly understand the meaning of the divine comedy.

i have pending invitations to holiday parties. one i think i will miss is tonight, it is for the dongzhi (extreme winter) festival. the invitation came from an tamil mom who is making tangyuan for her chinese kids. the whole yin and yang aspect of this holiday has a strong draw, but the need to celebrate the lengthening of the days when the difference between winter and summer is only 20 extra minutes of equally intense sunlight is lost on me. the symbolism of reunion that the sticky balls of rice evoke might be better savored alone.

tomorrow night i am going to a festivus party. a celebration will be hosted by an iranian amercian athiest and will be celebrated with stark lack of decorations, airing of grievances and feats of strength. this is clearly a no miss event that is core to the expat holiday season. the guys back in the US add in street hockey and liberal use of alcohol, this will be replaced by low contact wii sports and culturally sensitive non-haraam beverages. as long as someone raises their voice and possibly throws food, it should provide the feeling of a trip home for the holidays.

this will bring me to the end of week hunt for legal turkey. the normally halal favorite of benjamin franklin has a reputation of improper murder in malaysia. the symbolism of needing to search for dinner with an approved death certificate, on the celebration of a prophet's birth does make me smile. what would a holiday be without a question of the legality of the main dish.

i will end the day listening to the jungle outside, hearing rumblings of distant thunder and thinking about christmas morning in the US. as i watch the sparkles of light through clouds i will think about opening of presents, shoveling of walks, driving to the in-laws to exchange gifts and trade custody of kids. the true nature of christmas is best understood while watching it from half a world away, yet another event that is only truly experienced by watching it from the outside.

winter solstice is the shortest day of the year. it is celebrated across the globe in many different ways. the semi-dry festivus for the rest of us is the one i am looking forward to, for others i should just look away.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

saying nothing

it’s been months since i have published. the time has passed and i have had random moments and thoughts, but they have passed without being considered. i have been busy, i have written but allowed the words to be lost in a crash and unrecovered when restarting, i have gotten close and then reconsidered the desire to hit continue. something has stopped me from writing; i can’t seem to commit to the process. i need to figure out what, because my writing had become more than just a thing to do in a cafĂ©.

i was given some advice last year. the advice was that my writing was too long. i needed to keep it short and get to the point. the advice was professional, and made sense coming from someone who read all my emails on a blackberry, but it has impacted this writing also. i no longer have the time to sit and craft a long message that no one is going to read. i enjoy the process, but it feels like a waste. i feel the muse moving away, pushed because she is impatient. she wants to get to the point, but it was never about getting to the point; it was seeing where the journey would take us. the muse has been driven away by the boredom and frustration of waiting and i remain on the wandering path.

i read a book a few weeks ago on a plane. the book started as a discussion of why talk therapy is a better solution to alternative psychological states than drugs. the basic premise was that talking allows people in need to get in touch with the deeper cause of their issues. when patients come in to discuss a recent tragedy, they tend to also discuss long ago events. they spend time passing through their lives one painful memory at a time. the author was advocating a culture of listening rather than medicating as a solution to finding solutions.

beginning to write was a way to talk things out. at a time when i was experiencing so many new things, and reconsidering many old, i found digital words to be therapeutic. capturing the moment, thinking through the entire thought, felt right. too many moments had simply passed away and were fading over time. it felt empowering to stop and remember, to realize that new moments were happening and would not just fade as easily into the past. events could be shared, if not immediately then someday in the future when someone took the time to listen.

but part of writing is about trust. trusting yourself to let go and allow yourself to open up, and trusting your readers to listen to your words and not filter then through their preconceptions. we all have cognitive structure bias, those thought patterns that allow us to skim along and make fast judgments in a chaotic world. we hear what we expect to hear, see what we expect to see and add or subtract as needed to fit the world into our comfortable pre-conceived forms.

the issues start when you realize that your readers do not have the same bias as your own. i had a college professor who did an exhibit the semester after i took his art appreciation class. i went to the exhibit with a friend and we stood in front of the work displaying willows on a snow covered field. my friend commented that the work was just about white trees, but i sensed something different. the professor had lost his wife and daughter in a car accident a year before, and as i looked at the center trees, i saw the blackness of the deep forest behind. the work was about the dark depth and the importance of the individual trees, two that i sensed to be missing from the stand on that cold winter day after a new snowfall.

other people’s biases impact our work, they stop them from seeing the truth, and after a while you wonder if there is any reason to keep talking. if they are just going to read their lives into the work, why do you keep making the effort? if you do work you may not publish; no risk of going public ruining it. you need to learn to stack your art in the corner and let it wait for a difference audience.

maybe i have been avoiding writing because i had nothing to say, or maybe because i didn’t trust myself to open up enough to make the process worthwhile. but it could also be that the thoughts are not ready to be added to the cornered pile.

then again, the real issue could be that sitting and doing nothing is easier than working on something that would be read through filters of bias.


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there is an old irish saying: "say nothing, till you hear more". sometimes, less really is more.

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