Category Archives: Reading

Dissertation. Paleo & Exercise.

Posted on 21 April 2012 | Leave a comment

As much as I’d love to go around telling each person who has meant anything to me in the process of trying to earn my PhD the following information, I can’t. There are too many of you, so I am writing it here hoping some people actually read these things  and hoping you will not feel betrayed that I am not telling you to your face.

I have made the decision to quit and not finish my dissertation. I am not going to complete my PhD. I am totally and completely okay with my decision. I have not fallen off the academic wagon, and I still feel like I can be a valuable part of the academic community. I am simply choosing to focus on teaching my beloved middle school and high school students, instead of splitting myself between my two loves. I still plan to write and research, but my interest will likely switch from literature and literary theory to literature and teaching literature. Of course, theory will still be a part of that process, but so will pedagogy, methodology, pragmatics, and all of those educational tidbits I’ve been ignoring in my research.

*

I realize I’ve changed my life by eating paleo, and I feel like shit when I eat wheat and corn, so I wonder to myself, “Why is it that you still insist on eating things that make you feel like shit?” There are two pretty obvious reasons: they taste good, and that’s what’s available. I am sure there are other not so obvious reasons, too. On Thursday, at Thirsty Thursday, I decided I had a hankering for a corn dog. Savage’s has corn dogs, so I ate one, and when I woke up the next morning, my belly was bloated, my tongue was swollen and my mouth was on fire. Think there might be an allergy there? I felt horrible, so I decided then and there that non-paleo (or primal if I’m feeling more lax) foods will not be going into my body anymore, no matter how appealing they sound, nor how readily available they are.

In addition to just (sort of) eating whatever I want, I haven’t been exercising the way I want to (or need to). I’ve been sleeping in, instead of going swimming and running. I’ve been couching, instead of going for bike rides or walking the dogs. I’ve been doing pretty much everything to avoid the exercise schedule I’ve created for myself. Because of this neglect, I’ve had to drop out of the Flying Pig half-marathon that’s happening in two weeks. I still have my entry, so I suppose if I feel like it that day, I could head over and make the attempt. I’m pretty sure I could do 16-minute miles for 13.1 miles. Maybe not. Anyway, I haven’t been where I need to be, and as per usual, I decided to “exercise punish” myself. I made up a circuit last night. Four reps with a 3 minute vacuuming break (I was doing housework, too. What can I say?):

  1. 10 air squats with the kettlebell
  2. 25 kb swings
  3. 15 bent rows per side with kb
  4. 15 lat rows per side with kb
  5. 15 overhead arm extensions with kb
  6. 15 tricep extensions with medicine ball
  7. 15 per side side to side crunches with mb
  8. 15 heel-tapping oblique crunches
  9. 15 diamond-bent leg crunches with hands overhead
  10. throw the medicine ball up in the air 15 times
  11. slam the medicine ball to the ground from overhead 15

For dinner last night, I made lamb chops marinated in Bell’s Porter (which is technically not paleo, but I didn’t drink it), broccoli, and sweet potatoes.

Yummy.

I slept so well, like a little baby. When my alarm went off at six this morning, I got up and ran 2 miles to Ball Pool, swam 1.5 miles, and then ran the two miles home. I ate eggs, bacon, a banana, and some tea for breakfast, then walked down to the park to take tickets for the ball game. It was freezing, so I came home and took a really hot shower before I ate squash, uncured hot dogs, and tea for lunch. Basically, it’s been a beautiful couple of days. My body is sore, but my spirits are reeling. I am so excited for summer and for what my future holds. I’m Pollyanna-ing all the way.

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Posted in Beer, Biking, Cooking, Dissertation, Education, Fat, Food, Goals, Literature, Mental Health, Paleo/Primal, Pedagogy, Photos, Play, Reading, Relationships, Running, School, Swimming, Teaching, Work, Writing

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Lent Day 11: A Lesson in Love and Humility

Posted on 3 March 2012 | 3 comments

Without giving too many details, I will just say I have learned a lesson in humility and love this weekend at AWP. To make a long story short, my insomnia didn’t, in fact, go away. It only got slightly less ferocious, allowing me five hours of of sleep for one night instead of three. When I don’t sleep, I get mean, curt, short-tongued. I have been all of those things this week, which led to quite a large eruption of misunderstandings last night between a friend and myself. The quarrel led to me moving down to the lobby of the hotel for quite some time, so I could recompose myself and not put my fist through the mirror in our room. See I told you I have some anger management issues, and I felt as if I could beat my way with small, tight fists through the thickest, heaviest punching bag on the market. I didn’t.

Instead, for a change, I left the room to recompose myself elsewhere. By this morning, after a conversation with my beautiful and sensible wife, some coffee, a session on queer YA fiction, and some prayer, walking, and meditation, I was able to calmly and rationally initiate a discussion of the events of last night. And, of course, we came out on the other side with love and grace, because I am learning that’s how things work out when you practice humility and love.

Here is the photographic chronology of my day:

Walking North on Michigan Avenue

Walking North on Michigan Avenue

A Coffee Shop I've Always Wanted to Try and Finally Did

A Little Morning Reading and a Mexican Mocha

Buildings Dating from the Mid-1800s

Do You Need Some Art Supplies?

Capitalism Block on State Street

I decided to go to church tonight, but I wasn’t sure where to go, so I literally typed the address of the Palmer House in the first blank of the “Get Directions” feature in Google Maps, followed by the word Methodist in the second blank. I figured I couldn’t lose since I live four hours away, and I’d never see any of the people again. I mean, it’s always a crap shoot when you’re a lady-boy lesbian and looking for a church in a different city. Each time I risk rejection from the body to which I’ve belonged since the age of four when I “gave my life to Jesus,” a form of rejection that breaks my heart again and again.

I walked to Temple Church (a.k.a. First United Methodist of Chicago) with low expectations and hoping that I wasn’t dressed too shabbily. I can never accurately anticipate the dress code at a “First United Methodist,” because they are usually the big, old churches that are trying to stand guard and keep from dying out. But that guard-standing usually comes outfitted in whatever is the latest fashion.  I always assume that the dress code is on the upper end of the spectrum, not jeans and the sweater I was wearing. But, as I mentioned, I’d never see any of these people again, so I pressed on.

Temple Church's History in Stained Glass

Destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire

As I walked past the beautiful arts garden, pictured above, I looked to my right and got a glimpse of the Chicago Picasso. I could feel that this hour of my life was going to be an adventure. Electric Jesus was in the air. I strolled through the revolving door and up to the security guard. Yes, you read correctly, I walked confidently over to the security guard, and said, “Can you please tell me where the church service is meeting tonight?” She pointed me up the stairs and through some double doors.

I was a bit disoriented as I walked through the thick wooden doors, because I was released into a space that looked like a storage closet, only without anything in it, too big to be a closet, too small to be a respectable hallway. The space was a hallway nonetheless, and I began to search for what I was sure would be a large stone chapel or sanctuary. Instead I found the small, intimate chapel pictured here. In fact, I had to ask the lovely man in the picture if I was in the right place.

A Tiny Church Service in a Huge Church's Small Chapel

By the time the service started with a greeting and then a hymn that none of us really knew, I realized I was experiencing the Body of Christ in a very real way. The mix of people was diverse: various ethnicities, social classes, sexual orientations, gender identities, and abilities. There were people there with children of varying ages, and older people who were there alone. The bulletin specifically spelled out that we were all welcome.

The service followed the liturgy while still being personal: we confessed as a group and then offered silent meditations of our own. When it came time for the prayer requests, the congregants shared intimately and without reservation, and then we prayed for those concerns. We passed the peace! Finally, we collected tithes and offerings and shared the Eucharist together. We stood together around the communion table and celebrated the Great Thanksgiving as we looked each other in the eyes. I could feel the Holy Spirit hovering there in our midst, like the soft breeze that blows off Lake Michigan in the summertime, and as refreshing.

Jesus’ body was broken, His blood was shed, and we were redeemed yet again. A glorious miracle.

Several times the intimacy and the beauty of it all overwhelmed me to the point of tears. Here, four hours away, is the type of community I long for each Sunday. Here, in a church I assumed would be too uppity for my jeans and sweater, I met my Jesus in the realest way I have experienced in years. Here.

Today was a beautiful mess. Peace.

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Posted in Art, Christianity, Family, GLBT, Goals, Grace, Insomnia, Lent, Mental Health, Queer, Reading, Relationships, Religion, Spirituality, Writing

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Lent Day 6: Joy and Confession

Posted on 27 February 2012 | 3 comments

I am sure you are thinking, What a strange juxtaposition for a title! Joy and confession? How do those two go together? I am not entirely sure theydogo together completely, but I can tell you that I am beginning to experience pure joy again. I find myself laughing with reckless abandon more, and I find myself getting incredibly grumpy and sad less. And it hasn’t simply been the past six days while praying three times a day, following the liturgical hours; this joy has been slowly growing—like the bright green moss on the hillside by the river—since the new year started. I posted the other day, maybe yesterday, how I feel like I am finally taking control over my moods, rather than them controlling me, but just today, I felt complete joy. I actually threw my head back and laughed my big belly laugh. And I wasn’t embarrassed by it. Which, in turn, gave me more joy. I am no longer the shadow person I have been.

Part of my joy comes from observing Lent and knowing that in a few short weeks, we’ll be celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. But another good portion of my joy comes from suggestions picked up from Pema Chodron’s The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Lovingkindness. InWisdom, Chodron advocates making friends with those parts of us that cause us anger, aggression, or aversion, because those attributes that irritate us about others are the same that irritate us about ourselves. Through the act of making friends with those attributes, and no longer trying to rid ourselves of those attributes, we learn to give kindness to others. Our desire to rid ourselves of those qualities results in an aggression toward those qualities when we see them in others. We become unkind to both others and ourselves. Because Chodron teaches how to be kind, I feel like I can begin to honestly look at myself and decipher what it is that I don’t like about myself, recognize that those features are simply part of who I am, make peace with that, and eventually stop trying to remove those attributes from myself and from others, thereby gaining a kindness and a sense of peace in regards to myself and others.

(Side note: My next spiritual read is Thich Nhat Hahn’s Living Buddha, Living Christ.)

How can Inotexperience joy when I have made friends with my whole self, with all of my attributes?

This is where confession comes in. First, I must closely self-examine to figure out what those attributes are that I don’t like about myself. Once I decipher that, I must confess those qualities to myself, to others, to God even. Through this confession, I name my weaknesses or those things which cause me pain. I claim them out loud. I call them what they are. Then I make friends with them, not “comfortable, hey let’s go have some pizza and beers friends,” but I acknowledge that those qualities are a part of who I am, and I sit with them. Get to know them. Make friends, like “sitting on opposite ends of the couch, but I am not trying to kick you out” friends. My weaknesses and I learn to coexist after I confess them. And through our coexistence they eventually cease to be a cause for anger or malice or injury. They just are.

I confess that there are a whole bucket of attributes of my personality of my life that irritate me, that I need to make friends with. And I hope that once I make friends with those facets, they will just sit at the other end of that couch and be quiet. That’s my biggest flaw: I don’t know when to be quiet. Maybe I need to take a silent retreat. Every day. One of the things I appreciate about this Buddhist idea of embracing our own flaws is that I don’t end up with a bucket of shame at what I’ve confessed about myself. I end up, instead, with a changed heart. Too many times, Christians miss this bit and would rather shame someone than encourage their wholeness. That, in and of itself, is a shame.

This whole discussion brings me around to what prompted these thoughts. Part of the evening prayer, which I have been praying for six days without recognizing this part, says, “You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices, O Son of God, O Giver of Life, your glory fills the whole world.” I think this part jumped out at me tonight, because for the first time in a long time, my heart feels light and joyful. I’m going to cling to that joy.

Peace.

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Posted in Buddhism, Christianity, Grace, Lent, Mental Health, New Year, Play, Reading, Relationships, Religion

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Lent Day 2: Miseducation and Common Prayer

Posted on 23 February 2012 | 2 comments

I’m sitting in Bracken Library, taking a break from scanning pictures into the computer for my students most recent project, and it’s a little bit eerie in here. There are probably only 25 or 30 people at the computers, if that, and it’s very quiet, even here on the first floor. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the library quiet like this. Today has been strange all around, though, so I am not sure I should be surprised about the library.

Today was the last day of Istep for the 8th graders, so tomorrow we move back to doing our regular classroom stuff, instead of being broken up and spread around for testing, so my stress level will surely go back down. The students told me they thought the test was easy, which either means they did really well or really poorly. I think they were trying to tell me that, so I would feel like they had done super well. One student even said, “It’s because you taught us so well.” I have no doubts I teach well, but I will see in a few months how well they did on this stupid test, which is all that really matters now isn’t it? Two days makes or breaks a student. And his or her teacher.

Anyway, I did receive another blessing today. When I got home, I had yet another book that I purchased with my Amazon points waiting in my mailbox: The Miseducation of Cameron Post. I made the mistake of starting to read it, and now I don’t really want to do anything else. Obviously, if you clicked the link, you notice the secular nature of the text, but to me, the subject is so intimately intertwined with my spirituality, I can’t see a difference.

Church people insist that our sexuality reflects our spirituality by encouraging people to remain virgins until marriage for the sake of religious purity, so it only makes sense to me that our sexuality is somehow an act of worship. Maybe this is why I nearly weep when I find a book that speaks to my soul like this one. I keep finding myself thinking, Where was this book in 1987? My life would’ve been so different if literature like this had existed then. I might have realized at a much earlier age who I really am. I might not have been so lost for so much of adolescence. But I can’t go back, nor do I want to!

As I am reading this book it makes me think about how intricately woven we are as human beings, how delicately God put us together, but yet how hardy we are. I mean let’s face it: humans are fragile but resilient. We can crack or break, but we can take a lot of shit before we do. In a strange way, I think that’s what Lent is about. God wants us to recognize that we are fragile, but that we are designed to weather the storm, whatever that entails. Jesus wants us to follow him to that cross, where our resilience meets our obedience meets our fragility.

For the first time, today I tried to pray the various prayers throughout the day from Common Prayer, and I think it went well. I noticed that it made me think through the day about who I am in Christ. I love that the midday prayers are the same every day and I love that one of those prayers is St. Francis’s: “Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.” And of course he goes on: “For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” How beautiful. And if we really pray it and believe it, how can we not be transformed?

Through these ritual prayers, I realized that I was more conscious on some levels about how I conducted myself in the classroom and with colleagues, but praying through the hours also drew attention to the fact that I am so far from where I want to be spiritually. However, praying so frequently and with a specific prodding to pray for others really made me think hard about those around me who need prayer, love, grace, and my action. And so I continue to learn.

Peace.

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Posted in Christianity, Family, GLBT, Grace, Lent, Mental Health, Pedagogy, Queer, Reading, Relationships, School, Teaching

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Ash Wednesday 2012

Posted on 22 February 2012 | 2 comments

For Lent this year, I am going to try to post something here each day. Maybe I will post a blessing that I have experienced for the day, maybe it will be a bit of Scripture I read that day, or maybe it will simply be an anecdote or story. No matter what, though, my goal is to post for 46 days straight, from now until Easter.

Today, I just want to acknowledge that it’s Ash Wednesday, and I missed going to a service. Last year, I was in Florida and went to Sebring’s nice Methodist Church. This year, I was going to go this morning to St. Mary’s, but I wasn’t sure if a sort of Protestant, kind of Buddhist woman could attend a Catholic Ash Wednesday service. I guess it’s only the Eucharist that they’re insular about, and other ceremonies are not so important as that. It’s okay, Catholic folks, I believe in transubstantiation too.

As I was walking from my free parking space by St. Mary’s into school this morning, I started thinking about Lent, because if there is one traditional thing I hold onto about Christianity, it’s the Church calendar. I love the way the seasons ebb and flow, and I love that it marks up the year into manageable pieces. The Christian calendar is like the seasonal calendar, reminding me about who I am and who God is. For example, Lent for me is a time of penance and so is winter. Advent is a time of anticipation and rebirth, so is spring. You see, the same, but different.

But I digress, as I was walking into school this morning, I thought about whether or not I’d do anything for Lent this year. By “do anything,” I mean give up something, or the new version of that, which is to add something, and I decided that I’d try to write here every day, and I’d start celebrating the liturgy through Common Prayer. My friend Sarah had heard Shane Claiborne speak and purchased the book, and I’d heard about it, but hadn’t purchased it, so I thought I’d give it a try. I ordered it, but it wasn’t supposed to be delivered until the 23-28 of February. So, as I walked this morning, I thought to myself, well, when that book gets here, I’ll get started with my spiritual practice for Lent. I figured it would be here when I got back from Chicago next weekend, so I’d be a bit behind. Sure enough, Common Prayer was delivered in today’s mail.

Tonight I’m reading the introduction. Peace.

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Posted in Christianity, Goals, Grace, Lent, Mental Health, Reading, Relationships, Religion

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