October 25: Finding my voice again

apologies to everyone who has read my blog up to september 10 and then i fell off the blogoshpere! i also haven't been journalling, which is lifeblood to me. i haven't done a vlog, because i haven't gotten around to having decent hair and makeup lately. in other words - busy, busy busy, and then i'm just tired and want to vanish in a book and fall asleep.

so here i am, 9am saturday morning, i just woke up, which is unusual for me to sleep this late, but it's been a hectic week. and now i have to make the decision of what to do next. my day off, and all i can feel is the pressure of all the different things that need me. my house needs me - it's a wreck and needs a deep clean. my food needs me - i've got 2 perfect mangos waiting to be slurped. the sunshine of the morning needs me - i haven't taken a walk in a really long time. my job needs me - i've got a massive project that i haven't been able to get around to all week, despite logging wicked hours. my yoga needs me - when do i take class today? my car needs me - it needs to be cleaned, AND i need to run errands. what's more, i have a reflexology appointment at 12.30, which is great, but once i'm out of the house, my productivity is kinda ruined. tonight there's a party at my front-door neighbors', but i have to work in the morning so i;m house sitting for wayne who has run away for the weekend, and i also have tickets to the ballet, given to me by teresa and very upper-echelon, parking, good seats, etc. all very cool. and yet words cannot describe the piles of laundry or the mounds of dishes, or the vastness of the amount of design work i have to do, or the desperation i feel about wallowing in the gorgeousness of the october day and having a lazy saturday all to myself.

and so, in this mode, i turn back to my blog, essentially turning back to my favorite tool of writing in a journal to make sense of my options. when there's too much to do, meditate. do nothing. do nothing until the urge arises to do the right thing.

as the weather and my life have changed, 80-10-10 has become more challenging than it was in the summer. i've had a few weeks where i did not have the ripe fruit i needed to get me through the day without cravings, and i allowed myself, in frustration, to give in to some cravings - first for gourmet raw, and then for cooked sauces/salad dressings. i'm paying the price. in the summer, my un-air conditioned little house would ripen fruit in a heartbeat; it was easy to always have a ready supply of bananas, mangos, and the watermelon was divine. gradually, the watermelon became less and less divine - mealy and stringy - and losing that staple was a tough blow. now that its cool (i won't insult anybody's intelligence by calling austin october "cold," tho we austinites like to call it that!), watermelon has no appeal anymore, and i'm searching for the right replacement. all i want are mangos, and i had a mango orgy with those enormous keitt mangos from mexico - huge! the size of my head! can't wait till they're back in season, next september/october. but they took a long time to ripen, so while they were out, i kind of stopped eating fruit all day. i decided i was sick of bananas, which was a big mistake. i have to eat bananas even if it seems like the stupidest thing in the world to do. bananas are my easiest staple. i tried eating apples, but not enough sugar or calories, too much fiber, too much gas, too much chewing. i can really only eat apples as a snack, with dates, to make a caramel apple or applesauce. i have discovered i adore persimmons, but like mangos, they take forever to ripen, and they seem to be in cahoots with each other, only to ripen one at a time, so i get one persimmon a day.

long story long - i've been struggling to coordinate my soft, sweet, ripe, juicy fruits to be ripe in such a way that i have a constant supply of food. and as a result, i have allowed myself to give in to cravings. and as a result of that, i don't like the way i look, i don't like the way i feel, i've put on about 4 pounds of bloat from salt and oil, and i don't have that glow i had back in the summer when i satrted this lifestyle, and i miss that. i'm trying to climb back up on the wagon, and it's been very difficult. it's easy to stay on the wagon - eating this food is easy and it works, it makes you feel amazing, but now i'm learning the lesson of seasonal transition. it's hard right now. even bananas don't ripen very quickly when the house is cooler than 78. i think i learned my lesson and this week i shopped for next week. i have a table full of mangos and persimmons, and a great big papaya - a great go-to fruit, usually already ripe and ready, and one that i just have to get into my repetoire. papaya could save my life for awhile. in a couple of days, i'll go buy more mangos and persimmons and bananas, and just keep the rotation going.

the sauce, though. i'm back on the sauce. salad dressing and sauces. they seem so innocuous. and it's only a little bit, just a little flavoring, just a little fat. and then i'm pouring gallons of it on my plate. i've got to get off the sauce. i've got to resign myself to a squeeze of lemon when i have a salad. it's the only "cooked" or "raw gourmet" that's calling me with a voice loud enough that i can hear. and with a voice i can't resist. even though a lot of sauces have sugar, and sub-par oils, and way, way way too much salt - my goodness, those are my addictions, and they've presented themselves to me as a tasty topping for my otherwise 100% raw meal. and i fell for it. i've been babboozled. damn it. and the results speak for themselves: gained bloat, lower energy, and i've got zits on my face in a couple of spots. so there you go.

time to re-read the book and get re-inspired and get off the sauce and back on 100% 80-10-10. i'd like to do no overt fats; i tried at the beginning of october, but the lack of ripe fruit combined with having weekends with my guy (oh yeah, that's still going really strong! he's awesome. for a carnivore! lol.), in which we go out more, so i'm tempted by salad dressings more, because no place has fruit for dinner. it's also interesting to move from never being exposed to cooked crap to being exposed - it's still tempting. out of sight, out of mind, but when you see it, there's a combined nostalgia and longing and aversion which is the hallmark of the addictive response. you know it's crap, but you remember the good times you had together... cooked food is SO my ex-boyfriend! we went into a "normal" grocery store the other day, a tom thumb in dallas, to get his food, and just walking through the door made me want crazy crap, like fritos and poptarts and little debbie snack cakes. the produce is under this ghastly sickly dull light, and it all looks like it's will to live has been sucked out of it, and the rest of the store is bright florescent hideousness. it's AWFUL. no wonder people struggle to eat healthy, when you see what the options are of places to buy food. the truly healthy food just doesn't stand a chance.

so that's where i've been. i'll be here more. i'll keep posting. it helps me a lot to be accountable. it helps me to talk and write. keep checking in. i'm back.