Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
something i wish i knew
for the past two or three months i’ve had really very strange blood sugar issues – not just being hungry, but crazy blood sugar drops leaving me lightheaded and sorta ill feeling…. which made me think that maybe i was becoming diabetic or lacking protein or something else in my diet.
anyhow – i was doing some poking around on the web this morning because since i’m on day four of quitting sugar, i have been having really intense cravings for nicotine… which i think are just general cravings that i translate into “i want a cigarette”….
and i discovered that when you quit smoking, blood sugar plummets in the initial phase and may take several months to adjust back to normal levels. since my blood sugar weirdness has coincided with quitting smoking (three months ago yesterday!), i suspect these things correlate which makes me feel an awful lot better (it’s not a serious health problem rearing it’s head, but the opposite)….
i also discovered that when quitting sugar, day four is supposed to be the hardest. i feel very spacey this morning… i suppose that is why.
restless
i’m having a restless day for some reason – which makes no sense since i walked downtown this morning which should have worked all the beans out of me.
i don’t have much to update on except that it’s day three of no flour, no sugar, no dairy – yikes…. really not too bad at all, i just have to be disciplined about cooking for myself. last night i had a piece of the spring salmon i was gifted with on monday – wow – i think it was the best piece of fish i have ever eaten in my whole life. i feel very blessed to have such lovely food bestowed upon me for my health and nourishment.
today i opened up a high-interest savings account to put money towards a house into. i have resolved (even though it’s not new years) to be disciplined about saving money for a down payment so i can realize my goal of owning a house at some point in the not so distant future. i am anxious about my ability to own a place i can’t be evicted from, even though it won’t happen right away, saving money and checking out the coast will give me time to think about what i really want. i do believe i will be in place to purchase my very own home within 8 months to a year in any case.
oh yeah, and about half the stuff i put on ebay sold last night, so that’s a little less junk to move.
it seems it’s taking a long time for them to sell my apartment. i’m hoping that they just get on with it as i would like to plan my fall vacation (was thinking of going to visit friends in cali in october), but not knowing when i will have to vacate is making that difficult. not to mention it is a hassle keeping the place clean all the time just so people can view it….. i may not be moving until october 1st in any case, if the place doesn’t sell by the end of this month.
back to work…..
suffering beings
i returned from victoria last night, got off the bus downtown and encountered one of the most distressed people i have come across in a long long time. he told me a story about coming to vancouver a few days before and being rolled after his first night at a bar. he was just a young guy, pretty beaten up and his foot was all bloody – his vibe was deeply upsetting to me because he just seemed so in need….
so i gave him some money from my wallet, quite a lot more than i normally give people, because all i had was one bill on me…. and he started to cry when i gave him the money and that made me feel worse because he was so upset – so i walked with him for a couple of blocks and made sure he was okay before i went to take my next bus home….
and then when i was waiting for the bus, i was angry with myself because a little voice in my head was saying – “maybe he tricked you, maybe he was just a really good actor” and so i started feeling worse about it because i had no reason to doubt this man’s story except that i live in a society that tells me not to trust anyone – especially not working and poor people. and so all the way home i was conflicted about it until i talked to my lover later on who said “even if what he told you wasn’t true, clearly he was in need of money for something, so it’s okay” and honestly, it was okay because it’s true that he (his name is robert) was extremely distressed for whatever reason.
when i got home, there was a message from an old friend of mine needing help with a letter of character reference from me in a child-custody case. and so i met him for coffee today and again, i encountered severe distress in a fellow human. i said i would write the letter and if the case goes to mediation instead of court, would act as his advocate if necessary. we hung out for most of the afternoon which was good – since i haven’t seen him for awhile and we had lots of catching up to do beyond the stress he is currently under.
i started a flour, dairy and sugar cleanse today that i expect to be on for the next month or so, no matter how difficult. i am feeling the need to purge my body of yuck while purging my home of posessions i am no longer in need of. my lover caught me a spring salmon (that’s a chinook) on the weekend, and so i plan to eat lots of brown rice, fish and greens over the next little while as it’s supposed to be very balancing food.
i haven’t quite readjusted to eating fish – i’m not sure i will be able to keep it up beyond the summer, but while i’m cleansing from all the other processed foods i’ve been pouring into my body, i’m going to try it and see whether it nourishes me in the necessary way.
back at work tomorrow which will at the very least bring respite from the heat.
a coupla links
i have a couple things to share here:
one is the fact that i have finally joined the ranks of ebay sellers…. how weird. but i have all this stuff to get rid of so i thought that it would be worth a shot to see how it goes. nothing real exciting – just some silver jewelery and stuff that i have had and not worn for ages. check it out at my ebay listing page.
and also – my friend e-hawk came over the other day and laid some tracks on me that she’s been working on. there’s a tune of hers on there i really dig called fuck up the machine, which you can download from this link. if you dig it too, leave a comment and i will pass it on to her.
strange places
sorting and packing is like finding oneself over and over again. today i found some notes i jotted down a few months ago – and then shoved in a drawer…… i’m putting it here for safe keeping…
we find ourselves in strange places; driving down backroads to meet lovers, in the motels of small towns, in prisons talking to the men we knew as boys in highschool, in national parks during hunting season keeping our heads low.
we find ourselves in strange places because we are looking for ourselves, and that process explored honestly takes us to niches that most people never go.
i used to believe that because i am not well-travelled in the international sense that somehow indicated me to be not interesting – that the localities one visited rubbed off and made one become “interesting”, and that staying around one area would certainly dull anything internally exotic
i find myself on stages before hundreds of people; in native sovereignty camps; in front of police lines; in the company of comrades. i find myself in the deep dark forest, on picket lines, and in meetings of fellow travellers wondering how….?
few people have a life so interesting, beyond the facade of everyday. few people have been tested so incessantly in belief, in action and in philosophy. few people have ever questioned their strange places they call home. my strange places are not half-way round the world, they are often just up the alleyway from my apartment building, or across the bridge and in the mountains.
that place that is home is where we are reflected by the people around us, by our actions and deeds. home is a place we travel to every day challenging our notion of who we are, and who we ought to be.
our strange places, though sometimes far away, are part of what home means. our strange places are our journeys back to defining the self.
Red Cedar 