But now you do, too...

I've been thinking about conditions we put on approval, like love and pride...Of course Andrew and I know that we're just joking, but we're still treading an interesting and subtle line: "talk to me, hang out with me, read to me, send me the best presents, or I won't love you as much..." It's not true of course, but there's always a reason for teasing, even when it's "just teasing". So then if it's not true, then why bother? If I love him without asking anything in return, why should he give anything in return? Well, because he loves me too...but then if he withholds tokens of that, I feel unhappy, and he knows that, and so I'm exercising control over him, guilting him. And hopefully he knows that my love is not contingent on his doing things for me or giving me presents. But the presents, the tokens, make me feel happy. Should I hide that? As long as my happiness is elevated by something, I'm applying pressure and judgment. How can someone simultaneously love unconditionally and express joy over extra tokens of love, even express any preference for anything? Of course, we don't really love unconditionally...we love contigent on a continuity of character. "If I suddenly murdered twenty people, you wouldn't love me anymore," I told him. "But you wouldn't do that." Of course I wouldn't. The person he loves certainly wouldn't. But then the love depends upon my remaining that same person, with certain assumptions about what that means, how I'll act. If he, or Liz, or anyone in my family, anyone I love, suddenly murdered twenty people, I wouldn't stop loving the person I loved. I would feel that person had disappeared.

Pride is another problem. I want to tell him how proud I am of him for studying so hard, for doing so well on his exams. But expressing pride is such a slippery thing. Of course, unconditional pride doesn't even really make sense. So if pride is necessarily conditional, then isn't it imposing a judgment? Isn't it implying by contrast that you would feel disappointment if the reality were slightly different? Like with any expression of pride comes a threat of future disappointment. At the same time, I know the feeling of being proud of myself. And when I am, it feels good for the people I care about to seem to share in that pride. Maybe pride in someone else is only benign when they are genuinely proud of themselves.

Of course, Billy Heywood tackled this dilemma eloquently. His mother walks into the room, dressed up for her date. "Wow, you look great!" he exclaims. "I mean, you always do, but...now you do, too." I always love you, I'm always proud of you, but...now I am, too.

Everything in Monteration

Or would that be Montereytion? I need to watch that episode again, perhaps later tonight, to look for good references off of which to base the name for our new email address. And also, because I was struck with the troubling thought that it's possible that I'm mis-remembering and they just say "moderation", no pun, that I filled the pun in in my head. But I don't think so. I only am concerned because my dad failed to immediately recognize it when I referenced monteration. But they must have made the pun, otherwise the slogan would be too random. I thought of monteration@mail.com as a possibility, but it's not quite right, and besides, it's not exactly a great model to follow.

This post is to formally set out my goals for the spring semester. So, here they are:

I will eat one meal* before class every day, or around lunchtime on days I don't have class.
I will eat one meal between five and six-ish.
I will snack** in the mid afternoon.
I will snack around nine or ten.
I will take a vitamin every day.

*Meal = a moderate portion of food, say a sandwich or black bean burger or serving of pasta and salad.
**Snack = yogurt, hardboiled egg, sandwich, salad, humus, etc.

I will not eat after eleven at night.
I will not eat more than one slice of pizza at a time, and no more than once or twice a month.
I will not eat more than the equivalent of one order of dumplings or less than one order of beancurd at once, and no more than once or twice a month.
I will not eat desserts more than once a month, and then only a tiny, TINY portion.
I will not eat french fries.
I will not eat junk food like chips and popcorn.
I will NEVER eat pizza or Chinese food or anything when I'm not hungry, and whenever I do it will replace other food.

I will exercise Monday and Wednesday evenings whenever possible--weights, crunches, and 20 minutes of aerobic stuff.
I will go to folkdancing whenever possible.
I will walk around instead of sitting in my room whenever possible when I've got nothing to do.

I will not weigh myself until the end of spring semester.

Okay, those are the rules. And I'm really gonna do it! The semester's about fifteen weeks, maybe sixteen; I would hope to lose about ten pounds by the end of the semester. If I lose at least ten, I'll keep up this program (modified for summer schedule). If I lose less than five, I'll have to do more research about stricter diets and more intense exercise. So, we'll see...

In other news, today I cleaned the kitchen a little bit, and spent about $115 (of my parents' money lol, but just because it's their credit card; I'd give them the money back if they asked) buying things on the Hunger Site. I bought some goats for some family somewhere, a month of school supplies for kids in Afghanistan, and some book earrings for me, for which they donate 25 cups of food. Not much really. But more than I do most days, so it felt good.

That's about it for now. Time to figure out something to do until someone's around to chat with.

The sky looked beautiful without airplane trails. Somehow it looked brighter, crisper, the clouds fluffier. It's interesting how we're so used to the man-made trails of white across the sky that we don't even think to wonder what the sky would look like without them, what it looked like for millions of years before we happened to invent airplanes. It was like time travel. It was beautiful to see.

Does the cause of the absence of airplanes in the sky for several days in September five years ago make it wrong to find that beauty powerful? To count the experience of seeing the untarnished sky among the positive experiences of my life? Shouldn't it be possible to simultaneously mourn what happened, and appreciate anything positive that may have come of it, however small?

The Vietnam war gave me one of the most important people in my life. I wouldn't exist if Jews in Eastern Europe had been treated better, I think. None of us would be here if Native Americans hadn't been killed and pushed off their land. It's a paradoxical moral balancing act, feeling grateful for good experiences that coincide with or come from tragic and sad events.

For a while we thought there had been at least one fatality in the accidents on the highway yesterday. Slipping slowly off the road, pushing ourselves back in, talking to the recycling truck driver, sitting stopped on the highway listening to music, knitting, and watching snow fall, walking around between the lanes of an interstate, taking pictures, seeing high chair boxes spilled over the road, getting to spend an extra day hanging around a hotel, eavesdropping in the computer dating site couple at the restaurant, all of it...it was so much fun, a much richer experience than just a normal ride along the highway would be. But we drove along struggling with ourselves about how we should feel, or could rightly feel, about the day, given that the events that gave us these nice experiences involved the death of some people, which was obviously not something we could feel glad about. So it's in some sense a paradox: to feel grateful for an experience that comes from something you wish hadn't happened.

As it turned out, all the news reports claimed there were no serious injuries. So I can enjoy our experience in the snowstorm without too much guilt. The airplane thing is still an interesting dilemma though.

In other news, apparently the days of the week got screwed up at some point in the past ten years. I got my first period ten years ago, on Thursday January 10th 1997 (yeah yeah, you didn't need to know...but no one reads this, so it's okay). Thing is, if January 10th 1997 was a Thursday, then today, January 10th 2007, is a Tuesday. So it turns out, today is Tuesday, not Wednesday--we must have skipped a day at some point and no one noticed. It's a good thing I caught it. So if anyone actually is reading this, be sure to adjust your calendars.

I mentioned the computer dating site couple above; they were the couple sitting next to us at the pizza restaurant in Salem, Virginia, upper-middle-aged, and from what I happened to overhear (it's not eavesdropping--the sound just came into my ears!), they were talking about some website, how long they had been on it, when they started "emailing or instant messaging or whateving it's called" -ing people--the guy said he didn't do that for a while because he didn't want to pay, but finally he decided to, but he accidentally only paid for only twenty minutes and got cut off while he was interacting with people, so then he paid for more time. Then he started telling her about his job. I noticed as we left that the woman was relatively dressed up. Sounds like a date arranged on some online dating site, doesn't it? I thought it was cute. Oh, he also made some comment near the beginning like "well, at least I'm not bald, huh?" It was a little odd. *laughs* In any case, I wish them a long and happy future together. Or, some good sex. Whichever they were looking for.

BREAKING NEWS: The White House has a library. Oh, wait, that was the breaking news they interrupted some Democratic congressman to report on Fox News when we were watching it during lunch. (No joke.) Anyway, I checked my handy little green notebook I wrote random things in in middle school, and it turns out it was Thursday January 2nd 1997, not the 10th. The 10th must have stuck in my memory because it also says "when I was 10 years old" on the page and I must have been picturing that. So, international crisis solved: it is Wednesday today after all. Phew. And so much for my dad's theory that we'd have been more likely to go look at sink faucets or whatever it was on a Friday than a Thursday. Ha. I knew it was a Thursday.

And now, I'm going to stop typing and watch this SVU about some girls stranded in Katrina. Speaking of which, there's nothing like seeing things in person. Wow. I know I'm sheltered in a nice middle-class bubble and it's nothing very deep for me to say it was a powerful jolt of reality to actually see the rows of deserted houses and shopping centers with the signs completely blown over--in fact, it's rather trite and condescending--but I don't know what else to say. It was really something to drive by. I don't really know what else to say about it right now. Except I am damn lucky. Should I be down there right now building houses instead of sitting on my ass on a nice couch watching scripted drama about it? Should I be in some impoverished country somewhere building schools or helping people escape torture? I probably should be. I don't know.

Meanwhile, Eric Stuart's take on denial:

Secrets only delay the pain,
but give me more of the same;
tell me more lies.

'Cause I know much more than I should,
and it does me no good
to see through your disguise.

I'm begging you babe,
don't tell me something that I already know.
Although you try to hide the feelings,
you've had no success in your attempt at concealing;
you're letting go.
And that is something that I already know.

The sweetness that sleeps in our bed
never raises its head,
it only closes its eyes.
And I hope, which is more than you do,
that the dreams we once knew
will help you realize.

And lately when I gather my thoughts,
I don't always like what I find.
Why must sweet memories be just out of reach,
while the pain is so clear in my mind?

A request, as you're walking away,
say you're going to stay,
just tell me one more lie...

I'm begging you babe,
don't tell me something that I already know.
Although you try to hide the feelings,
you've had no success in your attempt at concealing;
you're letting go.
And that is something that I already know.

I'm begging you babe...