One of my massage school classmates told a story about herself during one of the ice-breaking activities we had when class first started. Volga said that throughout her entire childhood, her older sister told her that she (Volga) was adopted. Volga said she was totally convinced what her sister said was true, until her mother got so tired of this nonsense she dragged Volga out to meet the doctor who delivered her. She was fourteen before she realized she was actually related to the people who raised her.
Siblings are hell.
That story reminded me of one that Airy told me. (Airy was the woman who gave me my cat, Lyle). Airy said she grew up with four brothers and sisters and they were all pretty close in age. At the time of this event, they were all under the age of nine. Their mom was single, had three jobs, and thus had to come up with some innovative parenting shortcuts to eliminate some of the child-based drama in the household. For example:
One day Airy hatched a plan to get her older brother in trouble with Mom. Step one was to pick on him until he became enraged enough to chase her. Step two was to act scared and run into the kitchen where Mom was, and presumably Mom would come to Airy's rescue and yell at older brother or worse. In other words, Airy laid out some rope for older brother to hang himself with, and he grabbed it up with relish. He chased her into the kitchen and grabbed a steak knife to menace her with while shouting about his intent to kill her.
Here's where events took an unpredictable turn. Airy and brother were running circles around Mom when Mom grabbed Airy's arm and held it against the counter. "I've got her," Mom told brother. "Go ahead. If you cut her across this vein here along her arm, she'll bleed to death."
Brother stood as if he'd just been whacked with a baseball bat. Airy saw her life flash before her eyes.
"Hurry up," Mom said. "She's struggling and I won't be able to hold her much longer."
Brother started to cry. "But I don't want her to die," he wailed.
Airy, realizing she was going to live, started breathing again. They left Mom the hell alone for the rest of the day.
I've been slack with posting entries this month because of two things: I started massage school two weeks ago and began a wheat, dairy, and sugar-free diet at about the same time.
Everybody in my massage class is pretty cool, and I enjoy the classes, which right now include Anatomy I and Swedish Massage I. It's refreshing because it's such a departure from all of the things I've done in the past - which was get English degrees by reading and writing about abstract concepts, and working jobs which were all about thinking, talking, and/or writing. This is very visceral and non-abstract. We're learning the scientific names for body parts and practicing massage strokes on each other.
Since I can't afford health insurance yet and am concerned about maintaining my health so I won't need a doctor, I deemed it necessary to adhere to the recommendations of the allergist who identified the shitload of things I'm allergic to: wheat, dairy, yeast, beef, pork, and various weeds and molds. I decided to kick sugar, too. It feels like I'm fasting. There is almost nothing in the regular grocery store that I can eat because wheat and sugar are in almost everything. My allergies are better, but I'm tired a lot because I'm starving. I'm so tired of brown rice, salads, and dirty dishes.
I'm disappointed because the second series of Permaculture classes I need to take have been cancelled. Also because I haven't been able to engineer my own Permaculture-style garden. I had a small gardening project in a planter on our balcony, but when the building was pressure-washed recently, the planter was inundated with bleachy water. Most of the plants lived, but I don't think we'll be eating food grown in there again.
This is a boring entry but I feel the need to evaluate what I'm doing with this page and I figured I'd do it out loud, so to speak. Originally I planned to write all my entries about different themes in Permaculture and how they relate to my life, but I gave up on that before I started. I tried doing a theme-based web log once before and couldn't stick to it. I'm more productive with unstructured output, but on the other hand I think I cost myself readers by being so random.
Siblings are hell.
That story reminded me of one that Airy told me. (Airy was the woman who gave me my cat, Lyle). Airy said she grew up with four brothers and sisters and they were all pretty close in age. At the time of this event, they were all under the age of nine. Their mom was single, had three jobs, and thus had to come up with some innovative parenting shortcuts to eliminate some of the child-based drama in the household. For example:
One day Airy hatched a plan to get her older brother in trouble with Mom. Step one was to pick on him until he became enraged enough to chase her. Step two was to act scared and run into the kitchen where Mom was, and presumably Mom would come to Airy's rescue and yell at older brother or worse. In other words, Airy laid out some rope for older brother to hang himself with, and he grabbed it up with relish. He chased her into the kitchen and grabbed a steak knife to menace her with while shouting about his intent to kill her.
Here's where events took an unpredictable turn. Airy and brother were running circles around Mom when Mom grabbed Airy's arm and held it against the counter. "I've got her," Mom told brother. "Go ahead. If you cut her across this vein here along her arm, she'll bleed to death."
Brother stood as if he'd just been whacked with a baseball bat. Airy saw her life flash before her eyes.
"Hurry up," Mom said. "She's struggling and I won't be able to hold her much longer."
Brother started to cry. "But I don't want her to die," he wailed.
Airy, realizing she was going to live, started breathing again. They left Mom the hell alone for the rest of the day.
I've been slack with posting entries this month because of two things: I started massage school two weeks ago and began a wheat, dairy, and sugar-free diet at about the same time.
Everybody in my massage class is pretty cool, and I enjoy the classes, which right now include Anatomy I and Swedish Massage I. It's refreshing because it's such a departure from all of the things I've done in the past - which was get English degrees by reading and writing about abstract concepts, and working jobs which were all about thinking, talking, and/or writing. This is very visceral and non-abstract. We're learning the scientific names for body parts and practicing massage strokes on each other.
Since I can't afford health insurance yet and am concerned about maintaining my health so I won't need a doctor, I deemed it necessary to adhere to the recommendations of the allergist who identified the shitload of things I'm allergic to: wheat, dairy, yeast, beef, pork, and various weeds and molds. I decided to kick sugar, too. It feels like I'm fasting. There is almost nothing in the regular grocery store that I can eat because wheat and sugar are in almost everything. My allergies are better, but I'm tired a lot because I'm starving. I'm so tired of brown rice, salads, and dirty dishes.
I'm disappointed because the second series of Permaculture classes I need to take have been cancelled. Also because I haven't been able to engineer my own Permaculture-style garden. I had a small gardening project in a planter on our balcony, but when the building was pressure-washed recently, the planter was inundated with bleachy water. Most of the plants lived, but I don't think we'll be eating food grown in there again.
This is a boring entry but I feel the need to evaluate what I'm doing with this page and I figured I'd do it out loud, so to speak. Originally I planned to write all my entries about different themes in Permaculture and how they relate to my life, but I gave up on that before I started. I tried doing a theme-based web log once before and couldn't stick to it. I'm more productive with unstructured output, but on the other hand I think I cost myself readers by being so random.
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