At any rate, the general goings-on of my semester were steady and mostly good. Food is a big reason for this. Since Ang's diagnosis (she just finished her chemo! Holla!) and my perusals of Crazy Sexy Diet, crazysexylife.com, Forks Over Knives, Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, snippets of The China Study, and some other documentary I can't remember the name of, I've been avoiding casein and animal protein by cooking plant-based meals for dinner (although really I started being interested in vegetarian dinner recipes around the same time I started being interested in cooking). This carries over into leftovers for lunch most days. I'd say I eat veggies/grains/legumes-based, dairy-free meals about three fourths of the time, and this has been consistent since about June or July. I sometimes forget how much my diet has changed in the past year and a half--it feels like it's been a really slow and natural evolution that started from getting excited about a few recipes. Sometimes I don't enjoy talking about how excited I get about vegan recipes because I don't want people to think I'm telling them what to eat, and I usually end up halfway apologizing or qualifying what I mean by "plant based" in response to their defensiveness. This is mostly in conversation with either people one generation older than me who have raised kids on processed food through the '80s and '90s or my students. Some of my extended family members come to mind. A recent interaction went like this:
"You look so skinny. What are you doing with yourself?"
"Oh, just trying to stay healthy."
"No really...what are you doing? What are you eating?"
"Do you really want to know? I don't think you do."
"Yeah, what kind of diet are you on?"
"I don't really eat meat or dairy."
Then they made a face like I just farted on them and said "Well...then what do you EAT?"
Then I waffle a bit and mention that I still eat seafood and eggs, but they were still smelling that fart. It was okay, though, because it was a loud holiday party, and we all went right back to drinking wine and eating chocolate-covered everything and sausage balls.
Though I may act like food is a big deal, most people couldn't give less of a shit about what I eat and I know a lot of people who like to nerd out about food as much as I do, so I canusually say whatever and not cause the conversation to nose-dive into oblivion. For my own sake, I don't want to mentally identify myself as "a vegan" and get caught up in the labeling of that, which for me would involve making rules for myself about what I can and can't eat and judging other people for what they eat. The difference between "being vegan" and "cooking vegan meals most of the time" is an important distinction for me in terms of focusing too hard on food or obsessing over it, which I'm prone to doing. As far as other people labeling me or viewing me as a cliche, well, who could ever control that. At least my parents don't give us a hard time because Whit hasn't eaten meat for like seven years. Actually, they've made a lot of dietary changes in response to Whit and the documentaries and books they read and sit through just to be nice to us.
Anyway, I like talking and reading about food lifestyles, and most people's eating habits are complicated and contradictory but still form some kind of pattern. There are a few things about mine that make it difficult to describe briefly. I eat an egg and geitost with either butter or Earth Balance fake butter on bread almost every single morning, most of which cannot be categorized as vegan, but I drink only soy creamer in my coffee and use only almond milk for my other milk needs. I eat seafood (especially sushi) from time to time when I go out to eat or when we bake fish at home (which we are thinking of doing more often. Especially now that Leif found a cool app about which fish is best to by in your local area according to nutrition and over-fishing). I eat chocolate and other sweets during holidays (and during the weeks leading up to them and following them) and PMS emergencies. I like animals and would never kill one directly (except for maybe fishing, but even then I'd feel bad seeing that thing writhe on the hook and I wouldn't know how to gut it). However, in the freezer, I've got 24 Norwegian pork meatballs and gravy that Leif and I learned how to make from his mom last week. I also make green juice and eat fresh greens on most days.
There are a lot of contradictions to my eating style, but I'm pretty happy with it overall, and I feel like I've struck a balance worth maintaining long-term. I feel much more light and energetic than I have in years, my skin looks better, and I don't experience post-meal indigestion. In the near future, I feel excited and inspired about delving into some recipes in two of my Christmas presents, Veganomicon and The Vegan Slow Cooker. In fact, I've got carrot and turnip soup simmering in the slow cooker right now, but it's got homemade beef broth in it that was leftover from the Norwegian Christmas gravy. So there's another food contradiction that I would feel bad about if I were a real vegan.
The other areas of my life that would have been nice to update in the past few months are dance and writing, but there are only two notable events to mention. The first is a satisfying recent opportunity to perform a trio to this song choreographed by one of my fellow dancers, Courtney (as opposed to my director). Courtney's movement feels natural, expressive, and wonderful as opposed to stiff, shaped, and unforgiving (which most of our ballet-based modern movement feels like in my inflexible, long-torsoed body). My dance director finally told me I looked good doing something and she said it was my best performance to date. (Yes, I'm having ego issues with wanting approval from her. I even had a dream last night involving performing a dance I kept screwing up and worrying that she was watching. One of my goals is to practice being fully present in class and during performance and not caught up in my head.) Besides the boost that my ego liked and is still apparently clinging to, it was deeply satisfying to perform something that made me feel moved by the music into an altered state of consciousness. I used to get that feeling during dances I really liked at my old studio, and it's been a while. I'm not really looking forward to our next show, but at least I get to be in a group piece by Courtney. I also emailed my director last week about possibly choreographing something for the spring show, and she hasn't responded yet, so I remember that every once in awhile and feel embarrassed and slightly worried.
In writing news, I've written absolutely nothing but this post in recent memory, but I might be teaching a section of creative writing next year. I'll know whether this is a certainty in the next few months, but our school has never offered it before, so I'll have complete creative control over the content and structure of the course. My department chair encouraged me to bother our principal about this when we were in Monroe for AP training. Our principal has moments of awesomeness and actually asked me to write up a course description after I got a bunch of students to sign up for this hypothetical course. We shall see. If it happens, I'll get to happily delve back into the world of short story craft, style guides, and writing exercises. I may even type up all my notes from the Tin House conference. Shit, maybe I'll even do the writing exercises alongside the kids. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the numbers of sections in the English department lines up nicely enough so that I can teach that and not another section of Engish II regular (which I got to avoid this year!).
Happy new year, little readership! May we all inch a little closer to some glorious combination of health, peace, and joy in 2012.
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