Archive for category The Thinking

Date: November 3rd, 2008
Cate: The Personal, The Thinking
7 msgs

I’m Driving in My Car

nina-hagan.jpg

Anybody remember Nina Hagan? I would put a link, but there’s hardly anything out there for the “mother of punk, so what the funk?” Perhaps I am getting the spelling wrong. 20 years later, I still get her songs stuck in my head. Anyway.

I wrote this post a week ago in the car. I have been traveling like crazy–only to the next town, but today we went 20 miles beyond that. Even better, I’ve driven the car myself. I’m also able to just “space out” when it comes to driving now. I’m not altogether over the agor, but it has certainly gotten better.

Another aside…it seems that the more conscious I get about what I put in my mouth, the more difficult it is to eat meat. Even fish. The idea of eating something with consciousness is repugnant. It is difficult to get this idea across without coming off as “holier than thou” or whatever. Greg is not thrilled with this change. I suppose I’d better get cracking at those vegetarian cookbooks…

Anyway, am still losing weight. Am having to buy new clothes. Cheap ones, because I’m not there yet…

And here’s last week’s post:

As far as the school thing goes, it’s better and it’s not. I see that my principal is very stressed out about this job, and it is helping me to have compassion. There’s another factor at play, without which, I probably wouldn’t even be stressing about the whole thing nearly as much.

For several years, I have heard the phrase, “numbing one’s emotions with food”. I’ve never known what that meant. Certainly, I ate when I was bored, stressed, etc., but I know a lot of people who do that, and I’ve never felt “numbed”.

The thing is, when I cut out the sugar, and by that I mean ALL sugar, I started to feel different. Just to clarify, I’ve cut out ALL refined foods, and even some unrefined ones that are high on the glycemic index (link), such as potatoes. It is like Sugarbuster’s all mixed in with a low glycemic diet. Slow carbs.

In the mornings, I don’t eat. Maybe around 10 o’clock I’ll have a hard-boiled egg or a handful of walnuts. At lunch, I’ll eat butter beans with greens and sausage. Dinner is maybe a bowl of whole grain cereal or some chicken with some veggies. I don’t eat anything unless my stomach is actually growling.

So, back to the whole numbing of feelings thing. Without grabbing refined carbs all of the time as some sort of false fuel for my body, I’ve got LOADS more energy. Almost all of it is positive. I’m singing and dancing around the house. I’m Miss Happy at work. I exercise, and look forward to it. I dress more stylish (easier with less weight). I’m sweeter to Greg.

When I have those happy feelings, I really feel them! Now here’s the downside. When I have sad feelings, I really feel them. It seems that the sad times run about 1 to 20 against the happy times, but it is weird to feel them–really feel them.

I’m also feeling other things I had forgotten about. Simple pleasures, like petting the cat, seeing that crazy wild blue color in the morning before the sun comes up…those things, they are really pleasureable now, where before they didn’t even make it my radar, to tell the truth.

I was on automatic.

Oh, and fwiw, I’m still not liking my job all that much. It doesn’t feel like a fit anymore. But, the economy scares me.

Date: September 7th, 2008
Cate: The Political, The Thinking
6 msgs

The Cable Bill

I know it is the “poverty mindset”. I know it. And I’m trying not to be too angry. Still, it upsets me.

Yesterday, when I went over to J’s house, the cable was connected again. She told me that it cost $139 to get it hooked up.

I ended up taking three of the kiddos home with me yesterday. They couldn’t wait to leave the house because they were hungry. The food stamp card (EBT) comes on the 9th, and there was nothing left to eat in the house.

But, they have cable.

This is not a new discovery. In Greg’s neighborhood, I once saw a house with an orange outside extension cord running in the window because the people didn’t have electricity. You could see the glow of the television from the window.

My students cannot comprehend that I don’t have cable. When I tell them, they look at me like I am an alien. I’m not the only teacher without it, either. There’s a couple of other teachers who don’t have it, because they can’t afford it. You know, priorities. I’ll take the Internet any day over $80 of crap that is going to rot Sage’s mind.

I am coming off as holier than thou. Sorry. I do get Netflix, and am currently using it to watch all episodes of The Wire, as well as order appropriate movies for Sage.

I ended up sending a bag of food home with the kids when I dropped them off last night. I thought, “I am so enabling this.” What to do….?

After an entire day with four kids, I was absolutely exhausted. I DO get why mom sits on her butt and eats Oreos, I really do. As much as I hate to say it, I think I might do the same out of being totally and completely overwhelmed. I’m embarrassed, having walked only half a mile in the other woman’s shoes and having become tired.

Maybe the cable is saving her from total insanity. Who knows?

Date: September 5th, 2008
Cate: The Thinking
8 msgs

Dignity

So I’m thinking about human dignity…how to give it (if it can be given), how it can be taken away.

There’s a man in our neighborhood named James who must be the only Black man in this part of the world without relatives. He mows my lawn. He said he and his daddy worked for a lot of white folks back in the day–another one of those eerie 50′s flashbacks that we get around these parts. He has that job because it is preferable to him begging for money from us, and the lawn mower blade is broken. And I’m tired. He says he is hungry. He says he needs to wash his clothes. He lives in a room somewhere down the street for $40. He is mentally challenged–just a bit.

If he is hungry, I think we should invite him for dinner. I don’t like giving away money, or loaning it, for that matter. While I was having the “invite him for dinner” thought, I then thought, “and I could wash his clothes”.

I then realized at that point I have taken away any semblance of give and take in that relationship and made him even more dependent. Not good. Lady Bountiful is not a role I want to step into.

So I started thinking about J and her six children. Trying to do everything for them is ultimately not going to help. I have a better idea–I need to find a way for her to help someone else.

It would be so empowering, that. I think it could change her way of thinking, and ultimately her life.

I’m not trying to get off the hook here. I’m still advocating for her kids, and I’m going to start the reading/tutoring thing next week. But I’m thinking about stories to tell, yes, stories that depict women as conquerors.

Got any?