One Size Fits All

Probably an inappropriate post. In which case you may want to avert your delicate eyes.  And I’m free-associating here.

For the past week, I’ve been stressing out about the fact that my period has been late. I always have the fear that I might be pregnant but this time I was more concerned on whether I’d be able to leave on our bike trip as planned. The last thing I wanted to do on day 1 was to wash out my glad rags after biking 60+ miles and setting up camp. On day 45 it might be a different issue, but not on the first day.

I am also one of those unlucky people who not only has a heavy flow for practically an entire week, but also has to deal with excruiating pain for most of that week along with nausea, and now with my advancing age, a very crappy temperament.

I used to take a painkiller for my period that was very effective. Unfortunately, its legal everywhere except the U.S. because it apparently can kill fetuses. So I have to deal with inferior products like liquid gel caps.

Anyway, I’m glad I have my period. I’m not so glad I’m in pain and I keep hoping that menopause isn’t half as annoying as this monthly cycle that is in all honesty a complete waste as far as I am concerned since I don’t intend to have kids.

Deodorant:

So I still wasn’t happy with my non-deo self. I was happy for about 2-3 weeks but then when I was in NY recently, I smelled terrible with all that walking I was doing. So regardless of whether anyone was going to complain about my smell or not, I decided I had to look for something else because I couldn’t stand to be around me.

I stopped by Whole Foods and looked to see if they had any new deo options since I last checked and they did! Tom’s of Maine has a odor busting deodorant that includes hops and it really  works. I’ve been really busy for the past 3 days and they’ve worked really well. With my upcoming trip and the possibility that I might go a few days without access to a shower (since we’ll be camping in National Parks and some of them do not have shower facilities), this seems like it might actually work.

Shampoo

I’ve gone crunchy with my shampoo. I did all the no-poo options I’m aware of. I tried the shampoo bars (burt’s rosemary, Ligget), soap nuts (which work well, but I don’t know how to use it properly since I wind up with brown stuff on my scalp that’s hard to wash off), apple cider vinegar rinse after using baking soda to wash my hair. I just couldn’t get rid of that funk feeling with any regularity. Sometimes my hair was wonderful and other times it was a gunky mess. Additionally, my scalp was just disgusting. My hair is somewhat thicker than most women’s so it might be one reason why it was hard to clean. And I have hair that goes below my shoulders. Maybe that’s why its so hard to clean it? Well I was just disgusted and bought a bottle of giovanni’s (the one for normal to oily hair) which isn’t particularly minty. Which is good since I don’t like my hair to smell minty.

I guess this is like my journey to soy milk drinking. When I first had soy milk in the late 90s I hated it. I thought it tasted like water mixed with flour. I went back to drinking milk (by which I mean its what I added in my coffee and tea). Then sometime a few years back I had some organic soy milk and was amazed and how great it tasted. So I went back to drinking soy milk. 

In other words, maybe at some point in the future I will be able to switch to some non-plastic options to use on my head and my pits, but clearly that time is not now.

Taking Ruchi’s lists…and making it my own.

Things I have done

1. Got a mailing address 

2. Given notice at my job

3. Sold some furniture/yarn/bicycle/misc items

4. Updated all businesses with new address or closed accounts

5.  Given away some clothes. Packed away the rest for donation. Put up free ads. The compost bin has gotten the most interest.

6. Made arrangements to donate remaining furniture (thanks to Heather for suggesting it), computers and other electronic gizmos. For minimalists we certainly have a lot of crap.

7. Made plans for friend to drive me to goodwill to drop of other stuff. 

8. Swapped (using paperbackswap.com and swapacd.com) all our media and books.

9. Made a list of stuff I need a friend to store for me and then ship to me when I reach my destination. 

Things I have not done

1. Planned out our entire route. I have bits and pieces of every state. Looking at traffic maps, bicycle maps, reading about the weather (for example dust storms in Kansas) takes alot of time.  

2. Told my co-workers that I’m leaving. 

Things I am doing 

1. Keeping up with my blog reading (I’m only a week behind now, compared to being a month behind like I was the past couple of months).

2. Planning our itinerary. 

3. Sleeping for 8 hours every night. 

Things I am not doing

1.  Cleaning our place up. Its an incredible mess and everything is just falling by the wayside. I cleaned the bathroom last weekend and felt like I had actually accomplished something. Our living room currently looks like a disaster zone. Every evening we come home dog tired to do anything (quitting coffee has only made us more tired). We’re working until the day before we leave because we need the money. I want to have paid for everything before we leave so we can rely on our savings during our trip.

Things that have fallen by the wayside

1. Going to the Farmers’ Market. We’ve had stuff from our last trip to last us awhile, but we been really busy with other random stuff to get together to go to the market. Also we’ve been eating our bulk stuff (organic and not local).

2. Eating home cooked meals all the time. I’ve been eating out alot.  

Things that have not fallen by the wayside

1.  My calm and collected mind. For some strange reason I am not panicking about anything. I’ve managed to gain this previously elusive quality called "faith". I somehow have faith that things are just going to work out. This could also be the early stages of delusion, but I’m trying to be positive for now.

Things that suck

1. My commute. I hated it before I started the job and I still hate it.

2. Not having any offers, despite having the interviews that went well. I honestly believed I would be incredibly employable with a degree, which was why I went back to school. Boy do I regret going to college. 

Things that get me through the day 

1.  Frequent chats with my husband.
2. Reading comic strips

In NYC. Hope to stuff myself with some Bombay Chaat because I won’t be having it for a long while. Hope its available in California in places that are accessible by public transit.

What is chaat? For one it rhymes with smart, and:

Chaats are jumbles of flavor and texture: sweet, sour, salty, spicy, crunchy, soft, nutty, fried and flaky tidbits, doused with cool yogurt, fresh cilantro and tangy tamarind and sprinkled with chaat masala, a spice mixture that is itself wildly eventful. The contrasts are, as one fan said, ‘’a steeplechase for your mouth,'’ with different sensations galloping by faster than you can track them.

I’ve been feeling a bit lazy lately so I haven’t been blogging. But I’m finally in a much better mood than I was for the past month.

The post below was written a long time ago. I was clearly cranky when I wrote it.  

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I am a very direct person…that is, I get to the point immediately in my dealings with people. This blog is about the only place I ramble about random ideas that are floating around in my head.

Brevity is my favorite word in the dictionary. When I want something I get to the point immediately. "Shooting the breeze" is not an activity I participate in. Below are some examples:

1. At the farmers’ market I go to a stall and pick out what I want rightaway. If I want to investigate something I stand far away and read whatever advocacy the farmers have written up ("we grow without chemicals", "we are the oldest farm in XYZ area", "we grow heirloom veggies", "we have tomatoes!"). This seems to alarm some farmers when I appear in front of them with all my stuff already picked out and no questions to ask. When I volunteer I get very annoyed at what I call the "tourists": they ask a million questions and then don’t buy anything. I am also really shy and I guess I’m afraid that the farmers will bite my head off if I ask questions, but its just not something I do much or very often.

2. Almost all my emails to anybody except my husband are very short. I prefer talking to people in person about philosophical ideas/concepts rather than typing it out on email. My sense of humor does not translate well in written form and I am a big reader of body language which is hard to do via electronic mediums. After working in a corporate job for a few years, I am also quite paranoid about leaving a paper trail unless its absolutely necessary.

3. In the workplace I use whatever method of communication is most useful. I make calls instead of typing up emails/memos/letters if its the best option. I do not discuss personal affairs at work.  So far this method has not hurt me. If someone at work has made it a point to communicate something personal to me, I’ll be nice and ask about it: for example grandma who has cancer or child who is misbehaving. I suppose this is what makes one a good manager. But career wise, I want to remain on the lower levels of the bureaucratic ladder with no one below me to manage. Many of my friends follow this rule at work (birds of a feather), and I just think its tacky to talk about issues of a very personal nature at the workplace.

4. I don’t like having emotional/personal conversations via the telephone. If you’re going through a divorce I’d rather talk about it person. Obviously I compromise on this one sometimes since I have friends who live thousands of miles away from me…but in general I like face to face conversations when it comes to emotional issues. Again, this is because I read body language which is hard to pick up on the phone. And I do not use any of those video-phone thingies (or similar technology - I’m cheap).

My style of communication is at odds with whatever culture I’m usually living in.  I don’t see any reason for the how are yous when I don’t particularly care about how someone is feeling. I am polite, and I’ve learned to respond to the how are yous.

This post is mainly a result of me thinking about what makes me like a book (besides good writing). The biggest concern lately has been on how much an author sticks to the main theme of the book. So if the book is about not buying stuff for a year, I expect to read about non-consumerism….not about how dissapointed the author is that people didn’t vote for a particular political party (unless that has something to do with nonconsumerism). If a book is about eating locally, it shouldn’t be about relationship problems. Unless cannibalism comes into play. If a book states that its about a variety of topics, I’m going to expect to read about a variety of topics. I am more forgiving about these standards when it comes to blog reading because its more of a dynamic work written by people who are themselves constantly evolving.  

I joined two challenges this month: The No Graze Days challenge hosted by Heather and the Quit Now Challenge hosted by Chile.

1. No Graze Days - I promised to be more mindful when eating and to meditate once a day. The last time I meditated was hmm…over two weeks ago. And today when I was eating lunch (brown rice, egg curry and daal) and reading blogs I felt guilty. But I must like the guilt because I didn’t stop. But…I was mindful that I was not being mindful.

2.  Quit Now Challenge - After last month’s dining out spree I promised Chile that I would eat all meals at home except for four. And to date I’ve eaten one meal at a restaurant (a vegan pizza at Gianna’s Grill - so yum!).

Chile’s challenge is a lot easier because when things are going well I like to cook. A moderate amount of stress also keeps me busy in the kitchen.  Alot of stress makes me want to sleep all the time. But its Heather’s challenge that is really giving me trouble. I have trouble being mindful and eating when I’m eating alone. I was really mindful when eating lunch last week and for some reason it made me depressed.I was just sitting there focusing on chewing and enjoying my salad (I also dislike salads alot…must be an indian thing) which wasn’t bad, but it made me quite moody. Most of the time I eat in front of the computer when I’m by myself. I don’t have a problem with over eating or not enjoying my meals. The thing is, I thought I was okay being by myself, but clearly I dislike myself as a dining companion.

As for meditation? Usually my husband invites me to meditate with him and we sit for several minutes with a kitchen timer and either stare at the wall or face the wall with our eyes closed. But for some reason I have not made meditation a priority. So I usually don’t meditate. I do zone out when I’m riding the bus, but since its not conscious I guess I shouldn’t count that.

One thing though. I didn’t drink any coffee from last Thursday through Sunday and on Monday I was ready to collapse the minute I reached work. I bought a very large cup of coffee and then had some sort of heart palpitation which stressed me out. So I forced myself to do a breathing meditation for five minutes focusing on my heart beat. And it made me feel alot better.

Wow did I spend alot of money in June. Stress and disaster is expensive! I more or less depleted my emergency fund, but I suppose that’s what its there for right?

So I need to increase our savings and to do so I’ve joined Chile’s Quit Now Challenge where I promise to eat all but four meals at home. Everything else I do is now a habit so I don’t think we can save any more money there.

——————–

Today I gave notice to our landlord that we’d be vacating in 2 months. So…for the first time in my life I am swimming blind and liking the excitement. My husband and I have three plans and they are:

1. One of us will have a job offer before the end of August in California (maybe L.A.). So we’ll just move and get an apartment and that’ll be that.

2. We’ll just move and then scrounge around for jobs living off our savings until we get jobs. I am not too crazy about this plan because I feel it may mean living in a crappy neighborhood (because that’s where the cheap apartments will be) again. And really, I almost want to live in an exclusive gated community at this point since I am so sick of living in crappy places. I had this grand idea that getting a degree would bring me all this wealth that would enable me to live in nice places. I obviously didn’t count on that pesky value called "ethics" which makes me quit all the lucrative jobs I’ve held to date.

3. Bike trip across the country. This is obviously the more insane idea. But its the one we’re both most excited about even though it goes against all my normal ideas of safety nets and whatnot. If we decide to do it, I’ll write a bit more about this plan.

Then of course is the question, why move at all? Well, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it but I’m ready for a change. Philly is a nice city and everything, but I’m really sick of it. My husband is sick of it. We’ve been here for a long while and both of us has been wanting to move for a while but one thing or the other kept coming up. Now that we don’t have anything holding us back (except my comfy job), its high time we move.  There are a million things I hate about this city (moving from neighborhood to neighborhood didn’t help) and I think its me more than the city. Additionally, there might be three of our friends moving to CA in the same time frame as us so that will be exciting.

"I’m following the trend ‘cause I wanna
have some friends. I want to be somebody.
Don’t wanna be a ‘nobody’………..

- From the Dead Milkmen’s "Moron"

I’ve gone back to using toothpaste. I got nervous about having many dreams in which I look at my reflection in a mirror and see myself with a bloody mouth. The dreams could have been arising from my fear of not using toothpaste or it could mean that I’ve been watching episodes of Buffy and find vampires fascinating.

I drove alot in June. I’ll figure out the exact mileage and gas consumption when I put up my riot numbers, but I bet its more than the average U.S. consumer’s consumption. The big trip in June was to a funeral. Originally the plan was to fly to the funeral. But since the destination didn’t have a major airport, it would have meant a transfer and a lot of waiting around in airport terminals…and frankly, I can think of other ways of spending my time. Additionally, I didn’t feel like adding humiliation to the trip nor did I feel like purchasing many clear, resealable plastic baggies. So I looked into taking the train or the bus and found that the train or bus would have taken too long. So we settled on driving which wound up being the least expensive and quickest way of getting there.

I used flexcar for the trip. We saw many, many, many dead deer and other miscellaneous roadkill. It made me very sad.

During the few days we were at our destination we had about an hour of peace…and I took some pictures.

When the year began I was very ambitious with my goals. Well…I think I promised all sort of things to my readers at the half way point. So here is an update on the financial goals. For those of you (meaning me) with poor memories, here are the goals with my explanations.

1. Retirement: Contribute about half of the max: $2,500 - Well since husband quit his nice paying job because of reasons that will be described below, I as the family beancounter (with agreement) have decided to modify this a bit. We’ll still probably reach this goal because we’re upto about $1,896 right now.

2. Savings: Fund the EF fund at$4,000 each - We’ve reached $5,023 total. So there is another $2,976 to go before we reach the goal. The figure is based on what it would take for us to live for 6 months on a barebones budget (rent+bills+food)..I think I rounded up the numbers to get a nice figure.

3. Medical: Evaluate feasibility and cost of tube tying - I am currently saving up for this. I think I have convinced the husband to tie up his end…but who knows. I am not sure I will be able to do this before our move to California however. I also thought about the cost of being child free a few months back.

4. Move: Save up for moving and deposit on next apartment - This referred to the move within the city when our lease ended in June. I didn’t feel like moving so I asked my landlord to give us a month to month lease until the end of August. Which he did. So we didn’t have to spend money on moving for a short while. Despite the crappy neighborhood and all the other problems associated with living here, I really didn’t want to move again. We did look at apartments with short term lease in May but everything had something wrong with it. There is just too much going on to deal with two moves in one year. I am still preparing myself for the cross country move.

5. School: Save up for cost of the MCAT exam and study materials and cost of applying to med school and probably traveling to the med school for an interview, etc - The big victory. That is, I’ve convinced my husband to drop this (idiotic) plan of going to med school. For one, he hates medicine and he is doing this because its what the family has always wanted. And lets not even talk about the debt he will have to sign on to nor the widow I will turn into with him being away all the time. And since I like my husband I want to spend my free time with him. There was also a host of other emotional baggage he was carrying around which I got him to drop. He is now back to being my little slacker husband that I love.

6. Debt: Eliminating all student loans by December 2008 - If my husband had stuck with his old job that he quit this would have been reached. But…now it looks like we are on a three year plan to finish paying this off. Also depending on how the job situation works out…this might get bumped again. I have a little over $6,000 in student loans to pay off. The interest on the subsidized portion began accruing three days back. The interest rate is 6.25% and they are all from one lender. I have been shopping around to see if I can refinance the thing but apparently because of all this financial melodrama its going to be difficult despite my fantastic credit.

Back to the retirement goal. We’ve decided to temporarily reduce the contributions to just get full matching and put the Roth contributions on the back burner. We thought to start putting our savings into the forefront so we can purchase our bit of land (or condo or house or suburban mansion which may be obtained for a song in a few years). 

Random aside on land. I’ve been thinking about land. In accounting it cannot be depreciated. I wonder how and if tax is assessed on land. If it isn’t I guess its just a one time cost? What if we build something on it…is the land worth more now? 

So that is the update on the financial goals. I’ll try to read my January archives to see what other random things I was ambitious about.

I am just happy that for once I am happy about our financial situation.  

Heather @ Simple Green Frugal had a fun post where she created a mosaic based on some questions. The questions were:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr name.

The instructions to create the mosaic are:

• Type your answers to each of the questions below into Flickr Search
• Using only the first page, pick an image
• Copy and paste each of the URLs into the mosaic maker

Below is my mosaic. And I won’t be posting my answers…you can figure out what my answers are. For one, my name is Bald Eagle.

 Edit: I didn’t credit any of the original photo takers. I forgot to do so. Here are the credits:

Jon,parutron, crazysanman, Sofia Katariina, Rozanne,7oO7oO,Lano Ling, Deep Fried Kudzu, (: Petra Internet Problems’,*Tuvy*, steen heilesen,sleepy terry

After months of sitting around being nervous, I can finally admit that I have found success with the Diva Cup. I’ve been using rags (that are glad) for about 2 years and every month the entire process of getting in touch with my womanhood is a giant pain in the…well…you know.

Now I figured it out. And it is easy like arduous and crunchy chicken said it was. So yay!

Now I have a giant bowl of vegan vanilla ice cream topped with strawberry syrup to comfort me while I try not to die from the cramps.

The farmers’ market season begins in less than 2 weeks and yes, I am looking forward to it.

Without going into too much detail (after all, I am trying to be anonymous here), this year I might have the opportunity to work with some farmers and get compensated in fruits and veggies. The only downside to this opportunity will be the fact that I will be subjected to crappy music.

Every time I attend some environmental event or visit a farmer’s market there is always someone with an acoustic guitar twanging away about peace, love and happiness. And I don’t dislike acoustic guitars (I am a fan of Leo Kottke), but…I’ve been listening to the Sex Pistols lately and I think the Pistols would sound better "singing" about peace, love and happiness than the local farmer’s market musician.

I’m sure I’ll survive, maybe I could even convince the musician to try to expand his/her musical abilities and perhaps even play a bicycle.

I meditated for an hour yesterday at a zen center. Its the first time I’ve meditated for more than 30 minutes. And the strange thing is….it didn’t feel that long.

I was worried that my legs would fall asleep or I would fall asleep or I’d burp or something. Nothing happened, although I was able to squash a burp before it made its appearance.

Overall, it was a very pleasant experience. In fact I was completely alert the entire time.

The room I was in was actually very quiet and I decided to focus on the noises instead of focusing on my breath. After a while I became aware of the din that had passed for "quiet" a few minutes ago. There were all these birds chirping away (I guess its mating season) and I felt like I was in some tropical forest. It was very pleasant to listen to. I couldn’t hear any automobiles but I could hear various machinery like the heater go on and off.

I tried to do a metta meditation, but didn’t have it in me to do it.

And it was so much more pleasant to come out of the meditation session via a buddhist bell then a noisy kitchen timer.

One of the many ways I’ve been changing my consumption habits is by purchasing non-food items used or made via sustainable business practices. Several months ago I was in the market for bras and I found a company: Decent Exposures that was a shiny, happy company that would satisfy that need.

I am a sport bra type of person. I hate those girly bras with wires and laces and hooks that poke me in the back. Further more, the girly bras cause their residents to bounce around too much which attracts unwanted attention. The bra I bought from Decent Exposures was designed like a sports bra (no hooks or wires). However I soon discovered a problem.

The problem stems from the way my body is constructed. You’ve probably seen those Indian statues of women with ginormous boobs on otherwise normal bodies. Well…the sculpturers weren’t exaggerating. If there is one thing I actively have been working on since puberty, it is trying to hide my identical twins from the variety of creepy people drawn to them. The Decent Exposures bra didn’t do anything to hide them. They also didn’t have extra padding to hide what is often referred to as headlights. And since I’m almost always cold, I didn’t want to look like I was in a permanent state of arousal.

So what does this mean? This means that I’m going to go back to purchasing my bras from companies that hire women to sew these bras padded bras in small, sweaty, crampted quarters with little pay.

While I could just get comfortable with my body and continue supporting shiny, happy companies, I don’t think that is going to happen until I hit menopause.

Update:

I wrote to DE at the suggestion of Sylvia, they got back to me within a few minutes saying this:

Let us know if you have any other questions, you can email again or call us at 1-800-524-4949.

—

So now I have my shiny happy bras. Yay!